On the section I am raising a point of general principle. I think it was you, Sir, who ruled that I could not raise it on Second Reading but that I might raise it on the section. I feel that the Minister should examine in all its aspects the question of agricultural education. I do not think the Minister would deny that if we had the best brains, the highest technique and adequate capital—I put capital as a subsidiary— employed in agriculture to-day, the output of the country could probably be doubled. Of course it is a matter that cannot be brought about overnight, but I do feel that the Minister should address himself seriously and systematically to laying the foundations for a vastly improved technique in the whole of our agricultural output. He is faced with limitations undoubtedly—lack of education, a number of uneconomic holdings and a large number of other difficulties—but there are certain things which the Minister can do to-day through agricultural education.
Johnstown Castle Agricultural College Bill, 1945—Committee.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator may not deal with the general question of agricultural education, except in so far as it is connected with Johnstown Castle.
I am suggesting that the Minister should make the college part of a rational progressive scheme of agricultural education. I think I shall be able to narrow it down very quickly. I venture to say all our colleges under the Department are concerned mainly with research, manurial crop experiments and the training of students in agricultural botany, tillage operations and stock raising, but none of these operations, to my mind, has any relation to the farm as an economic and productive unit. This is not a new question for the Minister. I was on an agricultural commission which sat shortly after the State was formed, at which it was recommended that the Government should use agricultural instructors to manage demonstration farms with a view to showing farming operations in practice and that the farm, under such management, should be such a farm as an ordinary farmer of intelligence would operate, that there should be accounts and balance sheets, a farm in respect to which any farmer could say to himself: "Here is something I understand; it is not just a series of detached experiments showing the effect of potash on one row and nitrates on another; it is not a demonstration in a form of milking or a demonstration in a certain elementary treatment of cattle diseases. It is a farm as a whole possessing every aspect of farming operations leading up to balance sheets and showing what I might call the complete economic family life of the farmer."
I think the Government has never addressed itself seriously to this matter. Now it has an opportunity. It has an opportunity of setting aside a certain section of this farm or of treating this farm as a whole. I do not see why this Johnstown Farm should not be conducted on completely different lines from Clonakilty, Glasnevin or Athenry, and why the Government should not say: "Now we are going to use this farm like any farmer would. We are going to keep accounts, to grow crops suitable to the district and harvest these crops in the ordinary way a farmer would and market them, and at the end of the period we are going to get out accounts and balance sheets, showing interest and capital and all the rest of it. Incidentally, and most important of all, we are going to use this farm as a means of ascertaining costings so that at least, as far as the soil and conditions of Johnstown Castle are concerned, we shall know the cost of crops in that district." That is a very definite and clear proposition.
I do charge the Department of Agriculture with putting this question of economic farming in a totally secondary and subordinate place and with failing to give our farmers any assistance in this vital matter—the farm as a going concern. I should like the Minister to deal with this matter because it is very important. There are other farms to which this system could be applied. If you got it going properly in a place like Johnstown Castle, you could apply the same principles in the case of farms which are not strictly under the Government, farms managed by co-operative societies. I am glad to see that co-operative societies are to an increasing degree acquiring farms. These farms should be run as live demonstration farms. That is the only way the practical farmer will be convinced.
Unfortunately I was unable to be here when the Second Reading of this measure was under discussion. There were certain things I should like to have said but before I say some of the things I want to say now, I should like to hear the Minister on this section. The section says:—
As soon as conveniently may be after the passing of this Act, the Minister shall establish on the Estate a lay agricultural college and may for that purpose do all such things as he considers necessary.
(2) The college established under this section shall be named the Johnstown Castle Agricultural College and the said name shall not be changed.
The Minister's statement on the Second Reading was brief. I should like to hear form him what he purports to do under this section and what his views are? He is going to establish this agricultural college and we are empowering him to do all such things as he considers necessary for the purpose of establishing it. What plans has he in mind with regard to its establishment? What are the things which he regards as necessary to do in order to get the kind of college he wants to get? In other words, what plan of agriculture does he intend to have operated in this college? As Senator Sir John Keane said, we have a number of agricultural colleges here at present—a limited number indeed. The number has not been added to since the State was set up, and, so far as I know, their capacity to take in students has not been added to either.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
On this, the Senator can deal only with this particular college.
But I want to hear from the Minister how this new college is going to fit into the general plan of agricultural education. Surely, on this section, I am entitled to have that information? When we are giving power to the Minister to set up an additional agricultural college, it is important that we should be given some idea as to how it is going to fit into the general plan of agricultural education, and as to whether or not he is going to pursue a different line here from what has been pursued elsewhere. I have not had an opportunity of reading all the debates in the other House. I take it that there was a good deal of discussion about soil survey.
Notice taken that 12 Senators were not present; House counted, and 12 Senators being present—
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator may proceed.
We could perhaps shorten this discussion if we had from the Minister his views as to what plan or shape he intends to give this college. Of course, he stated in his Second Reading speech that the advantage of getting this was that you could establish here a school where you had soil conditions, a type of farming, and so on, similar to a considerable area in Wexford, and I presume in that part of Leinster. No matter what you may be disposed to do in a place like Johnstown, you have to take cognisance of your soil conditions, of your traditional type of farming and all that sort of thing, and the type of agricultural education you will impart in a school like Johnstown can only be the type of education which your soil, your climatic conditions and so on, will enable you to impart.
I think it has been stated that there is some policy in regard to the inauguration of a soil surveying branch in this college. I do not quite know what the Minister's policy is on that, and I should like to have from him some information as to how he intends to man that branch. If he intends setting up a soil surveying branch in the school, I should like him to tell us how we are situated in the matter of scientific workers for that branch of agricultural education and research. I welcome that decision. It is a matter which, I think the Minister will admit, I have raised on a number of occasions, and I welcome this step. If it is part of the Minister's policy to go into the investigation of soils there, I should like to know whether or not he intends to do that in relation to a particular area, or is Johnstown to be made a centre for the country? If that is what he has in mind, I am afraid the location of Johnstown makes it rather difficult to do that sort of thing for the country as a whole. Geographically, it is somewhat remote. Postal facilities and so on make it more difficult to reach than would be regarded as satisfactory from the point of view of the farmers who are interested. I am in a difficulty, and I am discussing this rather in the dark until I hear what are the Minister's views and policy and plans. This being his native county, and the soil conditions there being particularly well understood by him, I am sure that he himself, apart altogether from any help from his technical officers, will have no difficulty in planning what should be done.
I agree absolutely with Senator Sir John Keane that this step is terribly necessary and terribly important. The kind of shape which the Minister gives this new college will have considerable influence on the shape we are going to give our agricultural endeavour for perhaps a number of years to come. There is no doubt that there is a great necessity for this step and for the expenditure of a considerable amount of money. When I see all the fuss we make about our Institute of Higher Studies, I think we would be far better employed and the money would be spent to much better advantage on some such undertaking as this.
I do not want to say anything disparaging about that realm of higher education which I and people like me can find of little avail in our calling, but I cannot help feeling—with the opportunities that are available in a place like this, and the terrible necessities that confront us with regard to the better working of our land in the future—that the expenditure of money on an effort like this would have much closer relation to the lives of the people and to the possibility of bettering their conditions than any expenditure we could incur in Merrion Square on our Institute for Higher Studies. I should like to know from the Minister if his idea is that he is now going to add one more college to the number he has got already—Clonakilty, Ballyhaise, Athenry and Glasnevin—as a group of colleges under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture? Has he in his mind some sort of co-ordinated plan whereby each of these colleges will become distinct in its own way, but each working in a particular branch of a combined effort, and all working towards a common purpose, to give us trained minds and to engage in that kind of research which will make it possible to spread a knowledge of farming technique which is terribly lacking in this country to-day and without which agriculture cannot progress?
I think I explained, both in the Dáil and in the Seanad, that it is intended to set up a college in Johnstown. Part of its activities will be the same as those which are being carried out in Ballyhaise, Clonakilty and Athenry. That is necessary because there are more students applying for admission to these colleges than we can place at the moment. I would like to point out to Senators who have not followed the working of these colleges that they are doing very essential work for young men who are going back to manage their own farms. It is essential to impress on these young men the importance, first of all, of having properly bred animals and good milk yielding cows. That is all impressed on them at the colleges as well as how to feed animals. Then, as regards tillage, there is the question of proper manuring, proper tilling, and the great importance of having proper seeds. They are taught other things as well, but I am just mentioning some of the main things taught in these colleges. Senators who come from the country will agree with me, I think, in this, that if they look back 40 years they will admit that in that period there has been a remarkable improvement in the knowledge of our farming community.
I can well remember, when I was young, a farmer saying that he was going to put some bag manure on his crop. He does not say that now. Leaving the war years out, he will say, if he can get it, that he is going to put so much phosphate, so much potash so much sulphate of ammonia on his land. He does not accept bag manure any longer from the shopkeeper. He has, first of all, to know what is the composition of it. The farmer going to buy a feeding mixture has to know how much carbo-hydrates, how much oil and how much albumenoids it contains. There is no doubt whatever but that there has been a great advance in the knowledge which farmers have to-day as compared with 40 years ago. I do not say they have enough knowledge. I think there is room for more education in this country. I do not say that any Senator has given the impression that we are worse than other countries, but there is that sort of idea among certain sections of this country that we are not as well up in farming as they are in other countries.
We are not within miles of Denmark, Holland or Belgium.
I can assure the Senator that, during the last 15 years, I have spent all my holidays either in Great Britain or on the Continent, and that I have never seen the farmers in those countries do any better than our farmers are doing.
Does the Minister mean that as far as Denmark is concerned?
Yes. I have been in all those countries. I want to say that in the three big countries, as it were, England, France and Germany, where I spent most of my holidays, farming in them is a long way behind ours, taking them on the whole. I still want to say that we can improve. There is great room for improvement here. I am quite prepared to admit that. However, to come back to Johnstown Castle, the intention is to have an agricultural college there. There are very good gardens at Johnstown suitable for the training of horticultural students. In addition to the agricultural college, we will have a horticultural school or college there.
We also mean to do soil research there. The reason why we are starting it there is, first of all, because there is room for it, and, secondly, because we are going to undertake a scheme of land reclamation there on about 200 acres. The reclamation of these 200 acres will be the foundation, if you like, for our soil research department which we mean to make applicable to the whole country. I think that when the war is over, and when there is an improvement in transport conditions and communications it will not be too great an inconvenience for a farmer to have to post his sample to Johnstown. After all, a farmer when getting a sample of soil analysed is not in a desperate hurry about it, as a rule. A day or two will not make any great difference to him, but it will be very convenient for the Department to have the soil research department at Johnstown. We hope to have most of the work done there, as time goes on, and to get the other colleges as well as the county agricultural instructors to join in this soil research. It is only when we get everyone interested that we can do a big lot in soil research.
I do not think that costings could be done properly in a place like Johnstown, because if you have students there doing research, and if you have a principal doing a certain amount of experimentation, then, obviously, he cannot do costings because in his experiments he must waste a good lot of time and, perhaps, good land. Therefore, he cannot do costings. I think that costing would be better done by taking returns from a number of farmers throughout the country.
What has the Minister done about it during all the years that have gone by?
The scheme that we had was scrapped.
It was scrapped 20 years ago and was never revived.
Yes, in a mistaken effort at State economy. It was never revived, but it is going to be revived.
It is deplorable that the Minister should stand up and defend that.
We are more enlightened now about this thing of State economy.
The Minister was not Minister for Agriculture 20 years ago.
Probably it would have been revived before now but for the fact that the war intervened. The war is, again, made an excuse for this economy. But now, I think, there is no further excuse, and it should be revived. I would like to say that in setting up this college for the education of our boys it is, of course, only one arm of our education. We have the winter classes and their staffs. I was reading some time ago a review on this question of agricultural education, so far as it applies to some of the Continental countries, and they seem to be rather unanimously in favour of trying every effort to provide what they called the travelling school, which is exactly what our winter classes are. I think that, if we can broaden the scope of our education and make it possible for more people to benefit by the education system that we have at present, we are on the right lines by giving opportunities to more of our people. As far as Johnstown is concerned, I think we should proceed as we are proceeding with the additions that I have mentioned.
The Minister has enlightened us somewhat. With regard to what he has said, I do not know what the buildings at Johnstown are like. It would help if we could be told. With regard to the Minister's references to the other colleges I want to say that it is no credit at all to this State—indeed, it is indicative of the attitude towards agriculture right from the beginning—that never since the State was founded was there an additional room built, so far as I know, for an agricultural student in this country. Go to all the other schools and see the immense buildings that have been put up and the additions that have been made to secondary schools throughout the country. It is true, of course, that this work was done by religious orders. Nothing was done by Governmental effort. In this college, there will be certain accommodation. I am convinced that you ought to add to the accommodation at all the existing schools.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
We are dealing with Johnstown Castle in this Bill.
Yes. I am dealing with Johnstown Castle as part of our scheme of agricultural education.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
We are not discussing agricultural education in general.
I understand that this is going to be an agricultural college.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Yes.
We cannot talk about an agricultural college without discussing the number of students it can accommodate and the structural plan. That will have to be considered in relation to what is being done elsewhere. That is why, I submit, I am perfectly in order in discussing these things. We should like to discuss agriculture on the Appropriation Bill but in that case the Minister for Agriculture does not attend; it is the Minister for Finance who is present then. That is what we are confronted with. I put it to the Minister that he is going to run this new school partly as the existing colleges are being run. I have no fault at all to find with them and I would not like anyone to misunderstand me; they are excellent institutions and turn out tip-top boys, who eventually go into the State service or back to their farms. They are boys of whom the country can be very proud. If Johnstown Castle is to do the kind of work that ought to be turned on to it, the position of the other colleges ought to be considered simultaneously.
I do not know that I agree with the Minister in what he says in regard to our technical knowledge of agriculture. I am not denying that there have been advances, but I am afraid our advances are not comparable with those made in that science elsewhere, and I may mention, in this connection, the advances that are being made in this matter in the Six Counties. Unless our colleages are cognisant of that fact, we will be behind-time. I know of experiments that have been carried out in the North by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with certain farmers. No equivalent work is being done here.
I have no wish to broaden the scope of the discussion at this stage but the Minister made reference to what can be done in regard to horticulture at Johnstown Castle. I welcome that, but I make this suggestion to the Minister: it is very important that county organisers and county instructors should be men of education, trained not only in general education but, to a high degree, in agricultural education. In my opinion it is very important that the men who will be trained for the purpose of horticulture should have the highest possible education. Horticulture is one branch of agricultural science that requires much more sympathetic assistance than has been given to it in the past. That branch has been the cinderella of agricultural education. It is important to select the very highest type of student we can get to specialise in horticulture. The science of fruit-growing, plant life, etc., is the most highly skilled and most sensitive aspect of agriculture. Therefore, if a considerable amount of space and energy is to be devoted to preparing people in horticulture, at Johnstown, every effort should be made to get the best possible type of student. Unless that is done, the work will not be done in the way in which it should be in order to make it a success. I am not speaking without some experience. I have had close contact with this matter.
In regard to what the Minister said about soil researches, I should like to learn his views as to how the institution will be manned. How many skilled people have we available for that purpose? We are really very backward in the study of soils—the Minister knows that—in comparison with what is being done in the Six Counties and in Britain. The developments that have taken place in British agriculture during the war have left us very far behind. Theirs is a remarkable record of achievement and we will know all about it when we begin to compare yield per acre here against yield per acre there. I know that they had advantages that were not available to us and they had the urge to work that was created by the war. That state of affairs will compel us to stir ourselves more than we have done up to the present.
How many students will be accommodated at Johnstown? Are we going to have the type of student who will pay his way in the college and will go back to his own farm, or are we going to have a considerable number of scholarship students who will go there for the purpose of being trained to become servants of the people later on? That is a matter of considerable importance. What the Minister has said about itinerant classes is of considerable importance, but the Minister knows as well as I do the number of years which must pass before a county instructor in any county can succeed in giving one course in one parish in the county. One class in one year is all he can do. How many agricultural instructors will go to their graves before we have succeeded in giving one course in one parish in a county? That presents a new problem. My view about adult agricultural education is that if some plan could be devised which would make it possible to bring a number of people of 21, 24, 30 years, or even older, if they so wished, into our agricultural colleges during the winter for, say, a course of lectures and discussion it would do far more to spread enlightenment with regard to agriculture than any method that has been adopted up to the present. I am quite convinced that the folk schools in Denmark were the foundations of their agricultural uprising. I went to an agricultural class myself and I am sure Senators did too. I am sure the Leas-Chathaoirleach was at more of those classes than I was.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator is getting far away from the Bill.
I hope I am not going to be treated unfairly in this matter, as I would like to have it out with the Minister while he is here. I am anxious to be helpful and give my view for what it is worth. If there is nothing in it, I am quite satisfied. The winter classes with the agricultural instructors are purely technical and there is nothing the same opportunity to have discussions. There is a fair amount of cramming and not a great deal of time to do the full course. If we could take young or middle-aged men into these colleges for a fortnight in the winter and give them a course of lectures and let them have discussions on the scientific side of agriculture and encourage them to talk, there would be much more enlightenment than ever was spread through the agricultural classes.
I suggest that Johnstown Castle be made a centre where farmers' sons and others would have a chance to do a short course in the winter. The people of the adjoining countryside should be encouraged to go there, too. Those who go should be shown the failures as well as the successes. One of the quarrels I have is that, when you are brought to these colleges, the buildings are brushed up and nothing is out of place, no beast ever died there, no seed ever failed and there was no crop sown which did not yield a hundredfold.
With regard to costings, I agree they have to be got from various centres under varying conditions, but somewhere or other there should be a group of specialists examining, dissecting and balancing the costings. An agricultural college is the place for that and I suggest Johnstown Castle for that purpose. It would be a great mistake if we were satisfied to go on the orthodox lines of agricultural colleges as we knew them in the past, and I hope the Minister will serve us well by having the courage to adopt a different attitude.
I understand that 200 acres of land are to be reclaimed, and I suggest the Minister get the students to do the work, that they be taught how to take levels and do drainage and that the work be done by direct labour and not by contract.
I feel I ought to apologise to the House for taking up the time at this late hour, but I make no apology. I deplore that our business has been so arranged that an important question like this, which concerns our primary industry—almost our sole industry—should receive such scant attention. We spend ages discussing protection and tariffs and the creation of artificial industries, when an industry that lies at our doors and is our great national resource is discussed so late on the evening of the last day of the session.
Does the Senator wish to propose we sit next week to deal with it?
I am agreeable.
So am I.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I would remind Senators that this Bill does not deal with agricultural education in general, but with Johnstown Castle particularly.
Agricultural education as practised in Johnstown Castle. I see your embarrassment, as you are in a difficult position over the whole thing, since any discussion on Johnstown Castle must to a great extent deal with agriculture.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Anything on the general line should have been discussed on the Appropriation Bill.
I hope to convince you that what I say is in order. I am profoundly disappointed at the Minister's speech. He was asked what his intentions were regarding this college and I gather he intends it to be another of those standard pattern schools, teaching agriculture in bits and pieces. It may specialise somewhat in soil research and, if I heard the Minister aright, it may pay special attention to horticulture. Horticulture would probably be a most fertile form of study. It may interest the Minister to know that I have personal knowledge of an ordinary country house garden which last year sold produce to the amount of £300 an acre. That shows what can be done with horticulture. I can show the Minister the figures if he wishes, as I have access to them. The owner would be glad to acknowledge the assistance received from the horticulture instructor in that county.
The Minister has not yet said that he appreciates our backwardness in the question of showing farm economy as a whole, showing people a working farm like that lived upon by themselves. Surely, he might have said at least that. In the colleges, we see bits of crops here and there, we know there are lectures, test tubes, soil analyses and laboratories, but they are not so important, or rather they are only leading up to the culmination of all farming, which is productive farming, farming as an economic means of livelihood. I have had experience of the output of these colleges—I have seen a few of them—and I have not yet seen anyone coming from them who is able to view farm management as a whole. A man may be able to answer a question about stock, about elementary medicines, about soils and manures, but the training to set out a farm plan, to deal with rotations and the management of labour, does not receive the attention it deserves.
Here is an opportunity. There are about 1,000 acres in Johnstown. I do not agree with the Minister that it is not possible there to combine the two aspects and have a college devoted to the master and pupil aspect as well as a practical farm.
There is quite enough land there to segregate 150 or 200 acres, and to say that that section has to be economic; that everything that goes on in that section has to be the same as a farmer-earning his livelihood would have to provide and nothing else. All labour would be costed and, if men were taken on, their employment would be a charge on the books. A set of books would be kept. The whole thing is perfectly feasible. I deplore the lack of imagination on the part of the Minister in not seeing the transcendent importance of that proviso with regard to agriculture. Again, I say that if approached seriously our whole agricultural output could be doubled in a generation. This schoolmaster and research aspect is all right, but for those who live out of farms as going concerns, and whose livelihood is farming, that aspect is neglected. Is it not deplorable to be told that the system of costing set up was scrapped shortly after the last war, and that it has not yet been revived? It is only going to be revived now, yet we have the Government fixing prices of produce in order to fix prices concerned with subsidies and the cost of living. We have no fundamental knowledge of what these costs are. I think the whole thing is very depressing. Would the Minister consider calling in the body that is known as the advisory council?
We have an agricultural council.
Would the Minister consider consulting that body?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
That body is not needed to consult with regarding the acquisition of Johnstown Castle.
No, but I submit that my remarks in that respect are in order. If called in, that body could advise on what it considered to be the best method of managing this new acquisition in the interests of practical farming as a livelihood and as a going concern, as well as from the point of view of management. To what extent is the Minister going to specialise in this college on the care and practical upkeep of machinery? Has he provided at any of the colleges instruction in the use and management and repair of tractors and agricultural machinery? If not, will he consider setting aside a section where students would be able to do running repairs, to take down tractor engines and generally do work of that kind?
When I brought this Bill before the Dáil and the Seanad I was under the belief that I was dealing with a gift to the nation, and in that gift, as a condition, it was laid down that we must have an agricultural college. How Senators could have the ingenuity to talk about agriculture in that connection I cannot understand. Senator Sir John Keane has taxed me with having a simple imagination. I can compliment him on his imagination. I never heard a more imaginative speech.
That is what I intended it to be.
And you succeeded. Have we come down to that sort of stuff in agriculture? It is higher education, I admit, but it will not be agriculture.
What is wrong with it?
Does the Senator realise what an agricultural college is? He talked about bits and scraps of agriculture. What we are doing is to bring boys to the colleges and to say to them: "Here is a cow which will make money for you." The Senator wants us to send young men to Denmark to see what they do there, and then to come back and teach our boys how they do things in Denmark and not how they are done in Clonakilty or other places.
I never suggested sending anyone to Denmark.
The Senator made some ridiculous suggestions. The Senator has the idea that our young men are being taught all about test tubes. When boys go to college here they are taught how to milk a cow, how to feed it, and how to record what the cow yields. They are also told that, if they want to have good cows when they go home, that is how to get them. What could be more practical? Then they are brought to the pig byre and shown sows and their good points and told how to secure sound animals when they go home, how they should be fed, and how the young should be dealt with. The Senator thinks that the ordinary farmer does not keep any pigs. The boys are also brought out to the fields and shown how oats should be properly sown, the proper variety to sow according to the soil, the proper way to manure oats and how it should be harvested.
And what profit they get.
Is not that practical?
As far as it goes. It does not lead up to a balance sheet or how to show a profit in the essential things that the farmer has to deal with.
We have always to begin somewhere. The farmer starts by learning how to fatten cattle, how to grow oats and barley and the balance sheet comes at the end of the year.
It does not come at all with your regulation.
That is how a boy is taught how to become a practical farmer. When he goes back home he says to his father: "You must get rid of some of these cows". After a long time the father agrees to buy a better type of heifer and gets a better milk yield. That would affect the balance sheet. The boy then says to his father: "You should buy proper seeds if you want proper crops." The father agrees and again he gets better crops and that means a better balance sheet.
He seems to have been more persuasive than the Minister.
After a while the father of that boy sees that the young fellow did learn something because he says to himself: "I am better off than I was." In other words, the balance sheet has improved. That is what we are trying to do. Senator Sir John Keane wants us to start by showing boys how to keep balance sheets. What is the good of a balance sheet if a farmer does not improve his methods? The Senator suggests we should keep proper balance sheets and that the college should teach them to do so, in order to find out in that way whether they were making money.
Is not that the whole object of farming?
No. The object is to enable them to do better, to see whether they are losing money and, if so, to try to make more money, and to do better. We are not going to waste the time of agricultural colleges teaching boys how to make out balance sheets. Senator John Keane says it would be a good thing if students were taught how to keep balance sheets.
I never said that.
The Senator said, "For Heaven's sake do not have the boys looking at test tubes."
I never said that. The Minister misrepresents me.
I pointed out that the Senator said that agricultural colleges dealt with bits and scraps and had test tubes here and there, and that when the boys went home they should keep balance sheets. We are going to teach them how to improve their methods. That is what they have been taught in the other agricultural colleges. Some Senators stated that we had not been doing much to improve farming methods. I was looking at some notes which have been supplied to me in connection with the work of agricultural colleges, and it is interesting to find that in 1931-32, 153 students went through agricultural colleges, State owned and State aided. Last year the number was 306 or exactly double. Now we are adding Johnstown Castle which is better still.
Did you enlarge the colleges?
One was only established in 1931. Another has been started since in Monaghan. Quite a number were enlarged as well; they were all enlarged as a matter of fact.
I do not think Ballyhaise was.
I do not think it was. Anyway, the number of students increased from 153 to 306. When we get Johnstown Castle going I suppose we will get more still. As I said, there is a great demand for places by a number of young men throughout the country and I feel that we will be doing well when we add Johnstown Castle to the list of colleges we have already. With regard to soil research, a director has been appointed. He had been working in the Albert College for years on soils and he has been appointed to take charge of the soil research in these colleges, with Johnstown Castle as headquarters. He will have to get a number of helpers, but at the moment I cannot say how many. It will depend on the demand from the agricultural population and what services they want as time goes on.
I should like the Minister to point out to me clause (c) of the agreement.
It is not in it.
I think it was intended to be clause 10, sub-clause (c). The same remark applies to Section 2.
Sub-clause (d).
No, sub-clause (c); it is remuneration.
It is to remunerate some pensioners. The same remark applies to Section 2 (a). I was not in when that was being passed. It may not be worth bothering about. I think it is intended to be clause 10 (c).
I think that is what is meant.
I take it it is only a drafting amendment which can be fixed.
I do not see how it is to be dealt with.
A printer's error can always be dealt with.
While the Bill is before the House, but not after it leaves it.
I think it can be done after it leaves it, if it is a printer's error, if it is obvious what it is.
I do not know which clause it is.
I think it is obvious that it is clause 10 (c).
I do not think it is. If it is clause 10 (c), where is the authorisation for the Minister to pay moneys which he has got to pay under clause 10 (d)?
That is already mentioned.
Under clause 10 (d) the Minister is to "be empowered to make payments hereinafter mentioned out of public funds", namely the sum of £4,170 7s. 10d. The Minister has got to pay that under clause 10 (d) of the agreement. The agreement is not an enabling statute and there must be some enabling clause.
Section 10 gives that—"estate duty".
Section 10 is altogether different. Section 10 refers to estate duty on the deaths of two people in future. Clause 10 (d) refers to the estate duty on the deaths of two people who have died. As a matter of fact, I think it is a mistake for clause 10 (d), because I cannot see otherwise where the Minister for Finance gets his power to pay £4,170 7s. 10d. as provided by (d) (i), £627 as provided by (d) (ii), and £287 12s. as provided by (d) (iii).
With regard to Section 10, if these parties have died——
They have not died; they are the parties to the agreement. The parties under clause 10 (d) have died; Lady Adelaide Jane Frances FitzGerald and Gerald Hugh FitzGerald have died. If they have not, I cannot see why death duties have already been paid. I took the precaution of reading the Bill.
Section 11 provides that the expenses incurred by the Minister in the administration of this Act shall, to such extent as may be sanctioned by the Minister for Finance, be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas, including in particular under clause (c) of the agreement the expenses incurred by the Minister in and about the preparation and execution of the scheduled documents. That simply illustrates what may be paid in the administration or carrying out of the Act. Clause (c) is not put in properly. It is called clause (c), but it should be sub-clause (c).
Do you not think it should be clause (d)?
It is "out of public funds" in the agreement and in Section 11 it is "be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas". There may be a difference between "public funds" in the agreement and "moneys provided by the Oireachtas" in section 11. In other words, I think that the object of sub-clause (d) of the agreement is that the Minister should pay these moneys and that he should get them afterwards from the Minister for Finance out of public funds.
One of the difficulties about this is that, if it is clause 10 (c) that is meant, then the Minister is empowered to remunerate the pensioners. It is the money necessary to pay the pensioners. If that is the correct interpretation, how does the Minister get the power to pay the other sums I have mentioned, £4,000 odd, £600 odd, and £200 odd? If, on the other hand, it is meant to be clause 10 (d), how does he propose to get the powers to remunerate the pensioners?
Clause (c) is also mentioned in Section 2, and therefore whatever it means in Section 2 it means in Section 11. It says "the Minister may carry out the provisions of clause (c) thereof"—that is, in Section 2. In other words, he is authorised to retain the services of the servants and employees and to remunerate the pensioners; so that I think that in Section 2 he is authorised to retain the servants, whereas in Section 11 he is authorised to remunerate the pensioners. I think that one has to deal with the retention of servants, and the other with the payment of moneys.
At any rate, it is a drafting error and not a printer's error.
I am sorry——
I am sorry for the Minister.
"Under clause (c) of the agreement" evidently refers to clause 10 (c). It was spoken of by Senator Ryan as being referred to in Section 2. The first item under this is £4,170 7s. 10d., which must be refunded.
But that is clause 10 (d), and not (c) at all.
I was coming to that. Other payments are set out under 10 (c) of the agreement, and I was going on to deal with 10 (d), but as far as I I can make out from a note I have here, it is 10 (c) that is meant.
Where is the right to pay there?
There is a general right to pay as well as this particular one—"including in particular the moneys payable by the Minister under clause (c)".
There is only one (c) in the agreement.
Yes, 10 (c).
If the Minister is satisfied that it is 10 (c)——
I cannot say why 10 (c) is not mentioned specifically, but there is no doubt that there is a general right to pay.
I think it was the intention of the Oireachtas that it should only apply to that clause 10 (c).
I think that this is rather a slipshod way of dealing with this matter. Is this whole thing to be governed merely by a reluctance to return next week? Surely, if it is a matter of importance we should be prepared to come back and deal with it properly. I do not like this rather slipshod kind of thing, and I think we are far too much inclined towards a tendency to let some given date in the future govern our proceedings. I do not see why we should not agree to come back next week and deal with this matter properly.
That is a matter for the Minister, I take it.
Oh, I do not mind.
I would like to have a further talk on this, I do not mind admitting.
If the Minister is prepared to take the responsibility for this as it stands——
But we cannot pass legislation that we know to be defective simply because we want to get away to-night.
Speaking purely as a layman, it appears to me that, if the matter is so important as that, it means that something has come from the Dáil which should not have passed through the Dáil, and if there is any force in what Senator Sir John Keane says, it may be necessary to convene the Dáil again. Expenditure out of public funds is one of the most important functions in the Dáil—we only appear in that matter in a very slight way—and if there is any force in Senator Sir John Keane's point, it would be necessary to re-convene the Dáil, and of course it is right that the Dáil should be convened if the matter is of such importance and if something has come through the Dáil which should not have come through.
I think the point is whether the wording is inelegant or inaccurate.
I think it is only a matter of whether clause (c) refers to clause 10 (c), and the Legislature did not intend to pass something that was futile or that had not some meaning to it. Of course, as far as the Act would be concerned, I think it would carry out the intention of the Legislature.
Well, I am not going to agree to it.
Is the Bill urgent?
No. It does not matter really when it is taken.
Might I point out that while it is quite true that (c) appears only once in the Agreement, there is also (c) in the Second Schedule. Would there be any danger there?
No, the Second Schedule is the Conveyance.
There is no (c) in the Second Schedule.
I am sorry. I mean "A."—the Inventory.
This is where clause (c) refers to the Agreement, and the other would refer to the Inventory.
The question is: That Section 11 stand part of the Bill.
I wish to be entered on the record as protesting against it. That is all I can do.
Very well, Senator.
I would also like to be put on record as objecting to the manner in which the section is drafted.
Senator Sweetman and Senator Sir John Keane to be recorded as dissenting.
The question is whether it is a proper authorisation to pay the money. I should like to be put on record also as objecting.
Suppose you put in, in Section 11, the words "clause 10 (c)", or "clause 10 (d)," as the case may be, I think that would cover the matter.
Yes, that would be all right. It would be an amendment. My objection is that this whole thing seems to be governed by a reluctance to come back next week. It is a reflection on the dignity of our institutions here if we are to refrain from making an obvious amendment either because the Bill may have to be held over until after the Recess or because the Dáil may have to be called back. I do not think it looks at all well for the Legislature of the State to be left in that position. If, as an amendment, you put in "10 (c)", I think that makes it all right.
There is a certain difficulty here. I am not competent to deal with it, but I propose that we finish the Committee Stage and if, as the Minister says, the Bill is not urgent, we can postpone the remaining stages until the Seanad reassembles, when we can consider the matter.
Yes, that is a sensible suggestion.
I am prepared to agree to that.
That we finish the Committee Stage now and do not go on to the other stages of the Bill until the Seanad reassembles.
All right.
We might make an amendment that would complicate matters.
I am satisfied with that arrangement.
Perhaps the Minister would answer the point I raised about the aggregation of estate duty.
The last clause of the Schedule on page 7, line 45, is as follows:—
"Provided always that this agreement is conditional upon the acceptance of the said intended gift by the Oireachtas and the enactment of legislation to give effect to same within four months from the date hereof, and if no Act shall have been passed for the purpose aforesaid within such period (or such further period as the settlor may in writing agree to) these presents and everything herein contained shall be void and of no effect."
The agreement is dated 28th December, 1944, and unless the settlor named in the agreement, Mrs. Dorothy Violet Jefferies, has agreed to the extension of the time of four months, all we have done is of no effect. I should like to ask the Minister whether she has, in fact, agreed to extend the time within which the Oireachtas may accept the intended gift and enact legislation to give effect to it.
She has already agreed to an extension of time.
How long?
A further six months, so far as I remember.
It will make a great deal of difference in dealing with the next stage.
Four months have expired, and unless she has agreed to extend the period this legislation is of no avail. It would be desirable, before the Bill passes, to know whether or not she has extended the time.
The Minister has assured us that she has extended it but he does not know for how long.
For six months.
If consideration of this Bill be adjourned until October, the six months may have expired. This agreement is dated the 28th December, 1944. The four months expired on the 28th April, 1945. Six months' extension would bring us up to 28th October.
I am sure the Seanad will give me the Bill within the necessary time. As regards the question of aggregation, I think that the Senator has in mind an explanation by way of example. Suppose a person dies worth, say, £100,000. Estate duty is charged on that. If £10,000 of that is taken off, then what the Senator wants to know, I take it, is whether estate duty is charged on the £90,000, or whether the first £10,000 or the last £10,000 is taken off. What really happened was that estate duty was charged as if this had not been part of the property.
That is what I wanted to know.
First and Second Schedules ordered to be the Schedules to the Bill.