I approach this motion with mixed feelings. Generally I have a certain sympathy with the various policies advocated by Senator Counihan but, so far as this motion embodies a concrete recommendation, I, certainly, could not support it. At the same time, it does draw attention to certain important facts and to the existence of certain very real problems affecting our economy in a most important way. The first fact to be constantly kept in mind in this connection is that there are certain regions in the country which are relatively specialised in dairy production, especially the Limerick region. In those regions the farmers normally produce considerably more calves than they are in a position to mature. Consequently, they have to get rid of them fairly young in some shape or form. There are certain other areas in the country, with which Senator Counihan is more intimately associated than I—the dry stock farming regions—in which notoriously the farmers can and do mature considerably more young stock than they hitherto attempted, or than, they say, they would be in a position to rear. Consequently, there is a certain natural interdependence between the dry stock farming regions and the dairying regions and an important part of the raw material of the dry stock farming regions comes from the dairying districts. If, for any reason, that part of the raw material of the dry stock farming regions should cease to come, it would make a substantial difference to the total farming output in those regions and, if nothing were done to counteract it, it would make a difference to the total national income. Therefore, Senator Counihan does draw attention to a very real problem.
With regard to the dimensions of that problem, nearly half the cows of the country are cows the milk of which finds its way to a creamery, but there remain another 500,000 or 600,000 cows which are not associated with creameries. I imagine that the calf-slaughtering phenomenon has not yet affected those areas where the milk of the cows is not sent to a creamery. Consequently, the dry stock farming regions might reasonably hope to continue to get raw material, in the form of young cattle, from those parts of the country where creameries do not exist. At worst, half, but not more than half, the raw material of the dry stock regions might be cut off if every single calf produced in the dairying regions should have its throat cut soon after birth. I do not think that that is at all likely to happen. It is a case of a few thousand calves and I do not think it is likely to be a case of a few tens of thousands of calves. There, again, perhaps the Minister would give us some information to add to that which Senator Counihan has already given us. To what extent has the slaughter of calves actually proceeded in recent months. Is it a matter of 5,000 or 10,000 calves or is it a matter of 50,000? If it is a matter of only a few thousand, then it is a very trifling phenomenon and need not worry us unduly. But if it is a matter of 50,000 or 100,000, it would be a serious state of things, for which we might have to think out some policy which would have the effect of counteracting it. I should also like to know what kind of calves they are which are being slaughtered. If they are mainly calves of specifically dairying breeds which, in no conceivable circumstances, could be worth much as store cattle, then I think their death is inevitable and, from an economic point of view, not at all regrettable. If they are Friesian calves much the same consideration would apply.
I understand that, to some extent, farmers in the south-west have been going over to Friesian cattle. Perhaps the Minister would tell us to what extent dairying interests in the south-west are going into Friesian cattle and if it is the policy of his Department to encourage them to do so to the extent of discouraging the dual-purpose cow which, hitherto, has been characteristic of farming in practically every part of the country. If the policy is to be to encourage the dairying regions to specalise in Friesian or other specifically dairying cattle, then, to that extent, we have introduced a completely new factor in our whole agricultural economy. We shall have to think out the repercussions of that and recommend something which will enable the rest of the country to adapt itself to that very revolutionary change. If the 500,000 dual-purpose animals now in the creamery districts were, in the course of ten or 15 years, to become nothing but Friesian cattle and nothing else happened, to that extent we should lose several hundred thousand potential store or fat cattle in the year, because the progeny of these specifically dairying cattle are not worth a hoot from the point of view of people like Senator Counihan. The surplus males would have to be killed and the surplus females would have to be killed, or exported, as soon as the total number of Friesian cattle in the country had reached saturation point.
With regard to the policy suggested in this motion, I think it is quite impractical. There is no use in saying to the farmers: "You must not kill your calves, and if you do, we will penalise you", because there is the old proverb: "Thou shalt not kill but needest not strive officiously to keep alive." The farmer might perhaps not kill, but he certainly will not strive officiously to keep his calves alive, unless it is worth his while financially to do so. The real solution of the problem is to create, if we can, such a situation as will make it worth the while of the farmers to rear these calves, assuming that they are the kind of calves that would be of interest in the dry stock farming regions. In that connection, I believe it is true to say that the relative price of calves, of yearling calves, in the dairying regions, bears unfavourable comparision with the price of two-and three-years-old calves. The calves which somehow manage to survive to be about 12 months old in a mainly dairying region are not, apparently, in demand by people like Senator Counihan, and are picked up remarkably cheaply. They are then carried on for another year or so, and when they come within shouting distance of the relatively high price of stores exported to England, they suddenly leap up in value, and if they are any good at all, command very high prices at the two-and three-years-old age.
As things are at present, there seems to be a lack of organisation in the cattle trade which causes too low a price to be offered for these young cattle between six months and a year old and which makes it not attractive to the producers to keep them to that age. An ordinary calf will consume from 40 to 50 gallons of milk in its early life which at 1/- per gallon means that it will cost the farmer at least £2 or £3 in the value of milk consumed before he has the calf weaned. And what will be the value of the calf to him at that stage? Unless it is worth a good deal more than £3 to him, the temptation to kill it rather than to feed it will be very strong. I think you will find that in the south-west, during last winter, anyway, a great many calves approaching a year old were not worth more than £5 or £6, and yet, possibly, these calves, if they had been well done and properly fed, might well have been worth £10 or £12 if only they had been able to get a market where they were in demand. I do not know why they do not get there—whether it is a transport problem or whether the cattle trading interests are not interested in buying calves so young; but whatever the nature of the problem may be, there is a case for trying to bring about a situation in which the demand for cattle at all ages will be better distributed, both regionally and temporally.
Another factor in the case which I hope is only temporary is the scarcity of feed for cattle of all ages which characterised the country, last winter especially. The grazing last year was bad, and the weather was bad, with the result that the grass had not the same nourishing quality as it had in a normal year, and consequently, milk, even in the summertime last year, was scarce, and it was possible to make hay into really first-class hay during only one fortnight in the year. Any hay made in any other fortnight was bound to be more or less lacking in nourishment and some of it was scarcely fit for bedding. Consequently, farmers, in the south-west especially, were faced with the certainty that they would be short of feeding supplies for their live stock all winter, and, that being so, it was a natural tendency to conserve that limited amount of feed for their more valuable animals and not to waste any of it on young stock of doubtful prospective value. That phenomenon is, I hope, only a temporary one, and the ultimate solution of the problem is to produce more feed for stock, both young and old, especially from more and better grass, and more and better hay and silage. If there were plenty of feed for stock, both young and old, I think the disposition to slaughter calves would be greatly reduced.
I hope the Minister will tell us whether, as a matter of fact, the dairying regions in the south-west are going over to Friesian cattle or not, and whether he is going to encourage them to abandon the dual purpose animal and go over to Friesian cattle or not. If it is public policy to go over to Friesian cattle, I think we shall have to encourage the dry stock farmers to replace these missing potential store animals by rearing a large number of calves of their own, which would mean a revolution in their economy. They would have to keep considerably more cows per 100 acres than they are now in the habit of keeping and perhaps do a great deal more mixed farming than they have recently been in the habit of doing. Maybe it would not be a bad thing for the country if they did mix their farming rather more than has hitherto been traditional, but, at all events, it would be desirable that the implications of a policy of going over to Friesians in the south-west should be faced and realised by the rest of the country and by the Government. In my own view, it would be a good thing if more calves were reared in the dry stock farming regions, especially as, in such regions, the calves reared would probably be of the beef breeds—more Herefords, more Polled-Angus and more beef Short-horns—and I think it is true to say that calves born, reared and finished in the rich east midland areas will produce younger and better beef in a shorter time than the kind of animal that originates in Limerick and is bandied about the country from fair to fair and ends up as a three-year-old beast somewhere in Meath or Kildare.
As a matter of fact, my own limited experience of these matters is altogether in favour of the animal born, reared and finished on an east-midland farm, and I am told by people in the trade that while they cannot very well do without the Limerick calves, they very much prefer calves from other parts of the country, where calves are treated with greater consideration and more kindness, and are better fed than the ordinary Limerick calf is fed during the first six months of its life, even when it manages to survive, so that if we could replace these Limerick animals, which frequently are no great catch when they reach the east-midland areas, with other calves of specifically beef quality reared in the east-midlands, it might not be a bad thing, from the long-term point of view, for the economy of the country; perhaps then, if this calf slaughtering phenomenon has come to stay, and if in any case it is inevitable by reason of a change-over to Friesian stock, the ultimate solution of the problem is more calves of specific beef breeds, reared in the east-midlands, and I should like to hear what Senator Counihan has to say about the possibility and the desirability of that policy and what the Minister's attitude would be to a policy of that kind.