My father served for a time in the 50s in the Seanad as a de Valera nominee. I have (so far) been unable to track down how this came about, though I can suggest hypotheses, which perhaps others may check out.

The letter from Senator James Douglas, dated April 4 1950, mentioned in the previous module, was in reply to a feeler by JJ about the possibility of getting in to the Seanad via some other channel than TCD. Douglas on this occasion had been nominated by the Taoiseach. I therefore think it possible that Douglas may have reacted to JJ's letter by suggesting JJ's name to the Taoiseach. This however is conjecture.

There is among JJ's papers a telegram dated 9/8/51 from de Valera 'would like to nominate you as a Senator, have I your consent?'. There is also a letter dated 24/09/51 thanking JJ for sending him a copy of his book 'Irish Agriculture in Transition, received a month earlier. It would seem that JJ in accepting the nomination sent a copy of the book. Dev in the letter says he had not a chance to read it yet. So it would seem the book was not a factor.

When JJ returned to the Seanad in 1951 as a de Valera nominee, his first intervention was in connection with the Supplies and Service Bill December 13 1951. This was a substantial review of his then current thinking on a range of issues, and I make it available in full, as well as summarising it here. He covered the following topics:

• The role of sterling assets and how their repatriation for capital investment purposes necessarily involves imports of consumer goods for the people involved in realising the investment process;
  
• Any attempt to restrict imports, out of concern for the balance of payments in such a period of investment, would be inflationary;
  
• Subsidising consumer goods for the poor is bad economics; better to sell at market price and increase the incomes of the poor;
  
• The future of sterling itself was seriously in doubt, given the impact of the rearmament programme on the British economy;
  
• No-one in the USSR was personally making money out of rearmament, but some people in the capitalist world were, and these were influencing governments;
  
• In some quarters in the West, preparing for war was seen as better than a return to the 1929 depression;
  
• Invoking his old Oxford friend GDH Cole, he quoted at length from the latter's pamphlet Weakness through Strength;
  
• The triangular trade between Britain, the sterling area and the dollar area had reasserted itself post-war, but was now being disrupted by the arrival of Germany and Japan, and the rearmament process;
  
• There had been ideological conflicts before, like Protestantism vs Catholicism, which had led to wars, but people had since learned to live with them peacefully;
  
• The Ulster Volunteer movement in the period 1912-14 had brought back the principle of violence in Ireland, in which context he had made his first political act, in the form of his 1913 book Civil War in Ulster appealing for non-violence in Irish politics;
  
• Communists should be regarded as erring children who would not be converted by atomic bombs; Attlee's recent visit to Washington had helped to prevent the US using the atomic bomb on China, which would have unleashed the third world war;
  
• We should have nothing to do with the madness of rearmament and should recognise the immediate danger of the rearming of Nazi Germany.

Undeveloped Areas Bill December 19-20 1951: JJ begged to differ with Professor George O'Brien, who had taken a somewhat pessimistic 'dismal science' view; JJ welcomed the Bill as a step forward, but was critical because it had not gone far enough. The main thrust of the Bill was directed at the 'congested districts' of the West, which were dependent on remittances from migrant labour, usually from the US and from Britain. As an interim arrangement he urged that arrangements be made to make available migrant labour to commercial agriculture in the East, where the production was limited by the availability of labour at harvest-time.

Regarding subsidy to Gaeltacht industry, he differed with George O'Brien in his assessment of the risk of this subsidy being continuous. Once the initial friction was overcome, the presence of industry would attract more industry, and the need for subsidy would evaporate. He instanced the Canadian model provided by Quebec.

He went on to be critical of individualist capitalist models for development, quoting from his then recently published book 'Irish Agriculture in Transition', where he had drawn on the writings of James Connolly and Estyn Evans in support of the 'clachan' or cluster of houses as opposed to the individual isolated farm, and the implied deep-rootedness of the co-operative principle in the culture. He warned of the danger of fortifying the local power of the 'gombeen man' by undue reliance of capitalist individualism.

He went on to instance at some length the experience of the Templecrone Co-operative, initiated in 1906 by Paddy Gallagher in Co Donegal, which had extended itself towards industrial development and electricity generation. He regaled the Seanad with anecdotes about how the Donegal men had learned to pack eggs from a poultry society in Derry, run by one Mr Barr, an Orangeman. The Cathaoirleach became impatient at the level of detail JJ was giving, and as a result JJ wound up with a call that the Templecrone co-operative experience be used as the basis for Gaeltacht industrial development.

Then on January 9 1952 JJ proposed an amendment no 4: 'before Section 5 to insert a new section as follows:

( ) In the course of its operations the Board shall have regard to the following major considerations:-

(a) the desirability of developing on an appropriate economic foundation a social and economic organisation in which Gaelic culture and civilisation may survive, flourish and expand;

(b) the desirability of integrating industrial development with a general economic structure in which agriculture, industry, afforestation, fishing, tourism, turf production and the arts and crafts play their respective parts;

(c) the desirability of co-ordinating the activities of the Board with those of Bord na Mona, the Irish Sugar Company, the Forestry Department, the Electricity Supply Board, the Arterial Drainage Board and all central and local government agencies which are in any way concerned with ameliorating conditions in the undeveloped areas.

When introducing this amendment JJ harked back to Horace Plunkett and George Russell, and attempted to analyse the nature of the vicious circle of unproductivity that dominated Connemara at that time, and urged the development of industry based on local products, such as a bacon factory in Clifden supplied by pigs from Connemara fed with locally produced potatoes and oats, jam and chutney factories supplied by locally produced strawberries and tomatoes etc.

He insisted that the 'three wise men' who were designated to lead the development process should be locally based, and urged that the Department of Agriculture instructors should be brought in on a training programme oriented towards industrial production based on local agricultural resources. He argued for a co-operative marketing organisation, instancing the price differential between Clifden and Dublin for fowls and eggs, which was of the order of a factor of two.

Lemass in his reply was inclined to be dismissive of the need for the 'three wise men' to be local, their role being perceived as being to persuade outsiders to invest. JJ responded robustly to this, accusing the civil servants of only going to Connemara for the summer holidays, and being quite unaware of the problems as seen in the winter. Connemara shopkeepers preferred to deal with Galway wholesalers rather than accept local produce, and this problem needed to be addressed by co-operative organisation.

February 13 1952 - Milk (Amendment) Bill 1952: This related to the Dublin milk supply and involved the right of the Dublin Milk Board to purchase anywhere in the country. JJ used the occasion to promote the use of surplus in the production of cheese. (On this occasion however the issue of supply seasonality did not surface.)

March 27 1952 - Central Fund Bill 1952: This was the second day of the debate, and JJ chose to come in with his professional economist's hat on, George O'Brien having contributed on the previous day; the infliction of economics was therefore spread over the two days, avoiding overload. He adverted moreover to his peculiar status as an economist; when he had become a Fellow of Trinity College in 1913 he had been a classics and ancient history scholar. Mahaffey who was then Provost, alive to the danger of unleashing someone so young and inexperienced on the academic community, pointed him in the direction of the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowship, in which context he saw the world, including India, China and the USA. This aroused his interest in economic affairs, as a result of which he '...abandoned culture... and developed a keen interest in social philosophy, and especially agricultural co-operation..'.

As a result of this background JJ always tended to look at Irish problems in a world setting, and most of the current problems were a consequence of the arms race. It was therefore important to get into UNO, and to recognise that the blocking of our entry currently came from the US, having previously been from the USSR. The one UN body of which we were a member was the FAO, and JJ commended to the House the book The Geography of Hunger by the Chairman of the FAO. It as important to retain our neutrality and to realise that we were in good company with Sweden and Switzerland.

He mentioned his opposition to self-sufficiency policy in the 30s but stressed that in the current world situation the maximum of self-sufficiency was desirable. In this context he referenced his recent Irish Press articles, in which he had made several currently relevant economic arguments:

• The need to get rid of food subsidies, especially butter, which was depressing the price of farmers' butter, and reducing the population of cows in the non-creamery areas.
  
• Ranging over the world market in butter he indicated that there was export potential for the butter surplus which would emerge if the price was right.
  
• He reiterated the point he had made earlier about capital investment at home converting itself into an increased demand for consumer goods.
  
• Capital invested into fertilisers for agriculture would give a remarkably quick return, especially when associated with the upgrading of pasture.
  
• The previous Minister for Agriculture, Mr Dillon, while having been popular with the farmers, would happily have led us into '...an Anglo-American Alliance which, if certain wild men had their way, might bring us into a third world war..'.
  
• The devaluation of our external assets had been proceeding at a rate of 23% over the past 3-4 years, so we needed to dedicate their investment for maximum rapidity of return.
  
• He advocated development of production of Ymer barley, at a guaranteed price per ton, for use as feed at a subsidised rate, with the subsidy being paid for by a tax of £5 per head on cattle exported on the hoof. The current excessive price for beef cattle was undermining the breeding capacity of the national herd, by biasing the market against in-calf heifers.
  
• On problems of the national rail network, he advocated a preferential vehicle tax for short-haul road transport, to encourage servicing the railheads for local distribution.

July 30 1952 - Appropriation Bill 1952: The Government had made a substantial contribution to the revenues of TCD, and JJ felt moved to thank them, though no longer in a TCD-representing capacity. He chose to take his status as a Taoiseach nominee as evidence that service to the University was regarded as service to the nation, on both sides of the Border.

He went on to regale the House with the way in which the late Lord Glenavy, then Sir James Campbell, MP for TCD in 1912, had attempted to get TCD excluded from the Home Rule Bill in 1912. A meeting of the Fellows and Professors took place which repudiated this move, and he had to drop the amendment. The College elected to remain part of the nation. Similarly, when Carson abandoned representing Trinity in 1918, '..after he had tarnished his name with the abominable policy of Partition..', Provost Mahaffey had remarked to JJ at the time, in effect, good riddance.

JJ went on the promote the thoughts of Bishop Berkeley, being then involved in organising for the 1953 commemoration of the bicentenary of his death. He quoted at length from Joe Hone's edition of the Querist, in the introduction to which we are reminded of his status as the founder of a truly Irish political economy, as seen by John Mitchel and Arthur Griffith.

He light-heartedly introduced the topic with 'Whether if drunkenness be a necessary evil, men may not as well get drunk with the growth of their own country?' In other words, drink Guinness or Jameson if you must drink. He then went on to dig out a query for practically every Department involved in the Appropriations:

"Whether, if our exports be lessened, we ought not to lessen our imports?"

"Whether there be any other nation possessed of so much good land, and so many able hands to work it, which yet is beholden for bread to foreign countries?"

"Whether a wise State hath any interest nearer heart than the education of youth?"

"Whether, by a national bank, be not properly understood a bank, not only established by public authority as the Bank of England, but a bank in the hands of the public, wherein there are no shares, whereof the public alone is proprietor, and reaps all the benefit?" (JJ was particularly emphatic about this advanced concept.)

"Whether interest be not apt to bias judgment? and whether traders only are to be consulted about trade, or bankers about money?"

"Whether one, whose end is to make his countrymen think, may not gain his end, even though they should not think as he doth?" (JJ identified with this role, in his public life.)

"Whether there can be a worse sign than that people should quit their country for a livelihood? Though men often leave their country for health, or pleasure, or riches, yet to leave it merely for a livelihood, whether this be not exceeding bad and sheweth some peculiar mismanagement?"

"Whether the industry of our people employed in foreign lands, while our own are left uncultivated, be not a grave loss to the country?"

"Whether it would not be much better for us, if instead of sending our men abroad we could draw men from the neighbouring countries to cultivate our own?" "Whether we had not, some years since, a manufacture of hats at Athlone, and of earthenware at Arklow, and what became of those manufactures?" (JJ used this in positive recognition of the results of Fianna Fail industrialisation policy.)

And then finally "Whether it be not wonderful that with such pastures, and so many black cattle, we do not find ourselves in cheese?" On this matter JJ applauded the recent modest development, but called for more, and pointed out the relatively low consumption per head.

In the latter part of his speech JJ went into the question of how to measure the reproductive capacity of the national herd. In-calf heifer statistics were only taken on June 1 and showed what must be a serious underestimate, knowing the herd size and the mean cow lifetime. They should be taken biennially.

December 3 1952 - Imposition of Duties (no 2) Bill 1952: In this debate JJ picked up again the arguments used in his Nemesis of Economic Nationalism, pointing out that protecting an industry employing a measurable number of people sounded good at first sight, but the resulting rise in prices eroded jobs elsewhere, to an extent that as not easily visible, being spread thinly. While he approved of protecting Waterford Glass, a traditional industry worthy of revival, to involve other firms in the protection process could increase the price of equipment necessary on the farm and in the farmyard, where the bulk of the wealth was produced.

Later in the same debate Senator James Douglas supported JJ's arguments for tariffs in favour of industries having a historical background, and thus a probability of survival. He adduced evidence from his own experience, relating to the Liberties weavers.

December 4 1952 - Income-tax Code (motion): This motion of George O'Brien's sought to set up a commission to look into the working of the income tax system. After supporting it, with reference to the need to make medical expenses deductible (which would give a measure of medical incomes, as was the case in the USA), JJ went on to the question of farm incomes, and how they were taxed currently based on the Griffith valuation. He regarded the latter as positive, as it gave an incentive to increase production, though it became a disincentive if they were so successful that they came into the tax net on the basis of accounts kept. He wanted to design a system which would penalise sloth and reward enterprise. He then tried to get into discussion of the effects of the conacre system (11-month lettings), this being a source of income for many non-active owners of land, but was ruled out of order.

December 10 1952 - Finance (Excise Duties - Vehicles) Bill 1952: JJ here made an attempt to get an incentive built in such a way as to encourage owners of small and medium lorries to work within a restricted radius, thus encouraging the use of the railways for goods transport, and to restrict the access of heavy lorries to roads fit to carry them.

He continued this effort on the next day, introducing, in two successive versions, an amendment entitling the Minister by regulation to enable locally-owned vehicles to service deliveries via the nearest public transport node, offering a favourable rate of taxation for this purpose. This however was dismissed by the Minister as impracticable. The debate tailed off into issues arising for the use of tractors for tasks other than agricultural.

December 11 1952 - Supplies and Services (Continuance) Bill 1952: JJ began by remarking that this annual Bill had begun in the Emergency, but had continued since. He used it to draw attention to the failure of agricultural production to increase in volume, despite the underutilisation of land resources. He pointed out the contrast between the few effective farmers and the many who did as little as possible and allowed weeds to grow on their land. He urged consideration of passing a law to enable efficient farmers by compulsory purchase to expand their holdings at the expense of neighbours who neglected their land. He offered to give to the Minister privately examples of where so-called farmers preferred to leave land derelict than to sell it to a neighbour who could use it productively.

March 12 1953 - Restrictive Trade Practices Bill 1952: This Bill provided JJ with an opportunity to recycle some of his earlier work, published in Hermathena and elsewhere, on the classical origins of trade and the invention of money. He regaled the House learnedly with Plato, Aristotle, Berkeley and Boisguilbert, the main message being the positive effect of mass consumption on the overall health of the economy, quoting from the latter '..If the rich understood their interests they would wholly relieve the poor of their taxes, which would immediately create more well-to-do persons..'.

Responding to a reprimand from the Chair, he then came down to earth with discussion of retail price maintenance, and re-iterated his criticisms of the retail trade that he had originally produced in the 20s and 30s; basically that there were far too many people engaged in it, and the whole could be handled by the top 7% of the shops doubling their capacity. He instanced his own experience with trying to sell Irish Agriculture in Transition outside the retail bookshops, with special deals for farmers clubs and so on, but he had been told that he was welcome to do this if he liked, but that if he did, the retail trade would then refuse to handle it.

He concluded with some remarks on the nature of the capitalist system, which he regarded as basically trying to be co-operative, but being frustrated by the psychological emphasis on competition and conflict of interest. Increasing personal wealth at the expense of others was preferred by many to increasing wealth by supplying the genuine needs of others. The Bill emphasised the social obligations of economic decision-makers, and he therefore welcomed it, as far as it went, but he would have preferred a Bill pointing in a more consciously co-operative direction.

June 3 1953 - Great Northern Railway Bill 1953: While congratulating the Minister (Lemass) on this Bill, JJ re-iterated the sense of injustice felt by the shareholders in the Irish railway system at the raw deals they got from the two Governments. Taking the GNR as an example, it would cost £30M to rebuild it at current prices, the sale of the assets would realise perhaps £10M, but the shareholders only got £4.5M for it. Leaving this aside, he went on to address the question of the overall cost of transport in Ireland, which was 5% of GNP, while in Britain it was 3.5% and in the US 2.2%. The problem was that production was insufficient to make full use of the transport infrastructure provided.

In the specific case of the GNR, the transport system was additionally damaged by Partition, which had restricted trade across the Border, despite, as JJ used to say, the '..three powerful links binding North and South... God, Mammon and the GNR...' (the Churches and the Banks being effectively all-Ireland bodies). He went on to stress the need to undermine Partition by not attacking it directly, in the current mode of the Anti-Partition League, but by concentrating on developing functional co-operation in economic and social life, of which the new GNR joint venture was an example, a 'link of steel' echoing the Thomas Davis quatrain.

June 17 1953 - Turf Development Bill 1953: After congratulating the Minister on an excellent Bill, JJ went on to point out some of the problems that had arisen as a result of Bord na Mona activities in the midlands, in particular, the denuding of midland farms of access to farm labour. On the other hand, the settlements with housing, built by Bord na Mona, would remain after the bogs had been exhausted, and the people living there would have the opportunity to develop the cutaway bog as new farmland.

One farmer he knew had stopped growing crops through lack of labour, and had concentrated on intensive feeding of cattle, using silage, and stall-feeding in winter. For this purpose however he as now unable to get straw for bedding, and JJ wondered if it would be possible to get peat mould from Bord na Mona at a price consistent with using it for bedding, so that the manure generated could be put back to the land.

JJ concluded by noting the existence of the Bord na Mona research unit at Newbridge, and wondered if the technology would become available for gasification of peat by distillation or pyrolysis, leading to other industrial raw materials as by-products.

(JJ had almost certainly picked this latter idea up from the present writer and/or Desmond Greaves, who at that time was a carbon technologist working for Powell Duffryn. At the same time he fulfilled the role of a Marxist guru, interacting with the nascent Irish left, in which capacity he had on many occasions shared a family meal in the Johnston house during this period. I treat this in the left-political stream. RJ November 2000)

July 1 1953 - Land (no 2) Bill 1952: JJ intervened briefly on this to warn against Land Bonds being issued at a rate higher the 5%, and preferably nearer to 4%. The Minister for Lands (Mr Derrig) undertook to convey this to the Minister for Finance.

July 15 1953 - Imposition of Duties Bill 1953: This provoked JJ into his Nemesis of Economic Nationalism mode of thinking, and he accused the Minister of operating a shotgun policy of protective duties on all sorts of disconnected items, from plastic hair slides to art paper, when he should be developing agricultural production and industries based on agricultural raw materials. He was backed up in this by Senator WB Stanford, who had taken JJ's TCD Seanad seat. These policies were not reconcilable with the IBEC Report. This drew a predictably robust response from Senator Summerfield, the leader of the protected industry lobby, who however was somewhat coy about naming protected industries fit to compete in the export market, when challenged to do so by Senator Stanford.

July 16 1953 - Finance Bill: This was an opportunity for JJ to ride a few hobby-horses. He attacked subsidies on principle, and was scathing about subsidised housing, the need for which he attributed to the distortion of the market caused by the Rent Restrictions Acts of the first world war, which had made it impossible for capital to invest in housing for rental. He commented on the recent interest-rate rise, and supported George O'Brien in calling for a more intelligent procedure than interest-rate adjustment to govern capital investment priorities. He warned against the State soaking up too much capital. He questioned the concept of the 'right to work', warning of the danger of its becoming an obligation to work at whatever the State dictated, which he identified with 'communism'.

State spending on amenities should be tax-funded, while state investment in productive enterprise (eg electricity generation) could be funded by borrowing. State funding in support of industrial development should be rifle rather then shotgun of blunderbuss; he supported the IBEC Report. Most industry depended on imported raw materials, and the value of industrial exports was only 8% of the total; the value of imported raw material was four times as much. The balance was made up by agricultural exports.

He attacked income tax as counter-productive and called for local government tax relief in agriculture to favour new farm buildings.

July 29 1953 - Central Fund (no 2) Bill 1953, 2nd stage: In this debate JJ again brought up the question of housing for rental, and the extent of subsidy of local government housing, which he asked the Minister to reassure him was being paid for out of taxation and not by borrowing. He then went on to the question of unemployment in the building trades, which was not dependent on the extent of the housing subsidy, and un-stabilised by any ongoing demand for maintenance of the older housing stock, which were going to rack and ruin as fast as new houses were being built, thanks to the Rent Restrictions Acts introduced by the British during the first world war. He produced a letter from a 71-year old widow dependent for her income on rent from a dilapidating controlled-rent house.

He then went on to relate the housing shortage in Dublin to the depopulation of rural Ireland consequent on the failure to increase agricultural production, and to develop local industries based on agricultural raw materials. He adduced international comparisons, with countries in Europe recovered from the war, among which Ireland was at the bottom of the output per hectare list, and near the bottom for output per head.

The opportunity to get fresh capital and knowhow into Irish agriculture had been squandered by the 25% tax put on buyers of Irish farms from abroad. Had they been allowed to settle they would rapidly have been culturally absorbed, according to tradition, becoming 'more Irish than the Irish themselves'.

He castigated the dairy industry for its hanging on to the 'dual-purpose cow' and crippling itself and the beef industry by expecting the one to be the by-product of the other. He called for a farm survey, with some grading system for farms, with Grades A and B getting absolute security of tenure, and Grade C taken over by the Land Commission and leased to farmers' sons who had been through agricultural college. In support of this he quoted Michael Davitt: '...multiplication of land-owners through State-aided land purchase would not remove the evils inherent in the private ownership of land...'. His source was Michael Davitt and the British Labour Movement by Professor TW Moody of Trinity College.

He concluded by advocating the Danish system of farmers' sons working as labourers on neighbours' farms for a real wage, rather than for a pittance on their fathers' farms.

August 6 1953 - Health Bill 1952: This was Fianna Fail's version of the ill-fated 'Mother and Child Scheme' of Dr Noel Browne.

JJ began with a Querist quotation: 'Whether interest be not apt to bias judgment and whether traders only should be consulted about trade or bankers about money', and extended it to include 'doctors about health'. Doctors had a vested interest in the ill-health of the wealthier classes. The Chinese however pay their doctors when they are well, and stop paying when they are sick. JJ hoped this Bill was going in that direction. On the whole however the medical profession had been redistributive in its services over the years, subsidising the treatment of the poor by their fees from the rich. He himself had had free service from Sir Robert Woods when a student, with nasal surgery, to his lasting benefit. Better to put resources into good health for the young than adding a year or two to the age of old crocks.

He went on to warn against opening the health service to abuse, as had happened in the UK; he gave anecdotal evidence from Belfast, where the waiting rooms had become social centres: '..I didn't see you at the doctor's, was there something wrong with you?'.

November 18 1953 - Supplies and Services Bill: JJ used this as an opportunity to comment on the international situation, attacking the implication that we would be pleased to join NATO if only Partition were ended. NATO he castigated as being inconsistent with the principles of UNO. He was pulled up by the Chair for taking this issue up; JJ defended himself on the basis that the international situation determined the economic environment, but in the end gave in. As a parting shot he tried to discuss transport policy, with the closure of the railway station at Naas, and the neglect of the by-roads. In the end he agreed to postpone these issues until the Appropriations Bill.

November 26 1953 - Appropriations Bill: JJ welcomed the fact that the Minister for External Affairs was responding to the debate, and used the occasion to stress the common economic problems in all European countries, with inflation being fuelled by rearmament. Membership of NATO should be avoided even if Partition were to be ended. The practical response to the Communist challenge was to make capitalism work, pointing it in a co-operative direction along lines pioneered by Sir Horace Plunkett and George Russell. Rearmament was '..like the person who decides to commit suicide for fear he might get killed..'. He did not think the Russians were thinking of aggression, having lost 10M dead in the recent war.

The Chair asked him to come back to home affairs, so he homed in on the proposal to build a fixed bridge at Athlone, urging the development of the Shannon and the waterways not only as a leisure activity, instancing the Dromineer regatta, but also for economic activity, instancing the transport of the coal supply from Arigna. The canal connecting the Shannon Navigation with Lough Allen had been abandoned as a result of the ESB control of the lake level.

December 2 1953 - Imposition of Duties (no 2) Bill: Here we are back in Nemesis country: JJ complained about there being duties on standard farm inputs like wire mesh, and blades for a Bushman saw.

February 24 1954 - National Development Fund Bill 1953: JJ in this debate showed signs of weariness, having been over this ground before so many times. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to steer it in the direction of agricultural added value, instancing the Dingle Peninsula onion-growers, and the need for capitalising the under 50-acre farms via dairying, rather than paying their occupants the dole for doing nothing.

Later in the debate on the same Bill, on March 4, he supported an amendment oriented towards supporting some sort of voluntary agency, or alliance of relevant organisations, in support of the economic development of the Gaeltacht, along lines pioneered by the French-speakers of Quebec. There were again signs of weariness; he had been over this ground before.

March 16 1954 - Central Fund Bill: The Dail was in process of dissolution, and JJ spoke at length, with a view to getting as much of his views on the record as possible, knowing that he was unlikely to get in again. In the event he managed to get a second 'swan song' on July 7, which I can reproduce in full.

He declared the intention of addressing the problem of the in-elasticity of agricultural output over the previous 20 years, but first made some points on the current Estimates.

He expressed appreciation of the increase in capitation fees paid by the State in respect of secondary education, as being of particular value to the smaller schools attended by the religious minority. He compared the situation with that in Northern Ireland, where the expansion of second-level schooling had been considerable: in Dungannon Royal School in his time there were some 60 pupils; now there were 250. The Republic was lagging this rate of increase.

He expressed concern at the rate at which historic buildings were being demolished, particularly via a process of de-roofing to avoid paying rates. Some 'big houses' would be marketable to foreign buyers who desired to live here or to retire here, and such people should be encouraged to play a care-taking role with our heritage of historic buildings. The 25% tax burden on such purchases should be scrapped.

Turning to agricultural stagnation, in contrast to the industrial increase, JJ took up some European comparisons, using UNFAO statistics. The output per hectare was the lowest of the 14 European countries considered. Output per person was in the third quartile, ahead of Greece and Italy. 'We would have to double... before we would achieve the standards achieved in Denmark and Belgium and treble... (to) achieve the results achieved in the UK'.

He then went into the history of production over the decades, and concluded that '...for one reason or another we failed to integrate our cash-crop cultivation with our livestock production..'. He then went on to compare the declining pig and poultry populations in the Republic with the thriving situation in the North.

He identified the key issue as being the relationship between the price of store cattle in the autumn and fat cattle in the spring, this being what determined the decision to stall-feed in the winter, generating the manure required by tillage. This price-ratio was unfavourable due to British policy. Similarly the price of feed relative to the price of produce dominated the activity of the small farmer attempting to produce pigs and poultry.

He went on to be critical of the 'dual-purpose cow', again using European comparisons: small-farm prosperity in Western Europe as based on '...a plentiful milk supply produced on the farms and on the production of by-products that depend for their existence on a plentiful supply of milk..'. A consequence of the abandonment of the dual-purpose cow and the switch to high-yielding milk breeds would be that the beef people would have to breed their own supplies of beef animals. The link between the two sectors would then no longer be via calves, but would need to be developed via fodder crops, particularly feeding barley.

The 1953 decision regarding a support price for wheat had resulted in far too high an acreage, and had pulled up the price of feeding barley to uneconomic levels. There was a case for keeping some wheat production going for strategic reasons. High wheat prices were subsidised by the taxpayer via the bread subsidy. They led to 'wheat ranching', which impaired the stored fertility of the land, straw being left in the field to rot rather than ending up as manure via livestock stall-feeding.

He concluded by again urging that the agricultural horse be put before the industrial cart, as had been done in Denmark, with expansion of the former fuelling the latter.

April 7 1954 - Imposition of Duties Bill: Continuing on the foregoing theme after three weeks, JJ castigated Minister Lemass for imposing a duty on milk cans, thus increasing the costs of the dairying industry which was far from prospering, indeed requiring consumer subsidy.

July 7 1954 - Finance Bill 1954: (This took place after the election, with a new Government; the Seanad elections take place after a short delay. It was indeed JJ's swan-song this time, and he used the occasion to put on record as much as he was let of the distillation of his experience. I give his speech in full, as well as summarising it below. RJ Dec 2000)

In the speech he began by criticising the continuation of the butter subsidy, pointing out the adverse effect it had on the production of farmers' butter outside the creamery areas.

He then went into the basics of the principles of levies and subsidies, and used it a a means of developing a spirited defence of an article he had written two years previously, advocating a levy on the export of store cattle, to be used to subsidise the production of home-produced animal feeding-stuffs. He read into the Seanad record the text of this article, and subsequent press correspondence, after an altercation with the Chair; he made the case that his position had been attacked and misrepresented in the Dail, and the chair allowed it.

In this final distilled argument, the culmination of long political battles going back to the 1920s, he managed to encapsulate most of his critiques of a pathological production system which had been crippled by the imposition by Britain of conditions leading to the dominance of the store cattle trade.

It seems JJ made a low-key effort to get back to the Seanad in 1959. The other candidates were WB Stanford, Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, WR Fearon, JN Ross, Mrs CL McClenaghan, Eoin O'Mahony and Frances-Jane French. JJ was eliminated after the 3rd count; his transfers went mostly to Fearon. The first three listed above were elected. Eoin O'Mahony and F-J French were eliminated at the first count, and their transfers went to Fearon, Skeffington, Johnston, Ross and McClenaghan in that order.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999