I suppose that the collection of this money and the levying of it in the form of taxation is very important, indeed, and we spent a good deal of time yesterday and this morning on that question, but I think that a matter of even greater importance is the manner in which this money is spent. Indeed, a determining factor in the ability of the State to pay, and the ease with which the Minister can find this money, is the manner in which he spends it. So it is with all of us. If we spend recklessly, extravagantly or not wisely, I suppose we will reap the consequences. In this Bill we have, under a series of headings, the manner in which this money is disbursed. I shall not go into any general discussion on the sub-heads as a whole, and I am sure that that will console some Senators. I shall not even go back, for the edification of Senator Hawkins, to the manner in which our turf problem is being handled. The Senator may wish to come back to that himself, and I should like to hear his comments on what I said yesterday, but I want to direct attention to a matter that got some consideration in connection with the Finance Bill. I might have gone back on it to-day, but I did not wish to delay the House. I imagine that the Minister included myself as well as Senator Sir John Keane in his remarks to the effect that proposals had not been put up as to what might be done. Now, I could keep the House here for a considerable time talking on constructive proposals that have been put up by myself and other Senators. I think that the Minister will agree that it is not my habit to make proposals or suggestions unless I have some concrete ideas in my mind in regard to effecting them. I think that most of the debates in this House show that Senators on all sides are anxious to put forward constructive proposals, and such proposals will make all the difference as to the future of this country, if they are only implemented. Unless constructive proposals are to come from us in our day, and be operated with vigour and imagination, I am afraid that our future will not be too bright.
I am not in the least way a pessimist. I listened to Senator Paddy Kehoe here yesterday, and he indicated that if he could live for the day, that was as much as he was concerned about. Well, if we are to go along in that way, it would be a poor lookout for all of us. If a farmer went on that basis, his cow would not have many calves—any farmer will understand the significance of that. With regard to agriculture, whatever the Minister may think about the money spent and administered in and around the industry, I feel that more will have to be done in order to reap the benefits that should come to us from the amounts we have spent on it already.
I am not going to hold the House for any time on discussion of a question which was raised in the Dáil and raised repeatedly, by Deputy Hughes, to which the Minister did give some attention, namely, a survey of our soils. We are doing practically nothing in that regard. The Minister in a statement in the other House said that he had read a recent paper which was published on this subject and he showed a certain amount of interest in it. He went on to say that to start out at any time on an analysis of the soils of this country was a wise and proper thing but that it would take decades to get it completed. I should like to have it completed to-morrow because I feel we cannot make proper use of the soil of this country or we cannot use it to the maximum efficiency without knowing and understanding it. We have no organisation in existence that will discover for us how it is constituted and we are doing nothing to bring into existence an organisation to give us that service.
In the other House recently the Taoiseach also dealt with a Vote for the Emergency Research Bureau. In that bureau an organisation was set up to do certain things but not much, if anything at all, is being done by it for agriculture. That may not be a 100 per cent. correct presentation of the facts but very little is being done for agriculture. I have no doubt at all that very useful work is being done in other ways and that possibly the foundations are being laid for much more useful work in future. You could, however, never establish such an organisation if you had not some trained personnel already available. You had the nucleus of the organisation inasmuch as you had a certain number of young men who had been trained in a special way and you had older men, their teachers, who were able to collect these young men around them and to set them to do a specific job of work. They are learning things and making new discoveries every day, but if you had not got them trained, they could not make these discoveries nor could they use these discoveries to make further discoveries in the future.
In regard to our soils we have no organisation at all. Across the Border, the authorities are doing a good deal of this work and in Britain they are doing an immense amount of work in that way. In my opinion we are not going to get efficient production in this country until we know much more about our soil. Although I say it myself, I am not entirely a fool in regard to farming matters, but I frankly confess that I should like to know my own soils better. If, however, I want to know what I am to do in the treatment of the soil on my farm, in order to secure better yields from my crops, I cannot get the information from anybody. There is no bureau in existence to give me the kind of answer I want to get. I have reached the stage, in fact, where I do not go looking for answers, because I simply cannot get them. That is not satisfactory when you consider that this information is placed within the reach of farmers in other countries with whom we shall have to compete in the future in the markets of the world. I put it as a concrete and practical proposition that we should not have to wait decades to make these discoveries.
May I pass on to another point? Senator Buckley yesterday in the course of his speech gave it as his view that the Government and the State could do certain things for agriculture mainly along the lines of research into, and the treatment of, animal diseases. In that respect we are very backward indeed. I shall not dwell at length on this matter but it is absolutely essential that something should be done. In every country at present there is a great deal of room for research, discovery and treatment with regard to animal diseases. I do not know whether we are much more backward in this country in that respect than other countries, but definitely with regard to the question of tuberculosis in our herds we are not at all progressing. Conditions in the United States are amazingly forward in comparison with conditions here in that respect. I am not going to discuss that question further than to say that it is one thing that might receive attention, but it is only one thing, and if Senator Buckley and other people think that that is all the State can do for Agriculture I do not agree. I suggest to Senator Buckley that he might invest a little of his savings in the purchase of a farm of land. It is amazing what one can discover by getting down to practical work on a farm oneself rather than by jumping across the fence into another person's farm to talk to the farmer about agriculture. It is only when you go amongst your own herd of cattle and discover one day that a cow has mastitis or that something is wrong with some of your calves or with some other animals in your stock that you come up against a practical proposition. That makes you think of other diseases and the problem of their treatment and you begin to realise that the whole question of scientific research in regard to agriculture is not being thought about, much less being investigated.
Take the whole problem of plant life, the science of biology. If I were asked, I just could not tell what we are doing here in that regard. I just do not know as between the College of Science, the Albert College and University College, what is being done in regard to the study and improvement of plant life and the distribution of knowledge in that regard throughout the country. I see in the Estimate a sum of £70,000 for grants to University Colleges under a number of sub-heads. I realise of course that the Minister is definitely at a disadvantage in discussing this matter. I am at a disadvantage myself because I have to confess my own ignorance of the scientific side of the work. It is because I do not know as much about it as I would like, and because I know that other countries are learning and are far in advance of us in regard to this knowledge, that I want to see something done here. I remember that two or three years ago I made some inquiries as to the position in regard to afforestation in our universities and I was told that there were three students studying afforestation at the National University. The Minister can check up and see if that is the actual position this year but if we think of afforesting this country and of getting people with a trained mind and a scientific approach to the subject, under present conditions we must go off to Germany, Canada, Sweden or some of the afforested countries of the world to bring over experts to direct and dictate the policy of this country, when these experts really cannot understand this country and could not understand it except by living in it for a number of years and by having available any amount of scientific data which is not available at the moment. That is one aspect of the matter.
When we come to this problem of crop production, the growing of plants, grasses and everything pertaining to life on the earth, everything that is essential for the maintenance of man and beast, what are we doing, what do we propose to do, and what do we know about these subjects? We know the Russians have perfected a wheat which can ripen in the Arctic Circle. They have another type of wheat that comes up year after year without being re-sown. It is true the yields are low, but they have achieved that much. Then we have Americans who have trod the lands of the earth, over the highest mountains in the world, across the plains of Asia and all through Europe to bring home all sorts of grasses which they are grafting on to varieties to be produced under their own conditions of life, to see what they can do with them. I read recently of a type of grain which has been produced in the arid soils in the Middle West of America and which is now being transported for production in Central Asia.
The same thing is being done with regard to other types of grasses. I am over 50 years of age and I do not know of any new grasses which have been produced in this country in that time, nor do I know anybody in the Seanad who can give me the name of one. All sorts of new plants, clovers and various types of grasses are being grown in other countries, but we are doing practically nothing to bring those plants here and transplant them into our soil and climatic conditions and to build on them the kind of plant life we want. We have a few specialists here, but we have nothing like the numbers we ought to have, and I do not believe that we have even the type of people working on it which is essential if we are to get that higher intellectual concentration on the job, on this very highly skilled and highly technical work, which is necessary if we are to make a success of it. It is not necessary for me to stress the type of training, or even the temperament necessary to make a success of the production of new types of grasses, grains, flowering plants and shrubs, and I regret that we are doing so very little here in the way of administering the moneys which the Government gets into its hands in building up the research organisation which is necessary if we are to make progress in that direction.
I have said that I do not know what the position of our university is with regard to research into this type of work. I do not know the relationship between the College of Science, the University and the Albert College, Glasnevin, where we ought to start putting into operation the results of the discoveries made in the College of Science. I do not know what machinery exists for the purpose, or whether there is any coherent organisation for it at all. All I know is that we are doing all too little about it, and we as farmers are without the technical equipment which we ought to get, which we cannot build up for ourselves and which, even in groups, we can scarcely build up because all sorts of university buildings and such equipment are necessary. There is no other medium through which it can be created than the effort of the State. We have to start somewhere and I cannot see the greater productivity which I want to see from the fields of Ireland being attained otherwise than through the activities of research students who up to the present are not being applied to the job at all.
There is at present no organisation at all so far as I know to do anything like that. It is true that a certain amount of work on a very restricted scale is being done in the Albert College, with regard to the production of certain types of grasses, and in that connection, while I do not know very much about it, may I say that we have a professor with a small staff there engaged in a certain type of work? Wheat and other grains are being grown. We have experience down the country of the fruits of the labours of these people and we are convinced that these people have not got at their disposal the facilities necessary to do for us the work which we want done. My personal experience is that over the 20 or so years of the State's existence, with all the changes of Government, and so on, the people dealing with the breeding of our grains have not yet produced an oat grain which will stand on a great many of the soils of the country.
I am convinced that they are being asked to do the impossible. One man with a few assistants is expected to do as much as a big organisation in Britain or the United States, or we are waiting perhaps to see what the specialists in these countries will discover and then try to use their discoveries in our conditions which are completely unlike theirs. I regard it as a very essential matter. With regard to the point raised by Senator O Buachalla yesterday as to animal diseases, I think that, to a certain extent, that is highly problematical. There are authorities in the world like Sir Albert Howard and others who believe that if plant life were more vigorous and healthy, and developed in the manner in which it might be developed by scientific research, many of the animal diseases of which we know to-day might never exist at all. Before I treat diseases in animals, I should like to see what I could do about treating the soil and the plants growing in it. It is necessary to discover your soil constituents first, and nobody in this country is bothering to do a thing about it.
I do not know whether the Minister will regard that as a constructive proposition, but it is my line of thought. The Minister may or may not be aware that in Britain there is an immense new library being built up around the soil and its life. To me that is very interesting indeed. I was recently reading a book by Clifton Reynolds, a gentleman who went out and did what I suggest Senator O Buachalla should do. He bought a farm and started in to work it, without any previous knowledge of farming. He has written three books, and I take this quotation from his most recent book. Speaking of Britain, he says:—
"It seemed odd to me that after so much time the oldest of industries should be so backward in scientific knowledge. I could not help comparing farming with other industries known to me—engineering, pottery, textiles, furniture, aluminium and so on."
I am sure that will strike Senator O'Donnell as being very true.
I should like to conclude my remarks on that note because it is in tone and harmony with my feelings about life in general, but, in dealing with Government administration, one has to advert to many things and sometimes to things that are not too pleasant. I do not know how the Minister may have regarded my remarks up to this, but I am now about to be more unpleasant, without any great desire to be unpleasant. I want to bring to the notice of the Minister a matter which to me is an angle of administration which none of us can commend. It is a matter over which we cannot easily stand, and I do not think the Minister would like to stand over it. I am raising it because I want to have the Minister's disapproval of it, because I think that in its way and in its sphere, it is just as pertinent to our future and our aims in the future as anything I have said. I have here a copy of my local paper, The Anglo-Celt, of 17th of last month. There is an advertisement in it headed: “Notice” which runs:—
"Ballyhaise Fianna Fáil.
Annual letting of Bow Meadow Bog will take place on Monday night at the post office at 9 p.m. Banks not claimed and paid for will be re-let.
Secretary."
What is the significance of that? Bow Meadow bog is portion of the State farm at Ballyhaise, County Cavan. That portion of the farm has been separated from the farm proper, and handed over to the local Fianna Fáil club for letting. I do not want to be in the least bit offensive with the Minister about this. He can see the significance of it as well as I can, and I do not want to dwell on it unduly.