by Conor McCabe
In 1936, J.J. Waddell, the chief inspector of the Land Commission, argued that the minimum requirement for sustainable farming was 32.5 acres.75 However, the size of new farms created by the government was limited to 22 acres, not enough to provide anything more than feeder farms for the ranchers, and certainly not large enough to threaten the system of production. Waddell cited the experience of the Rath Carn resettlement in County Meath, where families were given 20 to 200 acres each. ‘Practically every family is sending members across the water to England’ wrote Waddell, ‘to assist the occupiers in living on these holdings and help to pay the annuity and rates, and to exist on them.’76 However, any move to make small farmers economically self-sufficient would affect the supply of calves to graziers and fatteners – not because they would automatically switch to tillage, but because such redistribution would allow small farmers to fatten calves past the time which their present holdings would allow. The pressure to sell a calf after one to two years would lessen, and graziers and fatteners may be compelled to pay more for the product. The ranchers didn’t just want small farmers to produce calves for them, they wanted poor small farmers who were not in a position to feed calves for much longer than a year.
By 1938, Fianna Fáil had all but abandoned the land annuities ‘war’ with the British. It is doubtful that Fianna Fáil ever really wanted to tackle the dominance of graziers. The reaction of Britain to the withholding of land annuities by de Valera ended up placing the issue of graziers within the wider remit of the party’s tariffs policy – even though that policy was centred on creating a home industry for the home market. Fianna Fáil’s tariffs were never about diversifying exports. In April 1933 the economist J.M. Keynes gave a lecture at University College, Dublin, in which he praised the merits of protectionism, much to the embarrassment of his hosts, but did so with the proviso that protectionism in an Irish context should be used to build up and diversify the economy – that Ireland’s trade with Britain should be reciprocal in its nature. He criticised the idea of using protectionism to create industry for a ‘self-sufficient’ economy of such obviously limited size as the Free State.
Irish graziers were once again at the forefront of Irish economic policy. The structural problems remained in place. The Irish livestock export trade to Britain was not capable in itself of achieving economic wellbeing, but at the same time neither was the Irish political system willing to weaken the hold on exports which the livestock industry possessed. ‘Again, following an iron precedent,’ writes Roy Foster, ‘The basic pattern of Irish agriculture showed little sign of change.’77
The plan which Fianna Fáil had for the Irish economy in 1932 was one which saw the expansion of tillage and redistribution of land as taking place alongside the cattle industry, not in conflict with it. The decision by the government to limit new farms created out of Land Commission acquisitions to 22 acres (later expanded to 25 acres) all but guaranteed that the old system of production remained in place – that is, small farmers as breeders, middle-sized farmers as fatteners, and graziers as finishers and exporters. ‘It is most surprising that a Land Commission which for 30 years is committed to a policy of increasing the number of small farms’ wrote the Irish Farmers’ Journal in 1952, ‘has never applied itself towards developing a system of farming that would give the 25 to 35 acre man a decent living.’78 The purpose of the tillage campaign, it appears, was to make life on an uneconomic farm that bit more bearable by providing seasonal work for the small farmer and his family. Behind the rhetoric of tackling the ‘old Imperialist policy’ of ‘making the country a ranch to provide cheap food for the English workers’,79 Fianna Fáil had consolidated that system by developing supplements to the income of small farmers and labourers, while bowing the head in deference to the primacy of cattle as the main cash crop. In May 1932, James Kelly told the Dáil that ‘The ranching system [may be] a necessary adjunct to the production of beef … but the division of a larger holding into small holdings will not diminish its beef-producing capacity’.80 Fianna Fáil wanted to develop a home market to sustain the working class and agricultural labourers, and to maintain an export market which would sustain the breeders and exporters. Yet it was not possible to square this economic circle, as in order to create an economy with employment levels high enough to sustain the population, the nature of the cattle trade needed to be changed. As Kelly noted, the livestock did not care if the grass and hay they ate belonged to a famer with 50 acres or 500 – but what Kelly failed to mention is that the problem was not so much one of an imbalance of livestock, but the fact that livestock were the end result. Ireland was still exporting its main raw material to Britain, not only because of the graziers and their hold on the economy, but also because livestock, particularly store cattle, was what Britain wanted.
The Irish government opened discussions with London in the immediate post-war years with regard to signing a new trade agreement. As part of the preparations, the British government requested a statement of agricultural policy from Dublin. To quote the historian Paul Rouse:
[London] demanded, most pointedly: ‘Has the Éire government the intention of ensuring that agricultural development takes place?’ It asked what factors would retard expansion of production, what the fertiliser requirements would be, were there plans to specialise in agricultural industries such as canning, what other countries would Ireland look for markets in, and ‘what effect will the policies proposed here have on the number of Irish workers coming to the UK?’ Similarly, ‘what evidence is there that the past apparently leisurely acceptance of improvements in technique, etc., by the Irish farmer will now give place to more speedy technical development?’ The British missive wondered whether grassland and home-grown feed could be increased to improve stocking and to even out seasonality, and whether such increases would mean more fat rather than more store cattle. [It also asked] what policy as to concentration on beef, dairy and dual purpose cattle is being pursued? … Why have cow numbers not increased in the last 30 years? … it inquired what Ireland’s preference for division on the export of her cattle would be between stores, fats, breeding stock and carcass or canned meats? … Which products would Éire prefer to export? … Will the import of feeding stuffs for bacon production be restricted as a matter of policy? Is it practicable to increase pig production from Éire’s own soil?81
Éire may have been neutral during the Second World War, but in terms of its economy, the demands of Britain for Irish produce (as well as Irish labourers) took precedence.
Dublin responded with a report which assuaged the concerns of London, ‘[It] stated that substantial industrialisation was highly improbable and “the peasant character of the economy is evident from an analysis of agricultural equipment and of size of holding”.’82 In November 1947 an Irish delegation to London agreed that the ‘total number of cattle to be exported from Ireland to continental countries as from 21 February 1948 will be the subject of consultation between the Irish government and the British Ministry of Food’.83 The assertion in 1947 by G.D.H. Cole, Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford, that Ireland was Britain’s larder, was a somewhat painfully accurate description of a State that would declare itself, with hollow importance, a Republic a year later.
‘IN THE IRISH ECONOMY, CATTLE IS KING’
London’s questions about Ireland’s failure to modernise production in agriculture were not entirely without merit. The continuing preference for the dual-purpose Shorthorn over specialised beef and dairy breeds was a major factor in declining milk yields. As one commentator wrote in 1945:
Ireland was about to spend another generation in Monte Carlo gambling with a dual-purpose to secure a high milk yield and a first-class butcher’s beast. By the same breeding principles – by mating a thoroughbred with a Clydesdale [farm horse] – we should be able to win the Derby and plough the Rocks of Bawn.84
The use of chemical fertiliser was sporadic, and winter feeding the exception rather than the norm. ‘So great
were the structural flaws in the Irish dairy industry’ writes Rouse, ‘that the government was obliged to import New Zealand or Danish butter as Irish farmers found it more profitable to keep their low-yielding herds on subsistence rations through the winter months than to engage in dairying.’85 James Dillon, who served as Minister for Agriculture from 1948 to 1951, told the Cork County Committee of Agriculture in February 1950 that the Irish farmer, working in a free market, possessed all the skills and opportunities to make best use of his land:
There may be a small minority of farmers who would like to have an inspector to wake him up in the morning, to dress them, to direct their daily work, and to tuck them into bed at night, but the vast majority of farmers of this country are well able to look after their own business, to make their own bargains, to hunt away from their gate anyone who seeks to exploit them, and effectively to make use of a profitable market when it is provided for them … it is to these farmers I look for the efficient operation of the agricultural industry in this country.
Dillon’s speech was not simply a populist piece of rhetoric aimed at a home audience – although it was certainly that – it also conveyed his ideological belief in individualised farming operations working in a free market as the pinnacle of efficiency; a view held by his party colleagues and, indeed, by many of the senior officials in the Department of Agriculture. Yet, as we have seen, there were serious structural inefficiencies within Irish agriculture – type of cattle bred, lack of fertilizer, diminishing dairy returns, antiquated machinery – and these were not going to disappear with a come-all-ye of ‘dem feckers up in Dublin’. A year later, the Irish government commissioned a report into the reality of Ireland’s economy and its possible future. It was compiled by the American consultancy firm Ibec Technical Services Corporation and entitled ‘An Appraisal of Ireland’s Industrial Potentials’. With no home crowd to please, its findings were a lot more sober than those of James Dillon.
Ibec began the report’s section on cattle by stating, ‘In the Irish economy, Cattle is King.’86 It said that its ‘examination of manufacturing activities in Ireland has brought into sharp focus the handicaps imposed by the relatively high prices of materials processed and the extraordinary degree of dependence upon imported materials’. Ireland needed to utilise its raw materials towards processing in order to increase jobs and income, and its greatest resources lay in agriculture. And within agriculture, it was the cattle industry, given its dominance, ‘that deserves attention as a major source of potential processing activity’.
The authors found the country’s dependence on livestock exports to Britain somewhat archaic in the post-war western world. ‘The organisation of Ireland’s cattle industry is exceptional in the degree to which its product is disposed of through export shipments of live cattle,’ they wrote, ‘and, consequently, in the meagreness of its meat production from cattle in Ireland relative to the size of its cattle industry.’ It tried to uncover an economic explanation for livestock exports, but couldn’t find one. It deduced that there was a 14 per cent margin on cattle exports, but that this compared badly ‘with even the very low 43 per cent of additional value that was added to material costs at plant by Irish transportable goods manufactures in 1949’. Ireland was exporting cattle with comparatively little by way of jobs or profit to show for it.
Ibec held out a whole range of industries and products, if only Ireland took the decision to process cattle and not just export them. The report as a whole had a deep affect on Seán Lemass, who took to preaching from it. One can see why, as it positively bristles with energy and ideas for an Irish industrial future. As regards Ireland as a producer, rather than a supplier, the report had this to say:
… the initial processing alone in Ireland of live cattle worth £20 million would add £3.6 million of processing activity to the Irish economy … There would be available on the Irish market an additional £3.5 million of hides (468,000 times 60 pounds time 30 pence per pound) for local processing which, since the fellmongery and leather category adds some 41 per cent in net product to the cost of materials, might contribute another £1.4 million of processing activity. This could make a substantial contribution also to Ireland’s exchange position since Ireland’s leather imports in 1949 (net of leather imports) amounted to £1.3 million. If the additional supply of leather from a domestic source was not of a suitable type to displace imported shoe leathers, it might be used substantially to increase leather manufactures of other types in Ireland. Estimating upon the analogy of Ireland’s boot and shoe industry, in which the net product amounts to about 70 per cent of materials costs, this could increase manufactures based on leather by £2.52 million, (£3.5 for hides and £1.4 for leather processing minus £1.3 imports times 7). Offal value should amount to at least £3 per beast, and that would provide another £1.4 million of raw materials for processing.
It would be another ten years, though, until the enthusiasm for Ireland’s potential in Ibec’s report would find itself reflected in government policy, but by then industrialisation through direct foreign investment, rather than by the exploitation of Ireland’s agricultural and other raw materials, had become the preferred option.
In 1957 the Department of Finance produced a report which outlined what it saw as the structural deficiencies within the Irish economy, as well as possible solutions and a plan of action. It was published with modifications a year later and was called the ‘First Programme for Economic Expansion’. As already noted, since the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 the dominant export had been livestock, the dominant breed the Shorthorn, and the dominant problem the promotion of both above all other options. ‘First Programme’, however, had a solution to these economic hurdles: more of the same, but this time with credit. ‘A project to increase the cattle population by 300,000, with the emphasis on beef rather than milk production’ wrote The Irish Times, ‘is a feature of the government’s five-year plan for economic expansion.’87 The plan envisaged capital spending of up to £220 million and stated that ‘The extra cows necessary if beef output is to be increased should, therefore, be of beef rather than dairy strain’, which marked a definite, if belated, move towards specialised breeding, even if its call for ‘beef rather than dairy’ breeds gave the impression that cattle breeding in Ireland had ever been anything else. The report also stated that while ‘The aim will be to secure greater access to Continental markets [our] trade relations with Britain, however, will remain a matter of prime importance and every effort will be made to foster their development’. There were provisions made for the development of a fish-processing industry, subsidies for phosphates for land fertilisation and reclamation, and a guaranteed price for millable wheat. The emphasis of the report was on agriculture – more specifically, cattle exports to Britain. The only contrast with previous economic policy was in the matter of credit. Ireland was to break with the idea of a balanced budget, and commit itself to running a deficit in order to facilitate growth.
The need to eradicate bovine TB in order to retain access to the British market was a major incentive behind the increased investment in cattle. Concurrent with this was the move to entice foreign investment to Ireland. Overall, though, the most significant change in Irish economic policy was in the attitude towards industry and industrial exports. ‘While agriculture was our most important industry, and offered by far the greatest scope for expansion,’ said Lemass at a meeting in Tramore, Waterford in 1957, ‘it was very necessary also to foster the non-agricultural industries; and the only way to do that satisfactorily was by increasing the efficiency of our industrial organisation’.88 The livestock industry was by no means over, but the day of placing everything on cattle exports to Britain was beginning to come to an end.
3
INDUSTRY
In August 2007, Danny McCoy, director of policy at the Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation (Ibec), wrote an article for The Irish Times in which he outlined his opinion on the economic future of Ireland. ‘Re
flection should reassure us that the Irish economy remains in good health,’ he said. ‘The belief that Ireland’s prosperity may be coming to a shuddering end does not stack up but a reality-check is nonetheless warranted.’1 McCoy noted the decline in construction and the drop-off in consumer spending as evidence that domestic growth would slow in the last quarter of 2007. ‘Yet none of these spell disaster for the economy,’ he wrote, ‘rather, they are signs of a welcome rebalancing of the economy. A rebalancing that we should cheer, not fear.’ The main reason why we should not worry, argued McCoy, was exports. ‘Ireland is a trading nation,’ he said, ‘and our prosperity is determined by our ability to sell our goods and services abroad.’
The strong performance of exports in 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 was offered as proof that whatever about the decline in domestic economic activity, a sustained growth in exports should see us right. The past was bright, the future brighter still. Ireland need only look after its exports, and the economy would look after itself. ‘This economy is a better bet than anything on offer on St Ledger’s Day,’ said McCoy.