Edition Bobbett2. Speeches and statements by Elizabeth F. Bobbett

1939 Toomevara, Meeting of the Irish Farmers’ Federation

Source: Midland Tribune, Tipperary Sentinel and Offaly County Vindicator, 04.11.1939

Miss Elizabeth Bobbett said the Irish Farmers’ Federation has spread throughout the country, and during the past fortnight they have got the co-operation of the farmers of Cork and Kerry and the Federated Creameries Union. The Irish Farmers’ Federation does not want to interfere in the running of any county association or sectional association, such as the Federated Creameries, but they want the farmers to come together and fight for their rights under the auspices of the Irish Farmers’ Federation, which is a registered Trade Union and which is the united voice of the farmers, and in their own interests all counties should be affiliated to the IFF. Continuing, Miss Bobbett said: Our forefathers fought together in the Land League days and won the three “F’s”: Fair Rent, Fixity of Sale and Free Tenure. The recent Land Bill that has been passed does away with all rights of ownership of our farms, and the result is that we are only occupants at the will of the State. Therefore, any chance of getting credit from a banker on the security of ownership of your farm is gone, and no banker will give a loan of two pence on the security of ownership of a farm. This strikes at the root of agricultural credit which, until a few years ago, was considered by financiers as the soundest security in Europe. We find ourselves today with a quarter million acres less tillage crops, and half a million less live stock than in 1914. No resources to fall back on, no credit to be got, and, in fact, the great majority of our real farmers in debt, but ashamed to admit it, and I should like to know why. They have nothing to be ashamed of; it is not their fault, because the dice has always been loaded against them. They would need to be able to reproduce the miracle of the loaves and fishes to be able to make ends meet on a farm nowadays. How many gallons of milk does it take to pay your rates now as compared with 1914, or how many lambs would it take to pay a man’s wages now as compared with 1914? And I want to make it clear that the Irish Farmers’ Federation is not against the farm labourer getting a high wage. We know that 27s a week is not enough for the farm labourer, but it is more than the farmer can pay. So the consequence is that we have to reduce our hired labour, and it is unfair for a farmer to have to depend on the unpaid labour of his wife and family. No other industry has to be carried on on those lines. The civil servant is not obliged to bring his wife and family into the office to do his work. Nor is the labourer required to take his family to work with him on the roads. The remedies we have constantly put before the members of the Government and preached at all our public meetings are those set out in our leaflets, and which the IFF was established to achieve and which must be granted if agriculture is to regain its proper position. The farmer alone fought the economic war, and we must be compensated for our losses in that war; and we must see to it that we are not going to be made the pack horse in the present European crisis.

Dealing with compulsory tillage, Miss Bobbett asked: Why the use of such a word? All the farmers need to encourage them to till more is fair prices, security in their homes, and fair play. The only articles of food we can be short of in this country are flour and sugar, and if the farmers were getting an economic price for their beet during the past three years the acreage would not have declined by 9,000 acres this year, and by about 30,000 acres in 1938. We are told there need to be no shortage of flour, and we know that there was a huge additional amount of wheat imported prior to September, so there should be no need for the millers to profiteer by raising the price of flour and wheaten flour. The Irish farmers have got no bonus on this season’s wheat crop, and the wheat imported prior to September was purchased at the lowest price for over one hundred years on the international market and if the consumers got justice the price of bread should have been lowered instead of raised.

Concluding, Miss Bobbett said: With regard to credit, the Government should guarantee that the Irish farmers would be saved from deflation when the present European crisis is over, and in order to do this our Government should immediately set up a money system of our own, appropriate to our needs, such as operates in Denmark, Portugal, and New Zealand. We want the farmers to organise in every parish and form a county executive in each county, and send your representative to act on the National Executive of the Irish Farmers’ Federation, and above all, be loyal to the IFF and help to win justice for yourselves and your families. We are ready to back up the IFF in any action decided on by the National Executive. Our losses on the export market alone during the economic war were 117 million pounds. We, the producers, are the people that should be consulted with regard to the sale of our produce, and now is our chance to obtain profitable prices on the export market, or we will cease to produce, and let the townspeople remember that it is only the money obtained from our exports, which are 90 per cent. agricultural, that brings money into the country. So they should back us up in our demands.