We have been carrying on for a number of years knowing it.
The supplies made available last year consisted of specified quantities of some 13 different categories of goods. They included 20,000 head of cattle, 1,500 horses, 10,000,000 lb. of canned meat, 20,000 cwt. of butter, 16,000 cwt. of bacon, 10,000 tons of sugar, and 100,000 blankets. There were smaller quantities of cheese, infant foods and condensed and dried milk, as well as a variety of woollen textiles—200,000 knitted undergarments for children, 50,000 lb. of knitting wool, and so on.
We made a public offer of these supplies, making it clear that they were available as a gift from the Irish people to the peoples of the Continent who had suffered from the war. As I told the Dáil when I was moving last year's Vote, the offer was accepted by the Governments of Holland, Belgium, France and Italy. Each of these countries had recently been the scene of active hostilities; their peoples had suffered the loss and destruction which invasion and war bring in their train, and, being, on the whole, conveniently situated in regard to this country, the problem of transport—which at that time appeared the major obstacle in any effective aid from this country to the Continent—was not without hope of solution in their case. Accordingly, one-fifth of the total supplies available was allotted to each of the four countries named—Holland, Belgium, France and Italy. The remaining one-fifth was allotted later in the year to the Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross for distribution according to need in other parts of Europe.
As I said, it was made clear that these supplies to Europe were being offered as a gift. Holland, Italy and the International Red Cross accepted their allocations on that basis. The Belgium Government intimated its desire to pay for the supplies sent to Belgium, and the French Government, while accepting as a gift the supplies sent to and distributed by private charitable organisations in France, expressed its desire to pay for the goods received and distributed by French Government Departments.
Deputies will notice that, although the supplies included in last year's Vote were allocated and accepted in the manner I have described, the present Estimate includes a Re-Vote of an unexpended balance of last year's provision amounting to £1,552,000. This unspent balance is almost entirely attributable to two main factors. In the first place, for transport and other reasons, Italy and the International Red Cross were unable to take advantage of their allocation of live stock, and, although 14,664 cattle and 2,026 horses were shipped to the three countries, Holland, Belgium and France, some of these were purchased direct and paid for by the Governments concerned. These together resulted in a reduction of £650,000 in the estimated expenditure. Secondly, in spite of every effort it proved impossible to obtain the tins and other packing materials necessary for the dispatch of the 10,000,000 lb. of canned meat included in last year's gift. It is a great pity that this difficulty should have been met because, as we have been told from many quarters, and as is indeed obvious, this canned meat would have been a very useful and valuable form of relief supply. The non-dispatch of the canned meat, however, resulted in a further reduction of £750,000 in the expenditure originally proposed.
With these exceptions, however, practically all the supplies made available last year were successfully shipped and distributed. Of the total provision of 20,000 cattle and 1,500 horses, there were shipped, as I have said, 14,664 cattle and 2,026 horses. The provision of 20,000 cwt. of butter, 10,000 tons of sugar, 100,000 blankets and 5,000 dozen pairs of woollen gloves was shipped in full. Some of the quotas were actually exceeded. Eight hundred and five tons of cheese were shipped as against the quota of 800 tons, 60 tons of dried milk against the quota of 50 tons, and 700 tons of condensed milk against the quota of 250 tons. Shipments fell short of the quotas in the case of woollen socks, knitted undergarments, baby foods and stoves and cookers. Seventeen thousand two hundred dozen pairs of socks were shipped against the quota of 20,000 dozen pairs; 14,760 dozen knitted undergarments against a quota of 16,000 dozen; 40 tons of infant foods against a quota of 50 tons; and 340 stoves and cookers out of the 500 which had been earmarked. The French shares of the quotas of 250 tons of cheese and 50,000 lb. of knitting wool had yet to be shipped at the end of the financial year. Otherwise, those quotas were shipped in full. In order to complete this picture of what was sent out last year under the Vote, I might say that, in addition to the supplies I have mentioned, foodstuffs and medical and other supplies to the value of £36,000 were provided for the Irish hospital at St. Lo in France.
I do not think the Dáil need have any doubt that these supplies have been sincerely appreciated by the people who received them and that they have been of real and substantial value in relieving distress and suffering. If proof of that were required, it would be found in the many thousands of letters which have been received from people in the areas in which the supplies were distributed. Great progress towards national recovery has been made in the countries of Western Europe during the past 12 months. Conditions in these countries are already very different from what they were a year ago when our offer was made and the first supplies shipped. It is satisfactory to think, however, that the food and other supplies sent from this country arrived at a time when they were really needed and that, in their way, they helped to relieve the distress of the transition period.
I said just now that one-fifth of the relief supplies made available last year was allocated to the Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross. These supplies were sent to the French port of Bayonne in Irish vessels; from Bayonne they went by rail to Switzerland, and from Switzerland they were distributed through the machinery of the Joint Relief Commission, to nine different European countries—Austria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Germany, Hungary, Northern Italy, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia. The allocation of the supplies as between these different areas was made on the principle of relative need, due account being taken of transport possibilities and other material factors; and, in each case, the supplies were distributed in accordance with a definite scheme of distribution worked out by the Joint Relief Commission in agreement with the local authorities. Young children, nursing and expectant mothers, maternity hospitals and sanatoria for tubercular patients received particular attention, and the supplies of sugar, dried and condensed milk and butter were found of particular value, especially in the case of children.
I shall not take up the time of the Dáil now by trying to give an account of the difficulties which the Joint Relief Commission had to surmount to arrange the transport and distribution of the supplies in these areas of war-torn Europe and of the effect of the arrival of these consignments of food on the local populations. The reports I have received from the International Red Cross on these matters leave a deep and lasting impression on anyone who reads them, and I am considering whether the whole subject might not properly be made the subject of a White Paper.
I should like to take this opportunity, however, of paying a tribute to the work which the Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross has done on our behalf. When they accepted responsibility for the distribution of Irish relief supplies in the parts of Europe I have mentioned, the commission undertook a formidable task. There was not only the problem of arranging transport from Switzerland to the areas concerned. The relative needs of different areas had to be examined and assessed; the permission of local occupying authorities had to be obtained; schemes of distribution had to be worked out with the authorities of the countries concerned and measures for supervising the actual distribution arrangements had to be made.
All this work the commission has performed with the greatest efficiency and despatch. We ourselves could have done very little without their aid. We are very much cut off from many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and have no means of obtaining that accurate and up-to-date information regarding local needs, means of transport, local organisation, and so on, upon which any efficient scheme of relief work must be based. The co-operation which the Joint Relief Commission extended to us in connection with the distribution of last year's supplies in Central and Eastern Europe will continue to be available in connection with any supplies we may have to send to those areas in the present year. As I shall explain in a moment, we hope to take extensive advantage of this co-operation in connection with this year's programme.
The further sum of £3,000,000 which the Dáil is now being asked to provide is required to cover the cost of sending the following relief supplies to Europe-during the current financial year:— 20,000 cattle; 5,000 draught horses; 10,000 tons of sugar; 2,400 tons of bacon; 9,000,000 lb. of canned meat; 300 tons of dried and condensed milk; 250 tons of cheese; 25,000 lb. of wool; 185,000 blankets, as well as a large quantity of supplies made available by the Army—clothing textiles, bedding material and kitchenware to a total value of about £163,000.
Before coming to the question of the allocation of these supplies, I might say something about the need for relief of this kind on the Continent at the present time. There have been many reports in the Press in recent months about the threat of starvation in Europe. From the information at my disposal, I am satisfied that these reports do not exaggerate the general picture. Although things in Western Europe have greatly improved, there are still many people in those countries living below what is regarded as the necessary nutritional level. But it is between the Rhine and the Russian frontier that the real problem exists. There, as Mr. Hoover put it in his speech at the recent Food Conference in London, "hunger sits at the table thrice daily in millions of homes".
It is almost impossible for us living in this country to realise the extent of the misery and suffering to which whole populations in that part of Europe are reduced. Infantile mortality rates in many European cities have reached hitherto unheard of proportions. The particulars given with regard to the prevalence of tuberculosis, rickets, anæmia and other deficiency diseases make a truly appalling picture—more appalling for its reminder that, in circumstances of this kind, it is the mothers and the young and growing children who are the worst and the earliest sufferers. The extreme destitution in some areas reflects itself in acute shortages of clothing and the most ordinary necessaries of life. I have had reliable reports stating that, in some rural areas, people are forced to work in the fields at night for lack of clothing to cover them during the day, and I recently received an appeal on behalf of over 3,000 school and university students in a famous capital city in Central Europe who are unable to attend their classes for lack of clothing. Much of this is already a matter of common knowledge, so it is hardly necessary for me to go into further detail. I will only say that, in Central and Eastern Europe particularly, there is a problem of human subsistence and of human suffering so vast that even the utmost which we, with our limited resources, can do, can be no more than a very small help towards its solution, but that, even so, every single article of food and clothing which we can send will be of real and immediate value in relieving suffering, if not indeed in saving human life itself.
Coming, therefore, to the allocation of the supplies to be made available this year, it is proposed, as before, to proceed on the principle of greatest need, due account being taken of practical factors such as the availability of means of transport. Leaving aside the live stock and the surplus Army clothing, bedding-material and household ware, which I will refer to in a moment, it is proposed to allocate 75 per cent. of the available supplies for distribution in Central and Eastern Europe through the intermediary of the Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross. Of the remainder, it is proposed to allocate 15 per cent. to Italy and 10 per cent. to the Entr Aide Francaise, the French charitable organisation through which a considerable part of the supplies sent to France last year was distributed. Bearing in mind the extreme destitution and the shortage of clothing in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, a thorough review has been made of existing Army and Post Office stocks, and, as a result, it has been found possible to get together a substantial quantity of surplus or obsolete stores of a kind likely to be found useful. This includes some 30,000 greatcoats; 20,000 men's suits; some 60,000 yards of serge, shirting and other materials; 25,000 waterproof capes; 20,000 mattresses; 17,000 towels; over 100,000 other articles of wearing apparel, and a large collection of delph, cutlery and other household ware. It is proposed to allocate these supplies to the Joint Relief Commission, who have already worked out a scheme of distribution for these supplies and the 75 per cent. share of the other supplies which is to be placed at their disposal. Distribution will be effected, according to need, in Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia.
As regards live stock, a somewhat different method must be followed because, as I said earlier, the International Red Cross are not in a position to handle the transport and distribution of cattle. Still proceeding on the principle of greatest need and bearing in mind the deficiency of proteins and fats in the countries concerned, it is proposed to offer 2,000 head of cattle for slaughter as a gift to each of the countries, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslovakia and the British and American zones in Germany. Transport is apt to be a great difficulty in the case of some of these countries, but we can only make these offer and hope that means of overcoming the transport difficulties involved will be found.
As Deputies know, a serious threat to Europe's bread supplies has developed within recent months. We must do our share in helping to avert that threat. We were represented at the conference called to consider this matter in London early in April, and, since then, steps have been taken here to give effect to the conference recommendations. We took the initiative in raising our extraction rate to 90 per cent. The war-time restriction on the serving of bread with restaurant meals has been reintroduced. We agreed to carry on with the minimum of carryover stocks until the new harvest is available. By virtue of these measures, we were able to agree to do without imports of foreign wheat until the end of July, provided we could be assured that the 30,000 tons required to carry us over into the new harvest would be made available in August.
If our contribution in the present situation is to be the maximum of which we are capable—and I think we all feel it should be—the co-operation of every individual man, woman and child in the country is required. In the first place, we must scrupulously avoid all waste of food, and try, if we can, to eat less bread. It has been calculated that a reduction of 5,000 sacks of flour in our present weekly consumption of over 60,000 sacks would provide a bread ration for 325,000 people on the Continent. I suppose at least one heel of a loaf is wasted in every household each day. This means about 400,000 lb. of bread a week, enough to provide a bread ration for 70,000 people in Europe. If each of us ate a slice of bread less each day, it would give us 1,700,000 lb. of bread a week, or a bread ration for 300,000 people in Europe. The immediate task is to bring the purpose and urgency of this appeal home to everyone in the country. Everyone can help in this work. The appeal is being advertised in the Press and broadcast at frequent intervals from Radio Eireann. Private organisations can help by enlisting the support of their members, and business concerns by publicising the appeal in their advertising space. If everyone lends a hand in this way to help this anti-waste crusade, we can make a further and effective contribution to the relief provided for in this Vote. I think I have given a fair picture of the situation and I hope to be able to answer any questions on which Deputies may require information.