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Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 2 May 1930

Vol. 34 No. 11

Private Deputies' Business. - Saorstát Milling Industry.

Debate resumed on motion by Deputy Anthony:—
That the Dáil is of opinion that steps should be taken by the Executive Council to frame a scheme of national control which will provide adequate safeguards for the Saorstát milling industry and for the consuming public.

When the debate was adjourned I was referring to the question of the price of flour. It will be remembered by the House that when the application for a tariff on flour was rejected the Minister stated that the chief reason for the rejection was that such a tariff would mean an increased price to the consumer, and an increase in the cost of living. That argument has now been removed; the Minister has nothing to say about it, and he can have nothing to say, because the millers, as far as I understand, have professed themselves ready to give reasonable safeguards to the public in the matter of prices. The scheme of national control which Deputy Anthony's motion envisages is not, it must be remembered, for the benefit of the flour-milling industry; it is for the benefit of the public at large. The great argument that it would not benefit the public at large, that the price of flour under a tariff, or under some such method of national control as is here suggested, would increase, has been removed. The millers are prepared, I believe, to guarantee that their maximum price will not exceed the English price.

I do not think the millers have given any guarantee, and furthermore they do not want any protection. All the millers want is to be let alone to do their own work in their own way, but some Deputies on the opposite benches want to be philanthropists, and want to go out of their way to help the country, as they think.

What do you know about it?

Considering I am in the business I ought to know.

I have no objection to hearing Deputy McDonogh's views; I will be glad to hear them. If Deputy McDonogh thinks that any people in this House have a grievance against him because he is an important business man he is making the greatest mistake. On the contrary, some of us have the very greatest respect for him for that reason. But when a definite question in this or in any other connection is brought before the House, I and my colleagues will discuss it, and will represent the people whose interests are concerned, just as much as Deputy McDonogh.

You have misrepresented what I wanted to say. From what information I have the millers have not asked for protection and do not want protection. What they want is to be let alone to do their business in their own way.

My answer to that is very simple. The millers—not all of them, but a certain number—have made certain proposals to the Minister for Industry and Commerce for a scheme of national control. Is that true or is it not?

Not for this scheme.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

They have made proposals, and the fact that the whole 100 per cent. of them have not made these proposals simply shows that there may be a division of opinion in the milling industry. The whole of the Irish mills are not bought out. The whole of the Irish millers, we are told, do not want a tariff. The fact that the whole flour milling industry does not seem to be able to come to a unanimous decision with regard to future policy, or with regard to the policy that the Government should adopt, is no argument at all. However, I am not going to digress into the objections that Deputy McDonogh has raised. I hope he will deal with the whole situation. If he does so as a commercial man, and shows that the Irish flour milling industry is going on in a satisfactory condition, that it does not want any help, that flour mills having been closed mean nothing to the people, and that because it suits particular interests, perhaps in the West of Ireland, to import flour, that that is a reason why people should lose their employment in other parts of the country and have industries closed down, we would be glad to hear how he develops the arguments.

Proposals have been made. If these proposals are treated seriously, and if they are taken as a basis for a national scheme of control, there are sufficient guarantees amply to safeguard the rights of the consumer. The price of flour can be guaranteed, and I believe will be guaranteed, no matter what Deputy McDonagh says, if the millers feel that the Government are prepared to meet them in the matter, and from the information at my disposal I feel that they will be prepared to give guarantees that the prices here will not exceed the corresponding prices in the English market. Furthermore, a proposal has been made that if necessary a tribunal should be set up. If it is stated that there is a certain price in England, and that that price ought not necessarily to rule here, on account of the differing conditions, then the suggestion is that a judge and a tribunal, representative both of the Ministry and the millers themselves, should determine what is the economic rate at which flour can be produced here.

When Deputy McDonogh questions me on statements I am making, I would like to call his attention to the fact that, for a very long time past, not alone in the official publication which the Tariff Commission issued, but in statements by the Minister responsible for industry and commerce, we have been told that the Irish millers are inefficient, their mills badly placed, badly managed and badly machined; we are told that is to be final in this matter, that the dictum of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and of the Tariff Commission is to outweigh and overrule every other national consideration, although one would imagine that the chief reasons which the Tariff Commissioners themselves admit, why flour cannot be produced here as economically as in England, or could not under recent conditions, was that there had been a change in fashion, because the people had started to cat flour made from foreign wheat, and that Irish wheat had gone out of fashion.

That was the reason they said that the English millers were no longer able to compete. They lost the advantages they had in the getting of their wheat supplies. They had to import, they had heavier freights to pay, and were not able to buy in a combined way and on a huge scale like the English millers. We are told now that the Irish millers have to turn around and to produce an up-to-date efficient rationalised organisation, which will not alone be able to cope with these difficulties, but will be able, over-night, to do away with the disadvantages of the inland mills, their smallness, their disproportionate capital, and the fact that across the water the whole of the English flour-milling industry is going to be combined into a single unit for the purpose of competing with them. Are the sympathies of the Government with the Irish flour-milling industry in these circumstances, or are they with the combine across the water? The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that Mr. Rank who was coming along was the better type of miller. Mr. Rank has come along, and what is he going to give us? Is he going to give us more employment? Is he going to buy more Irish wheat, and is he going to sell flour at a cheaper price? Is there any understanding with Mr. Rank, or have there been negotiations with him?

If this House is going to be asked to agree to the proposition that Mr. Rank is to take over the flour-milling industry in this country and rationalise it on whatever conditions he wishes—if we are going to have Mr. Rank's rationalisation instead of national rationalisation—let us hear what the advantages of Mr. Rank's scheme are going to be, and let us not have empty platitudes and generalities, such as that Mr. Rank's going to give us efficiency, that he is going to give us an 80-sack mill with seven men and a boy, that he is going to give us a modern mill which will employ, in three shifts, twentyone men and three boys. If he cannot give us anything better than that, I submit that the Irish people will not consider that the advantages from this great efficiency of Mr. Rank will more than compensate for all the unemployment and all the distress that will be caused if the so-called inefficient inland mills throughout the country are closed down.

We have all this talk about Mr. Rank's efficiency. We have had the Minister instigating the idea that we are hopeless in this country—hopelessly incapable of rising to the English level—because, forsooth, these gentlemen on the Tariff Commission went across to Birkenhead and were shown this wonderful mill of Mr. Rank's. They were so impressed that they wanted to have Mr. Rank here on the spot, to have a new economic policy, as they have in Russia, except that Mr. Rank is to take charge of the whole thing here. The Irish people and the Dáil were not to be taken into the confidence of the Minister. I doubt if the Minister himself was to be taken into Mr. Rank's confidence in this because I have a shrewd idea that the economics of Mr. Rank are simply what Mr. Rank thinks will pay, and what he thinks will be of advantage to his combine. It is that policy that is going to rule Mr. Rank in any scheme or any proposals that he has in mind, and not the benefit of the Irish people, not necessarily the giving of more employment, because the Tariff Commissioners themselves admitted that the great trouble in this flour-milling industry was that even if a tariff were granted they could not see that greatly increased employment would result.

Is Mr. Rank going to give more employment? He is not. He is going to give reduced employment, and when the Minister tells us that Mr. Rank is not likely to purchase mills in this country to close them down, he is only trifling with the question. If Mr. Rank is going to rationalise the industry here in collaboration with the rationalisation that is going on in Great Britain, then Mr. Rank will close mills wherever it suits him to do so. If he thinks fit to close down mills, as he has done in England in order to tighten up the industry and make it more modern, is he not going to do the same thing here? If he is not, I would like the Minister to state what guarantees we have. The only guarantee we have is that when Mr. Rank starts to do that the Minister will stop him. The Minister asks this House to acquiesce in the proposition that Mr. Rank is the ideal miller, the ideal man, who is going to turn our industries overnight into something efficient, but even then I doubt if Mr. Rank will be able to develop an export trade in flour. There is this lack of confidence in ourselves. There is this prejudice which, to my mind is senseless, a trivial prejudice against the Irish millers. I do not know the Irish millers personally, but I take an interest in the industry, as I hope every other member of the House does. There are a number of mills in my constituency— they have been there for generations —and I want to see them continued.

If the Irish millers are unpatriotic, it is our duty to make them more patriotic. If they are behind the times in the matter of equipment and in other matters concerning their industry, let us try to improve them, but let us not hand the whole thing over to Mr. Rank and ask him to do it. Could anybody imagine a Minister getting up in the English Parliament, or, in fact, in any other Parliament, and welcoming the complete wiping out of industries, welcoming the fact that a weeding-out process was going on, and that competition was forcing some of our industries out of existence, welcoming the fact that the inefficient mills would in time be closed down, and that in fact the more quotas of Irish mills that are bought out by English millers the nearer we are approaching to protection for the good mills that are left? How are we approaching to protection for the good mills that are left? Could anybody dream of a Minister in any other State but this getting up and openly declaring that it was his policy to encourage the foreigner to come in, though he had nothing to show for it, no results to show, no promises, no guarantees and no understanding from the foreigner that his coming would benefit us? When we talk about inviting foreign capital in, that may be a very desirable thing, but foreign control is quite a different thing. We are against foreign control in shipping. I think that even the Minister agrees that that is a bad thing. I think he will admit that foreign control in banking is not a good thing. You have English bankers taking it upon themselves to rationalise their industries, but here you have the Irish bankers sitting down and refusing to move a finger while all our industries are being crushed out of existence—refusing to take the slightest step to improve the situation or to put their backs into the work of building up industries.

We have the Minister for Agriculture introducing legislation and telling us that the control of the dairy industry by foreigners was an imminent national menace. He took special steps to deal with that, and spent £625,000, as we were told in the Budget, to buy out those creameries which were controlled by foreigners. Therefore, national control was good in the case of that industry. Why should not national control be equally good in the case of flour mills? Because the flour millers are unpatriotic. They had the impudence to pass the Minister by in the first instance and go to the English Mutual Millers Association.

I hold no brief for flour millers, but I say that in the situation they were confronted with were they going to be an active unit in the rationalisation scheme which was going to decide whether they were going to exist any longer or not? Were they going to have any say in their own fate, or were they to stand aside and be ultimately wiped out of existence? In any case, the obvious thing was to try and have a say in the matter and see whether under rationalisation they would be allowed to continue or not. They tried to get that say, and because they had the temerity to do what business men are doing every day in the year in this country, consulting with the English business men with whom they deal as to the future of their business in this country, the probable trend of affairs, the Minister for Industry and Commerce declares war upon them. They are unpatriotic. At the time the flour tariff was under consideration they made no proposals to the Minister. They passed him by. Perhaps they are not so conservative as Deputy McDonogh would lead us to believe that they would have nothing to do with the Minister for Industry and Commerce. It is significant that they went to all the trouble then to prepare this huge case in which they ask for a tariff. It is curious they have come forward now with these proposals.

Even if they have come forward with these proposals at a late stage, that is no reason why they should not be taken seriously. It is of far more importance to keep the existing industries you have in production and increase them as far as possible than to bring in Mr. Rank whose actions we cannot be responsible for and who must proceed on a policy which must be laid down in Great Britain. If the Minister, or any of his colleagues, can show that is not so we will be only too delighted. If Irish industries are to be brought up-to-date there is work for the Minister not only in the flour-milling but every other industry. He can help them to reduce costs. He can bring them together if he thinks the costs ought to be reduced. If he thinks the main problem is that the mills should be capitalised and that they should have more up-to-date machinery, why does he not set about doing it instead of leaving it to Mr. Rank's? At least let him give the house an assurance that Mr. Rank is going to do the wonderful things apparently expected from him.

I suggest the Minister was on better lines when he said that the big thing was to keep industries in the country, to have-products produced at prices people can pay, and at a rate that will have some relation to what they can be produced at elsewhere. The Minister has denied there is such a thing as dumping going on. He has got no evidence of it. But under the phrase, that Irish industries deserve support and that we ought to encourage them, provided they can produce a product at the same rate or a rate bearing a reasonable relation to what they can be produced at elsewhere, surely it ought to be possible to come to an understanding? The alternative to that is we cannot depend on the leaders of this industry. They are so unpatriotic they will not listen to the Minister. They have passed him by. They have gone across to England, and for that reason this whole question is to be shelved. I think that is unreasonable on the Minister's part. I think the Minister should rise to the occasion and meet the millers before sacrificing them to Mr. Rank's rationalisation scheme. Is it just because the Tariff Commissioners were so impressed with this wonderful mill they saw in Birkenhead, and which they lauded to the skies while they condemned the mill in Bagenalstown which they had not even walked through, that these things have happened? Is the Dáil to be satisfied that the whole industry is to be handed over to Mr. Rank?

I have been meeting millers before this year, and I have been constantly in touch with them.

I am glad to hear that.

The Deputy stated the opposite.

There was an advertisement in the Press from an English firm of engineers contradicting the statement the Minister made.

It is not so.

I do not happen to have the advertisement by me now.

It is very much like the statement made in the House to-day which the Deputy tried to fasten on me and which was not my statement.

If the Minister is in touch with the millers, I wish there was closer co-operation, and if there was, this kind of advertising and correspondence in the Press would not be taking place. What we desire to take place is an exchange of opinions between the Minister and the millers. It will be said that Mr. Rank controls only 30 per cent. of the Irish Free State flour-milling industry at present. It is very likely, however, if he comes on with his rationalisation that he will close down mills, for what is he here for if not to start rationalisation? The Minister says that the Irish mills deserve no consideration, and they are to be wiped out of existence without even having their case heard. I think he is not treating them fairly when he says that the Irish millers can wreck the rationalisation scheme simply by standing out of it. He ought to show the millers what is the meaning of this statement. He is welcoming the Rank people to the country as a better type of miller, and the inefficient mills must be wiped out at all costs. The more Irish mills that are bought up by Englishmen the better. If the Minister really thinks that the Irish flour millers could have taken any other attitude than go to rationalisation headquarters to get the best terms they could there, why is he not giving them some encouragement? Why does he decry the native and uphold the foreigner? That is a question the Minister has not answered. I think the reason is that the Minister is changing his opinion with every wind that blows. In the last two statements he made on this important question there was simply a policy of negation. They outlined no policy. He would not do anything until circumstances had arisen that compelled him to do it. If, as he says, he has been in touch with the flour millers for the past few years, it speaks badly for him, for I say that he must share responsibility in this matter as well as the flour millers, when he has not a better message for the House than to say that the policy of control by foreigners must go on, that there is no alternative, and that Irishmen are incapable of running their own industries in their own country.

I do not like to give a silent vote on this matter. I have taken an interest in the question since the discussions started about the flour-milling industry. I was at a meeting at which I heard the flour millers in my own district described as being of the common or garden type. I was in a position, although I did not do so, to contradict that statement, because I believe that the mills in my constituency are equipped with the most modern machinery. I was also in a position to state that the Government would safeguard the milling industry as much as possible, and to contradict the statement industriously circulated through the country that Rank's were buying mills to close them down and to use the mills as dumping places or storehouses for the English flour, and that that would mean the sacking of the Irish workers. I am convinced that if Mr. Rank, or any other man who comes into this country, attempted to do that the Government would not permit it. The Government will see that the same standard of employment as is at present obtaining should continue. I am convinced on that point, and because of that I say there is no reason why this motion should be moved, although I have great respect for the movers of it. We hear a lot about flour-milling. What about the poor people who have to eat the bread? We should have a little to say about them, and I have never heard a word said about them.

There is a great deal of talk about tariffs. I think that tariffs are really in the hands of the people. In a town where there is a flour mill I advised the people if they wanted to improve the trade of the mill to encourage the use of the flour milled there by asking in the baker's shop for bread baked from Irish-milled and particularly locally-milled flour. In that way there would be no need for any tariffs. If you impose a tariff which will ultimately come down on the people you will be doing so against their wishes. They have the remedy in their own hands when they go to buy bread. Every time I meet these people I can tell them that the Government are going to safeguard the Irish flour-milling industry and they will not permit the employment that is at present obtaining in the country to be lessened. If we are trying to keep out foreign investors in the flour-milling industry, what about keeping out other investors? If there was another man like Ford anxious to come to Waterford would we keep him out simply because he was a foreigner, or would we imagine that we might get some Irishman able to do what Ford is doing in Cork? I say that we should welcome these people and when they come here we should make them Irish. We have the future of the country in our own hands and we have here a Government just as willing to see justice done to the people as those who are shouting so much and telling the flour millers and the workers that they are going to be cheated.

"The history of this nation has not been, as is so often said, the history of a military struggle for 750 years. It has been much more a history of peaceful penetration. It has been the story of slow, steady economic encroach by England. It has been a struggle on our part to prevent that, a struggle against exploitation, a struggle against the cancer that was eating up our lives; and it was only after discovering this economic penetration that we discovered political freedom was necessary in order that that should be stopped. The English penetratration has not merely been a military penetration. At the present moment the economic penetration goes on. I need only give you a few instances. Every day our banks become incorporated or allied with British interests; every day steamship companies go into English hands; every day some other business concern in this city is taken over by an English concern and becomes a little oasis of English customs and manners. Nobody notices, but that is the thing that has destroyed our Gaelie civilisation. That is the thing we will not be able to stop, perhaps, if we lose the opportunity now."

I have weighed the words which I have uttered very carefully, and I am sure even Deputy Gorey will admit they are sensible. Will Deputy Gorey say they are nonsense?

Why am I brought into this at all?

Will the Deputy say they are sensible?

If you get me going you might hear too much about this.

We want to secure a measure of agreement.

Does the Minister for Industry and Commerce think they are sensible?

The statement was very badly read.

The words I have just uttered are taken from the Treaty debates, and they were spoken by the late General Michael Collins.

Did Batt O'Connor read them?

When we are told by the Cumann na nGaedheal people to treat Michael Collins' name with respect, we would ask them in reply to treat his policy with respect. President Cosgrave the other day, when I mentioned Michael Collins, and referred to him simply by the name of "Collins," told me I should treat the late General Collins' name with more respect. I had more respect and more love for Michael Collins' good qualities than a great number of the men who mouth his name now and who act quite differently from the way that he would have liked the people of this country to act. I respected his good qualities, and I did not have any regard for the failings, the natural human failings which people have, but which were the only things in him that attracted a number of his followers. When Collins was advocating the Treaty he gave utterance to the words that I have just quoted. He pointed out there that the struggle over 750 years was not altogether a military struggle; it was the struggle of the Irish people to prevent a British economic encroachment, a struggle on the part of the Irish people to secure a decent livelihood in their own country. The struggle against the landlords was much the same. The landlords took possession of all our land, and they charged us what they liked for that land. Our people could get only potatoes and salt as a reward for their labours.

If we allow British concerns to come here and control our industrial enterprises one after another, we will be in the same position in relation to industry and industrial products as we were to the landlords and the produce of the land. If we allow economic penetration to go on, if we allow English flour millers, cigarette manufacturers and others to come here and to buy up our concerns, they will be able to charge us what they like for their produce, and we will have the Irish people as a whole simply in the position of being hewers of wood and drawers of water to British concerns. The difference between an Irishman running an Irish concern to produce goods for the Irish market and an Englishman running a factory in this country to produce goods for the Irish market is shown in the difference between Carroll's factory in Dundalk and Player's or some other of the British factories here. I have no brief for Carroll's factory or for the Carrolls. I never got a shilling from them for anything I ever stood for, and I do not ever hope to. But you have there an Irishman using his own capital, employing Irishmen in the white-collar jobs as well as in the ordinary heavy jobs in the factory. You had Irishmen trained in the production of tobacco and cigarettes, so that after a time the firm was in a position to establish a tobacco factory in England, and they took over Irishmen to show Englishmen how to run that factory.

Mr. Byrne

Are we discussing tobacco or flour?

Here in Dublin you have the position, where English tobacco factories are started, that the only Irish people who are getting employment there are girls at a few shillings a week, and the white-collar jobs, the higher paid officials and the technical experts in the firm are Englishmen.

The Deputy ought come now to the flour-milling.

That is what will happen if our flour mills and other industries are taken over by English concerns. You have Messrs. Rank coming over here and they will have their experts and the foremen and their higher paid officials drawing fat salaries and Irishmen simply heaving the sacks to their orders. Deputy McDonogh said all that the flour millers wanted was to be left alone. We are not going to leave the flour millers alone——

Nor anybody else either.

We are not going to leave anybody alone in this country who should be encouraged or discouraged by Government control, for the benefit of the Irish people. We want to interfere with the flour millers to this extent—we want to put the flour millers on their feet, to see that they produce flour here and produce it with Irish workmen at a price which is an economic price. The flour millers have agreed to that. The flour millers know that they are on the verge of being wiped out by British competition. They ask for Government support and in return for that they are agreed that a certain independent tribunal shall be set up to fix the price of flour. We say that we should so arrange matters in this country that the British should not get control. They should not get control of our flour-milling industries. We say also that by Government action we should adopt methods by which flour millers will have a right to sell flour here to Irish consumers at an economic price which will pay them and their workers a fair living wage and not at an exorbitant price.

One of the worst things that we have to fight here in this country is the so-called manufacturer who also is an importer. I have had experience of that myself. I tried to buy certain articles here in this city from a firm who also imported similar articles and I was prepared to give five per cent. or ten per cent. more for the Irish article. I insisted on getting the Irish article. It was only after insisting for a long time that I succeeded in getting it. When I went in first to this importer-manufacturer he produced the foreign article and pointed out its good qualities. It was only after a long struggle that I succeded in getting him to manufacture the few articles that I wanted to buy. You have the same condition of things in every port town in Ireland in regard to practically every article that is consumed or used in this country. The reason why there was not an unanimous appeal from the flour millers in this country for protection for their industry was because some of those so-called flour millers were making more out of importing flour with less trouble than they could make by milling flour here. That is our difficulty. Deputies here will recognise that difficulty in relation to every industrial problem that they come up against. Some of the people affected are not producers only but are also importers, and it sometimes happens that their producing interests are not as important to them as their importing interests. In such cases they will fight for their importing interests.

Both the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Agriculture are very fond of giving us lectures about Irish inefficiency. We could, if we liked, turn the whole of this country into a very efficient farm with, say, a dozen fields. That could be ploughed. A man could go out with a tractor in the morning and drive away the whole day, come back at night and unyoke. That would be the most efficient farming that it would be possible to adopt, I suppose. But, if we did that, we would do away with practically three-fourths of our population. If we want to turn out flour in a really efficient manner, we would probably do it best and in the most efficient way by the establishment of one large flour mill and have it worked with labour-saving devices wherever possible. But by doing so, we would get rid of practically nine-tenths of the people who are at present employed in flour-milling.

Of course, we would make it economic then to use our own wheat. We are interested in the flour-milling situation because we of the Fianna Fáil Party believe that by producing our own wheat, as well as milling our own wheat here, we will be doing the most effective thing and proceeding in the most efficient way to give the greatest number of people a decent livelihood here in this country. That is what we aim at, and that is our test of efficiency. Take the overhead costs of some of the millers in this country at present. If those mills were properly protected and enabled to run at full-time they would be able to produce flour much more cheaply than they are able to produce it to-day. I have been given the overhead charges per sack of an inland mill working three shifts, two shifts and one shift. The overhead charge of the mill per sack working three shifts are 8/3; the overhead charges of the mill working two shifts are 10/6, and the overhead charges working one shift would be 11/6 per sack. That is almost 30 per cent. higher in the case of the mill working only one shift a day than in the case of the mill working three shifts. We have sufficient mills here in the country to produce all the flour we require if they were put working full-time; and if they were to be working three shifts, their overhead charges would be reduced according to these figures by almost 30 per cent. I cannot for the life of me see why the Government do not set themselves to do this. When Collins made the statement that I have quoted here he was speaking words that should be borne in mind by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. As that Party drift along, controlled by the solid fifteen, they are liable to forget what they started out to do. The reason that this House was set up was because the men who set it up honestly thought, I believe, that they could do something to stop British penetration, and build up a country here in which Irishmen could live in the ordinary decent standard of comfort.

Unfortunately, as the "Irish Times" on 2nd April said, "during the seven years the interests for which the Independent members stand in the Dáil have been the social and economic mainstay of the present Administration." That, unfortunately, is the case. The mainstay of the present Administration has not been the social and economic policy for which the Irish people fought from 1916 to 1921, but has been, as the "Irish Times" pointed out, the interests for which the Independent members stand in the Dáil. A solid fifteen have used the whip on the Government with great effect. I hope that there will be a rebellion in the ranks of the ordinary members of Cumann na nGaedheal, that they will stand on their feet and say to the Executive Council that the main policy of any Government in this country should be the interests of the ordinary Irish people and not the interests for which the Independent members stand in this Dáil.

Is the Deputy aware that quite a number of the fifteen are protectionists ——

Eight on a division will count sixteen.

As Deputy Flinn points out, eight on a division will count sixteen.

I would like to point out that some of my constituents are flour millers, and I have been approached by flour millers on this subject. If I could do anything to help them I would do it, but I must be persuaded that whatever is done is good for the country.

Will not the Deputy have an opportunity of making a speech?

I am delighted to hear Deputy Alton say that he has been approached by flour millers. I hope that he has been approached to good effect. I put it to him, or to any other Deputy, that if we allow our flour mills to go under foreign control, what will happen is probably what happened in England, where many flour mills were bought up by the biggest members of the Millers' Mutual Association, and were afterwards shut down. If Ministers say that that will not happen here they must have forgotten what happened in the past in regard to Irish industries that were bought up by English concerns. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce would come to Dundalk, I would show him where a fine old industry was once carried on in premises which would now cost at least a quarter of a million to build. I could get it for him from an English concern for a few thousand pounds. That industry was bought up by an English firm and shut down, and all the stuff that was manufactured there is now produced abroad and dumped here.

The industry to which I refer was the old Dundalk Distilling Company. As I say, the premises could be built to-day for scarcely less than a quarter of a million, but they could be bought from the English combine that owns them for a few thousand pounds, that is, of course, on the condition that the buyer will not restart the industry here. In the old days the workers in that concern, their families, the shop-keepers and farmers in the locality benefited by the wages given there, and they were able to buy some of the products of that industry. The workers, however, have now passed out, and the result is that the shop-keepers, the farmers, labourers, and everyone else in that neighbourhood have suffered as a result. It is poor consolation to an unemployed flour miller to look in a baker's window and see bread ticketed at ninepence or tenpence per four-pound loaf when he himself has not got ninepence or tenpence to buy it. If we had the mills going and even if bread went up a penny in price, the flour workers would have tenpence or elevenpence to buy that bread and the farmers and shop-keepers in the neighbourhood amongst whom the workers' wages would be distributed would be better able to buy bread at elevenpence than they formerly were when it cost ninepence or tenpence. Deputy Daly said that the Government were going to maintain the present standard of employment. He was sure of that.

Guaranteed it.

Explain how.

He should have said they were going to maintain the present standard of unemployment. He could guarantee that. If the policy which has been in operation for nine or ten years here goes on the standard of unemployment will be very much increased.

I have no doubt about it.

I would like to supplement the remarks I made when I interrupted Deputy Aiken, and I apologise for the fact that I interrupted him at such length. I would like to disabuse the Deputy's mind of the idea that the Independent members, or at least some of them, are opposed to the encouragement and establishment of industries in this country. Speaking for myself, I can say that I am heart-whole on the side of trying to develop and encourage industries and to establish fresh ones. In the last couple of years I took a small part in trying to establish a couple of industries. I have got some experience, and I may say that I have paid for it, but I am not sorry and would try it again.

There are two sides to every question. Some of my constituents are flower millers, and they are, of course, interested in this matter. As I have said, some of them approached me about it, and I know that they have a good ease, but there are two sides to the question, and until I can get some assurance that it would not make the situation worse by having a tariff than it is at present as regards the milling industry, I would not vote for such tariff. There ought, however, to be some via media, something in the way of a commission or a rationalisation of the Irish industry. That, of course, is a matter about which there are many aspects. This is a very complex question, and though I know something about the position it would be impertinent on my part to try to pretend that I understand it completely.

Mr. Hogan (Minister):

Deputy Alton might have saved time and not have wasted his breath, because he ought to realise by now that it it necessary for Deputies opposite to make protestations of patriotism for the simple reason that such protestations cover up any deficiencies. That, however, is wearing a bit thin, and it is time for Deputies on the one side or the other to drop it. I agree with General Collins that peaceful penetration rather than any other form of penetration brought about the subjugation of this country, but how are you going to alter that? Deputies opposite pin their faith to tariffs, control, and State action generally. They are useful in business from a great many points of view, but they are no use without a spirit of enterprise and a spirit of work. What have Deputies opposite done to develop and maintain that in the country? Absolutely nothing. They have done the exact opposite. I listened to Deputy Derrig for some time. He referred to Mr. Rank and he made a number of misleading statements. He said that the Minister for Industry and Commerce brought him in, and he asked what Mr. Rank would do in regard to this, that and the other, and whether he was going to be allowed to gobble up the milling industry. He spoke generally as if he thought that no Irish miller was able to hold his own with him. That is a defeatist complex which is doing more to-day to keep the country in a backward position than anything else. We have had a typical example of it to-day.

If there was a stranger present in the Strangers' Gallery to-day listening to Deputy Derrig, he would have come to the conclusion that one Englishman is worth ten Irishmen. That is the view generally expressed by Deputies opposite. It was expressed by Deputy Lemass the day before. In referring to the Budget, he talked about the danger of rich men taking up residence in this country, and he suggested that the nationalism and spirit of enterprise in this country was so weak that we were running a very grave risk by bringing in rich foreigners. His point of view was that we would all take off our hats to them. That is not our point of view. Our nationalism is of natural growth. We are all Irishmen on these benches. We represent the nationalism of the country, and we are not a bit afraid of foreigners. We believe there are men amongst the Irish millers who can stand up to Mr. Rank and hold their own with him. Mr. Rank is, incidentally, a first-class man and a first-class miller. I believe there are any amount of millers in this country just as good as Mr. Rank, and Deputies should try to get that point of view and try to instil it into their followers. If they do that they will have more respect for themselves and less dependence on tariffs, controls, and forces outside themselves. That will do more to stop the peaceful penetration of which General Collins spoke and about which Deputy Aiken cries than any other means.

In regard to Deputy Derrig's statement, in polities, I suppose, a certain amount of misrepresentation is allowed, but I would like to contradict for the last time some of the statements which the Deputy made use of. Deputy Derrig said that both the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Tariff Commission stated that Irish millers are inefficient. Neither the Minister for Industry and Commerce nor the Tariff Commission has said that Irish millers are inefficient, but it was stated, and it is not denied by anyone, that certain Irish millers are inefficient. I am sure certain English millers are also inefficient, and that certain millers in every country are inefficient. That is all the Minister said, and to suggest that he stated that all Irish millers are inefficient is not correct. Neither did the Minister nor the Tariff Commission say that all Irish mills are badly placed. Neither did the Minister for Industry and Commerce nor the Tariff Commission say that all Irish mills are badly managed. Neither did he express a desire to see Irish mills taken over by English millers. For at least a quarter of an hour Deputy Derrig made these statements. They are incorrect, and any arguments based on them are falsified for that reason.

This as Deputy Alton stated, is a complex problem. The trouble with Deputies opposite is that they do not seem to have any experience of business or to understand business. Business is not susceptible of simplification by an easy solution. Business is a matter of details. No simple solution will solve business problems. This is a highly complex matter. What is the history of it? For some time the milling industry has been going through a crisis, through a rather difficult time. During all that time the millers as such have been either directly or indirectly in touch with the Minister for Industry and Commerce. They have been in touch with him particularly during the last four or five months. They are in touch with him at the present moment. They, being businessmen, are aware that this problem is not susceptible of any simple solution, that it is a highly complex matter. They themselves have put forward five or six solutions, and, having discussed these with the Minister, they realised that the best of them, even from their own point of view, must involve grave dangers and grave reactions on the country. At the present moment these discussions are going on. I am only concerned to point out in regard to this motion that Deputies who are voting for it are not voting for any solution of the problem or for any of the many solutions put forward by the Irish millers. This is Deputy Anthony's solution. We are entitled to discuss it here on its merits, to discuss it in detail. When he put forward his resolution he supplemented it by going into details, and he put all his cards on the table.

He was asked by the millers to withdraw it.

I was not.

Mr. Hogan

He is quite entitled to do that. This is a very important matter. It is one of the functions of the Dáil to discuss matters of this sort and to discuss them perhaps in another way without reference to either the extreme patriotism of one person or the lack of patriotism in another person, to discuss them in a business-like way as Deputy Anthony did. They are quite entitled to do it, and Deputies should not be under any misconceptions. This is not the millers' solution. It is not any of the solutions put forward by the millers. This is Deputy Anthony's solution, and as long as that is clear we are quite content. I do not propose to go into the details at this stage, but I would draw Deputies' attention to this point. Deputy Aiken referred generally to the economic position of the country and the necessity for stemming influences that were in operation at the moment. What has been the history of the last five years in that respect? In the beginning, say from 1922 to 1923, all Parties, naturally enough, had the idea that this country could be made rich quickly by a simple acceptance of a policy such as general tariffs. tariff reform generally. They were very popular. They were regarded as almost infalliable. They were simple in working and would increase the population of the country from three millions to six, eight or ten millions.

It is natural enough in view of the history of the country and in view of the lack of experience of the ordinary people of the country in business, because they had not got the opportunity of acquiring it, and because of their lack of experience of politics, because they had not much of an opportunity in that sphere either, that this solution should be accepted. We have learned now that while tariffs have their uses, they have also their abuses, their drawbacks and their disadvantages. What has happened Deputies opposite? They said: "General tariffs —that is our policy, employment for everybody." They have just learned enough now to know that general tariffs have their disadvantages. I need not go into them. That will be admitted on the Benches opposite. Where are they driven to? To general tariffs plus control. That is the way out, another way out, a simple solution. It was pointed out by Deputy Aiken himself, by implication, that a number of Irish industries were in danger of being taken over by foreign enterprises. What has happened is this. They have seen that tariffs themselves, indiscriminate tariffs, senseless tariffs, put on without any advertence as to their implications, are the quickest possible way to bring in the foreigner. The way they meet that is by another simple solution—control everything, control prices. That is really all that has emerged from the debate: "If any of our indiscriminate tariffs have any evil reactions we have a Government there to control them." That is their solution for all these problems. Mark the particular sort of control that appeals to Deputy Aiken in this particular case. The control, such as it is, is stringent enough, but he realises that there must be some safeguard for somebody. There must be some safeguard obviously for the consumer. What is his safeguard, what is his limitation? I took down his words: "We must see to it that the millers do not charge an exorbitant price." He blundered into quite a fair statement of the position; that is really what all this amounts to. That is what Deputy Anthony's scheme means. If the scheme were put into operation we would have all our Irish mills working, and the very best we can expect is that we could get our flour for something less than an exorbitant price. Therefore I am voting against the scheme.

Let us hope—those of us who are not under any necessity of establishing the authenticity of our patriotism by always talking about tariffs—that this problem will go a long distance to solve itself, and that when the State interferes, if it is necessary, that it will be necessary in as small a degree as possible. I want to make it clear that while the Minister for Industry and Commerce is in daily touch with the millers, discussing not only a solution but every aspect of the question, this particular solution is not the millers' solution. It is the solution of Deputy Anthony, and I ask anybody with whom I have any influence to vote against this for the reasons that I have given.

I think the Minister for Agriculture has made a slight mistake as regards Deputy Anthony's proposal. As far as I understood it, the proposal would amount to some form of national control or national protection. To my mind, countries like England controlled the industries of other countries principally by two means: one, by military force, and the other by peaceful penetration. There is no doubt that the peaceful penetration process is to be greatly admired. But when this particular country becomes a victim, it is up to this country to take as definite steps as possible to secure that a vital industry of this description should not be allowed at this stage to become a gamble, and in the near future to have the Minister for Industry and Commerce proposing fantastic and expensive schemes, and generally useless schemes, to buy back those industries again.

The same as they had to buy back the creamerics from the same people.

Mr. O'Reilly

We have had experience of this in many things. For instance, we have been compelled to buy back the land on a sort of easy payment system. It is all very well, but it is a very expensive system. I believe that the Minister for Agriculture, with all the schemes that he has introduced, will have to continue proposing schemes. I believe that he will introduce more and more legislation. I believe that he will continue to try and stop these leakages by legislation alone. He has not been successful; he cannot be successful. I believe he could be successful if he were more in harmony and in closer touch with the Minister for Industry and Commerce. If both Ministers understood their duties and how closely the two Departments were related, and how much one depended upon the other, I think we would have a very definite advance. Of course, we have to be reasonable, as the time has been very short. At the same time, we do not see anything to prove, as things stand, that the nation industrially has any future.

I believe that our real misfortune is industrial ignorance. I believe that British industrialists, however they are to be admired for it, took every step possible to see that we should not become producers, but that we should become consumers. As far as I can see, we will continue to be consumers for the products of their industry as long as we have money. As long as we are able to pay they will supply our needs. They are at present supplying us. I have not any inside information as to the milling industry. I look upon it just like the ordinary common or garden individual. I see the necessity for it, and I know that it is vital. I have no inside information on the matter, but I see this much: that that particular industry in England found itself in serious difficulties. It found that it had a lot more material to sell than was needed, that the output could not be consumed in England and that it had to look for other markets. It has probably discovered a market here. I do not say that that is the policy of the English millers, but it looks very like what their policy will be. It looks very like what happened on previous occasions with other industries and like what happened in other countries: that as soon as they get control of the mills here they will not need to work these mills. They will cease to work them, and their surplus in England will be distributed here just at the price they care to put on. As soon as they find themselves in that position that will be the policy. That is the natural outcome of all this. I do not say it is Messrs. Rank's definite policy, but it will be the result.

We should not allow a gamble of that description to go on unchecked. I am quite sure that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has taken steps, or will take steps, or has power to take some steps to do it. He will tell us that. If he does not tell us that, I believe he is wrong. I believe that some steps should be under consideration, to prevent such a thing happening. I am sure of this fact: that farmers need not mind one way or the other how the price goes, because within a year they are always capable of producing as much wheat as they may need themselves, or at least half as much. Their consumption of loaves may be reduced by one-half.

Of Course, another problem may be raised if a combined milling industry comes into existence. What about whatever industrial population we have in the cities? What is to become of them? They will be left helpless, and I think that they should be secured, that some assurance should be given to them. I know that down the country there are small mills that are gradually becoming efficient and are beginning to waken up. Under the Shannon scheme perhaps people will wake up, and I am sure with an electric system a drying process could be made use of to dry the wheat cheaply, so that the whole agricultural community, if they cared to do so, and if they found it paid, would be in a position to supply a good portion of their own needs. They will be secure, but what about the industrial population of the cities and the towns? They will be compelled to pay what is demanded from them. Now if we controlled the whole milling industry, at best it would be an industry merely producing profit—nothing more. There is no national wealth production whatever. So that the industry as established to-day is of no greater importance than from the point of view of gain.

The Minister for Agriculture spoke about a phrase which he thought was used from these Benches to the effect that one Englishman was equal to ten Irishmen. No Deputy on these Benches believes that. That is not at all what we believe to be the case. We believe the very opposite to be the case, and has always been the case. But I know this much, and I admit it, that where the question of industrial enterprise comes in, Englishmen are far more efficient than we are, because we have not had the opportunity. Our weakest point is our industrial ignorance; that is not our fault, but rather our misfortune, because it was forced upon us. Some Deputies opposite may smile, but I want to know where are the industries here. What is the cause of the indifference that exists in this country? What was the cause of the misfortunes that have occurred to men who have invested their money in industry in this country? All these are brought about because we have no industrial tradition. The sooner we face up to that fact, make a definite attempt and get the full support of any Government that is in power in our efforts, the sooner we will make this nation a balanced and economic nation.

Mr. McDonagh rose.

I shall hear Deputy McDonagh, but I want to know if there is any possibility of the debate concluding to-day?

I understood that it was to finish before the late Recess, and it was certainly understood that it was to be concluded to-day.

It will not be resumed on Wednesday.

I think this question is approached from a wrong angle by Deputies opposite. They do not seem to know much about milling. I do not know whether there is any miller in the Party opposite. Where the miller makes his money is not in the milling of wheat or corn, but in the purchase of it. For the last two years prices have come down all over the world. We heard a great deal of the big millers in England. One of the biggest millers in England, Spiller and Baker, quite as big as Rank or very near it, last year made a loss of £350,000. That is the figure, as far as my memory serves me, that was given in their balance-sheet. The manufacture of flour does not cost very much with modern machinery, and does not give a great deal of employment. If Deputies opposite succeeded in their policy of putting a duty on flour they would close down every small mill in this country. Capitalists would then come along and start big, efficient mills at the seaports, and the small mills in Ireland would be finished. Odlums, of Portarlington, and some others of the most efficient millers in the country do not want a tariff on flour because they see the danger and the folly of it.

If the debate is to conclude to-day it places me at a terrible disadvantage. I would have liked to reply to some of the questions raised by the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Several Deputies desired to speak, Mr. Carey.

I want to speak because I am more or less directly concerned.

Statements have been made here, especially by one of the Deputies from East Cork, that the Minister and his Department can be relied upon to see that there is no increase of unemployment caused by the taking over of these mills by foreigners. I wonder did Deputy Daly, before he made that statement, read the statements made by Ministers from time to time? Does he remember a statement made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce on one famous occasion when he said that the native millers should remove their mills elsewhere? I wonder did he read that? I wonder was he present in this House when the Minister replied on the debate on the Vote on Account to the statements made by Deputy Lemass and Deputy Derrig on that question? The Minister then stated, as reported in Volume 33, Part IV., page 1485: "There will be changes. If the full rationalisation process went on within the Free State —a very desirable thing—the result probably would be that there would be less employment in the flour milling industry than we have at the moment. Certainly there would be less men employed."

Will you continue after the words "certainly there would be less men employed"?

Yes, certainly: "Whether the fewer men employed would get more hours' occupation is another matter, but I would not be deterred from a rationalisation process conducted within the country by consideration of the fact that certain men would temporarily lose employment or even that certain men would permanently lose employment." I think we all realise that it was a centralisation process that was in the Minister's mind. We from East Cork realise very well the idea that was at the back of the Minister's mind. On page 1481, speaking on the same matter the Minister said: "A variety of reasons were given by the Tariff Commission for turning down their application, but the one big reason given by the Commission and the one that led the Government not to propose a tariff was this: That according to the report of those who examined the application, and had in consequence to examine the existing mills in the country, they found that certain Irish mills were badly placed, badly machined and badly managed." I went through the Tariff Commission Report and I found that the total number of Irish mills examined was three and that they examined these three by walking through two, and the third they examined out of a motor car, and on that examination they found that these mills were badly placed.

They did not.

They found that they were badly machined and badly managed.

They did not.

I could understand it if they had taken a dozen or so.

They found that certain mills were badly placed, badly machined and badly managed.

Which of the three?

They inspected all the mills. Apparently the Deputy does not think it necessary to go down and walk through the mills.

They inspected the mills from afar, from their offices in Dublin, I suppose. Now this is a matter which affects our people very seriously in East Cork, and Deputy Daly is of opinion that soft talk—I cannot call it anything else—is going to get away from the fact that so many people are to be unemployed, that Mr. Rank is going to import surplus stuff and close down our mills. If this process of rationalisation is to be carried out by Mr. Rank we all know what the result will be. I have not heard it denied here yet that there is a large amount of surplus flour in Britain for which Mr. Rank and those associated with him are looking for a market. I, at least, associate with the British millers as much patriotism as I would associate with Irish millers. I would suggest to this House that the British miller is more concerned with giving employment in Britain than with giving employment here. It is not for love of us that he is coming here. When this hubbub, as Deputy Daly called it, about the mills dies down we will find the mills closed down and foreign flour dumped by Messrs. Rank. There is no doubt about it. No steps will be taken by the Minister for Industry and Commerce any more than he took any steps during the last five years to prevent the profiteering in bread which is going on here. We are going to see those mills kept working if it is in our power to keep them working. We are going to see that employment is given in our constituencies. I may say honestly I believe that the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies in East Cork are as much concerned in this question as I am, but they have too much faith in the Minister. He stated very broadly in this House: "If these people will move their mills elsewhere." I want to know what is behind that.

Mr. Hogan

Take them out.

Take them to Cork.

That is not going to happen if we can help it, at any rate, and I believe that we will wake up one of these days in East Cork and find our three mills there closed down and Messrs. Rank in possession using them, as Deputy Daly said, as storehouses.

You have no authority for that statement.

Deputy Daly has been hearing fairy tales to-day.

For the first time only.

Take your time, John, for a few minutes. I want to draw a few molars from you.

This is a serious matter, and let us discuss it seriously. Let the Deputy make his speech on this question, not on Deputy Daly, and let him make a serious speech on the matter.

I maintain I am making a serious speech, and that it is a serious matter for us in East Cork if we are going to have Messrs. Rank coming into the country taking over our flour mills and closing them down. We know very well that the Minister for Industry and Commerce does not care, that he has no intention whatever of troubling himself. He has only one idea at the back of his head, and I believe that the sole reason for the importation of Messrs. Rank into this country is that the flour millers' subscription to Cumann na nGaedheal at the last election was not high enough. The £50 was not enough.

Did they not promise you £1,000 for the paper? Did you not get it?

I would like to say that speeches such as the last one we have listened to are sufficient in themselves to prevent any solution of this or any other industrial question in this country. I was glad to hear the Minister for Agriculture stating a moment ago that the flour millers and the Minister for Industry and Commerce were discussing the position of the industry at the moment. I have no doubt if these discussions continue that a solution of this problem will be found. I think that the motion which Deputy Anthony has tabled might be held up until we know whether the discussions that are going on are leading to a solution. Unfortunately, when motions of this nature are put down the discussions assume the character of party politics. It is difficult to keep them free from the meshes of party politics and hence the difficulty of dealing with them dispassionately and impartially in this House. Of course we on these benches are as anxious as the Deputies on the Fianna Fáil benches or on the Labour benches to get those industries on their feet. I do not think that any impartially-minded person can charge the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies with neglecting their duty on these questions for the last five or six years.

Dealing with this particular industry, I just want a few points cleared up if I can possibly get it done. What is the position of the industry to-day? We look around the country and see a certain number of flour mills idle and a certain number working half time. The location of these mills is right. Those of us who understand flour milling when we visit them find that the machinery is right. We find that they have installed the most modern and up-to-date machinery; we find that experts are in charge, men who know their jobs, and yet, with all that, these mills are working at most three days per week.

The ordinary man, on considering it, must ask himself what is wrong. Do these people go to bed at three o'clock in the day instead of ten o'clock at night? Do they close their mills and simply rest on their oars and say that they are absolutely satisfied with their output? Of course they do not. Do they decide that any way of doing business is good enough, that they are exacting a sufficient dividend on their moneys? Is that the class of people we have in our flour mills in this country? Of course it is not. The people in our industries here are just as anxious to make money and to reap a reasonable dividend on the moneys invested in their industry as the people in any other country, but, unfortunately, I am afraid we expect from the flour millers something that we do not expect from any other section of the community. Take the farmer, for instance. If the pig market fails we do not expect the farmer to raise pigs. If there is no market for his oats we do not expect him to grow oats. If competition is not equal for the farmer or any other producer in this country we do not blame them if they do not produce. But in this instance we are dealing with people who have not a market and who are not competing on equal terms and still we expect them to produce. Is that fair or just to these people? I hold it is not. The millers are not supermen. I contend that they are a business section of the community that are able to hold their own in fair competition with any outsider, and all they require here is a market where they can compete on equal terms with their rivals. Even at the time they had their application before the Tariff Commission, all they expected was to be placed in a position to compete on level terms with any producers, whether they came from Canada or Britain. Is the competition fair to-day? It is not. Those of us who study the quotations know very well that the Irish miller has to pay more for the raw material than his British competitor. That is not hearsay. Any person interested can take up the ordinary papers and get these quotations. If the Irish miller starts with that handicap, how can he compete in the open market with the commodity he manufactures? It is not fair to ask him. He pays more rates, for instance, on his property than his British competitor. He pays more port dues on the raw material than his rivals.

We know very well that in the Mersey, where large quantities of flour come from, that the port dues were abolished over twelve months ago on exports of flour to this country, and we know that in some of our ports our millers have to pay heavy dues on the raw material shipped to those ports. They are penalised under an old statute to the extent of 120 per cent. in favour of the manufactured article. We also know that the door of this country is open to every foreigner, whether he is Italian, French, British or Chinese to send their stuff in here, whether it is flour or offals. All these factors operate seriously against the economic production of flour in this country, and I contend that it is absolutely unfair to expect the Irish millers to compete favourably against these factors.

The question of dumping arose in the last discussion on this question. Some Deputies stated that dumping did not take place. It is difficult, they state, to prove dumping. We must take some basis for our argument, and the basis usually taken in this case is that the price of flour on the date on which it is sold is based on the price of wheat on that particular date. I think if you start on that basis and examine the prices over a period you will come to no other conclusion than that flour is dumped in this country. The Minister asked me from time to time whether I could connect a particular consignment of flour with a particular cargo of wheat. How could I do that? It is impossible. But taking as your basis the price of flour on the date on which it is sold, based on the price of wheat on that day, and on investigating the figures you come to no other conclusion than that dumping takes place in this country, and that dumping is responsible for the state of affairs which I have outlined in my opening remarks. I can give the Minister any amount of figures, taken from standard publications, which I believe will go to prove that dumping is taking place.

Before going into the figures I will quote the words of the English millers themselves, spoken through their paper, "The Miller," on the 4th June, 1928, when this matter was being seriously discussed here. They stated:—

"Our friends, the Irish millers, have received a shrewd blow to their hopes of an import tax of 3/- per sack being placed upon all flour entering the Free State, and the reports in the local Press have done nothing to guild the pill by the references to bad management, obsolete methods, and lack of mass production capacity, which would enable Irish millers to compete in the open market. Frankly we sympathise with members of the fraternity in the South of Ireland, and we do not think the aspersions as to bad methods, and lack of hard work, are in any way justified."

There is a tribute from their rivals. They go on:

"Ireland has been through two or more decades of intense trouble, and the Irish miller has had every factor operating against him. If his plant is not of the best and latest it is surely because general conditions, local wheat supplies, and foreign dumping of flour, have offered no inducement to the outlay necessary to erect a large modern mass-production mill. He has been forced by circumstances to ‘go slow' pending developments, and it is certainly not due to lack of enterprise or business acumen that he is placed in the unhappy position he occupies to-day. On the other hand, it cannot but be regarded as a matter for congratulation on the part of the millers on this side that the tariff proposals have been rejected, for it would certainly have meant the shutting off of a valuable market, and the disastrous intensification of competition at home."

In the majority report of the Economic Committee of 1928 we read:

"During the course of our examination of the question of unfair competition it was stated to us by one of our number that a miller with whom he had been in communication was in a position to produce evidence to show that British mills sell their products in this country at less than the cost of production. We accordingly asked this gentleman to attend before us and give evidence on the subject. He produced two invoices, etc., showing certain figures."

They go on:

"We find this evidence inconclusive. In the first place, the price of wheat varies, and it is obvious that, without knowing the actual cost of the wheat from which a particular consignment of flour was milled, and the manufacturing costs of the particular mill from which the flour was consigned, it is impossible to say that the flour in that consignment is sold at less than the cost of production."

They go on further to state what the freights are like. They tell us that the freights on the other side work out at about 12/- to 14/- per ton, and that these freight charges in themselves are sufficient protection for the industry at home. Naturally anybody reading that statement, and not making his own independent investigations would assume that the flour millers of this country were looking for something that they could not reasonably expect to get, because a flour miller in this country who could not stand up to a freight charge of that nature should close his mill. But is this the case? Of course it is not so. There is no question of 12/- or 14/- per ton freight between England and this country when it comes to a British miller trying to get a market in this country for his flour. Everybody who examines the question for himself knows that. Over the past twelve months I have seen flour sold almost at the door of the modern, up-to-date, well-equipped, thoroughly efficient mill at shillings under the price at which that mill could possibly hope to sell it, and its production costs are down to a minimum. I saw papers to that effect—documentary proofs—that the transport and rail charges from Liverpool to London, for example, to any central town in the Free State— Thurles, for instance, or a Mayo town, like Castlebar—were shillings below the rail charges a Dublin mill would have to pay from Kingsbridge, say, to the same centres. These people, of course, get special freights and special rates, and when you see a freight on a consignment of flour from Liverpool to a place like Thurles at something about 18/6 per ton, naturally you are surprised, and you do not wonder that the flour mills are closed.

I have here one copy of the "Corn Trade News." I could give you a copy for every day on which it is published, and here are quotations: March, 28th, 1930, 8/5d. per 100 lbs. The quotations to the Irish mills of the same date work out at about 24/10 per 280 lbs. The 8/5d. quotation works out at 23/7d. per 280 lbs. Working out the costings at that price we arrive at a price of 35/- per sack of flour. These costings were given to me by experts in the business; they have verified them. Here is an inquiry, dated the same week, to a mill in Dublin:

Dear Sirs,—Please let us know by telegram on receipt the lowest price you can take for some ... Flour, this week's shipment to Waterford. We bought some English flour last week and this, at 33/3. Quays, Waterford.

Where does the 12/- to 14/- freight come in here? Is that dumping? In English and Irish mills the production costs that week were worked out by experts who arrived at 35/- per sack, and in Waterford on that date it was sold at 33/3. Prices, as I said, are based—and I believe the English millers will not deny this— on the price of the wheat on the date they sell their flour. I do not think it is possible to arrive at any other basis on a particular date. I am not quite convinced that Deputy Anthony's suggestion of national control is the best way to solve this problem.

Tell us an alternative way.

I do not think that we ought to have so much Goverment interference in private business. I do not know that it was ever a great success in any country that experimented with it. But I think what we ought to do is to encourage our millers to get on with the work, and the only encouragement we can give them is to hold out a hope that they will have a larger market for their products at their doors. It was most humiliating to see a body of industrialists going the other day, almost with their hands up, to a foreign combine, and asking them to leave them the little bit of area which they held in the Saorstát. Give our millers the whole area. As was stated on several occasions here our imports of flour are approximately half our our consumption. Is it not possible for the Minister to restrict these imports? We have the milling capacity. If the Minister says to the millers "increase your capacity and I will give you the market" they will increase it.

At a price.

That was the red herring drawn across the track from the start. You will hear it said: "The millers are going to rob us; they are going to fleece us; they are the only dishonest people in the country." Is it possible for them to fleece us? Of course it is not. Have we not the newspapers to give us the market prices; have we not a Government in office to regulate these figures? Deputy Gorey will tell us that the poor consumer will be fleeced, that the price of the loaf will go up. That was the ramp which defeated the application before the Tariff Commission. The moment the flour millers put forward their application for a tariff, the importers and all those interested in carrying goods to and from this country formed a secret association and subscribed some thousands of pounds into the pool in their efforts to defeat that application, and every householder in the country was intimidated into the belief that the price of the loaf would be advanced if these scoundrels got what they sought. Their hearts went out to the poor. Any Deputy who investigates the price of flour ex mill, either in Liverpool or in Ireland, and the price of the loaf to the consumer for the last six years, will only come to one conclusion, that there has been absolutely no relation whatever between the two. What has the miller got to do with the price of the loaf during the past six years? Why ask the miller to carry the sins of the baker on his back? Has he not got enough worry? That was the ramp. This fund was created and propagandists were sent all over the country to frighten the unfortunate people. Yet although we have flour sold in this country as low as 30/- over the last twelve months in many areas, the price of the loaf to the consumer in many areas of the Saorstát is still 11d. The flour market may fluctuate, the millers' prices may fluctuate, but the bakers' prices never. We have no objection to paying prices based on the fluctuating prices of flour or wheat, but we expect that the price of bread will certainly be based on, and have some relation to, the price of wheat, or the price of flour ex mill. There has never been such a relation between the two, and I have examined the figures closely for six years. It is dishonest and not right to put forward such an argument as that, that the millers are going to fleece the public, or that the price of the loaf is going to be advanced.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m., until 7th May, at 6 p.m.

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