Edition Bobbett2. Speeches and statements by Elizabeth F. Bobbett
1939 Galway, University Women Graduates’ Association
Source: Wicklow People, 27.05.1939
The lecturer [[Elizabeth Bobbett]] gave it as her opinion that economic depression was the real cause of what was universally referred to as the “flight from the land,” said that it was aggravated by the fact that the present law laid down that farm labourers must be paid wages that were more than the land returned to the farmer-owner. The farmers should get immediate relief and the country life should be made more attractive. Under normal conditions, this was the finest and healthiest life possible, and, next to the Church, she would place farming as the highest of the professions, for those who followed it were ever near to creation. Farming was a most interesting occupation: one could never feel dull, for there was no time to be dull, but there was bound to be depression in the wake of the present-day system under which everything was pay-out and there was no appreciable return. Brains must be used in this business of farming, which was a wholetime job, Miss Bobbett said.
“I addressed a meeting in Baltinglass the other day,” said the lecturer, “and I was introduced as the ‘lady who rode the white horse’ through the streets of Dublin last month. That was the first time that I ever had my photograph taken for a newspaper, and yet there was nothing strange in my riding a horse through Dublin, for I am a Dublin girl, and I have ridden horses thousands of times. In fact, it was the first time that I ever had anything about me appearing in the newspapers, and why was that? I asked myself. It was because I had five thousand farmers marching behind me. I did not want any publicity for myself: in fact, I would much rather have been at home than riding a horse through Dublin, but I considered it was my duty to help the farmers to come together and fight for their rights, so I went to a friend and asked him to lend me a horse. The only thing I stipulated was that it must be white: I did not mind any of its other attributes. I got a very valuable white horse from this friend, and became the farmers’ Joan of Arc for this one day.”
The speaker went on to say that prior to 1914 the farmers’ homes were the happiest in the world. They were contented and there was great encouragement for them to increase their tillage and their stock-raising, but nowadays, with their markets lost, no security and shocking prices, they were unable to make ends meet and whole areas of arable land were lying waste. Shortly after the present Government came into power an “economic war” was started, and the whole burden was thrown on the shoulders of the farmers. When that ceased, they hoped – too optimistically, unfortunately – that they would get the benefits of having borne that weight ungrudgingly, but nothing of the kind occurred. They were now going to see that they got their just compensation for all their trials and tribulations. Referring to sheriffs’ sales, Miss Bobbett recounted the methods adopted in relieving the farmer of his stock and selling them to recover annuities. Stock were seized, she said, and were sold in the pound by a court messenger to a buyer specially imported from Northern Ireland for the purpose. She could assure everybody that there was very little care taken to ensure that the stock were sold at their market value.
“Farmers have to contribute towards the upkeep of services they never use,” continued the lecturer. “They pay for roads, water and sewerage schemes and many other things in their rates, and even when the motorist is taxed for using the roads, only a very small percentage is given to the County Councils, who have to maintain all these services at the expense of the county. The Milk and Dairies’ Act was brought into force recently, and anyone conversant with its provisions knows that the dairies and cow houses are, in a great number of cases, one hundred per cent better than the farmers’ own houses. Then, as if to add insult to injury, as soon as you have complied with the Act and erected new sheds or improved the old ones, along comes a valuer and shoves up your valuation because of these enforced improvements.”
Industry, Miss Bobbett told the ladies, was costing this country £20’000’000 a year, most of which came out of the land, but the Government could not see their way to allow de-rating at a cost of £3’000’000. The Prices Commission recently reported that the bacon curers of this country made excess profits over the past four years to the huge total of £308’000, yet the farmer had no business in rearing an extra pig, for the quota system allowed the bacon factories to kill only a certain number each year. Those figures would show the housewife that the farmer did not get the 1s 7d that she paid across the counter for her pound of rashers. It was well known that the quota system had killed pig production for the small farmer.
Speaking of the report of the Banking Commission, she said that she gave evidence herself before this body, and so did many other small farmers, but in the very voluminous report issued there was not one word of evidence from the farming point of view. “Why,” she asked, “should private trading companies like the banks be allowed to rule our finance and our credit, when other companies were taken over by the Government and ruled from Departments?” Money would definitely have to be made available if the country was to be saved.
Referring to vocational education and the decline in the marriage rate, the lecturer asked: “Is it any wonder that the young girls in this country don’t get married, when they are expected to leave their comfortable surroundings in a labourer’s cottage, with its range and its hot and cold water laid on, in favour of the poor farmer’s house, with its turf fire and the nearest well half a mile away? All praise and full honour to the young men of the country for not asking the girls to face such slavery, such savage conditions. We, farmers in the country, don’t want cinemas, gay lights and jazz bands at the crossroads. We only want to be left in comfort in our homes, and if our children want the cinema or the dance hall, let them go into the town for it. We don’t want any of these Hollywood ideas at the crossroads. We don’t want any of the city life. We only want to see our crops growing and our stock thriving, but it is heart-breaking to see our fields overgrown with moss and all the work of our hands and all the sweat of our brows gone for nothing.”
What, then, did the farmer demand? the lecturer asked. They demanded complete derating, a cessation of collection of the annuities for a term of years, compensation for all the losses they had suffered during the past six years. In a word, they wanted to be able to pay their men, have some security themselves and stay on the land.