Edition Bobbett2. Speeches and statements by Elizabeth F. Bobbett
1953 Dublin, Annual Meeting of the Irish Housewives’ Association
Source: Wicklow People, 06.06.1953
She [[Elizabeth Bobbett]] said she never expected it would have been her lot to be the first speaker and to have the honour of sharing the platform with Dr. Basil Chubb, FTCD.
It was quite a new experience to be asked to address such a distinguished gathering, and as she never prepared addresses for Farmers’ meetings, it had given her a bit of a heart attack to come before the meeting. “I ask you to forgive me if my address seems to wander a bit (in your eyes) from your immediate aims, but I hope that it will point the way to really achieving lasting benefits to your objectives.
First I want to say that while it would seem there is a wide gap between the Farmer (who is the primary producer of most of the wealth in Eire) and the consumer and the industrialist. I feel you must realise that it is from the land that the wealth comes first. The average citizen has not yet realised that human existence is dependent upon Agriculture, and therefore agriculture is unique in the arena of production because people of all walks of life must have food and clothing, both of which emanate from the land. The Agriculturalist is not so much at the whims and fancies and tastes of the public as the Industrialist, as real demand for agricultural goods is constant. Food and clothing come first always and all the time, therefore there should be no difficulty whatever in giving agriculturalists a square deal. The industrialist is equally entitled to a square deal but since the public may not want all the goods he produces all the time, a square deal in his case presents the greater problem. The Industrialist, however, has one great pull over agriculture, generally speaking he can work in any weather and the production and supply of goods are not entirely at the mercy of the freaks of nature. The demands of the wage earner are based upon prices (the Cost of Living) but prices are directly affected by farm and factory costs. Agriculture and Industry create goods, they also create prices, i.e., financial values, because all payments made by farm or factory go into and have to be recovered through prices, whether they are wages, salaries, dividends, the purchase of materials, interest on Bank Loans or rates or taxes.
These are some of the factors that cause high prices to Consumers. Some people think that all you have to do is to fix prices, but you must also fix production costs or you cannot continue to produce for an uncertain market. We in Eire are dependent on Agriculture as the greatest source of exports, so that on the home market we have a considerable surplus of many commodities, with this surplus our prices are often decreased, thereby making it unprofitable to continue to produce. You are aware that a few years ago farmers were asked to produce more eggs and told they would get higher prices, but they found when they had increased production, their prices were cut, so they went out of production of poultry for both eggs and table use. At present there is a slight increase in poultry but I am afraid it will not be maintained.
Turning to the Consumers we may ask, do our consumers purchase all they need for a healthy life in the way of food and clothing? If their requirements are not filled, why not? Is it that prices for food and clothing are too high? Is it because they have not enough money to buy more food and clothing? Is it because so much of their earnings have to go in paying rates and taxes? Is it possible to reconcile the position so that we can create a full demand for what we produce? What is the missing link? I think you will agree that money is the missing link. I will put two questions to you to see if we can find some solution for the problem. 1. Would lowering of prices to the Consumer result in increased demand? 2. Granted greater demand would remunerative prices call forth increased production? Can anyone honestly deny that the answer is an emphatic affirmative? Profitable markets are the lifelong quest of producers, only to find that profits vanish into thin air or that loss results the moment supply is sufficient to meet effective demand. On the other hand, consumers’ demands are obstructed by lack of purchasing power, with the result that real demand is not made effective, in which case the real cause of unprofitable markets for produces become apparent. It is no use asking farmers to increase production if they cannot get a fair profit for what they can produce, and remember that a fair profit must cover all their costs including a fair wage to their workers. Now as Agricultural exports are of vital importance to the nation, it means we must produce much more agricultural produce than we can consume on the home market, so we have two lines to consider here, the Home Market and Export Market.
As you are not concerned with the export market I will only make a short reference to it here, which is that I don’t consider it is just or fair to leave our farmers at the mercy of whatever price the importing country likes to give. I believe our farmers should be guaranteed a fair price by their Government for what they produce for export. This is done at present in America and in New Zealand. For instance, in New Zealand the farmers there get 2s 11¼d a gallon for the lowest grade milk going into the manufacture of butter (it takes about 2½ gallons of milk to make one lb of butter) while the New Zealand housewife can buy her butter at 1s 8d a lb, and the New Zealand butter is sold on the British market at 3s a lb.
Now with regard to the Home Market I think you will agree that the food subsidies were a means to provide food at reasonable prices to the consumer. It was often expressed that our farmers were being subsidised but it was really the consumer who was being subsidised. As I have stated above, money is the missing link between Consumption and Production, but money is a term that people confuse with wealth. Money is just a means for exchanging goods and services and it should be possible to have a financial system that would equate the amount of money to the amount of goods and services which we want to exchange. Consumption should control Production, and Production should control finance, but to-day the reverse is the case, both production and consumption are at the mercy of financial policy. What is physically possible and desirable should be made financially possible without debt. In those two statements is expressed the nature of the drastic amendments required in the present money system.
Could we have food subsidies restored without increasing taxation, in other words can we close the price gap between producers and consumers in a manner fair to all? The first thing that we will be told is that the Government has only two ways of getting money. 1. By taxation, 2. By borrowing, usually from banks of financial house.
As a rule Governments cannot raise enough money to carry on by taxing the people, and it is forced to borrow. Anybody who finds himself in the position of being forced to borrow money from another person is forced to respect the wishes of that person. For the same reason Governments that rely upon borrowing money find that they are dependent upon those who control the Money System and therefore they are not free to obey the people who elect them. As long as this state of affairs continues we cannot have true democracy, but have instead a dictatorship by the Money Monopoly. Naturally those who control the money supply to the nation will use that control to their own advantage.
Our Holy Father Pope Pius XI (in his article “Slaves of Finance”) said ‘The immense number of property-less wage-earners on the one hand, the superabundant riches of the fortunate few on the other, is an unanswerable argument, that the earthly goods so abundantly produced in this age of Industrialisation are far from rightly distributed and equitably shared amongst various classes of men.’ and his “Papal Encyclical on money domination”: ‘It is obvious in our days that wealth and immense power have become concentrated in the hands of a few men. These few exercise in the economic sphere a domination that is despotic. This power becomes practically irresistible, when exercised by those who, because they create and control money, are also able to govern credit and decide to whom it shall be allotted. They have their grasp upon the very soul of production so that no one can breathe against their will.’
Under our present financial system the Banks have the sole right to issue money and they lend by creating credits and charging interest thereon. The control of credit is at present vested in the Banks so that the remedy is first that Parliament should amend the present laws to enable it to take control of the credit of the country. The country’s credit must be related to the country’s resources and needs, and must be used for the country’s needs and not for private profit. There is no need for you to think that you must be prepared to tell the Government how these things are to be done, your job as consumers is to demand, that the perversion of money cease, and that the Price Gap be closed by Bank-debt-free money.
In conclusion I would remind you that under the new Health Bill, if it becomes law, millions of pounds are to be spent on restoring health, but I consider it would be far far better to give our people plenty of good healthy food and necessary clothing and houses, and so prevent them needing such health services.