I am coming to that. Quite recently the British, being a sensible people, and wanting to do a turn for their own, made regulations that all foreign eggs should be stamped. Unfortunately, economically we are regarded as a foreign people. Politically, it is fortunate, perhaps, that we are regarded as a foreign people, but economically, in this instance, it was unfortunate. Northern Ireland being regarded as part of the same political unit as Great Britain had not to stamp their eggs. The first reaction to that Act was an increase in price of unstamped eggs. Quite naturally the English housewife is much the same as the housewife of any other nationality in the matter of buying eggs. She has a rough and ready method of shopping. She knows that if she gets an unstamped egg it is a home-produced egg, and in nine cases out of ten she is right in thinking that a home-produced egg is likely to be fresher than a foreign egg, because, after all, it takes longer to bring a foreign egg to the market. As a result of that, the first thing that happened was a very big discrepancy between the price of British eggs, including Northern Ireland eggs, and any other eggs. That particular margin is getting smaller. It is smaller than last year, and as time goes on it will get smaller.
I think that with a certain amount of efficient administration of the Agricultural Produce (Eggs) Act, if we continue to administer it as stringently as we have been administering it, we will close the gap entirely, because I think that the English housewife will come to realise that the fact of an egg being stamped "Irish Free State" is a genuine guarantee that it is likely to be as fresh, if not fresher, than the English egg. I am hoping that the first reaction of the English regulation will pass away, and that by continuing to do what we are doing consistently, sending over Irish eggs of the best quality, it will in the long run do us a good turn. In the long run the name "Irish Free State" on an egg will be a mark of freshness and quality, and the Act which created slight reactions against us at first will be to our advantage.
With regard to butter, I am again giving the prices for 1928 and the official figures of the London Ministry of Agriculture as given by the Stationery Office here. The figures are as follow:—Irish Creamery 182/6; Danish 192/6; Australian salted 171/-; New Zealand, salted, 179/-; Argentine 172/-. I have the figures month by month and these are the arithmetical average to a decimal point. The 1929 figures taken from the same source are as follows:—Irish Creamery 179/-; Danish 186/-; Australian 175/-; New Zealand 177/-; Argentine 174/-. The first thing the Deputy may notice is that in 1928 the difference between the Irish and Danish figures was 10/- and that in the next year it had dropped to 7/-. The second thing he might notice is that Irish creamery butter seems to be higher in price on the English market than any other butter except Danish if the British figures are reliable, and I suggest that they are more reliable than anything he can quote.
The third thing he should remember is that it is not a fair comparison as we have only a seasonable supply. The butter we send out during the months of January, February and March is cold storage butter and that brings down the average price. I have not had time to examine our figures month by month, but if we compared the figures for May, June and July it would be seen that the discrepancy between our figures and those of the Danish figures would be much less. I think that we will be able to reach the Danish standard. We are near enough to it, but we will have to get over one great disadvantage and that is that we have a seasonable supply. We have to open shop for the year in the month of March or April, whereas the Danes have the shop open the whole year round.
That is the state of affairs that is likely to last for good and sufficient reasons, and it will put us at a slight disadvantage against the Danes. Again, anybody who says that Irish butter has not improved as a result of the operations of the Dairy Produce Acts does not know what he is talking about. It is important that it should be clearly understood it has improved. Again, I want to say that, on the question of eggs and butter, no Government can get any producer any higher prices for their produce than the world market prices. No Government department is responsible for the fall in market prices. Deputies talk as if the Department was responsible for the fall in world prices. The Department cannot increase the price of Irish produce and should not get any credit for world prices. All that Government action can do is to improve the quality of the goods. If you improve the quality of the goods you will get higher prices, not because you are increasing world prices but because you are selling a different article. I suppose that is pretty obvious to everybody, and yet people speak as if it were not.
Incidentally, I might mention that no State action in this country can increase the price of Irish butter in the Irish market, because in all these articles we have a surplus, and we will have a surplus for a number of years. The prices in the home market are governed by the prices in the world markets. The prices in the home markets cannot be increased by tariffs. They can only be increased by subsidies. I will not go any further in that matter, because that is all irrelevant. So much for prices.
We do not pay the assistant overseers entirely to teach the farmers how to fence. There are assistant overseers in Connemara, Mayo, and places like that, where there are large stretches of unfenced mountains, and where there is very little livestock, where the question of fences is not a general problem, but a special problem. The assistant overseers, in my opinion, are doing extremely good work in the congested districts. In the congested districts most of the people are small farmers, not so well educated, unfortunately, and more technical education and facilities are required than by people in other parts of the country. Every scheme that we have in the way of getting new seeds and new livestock into these districts was made possible by the operations of the assistant overseers. In fact, it is a high testimony to the assistant overseers that there has been no failure in the potato crop since their operations began.
We have not yet made regulations under the Dead Meat Act. Before the Department make those regulations they will consult all the interested parties. I do not say that they will agree with every proposal put up to them, but they will consult them and hear everything that has to be said.
I heard the old story again that my policy is grass and that Deputy Ryan's policy is tillage and that an acre under tillage is worth £13, while an acre under grass is worth £1. When I hear that sort of talk I am left gasping. I have an acre of mangolds. They are no good to me unless I have an acre of grass. I could go on and draw an interesting deduction for years as to the comparative value of grass and mangolds. I have an acre of mangolds and unless I have a few acres of grass to keep the cows alive the mangolds would be no good to me. Therefore, to grow grass is of equal value with the growing of mangolds.
I now come to deal with the Athenry Station. Deputy Brodrick raised the question of Athenry and about the cows in Athenry. The position about the cows is this— quite a silly scare was started there by the M.O.H. of the county, who talked about his suspicions and so on. When the Local Government Estimate was under discussion here Deputy Jordan raised the point. But I heard nothing about it since. The real trouble is that the standard is being left where it was. The scare was first raised by the M.O.H., next by the Board of Health, and finally by Deputy Jordan, and they are all running away from it. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing in it. It was an attempt to start a silly scare. The position in Athenry is that we have 30 cows. Eight of them are reacters. That is, they react to the tuberculin test. If Deputies are highly nervous about this matter I want to say that they have no clinical examination there. The animals have been examined by veterinary surgeons. I want to say further that the milk of these cows for some time was being examined biologically and there was no sign of tuberculosis. But I stopped the biological examination as a gratuitous piece of expense that should not be carried out. The cows were also microscopically examined and there was no sign of tuberculosis. If the M.O.H. had gone into the station at Athenry five or six years ago he would find a lot more reacters. At present these eight cows are kept separate. We do that sort of thing in Athenry because it is a State Department. I would not do that if they were my own cows. The fact that they react does not prove that they have tuberculosis at all. The point about the tuberculin test is this, that if a cow does not react she certainly has not tuberculosis. If a cow reacts she may have, but she may have no clinical sign of tuberculosis, good, bad or indifferent. If no sign is revealed either by a biological or microscopical examination then there is no tuberculosis. These are amongst the best cows, and I have not the slightest intention of slaughtering these cows for human food. I will keep them until I get good heifers out of them—if I am Minister for Agriculture—and then I will let them die at a ripe old age.
With regard to the veterinary surgeons, I agree with a lot of what Deputy Hennessy and Deputy Brennan have said. The live-stock trade in this country is a most important trade and will always remain one of the most important industries in the country. Above all things we want really efficient veterinary surgeons. We have efficient veterinary surgeons and I agree that they are hardly well enough paid. I am glad to say that the Minister for Finance has now agreed to establish the veterinary surgeons and to let them proceed to their scale of salaries. Up to this there was a bar to their scale. The scale was from £200 rising by £10 to £300 and there was a bar there. Then it proceeded by £15 to £400. There were only half of the veterinary surgeons established. Now they are all established. They proceed along that scale yearly increasing from £200 to £400 with the cost of living bonus whatever it may be, £163 would be the maximum bonus I think. A salary of £200 to £400 is not an exorbitant one for professional men who have to spend three to five years in a secondary school and three or four years afterwards in the university, and who have to pay for their education all the time. These men have important responsibilities in taking charge of the live-stock of a country like this where live-stock is so very important. I agree that it is long past the time when these men should be established.
