TRADE OF IRELAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1934, Page 12

TRADE OF IRELAND

HOW THE FARMERS SUFFER. The livestock industry, on which Ireland has subsisted for centuries, and her only chance of survival in world markets, is on the verge .o£ ruin (says a writer in the “Morning Post”). The economic “war” with England, and the definitely expressed policy of the. Government, have left the breeder and grazier no chance of survival. The “cattle population” is dwindling to extinction, while Government deplties complain that the process ot elimination is not sufficiently rapid. Thousands of acres of the finest pasture land in the world are. lying idle all over the country, growing ton after ton of hay that will be cut only to clear the land, for it can never be sold. Small farmers, whose livelihood depends on their sales to the larger graziers, can often only dispose of their, stocks by selling them at ruinous prices for smuggling over the Ulster frontier.

Meanwhile desperate attempts are being made to convert pastures for raising wheat in the cause of selfsufficiency. Large tracts of land taken from the large farmers under tho Land Act of 1933 and given to men without capital or experience have either been leased to the original owners dr are now entirely unproductive.

Horse breeding and pig breeding, two" of the other staple trades which have made Ireland famous in the past, are in the same plight as cattle raising, and their extinction, perhaps, is nearer. A year before the advent of Mr de Valera to power, the annual value of the cattle export trade was £14,674,438. To-day it is about £6,000,000. Four years ago the horse-breeding trade was worth more than £2,000,000. Last year it was w\OTth £784,515. In the .same period, according to official figures, tho pig trade with Great Britain has fallen by 90 per cent. The value of sheep exported in 1925 was £1,174,224. In 1930 it was still increasing. In 1933 the value was £319,314.

Pigs exported in 1925 were valued at £623,837. The remarkable development of the industry brought the figure at the advent of Mr de Valera to £2,582,044. Under his Government it has been reduced to £310,402. Exports of dairy produce have fallen in proportion. The Irish butter, which sells in England at 1/- per lb, is sold to the Dublin housewife for 1/4 in order that the Government subsidy may be paid. In the same way the citizen is called upon to provide the 10/- per skin export bounty in accordance with the despertae endeavour of the Government to reduce the number of calves. He must also provide the £135,000 per year subsidy for millable wheat which, the soil of Ireland boggles at producing. These are the cold figures. Translated into terms of human misery their sum is hard to credit. I have seen in the southern counties small farmers whose livelihood has vanished. Only their farms are left — derelict. ’ The creditors do not press. One bankruptcy would upset the whole precarious structure of local credit upon which alone many a little farming centre subsists. There are to-day no fewer than 900 derelict farms of all sizes in different parts of the country, and the number is growing. The small farmer’s standard of living has never been high. Economic devastation spells for him just that little less food, the postponement of the purchase of that new suit. The carrot of the retreating English is dangled before his nose. He would follow it over the precipice.

HEAVY LOSSES. A few are more practical. In County Kerry I met a farmer who had wearied of the adulation bestowed by his children on the party .in power. He divided his cattle amongst them, sent them to market, and told them to set up on their own. The same night they returned —and all the cattle with them. Above, in. County Tipperary, are the tracts which have been “bought” on paper from graziers in order that labourers of no experience, but loyal to the Republic, may try their hands at tillage. Further north are the preserves of the large-scale farmers, the pivot of the agricultural system. Quietly, stoically, with faith in neither party and disillusioned by the English surrender of 1921, they are awaiting ruin. One lost £l5OO last yeai’ and was only saved from bankruptcy by the line weather. Another sold 400 cattle during the year—and lost £l4OO. They are paying £5 to the small cattle-raiser per head of cattle, which fetched £l2 three years ago. A third farmer, until two years ago, bought 600 head of cattle every year. Last year he could sell only 200, and has had to carry 400 through the winter. The small breeders this year will accordingly only be able to sell him 200 head of cattle. A fourth has 40 head of cattle in Dublin awaiting dispatch to England at any price however low. So soon as they have gone he will rid himself of more of his stock—always at a loss. North and west, in the once fertile regions of County Galway, the returned traveller would think himself in a different land. Here are vast tracts from which no power on earth could coax a blade of wheat, hut their cattle were of the finest.

MILES OF GRASS. I travelled forty miles across the countryside. I .saw, in all. eight groups of cattle—small at that. Acre after acre, mile after mile, great tracts of waist-high glrass waved uselessly between the clay walls. Barefoot and half-clad children played about the doors of cottages painted white to keep out the “fairies,” while the moss peeped ominously from the thatch. In the distance loomed the ruins of great country mansions gutted in the devastation after, as a labourer put it to me, “we whipped the British out.” Here and there, strangely incongruous, appeared the bright roofs of the new houses, subsidised to the hilt, which are shooting up all over the country in defiance of ruin. Beyond there was desolation, emptiness, and crows in their thousands. Grimly lighthearted utterances from the public platform ran through mv head. “It is a damned good job that the English cattle market has gone/’ said the Minister for Lands and Forests, “as it will make the farmers realise that they must take off their'

coats and till the land.” The crows in their great stony wastes seemed to croak a mirthful reply. Mr D' Breen T.D., complained that “all we could see behind the hedges was hullo"’--- ” The '■’-’'M-iiment deal out .subsidies and bounties to keep the industry alive as fast as they make official demands that it be killed. Their demands are complied with. Mr Breen need not wait long.