The Most Abandoned © a Series on Theirish Small Farmer

PART 2 — continued from last week: ee The fate of the country’s farmers since 1900 has been one of slow and painful } exodus. 50% of the population were farming-then, now the figures is around -24%.

A decline in the importance of food, relative to consumer goods with the growth of capitalism, plus Englands policy of cheap food from anywhere in the world, has left small-farmers and farm labourers the longest working and poorest paid section of the entire : Irish working class. ~ At the same time there was the very real demand for food by the workers and by the poor in towns, as there is by half of the world’s population today, but since that demand could not be backed by hard cash it was then, as it is today, futile.

The few. brief periods when the Free State was forced to take into hand the production and distribution of food, during the economic war and the second world war, form an © interesting contrast to the system adopted by Lenin in his book “The economic content of narodism’’, of sharing all the available food, giving priority to children, mothers, the The present crisis Taking Ireland in the context of Irish farmers demonstrating outside wounded and the ailing — a programme Western civilisation’s priority of which saved the lives of millions of PROFIT not FOOD, it is not surprising people. Contrast that with capitalisms’ that there have been periods of relative system as defined by Boyd-Orr, first boom and severe depression for director general of the F.A.O.:— practically every commodity “The aim of western civilisations produced in agriculture. is not to produce the quantity of food The spectacle of HUNDREDS OF necessary to satisfy human needs but THOUSANDS OF YOUNG CATTLE rather that which can be sold at a STARVING.TO DEATH over the next profit” few months and thousands of farmers emigrating in mass would be a horrible nightmare, even by Irish standards of emigration and depression. How has ySTICE J yor Use long term? the E.E.C “Charlemagne” building this situation arisen? What is likely to be its result? And what can socialists do to effect the situation short and The immediate roots of the present situation are set in the ‘Calved Heifer * R. Crotty Scheme’ of 1963, the ‘Beef Incentive Scheme’ of 1969 and the entry to the EEC of 1972, all of which encouraged the expansion of cattle numbers.

The result, Irish cattle numbers increased by 6% annually, while the capacity to carry them increased by Mep them flying high, tees ‘l have long to wait r a long, long time and rhyme.

British, and will always eer.

A book of Loyalist and Republican poems.

Why was this book ever published?

The introduction claims that the object has been to “effect some sort of balance between the Loyalist and Republican elements in the present After reading this book it can only be said that Mr. McCorry defeated his own purpose. There is no balance such trash.

Poems from the Catholic anti-imperialist community reflect the feelings only 1%. 1966 saw the first crisis of supply outstripping demand seriously and farmers on the streets in thousands. But before the referendum Jack Lynch and the two farming organisations promised “EEC will mean guaranteed higher prices’’, so the numbers of cattle continued to expand.

The position now is that calves can hardly be sold at any price, young cattle are selling from £2 to £8 per cwt, while fat cattle subsidised by £6million per year from the people, still sell at £17 per cwt.! Meanwhile : prices of all the inputs, or farmers costs, have risen enormously.

Big Farmers — EEC policy It is no accident that the producers of fat cattle are in the main the large farmers. By buying the cattle at half of the real value, they are doubling their profits. This is the type of interest which leads the main farming organisations the I.F.A. and I.C.M.S.A. Their main concern in the present crisis is to channel farmers’ reaction into opposition to the prosposed income and wealth tax.

The banks too have had a feast of profits from the skeleton of the starving animal.

Vear Advances Profits 71 £m 461 £m 21 72 £m 623 £m 28 73 £m 734 £m 41 * From the viewpoint of the government and the EEC the market forces are an excellent method of “‘persuading”’ small farmers to leave the land, precisely in line with their farm modernisation scheme which up to now was virtually ignored.

against the Tyranny of British Occupation in Ireland; hatred of internment; a longing for justice and freedom. Yet after countless sectarian murders and over fifty years of oppression by a loyalist administration they have not stooped to the gutter level of the naked hatred in the loyalist poems. ° How can ‘balance’ be achieved? If we are to take these poems as the feelings of the loyalists and republican communities then we must come to the conclusion that there is nothing but pure fascism in the minds of the loyalists — i.e. “IRA PAPISH SCUM; “DECIMATE”; “ANNIHILATE”.

The only contribution this book can make is to make very clear to the Catholic minority the very grave danger of a fascist takeover.

If Mr. McCorry was having difficulty in obtaining loyalist poems, he could have obtained a wide variety of hate sheets in Royal Avenue, Belfast, for the total expenditure of 5p.

The only good thing can be said about this book is the excellent layout. Eithna and Gerry O’Kane are to be congratulated. It is a pity such a good work was associated with To conclude-just what sort of _ warped political thinking is behind the publishers of this book?