Public Business. - Safeguarding and Developing Agriculture. – Dáil Éireann (6th Dáil) – Thursday, 20 Nov 1930

Public Business. - Safeguarding and Developing Agriculture.

Dr. Ryan

I beg to move:—

"That with a view to the safe-guarding and further development of the agricultural industry the Dáil is of opinion that the Executive Council should immediately take the necessary legislative action to provide for:—

(1) An embargo on the import into the Free State of foreign oats and oat products;

(2) the prohibition of the import of barley and barley products except under licence;

(3) (a) the imposition of an import duty of 20s. per cwt. on all bacon and other pig products; (b) the prohibition of imports of bacon and other pig products into the Free State after June 30th, 1932; (c) the marking legibly of all imported meat entering the Free State, so as to indicate the country of origin when such meat is exposed for sale; (d) the proper medical inspection of all imported meat entering the Free State;

(4) the prohibition of the imports of butter, condensed milk, dried and liquid eggs into the Free State."

I believe that it will be agreed on every side of this House that our object in discussing any economic subject should be to make our people as comfortable as possible and put them in possession of the means to buy the necessaries of life. Under present circumstances that appears to be possible only when people have work; in other words, there is no way that people could have the wherewithal to buy necessaries unless through their earning capacity. In approaching any subject of this kind, therefore, we should keep in mind the fact that the more employment we can promote the better it is for the country. Most countries have approached this subject through protection. In fact I believe that the Free State is the most free trade country in the world, including even Great Britain. I know that the Free State Executive Council will claim a good deal for their own common sense and wisdom, but I do not know that they will really claim that they are the only Government in this world that have any sense on economic affairs. They might, however, claim that, because they have had the audacity to claim even bigger things in the past. We have gone a certain distance towards industrial tariffs, and the farmers and other members of the agricultural community have agreed to these tariffs in the hope, I believe, that they in return would be protected in their industry. They have agreed to these industrial tariffs, perhaps for other reasons also, even, if you like, for selfish reasons, because they saw that if the people in the towns were fully employed they would thereby get a better market for their produce than they could get in a foreign market.

As a matter of fact not only was that belief inherent in the agricultural community, but it was proved by figures by the Department of Government which took the agricultural statistics in 1926. When these statistics were taken it was shown that the people living in towns in the Free State were, each and every one of them, purchasers of £10 worth of Irish agricultural produce per year, whereas the people in England, Scotland and Wales—countries to which we have been directed to turn our attention for markets by the present Government—were only purchasing 13s. worth per head. That only goes to show that the figures produced by the Government bore out what was the common experience of people in the agricultural community who knew the conditions prevailing in the local markets in their own districts, because the farmers have known for years, even before the present Government came into power, that the prices which they could get for their butter and eggs in local towns were always better than those they could get in the foreign market.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the agricultural community, even for selfish reasons if you like, were prepared to see our town industries protected in order that that home market might be increased. It does not appear, however, to be enough that that home market should be increased through industrial tariffs, that is, that the capacity of the market should be increased. It appears to be necessary also that the home market should be protected for the home producers and that the home producer will be either compelled or induced financially to purchase the home produced article. We will be told of course that there are certain articles that we should produce here and that we should not trouble about producing others, but we find, when we come to examine it, that there is no single article that the farmer is producing in this country in the production of which he cannot be beaten by foreign competition. We were told, for instance, that we cannot compete against Canada and America in wheat growing. We can be told now that we cannot compete against Russia and Germany in the production of oats. We can be told that we cannot compete against the Balkans and other States in the production of barley. We know—in fact the knowledge has made this motion necessary —that we cannot compete against China, America and other places in the production of bacon. We know we cannot compete against such places as Siberia in the production of butter. Hence when we come to examine the different products of the farmer in this country we come to recognise that we must some time or another protect practically every article the farmer is turning out.

The first item in this motion deals principally with tillage. I know that I am going to be tackled by such able advocates of tillage on the other side as Deputy Dr. Hennessy. The Minister for Agriculture has given us his views on tillage here on many occasions but it was surprising to find a disciple on the other side who could imbibe not only the ideas, but the very expressions and words of the Minister for Agriculture as Deputy Dr. Hennessy did in the letter which he wrote to the "Irish Independent" a few days ago. If the Minister himself were to write that letter he would have used exactly the same words.

Mr. Hogan (Minister):

Do you suggest that I wrote or inspired it?

Dr. Ryan

I would not suggest that at all.

Mr. MacEntee

The seed did not fall on stony ground.

Mr. Hogan

As that suggestion is here, may I say that I know nothing about the letter? I have not, in fact, seen the letter. I had nothing to do with the letter, good, bad or indifferent. Not having seen it I cannot say what it was like, but I have sufficient confidence in Dr. Hennessy to know that he wrote sound, common sense and in that way it would be rather like a letter which I would write.

Dr. Ryan

That only proves what I said, that he was a disciple the Minister should be proud of. One reason why I think we should at least maintain the amount of tillage we have in this country even if we cannot agree to increase it—because I believe this motion is only going a small way towards solving the problem of tillage and it will not do more than maintain the present amount of tillage—is that we are importing into this country every year up to £11,000,000 worth of cereals which could be produced or substituted by crops grown in this country. If that figure is to increase, as it probably will increase under present conditions, because at present there is no option for the farmer except to go out of tillage, we cannot maintain even the present conditions with regard to our adverse trade balance of imports against exports.

There is another question to be considered. We all know that we have land in this country which is eminently suitable for the growing of oats, say, and we know that that particular land may not be suitable for the production of milk. We know that we have land that is eminently suitable for barley and that that same land may not be suitable for the fattening of cattle. I may be told by some speakers in the usual cynical way that "if that is so why not allow these farmers to grow oats and why not allow them to grow barley?" It may be a very good thing economically for the country as a whole to have oats produced on land that is best suited for oats and have barley produced on land that is best suited for barley and yet it may not be economically possible for the farmer to grow that oats or barley. I think that the House should consider the effect of making it possible for these landholders to do what is best for the country even though, for the time being, it may not be best for themselves.

Again we know that there is more wealth produced in tillage than in grass. Figures have been produced here before showing the food value of tillage as compared with grass. It was pointed out here that, taking the average tillage farms where you have so much oats, barley, potatoes, swedes and mangolds, the production of human food from that acreage was a good deal higher than the production of human food from grass. The practical farmers in this country know that in order to keep their land in good condition it is necessary, in practically all cases, to do tillage. In some land, what is known as the light tillage land, it is necessary to till oftener than it is in the case of land in the heavy grazing districts. In fact, in the case of this light tillage land when it is laid down into grass it does not remain in good pasture more than five to six years, after which it becomes necessary to till again. Again, if you compare Denmark with this country—it is the old comparison—we know that in Denmark they have 63 per cent. of their land in tillage, while in this country we have only 12½ per cent. tilled. Along with that, however, we find that in Denmark the output per agricultural worker is £196, while in the Free State it is only £96. That calculation is made after allowing for subtraction from the output of the amount of imported feeding stuffs that came into both countries.

I think that we should continue to till our land, because there is no use for the grass that will replace that tillage, considering the fact that the number of cattle that we have in this country has been steadily declining. We do not want any more land under grass at present to feed the cattle we have, but we do want more land under tillage in order to produce human food and animal foodstuffs that are required for this country. The farmer who is growing oats for sale is a very unpopular man in some quarters at present, but, at any rate, there are some farmers doing it. We have been told on other occasions that we should let the farmers do what they have been in the habit of doing and not ask them to change their farming economy. That farmer who is growing oats for sale is at a serious disadvantage. He is growing oats without any subsidy and he is trying to compete with oats coming to this country, oats that have been subsidised by the Russian Government or by the German Government. It is not fair to expect that that man should continue in the business he is engaged in. He should be helped out of his difficulties.

Another matter that is closely related to this is the question of imports and exports. The President, in speaking here yesterday, drew attention to the very good position of this country in having our adverse trade balance reduced. That would be a very welcome thing if it had been reduced by our importing less of the materials that we could produce here for ourselves, and by exporting more of the goods that we have been advised by the present Government to concentrate on for the foreign markets. But it is not so. As a matter of fact, our exports for the nine months up to the end of September last, the last returns we have, have increased by the very small sum of £193,000. But against that £193,000 we find that the exports of tractors and tractor parts have increased by 1½ million pounds. I suppose the Government will claim that it was their policy that brought Messrs. Ford to Cork. Probably they will. But if they had not succeeded in that policy, and if Messrs. Ford were not in Cork our exports would be down by 1½ millions. That shows that it is not through our agricultural policy that our exports have increased.

As a matter of fact, there is only one item in which our agricultural exports have increased. That increase has been in the matter of cattle. That has been increased by over £1,000,000. But the number of cattle that we have exported for the first nine months of this year, as compared with the exports for the corresponding nine months of 1929, has been increased by 72,000. I do not know if it is a good sign, or a sign that we have turned the corner, when we come to examine where these cattle came from. If any of us were watching the farmer who had, say, ten cows, and who was selling yearly ten yearlings at the fairs, and if in one particular year we found that that farmer had brought ten yearlings and two cows to the fair as well, we would say that that farmer had turned the corner, but it would be the corner into bankruptcy. That is what has been happening in the matter of this export of cattle.

We have increased our cattle exports by 72,000. After the first six months that export was increased by 36,000 as compared with last year's, and we found last June that we had 104,000 less cattle than in the previous June. That shows that we have increased our exports of cattle at the expense of the stock of cattle in the country. Included in that return of 104,000 cattle was 6,000 cows. If our farmers are compelled by economic circumstances to reduce the adverse trade balance by exporting their cows and leaving themselves with less stock to produce butter and young cattle in the coming year, it is hardly a matter for congratulation. We can hardly be congratulated upon the fact that we have reduced the adverse trade balance in that way.

We find that in the matter of finished product that our exports have decreased. If we take butter, bacon and eggs, we find that the three finished products produced by the small farmer who is going to get so much sympathy from the other side have decreased. If we look over the exports in the matter of these three products we find that the amount has gone down by 1½ million pounds. Now in the same period—that is, in the 12 months from June, 1929, to June, 1930 —the number of acres under tillage in this country has been reduced by 64,000. From that one can see that the free trade agricultural policy of this Government has led us to the position of throwing more land into grass and having less cattle to eat that grass. We see that our imports for that period have been reduced. In order to get this big reduction in the adverse trade balance, not only was there an increase in exports which was very small, but a decrease in imports which was large, amounting to £2,846,000. The biggest decrease in that item came under the head of cereals. The biggest decrease under that head of cereals was in the matter of wheat. We imported a good deal less wheat not only in value but also in quantity. But against that we imported more flour. Again, we decreased our imports of barley but we increased our imports of malt. Even taking wheat, flour and bread together, we find that for nine months we have made considerable savings in these imports. That considerable saving was made in quantity, apart from the price altogether. We did not grow any more wheat at home. We imported less for the nine months, and whereas our people were able to consume fourteen loaves in 1929 they got only thirteen loaves in 1930.

We have been told here by the Minister for Industry and Commerce—and we believe it—that the people who consume most bread are the very poor. If a man has any money to buy food the first thing he will do is to buy enough bread. If, therefore, people have bought less bread than in 1929, it must be the very poor people who have bought less bread and the only explanation is that they could not pay for what they wanted. We have reduced our adverse balance in two ways, first by getting rid of our dairy stock and cattle and, secondly, by leaving the people in the position that they cannot purchase their food requirements.

Of course there will be objections to this motion and I am quite certain that the Minister's old objection will be again brought forward—that it pays a man to produce grain for himself, but it can never pay a man to produce oats and barley as a cash crop. The Minister said that last year when maize was coming in at 8s. 8d. per cwt.; he will say the same now when maize is 5s. 2d., a difference of 3s. 6d. If that is the position, it must cost more than 3s. 6d. a cwt. to market oats in this country. Surely there is something wrong and something the Minister should have investigated before now in order to give the producers of oats and barley, who grow those commodities as a cash crop, some assistance. He should have made some effort surely to ease the position for them.

We will be told that we should advise the farmers to feed their grain to their own stock. There is not a farmer in the country who needs that advice if he could afford to do it. The advice, when it comes from the Minister or any member of Cumann na nGaedheal, is entirely gratuitous. Any farmer who can do it has been doing it for the last seven or eight years and he knows he is doing well on it; but we have to deal with the farmer who cannot do that. We know there are farmers who, when they produce oats and barley, have to sell the grain in order to pay their debts. They may owe money to the Land Commission, rates to the County Council, sometimes bank debts and sometimes shop debts. They have to pay those debts out of any money they may get for the grain. There may be farmers who can get over that difficulty, but them they may not have sufficient storage for their corn. Not every farmer has a large loft capable of keeping oats and barley so as to tide him over the winter. Even if a farmer had his debts paid and had sufficient storage, he might not be able to afford £150 or £200 to buy cattle to consume the grain. Even if a farmer could bring home the cattle he might not have a house to bring them into. Various difficulties of that sort confront men who grow oats and barley and these difficulties have not been met by members of the Government who talk glibly about a man feeding oats and barley to his own stock. Let us not waste time with such advice. Just consider the position of the man who is anxious to grow oats and barley but cannot do so.

It may be said that the quantities of oats that came into the country last year could not have made any difference in the price as the total amount came to only £30,000. Whatever the quantity was, it does not make the slightest difference; it is the question of the price that really matters. Would any Deputy in the habit of buying oats be prepared to buy Irish oats at 13s. or 14s. a barrel, knowing that at any moment within a week or a month, several cargoes of Russian or German oats would come in at a much lower price? It is the possibility of foreign oats coming in at a lower price that keeps the price of Irish oats down. I do not believe the quantity has the slightest influence on the matter.

Oats is a raw material, and we are advised that we should not tax raw materials. I hold that oats is the basis of a very important industry. Any Deputy who examines the agricultural output of the Saorstát in 1926 will find that the production of oats amounted in value to £4,950,000, almost £5,000,000. This industry is a most important one, as will be realised when that figure is taken into consideration. It should not be brushed aside by merely saying that oats form a raw material and must not be taxed.

We are told that it is right for the farmer who grows oats to feed them to his stock. Is it not just as reasonable to say that it is right for the farmer who wants to feed his stock to grow his oats? If he does that, a prohibition on oats coming in will make no difference to him. We will be told that the small farmer, especially in the West of Ireland, will be hit badly by this proposal. I do not know how, and I am hoping to find out. According to returns of the amount of oats grown in each county in 1926, the three counties mentioned in particular as likely to suffer under this scheme—Cavan, Galway and Mayo—are within the first eleven counties described as oat producers. Seeing that the amount of oats produced in the Free State is barely sufficient for our needs, I think that if we get three counties included in the first eleven as large growers, we can assume that they are at least producing sufficient for their own needs. These small farmers are the very people who sell a certain amount of oats after the harvest in order to pay their debts. They are the people who have to sell oats in order to pay their annuities, rates and shop debts; they have not bank debts as a rule.

If the prohibition of foreign oats has the effect of raising the level of the price of Irish oats here, it is going to benefit the very small farmers about whom we hear so much. The only oats these men buy as a rule is seed in the spring. Generally the man who sells oats sells more in quantity than he buys back in the spring for seed, and if we raise the level of prices he will benefit by the scheme. In any case this motion only refers to barley and oats. The price of barley and oats as feeding stuffs cannot go higher than the general level of other feeding stuffs. As long as we have not tackled the problem of maize, pollard and bran, the price of oats or barley to the consumer cannot go up very much. The only people who may suffer are those who have to buy oats, who cannot buy any other substitute, but they are not found amongst the small farmers. I would remind Deputies that there are other clauses in the motion which will have the effect of compensating small farmers who produce bacon, butter and eggs.

The motion next deals with barley. The value of our imports of barley and malt in 1929 amounted to £350,000. The value of the total production of barley in this country is £1,145,000. It is by no means an industry that should be neglected. But I want to speak particularly about malt. For the nine months of 1930, as compared with the same period in 1929, the imports of malt increased in value from £118,000 to £244,000. So far, I know of only one objection put up to the prohibition of the imports of barley, and that is that the brewers here require a certain proportion of foreign barley in order to make stout for export, it being necessary for the keeping quality of such stout. It is on that account we put in the proviso "except under licence." If these brewers have a good case to make they can make it before a competent tribunal, and if they can convince that tribunal, no doubt they will be allowed to import a certain amount of barley. But the import of barley should stop at that. I do not know any reason why malt should be allowed in. Surely we have people here who are able to make malt. We have the stores and the men, and we also have the barley grown here, so that there is no reason at all why we should allow malt to be imported.

Under the heading of both barley and oats a question may arise about seed. I think any Deputy who has been taking an interest in the Agricultural College in Glasnevin, and who has been following the experiments carried on there, will agree that those in the College are capable of producing and breeding good seed oats and seed barley, and that there is no reason why we should be paying so much money, especially for seed oats which are in no way superior but, in fact, are probably very much inferior to the oats we produce ourselves.

Coming to the next heading, the imposition of an import duty of 20s. per cwt. on all bacon and other pig products, it is hard to see why foreign bacon should be allowed in here in free competition with our own bacon, considering that we have a surplus for export. If we were to take over the home market for bacon we would still have about £4,000,000 worth of bacon for export. At present bacon valued for over £1,500,000 is coming in. There is no reason why the bacon producers here should not have their market enlarged, by giving them the market represented by that £1,500,000, as well as the market they have already in Great Britain. No reason can be advanced against the prohibition of foreign bacon. This foreign bacon is dearer, but it is not as good an article as the home product. By exporting our own bacon and importing a certain amount of foreign bacon, we are paying all the expenses of transport, handling, as well as those of the wholesaler, the retailer and others between China, America, Great Britain, Poland and Ireland. However, we recognise that the people of this country have developed a taste for a certain kind of bacon, and therefore we say immediate prohibition would not be fair, or perhaps feasible, but by giving notice both to the producers and the curers, that after 18 months the prohibition of foreign bacon would take effect, that would enable them to produce the pig and to have the bacon cured in the way the people desire.

We go further, and say that all meats coming into the Free State should be marked legibly with the name of the country of origin when exposed for sale. Meat is a most important food, and a certain amount is imported. So far we have taken no trouble to see that that meat is marked with the name of the country of origin. Only yesterday the Second Reading of a Bill was passed here, ensuring that people who drink port wine will get the genuine article. We think that people who eat bacon are in every way as important as people who drink port wine. If we go to the expense of inspecting meat that leaves the country, so as to ensure that it is in good condition for the foreign consumer, we should, at least, have as much consideration for home consumers, and see that no meat will enter the country unless it is inspected and found to be in good condition.

Under this motion the price of Irish bacon to the consumer cannot increase to any extent. Even when we confine our market to our own produce, we will still have a surplus for export, valued for about £4,000,000. The price of that bacon that we export to the foreign market will be regulated by the general world price of bacon in the foreign market to which it is sent, whether Great Britain or elsewhere. The people who export bacon from this country will get a certain price for their product in Liverpool or in London, and the price here will be fixed relative to that, allowing for expenses of transport, and so on. The price of Irish bacon here will not be increased to the consumer. To the producer this scheme will probably bring a small advantage, because he will have a bigger market than he has at present. If he has a market at the present time for five and a half million pounds worth of bacon in Great Britain, and if, in addition to that, we throw open to him the market here, worth one and a half million pounds, he will have a bigger market for his products, and he will either increase production or he will pick the very select part of that market for his own products. The price of foreign bacon will probably increase under this scheme, although there does not appear to be any reason why it should, considering that it is a good deal higher than Irish bacon at the present time.

Paragraph 4 deals with prohibition of imports of butter. There seems to be a growing belief that it would be a good thing for this country if all imports of butter were prohibited. A number of speakers, including the Minister, have expressed themselves more or less in favour of that. I do not know if it is necessary to go into the matter very deeply, if it is not going to meet with any opposition. As regards condensed milk, we have good equipment and the raw material to turn out any amount of condensed milk. We had condensed milk factories, and some of those who worked in those factories are now idle. We do not see why we should import condensed milk when we can produce it for ourselves and employ our own people.

With regard to eggs, the amount that comes into this country is small, but there is no reason why we should import any at all. We do not know what is in this liquid egg that is coming in. We do not know the country of origin or what is mixed with the egg or anything else. These liquid eggs are put into confectionery, which is consumed by the innocent people of this country.

The objection raised to these proposals is this: if we confine the market, say, for butter, to our own produce, what are we going to do with the rest of the supply? In his statement on Government policy yesterday, the President said we were exporting from this country £4,000,000 worth of butter and that we must continue to export that amount—that we must continue to export half our production in butter. The book I quoted before—the Agricultural Output of Saorstát Eireann— traces the output of butter, where it was consumed and so on. It shows that a certain amount of butter and milk was consumed by the rural population of this country, a certain amount by the town population, and a certain amount exported. A curious feature of those figures is that if the towns-people in this country had consumed per head as much milk and butter as the people in the rural districts did there would be none for export. So that if we must continue to export half our butter production, as the President stated, that is due to the fact that our town population is not eating as much butter or drinking as much milk as the people in the country are; and nobody claims that the people in the country are using too much butter or milk. The same thing applies to poultry and to eggs and the converse applies to mutton, sheep and lambs. If the people of the country could afford to eat as much mutton as the people of the towns did in 1926, we would have no sheep, lambs or mutton for export, and I do not know that anyone will claim that the people in the towns have gorged themselves with mutton. The Minister stated on one occasion that the home market for these commodities was negligible. The fact is that the home market is negligible because our people cannot afford to eat enough. We are advised to produce those articles for the foreign market and that we will eventually defeat our competitors in that market. We are up against the whole world in the British market for butter—not only the European countries but Canada, New Zealand, Australia and now, perhaps, a more serious rival still, Siberia.

We are advised that we shall beat all those competitors in the foreign market and, on the other hand, we are told that we cannot compete against the grain growing countries in our own market. If that is so—if we cannot protect ourselves in our own market— where does our fiscal autonomy come in or what is the use of it? It is admitted, I think, that for the last twelve months, at any rate, we have been producing butter at a loss to the producer and yet we are advised to continue to produce that butter for competition in the foreign market while we have land here suitable for grain growing which we are advised to leave derelict and not attempt to compete against the foreigner in our own grain market. We were told yesterday that we had a benevolent Government which saved this country from going into a wheat scheme. In saying us from going into a wheat scheme, they led us into a butter scheme which ruined this country and from which there is no going back. There is nobody on the opposite side who will claim that there is going to be a recovery from this butter position. They cannot foresee any future for the butter industry and no one will claim that there is any future for it. All that they can do is to throw it back at us that they saved us from a wheat, barley or oats scheme, but at least if we had gone into these commodities we would be growing them for our own market, a market that we could regulate and pay the producer for his cost of production. Four years ago butter was selling at 180s. per cwt. It is now selling at 122s.—that is Irish creamery salted butter—on the London market, I give that quotation from the "Irish Trade Journal." It is the price on the London market. What does the farmer get out of that? He gets 95s.

Mr. M.J. Hennessy

Would the Deputy say what is the cause of the decline?

Dr. Ryan

It does not matter what the cause is, but the Government led us into that scheme of competition on a foreign market where we have no redress, instead of encouraging us to grow for our own market where we could regulate the price and pay the producer for his cost of production. To go into the cause would only lead to an academic discussion. It does not matter what the cause is. If we follow the Government policy for the last nine months, what has it led us to? In the case of bacon and pig products that we export, they decreased in quantity by 20 per cent. and in value by 22½ per cent. In the case of poultry—I am dealing with the finished products—they decreased in quantity by 11 per cent. and in value by 14 per cent. Eggs decreased in quantity by 2 per cent. and in value by 18 per cent. As regards butter, with all our Dairy Produce Acts and so on, we have succeeded in increasing our export of that commodity by 4 per cent., but the decrease in value has been 17½ per cent.

That is the Government policy—increased production for the foreign market, where the more you produce the less you get. You are competing on that market against countries all over the world. We are going in for increased production of all these commodities while we find that the price for them is being driven down on the British market. We are told to compete against those countries, to run our heads against a stone wall, at a time when we are getting less for our commodities. The advice that we have given is: "Turn your eyes on the home market," and if you produce an article for the home market, whatever it be—barley, wheat or oats—we can at least make a law here that will regulate the price of that article and give the producer what is due to him for producing it. But what law can you pass here that will compel the British people to pay more for their butter, eggs or bacon? That is the difference between the two policies. I have no doubt whatever that when the Deputies on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches, who have been talking to the farmers of this country during the recess about the foreign goods that have been coming in here, who have been telling the farmers in Leix, Offaly, Kilkenny and in other places that the only hope for this country is protection for agriculture, come up here to vote on this motion they will see things in a different light and show that they do not believe at all in agricultural protection. We will see, at any rate, what they will do at half-past ten to-night. I do not intend to say anything more now except formally to move the motion.

Mr. Davin

I second.

Mr. Bennett

I welcome this motion. It provides an opportunity for a debate on this question of the improvement of agriculture by tariffs or prohibition. Deputies will have the opportunity here of debating the question freely, and I hope, sensibly. This House is the only place, I think, at the moment where that question could be debated freely or sensibly. There has been an attempt made to stampede the farmers of the country into the position that they are going to be relieved by this policy of tariffs or prohibitions. The farmers of the country are not yet educated enough into the realities of the position, and that is one of the reasons why I am pleased that the debate is taking place in this House. Of the four heads with which the motion deals, I propose to take the third. dealing with bacon. The consideration of the others will arise on the debate on the bacon question. The Minister for Agriculture, I think, fully and fairly explained the case for bacon and for other products in his recent speech at Carlow.

Mr. Aiken

But the Cumann na nGaedheal farmers did not agree with him.

Mr. Bennett

The Minister dealt so fairly with the question that to a large extent the leader of the Opposition, Deputy de Valera, agreed with him. Referring to the question of bacon, the Minister for Agriculture said that neither import duties nor prohibitions would benefit the farmer, because there was an export surplus, and that there would be no increase in price in the home market. I agree. So, apparently, does Deputy de Valera. The Minister also contended that there would be no increase in production because of tariffs, that the increase in home sales would be balanced by the reduction in exports. Deputy de Valera said that this was a demonstrable fallacy, and he proceeded to demonstrate the fallacy by saying that there would be at first a reduction in exports, but if the price of bacon allowed a margin of profit, that there would be an increase in output. Everyone, I think, agrees with that. He forgot, however, to tell us why there should be an increase in price to the farmers because of a tariff. I am quoting from the speech that the Deputy delivered at the Ard Fheis in Dublin.

The Deputy said the producers would increase their output until they could provide the needs of the home market and have a sufficient surplus to supply the demands abroad. If the price showed a margin of profit there would be an increase in production. I ask Deputies to mark the words, "If the price showed a margin of profit." The Deputy did not tell us how or why there should be an increase in the profit to the farmers. He forgot to tell us that. If there is a surplus, as there undoubtedly is, in the production of bacon, and if the farmer, say, at the moment has a market for the home supply and for the British market, and if for this 1½ millions extra of the home supply which the proposer of the motion proposes should be tariffed, and that imports of foreign bacon to this amount should be prohibited, what happens? You transfer the farmer's market for the portion of that commodity he exported to the local market. The Deputy does not agree with me that that is what happens.

The farmer's position, to put it in a very plain way that any honest farmer can understand, is, say, that at present he produces three pigs. One is sold in the home market and two go into the foreign market. There are two men in the public market buying pigs, one for the English market and one for the home market, and the home man who is buying the pigs pays the same price as the man who is buying them for export. Deputy de Valera's argument appears to be that instead of exporting two pigs and keeping one, if we kept two and exported one, that would change the position of the farmer altogether, but the position is that you have as before two men buying, one for the English market and one for the Irish market, but the man who is buying for the home market will not pay 1d. more than the man who is buying for the export market. He would be a fool if he did, and I think there are very few fools in this country amongst the commercial community.

Mr. Davin

Is it in order for a Deputy to deal with a speech that has not been delivered in this House, and which I have not read?

Mr. Bennett

I pay Deputy de Valera the compliment that his address to a great gathering in this city has at least been read by the prominent members of the Labour Party. As far as I am concerned, and I believe so far as the majority of Deputies in this Party are concerned, there can be no possible increase to the farmer because of the imposition of a tariff on bacon. Deputy Ryan in dealing with his motion made several statements in reference to bacon, but he did not make the least attempt to prove, or to show in any way whatever, that there would be any increase. Talking of bacon he said we could enlarge the farmer's market by giving him an extra home market. To enlarge his market does not necessarily mean that that is going to increase his price. Deputy Ryan as far as I know did not follow up his argument by proving how it would enlarge his price. He said: He will either increase his production because of that or collar the select portion of the market. He can do either of these things now. He can increase his production if he is satisfied with the prevailing price, which is in fact the British price. That will not be altered one whit by the imposition of this tariff or by prohibition. Neither Deputy Ryan nor Deputy de Valera has argued that the price will be altered by the imposition of a tariff. The only thing Deputy Ryan suggested was that the farmer could collar an enlarged market. He can collar that now. There is nothing to stop him from doing so. He can increase his production now if he is satisfied with the prevailing price received in the British market. There has been no argument put up that the price of a pig on four legs, irrespective of the price of the bacon, could be in the least improved by the imposition of this or any other tariff. I defy any Deputy on the opposite side to get up and prove that it can be. Deputy de Valera in quoting the Minister for Agriculture said further——

An Ceann Comhairle

It would be better to deal with the speech made in the House.

Mr. Davin

Let the Deputy read the whole speech.

An Ceann Comhairle

Oh, no.

Mr. Bennett

If the Deputies like it I would not mind doing so. He said that we dare not permit outworn economic theories to intimidate us in our task, and he suggests that we should set up some kind of tribunal to buy oats and barley from the farmers and sell them to those who need them for consumption at a profitable price, so that the proposition Deputy de Valera made at the Ard Fheis was that the Government in office—I hope it will not be our Government—should start buying oats and barley from the farmers at an augmented price that is going to make it clear to them that they will have a profit for the growing of them, and which they (the Government) could re-sell to their neighbours at an economic price. Very sound finance is all that I can say about that. I hope somebody will devise the means of putting it into operation. I cannot conceive any means of doing so. Take the question of oats. Deputy de Valera said that in relieving the English market of the amount of bacon that would be needed to supplant foreign bacon in this country, and consequently reducing the quantity in the British market by so much, that the quantity would be so infinitesimal that it could not possibly have a reaction on the British market. It could only absolutely bring about the same reaction as the small quantity of oats which comes into this country could have on the position of the oat market, and we are asked to put a prohibition on the small quantity of oats that comes into this country—a quantity so small that it is insignificant and could not possibly interfere with the commercial price of oats in this country. No argument has been made, or could be made, that it could interfere with the current price of oats in this country, and the Minister is asked to step in and stop the importation of oats. We can all stand up in this House and make vague statements to the farmers, statements that we know are inaccurate and can carry no weight.

Mr. Davin

Hear, hear.

Mr. Bennett

Deputy Davin says "Hear, hear!" I hope Deputy Davin will go down the country and tell the farmer that the stoppage of the small quantity of the Russian or German oats that come into this country will make any material difference to the price he gets for his oats. I hope he will go down the country and preach that to the farmers and prove it to them.

Mr. Davin

It is not necessary, as your own colleague did it.

I have no doubt whatever about the result of the other proposed tariffs. There might possibly be some results from the prohibition of butter imports during the winter months. If we to-morrow, the day after or next week impose a prohibition, what would happen? It would almost inevitably raise prices and possibly there would be increased prices for butter this winter all over and some of the creameries in the country who hold up their stock would get better prices. The milking season is over, and the farmer would not materially benefit by it. There is a possibility of some good coming from it, but if we put in force the prohibition of butter what is to happen next winter? We have got to look before we leap or leap and look long. What will happen? There may be more butter held up than we can consume in this country, with the result that in March and April there will be put on the market an amount of cold storage butter which will have to enter into competition with the freshly produced grass butter and be sold at a loss. I am not saying that is certain to happen but there is the danger of it happening and it is one of the dangers of rushing hot-headed into any scheme of tariffs in farming. It is the one possible exception in that there is not an export surplus all the year round. No matter how our opponents polish their arguments this side, that side, upside, downside, they cannot eventually argue that the price to the home producer will not be regulated by the export article. The resulting price to the farmer for what he produces if he is producing a surplus will eventually be regulated by the export of the exportable article. There is no other conceivable way out of it as far as I can see. It may be that our intellect is deficient, that we cannot see two sides to any story, but to me it appears conclusive that there can be no possible advantage to the farmer from any imposition of tariffs. If as this debate goes on some enlightened Deputy on the other side gets up and proves to me conclusively that there is going to be an immediate or prospective increase to the farmer for the goods he produces because of this tariff I may alter my mind with regard to it. At present I do not see my way to do it. I do not think any Deputy is going to prove it to me. Six or ten months hence prices may for some other reason have gone up here and there. The prices of butter, bacon and many other commodities may jump up 50 per cent. during the next six months but if they do it will not be because of tariffs; they will jump up, if at all, irrespective of tariffs. It is a question of supply and demand.

It is a question for us, however little or much we may like it, of the demand in our neighbouring country, England. As far as the farmers' produce is concerned at the moment, England is our only market and the price that England is content to pay us will be the best price that we can get for our produce. If that price is good enough and economically sound enough to make it profitable for us to produce more we will produce more.

As regards bacon, the price will now and then be greater. Possibly there is no other farm produce the price of which varies so much as that of pigs. It is possible that in a few months' time the price of bacon will be much better than it is now. If a tariff was put on bacon at the present moment possibly it would be used as an argument then that the price of bacon had gone up, but it would have gone up irrespective of the tariff. It is almost certain that the price of bacon will be better than it is at the present moment and it will be better because the price in the English market will be better. No tariff or no prohibition of foreign imports that we can set up will make it better. The price will and must be governed by the export price. The same thing applies to eggs and other produce. Eggs are not mentioned in this motion, but Deputy Ryan, I think, said that the farmer could get a bigger price for his eggs in the local market than he could get in the export market. I deny it. The small farmer or the big farmer who would enter into the huckster business and bring his eggs from door-to-door might get a better price, but to do that he has to put himself in the position of a huckster as well as that of a farmer. He would not get a better price in the local market than in the export market. Agriculture will be improved in this country when the position of agriculture in other countries is improved. The farmers of this country are hard up at the present moment. There are difficulties in every branch of their business, but there are greater difficulties in the position of the farmer in any other country and I use the word "any" deliberately.

I had a good deal of experience of Canada many years ago. I get the Canadian papers and I know that the position of the farmer in Canada is much worse than the position of the Irish farmer. I have not seen where any Deputy in the Canadian House has preached that the farmer in Canada is down and out, or that the country is down and out. A number of years ago when I was in Canada, we had a period of the greatest depression in Canadian farming. Wheat was selling at half the present price, and the position with some of us was almost hopeless. I remember a farmer saying to me, and it left an impression on me that has still remained: "It looks as if we are down and out, that we cannot go on, but I tell you, and you will live to see it, this is going to be a hell of a great country." It was that spirit that made Canada, the spirit of the men who said, "this is and must be a great country," and not the spirit of decrying our country, and saying that we are down and out. Our financial position, thank God, is sound; our credit is sound. We stand at the moment, I do not say half-way up the ladder, but at the top. Our position is such that some of the greatest countries in the world—England and others —envy us. We are in the position that a country like Australia, which is so often quoted in debates, would give much to be in. Australia has been quoted as one of the countries that have been saved by tariffs. What is the position of Australia? The farmer's position in Australia is lamentable, and because of tariffs what has happened? The Australian loan is at 80, and if Australia wanted to borrow money to-morrow to help the farmer or anybody else, they could not borrow at much less than seven per cent., while our credit at the moment is so good that we could almost certainly borrow at four and a half per cent. There can be no question whatever that there cannot be any material gain from the imposition of a tariff or prohibition on the import of farming products into this country, with the one exception of butter, and that is problematical, and perhaps a small other item which Deputy Dr. Ryan mentioned, condensed milk. Except for these two there is no possibility, as far as I can see, that tariffs would benefit the farmer one way or the other, and I hope that Deputies in this House have intelligence enough to reject the motion.

Mr. J.X. Murphy

As nobody else wants to speak, I do not want the motion to fall through. They say that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I suppose I am a fool on this occasion, because I know nothing whatever about agriculture, but I think the great question as regards tariffs is whether tariffs are going to benefit a minority at the expense of the great majority. I also think that the proper place to discuss tariffs is not in the somewhat heated atmosphere of the Dáil but in the Committee Room where experts will sift any evidence that is put before them and then come to a conclusion. It is quite conceivable that tariffs on agricultural produce may be wise. I also think that there are some years when a tariff is good on an agricultural product and other years when it is bad. The Minister for Agriculture seems to have definitely set his face against any tariff on agricultural produce. In fact from the way he speaks the word tariff with him is like a red rag to a bull. He is definitely opposed to tariffs in an established industry such as agriculture. On the other hand, apparently he is in favour of tariffs to establish industries here, as I presume he must have consented to the tariff on boots which has given employment to a few hundred people at the cost of the great majority of the country. Free trade and tariff reform has been a subject that has been discussed on several occasions. I remember once discussing the matter with a professor of economics who was a great free trader. The subject was before England at the time. He told me that if he got on a tariff platform he could make as good a case for tariff reform as he could for free trade.

The first part of this motion asks for an embargo on oats. This morning I was speaking to a very prominent miller. He told me that his firm had been looking for 10,000 barrels of oats locally for the purpose of making oat-meal and that so far he had been only able to get 4,000 barrels of oats that were suitable for that purpose. It may be a bad year for oats—I do not know whether the rain affects oats or not—but that is a fact. Barley is a subject I know less about than oats, but I would not like to do anything which might interfere with the brewing industry here. My information is that the brewing industry gave a very fair price for barley this year—£7 or £7 5s. per ton. I cannot vote for the Motion because I prefer that this question should be investigated by the Tariff Commission and I hope that the Tariff Commission will be able to report in a short time and not keep us waiting as they have done on previous occasions.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

Deputy Bennett was so good as to concede that we were right in at least one item. He has practically admitted that butter is one of the commodities on which a tariff or prohibition might be useful. Butter production is one of the fundamental industries of our country, whether it be butter produced by the farmer or by the more up-to-date method of creameries. The butter produced by the farmer is greatly in excess of that produced by the creameries—the quantity would be about three times as much. We are really a sort of large factory for the production of fat. We produce beef, butter, bacon and eggs. For the production of beef we depend altogether on the creameries and on butter production. If the price of butter falls, either on the home or foreign market, there is hardly a doubt but that store cattle will become scarcer and therefore the price will become higher. Butter production also affects the pig industry. It is fundamental to that industry.

The present system that we adopt in order to produce all these fats is one of importation. We practically import the greater part of what is fed to the animals. In one case, that amounts to £4,000,000, and the total would be something around about £11,000,000. The object of this motion is to try and change that, and have the farmers of this country, who have suitable land for the purpose, producing those foodstuffs as far as possible. Some of us, of course, are convinced free traders. We cannot see any hope whatever in tariffs. But when we consider the position of the greater number of countries, especially agricultural countries, we find that they are highly protected countries. Here we have been brought up under the wing of a country which is pre-eminently free trade, and I daresay on account of that many of us are more or less traditional free traders—buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. I believe, however, that we ought not to allow that to impress us unduly. Because England is free trade it does not follow that we should be free trade. England's principal means of income was industrial production. Our principal means of income was agricultural production, in order to feed the workers in England. We were compelled to produce exactly what was wanted in England, and also to produce it at exactly the price they wanted it there. We had not then any power to develop even the smallest portion of a home market; in fact, we did not know we had one. Now when we have an opportunity of developing a home market, and making use of the different resources that we have, I see no reason why it cannot be done.

There is not the slightest doubt that large counties like Wexford and other counties cannot rely on the system of dairying or of feeding cattle. The land there will not long remain out of tillage. If it is left for any undue length of time it grows moss, whereas the land in Co. Meath is peculiarly suitable for the feeding of cattle, because it does not grow moss and will remain out of tillage. If we do not agree to help production in such counties as Wexford and other counties which are not able to follow what is generally pursued, we are wrong. I think that these counties should get a fair opportunity. I am quite sure that men from Wexford will admit that their county is peculiarly suitable for the production of grain—both oats and barley. Not alone that, but there is a tradition there. If it was not suitable for that purpose, it would be at present engaged either in dairying or in the production of beef, but it is quite evident that the people, through their own experience, discovered the fact that that county and other counties like it were suitable for that purpose and that purpose only. What I want to know is: Are we giving the people of these counties a fair chance? Have they as fair a chance as the people of other counties? Really, from the point of view of the industrial organisation of the country, Co. Wexford, so far as means of communication is concerned, is almost as far from Meath and Westmeath as Buenos Aires. It is a much simpler process to get Indian meal into the Co. Meath than to get barley from Wexford. It is necessary to have that matter developed before tariffs could become a success. Inter-county trade must be developed through a saner outlook on the question of transport. It has to be dominated, and if it is not the railways will become useless. That is a preparation for this question of tariffs. Tariffs would not have a fair trial except under these conditions.

If we take the County Limerick, for example, it is a pre-eminently dairying county. It has been that for years past. It was not the dairying scheme that made Limerick a great dairying county. It has a tradition in that way. Limerick does not till very much. The people of Limerick have been accused on and off of doing more or less the same as the people of Co. Meath— taking it easy.

Mr. Gorey

Dairying is not taking it easy.

Mr. O'Reilly

They have been accused of that.

Mr. Gorey

Not except by Meath men.

Mr. O'Reilly

It is quite possible. At any rate, Limerick does not till much, and has perhaps the densest cow population in any country, denser even than Denmark. Limerick does not go in for winter dairying. Why? Winter dairying is more expensive, and naturally the price of winter-produced butter must be something in excess of the ordinary price. Foreigners, having discovered that fact, have come in here in such strength with their butter that at times they have actually lowered the price of winter butter and made it cheaper than the summer production. I think that that is definitely a case where a tariff on butter would be useful. I think that hardly anyone in this House could disagree with that. I firmly believe that that is the case— that they are in a position any winter to keep the price of butter lower than it is in the summer.

As regards a tariff or embargo on oats, that is a commodity which is grown in every county. Galway, Mayo, almost all counties grow it, but in different counties they have different methods of using oats. For instance, Galway and Mayo sell earlier, and they have reasons for that, because before the general threshing there is a fairly good price, and they buy in what they want later. But they have another reason. Generally it is rather difficult for them to store oats. Rates went up on barns and places like that, and the farmers found it cheaper to pull them down than to pay the rates on them. It is a question of storage with these farmers. They cannot easily store their oats, and so on account of having it a little earlier than others they sell it and at a later period buy oats in. They are users, to a large extent, of foreign feeding stuffs.

The County Cavan is another highly developed county, and produces an enormous amount of oats. It buys a great amount of foreign produce, and I believe that the farmers in that county buy it because there is no industrial machinery. There is nothing to assist the farmers from other counties transferring their surplus grain into that county; there is no encouragement for them to do so because the foreigner, being highly industrialised, puts in his commodities in very handy bulk. There is no danger of its heating or anything else. It may be got any day of the week, and has not to be taken to the mill. We have made no endeavour yet to attempt to commercialise barley and to put it on the market in that condition. And if people have made any attempt such attempts have been largely thwarted by the position of the railways. We ask for tariffs upon these commodities not for the purpose of making the farmers rich men or that they might be able to put money in their own pockets. What we really want is to stabilise the farmer's industry in order that at this time of the year he may be able to say to himself: "I shall sow five or six acres of barley and five or six acres of oats because I understand the Government have taken steps to prevent imports from Russia or East Prussia."

The Minister told us that it was only a matter of £35,000, and he is right. But that makes not the slightest bit of difference. What the farmer is afraid of is that it might become any day of the year £350,000. He has no outline; there is not the slightest indication of security. What we want to do is to give him some indication of security. We want to tell him that Russia or Prussia will not be allowed to come in here and put some impediment in his way. He will have a tariff which will give him a chance of cashing his oats if he wants to cash them. We do not want to grow all oats to sell for cash; it would not do, and if we wanted them to do it they would not do it. But there are certain districts in certain counties where they must sell. The custom and general routine and the land conditions are such that they have to sell oats and other grain as a cash crop.

Mr. Gorey

Why not alter the custom?

Mr. O'Reilly

Because the land is suitable for that purpose only.

Mr. Gorey

The land would not allow them to buy a sow?

Mr. O'Reilly

Certainly that may happen. It is on behalf of such men that I, certainly, urge that some form of protection should be given, that something should be done to prevent foreigners from dumping huge quantities of food supplies into this market. I believe we have the greatest opportunity of any small country of becoming self-contained in that way, but, of course, we have not developed that industrial instinct that other countries have developed. But that will come; it must get encouragement, and we must try and bring back in some way confidence to the farmer. We have admitted it at times, and we have shown that oats can be grown here. I believe we ought not to allow the impression to grow abroad that it cannot be done. From time to time it was sought to be proved that we could not do it. It is now sought to make us throw up our hands and say we cannot grow wheat or barley, and even now it is sought to make us say that we cannot grow oats. I think it would be a pity to say that, because although the Argentine and other countries are producing Indian corn very cheaply, it is likely that they will produce at a much cheaper rate, but it is just as likely that they may not produce at all. We have no guarantee.

It would be well, as we are a fat-producing country, to take some steps to guard against being cut off in any way from foreign supplies, because we cannot supply these commodities ourselves in a year or two years. There is certain machinery necessary for the production of these things that we must keep in order, and not let them fall into decay. So I think it wise that this question of oats and butter—others may make a case for barley—should be seriously considered.

Butter production is all-important so far as the cattle and pig trades are concerned. It is only a matter of considering how we can supply what the Minister for Agriculture calls the raw material at an economic price. Under no conditions can I imagine our being able to produce any of these commodities within the reach of the price of Indian corn, which can be produced even cheaper than its present price. Its supply can, however, also be cut off, and there is nothing at all impossible in a falling away in that supply. As we are engaged in this particular industry, it would be wise to guard against any untoward incident of that description, and, above all, to keep our machinery in repair, and try to give the people of the country portion of that eleven millions which is almost altogether transferred to other countries.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I have listened to two speeches from the benches opposite, and they were made, I suppose, by the only two practical farmer Deputies who are likely to address the House from those benches. I must, however, confess that to me they were very disappointing speeches. I, at least, thought that the Deputies opposite would argue their case before this assembly, and I did not think that both would be satisfied with begging, as they have begged, the only question at issue here. Deputy Dr. Ryan told us that there should be tariffs on agricultural goods as a set-off against tariffs on industrial goods. That, however, is begging the entire question, because the question which they have set themselves out to prove is this, namely, that a tariff on those commodities specified in the motion is going to be of advantage to the farming community. That is what they set themselves out to prove, or rather should have set themselves out to prove, and that is the one thing which they have made no effort to prove. They have assumed it from first to last.

There was one thing which struck me very much in Deputy Dr. Ryan's speech, and that was his frank and fair admission that the policy which the Minister for Agriculture has been preaching in this House and outside is a sound policy for Irish farmers to follow. The Deputy admitted frankly that the policy of growing as much grain and other feeding stuffs as possible and feeding them to stock on one's own land is a wise policy for the people to pursue. He said, however, that that was a policy which every farmer could not pursue because he had not the capital. So, let us limit this discussion, or, rather, let us recognise that the discussion is limited, to this, namely, a discussion as to what should be done to assist farmers who have not enough capital to farm their own land in a proper way. That is what Deputy Dr. Ryan limited this discussion to. He admits that the policy of the Minister for Agriculture is the correct policy for those who have sufficient capital to farm their own land, but that it is not a policy for others because they have not sufficient capital.

We have no figures before us as to the numbers who have not sufficient credit to get capital, because it appeared to me that Deputy Dr. Ryan's speech was entirely one for further facilities from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. He has not, however, explained to the House how those farmers, whom he talks about, and who, he admits, ought to change their methods and grow corn, not as a cash crop but for feeding purposes, can go before the Agricultural Credit Corporation to borrow money to farm their land properly. It is gratifying to have an admission from the Deputy that the agricultural policy adopted here is a sound policy for the country. Now I come to look more narrowly into this motion. The first thing it deals with is foreign oats and oat products. We have heard a good deal of talk from Deputies on the opposite benches on the question of oats. Deputy O'Reilly told us that it has been said that we cannot grow oats. No one ever said that. No one said that we ought not to grow oats. No one ever said that the growing of oats should not be encouraged as much as possible, but that is the growing of oats for home consumption.

Deputy Dr. Ryan said that we have five million pounds worth of oats in the country and that only £35,000 worth is exported. That £5,000,000 worth is not marketed. That is the total estimated value of oats harvested, and of that a very trifling portion goes on the market. The market in this country for oats is naturally very small and restricted. Who can buy it? The miller for oatmeal, but who else? A few horse owners, comparatively few, because horse owners who do not till themselves, and who have not their own oats are not many, and a few farmers who have not grown as much oats as they require themselves. It is obvious that the market for oats in this country is very restricted. The Deputy wishes it to be thought that the price of oats would go up to an enormous extent if foreign oats were not imported. He wishes the farmer to believe that, and that if an embargo is put on oats the price will rise substantially for his benefit. He knows, as he must know, perfectly well that the amount which comes in is trifling and cannot affect the market to any great extent. He knows, as he must know, that an embargo upon oats will have no appreciable effect upon the price of oats in this country. It is exactly the same when you come to deal with the imports of feeding barley, because I take it the Deputy would allow in the imports of brewing barley. These are trivial things which cannot matter one way or the other. They cannot affect the market one way or the other, as the amount imported is too trivial. When we come to bacon, however, we come to a very important question indeed, a question to which, without any argument and, so far as we can gather, without any inquiry, the two Opposition parties in the House have tied themselves. They propose for a time an import duty of 20/- per cwt. on bacon and total prohibition after eighteen months. Deputy Bennett was right when he said that the price of bacon would not affect to any real extent the price of pigs to the farmer if you put a tariff on bacon.

You have got to prove in the first place that your tariff on bacon is going to increase the price of the pig. No attempt has been made to do so. The price of the pig to the farmer will always be regulated by supply and demand and, as Deputy Bennett pointed out, there is a large export of pigs from this country. It is the joint demand which will go, together with the supply of pigs available, to fix the price of the pig to the farmer. There is nothing to show that a tariff on bacon will increase the price of the pig to the farmer. On the other hand, we know that at the present moment we export to a very large extent the very high quality bacon. We also export the secondary class of bacon, but the bacon which comes in here, the bacon for which large sums are paid, is a lower grade of bacon, ordinary American bacon, which is the main food of the small farmer and of the workmen in the country towns. You are going to put upon that a tax of something that will be about 2½d. per lb. You are putting up the price of what has become a staple article of diet for the poor farmer, the small farm labourer and the workmen in the towns. You are doing that without any enquiry of any kind. You are deliberately attacking the weakest and most defenceless section of the population, and you are putting up the price, or wish to put up the price, of a staple article of diet for the persons who can least afford an increase, a substantial increase, in their cost of living.

Deputy Dr. Ryan declared that we were the most free trade country in the world. He went as far as to say, or if he did not certainly Deputy Murphy did, that we were opposed to tariffs and were a free trade Party. We are not a free trade Party. As a matter of fact, long before Deputies opposite came into this House, while the Deputies opposite were wandering in the wilderness outside, tariffs were imposed by this Party. These tariffs have been very useful indeed. In fact, the paper run by the Party opposite, instead of being a Fianna Fáil organ, has recently become a Cumann na nGaedheal paper, because week after week it is showing the success of the Cumann na nGaedheal protective policy. Our view, though, is that tariffs are dangerous things. A tariff may be a two-edged sword. A tariff must not be imposed without very, very careful inquiry. It is for that purpose that we have set up our Tariff Commission. We have set up that Commission so that every possible matter shall be taken into consideration before a tariff is imposed.

Deputies opposite are pretty frank in their policy. They say: "We will tariff every single article that comes into this country. We will tariff them indiscriminately, except such ones as are totally prohibited." That is really the policy that was announced from the Fianna Fáil Benches to-night. Allusion was made by Deputy Bennett to what is happening in Canada and Australia. He was challenged as to the accuracy of his facts. I happen to have here in my hand a cutting from to-day's paper dealing with the result of the Australian fiscal policy. It is a protest by the primary industries of Australia against the existing system of tariffs there. By the primary industries are meant graziers, sheep and stock breeders, wheat producers and fruit growers. Therefore, you may take it that the primary industries, as they describe themselves there, comprise the agricultural industries of Australia. The industries represented by the petition have accounted for more than 95 per cent. of Australia's total exports for the last ten years for which figures are available. The points made by the petition are:—

(1) Successive Australian Governments have increased the cost of production by means of high tariffs, subsidies, bonuses, guarantees, artificial industrial legislation. (2) Interference with shipping and high taxation. This policy has reduced the purchasing power of the £ sterling to the stage when it is impossible for any unassisted industry, primary or secondary, to carry on profitably in competition with the industries of the world. (3) The incidence of the Australian tariff policy on primary industries is peculiarly malevolent in that, being imposed in the interests of manufacturers, it taxes the requirements of the primary industries, raises the cost of living, and, therefore, the cost of service to these industries. As it restricts imports it necessitates higher freight charges on exports. The primary producers, that is to say the agricultural community, have to sell their products as to nearly half the total production overseas, at world prices, and, therefore, cannot pass on the price to the consumers. The petitioners urged a complete revision of the tariff policy.

That is followed by the signatures of different members of the organisation. So there in one country it has been shown that the indiscriminate and unwise use of tariffs can do an infinity of harm to the agricultural community. What do we find here? We find a certain Party, and possibly a smaller Opposition Party in this House, coming forward with a demand for indiscriminate tariffs, and with the assertion that tariffs must always and in all circumstances be wise and beneficial. If that is not their policy, what can be the objection to the policy that we have always put forward, the policy that a tariff should not be imposed until the case for and the case against its imposition has been carefully examined by an impartial tribunal?

Mr. Davin

I wish in the first instance to contradict the statement which has been repeatedly made in the Press, that this is a Fianna Fáil-Labour motion. It is a private member's motion, put down in the ordinary way, to which I have appended my name, and which I will give my reasons for supporting. I think it is far more honest for Deputy Ryan and myself to come into this House and back, in the only place where we can do so in an effective way, the demands which are contained in these proposals, rather than to go out in the country in the way some of the Minister's colleagues are doing, initiate these demands, and then come into this House and refuse to vote for them. I hope the Minister will take that as a satisfactory explanation from me for appending my name to this proposal. Deputy Bennett had the audacity to state that the farmers of this country were not educated enough to understand the implications of these proposals. I wonder will the farmers of Limerick, whom the Deputy claims to represent, congratulate him upon having made that statement?

So far as my own support for industrial tariffs is concerned, I have been very careful always in the House and outside it, and so have other members of the Labour Party, to make clear that tariffs alone are not going to make any great contribution to industrial development. The imposition of the boot tariff and other tariffs that could be named is quite sufficient to prove that statement. The failure of these tariffs to bring about the result which we all hoped for is due to the fact that Irishmen with money did not put their money into these industries. It is also due to the failure of the Government to make it certain that there would be a guaranteed market in this country for any article produced by a tariffed industry. We have made it clear always that any assistance given by this House in the shape of tariffs for the development of industry should carry with it a guarantee for a decent minimum wage to those employed in these industries. We differ with both the Fianna Fáil and the Cumann na nGaedheal Party in this matter, and, therefore, the Minister need not take so much delight in thinking that we and Fianna Fáil are as near to each other as he seemed to think.

The Census returns, apart altogether from the knowledge that Deputies have of the position in their own areas, prove that during the past eight or ten years there has been a considerable rush of the population from the land, from the rural areas into the towns and cities. There has been a rush out of the country altogether in the case of people who could find the means of getting out of it. That is mainly due to the fact that the people who found greater and more remunerative employment on the land up to the last eight or ten years are not now willing to remain on the land any longer, simply because they cannot make a decent livelihood out of it. We have also the information supplied to us by the Government returns that there has been a reduction in the acreage of land under tillage to the extent of 365,000 acres between the years 1921 and 1930. Assuming that the wealth production of that land when under tillage is £10 an acre, and assuming that out of that £10 there would be paid in wages the sum of £4 per acre, we have the fact that the amount paid in wages under that head alone would be equivalent to £1,460,000 a year. That is the loss in wages to Irish labour, and that loss is due to the fact that the land has gone out of tillage and is now in grass.

I would like the Minister, if he accepts these figures, to inform the House to what extent employment has been given on the 365,000 acres now under grass as compared with when it was under tillage. Has he any information at his disposal which would educate Deputies on that matter? The amount of £1,460,000 in wages—assuming that these figures are accepted as approximately accurate—would mean a loss of employment to 22,462 agricultural workers at 25/- a week. From the labour point of view that is a very serious matter. There is no possibility, as far as I know, of the people who have been deprived of their employment on the land securing alternative employment in the towns and cities.

Taking paragraphs (1) and (2) of the motion as it stands on the Order Paper, our position in regard to these particular proposals is that we propose, as we have already proposed, that a National Grain Control Board be set up and that that Board should have the right and power to fix the price, regulate the supplies, and to guarantee to the grain growers of this country an economic price for the grain they produce. That is my reason for supporting these two proposals. I hope, if the proposal is acceptable, that the necessary legislative steps will be taken, as they would have to be taken, to set up that National Grain Control Board.

A good deal of emphasis has been laid upon the proposal to impose an import duty of 20s. per cwt. on bacon and other pig products. Strange as it may appear to the Minister, that proposal and the proposal of prohibition have been put forward in the midland part of the country by Deputies who sit behind the Minister on the Government Benches. I attended the Conference convened by the Farmers' Association some time ago. At that Conference certain Government Deputies were present. I clearly recollect one Government Deputy, now behind the Minister, proposing that we should take steps to prohibit the import of bacon into this country.

Mr. Hogan

Cumann na nGaedheal.

Mr. Corry

God help the farmers.

Mr. Davin

Mr. Gorey

I do not know that I am entitled to take part in this debate. My name has been frequently mentioned, however, in connection with these proposals. I am in the position that I cannot vote for or against the motion because of certain arrangements that have been made. The fact is that I happen to be paired, and, that being my position, I cannot and will not vote. I do not know if I am entitled to take part in the debate, but I will chance it. Deputy Davin is apparently very much concerned about land going into grass. Before I proceed with my speech I will make a suggestion that might help the Deputy. If he does not want the land to go into grass, the best way to prevent it is to put an embargo on all grass manures and so prevent them being imported or manufactured in the country. The use of grass manure is one of the reasons why there is so much grass in the country. To suggest that we should not have any bone manure or fertilisers would mean that there would be less grass.

No. I do not care what view my colleagues or the Minister for Agriculture have. I have a distinct view. A tariff will be no good to me; it will give me 12 pence for a shilling. The English market as compared to the Irish market, is worth 12½d. as compared with 1s. in the Irish market. Unless a tariff on bacon means more production, and unless we are able to maintain our export trade, in addition to catering for the Irish trade, which is value for 1½ millions, an embargo is no good. If a tariff was put on, and if the response was not good, I would be the first to suggest to the Minister to revoke it. It would be no good to the producer unless we have the bacon value at present for 1½ millions produced in the country, in addition to what we produce for outside. Any other attitude would be the attitude of a fool, and would be dishonest. Cheap feeding-stuff here means cheap pork and bacon, and means that a profit can be made out of cheap foodstuffs.

A tariff on oats is of such little importance that I think it is not worth talking about. At the meeting in Kilkenny I did not know what was the extent of the import of oats. When I learned that for 12 months it only amounted to £30,000, an infinitesimal sum, I thought it was not worth talking about. Personally, I would not let one ounce of Russian oats or any Russian money into the country.

I will deal with that. That was largely in opposition to you and your friends, the anti-God crowd in Russia.

Mr. Cooney

Clap yourself on the breast.

Mr. Gorey

With regard to the tariff on bacon, I want to explain my position. I stated in the beginning that if a tariff on bacon did not mean more production it would be of no use whatsoever. If there was not a sufficient response, I would vote for revocation of the tariff within a year or two years. I believe, however, that there is a chance of a response to a tariff on bacon. It is only a gambling chance. It is not anything like an even-money chance. It might be five or six to one, but the chance is there. Because the chance is there, and because I think a response would be given—not perhaps a hundred per cent. but an important percentage—I am prepared to take the chance. If nobody else will bring the matter before the Tariff Commission, the company with which I am connected will do so. I believe that if bacon is tariffed, or if there is prohibition of imports, the ordinary feeders will get a certain degree of confidence. What is more important still, the breeders—who in many cases are not the feeders—will have more confidence and will maintain the sow population. Without the maintenance of the sow population, we can never have high production in bacon. I believe that if you can induce a certain amount of confidence, and if the home market is placed at their disposal, the breeders will keep more sows and the feeders will feed some extra pigs. I know that the Irish market has been a steadier market than the English market for the last two or three years. It has unquestionably been a steadier market, and because of that steady market I see great possibilities of an embargo on bacon making it even steadier. The ordinary feeder, in my opinion, will produce somewhat more than he is producing to-day. It only needs a sixth or a seventh on what he is producing at present to fill the gap.

In addition, there are a considerable number of people who never feed a pig and who are largely consumers of American bacon. I believe that circumstances will force the majority of those people to feed sufficient pigs, at least, for their own use. Because the proposal contains all these possibilities, all these elements, not of certainty but of chance, I am prepared to urge it on the Tariff Commission and on the Minister. It might also induce those who are not feeders—the producers of corn, the people at the bottom of this agitation—to keep one or two pigs in the year. It might induce them to dirty their hands for once. It might induce their families to go with the times and it might pull them off the rock on which they were fixed one hundred years ago. Their attitude is: "We were tillage farmers always; our fathers did this before us and we will continue." That is the attitude of people I meet in the country. They will not adapt themselves to modern conditions. Because one man only got a certain price for pigs fifteen years ago, he never kept a pig since. He is a large producer of corn. These are the people we want to change, and we may induce them, of necessity, to feed a few pigs. I hope I have explained my advocacy of a tariff on bacon. That has been my attitude, and always will be my attitude.

With regard to the Russian oats, I think Deputy Cooney understands me, and I need not labour that question. There is no comrade whom I would not like to see standing out in the sea from the highest down to Deputy Cooney.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Hogan)

Deputy Davin asked me to say what is my policy in regard to bringing back into tillage 350,000 acres of grass. He is not entitled to be told that, because it is not my policy that is under discussion; it is the policy of the two principal Opposition Parties in the Dáil that is under discussion. The Dáil met, after five or six months' adjournment, yesterday, and the first motion that came in, signed by a front bencher of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Ryan, and by a very important Deputy, if I may say so, on the Labour Benches, Deputy Davin——

Mr. Davin

You can say it for the sake of argument.

Mr. Hogan

No. I am paying you a genuine compliment. Remember the circumstances. This is a very bad season. That is admitted. We are told that it has been a disastrous season. During the last three months, there have been Fianna Fáil and Labour conferences all over the country——

Deputy de Valera, no later than yesterday, stated that there were considerable agricultural imports into this agricultural country. He mentioned the figure of twelve or fourteen millions. That figure is the figure that is always mentioned. There are considerable agricultural imports, but it is never explained that these twelve or fourteen millions include one item of six millions for wheat and flour—that, roughly, is the figure—and another item of four million pounds for imported feeding stuffs. There you have a total of ten million pounds. After considering the whole position carefully, what does all this protection policy come to as set out here deliberately in this motion? It is concerned with two millions only out of a total of fourteen or fifteen millions for agricultural imports. Why is that? There was surely ample time to consider the merits of protection. The imposition of a tariff on wheat used to be a kind of King Charles's head with Deputy de Valera. We used to be told about all the maize that came into the country amounting to about £4,000,000 and about the cake substitutes for our own oats and barley. I had to listen to that for the last two years, but now after six months' consideration the two big items of agricultural imports amounting to £10,000,000 are thrown overboard.

Dr. Ryan

No.

You are alone. You will come to see the sense yet of that. The only point in the dispute is as to whether it will increase the price of the low-grade bacon which the poor purchase. Let us consider that for a moment. First, let me explain what I mean by low-grade bacon. It is low-priced fat bacon. Now, fat bacon is as healthy as lean bacon, and in fact healthier. There is a suggestion that imported fat bacon is diseased or unwholesome. That is nonsense. The only difference between the bacon the labourer and the farmer buy and the best Irish bacon is that the imported bacon is fat, and the best Irish bacon is lean. Do not let us discuss this as if the imported bacon was unclean or unwholesome.

Mr. Hogan

Sometimes a man working in the open has a preference for fat bacon, and as it happens that is cheap bacon, but I suppose there may be physiological reasons for that preference. That bacon will have to be supplied, if there is prohibition, by the Irish bacon curers, and what will happen is that the second grade Irish bacon will be taken over here from England and placed on the Irish market, and sold on the Irish market at the same price as could be got in the market in England, but at a higher price, in fact, than the farmers or labourers could have bought American bacon if it were on the market. The person who states that American is more expensive than Irish bacon is making a statement which is incorrect. It depends on the quality. Some of the imported bacon is of the same quality as the Irish. It is only the fat bacon which is less expensive than the lean Irish bacon, which fetches the highest price.

Mr. Fogarty

Surely at the present price the Minister does not suggest that it would be better to buy foreign than Irish pigs?

Mr. Hogan

I am not talking of the price of pigs. I am talking of the price of bacon, which is a different thing. I am stating that the quality of Irish bacon which is exported is higher than the quality of imported bacon. I am explaining that one is a low grade bacon and that the other is bacon which is used by rich people and there is a high price for it. I want to explain how it is, in my opinion, that the price paid for bacon by the poor here would go up even though the farmer received the same price for the pigs he sold as before the tariff was imposed. That would happen for this reason: A certain grade of bacon would be kept at home in this country and sold at the same price as in England— at the international price—but that price is, in fact, considerably higher than the price fat American bacon used to sell at. It is now admitted—No. 1— that it would not increase the price the farmer receives for his pigs, and— No. 2—it would increase the price the poor would have to pay for the bacon they like, American bacon, and American-cured bacon goes very much farther than Irish-cured bacon. The only case made is that it gives the farmer an extra market. I cannot understand that. The farmer sends his pigs, alive or dead, to the local market, where they are sold by scale to O'Mara's, Donnelly's, or Denny's. The price is the only thing he is interested in. It does not make the slightest difference to him whether the pig he has sold is consumed in Liverpool or Cork. He has not the slightest interest in that, and he does not care twopence about it. The price is the only factor that will induce him to keep more pigs. I think the way Deputy de Valera put it was that if the margin of profit is great enough more pigs will be produced.

Speaking from experience of this country, the moment prices rise people go into pigs generally, but unfortunately too late, and every time prices fall they get out of pigs. In any case, we all have practical experience. We all know that it is if you like the price of the finished article or the margin of profit, as Deputy de Valera puts it. My point is there would be no inducement here. By reason of this profit there is the inducement at present that, even though the price of the finished article is small, the price of imported feeding stuffs like oats, wheat, barley, Indian meal and cakes is so extraordinarily low.

Now there will be a demand by the Irish market amounting to 1¾ million pounds if foreign bacon is prohibited. Will that demand be supplied if there is no inducement, by reason of the tariff to the farmer, to get more pigs? It will be supplied by withdrawing from the English market some of our six million pounds surplus and marketing it in Ireland. That is the only way if there is no extra inducement. Further, we are not short of an extra market. At present the British import £53,000,000 worth of bacon. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that we can get exactly the same price for £9,000,000 worth of bacon that we get at present for the six we export.

For the past three or four years we have consistently told the farmers in the grain growing districts, though it was not popular, that there is no future for grain growing for sale. We have told them that if you grow grain for sale you must accept the wholesale price, and that the wholesale price will have relation to the wholesale price of other feeding stuffs, unless you break down the whole economy of the country by tariffing all feeding stuffs. I do not care at this hour of the day to take any action which would deceive the farmers further. My position is quite simple. I know that no tax on oats will make any difference to the price. It might make a slight difference. If you take 200 points and have immediate prohibition of oats it might affect the price for a month in two of the markets, but it would not have the smallest effect on the other 198, and it would have no permanent effect on the two. So far as I am concerned, a tariff on feeding barley or oats makes no difference. The only effect of placing a tariff on oats and barley, so far as I am concerned, is to still deceive the farmer and to still induce him to go on with an economy which is completely unsound. It is an attempt to bolster up an economy which is completely unsound and which is rapidly disappearing, and which you cannot bolster up. That is exactly what I want to safeguard against. There is no doubt that this campaign which has centred on oats for the last six months has been waged with the definite object of deceiving the farmer. I do not want to be any party to that by any action that we take. So far as I am concerned, if the Tariff Commission had examined oats, eggs, feeding barley, beef and mutton, and if the examination did not reveal some positive harm which I cannot see at the moment it would not make the slightest difference if these tariffs went on. Deputies know perfectly well that the real meaning of this resolution is not on the face of it. It is in what is absent from it. You have been deliberately deceiving the farmers for the last two years in the case of agricultural imports and what can be done by protecting the home market. When you gave them figures you always quoted 17 millions which included wheat and imported feeding stuffs.

Mr. Lemass

We told them that.

Mr. Hogan

When you specified them you came to talk of Chinese eggs and Russian eggs, and raised up all sorts of subsidiary anti-Chinese or anti-Russian prejudices with a view to deceiving the farmers in an illogical way as to the amount of the imports. I would like to call that bluff, and my position about these tariffs is that they make no difference, good, bad or indifferent. It might be that to take the 30,000 liquid eggs the Tariff Commission will have to examine the question of whether any drawback should go to some confectioner who is using liquid eggs for exportable toffee. Apart from considerations of that kind a tariff would make no difference. As far as I am concerned, if the Tariff Commission had examined them fully and had shown that they would not do positive harm, it would not make any difference to me or to the farmers of the country, but I do not want, and I shall not allow if I can help it, the farmers to be deceived on the issue.

Now as to butter, I want to say one word on that before I sit down. It is to be examined by the Tariff Commission and I do not want to go into it except to say this: My objection to agricultural tariffs is that they do not help the farmer. If they did I would be in favour of them. When I speak of helping the farmer, I mean they do not increase his price. I regard any tariff which does not increase the price as ineffective. I think it is the only raison d'etre for tariffs, with very rare exceptions. Speaking generally, the business of a tariff is to raise the price, and if I could be shown that tariffs would raise the price of agricultural produce then I would be in favour of tariffs. It is because I am convinced, with possibly the negligible exception of butter and condensed milk, that you cannot, that I am against this policy of agricultural tariffs for reasons which I will give later.

With regard to butter, I am extremely doubtful, although I have looked at this question from every point of view, as to the effect of a tariff for this reason: It is, of course, an obvious case, because it is the only item in which there is a shortage of home production for a short time. That singles out butter from every other article. But when you come to think of what the effects might be— of course, it can have no possible effect in the way of increasing production; we would want an increase of 7d. or 8d. per gallon of milk to get winter milk—but when you think that it might induce cold storage on a falling market I am extremely doubtful, and I should like it to be examined in the fullest possible way by the Tariff Commission. I will not say more on that now. I just want to add this: Deputy Ryan said in the beginning that certain industrial tariffs had been agreed to by the farmers in the hope that their products would also be protected.

Dr. Ryan

No, I did not say that at all.

Mr. Hogan

I think you did. Of course I will take your version. I understood you to say that certain tariffs had been imposed and that the farmers had imposed and that the farmers had agreed to them, and were hoping that their products would be also tariffed.

Dr. Ryan

I think I repeated three or four times that the farmers may have agreed for selfish motives, be- cause the home market was there for them.

Mr. Hogan

I accept that. The point is this: the farmers have not agreed to the tariffs put on—they have not been consulted. The object of this resolution is not to benefit agriculture. It is to dispense with the Tariff Commission in the first instance. Secondly, it is to impose immediately, and without examination, certain agricultural tariffs which admittedly will have no real influence for good on our agricultural position. Having abolished the Tariff Commission, having put on these negligible agricultural tariffs, leaving out the big items, we can then go on and place indiscriminate tariffs on industrial imports; that is the real object of it. That is the reason why I put it to the farmers and everybody who is interested in farming to stand by the Tariff Commission.

I do not care whether these are tariffed or not. The point I make is this: that the effect of tariffs, whether they were imposed or are to be imposed, is quite different in a case where there is an immense shortage of home production, and, on the other hand, where there is an immense surplus produced at home. That is the position in industry. In every one of these items there is an immense shortage of home production and a necessity for importing. Any tax on imports will raise the price. Here are industrialists who want indiscriminate tariffs without examination where obviously they are going to raise the price, and they have the impudence to come to the farmers who have an export surplus and offer to give agricultural tariffs in exchange. They are going to be deceived. I am going to do anything I can do to see that the farmers are not deceived. I am no doctrinaire free trader. I am not against tariff reform because I dislike the word. My position is that because of the economic condition of the country tariffs cannot help agriculture except in a negligible way. If you can get any item where a tariff would increase agricultural prices, I shall see that the Tariff Commission examines that and that on it goes. It is because we cannot get such a one that we have to be careful, in a country where tariffs are bound to increase the price of industrial articles, that these tariffs are not imposed without examination, so as to put easy money into the pockets of industrialists at the expense of the farmer. The real object is to get rid of the Tariff Commission, to see to it that we shall have a spate of industrial tariffs at the expense of agriculture and under the cover of developing and carrying out a patriotic policy. I do not think it is a patriotic policy. I think our policy, which is much more humdrum, is a patriotic policy, and so far from this being any help to agriculture, I am of opinion that it is meant to deceive, and it would do more harm than good.

We can afford to have our points of difference. In this Party we do not try to call members to heel to the extent that Cumann na nGaedheal does. If we have points of difference we can express them. I propose to express them here. When I came to view this motion I looked upon it just as I would upon a Bill which would be introduced in this House and which would come up for Second Reading. Looking at it from that point of view, I am more or less in agreement with Deputy Gorey. It is like the curate's egg—good in parts, but the parts which appeared good to Deputy Gorey are the parts which do not appear to be good as far as I am concerned. We do not agree as to the parts which are good.

In deciding what action I am going to take on the motion, I look to what I conceive to be the principle embodied in it and treat it just as I would a Bill on Second Reading. While I may not agree with everything in it, I ask myself if I agree with the principle. I should like to say that if I were putting down the motion I would not put it down in this particular form. I have, however, examined the principle of it. There are really two principles in it. One is the encouragement of tillage. I will not say going back to tillage. If you like, I shall put it as low as the maintaining of even the present position in tillage. The second is to secure all the home market for the home producer, and in so far as it embodies these two principles, and in my opinion it does embody these two principles. I am prepared to support the motion. I take the various propositions here. As far as the first and second go, so far as I heard the arguments against these by the Minister for Justice, by Deputy Bennett and, to some extent, by the Minister for Agriculture and by Deputy Gorey, they were all to this effect: it does not matter a straw whether you put on this prohibition or not, because the amount of foreign oats introduced into this country is so small that it does not make any matter. Granting that that is the position at the moment, we do not know what the position may grow to. Deputy Gorey's friends in Russia may take it into their heads to send greater quantities of foreign oats into this country. I think a country that does produce oats ought to take any steps necessary to preserve the home market, which it can control and keep and hold for the producers of grain. Deputy Gorey spoke of grain for feeding purposes and said that the cheaper the grain, no matter where it came from, the better for the person using it as feeding. But does he visualise the possibility in which all our feeding stuffs would be imported? I am sure Deputy Gorey would not say that that was a good economic position for the country to occupy. That is not an unlikely position; it is at least a possible position.

I look at the trade journal issued to Deputies this morning. I see items here which are very significant and serious, and despite all the Minister has said about the policy of agriculture which has been adopted we are faced with this position, that there is between this year and last year—I have not all the figures before me, but I think the thing has been going on for several years—there is a decrease of 101,336 acres of tillage or land under crops. I do not know how far the argument of the wet weather applies to that, and Deputy Gorey's fantastic proposal to put a glass roof over the country. Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine was a good season, and this year the spring was fairly good, too.

Mr. Gorey

No; very bad.

Mr. O'Connell

I do not think so. These figures were taken in June. Was the season so bad that the farmers till 101,336 acres less than last year after following a good and comparatively hopeful season? That was before the real bad weather set in, and before the big fall in prices, because I see the price of butter was 140/- in June but it is now fallen to 132/-. That is one side of the question. If that were followed by an increase in the number of cattle one would say there was shifting from one side to another. When I examine the live-stock returns I find an alarming decrease also. Deputy Dr. Ryan drew attention to this point. When he was speaking about the increase in the exports of cattle he showed that we were exporting our cattle and not maintaining our stocks in the country. That is borne out by the figures here.

Mr. Gorey

No.

Mr. O'Connell

Perhaps Deputy Gorey would examine them and explain them. There was a reduction in 1929 in the number of milch cows, two-year old, three-year old, and yearling cattle. These are the figures, and I am sure that Deputy Gorey will study them for himself. There is undoubtedly a decrease. That is a serious position, and, if that is the position into which the Minister's policy is leading us, I think it is time that there was a very serious examination of it in order to endeavour to find out whether we are operating on right lines or not. I think it is almost axiomatic that while we should do our best to maintain our position in the foreign market over which we have no control, we should secure to our farmers and producers the market which we can control and which we can hold. In my humble opinion the Minister always attaches too much importance to the question of price. There is the question of steadying the demand. That would have an effect on production. The farmer's life at present is too great a gamble. He is always gambling against heavy odds. He has no control over, or certainty about, the market in which he disposes of his produce. Even though it is a comparatively small portion of the market, in so far as it is the home market, everything possible should be done to reserve that to the farmer, as, if you like, a special preserve. I think if that were done, even though the market is comparatively small, it would be of considerable advantage to our farmers. It is for those reasons that I would be prepared to support proposals which would have the effect of preserving the home market, that is, in the matter of the prohibition of imported butter, condensed milk, dried and liquid eggs.

Mr. Gorey

And bacon.

Mr. O'Connell

I am going to talk about bacon. I stated at the beginning that there were parts of the motion with which I did not agree. I have no doubt that the immediate imposition of a 20/- tax per cwt. on foreign bacon would have the effect of raising the price of imported bacon, and that that price would be paid, in the main, by the poorest members of the community, while the benefit that would be gained, and to which reference was made by Deputy Davin and Deputy Dr. Ryan, would not be such as would make up for the burthen that would be placed on the shoulders of the small farmers of the south and west and of the labouring community generally. You cannot change the fashions or tastes of a people in one or two years. As the Minister for Agriculture said, our small farming community, especially in the west and south, and the labouring community generally, in so far as they use any meat at all, use imported bacon. I am not saying that that is right or that it is sound economy, but we are faced with the fact that that is what they do.

Perhaps it would be better from many points of view, from a health and hygienic point of view, that women should wear home-knitted stockings instead of silk ones, but I do not think that anyone would propose the total prohibition of silk stockings and insist that women should wear home-knitted ones. We could not change the fashion if we tried, and I think it would be a very unpopular proposal. That, however, is the position we are faced with, and a tax of this kind on bacon would have only one effect. I doubt whether it would go very far towards inducing the present bacon-curers to put on the market the particular kind of bacon that is used by the poorer members of the community. It is a special brand, different entirely from that mainly produced by Irish curers, who go in for producing an excellent, first-class product which is sold at the highest price on the British market. They have shown no desire to produce the kind of article for which there is a demand here. I am sure that if a tax of twopence per pound were put on imported bacon the people who buy it now would still go on buying, even at a sacrifice of twopence per pound. They would have to do it. They would be forced to do it by the economy of their own families until a substitute, or something like it, was put on the market by the Irish bacon-curers.

In any case, before I would consider the imposition of a tariff I would insist that the position would be examined by the Tariff Commission or some other commission that would be in a position to go into the whole subject. There is no one in this House, I think, who can speak with an expert voice so far as bacon is concerned. One person will know one particular side of the industry, and somebody else will know some other side, but there are many different things to be considered in connection with this whole question of pig production. The fluctuations and their reactions, about which Deputy Bennett spoke, would want to be carefully examined before any proposal to put a tariff on or to prohibit the importation of foreign bacon should be agreed to. I have always objected to what are called indiscriminate tariffs. Before any tariff is put on, I believe that there should be a very full examination of every side of the case. I believe that not only the point of view of the producers but also that of the consumers should be taken into account. Therefore, I say, distinctly and definitely, that I am not in agreement with that particular portion of the motion which deals with a tax on imported bacon.

There are two other proposals here —(c) and (d)—to which I think there should be no objection. If meat is being imported into this country, we should know its source of origin. It ought to be so labelled and branded as to make it known where it comes from. We have heard of abuses, and we have heard some things that would lead us to believe that the stuff which we sometimes buy as Irish bacon was never raised on an Irish farm. I am not in a position to speak on that, but I am sure there are some Deputies who are. It is a question really whether the present agricultural policy of the Ministry is leading towards the better ment of the farmer's position, and of the agricultural industry generally. It seems clear to me, from every indication by which one can judge, that it is not, and as it has been said that the Government have made this motion a matter of confidence in their agricultural policy, I am not going to give any vote that will express confidence in the present policy of the Ministry.

Mr. de Valera

At the outset, I want to express a certain amount of agreement with the Minister for Agriculture. It is quite true that the scope of this motion is very limited. It is very far, however, from being intended by us as a cure for the present economic condition of the farmers. I do not think that the proposer said anything that would give the Minister for Agriculture the right to infer that this was proposed by us as a cure for the present economic position of the farmers. This, as far as we are concerned, is only a small part of a general policy. Why did we begin with this part? We began with this for the simple practical reason that we found that there was a better chance of getting general agreement upon this, or we rather hoped that there was a better chance of getting general agreement upon it, than upon the bigger questions which we threshed out fairly completely with the Minister and his colleagues at the Economic Conference. The main reason why we began with this motion is that there was generally agreement amongst a large section of those who do not belong to our Party, with the proposals which it contains.

I said that it is very restricted in its scope. I find that the total involved, according to the figures for 1929, was £2,892,000 odd. That is practically £3,000,000. I quite agree with the Minister for Agriculture that that is only a small portion of the imports which we believe should be stopped and which should be replaced by our own products. The Minister seems to me to be rather inconsistent. He says it does not matter. I suppose I am wrong in saying he is inconsistent. At any rate, he says it does not matter. Very well, then. As far as we are concerned we are justified in starting with that, because there is less-opposition to it than there would be to other proposals. We believe it matters to this extent, that it would be the first step on the right road. I find it very difficult to deal with this question and to argue this matter piecemeal without reference to what the whole policy involved. It is very difficult when you are in a rut to get out of it without experiencing some jolt. Remember we have been forced into an economic rut in this country. There is nobody here who will not admit that a totally different economic system would have been adopted by our people here if they were free in the past to determine the fiscal policy which they were going to have. Certainly before the war, all those who were thinking nationally, all those who were associated with the movement that later became the national movement of Sinn Fein, were satisfied that the policy we were forced into was a policy that was intended for the benefit of England and was not working out for the benefit of this country.

The fruits of that policy were evident in the national life—quite evident. The one supreme test of whether the policy was a good one or a bad one for the country was the test of whether we were able to maintain our population and maintain that population in a reasonable standard of comfort. Applying that test, there is no doubt that the policy we were forced into, whatever benefit it was to the country across the water, was not benefiting us. During the years that followed the adoption of the free trade policy in England, we lost, as everybody knows, one-half of our population. That did not represent at all the total loss. We were cut down in eighty years by one-half. I am tired of repeating it, but I have to repeat it if we are to realise what is involved in these questions that are coming up and discussed constantly in connection with tariffs. We lost four and a half millions of our people, one-half of our population, at a time when every other civilised people were doubling their population. The loss was not merely four and a half or four and a quarter million of people. The total loss was far greater than that. The total loss could be ascertained by remembering that these other countries which had less productivity and which were less fertile than ours had doubled their population at the same time. Therefore, our true loss is represented by the difference between four and a quarter million and seventeen million people.

That loss, at any rate, was one of the things that we were hoping to make good as a result of getting our political independence or as a result of changing that policy that had been forced on us against our will. Very well. The question is whether we were right in that or whether we were wrong. Was that policy, adopted for the benefit of England, working out to the benefit of this country or not? I say the loss of population proved that it was not. Yesterday when the President was speaking as to how the Loan stood in New York, the Minister for Industry and Commerce taunted me that I did not take these figures and comment on their significance. I do not know, and I do not carry round in my head, the terms on which, say, the British War Loan was issued, when the coupons on it were due, when it was due for repayment, or any of these other matters on which the quotation might depend. I do not know exactly the conditions, whether, for instance, the Irish Loan is free from income tax or not at the moment. All these things have to be taken into account if we are going to judge at all what is the significance of our Loan being quoted at a higher price on the New York market. But even if all these had the full significance that the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the President wanted us to read into them, what does it prove?

I am sure every one of us has heard of the person whose credit in the publichouse was very good but whose family was starving behind that. We might have a very good position in the public eye and yet have a rotten position at home. I say that the position where you have 79,000 people in the City of Dublin compelled to live with one room to a family, the position in which you have 40,000 houses badly required in the country, the position in which our young people are forced to emigrate, and the general economic position which we all have experience of, is a far truer index of whether we have improved or whether we stand in a good position than is the fact that our stock is quoted a few points higher on the New York market. I refrain from discussing the significance of these figures because I have not got the assurance of the Ministers on the other side; I have not their audacity to comment upon figures until I have asked myself what is the real meaning of them, and whether the case they are intended to prove is really made by them.

Leaving these questions aside, there is one figure that nobody can deny. Our population, under the system imposed upon us from outside, has been cut down from 8¼ millions to 4¼ millions. Why have we been deprived of our population? The answer is that our people could not get a decent living in this country as compared with the standard of living that they were able to get abroad. We have to ask ourselves if that is inevitable. Must we simply throw up our hands and say we are doomed for all time to have a position in which we can only have a dwindling population, or have we a country and have we resources which, if properly managed, could support more people? As far as I am concerned, I believe we have. From the very first day that I had anything to do with the Sinn Fein movement I convinced myself that we could, under the policy of Sinn Fein—looking after ourselves—meet all our own requirements, and we could so develop our country that we would be able to retain the population here. I became a member of the Sinn Fein organisation because I believed, not merely in its political, but in its economic policy. There is no change in my mind as regards the economic policy yet. The economic and political policy go hand in hand, to my mind.

It is possible, and it could be profitable, assuming the price would be the same. The Minister was talking about wholesale and retail. I take it the extra difference is the cost of handling, transport, and so on. It seems to me there is an advantage, and it ought to pay the producer to sell his bacon at home somewhat cheaper than on the foreign market. I admit the margin might be slight. On the other hand, it is not quite the same type of trade. It has been admitted that the bacon used in the farmer's house in this country generally, with cabbage, is not quite the same class of bacon as is sent across the water. The question is whether we can produce that bacon cheaper for our home consumption. If there is a prohibition on the foreign bacon there is a possibility of an increased price. My anxiety is not concerned with the increased price; it is rather to see that the price would not be increased unduly. In this matter I am not considering, like the Minister, one section of the community alone. I think we ought to consider the interests of the community at large. I believe this policy works out to the interest of the community at large.

It might be necessary, as Deputy O'Connell said, to watch that there was not advantage taken of a monopoly. I do not believe there would be. I believe the internal competition would be quite sufficient to keep prices down. It is not a case where you have one big ring dealing with it. I believe internal competition would bring down prices, and ultimately, once we got our people into that particular trade, catering for the home market reserved for them, I believe prices would compare very favourably with the prices that would obtain under existing conditions, and we would have a better article for practically the same price, if not a better price.

It does not always follow that the imposition of a tariff means an increase. It may or it may not. I admit that at the start, while things are adjusting themselves, the presumption is that it will mean an increase; but with good organisation and with the cutting down of the overhead costs of production it might very well lead, not to an increase, but to a lowering of the cost. I am willing to concede, however, that there is a certain presumption at the start of an increased price.

I regret that it is necessary to deal in the first part of the motion with a tariff. I would prefer the prohibition, but the Minister would be the first to admit that you cannot close the door suddenly; you must have a transition period, and it is to provide for the transition period that the tariff is proposed. The ultimate policy is to exclude the importation of foodstuffs which can be produced here. The fact that we can produce them in surplus is, to my mind, the safeguard which the community at large has that prices will not go up. Therefore, if there is an appeal made by the Minister for Agriculture to the agricultural community, on the one hand, on the ground that prices do not go up, there is, on the other hand, the safeguard to the other consumers that they will be treated fairly and that the tariff will not mean a rising of the prices.

I say again I am not urging one policy specially for the farmers. I suppose the Minister for Agriculture regards it as his immediate duty to look after that section of the community. I will admit that they are the largest section and that they deserve the greatest consideration and care. But we have to forget a particular section and think of the community as a whole. I think it is very bad policy on the part of the Minister for Agriculture to try to put some antagonism between the manufacturing and industrial sections of the community and the farming section. I believe that the farmers of this country would benefit immensely if they had a home market that would save them somewhat from their present dependence on the foreign market.

The question of butter has been mentioned. I have got some figures here showing the relation between Irish and Danish butter in the British market. I do not know why this difference in price should be. It is something that I cannot understand. There is one explanation of it to my mind, and that is that we have no winter dairying here, and that we spend five months getting a market and seven months in losing it after having recovered it. I do not know whether that is an adequate explanation or not, but it seems the only one as to why our butter should show such a discrepancy in price as compared with Danish butter. I have here some tables which show that in October, 1927, Irish butter sold at 180/- and Danish butter at 184/-; that is a difference of 4/- per cwt. In October, 1928, Irish butter sold at 182/- and Danish at 198/-; that was a difference of 16/- per cwt. In 1929, in the month of October, Irish butter sold at 186/- and Danish at 202/-; that was a difference of 16/- per cwt. also. In October, 1930, Irish butter was 122/- and Danish 150/-, showing a difference of 28/- per cwt.

I think the Minister for Agriculture ought to admit his error on one point that if, instead of having an export market of £2,700,000 odd for our bacon, if we were to increase that amount of Irish bacon on the British market by half we would not change the price. The Minister for Agriculture will probably talk of £50,000,000 as the total amount of bacon sold on the British market. But you are not adding one and a half million pounds to the £50,000,000. Irish bacon has held its price relative to foreign competitors—relative to the Danish and other importers into England—better than Irish butter or Irish products of other kinds, simply because the amount is comparatively small and there is a special market for it. If you increase that export of Irish bacon I am not satisfied that Irish bacon will hold the position it holds now. I do not mind when the curers say: "Oh, if I had twice as much I could sell at that price." It is all a big "IF." My own conviction is that if instead of £2,700,000 odd worth of bacon which you are sending into England, you were to send in £4,000,000 worth, you would not get as good price per lb. as you get for the amount now exported. The Minister tells us that if we had £9,000,000 worth of bacon we could still get the same price for it in the British market. I do not believe it. But suppose we should, why not capture both?

Mr. Hogan

Certainly.

Mr. de Valera

The Minister is very anxious at times to try to show the big contrast there is between our policy and his. Perhaps we do the same on our side. I do not want to say that that is not done. I am willing to admit that the natural tendency for the advocates on both sides is to exaggerate the position taken up by the opponents. We have got to have all that sort of thing, I suppose. When we are asking to consider the home market and concentrate upon it, it is not right to accuse us of being blind to the foreign market. We are not blind to it, but we recognise its limitations. We know there is world competition. There are a number of other factors and these factors are all operating in the case of our butter. These are factors over which we have no control. When we can show, as in the case of bacon, that you can practically add to the existing market fifty per cent., why not go and take it? Is it not obvious that the overhead expenses will remain the same? With the increased production there is bound to result a certain amount of increase in profits. An increased volume of production makes that very certain. If we can increase the market which the farmer has for his products, then to that extent we are increasing the farmer's profits, even though the price per lb. did not seem to go up at all.

I am satisfied that it is good policy for the farming community and good policy for the nation to capture this home market for Irish bacon. It exists, and it is not really exactly competitive with out foreign market at all. I believe it has features of profit that the foreign market has not got for us. We would be saving on the cost of transport and so on. I believe that the bacon that would be produced would be a fatter kind of bacon. I know that when I was doing agriculture in school long ago I learned this much, anyway, that you will at the last stage in the fattening of animals find it much more profitable than at the earlier stages. We do not want to know very much about agriculture to recognise why that should be so. The fat that the animal puts on is relatively more in the later stages than in the earlier stages. I say that there are elements of profit in this particular industry of which we should take advantage.

We hear people talk about the matter of taste. I wonder how many people in this country, if they were given Irish-cured bacon such as we saw in the farmers' houses long ago, would not take Irish bacon in preference to foreign bacon? I do not know of anybody. I do not think this is a question into which the matter of taste enters at all. I believe that 99 out of 100 people would take Irish bacon in preference to imported bacon at the same price. I am convinced that as far as bacon is concerned there is a very good case. There are no grounds for the fears that Deputy O'Connell has given expression to, on account of the fact that there is unlimited power of production here and that the moment there is a demand there will be production to meet that demand provided it will be an effective demand in the sense that the people who want to buy Irish bacon will be able to pay the price and make it worth while for the farmer to produce it.

Then, again, I am perfectly convinced that it is sound economy for the nation and for the community as a whole to make it a paying proposition for the farmer to produce the article that pays the community as a whole. I tried to give an example of that in the case of wheat, and I have got to go back to that example. In the case of wheat, I pointed out that the national economy would be benefited if there were a higher production from wheat than there would be if the land were used otherwise. I restrict that, of course, to suitable wheat growing land. We have got enough suitable wheat growing land to produce our requirements. I said that the figures showed that the wealth of the community was being increased by this by, roughly, £2 an acre. That was the figure we had at that particular time. If the community as a whole is benefited to the extent of £2 an acre by the growing of wheat, I said that it would pay the community to give the farmer anything up to that amount to induce him to grow wheat. I said that the community could afford to subsidise the farmer. If you were able to prove that the community benefited by the production of wheat to the extent of £2 an acre, then the community would be well advised, if there was no other way of effectively dealing with the matter, to give the farmer £1 10s. out of the £2. I said that you would be justified in giving him even up to the full £2. I said that, in certain circumstances, and taking other considerations into account, you would be justified in giving him more than the £2.

In dealing with questions of this kind, we are of necessity compelled to think of the national economy as a whole, and the part which it plays. The difference between us, on these benches, and our opponents opposite is that they are simply trying to continue in the old rut, and trying to improve it somewhat if you like. We say that the old rut means national decay; that it is leading to the destruction of our people and our importance and strength as a nation; that it is leading to a decrease in the standard of living for our people, and that, because it is, it is high time we should consider going in a direction where that will be changed.

The question for us is: Are we going to make the change or are we not? Our country relatively is an undeveloped country. If we take advantage of our position, we can relatively be better off than any of the countries that I know anything about. At present we are very far from being in that position. If we are going to change our position, we will have to produce more wealth. When you look at the figures, what do you find? You find, for instance, that in the Free State area you have only an agricultural output per person of £86. In Denmark, the output in agriculture is £196 per person, or more than twice as much as ours. If we are to change the present position we must increase that output. To increase it, we must get a market. The Minister for Agriculture says: "Go into the world market and try and fight Denmark and the others there." The moment you do, down come the prices. I do not want to go into the figures in relation to our prices and Denmark's again. The Minister gave us figures yesterday on eggs. I tried to check them, and, taking the British reports, I find a very different state of affairs from that which he tried to make out.

I believe you can increase home production by 50 per cent. If you try to get that 50 per cent, increase in the foreign markets, I believe the prices are going to tumble down. The big question for us is: Are we going to change this policy and get out of this rut into which we have been driven, or are we not? The Minister tries to increase production in one way. We say: "By all means take these steps." But we do not see as much hope in that way as we see in steps which might be taken to capture the home market. This resolution is only a first step. There is also the question of wheat and the question of maize to be dealt with.

The question of maize, I admit, is a ticklish and a difficult question, but we have to face these questions if we are going to benefit to the full by the policy of Protection. Half measures are worse than useless in these cases. We are really at the parting of the ways, so to speak. We have to make up our minds whether we shall go in for protection of the home market and for being as self-sufficient as possible, or whether we shall continue this competition in outside markets. At present, we have got 672,000 persons employed in working upon the land. In order to get anything like the same rate of production per person as obtains in Denmark, we shall have to cut down our numbers by half. The agricultural industry can only carry half the number of workers which it is carrying at present if we try to get the same amount of production per head as Denmark. If you do that, where are the 300,000 people who will be taken out of agriculture to go? We have got to find other industries for them. In the other industries there are only 186,000 persons employed at present. Do you think it is possible for these industries to absorb suddenly 300,000 extra people? You know it is absurd. I admit that a tremendous amount can be done on the land, but each person you draw into industry other than agriculture is a double advantage, because you are providing an extra market for the farmer by doing that. I would be twice as anxious to get new industries other than agriculture established as to see extra people employed in agriculture. I hope I shall not be misunderstood in that. I simply mean that agriculture is more than saturated at present, that we are carrying far more on the land than the land can afford to carry with our present economy. The only hope of the land carrying anything like that number is to change our economy—to go definitely in for the policy of protection our home market, getting our other industries set up side by side and becoming, as far as possible, self-sufficient. If that does not commend itself to any Deputy in the House, I expect the Deputy will vote against this motion. If the policy of making ourselves self-sufficient, of getting ourselves out of this rut into which we have been forced against our will to the national detriment—if that policy commends itself to any Deputy I do not see why he should vote against this motion. This is the thin end of the wedge, if you like—the first step. It is the step on which we hope to get the greatest amount of agreement in this House. I hope that Deputies who were vocal a short time ago, when this question was before the country and before they came to their Party meeting—I hope that these Deputies, having apparently failed to convince the Minister for Agriculture in their Party meetings, will endeavour to make him see reason in this House.

Mr. White

I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that a few years ago a duty of 50/- a ton was placed on oatmeal. At that time we expected it would benefit the farmer. As a dealer in oats and oatmeal I can assure the House that one-sixteenth of a penny has not gone into the farmer's pocket as a result of that duty. Any benefits that have accrued have gone into the pockets of the millers. That is a positive fact. What do we find at the present time? Speaking for the area of the Saorstát I represent, I find that flake oatmeal made in Belfast and retailed at 1/- per quarter stone, or £32 per ton, is being sold in the various towns. I inquired recently why the people will not buy the ordinary oatmeal that is made in local mills, and which they can purchase at about 1/10 per stone. The explanation given was that the flake meal can be cooked more quickly. Their time is so precious that they cannot see their way to cook oatmeal in the way that their fathers and mothers cooked it. Speaking from experience, I say that the 50/- duty that was placed on oatmeal in 1926 has neither benefited the farmer nor assisted in holding the home market.

I would like to bring another matter before the House, now that the growing and consumption of oats has been mentioned. I am perfectly certain that the horse population in the City of Dublin was very considerable ten years ago, both in respect of the hackney cars and carrying contractors. What is the position to-day? I am sure that there has been a reduction of 70 per cent. in the horse population as a result of motor traction. That has meant a big falling-off in the consumption of oats in the home market. If you go into the towns where there are carrying contractors it is the same story. The great bulk of the heavy traffic is done by motor lorries, while horses are only used for door-to-door delivery of parcels by the various railway companies and by other concerns.

Deputy Davin is an experienced railway man, and I want to draw his attention to the internal transport problem. If we in Donegal desire to purchase oats in Kildare, Wexford, Carlow or Kilkenny, what rates will the railway company charge for carrying them? I will tell the House what was my experience last spring. I purchased seed barley in Enniscorthy and I brought it to Derry, the rate being 42/6 per ton. I then paid 7/- to convey it from Derry to Carndonagh by lorry. That meant that barley from Enniscorthy to Carndonagh practically cost 50/- a ton. That is a matter that Deputy Davin might deal with, seeing that he is one of the most experienced railway men in the Twenty-Six Counties. In my opinion the transit problem is of great importance in connection with this question, but I have not heard a word about it from Deputy Davin. He should have enlightened the House on that aspect of the question when dealing with a tariff on grain, and the exclusion of foreign oats, so that we might be able to get a cheap rate from the grain-growing counties to Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal.

Mr. Cassidy

The motion before the House asks for "the marking legibly of all imported meat entering the Free State so as to indicate the country of origin when such meat is exposed for sale; and the proper medical inspection of all imported meat entering the Free State." It is principally with that portion of the motion that I propose to deal. It has been suggested by the Minister for Agriculture that the principal reason people consume foreign bacon is that in many cases the price is lower than Irish bacon. I propose to prove that at least 30 per cent. of the imported bacon is bought by consumers under the impression that it is Irish bacon. According to the trade and shipping statistics issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce for the year ending 31st December, 1929, there was imported pigs and pig products value £1,783,959. That was made up as follows:—pigs to the value of £8,480, bacon to the value of £1,610,119 hams to the value of £16,975, pork to the value of £11,424, pork sausages to the value of £17,943, pigs' heads to the value of £75,184, and other pig products value £43,834. It has been asserted by people employed in the bacon trade that not alone does imported bacon come into the Saorstát from the Six Counties and Great Britain, but also from Poland, China, Denmark, United States of America, Holland, Sweden, Madagascar, Latvia, and Ukrania. Deputy White gave the House to understand that he proposed to vote against the motion.

I believe Deputy White is not voicing the sentiments of either the small farmers or the wage earners of Donegal when he says that he would like to see this Ukranian bacon still coming in instead of the people using Irish bacon. I believe I am voicing the people's sentiments when I say that they would prefer Irish bacon to that coming from Poland or Russia. It has been asserted on very reliable authority that a big percentage of the bacon that comes from the countries I have mentioned is sold in the shops, not alone in Dublin, but right through the country as Irish bacon. According to the evidence given before the Commission on Prices in 1923, and again before the Commission on Prices in 1927, it was alleged by people engaged in the bacon trade that a large quantity of this foreign bacon went through an additional smoking process in Dublin, and in many cases was branched "Dublin mild-cured," sent to different parts of the Saorstát, and sold in the shops as Irish bacon. People purchasing such bacon were, in many cases, under the impression that it was Irish bacon. No doubt that may seem a rather far-fetched statement, but in order to prove that assertion I would like to quote for the House a few extracts from the evidence given before the Commission on Prices in the year 1923. During the examination of a witness before that Commission on 18th April, 1923, the Chairman said: "Foreign bacon was brought in and smoked and then sold as Irish bacon." Giving evidence at a public session of the Commission on 13th April, 1923, Mr. J. Ryan (Dublin) of the District Co-operative Society, Ltd., said: "I have known Dublin provision men to offer American smoked bacon to the public as ‘Dublin cured.' What is offered sometimes by the retail trade as ‘Dublin cured' is American bacon brought in in borax. It is washed in Dublin, dried and smoked." According to the evidence of Mr. W.H. Freeman, Hon. Secretary of the Irish Wholesale Provision Trade Association, the ratio of imported bacon sold in Ireland would be, roughly, as three to one, and the Dublin wholesale selling prices of imported bacon are based, as far as practicable, on the ruling Liverpool prices.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

I would like to quote also an extract from a full-page advertisement which appeared in the "Irish Independent" on 13th January, 1930. It was signed by an ex-member of this House, Mr. James O'Mara, chairman of Donnelly's bacon factory. In that advertisement he stated: "Thousands of tons of Danish, Dutch, Latvian, Ukranian, Polish, and Chinese bacon are arriving in the Saorstát." It was further stated in the same notice that "Most of these countries are rife with foot and mouth disease." This evening in the course of this debate, I asked the Minister for Agriculture when he started to talk about the purity of this imported bacon, if it underwent any inspection, and he said no. Apparently one of the farmer Deputies, Deputy Gorey, was not satisfied. Deputy Gorey is now a member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, but he goes under the guise of the Farmers' Party, which does not exist at the present time.

At any rate, it is well known that, in regard to this £1,610,000 worth of bacon that is coming into the country, there is no proper inspection system. The Department of Agriculture do not insist on certificates with this bacon from foreign countries, with the exception of bacon which comes from the Netherlands. On 23rd November, 1927, I drew the attention of the Minister in this House to this matter. I pointed out what was going on, and asked him to see that a brand was put upon all imported bacon sold here, so that the people concerned would know the country of origin. The reply the Minister gave me on that occasion was that he had not the power to do that owing to the fact that the Merchandise Marks Act had not been passed by the Dáil. Three years have elapsed since then. The Minister knows that this is going on. He has read, I presume, the evidence given before the Food Prices Commission. There was a question on the Order Paper to-day by Deputy Hennessy, a member of the Minister's party, with reference to this, and he was told that the matter was under consideration. The matter has been under consideration for over three years, and yet nothing has been done. The question was discussed in 1923, and again in 1927, and up to the present nothing has been done. If any Deputies can afford the time to go down to the North and South Wall in Dublin, and to the Rotterdam sheds, they can see for themselves that large quantities of this foreign bacon are still coming in. They can find out for themselves, too, that portion of it goes to some of the curers in the Saorstát, when it is put through an additional smoking process, and is sold to the people as Irish-cured bacon.

I believe there is a big necessity to have all this foreign bacon branded. The Prices Tribunal in 1927 recommended that not alone should all imported bacon be branded, but that it should be made compulsory for all retailers to label bacon with the name of the country of origin. I think that such a regulation as that is necessary, when bacon is sold as rashers. I think it is unfair to the farmers of the Saorstát that their foreign competitors should be allowed to send this bacon in here duty free. The farmers in Poland, Denmark, Latvia, China and other countries from which this foreign bacon is coming pay no rates or taxes here, while these burdens have to be borne by our farmers. I think the latter should be protected against these foreign competitors. I believe if the Irish farmer was protected in that way, and if you had either prohibition against foreign bacon or a tariff on it, that a good opportunity would be afforded to him to capture a market which is worth approximately one and three-quarter millions a year at the present time, a market which at the moment is held by his foreign competitors. I appeal to the farmer-Deputies in the Cumann na nGaedheal Party to support the motion before the House and not to be led away by the false economics preached here this evening by the Minister for Agriculture. By doing so they will be helping the farmers of the country. I believe that the passing of the motion would have the effect of helping to develop the agricultural industry. In addition, its adoption would be of benefit to the consumers who, in very many cases, are hoodwinked into buying foreign bacon in the belief that it is Irish bacon.

Mr. Heffernan

I have listened to the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party making his case for the adoption of this motion. I must say that I found it somewhat difficult to understand clearly the policy which he advocated. In the opening part of his speech, Deputy de Valera said that the policy laid down in the motion before the Dáil is not to be regarded as the whole policy which he and his Party stand for, that it is only to be regarded as the beginning of that policy—the thin end of the wedge. I see that Deputy de Valera agrees with me there. If that be so, then I would draw the attention of other members of the House and of the farmers of the country who think they are supporting a policy which is not a political policy by a particular Party, but who think they are supporting a policy which might conceivably be supported by members of all political parties, to the fact that what Deputy de Valera is asking them to do is to support a policy which he believes is for the national benefit of this country but which, in reality, is the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party.

In other words, Deputy de Valera has asked the farmers to accept it that the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party is also a national policy for the benefit of the country. Deputy de Valera may think that is so, but I do not. I think we should clearly understand that so far as they are advocating that this is a stepping stone they are really advocating and standing over the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party. Deputy de Valera spoke of a national policy. He said that in dealing with an economic policy we should deal with it in national terms rather than in terms of a single industry. I accept it that Deputy de Valera is honest in his claim in that regard, but I want to say that I am always suspicious of the man who tries to justify an economic policy or doctrine by stating in the forefront of his argument that national interests are his first consideration. I am not going to argue that individual interests may not clash with national interests, and that it may be good policy to see that a national economic policy is carried out to the detriment of an individual industry, but I cannot see that it is good policy to carry out what is asserted to be a national economic doctrine if that is to be to the detriment of the most important and largest section of the community in the country.

It has not been shown so far, and I do not think the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party has shown, that the policy advocated to-day, which is the beginning of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party, is to the advantage of the farming community or that it would not be to their detriment. Deputy de Valera used the favourite argument which he has used over and over again, which he regards as the foundation of his whole economic policy, and the argument is that the population of Ireland has decreased from something about 8,000,000 to something about 4,000,000, and that if things had gone on as before the decrease of population started we would now have a population of 17,000,000.

Mr. de Valera

No.

Mr. Heffernan

Well, whatever figure the Deputy likes.

Mr. de Valera

I did not say "If things went on as they were." I said if we were perfectly free during the past 80 years to adopt a fiscal policy in our own interests.

You can trace them all back to the industrial associations that are advocating whole-hog tariffs, and from there to the Fianna Fáil Party and to the financiers of that Party, the people who stand to make fortunes if they can handle a political party and get the tariffs that they want.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy ought to deal with the motion.

Mr. Davin

rose.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is this a point of order?

Mr. Davin

It is a serious point. The Deputy is making an insinuation that behind this motion lie some financial interests or people financially interested in tariffs.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

No.

Mr. Heffernan

As to a tariff on imported oats, the keeping out of Russian oats would make practically no difference to the price which the Irish farmer would get. In the average year there is more oats exported than is imported, and the price of oats in the Irish market is controlled by the export price. The word "dumping" is used in a loose way. Dumping is sending in an article to be sold below the cost of production. It has been stated that Russian oats is selling here below the cost of production. If it is, I think it ought to be kept out, that is if it is feasible to do it, and if it is administratively possible. You might very well have to set up an immense machine which would cost more than the game is worth. In actual practice, there is very little oats imported into this country which is in competition with the kind of oats produced here. If Deputy Ryan inquired into it, he must know that the import of oats consists principally of seed oats, the special oats for racing horses, and a very inferior class of screened oats for feeding purposes. These do not enter into direct competition with ours. It seems quite likely that if we put a tariff or a prohibition on oats we must allow all these classes of oats to come in under licence. If we do allow them to come in, what is left will be a negligible quantity.

Deputy Ryan would prohibit the importation of seed oats. I wonder has he consulted the experts in the Department on that point? In the past it has been found essential to import seed oats to keep our stock healthy and strong. Deputy Ryan did not say whether he would keep out the special quality of dry Dominion oats with a low moisture content, which is fed to racehorses. The export of our horses is worth above one million pounds. It is not a negligible industry, and it is worth helping. I cannot say whether these men could feed their horses as well on Irish produced oats as on the imported oats. The fact of the matter is that if they see fit to import oats and pay a higher price for it because they say it is essential for the quality of the blood stock which they breed, I take it these men know their business best, and that I cannot teach them. I take it that if they find it essential they will still continue to import that special quality of oats. Then we have this quality of screened oats. It is well known that in such places as Canada, when they thresh and screen wheat, the wheat is not always pure. It is mixed up with a good deal of foreign seed and oats and other things—mostly oats. That is sent over here at a cheap price. It is excellent poultry-feeding, and is very cheap. If we produce no oats to enter into competition with them, all these classes will have to be allowed in under licence.

So far as the oats tariff is concerned, it is simply an appeal to the prejudices of the farmer. Farmers are not growing oats for sale as a cash crop in any quantity. I have personal knowledge of the farmers in my county and the number who are dependent upon the cash they receive from their oats crop to keep them going is almost nil. Generally the farmer simply grows oats for his own personal requirements and when he threshes, if he has a load or two too much, he probably sells it for cash, which will come in handy, but if he sold his whole crop at that price it might be an actual loss. I think there is nothing in the proposal for a tariff or embargo on oats, but I feel in the same way with regard to that as to the other items. I am willing to have it submitted to the Tariff Commission to examine into all the reactions and repercussions and to accept the general tenor of their report on the question. Deputy de Valera said this was only the thin edge of the wedge of the economic policy which his Party stands for. He mentioned that they stood for wheat growing. I heard Deputy Ryan and Deputy de Valera expounding the policy of wheat growing.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is nothing about wheat in this motion.

Mr. Heffernan

I shall not discuss it beyond saying that if the policy which was expounded were carried out in the way suggested it would cost this country at the present time £4,100,000 in subsidy. If I had got up in this Dáil and advocated a policy which if carried out would cost that, I would never raise my head again in this Dáil as an advocate of agriculture.

I feel that I would be wanting in courage if I did not give voice to my opinion on this matter. I feel that I would not be doing justice to the policy which I stand for, and which I have always stood for, if I remained silent, I believe that if this policy is expounded clearly to the people and particularly to the farmers they will realise that it is not a policy which is meant for their good.

The tactics here are those that was sought to be adopted by the Tories when they wanted to dish the Whigs. This is an attempt by the Fianna Fáil Party to dish the Cumann na nGaedheal and the Farmers' Party. I do not believe that they will dish them. The farmers may be simple and uninformed, but they have a shrewd sense of what is at the back of all this. When they read some of the speeches made here to-day they will realise that this policy of Protection for agriculture is only a blind which is intended to deceive them and to bring them into the camp of the whole-hog Protectionists, and which will result in raising the prices of the articles they consume as Protection has already raised prices, and will continue to raise them until the farmer finds himself placed in an intolerable and hopelessly uneconomic position, and until he becomes what he has not been before, a serf. We have the most independent farmers in the world. If the Fianna Fáil policy materialised it would turn the farmers of this country into serfs of the economists and industrialists in this country who are controlling the Fianna Fáil Party by controlling its finances.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must keep to the motion.

Mr. MacEntee

What the English millers and your finances——

Mr. Lemass

We are at present endeavouring to raise funds in order to fight a by-election so that I hope nobody will be misled by the statement of the Deputy that the Fianna Fáil Party is receiving any funds from the industrialists.

Mr. Heffernan

I believe it is an unsound policy to ask the Dáil to examine into and give a verdict on an elaborate policy of this kind dealing with agriculture, which is confessed to be only the first step in the general agricultural and economic policy of the Party opposite. If it is to be referred to the Tariff Commission set up to examine and report upon it I am prepared, although I do not believe, with the exception of butter, that anything effective or useful can come out of tariffs of this kind, to accept the report of the Commission and to give my support to the legislation necessary to carry it into effect.

Mr. Corry

I thought that the Leader of the old defunct Farmers' Party would have the grace to hold his tongue in this matter. Unfortunately he did not. He knows so much about the present-day agriculture that he has stated here that we export £6,000,000 worth of bacon. That was the statement by the responsible leader of the Farmers' Party. That shows how much he knows about agriculture. When the leader of the late Farmers' Party stands up in this House and protests against tariffs on agricultural produce coming into this country and at the same time votes in favour of tariffs on down quilts and margarine and old women's rosary beads, what can we expect from him after that?

I want to deal with what is more important still, namely, the prohibition of the importation of foreign barley and foreign malt. I think it is a contemptible thing if the country is going to be ruled by one industry or supposedly one portion of an industry, that is the brewing industry. We have here a list and statement of the imports of foreign barley into this country in the last few years. And examining the imports and exports of beer and comparing them with the imports of foreign barley and malt into the country I consider at least that there is no justification whatever for the large increase in the imports of foreign barley and malt in the last few years, even taking the statement of Messrs. Guinness on its face value that they have to import a certain amount of foreign barley to pander in the line of beer or porter to the taste of somebody. In the year 1928 Messrs. Guinness imported £110,000 worth of foreign barley, and in the year 1929 Guinness imported £220,000 worth of foreign barley. I see no justification in the figures of the exports of beer to justify that figure of imports. The story is far worse when we come to the question of foreign malt. I would like that somebody on the opposite benches would try to give the slightest bit of justification for the imports of foreign malt into this country. There may be some justification, taking Messrs. Guinness' statement on its face value, for importing foreign barley but I cannot see any justification whatever for the imports of foreign malt. During the past nine months, from January to September, 1929, taking the imports and exports I find that in 1929, 139,680 cwts. of foreign malt were imported. In the present year 319,000 cwts. of foreign malt were imported. That difference works out at 15s. 4d. per cwt. When we take the price of imported barley, it works at 7s. 1d. per cwt., so that we have 8s. 3d. per cwt. taken out of the pockets of the Irish workers by Messrs. Guinness.

Mr. Shaw

How much money have Messrs. Guinness put into the pockets of Irish workers?

Mr. Corry

There is no justification for it. If Messrs. Guinness could make their brew in Bristol, they would do it. It is not for our good they are here at all. There is no justification for taking out of the pockets of Irish workers the value of 139,000 cwt. in the last nine months. That is the position here with regard to the importation of foreign malt. That is more than onethird of the sum which the President throws as a sop to the unfortunate and starving workers of this country. That is greatly affecting the people of my constituency.

In the town of Midleton, where formerly there were 280 workers employed in the malting house, there are eight or ten employed to-day. Close on 200 families have been thrown out of employment through the importation of foreign malt. Whatever justification there may be for the brewers or one brewer who is importing foreign barley—I am glad to say there is only one importing foreign barley—there is no justification for importing foreign malt and throwing the workers idle. It is the duty of any Government not tied head, neck and heels to Messrs. Guinness to interfere and stop that, but they are bound to Messrs. Guinness by some unknown financial squeeze. We heard a lot from Deputy Bennett to-day about the importing of foreign produce and what can be grown here. Deputy Bennett has apparently kept clear of the circumstances. The circumstances are that the tillage land of this country has been valued as wheat land under Griffith's valuation. The unfortunate farmers living on tillage land have to pay rates upon that high valuation. The valuation of tillage land is higher than the valuation of land in the Golden Vale in Limerick, which is entirely grass land. Repeated appeals have been made in this House from 1927 upwards to the Minister for Finance for a revaluation of the land of Ireland, but his Party are not going to change their economic policy.

The tillage farmers are, at least, entitled to fair play. As Deputy O'Connell said, 110,000 acres went out of tillage last year. Is there any farmer who is prepared to grow oats at £4 10s. per ton with the dread always hanging over his head that there will be 400,000 or 500,000 tons of foreign oats thrown into the country at any moment? No farmer will till his land with that threat hanging over his head. That is the position as I view it. It is not so much a question of the amount of oats imported this year as the uncertainty which it creates in the market. As I say, the tillage farmer is entitled at least to the home market for his produce. It is all very well for Deputy Shaw and other racehorse owners to tell us that their horses will not jump high enough when fed on home-grown oats. Perhaps that is the reason they are sending oats from Russia here, perhaps they want our military horses to jump higher in Moscow or somewhere else. They must be acclimatised before they go. These horses are costing us between £5,000 and £6,000 per year.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing that.

Mr. Corry

We are discussing the reason for importing foreign oats. The Minister for Agriculture in March and April last would not listen to demands in this House for a tariff on foreign butter when it was being dumped into this country wholesale, but he is now flirting with the subject because he plunged the finances of this country into butter and the establishment of creameries. That is his child and he is prepared to adopt it.

Mr. Shaw

How do you spell butter?

Mr. Corry

I could learn from you how to spell margarine. It is time that something was done for our tillage farmers. We were told last night by the President that the position of the farmers is better than it was before and we were told a while ago by the late leader of the Farmers' Party that this was a political stunt on the part of Fianna Fáil. Another leader, Deputy Gorey, at a public meeting supported the proposal to prohibit the importation of foreign oats and the imposition of a tariff on foreign bacon. Then there are the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies—Deputies Dwyer and Aird. I do not know how they are going to vote, but I appeal to them to have the courage of their convictions for once. I hope to see Deputy Gorey walking into the same lobby with me.

Mr. Gorey

Not with you, I hope.

Mr. Corry

In fact, in order to get him there I would be prepared to keep out of it so that he would not twist and turn again. This, however, is far too serious a matter to be treated in any jocose fashion. We have supported tariffs on foreign industrial articles coming in here because we believe that every man who is held in industry here is increasing our home market. We see no reason why foreign agricultural produce should be dumped here. The reasons put forward against this motion are absolutely false and no one knows that better than Deputies opposite. Any Deputy who has been through his constituency during the past five months knows that he is bound in justice to the farmers to come here and support this motion despite the opinion of the Minister for Agriculture and his colleagues. I hope that Deputies opposite who supported what practically amounted to the same motion as this at conferences outside recently will have the courage of their convictions and vote for it and not be dragged away by any whip from their organisation. I think that any Deputy who is not tied hand and leg to the brewers' organisation or any such organisation will support this motion.

Mr. Hogan (Clare):

I did not intend to intervene in this debate, but as Deputy Heffernan adumbrated such extraordinary doctrines I could not remain seated. The sum total of his speech was that this motion is wrong because it comes from Fianna Fáil. I suppose that if Fianna Fáil proposed to give a roast pig to every farmer in Ireland for his Christmas dinner Deputy Heffernan would say it was wrong because Fianna Fáil proposed it. He suggested that we must not consider the national position so much. I am sure that he was not serious in that and that he did not fully consider the implications of that statement before he made it. It is the reactions of such motions as this upon the nation as a whole that we must primarily consider. This motion was very necessary. It was very necessary to drag from the Government Party some statement as to what they intend to do, if they intend to do anything, to relieve the present state of our farmers. So far as one can gather from statements of responsible members of the Government Party, they seem to have adopted the policy of letting things drag. The Minister for Agriculture told us last night that the Tariff Commission was the sheet anchor of the farmers. I have no conception of what a sheet anchor is, but if it is something which would be likely to drag one into a current and leave one submerged there, I submit that the Minister is right and that it is the farmers' sheet anchor. The Tariff Commission has, in fact, been so slow in its actions that it is almost impossible to detect whether it has any motion at all. With the terms of this motion I am almost in entire agreement, but I must confess that there is one item about which I am not quite easy. In many parts of the country there is a certain domestic economy which has come down for at least decades and I am not at all convinced that you can alter a tradition of that kind in a short space of time or alter it so much by acts of a legislative assembly such as this. You may influence it to some extent but you must be careful as to what will happen during the period in which you are altering it. You may say that that economy is bad for that particular community who have adopted it, but, be it bad or good, it is there and you have to consider it. Item 3 of the motion proposes a tariff on imported bacon. It is, no doubt, intended to help the Irish pig producer, and if I saw that such would be the result of it I would heartily support it, but I am not quite happy about it.

Let us analyse the situation as far as we can, from the returns supplied to us. We are not supplying the Irish market at the moment. There is a large import of bacon. There is a big demand across the Channel that is not supplied, and if the proposed tariff on bacon is going to increase pig production, how is it, can anybody explain— and Deputy Dr. Ryan has certainly not convinced me, nor has Deputy Davin— going to increase production and preserve the Irish market for the Irish pig producers? If I could see a way by which that could be achieved I would certainly support the doctrine whole-heartedly, but right across the Channel there is a large demand, and there is no corresponding increase in pig production here to supply that demand. How are you going to increase pig production here in order to supply the home market, and yet hold your foreign market? That is the thing that is troubling me.

For the nine months ending September, 1930, we imported 293,512 cwts. of bacon. If you work that out in terms of pigs, it would come to something like 140,000 pigs. Are we in a position to produce, in a reasonably short space of time, 140,000 pigs to supply that market? I have not heard so far one argument that would convince me that we are going to supply that market. In 1929 we imported 357,812 cwts. of bacon. If that is worked out and expressed in terms of pigs, you find that we imported something like 180,000 pigs. Can we produce that much here in this country? That is just one argument that has not been developed either by Deputy Dr. Ryan or by Deputy Davin. We have to consider those people who have that domestic economy coming down through the decades. We have to consider where we are going to get these hundreds of thousands of pigs while the bacon industry of the country is being reorganised. If the bacon industry were reorganised to such a pitch that we could be sure that in the interim between now and when the Irish market could be capable of supplying it, that there would be no hardship on the consumers in the country, then we might say that it was something on which all parties could agree.

I propose to vote for the motion, because I agree with nine-tenths of it. I have no faith whatever in the economic policy of the Minister for Agriculture or the present Executive Council. This motion, as I said at the outset, is very necessary to force them to take some action. If it does force them to take some action, it will have achieved its purpose. If it forces them to make the Tariff Commission to do some work and to do it in an effective fashion, it will have served its purpose. Three-fourths of the motion is excellent, but there is just that one matter to which I referred, and which I would like to hear Deputy Dr. Ryan develop when replying.

Mr. O'Hanlon

I can give three very excellent reasons why, judged on their merits, these proposals should not be entertained. The first is that there is no volume of agricultural opinion behind these proposals. The second is that it is a decided attempt to short-circuit the Tariff Commission. Lastly, and perhaps most important, the proposals, I submit, are too absurd on the face of them to get the dignity of a full-dress debate. It is not the merits of the proposals before us, but it is what is not in the proposals that has made it important for this House to consider them. That is, if I might use the expression, it is a means of drawing the badger, and it is a means of extracting from the Government some definite idea of what the real policy is in regard to agriculture. I do not, and I never did since I came into the House, or for a considerable time before I came into it, believe in a tariff policy. We had yesterday an example from the Government Benches which to me, indeed, was a very pleasing thing to see. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce making a kind of apologia for tariffs generally. I think he was one of the principal members of the Executive Council who was instrumental in bringing tariffs to this country, himself and the Minister for Finance.

I have heard it stated here in the course of the debate by the Minister for Justice that tariffs should not be imposed until they were very carefully considered. Were the first tariffs which were put on in this country very carefully considered? They were not. They were put on solely for the purpose, not of increasing our industrial employment, but purely and simply for the purpose of revenue, to delude the people into the belief that taxation was low, and having them pay it on their wearing apparel, shoes, and food. That was the sole object of tariffs when they were first launched in this country. The Government, I am glad to say, are finding—late in the day no doubt—that they made a mistake in being even half-hogged Protectionists, and the Minister for Agriculture might have frankly told us—he did not quite go the whole hog—that he was not in favour of tariffs in any shape or form.

Like Deputy Hogan, I did not intend to intervene in this debate, because I thought it was really too absurd. Deputy Gorey is in a rather peculiar position, and I would be glad to see him go into the slips with Deputy Corry, but he only comes in now to run a bye in the national produce stakes. On the merits of the case in regard to the question of the embargo on oats, I think that the House is convinced that such an idea is absurd, that the matter is not worthy of consideration. There is only one matter in connection with it to which I would like to refer, and that is the statement made by Deputy White, who stated that when the 50s. per ton duty was put on oatmeal, it was of no benefit to the farmer, and was a benefit only to the middleman.

Everyone with any experience will agree also with that. But he went further and he said that notwithstanding that, flake meal was being imported from outside, from Belfast and other places and sold at a very high figure per stone, something like £32 per ton. Do you know why that happens? Why that happens is because there are live people in the business in other parts of the world while we are asleep. There are people in Belfast and in other places getting money out of oats because they advertise the fact and the public know about it. Advertising is what sells foreign stuff in Ireland. We have the best stuff in the world and we will not advertise it ourselves. With regard to barley there is a lot of humbug being spoken by the members of the Grain Growers' Association on the question of barley generally. I will give you my own experience of the Grain Growers' Association. Some two years ago, a Deputy in this House was in a terrible state of excitement as to what was to happen to the barley grown in his district. He was a member of the Government Party. He put down a question on the Order Paper and got very little satisfaction. He asked me about it and I told him he was foolish. When he left the House I asked him, "have you any barley for sale and how much have you?" He told me what he had. I said, "I will sell it for you—what is your price?" He gave me his price and I could have sold every ounce of that barley. I asked to have it delivered in wagon-loads but he never delivered a bag of it.

That is a typical instance of the barley growers. They want someone else to look after their business for them. I could have sold every bag of that barley in the County Cavan to the Cavan pig feeders, but the gentleman who was so excited about the barley could not deliver one bag in Cavan for the pig feeders there. And then we are told they want an embargo on barley, and we are told they want prohibition of some sort to assist men who will not take steps to assist themselves. Truly, there is a question in this matter of barley growing with regard to transport, but the question did not arise about this particular barley. I left the question of carriage out. I could have sold it and paid the carriage. What really happened immediately afterwards was that in that district the price of barley rose 2s. a barrel a couple of days afterwards, and it was because it rose that couple of shillings and that they got that couple of shillings that they would not come into a competitive market with their barley. As long as men are satisfied to supply Messrs. Guinness's maltsters or anybody else at a tied price and do not look for competitive markets, there is always going to be a grievance in the barley-growing districts. These men have been doing this thing for years. They may be very good huntsmen but they are very bad barley-growers and barley sellers.

I just came across a little matter to-day which is rather interesting. The Department of Agriculture have, I think, their own breed of barley known as "145." It is a good malting barley, and I believe the Department is prepared to back it. I believe it is a good barley. A great number of people have grown "145" barley, but in some of those places the maltsters are refusing that barley to-day, and insisting upon other barley. They are giving a lower price of 2/- a barrel for that barley than for Archer's Spratt. Why? Because they know they will get that barley later on at a lower price. That is how the price goes down and the Grain Growers' Association do not see that. Let them come up into a competitive market in County Cavan and then there will be no question of the sale of their barley to be solved.

Mr. Gorey

Can they not feed their pigs at home with this barley where it is grown?

Mr. O'Hanlon

With regard to the question of bacon I would say that this matter may be divided into two sections. There is bacon which we must continue to import, bacon which suits the taste and the palate. Deputy de Valera does not believe that they have any taste or that there is any question of palate in the agricultural districts. There has been a taste acquired for American bacon and there is something more than a question of taste in it. There is a question of palate attached to the matter of American bacon. If you put an embargo on American bacon where is the substitute to be got? You cannot substitute it. You cannot get the Irish pig producers to raise a bacon pig similar to the American bacon pig. How many years would it take to do it? You cannot get it. There is some reason in talking about the imports of other foreign bacon, such as bacon imports from Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Denmark and Holland. I have gone to the trouble of investigating it. I have had before me sides of bacon from Ukraine and other countries. I put Irish bacon alongside it, and I have no hesitation in saying that no man here could distinguish between Irish bacon and the imported bacon from these countries. I do not mean to say that the imported bacon is as good as the Irish bacon but to the uninitiated it appears to be as good. This foreign bacon that I am speaking about was branded. Here is what the motion says:—

"the marking legibly of all imported meat entering the Free State, so as to indicate the country of origin when such meat is exposed for sale."

I think that should be carried out because it is one item of the proposals with which I agree, but if it were carried out as it is, it would not meet the situation.

Bacon is imported and sold side by side with Limerick bacon in the various shops in the country but there is at least a difference of 4d. per pound to the wholesaler. It is sold, however, at the same price. I have seen a brand put on bacon but I know that that is not an indelible brand. When that bacon goes through the process of smoking, and it does go through that process, that bacon is turned out without the brand. If you are going to deal with the bacon question, what you must do is to get the people who smoke this foreign brand of bacon to brand it, not on the shoulder, but right across the side with not more than a certain space apart so that the buyer cannot help seeing the brand of the bacon. I agree with Deputy Cassidy when he says that something more has to be done. You must insist on the retailers displaying in their shops a notice stating that "Foreign bacon is sold here." When that notice is displayed the housewife will ask for Irish bacon. Most housewives will, undoubtedly, ask for Irish bacon. As matters stand it is not asked for.

A gentleman told me yesterday that he went into a shop, not in Dublin, but in a town within fifty miles of Dublin. While in the shop a woman came in and he heard her asking for four lbs. of Irish bacon. There was a side of Limerick bacon and a side of foreign bacon on the counter, and the shopkeeper cut the four lbs. off the foreign bacon and gave it to the woman. When the customer left the shop this gentleman asked the shopkeeper: "Is that Russian bacon?""No," said the shopkeeper, "it is Chinese." That woman went home in the belief that she got four lbs. of Limerick bacon, and what is more, she paid the price for it. The retailer did not tell her that that bacon was bought by him at a lesser price. The process of smoking bacon is a very cheap one and the profits that are gained by the retailer and the deception played on the consumer are certainly things into which the Government should look more carefully than they do at present. If this motion does nothing else but make the Government follow that up, without putting on any embargo at all, it will have done very useful work.

The Minister for Agriculture, when dealing with this question of bacon, let us into a few secrets. He stated that the price in England is fixed by four of the big wholesale people. They are big distributors, and they fix the price of the bacon. The price of Irish bacon is fixed, having regard to the price of Danish. The Minister stated further that we could increase our export of bacon in Great Britain by at least fifty per cent. With that I entirely agree. That statement by the Minister was made in answer to the proposals put up in this motion. Why has not the Minister seen that the exports were increased by 50 per cent. before these proposals were put to the House? I look upon it as an admission of failure by the Minister. He should have known from his advisers in London that we could increase our exports by 50 per cent., and yet that was not done. These are the questions that we have to consider, and not questions of tariffs.

There is only one matter in this country worth thinking about, only one question that the Dáil should concentrate upon for the next twelve months. If the Dáil did concentrate upon this one matter and left aside all the Bills about twopence-halfpenny things for at least twelve months, the country would benefit. We should concentrate upon the marketing of our produce. Our produce is the best in the world, and we should market it as it should be marketed. There is practically no need to legislate for the betterment of the farmers for the next five years. Our whole energies should be directed to marketing our products, and the farmers would derive immediate benefit. As it is, we are deluged with legislation and with blue books, and we get no further.

Any man who does not take an interest in the agricultural industry, does not deserve to be a citizen of the State. Agriculture is the only industry we have. People talk about developing the other arm. While they are talking about developing the other arm, and talking about an additional 13,000 people being employed as the result of tariffs, they are paralysing the agricultural arm that we all have to stand by. According to the Minister's own statement, the necessary nourishment is not being given in order to keep the right arm of the State going. Let us concentrate more upon the agricultural arm. There is no use in bringing up proposals for tariffs or tinkering with the question. This is nothing else but tinkering with the whole economic question. Anyone who has ever studied economic questions will realise that.

Is there a man in Ireland to-day who will say that there is an economist in any part of the world who is not talking nonsense? We are in the midst of economic chaos; every country in the world is economically unsound; every country is looking for some economist who will supply a panacea for its troubles. Where is America, the home of tariffs? She is in a hopeless condition and she is looking for an economist to show her the way out. We do not want any of your economists to intervene in our affairs. We see what is necessary. The Minister for Agriculture tells us that we can increase our exports by 50 per cent. If we do that we have no need for an economist. Is not that the whole situation in a nut-shell? Let us concentrate on that particular point. The fact is that we have the best country in the world mishandled.

In the course of this debate we had one Party throwing at another the suggestion of a coalition of Labour and Fianna Fáil. That may or may not be true. The men who make those statements are themselves in glass houses. Everything has a political colour in this country. It is time for us to drop that and to become aware of the economic factors that are controlling us. Economic factors are the all-important matter and it is time for us to decide once and for all that this country will divorce politics from economics. If we do that we can forge ahead; we can do what the Minister says we could do, increase our agricultural market by 50 per cent. Once we do that we have the whole question solved.

How many barrels to the acre?

Dr. Ryan

It was calculated that with 12 cwt. per acre of milling wheat the total requirements would be 800,000 acres. That would be perhaps £100,000 for 100,000 acres of wheat. But the people who condemned that policy are not afraid to admit that they have advised the growing of beet and have paid the farmer for doing so entirely out of public funds, handing the beet over as a present to a foreign company. But when it is a matter of growing wheat or of helping the farmer to grow it, making him bear a certain proportion of the cost himself, keeping Irish mills, owned by Irish capital working, then there is no sympathy from those on the opposite side. Deputy Heffernan may accuse us of being subsidised, bribed and financed as he put it by manufacturers in this country in order to support tariffs. Our opponents went back to the old argument that prohibition of oats could make no difference because the quantity was so small. Deputy Bennett was the first to mention that and the Minister for Agriculture used the same argument. How, they asked, could it make any difference when £30,000 worth of oats came in, considering that our total production was £5,000,000? It does make a difference and for Deputy Bennett's benefit I would like to put the case that I put here before. If there were prohibition of oats at present and if he were a merchant would he not be prepared to give as much for Irish oats as they are worth compared with any other feeding stuffs? But if there is a danger, and the danger is there, that Russian oats can come in at any time at 4s. or 5s. a barrel, is the Deputy prepared to give 11s. per barrel for Irish oats? He is not. He is afraid that Russian oats will come in and lower the price. There is a possibility that Russian oats will come in at a ridiculous price, thus keeping down the price of those who have Irish oats to sell.

It may be considered an offence for a man to grow oats for sale. Deputy Gorey will say that such a man never soils his hands. He has asked if such men are prepared to produce pigs, and if they are afraid to soil their hands in some sort of useful industry. I know a good deal about tillage farmers and about the men who produce pigs, and I am quite prepared to state that those who go in for tillage have a much worse time when it comes to hard work than any other farmer in the community.

The Minister suggests that they should feed their own stock with their own oats. He says that is their policy, and that our policy is to get the wholesale price of feeding stuff for oats as a cash crop. I have learned this, that as far as the Minister is concerned, it does not matter what we say, he will use his argument. It does not matter what we say, he will interpret it to suit his own argument. However, I will repeat what I said. The man who is able and who can afford to feed his own grain to his stock, is doing it. We are not concerned with that man. It is with the man who cannot do so that we are concerned. It has been argued by Deputy Bennett and by the Minister for Agriculture that a tariff will make no difference whatever in the price of oats. The Minister stated plainly that it would make no difference to the seller or to the purchaser of oats whether a tariff went on or not. Seeing that there is a large volume of opinion in favour of tariffs, as the Minister learned in Carlow, why does he not impose a tariff that can make no difference?

When coming to bacon, the Minister said that the Irish curers could buy many more pigs, and that they were prepared to do so. Perhaps that is so. If it is the case, why is it that the export of live pigs increased from 199,000 in 1929 to 269,000 in 1930? Why is it that the Irish curers, who are prepared to take twice as many pigs, allow so many live pigs out of the country? During the same time the number of pigs bought for curing in the Free State went down from 584,000 to 482,000. One thing is evident, either that the number of pigs going out of the country is on the increase or British curers must be in a position to give a bigger price than Irish curers. I think that is quite evident.

Mr. Gorey

More are going in sausages.

Mr. Hogan

Pork.

Dr. Ryan

I have seen pigs going to the North Wall and they were by no means heavy pigs.

Mr. Gorey

Most of the pigs in Cork and Kilkenny are fed up to 20 st., and go direct to Birmingham.

Dr. Ryan

On the other hand if English curers are giving more for Irish live pigs than the Irish curers, why do they not take the lot? The point is that the demand for English bacon on the English market must be limited. In the same way seeing that the number of pigs in Ireland fluctuates and that the price fluctuates, the demand for Irish bacon on the English market must be limited to a small number. The Minister says that the price of Irish bacon is fixed in relation to Danish bacon. I do not know if he can stand by that. If the Minister traces the prices in the British market for the past two or three years, he will find that there are big fluctuations between the prices of the two articles. They do not follow on parallel lines. It is quite evident that there is a demand for a certain amount of Irish bacon on the British market, just as there is a demand for a certain amount of Danish bacon. The point is that we have a certain market in Great Britain for a certain amount of bacon, but we cannot go beyond that seeing that the demand is not there. If we do go beyond that the price comes down to a level at which it does not pay to produce bacon, and therefore we get out of pigs. Why should we not capture the home market in addition to the other market? We have been told that a tariff would increase the price to the poor consumer of low grade bacon. It is admitted that that bacon is of a low grade.

Mr. Hogan

Low priced.

Dr. Ryan

The Minister said that it was admitted by me and by others that the effect of a tariff on bacon would not get a better price for the Irish producer. What I said was this, that there were two choices open to the Irish producer if this prohibition on imports were carried, (1) that he could increase his production; that is, that he could supply the present part of the British market that he has and, in addition, supply the home market; or (2) I said that he could choose the most select part of the present market. If he chose the most select part of the British market, obviously what I meant by that was that he would choose the part where he would get a better price than he is getting at present. He has two choices, either to increase production at present prices or to remain at his present production and get a better price for what he produces. Deputy Gorey, I admit, made a better case for the bacon tariff than I made. He has more experience of that trade than a good many of us here have. He has also the experience that the home market is more stable, and in addition, the Deputy made the point that if the portion of my motion dealing with bacon were passed it would again induce people in this country to kill pigs for their own use. That is to say, people here would go in more for domestic killing, and that certainly would be a very good result if it could be achieved.

Deputy White spoke about oatmeal. I think from the figures given that the complaint the Deputy made on this is not as serious as he imagines. We find that in 1926, when the census of production was taken, we imported 219,000 cwts. of oatmeal and in addition to that we produced here another three-quarters of a million cwts., so that our total requirements of oatmeal at that time were about one million cwts. In 1929 the imports had gone down to 60,000 cwts., so that we have reduced our imports from 219,000 cwts. to 60,000.

Aird, William P.
Alton, Ernest Henry.
Beckett, James Walter.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Blythe, Ernest.
Bourke, Séamus A.
Brennan, Michael.
Brodrick, Seán.
Byrne, John Joseph.
Carey, Emund.
Cole, John James.
Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
Conlon, Martin.
Connolly, Michael P.
Cosgrave, William T.
Craig, Sir James.
Crowley, James.
Daly, John.
Davis, Michael.
De Loughrey, Peter.
Doherty, Eugene.
Dolan, James N.
Doyle, Peadar Seán.
Duggan, Edmund John.
Dwyer, James.
Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
Fitzgerald, Desmond.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Good, John.
Haslett, Alexander.
Hassett, John J.
Heffernan, Michael R.
Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
Hennigan, John.
Henry, Mark.
Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
Holohan, Richard.
Jordan, Michael.
Kelly, Patrick Michael.
Law, Hugh Alexander.
Leonard, Patrick.
Lynch, Finian.
Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
McDonogh, Martin.
MacEóin, Seán.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGilligan, Patrick.
Mongan, Joseph W.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Murphy, James E.
Murphy, Joseph Xavier.
Myles, James Sproule.
Nally, Martin Michael.
Nolan, John Thomas.
O'Connell, Richard.
O'Connor, Bartholomew.
O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
O'Hanlon, John F.
O'Higgins, Thomas.
O'Leary, Daniel.
O'Reilly, John J.
O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Reynolds, Patrick.
Rice, Vincent.
Shaw, Patrick W.
Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
Thrift, William Edward.
Tierney, Michael.
Vaughan, Daniel.
White, John.
White, Vincent Joseph.
Wolfe, George.
Wolfe, Jasper Travers.

Tellers:—Tá, Deputies G. Boland and Cassidy; Níil, Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle.

Motion declared lost.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 20 Nov 1930