I rise to support the motion in the names of Deputy deValera and Lemass asking that a tariff should be placed upon the importation of foreign flour into the Saorstát. I wish to say that I agree with the remarks of Deputy Anthony to the effect that it is a pity that for once we cannot get away from the efficiency specialists, and instead of trying to develop, as it seems to me the Minister for Industry and Commerce has in mind, a new scheme of rationalisation by which all the industries of the country will be concentrated around Dublin City and by which the whole population, or what is left of it, will be forced to come to Dublin to look for employment, the Ministry would give more consideration to this question as it affects the rural population.
Deputy de Valera in his opening remarks has pointed out with regard to the proposals on wheat which are set out in the amendment in Deputy O'Connell's name that the Fianna Fáil Party agreed with him, but that they are in the position of having to make up their minds whether it is better to ask the House now to declare itself in favour of taking immediate action, which they consider necessary to save the flour milling industry, or whether they will, on the other hand, wait until proposals come from the present Government, presumably, to enforce some such proposals as both the Labour Party and the Fianna Fáil Party seem to be agreed upon, to encourage the growing of wheat. While the Government, if ever they do so, are engaged on producing these proposals, what is to happen the flour-milling industry? The Minister for Industry and Commerce says that our representatives on the Economic Committee agreed that, even under a tariff, the weaker mills would have to go to the wall and that there should be some allowance here for the free play of economic forces. I think in this case it is not so much the free play of economic forces, if the gradual wiping-out of our industries is what is connoted by the term, that demands to be encouraged, but the restraint of economic forces. Whatever ideas the Ministry may have about the rationalisation of industry and this concentration of our industries in certain centres on the sea-board, and the development of some such practice as has found favour with the Tariff Commission, the development of some such mills as they have in Birkenhead—where, to the delight of the Tariff Commission, it was found that seven men and a boy could run an 80-sack mill—I think that as responsible men charged with looking after the affairs of this State and trying to keep its population at home, they will have to try to square that conception as to up-to-date methods, efficiency, and all the rest of these terms, with the urgent necessity for dealing with the agricultural depression, unemployment, and emigration.
If the Ministry had any policy whatever to offer as against the proposal to impose a tariff on flour something might be said, but the Ministry have no policy. They have not given to us the slightest idea of any policy. So far back as 1923 a body called the Fiscal Inquiry Committee sat upon this matter, and when the Minister for Industry and Commerce comes here now and says that there is no improvement in the amount of data and the amount of information that is at the disposal of the Government to formulate a policy on this matter I would remind him that so far as the findings of the Tariff Commission were concerned they were practically all anticipated in the report of the Fiscal Inquiry Committee which dealt with flour. That was a very efficient Committee. It was so efficient that every possible argument that could be advanced against protection was advanced. We know that protection, as a policy, has this misfortune: that the cleverest writers, the best experts from the academic standpoint, and the most wonderful literary geniuses can write the most entrancing theories against protection, but it happens in the world as it stands to-day that the men who are pushing things forward in the countries which they govern are men who are working protection and who are carrying it out as a policy. Therefore I say that the findings of the Tariff Commission, any more than the finding of the Fiscal Inquiry Committee, should not rule our discussions here to-day. If the findings of these bodies have not enabled the Government in power to formulate a policy, then I do not think that the members of this Committee, placed as they were and having the prejudices that they had, are to blame as much as the Government itself.
What has the Government done during all the years since 1923 when this question was first taken up? It has seen the gradual closing down of the flour mills, and now at the eleventh hour the Minister for Industry and Commerce comes along and says: "Oh, let economic forces have their way. Probably we will be better off if more of the mills disappear. Let them come forward and make some proposals to the Government and we will be able to get them to transplant their whole machinery and business to the ports." It is very late in the day for the Minister to come along and ask the mills to submit definite proposals by which the whole of their invested capital, their interests, their goodwill and whatever local facilities they have should be scrapped in a moment and their undertakings transferred to the ports. It is not, I think, taking a proper view of the situation for the Minister for Industry and Commerce to come along now and suggest to the House that his offer to examine the proposal from the milling industry is serious or that the House should take it seriously. The milling industry have made their proposals: they have gone as far as they could go, I think. They have, perhaps, overestimated their case in certain ways, feeling that the position of the industry was a precarious one. Generally speaking, I think they have acquitted themselves well in meeting the demands of Messrs. Jacob and other people opposed to the tariff, and I think the Minister should meet them in the same spirit. The Ministry, instead of doing that, come along first with the suggestion of the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the milling industry should at this hour of the day submit new proposals, and with the suggestion of the Minister for Finance that the problem could be settled by excluding straight-run flour. I do not know what precisely the Minister for Finance sees in that, or how he can prove to the House that that would be a solution of the question.
Professor O'Rahilly has shown in his pamphlet—and I have discovered myself in a flour mill in my constituency—that there is nothing whatever to prevent foreign mills producing straight-run flour and having it imported here. It merely means that an extra proportion of the flour will be taken and will be called offals, thirds, shorts or middlings, as they are technically termed. The proposal that to exclude straight-run flour would solve the problem is, I think, a mistaken one. In any case, if there is anything in that proposal it is extraordinary that the Government have not examined it at more length. They have had advice from their experts, and this question has been discussed in their Departments. They have had plenty of time to come to some conclusion. They simply state at the end of their Report: "We shall submit at a later date a separate report dealing with this proposal." As far as I am aware, we have no suggestion whatever from the Minister for Industry and Commerce—I have not heard the whole of his remarks—as to how the Government propose to deal with the question. It seems to me from the manner in which the debate has wandered into the subject of wheat, which could be more appropriately discussed on Deputy Dr. Ryan's motion, that the Government are anxious to put the question on the long finger. They feel they are on comparatively safe ground when they are discussing the wheat question; there are such an enormous number of considerations in connection with that matter that it is very easy to say circumstances have much altered since the time when this country grew half a million acres of wheat, and it is very easy to build up a long and painful argument against any attempt to revert even partially to that situation.
On the straight question of the protection of the flour-milling industry, it seems clear that the Government have no policy. They simply want to take up the time of the House in refuting arguments in respect of wheat. Deputy Gorey said it would be well if this question were examined apart from politics. It would be a very good thing indeed if it were examined apart from politics. I cannot understand why it could not be so examined. It seems to me that Deputy Gorey, in his desire to exclude the question of politics, wants to exclude the question of nationality as well. He wants to refuse to allow the House to consider that a proposition such as this—that a tariff should be placed on imported flour—which may have had many minute arguments advanced against it in detail, may be fundamentally sound and may, as a national proposition, have such counter-balancing advantages that it puts into the shade all the minor arguments that may be advanced against it on account of the imperfection of some of their details. Deputy Gorey said that we were accustomed to talking on this side of the House about ranches. That is so, and we have yet to see that the policy of the Minister for Agriculture, which, I take it, is the policy that dominates the Executive Council, is going to solve the question of unemployment and the question of emigration, and is going to save the country the enormous amounts that are being spent in home assistance and in relief of unemployment.
A very distinguished county man of Deputy Gorey, the late Rev. Dr. McDonald, Professor of Maynooth College, who certainly was of the conservative type in politics. examined this question. Speaking of the Corn Laws he said: "Ireland, however, had been living by growing corn; living and paying rent thereby. How were we to meet this competition?" That was the competition of the incoming American corn. "So far no meat came, nor butter; and people foolishly hoped that these products could never come; so landlords then all-powerful in Ireland, resolved to turn their fields into pasture and produce meat. This let to consolidation of holdings, with evictions from the rich lands, and something of the same kind in poorer soils, for the production of butter; the whole coming at a time when land was to be had for nothing in the Mississippi valley, gold could be picked up by Californian rivers, and one could get fabulous wages without going beyond New York. Low prices at home and abundance over sea—this, not the potato blight, was the true cause of the stream of emigration that set out then from the shores of Ireland."
He goes on to point out that it was the development of steam power and the opening up of new countries abroad that hit Ireland so severely after the repeal of the Corn Laws. "Had we in Ireland been our own masters, we should have had to face the same problem, caused by the loss of our market for grain; and we should probably have found some more or less effectual remedy long before now. It is the main argument for Home Rule; that, as the United Kingdom has been managed hitherto, by a single common Parliament at Westminster, Ireland did not get fair play. She should have had some power to meet emergencies such as we have been considering; power within herself, since the predominant partner was careless, thinking there was no emergency at all." He goes on to state: "You cannot expect everything from the Government." At a critical period, which the Fiscal Inquiry Committee also referred to, in the flour milling industry between 1879 and 1881, when other Irish industries were wiped out of existence by virtue of their failure to instal up-to-date machinery, flour mills kept going and were successful because they had all installed the new roller system, and from 1880 up to the present time the majority of these concerns, which were owned by Quaker families distinguished by their uprightness and business integrity and their sympathy with the people amongst whom they lived, had managed to keep going. Now, these mills are closing down and I submit that the industry which succeeded by virtue of the special enterprise of its proprietors in the eighties in weathering the storm and living against foreign competition up to the present time, has a natural right to demand a better policy from the Government than what they are getting. We must remember that industries in every country, even in England, are looking for protection. The people are looking for assistance from their Governments.
In this country if there were any alternative policy, if there were any suggestion that unemployment could be solved in any other way, then something might be said for the Government. But the policy they have to offer in opposition to the proposal for this tariff is simply a policy of negation. Now, let us examine some points that have been raised. Deputies, I am sure, have read very closely the reports that have been issued and they will probably in different places have individual arguments for and against the two reports. If we get out of this discussion a feeling that there is some common policy which every Party in the House can stand for and that some effort is likely to be made by this Government or a future Government, some large effort, to deal with the question of unemployment in a thoroughly serious way—if we can get some ground on which to establish that and to get co-operation from all Parties in solving it, then the discussion, though it may not bear fruit in another way, will have borne fruit in that way.
The cost of manufacture and the profits which would be left within the Free State if the whole of the flour output were left to the Irish mills would be larger. The Irish millers themselves calculate that the difference found by subtracting the price of the imported wheat from the price of the finished product— that is, the total amount which would represent the wages and profits in the manufacture—would amount to £1,372,000. I am leaving out of the question altogether the effect that this tariff would have if followed up by a proposal to mill a certain percentage of Irish-grown grain, and I am leaving out of the question also the effect on local activities and the valuable effects on inland communities which Deputy Anthony has mentioned. For example, it would result in giving the farmers offals at a much cheaper price than they buy them at present. Leaving all that out of the question, the millers claim that a sum of £1,372,000 would be left in the country as a result of the manufacture of the total output of flour here.
If we are going to consider what the loss to the country is going to be in the placing of this tariff, what the increase in the cost of living is going to be, we ought not to talk of that without taking into consideration the other factors which have to be put against it. When I was a student and when I read books on economics I found that every single economic proposition that was laid down in the books was always qualified by the addendum "other things being equal." But, in this Government Report on this question of flour tariff, they never tell us that other things are equal, because they never consider that there are any other things except the prejudiced considerations upon which they themselves want us to base arguments and to come to conclusions.
Therefore, when they state that the big facts as to the efficiency of the mills and the increase in the cost of living should be the determining factors in this matter, I submit that they are having Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, because they are omitting entirely the great advantage which is a counter-balancing advantage. They are omitting altogether the enormous effect of having the amount of money that is exported out of the country for the purpose of foreign flour and foreign grain left in it—at least to a large extent. They are omitting that completely. When they speak in another part of their Report of the effect on the purchasing power of the community of the extra farthing in the 2lb. loaf which they say would follow as a natural result of this tariff, I say that if you take into consideration the extra circulation of money which would ensue to the country as a result of keeping the money at home which is now going out for the purchase of these flours, an extra gain of £1,372,000 which the millers claim would be a clear gain if we manufactured our flour here, the balance is in favour of the tariff. If you take that into consideration you will be able to say, and I think there is a good deal of truth in the argument, that the purchasing power of the community would increase at such a rate that even the working men, men who would not be directly employed in the milling industry, would gain by reason of the increased circulation of money and would not feel the extra farthing on the 2lb. loaf. The Government representatives have omitted entirely that question, and they have gone on to state that there are certain advantages which the Irish flour-milling industry has.
They state that there are certain advantages by virtue of the freight which the foreign flour has to pay. Professor O'Rahilly has pointed out in his pamphlet—I do not know whether it is correct or not—that according to the harbour dues in Cork Harbour, the amount that is given by the Government Report as the freight charge for Cork on page 6 of the Report is 2/1, and that it should only be 1/1. Whether it should be 1/1 or not I think there is a good deal in the argument and a good deal in the contention by this critic of the Government policy, that they have simply arbitrarily taken the schedule of freight charges and they put this on paper and they tried to make us believe that to the extent of these charges the Irish flour milling industry has an advantage, a protective tariff, so to speak, in its favour. It is well known that some of these companies, like Spiller and Baker, have vessels of their own. Even if they had not vessels of their own which would give them very cheap freight rates, they can always, by virtue of that freemasonry that exists between the importing trades into this country, the shipping trades and the English wholesalers, get preferential rates where it is a question of giving English manufacturers an advantage. There is a prima facie case, I submit, in support of that. If the Government have not been able to get sufficient information to show that dumping is going on, then I say the Government is in fault It is a well-known fact that along the West Coast of Ireland flour is being imported and sold at a price that, if above the cost of production in England, is certainly not much above it. Experts on dumping tell us that it need not be below or equal to the cost of production; even if it is a little above the cost, it is dumping. If it is shown that the native manufacturer is being placed at an unfair disadvantage, then that is said to be dumping and the Government should take steps accordingly.
Here the Government say that there is no dumping. They put the onus entirely on the millers to prove that there is, as if the millers had complete access to the commercial secrets of their rivals. These English rivals are powerful organisations; they have great ramifications in this country. They are able to give extended credit facilities, for example, and even on the solitary question of extended credit facilities I maintain that the English combine, with its large resources, can always place the native manufacturer at a disadvantage. Our people have so many disadvantages, as the Government report itself admits, in respect of the fact that they are producing in a small way, and that they are up against mass production, with cheap overhead expenses and all the rest of it, that it is almost impossible to say that they are not subject to unfair competition. Whether you call it dumping or not is really only a technical matter. The question is whether there is such unfair competition going on as is likely to end the Irish flour-milling industry. I think there is, and I think that the House will agree with me that the Irish flour-milling industry, by virtue of that, is in a parlous condition. The Government had also to admit that the English combine has the advantage of being able to purchase wheat on a very large scale.
Another matter that has been referred to by Deputy Anthony is a matter that might very well be stressed here, a matter that makes it more urgent and more necessary to impose a tariff now than on the last occasion when we had this matter under discussion. It is that the British Government have taken very definite and very decided steps to remove certain burdens from manufacturing industries in Great Britain by relieving rates. The statement has been made that a single mill—this mill which has been held up to us by the Tariff Commission as being absolutely the last word in efficiency, an 80-sack mill which can be worked by seven men and a boy—is to be relieved to the extent of £8,000 yearly in its rates. If that is so it means that the British Government, while they are not, as, of course, they will claim, protecting that industry, are nevertheless helping to subsidise it indirectly, and that means that the cut-throat competition which has been carried out against the Irish millers will now be carried on with more intensity. It means that if some steps are not taken the remaining mills, with the exception of, perhaps, one or two, will have to go out of business.
The Ministry may be afraid—they have not admitted it—that if the tariff is put on a foreign combine will come over here and take control and that the process of weeding out the inefficient which is going on, and which the Minister for Industry and Commerce says would also go on if a tariff were imposed, would continue, and that as well as having all the inland mills wiped out we would get a foreign syndicate here which would perhaps give greatly reduced employment by virtue of their superior equipment. If that is so, and if the Ministry feel that it is a real reason for not imposing a tariff, I think that they ought to approach the question from an entirely different angle—that is, by putting such prohibitions in the way of foreign companies as would enable the Government, if it felt that these foreign combines would come in under a tariff for the purpose of wiping out their weaker rivals, to review the question and to take some steps to counter-balance the advantages which the tariff would give an English syndicate in that case. I think that that is a question which naturally comes up, like the question of price fixing, under the tariff system, and the fact that the Tariff Commission, under the law as it now stands, is entirely precluded from making any suggestions as to how that difficulty of foreign combines coming in here and buying out the native industry should be overcome, and that, moreover, they are not permitted to make suggestions with regard to price control, in my opinion invalidates the recommendations and the work of the Tariff Commission to such an extent as simply to make it hopeless. It merely means that if you extend your tariff system you will have to appoint new boards to deal with these matters. If the Government foresee these dangers they ought to take steps to meet them. They ought not simply to say: "We admit that the flour milling industry is in a bad condition, but the obstacles to be overcome are too great." The Government have complete powers to deal with that situation, and on them rests the responsibility for not dealing with it. They know the difficulties. We admit that perfect solutions of these difficulties cannot be found, but let us at any rate try to move in the right direction and to get such solutions as will save our industries from being completely wiped out. That is the danger at present.
With regard to the question of the price of bread, there the Government have put the whole question on the long finger again. They admit, I think, that the bakers have been charged by the Food Prices Tribunal with profiteering, and as if it were not enough to take the bakers' word for it that there must and that there shall be an increase in the price of bread if this tariff comes into operation, the Government goes a step further, and in order to show their complete spiritual communion with the bakers, they put into their report a phrase which the bakers themselves might have used: "Even if the price of flour were increased by a smaller amount than 3/9 it is our definite and considered opinion that while it might not lead to an immediate increase in the price of bread, it would mean that the price of bread, which varies with the price of flour, would rise sooner or fall later than it would if no tariff were imposed." We have seen from our experience of the working of the master bakers, and from the report of the Tribunal on Food Prices, that the master bakers have already taken very good care that the price of bread will rise sooner and will fall later than the price of flour over an extended period, and the Government simply take the master bakers at their word, without any further examination of the charges of profiteering against them, and say: "Well, this is an easy way out of the difficulty. Let us go to the Dáil, and, since we have not any better argument, let us say that there will be an increase in the price of bread. That will catch the popular imagination and put a stop to this question of a tariff."
If the Government were sincere in believing that that was an obstacle, and if they were not dominated so completely in this matter by our friend, the Minister for Agriculture, they might have decided that the question of prices would have to be tackled sooner or later. You have the question raised of giving the farmer a minimum price for certain of his products. You have admitted that already in the case of beet. You have the question of profiteering raised, and you have the recommendation of the Food Prices Tribunal that some steps should be taken in that matter. You have a body like the Cork Harbour Board asking the Government to take steps to fix the maximum price for bread. You have various proposals in regard to prices, and you have this question of prices looming very largely in the air, particularly in connection with tariffs.
Every time the question of a tariff is introduced you have Deputy Good saying that the tariff on boots has increased the price. In my opinion, the House should not any longer be placed in the position of having to depend on Deputy Good in a matter of that kind. They ought to charge the Tariff Commission—and it was suggested by the Fianna Fáil Party when they entered the House that it should be so charged, if you do not grant them the power of regulating prices—at least with the duty of watching prices and reporting at intervals to the House to show that the manufacturers who had got the benefit of a tariff were not overstepping the bounds of reason. But here, while the Government failed to take any steps to deal with the increase in the price of bread, they coolly advanced that here as an argument. Even if there is an increase in the price of bread, even if it is justifiable, even if it is right that the bakers, the poor fellows, are eking out a miserable existence, something like that of the farmers, living on the brink of bankruptcy, and barely able to make ends meet, and even if the Government believe that any proposals made for the safeguarding of the milling industry should not encroach upon the bakers' profits, I submit that the admission that the baker should get the whole of this 3/9 is absurd. The millers have said that the increase in the price of the sack of flour under the proposed tariff would be 1/3. It has been suggested that that would be temporary, and that when the mills were going properly and on full time they ought to be able to sell on the same level as the foreigner.
In any case you would always have an element of foreign competition here, of course minus the tariff, but you would still have the play of economic competition from across the Channel to keep prices down. But, even if the price of bread is increased, what is there to show that it will be increased by more than one-and-threepence? What have the Government to show to support their contention that it will be increased, because they said here that they felt it was inevitable that there should be an increase of a farthing in the 2 lb. loaf? If that is going to be so, and if the Government believe that one-and-threepence or a smaller amount would represent the real increase in price, I think they have sufficient evidence at their disposal to enable them to take steps, and they have a sufficiently strong case to go before the country and say: "If the bakers increase the price by a halfpenny per 4 lb. loaf they are taking an unfair advantage of the new situation." In the words of the Minister for Agriculture, they are "against national policy." That was the phrase the Minister used when he said he was going to take steps if certain foreign companies interfered with his plans for the development of the dairying industry. The Minister was going to tell them that, since the Government had a definite policy in that matter, they were clearly acting against national policy, and he was going to order them to clear out. Have we now reached the stage where, if this tariff were imposed—and the Minister for Industry and Commerce has admitted that the increase in the price of bread is the fundamental and the only real objection—that when the bakers say "boo" to them and declare: "We are going to increase the price whether you like it or not, and we are going to upset the whole question of the tariff, simply by the help of our friends across the Channel," the Government are going to run away from the bakers?
It has been shown by Professor O'Rahilly that in Cork city, over a period of fifteen months, from February, 1926, to April, 1927, bread was sold at elevenpence. It was reduced in the following twelve months by a halfpenny. The average price of flour in the first period,, when bread was elevenpence, was 50.2/- and in the second period 45.4/-. Professor O'Rahilly argued that since, on a reduction of 4s. 10d. a sack on flour, the bakers only gave the advantage of a halfpenny, they can still afford to lose one-and-threepence without losing that halfpenny. That is to say, the price of flour having fallen by 4s. 10d. and the bakers only having reduced the price of bread by a halfpenny, if the price of flour goes up by one-and-threepence now, if a tariff is imposed, there would still be a reduction of three and sevenpence, and on three and sevenpence the bakers themselves admit they could give a halfpenny reduction. In that particular case at any rate—it may not hold good in all cases—I think it can be argued that the bakers could carry an extra one and threepence a sack without placing it on the consumer. That might not hold in all cases, but the bakers are entirely immune from real investigation in this matter. The Food Prices Tribunal failed to get at the bottom of their secrets. It seemed to me, on reading the evidence of that Tribunal, that the big argument in favour of the bakers was the argument that is now being used, to some extent, against the millers, that they were employing perhaps too much labour and not keeping up to date, that if, like the millers who, it is now suggested, should all become port millers instead of inland millers, the bakers had turned their bakeries into machine bakeries, and cut out a large proportion of the labour which they are employing at present, they would be able to get more loaves out of a sack of flour, and at a much cheaper rate.
If the Government are suggesting to the millers that they should be up to date, and if they suggest that it is an easy proposition for the millers, with their capital of nearly two million pounds sunk in the industry, to change at a moment's notice, or to make proposals by which the whole of that vast business could be changed to the ports, I think it is equally right, seeing that it concerns the people in such a vital matter as the price of bread, for the Government to suggest to the bakers to instal steam where they have not done so, and thereby to lessen the price of bread. I do not say that that would be a good thing, but if we followed the Government proposition of efficiency at all costs, and lower expenses, we ought to be able to get the bakers by reducing their expenses to make up for the extra one and threepence per sack which the millers say they would have to bear.
I do not admit that the extra farthing which it is claimed would be added is justifiable, or that the Government have produced any arguments to show that it would, in fact, be justifiable. On the contrary, I think everything is in favour of my argument that there is no necessity for such an increase— of an increase of a farthing per 2lb. loaf, at any rate. The evidence of the Food Prices Tribunal, and the evidence of the costings of the chief bakeries in the Free State, shows that considerable reductions can be made in the cost, and, therefore, I submit there is no case whatever for this increase. But, even if there is to be an increase, whether it be an increase of a farthing per 2lb. loaf or less, I say there are other compensations. There is the compensation of the clear margin of £1,300,000 which the millers say would be left in the country by virtue of their having the manufacture of the whole flour requirements of the Free State in their hands. There is the fact also, as Deputy Anthony mentioned, that you would have improvements in local areas. You would not alone have the price of offals cheaper, but you would have subsidiary employment given.
The millers point out in their arguments in favour of a tariff that they would support other Irish industries. They claim, for example, that if a tariff were granted they would spend on bags alone, I think, something like a quarter of a million pounds, and there is no reason why the whole of that sum should not be kept here. They also say that they would help the coach-building industry, and I believe they would help the railways. I believe that if the manufacture of flour were kept in this country it would mean an enormous increase in the quantity of traffic carried by the railways. The fact that the beet sugar industry has been of such enormous benefit to the railways shows that if wheat-growing could be taken up in this country, even if it were not taken up to any considerable extent, but if you manufactured the whole of your flour requirements here, you would be giving the railways a great deal of work which they are badly in need of.
Another thing against the question of employment is the cost. We are told that for these 153 extra men you are going to pay something like £290,000. I do not know how the Government arrived at that figure. If the tariff is successful, and we keep out the foreign flour, then I think the advantage of the extra wages and of the extra benefits which the areas in which mills are situate will get, the support which will be given to local industries and the employment which local craftsmen will get, will more than counterbalance that. I must take issue with my friend, Deputy O'Connell, on that. I say that to take the figure of 153 extra men on the one side and to put against it this sum of £290,000 on the other side, seems to me to be stating the case in a very narrow fashion. We have to take all the circumstances into consideration.
The question, after all, is not the giving of employment to 153 extra men. The question is the giving of direct employment that will be secure and permanent to the 2,000 persons who will be employed in the industry, as well as to the many hundreds more dependent on it indirectly. The question is, if you do not give this flour tariff and pay this price, even if you have to pay it, what is going to be the alternative? If more mills close down, more men would be thrown on the unemployment list, and, as has been pointed out over and over again from these benches, the people who are thrown out of employment will still have to be maintained by the State. Their families will have to get home assistance or the unemployment dole, or in some other way the community will have to maintain them. The so-called economists who referred to these 153 extra men and held up that small figure as their great argument against the imposition of the tariff, completely forgot to state the alternative. The alternative is the closing down of the flour-milling industry, and the throwing of these men on the scrap heap, where, I suppose, they will have to wait until such time as the Minister for Industry and Commerce has his rationalisation scheme completed for gathering them all up to Dublin city to work in the enormous factories which will be started under his direction. We are prepared if it is shown, and I think it can be shown, that a further step is necessary, not alone to give a tariff on flour but to make provision for the purchase of grain. We are prepared to do that, if that is another way in which you can cut down the extra cost which you feel would fall on the consumer. We feel that is a way that could be adopted, but as I have said, there are compensating advantages. There is the extra flow of money, which is a big thing. In one passage in their report the Government representatives state:—
"The same amount of bread after it has increased in price, presumably, would have to be purchased, with a corresponding restriction in the balance available for expenditure on other necessary commodities. This diversion of purchasing power might affect the prosperity of other industries and the employment which they give."
In another place they say that the increase in earnings would be distributed amongst a very small section. At the moment I cannot find the paragraph in which the Government representatives deal with that, but in any case they definitely state that, as a result of the tariff, any extra employment that would be given would simply result in the distribution of more money amongst a very small section of the community. How would the Government, as regards the money that would be put into circulation in wages, profits and so on, as a result of the operation of this tariff, segregate it from all the other money in circulation?
It is a well-known fact that when a ship is being built on the Clyde every shopkeeper in Glasgow, and I suppose the same thing holds good in Belfast, feels the benefit of that on a Saturday night. If you go into any county town or small town around Dublin and ask the shopkeepers how they are doing out of the tourist traffic, they will smile at you, and tell you that it can never assist them. They will tell you that the only things that can give them real help are the earnings distributed amongst the workers in their districts. If you have not weekly wages paid out to the workers in the towns of the Free State, then the traders will feel the effect of that. I say that this extra amount which would be spent on wages and profits would not be distributed amongst a very small section of the people. It would be distributed in every area where there is a mill, and it would stretch out from those areas in ever-widening circles. By virtue of the fact that you had the mills working full time you would have, I claim, increased trade activity in every direction. It would give a stimulation, too, to other industries. It would result in invigorating and improving them, and you would, I submit, have a greatly increased circulation of money amongst all classes.
If that is wrong, then some of the ablest men in England who are to-day justifying the expenditure which they are looking for in public works are quite wrong. Only to-day I read in the "Manchester Guardian" where Lord Reading said that this money which would be spent on productive employment, even though it was Government money, even though it was the taxpayers' money, would have more than compensating advantages, as it would be money going into circulation, and it would save the State from the upkeep of the unemployed by doles and home assistance, it would put more money into the workers' and traders' pockets, and it would increase the consumption of dutiable commodities to the benefit of the revenue and the State. I believe that is so. If you put up these considerations against the cost which we are told this tariff would mean to the consumer, this extra £290,000—I do not know how the figure was arrived at—but even if you admit it does cost that, I claim the advantages are more than compensated for. In conclusion, I merely wish to stress the fact that the Government have delayed a great deal in this matter. If they have any definite policy at all as against the policy of a tariff on flour to assist these mills let them produce it, but they have not done so, and we can only come to the conclusion with reference to the Cumann na nGaedheal Party that it has completely departed from the policy of Arthur Griffith.
A few days ago, when speaking on another subject, the Minister for Agriculture said: "We are standing in the shoes of other men and we are going to carry on their policy." I wonder what the late President Griffith would think of the arguments used here about mass production, efficiency, and the rest of it. They are a negation, and absolutely contrary to his whole life teaching, and, what is worse, there is nothing offered instead as a policy. His whole lifetime was spent in trying to put this particular matter of the protection of our industries in force. He claimed that under the present powers we had here we were safe so long as we had those powers and exercised them. We are not exercising them. We have allowed the matter to lapse. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party has in private counsels from time to time, I understand, made proposals for compulsory tillage, which Deputy Gorey dislikes so much. When Deputy Gorey came into this House he was a supporter to some extent of the policy Deputy de Valera has enunciated to-day. He said there are too many agricultural products coming into the country and they ought to be kept out. Deputy Gorey has changed. I do not know why.
