I have no complaint to make about French beauties. We want enterprise, and we want everybody to help. We have not all the money and brains and efficiency in this country. We want help from all sides. What are the prospective producers, who are thinking of establishing sugar beet factories and industries of one kind or another in this country, to think of a debate like this? By the way, the Minister for Finance has again been misquoted. It has been said that he gave a definite undertaking to the Dáil that only 85,000 tons of sugar would be manufactured, and that he afterwards altered that and agreed to have 125,000 tons manufactured. That is not so. At the beginning the proposal was for a factory dealing with about five thousand acres of beets per annum, and upon that basis—five thousand acres for the first year, six thousand acres for the second year, and seven thousand acres for the third year—it would work out in ten years that about 85,000 tons of sugar would be produced. Remember when that was being discussed, the question was whether we could get five thousand acres for the first year and six thousand acres for the second year. We held that we could, although we were a little doubtful. Other members of the Dáil held that we could not, while others held that we could get up to ten thousand. Personally I never thought that we could get up to ten thousand, but the point of view of everybody was perfectly clear, that if we could get up to ten thousand acres, so much the better. That was made quite clear by the Minister for Finance. Deputy Lemass has not discovered something new in the case when he reads the debates, and tells us it was only afterwards we realised we could get ten thousand, and from that he infers that we deceived the Dáil when we said we could only expect five thousand acres the first year.
The Dáil knew our desire was to get as much beet as we could grow up to ten thousand acres. We did not believe we could get it. I did not believe it at the time, but the fact that we got it is an example that the farmer is not a fool and does not need all the advice from people who are amateurs and not farmers, and can see a good proposition when put before him. He realised that this was a good proposition and that the price was good. They came in with 9,000 acres the first year, and they have grown 17,000 acres this year instead of 15,000. That will put the contract out again and will lead to further debates in the Dáil because, under the contract, the company can only accept if they are to keep to their final estimate, about ten thousand acres the first year, fifteen thousand acres the second year, and much less than ten thousand acres in the two following years, and then, after that, go up to fifteen thousand acres again. You had close on 10,000 the first year, and then 17,000 acres the second year, which will mean that you must drop your estimate for the following years, or else a new arrangement will have to be made. When we come to discuss that we will be told that that was our foolishness again, but that is not so. I am glad to see this happen. I did not anticipate it would happen, but the farmers saw the advantage, and saw that they were getting a good price, and we found it extremely difficult to keep them within the estimate. They have grown this year two thousand acres more than they should have grown. Now as to what is to happen next year when the market is open. There is no guarantee next year for the farmer as to the price the farmer is to get for his beet, and we are asked what is to happen?
There is a Beet Growers' Association, and the sooner that Beet Growers' Association takes full charge of the position the better for everybody concerned. It is an efficient association, and it has done a tremendous amount of good work. It has made the taring arrangements and the testing arrangements watertight.
Of course you are bound to have complaints, but they settled a lot of the difficulties that inevitably must arise between the company and the farmer. In the first instance, this is a matter entirely for the Beet Growers' Association and the company. The company is there and they have £400,000 worth of a factory. They do not want that to be idle. The farmers are there, on the other hand. They want a good price for their beets. There you have two elements to a bargain. The company do not want to close and lose the chance of good profits. They are open to a good bargain, and the sooner we get back to the healthy position that these bargains should be left to the interests concerned, and that the State should not be brought in except as a last resort, the better. If we are to have debates like this, if people are trying to bedevil the position by pretending to be interested in the farmers pressing for outrageous prices, and if we are to have people blackguarding the company, we will not get business done as we would if we let them alone. Let us, at least, try to have fair play. You cannot have the agricultural industry without the farmer on the one side and the entrepeneur industrialist on the other side. The soundest way to arrive at a proper price is to leave it between them, and, if we are to come in, let us come in a helpful spirit to see that it is settled as it should be settled.