BYGONE DAYS: ‘Work as one team,’ urges Ulster agriculture minister

The minister defended his action in calling in 1948 for increased tillage and stated that he saw very little prospect of their being able to “let up” on current farming activities in the country. He also urged farmers to “work together as one team”.

The Rev Mr Moore said that he welcomed the opportunity to meet with “everyday farmers” that evening. He remarked: “Contact with you is vital to the success of a Minister of Agriculture, more than in any other ministry in the government.”

Looking forward the minister said: “Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to give any definite outline or forecast of what shape things are actually going to take, say, in the next ten years. Things have become so crystallised in regard to the marketing of your produce that perhaps you assume they will always remain as they are at present. But the Ministry of Food, which overshadowed all marketing arrangements, is a purely emergency body which is due to expire in a comparatively short time, and if nothing comparable to it is set up completely new arrangements would have to be made in regard to the purchase and delivery and payment for quite a lot of their farm commodities.”

He continued: “From the point of view of the farming community it is most important that whatever replaces the Ministry of Food you should be given a charter in regard to farm prices, so that guaranteed prices will be assured. A committee has been set up in London to examine the whole position, and I believe that a bill is in process of being drafted to deal with the Ministry Food.”

NEED FOR UNITY

He noted that some had “got it into their heads” that because they had guaranteed prices that there was very little that the Ulster Farmers’ Union could do for farmers. He ventured: “So far from that being the case, I say never was there more need or more practical scope for the work of your union on your behalf than in the years that lie ahead. Never was it more necessary for farmers generally to support each other and work together as one team.”

Referring to the food situation in the world at that time Mr Moore said that he did not expect to be Minister of Agriculture when “the situation is cleared up”, for, in his opinion, that would “take a lengthy period”. He commented: “We have to use our faculties as best we can in trying to prepare for the future. In my opinion the countries in the east, with their vastly-increasing populations are going to prevent a food problem in the years to come.” He noted: “Countries like Poland are at present sending us food which they badly need themselves because of the economic position and in order to keep their industries going. That is bound to cease when they recover economically.”

NO LETTING UP

What inference, the minister asked, should the farmers at the meeting draw from all this? He said that to his mind it seemed that there was very little prospect of the possibility of their being able to “let up to any appreciable extent in their farming activities”.

He added: “That might not be a very pleasant message you. I appreciate the strain that you have been put upon them during all the years of war and no less in the years which have followed. I have not forgotten the criticism and the opposition that after the most careful deliberation, I decided that the tillage quota for Northern Ireland had to be increased at least 5 per cent.

“I do not wish to wander into the realms of controversy, but I dare say that you as individuals have your own ideas and reactions to that, but I am satisfied that I would be failing in my duty not merely to the general public, but to the farmers if I had not taken any other step.”

On the matter he concluded: “Goodness knows, the last thing I want to do is to use the big stick.”

DEPENDENCE ON FARMERS

The Mr Moore said that he hoped that the new approach on the part of the public generally to the farming community was such as to make them appreciate “the stresses and strains through which the farmer has had to pass”, and that that new outlook would “endure, and that the people in the towns and big industrial centres of population would realise their absolute dependence on the products the fields and the labours the people on the land”.

He added: “It is essential that the farmer should get a fair and reasonable return for his outlay, for his risks and his labours.”

Having referred to the need for more intensive cropping, the minister expressed his belief that the very foundation of the livestock end of the industry was milk production. He said: “As a ministry we are out to do what we can to encourage still greater production of milk.”

The Mr Moore was welcomed to the branch meeting at Killymurris Lecture Hall at the outset of the meeting by Mr James A Gaston, president of the branch, who presided, and following his address, the chairman refuted a suggestion that the minister had been brought to Glarryford to help him reinstate himself over the Tillage Order.

He said: “Mr Moore did not require any help from Glarryford people in that direction. As a matter fact, in coming that evening he is fulfilling a promise which he made to me over a year ago.”