They have the legislative powers of the Dáil to compel the factory, or anybody else, to do what the Dáil wants it to do. Deputy Davin has stated the case very moderately indeed, and has put it on the level of a trade dispute. Even if this were a trade dispute between private concerns, in which the State had no financial responsibility whatever, I think it is of such magnitude that some steps ought to have been taken by the Government to bring the dispute to a satisfactory conclusion. If the Minister for Agriculture or any other Minister takes up the attitude which was apparently reflected in a leading article in the "Irish Independent," that this matter was going to be settled by a process of haggling or fair or market bargaining, in which eventually the factory, if it were strong enough to sustain the struggle, and if it were to be a question of the survival of the fittest, would ultimately force the price of beet down to the price of other cereals, then all I say is that such negotiations are only a farce. To be of any value, negotiation must be such that both parties are having fair play. It was because I felt that the beet growers were not having fair play in these negotiations that I demanded that compulsory arbitration should be introduced by the Minister. I did not believe that compulsory arbitration was the best method unless it was going to definitely settle the question for the remainder of the subsidy period.
Deputy Davin has referred to the very important question of the small beet growers. We have been at a complete loss to understand what the attitude of mind of the Executive Council has been in the whole matter. First and foremost, as Deputy Davin pointed out, they made a three years' contract for the protection of the growers and a ten years' contract for the factory. The Minister for Agriculture will say that it was quite impossible to get a longer contract than three years for the protection of the growers. The fact that the contract was made for the first three years must have clearly indicated to the Ministry that after the three years' period the factory was going to take advantage of the new circumstances to force down the prices gradually. I think the Minister for Agriculture himself was not adverse to that.
The Minister will have an opportunity of explaining what his attitude actually was, and if I am incorrect in stating what his attitude was I hope he will point out the deficiency, but I think the attitude of the Minister was that the ultimate end in view was to make this a commercial proposition and that at the end of the subsidy period, if possible, we should get as near as we could to running this factory without subsidy or with the minimum possible subsidy. Therefore I take it as a hypothesis, at any rate, that the Minister for Agriculture, if beet growers were willing and if the circumstances generally seemed to favour that course, was not against a reduction in the price of beet. The Beet Growers' Association was not against a reduction in the price of beet, nor against a fair return to the factory, so long as it could be shown that any reduction made was necessary and reasonable, and that all sides were making their sacrifice. But, as I said before, it seemed that the beet growers were called upon to make all the sacrifice.
I say that the Minister for Agriculture, in assuming that this question could be settled by negotiations, and in allowing the beet growers with their small organisation to be put in the position of making a stand-up fight, so to speak, against the factory, was not doing the right thing by the beet growers. He may say he had no power, but he always had the Dáil to come to for any power he wanted. What was the alternative to the Minister seeking powers from the Dáil to deal with this situation? The alternative was to let the industry collapse during the present year and to prejudice it very seriously for the remainder of its existence, if not to close it down altogether. When we regard the present condition of agriculture and when we take into account the widespread depression is it not a serious thing indeed that £360,000 should be taken out of circulation in an area of an hour's run of the Carlow factory? It is a very serious thing indeed.
In Great Britain, where these syndicates and combines were able to protect themselves and were able to drive a very hard bargain as they have driven here, they were ultimately compelled to face the facts. When the Minister says that he could not interfere, that he had no power to interfere, I say that he could have come to the Dáil and told the House what steps he was taking. If the Dáil were satisfied that these steps were the best that could have been taken in the circumstances then it would be in a position to pass a favourable judgment on the Minister. If, on the other hand, the Dáil was satisfied that the Minister was not taking sufficient steps and was not asking for the powers that he should have asked for, the Dáil could have expressed an opinion on that. In the long run it would have been far better for the country if the whole question had been discussed early in the year in the Dáil as it was in the British Parliament.
So far back as the 12th February the British Prime Minister made a statement in the British Parliament, and announced the terms of settlement with the beet growers in that country. It was only on 2nd March, when the spring season was well on, that the factory proprietors here even designed to approach the beet growers on this question. It was quite obvious from the beginning that the factory owners were prepared to close down the factory and dislocate the industry, leaving the surrounding districts to suffer loss of all the money involved. It was quite obvious that they were prepared to do that if, at the end of this season, they found the beet growers in the position that their organisation had disappeared and that the small growers, many of whom no doubt would be growing beet in the interval, would increase in numbers and that the other growers, seeing that the Association was broken up, would be forced, since they have no other alternative in the present position of agriculture, to grow beet at whatever price the factory was pleased to pay.
The British interfered in the matter. It may be that there were particular circumstances over there. There was a change in the subsidy. At the present time the factories in England are only getting 6/6 per cwt. as subsidy. That price is to operate for the next three years, whereas formerly they were getting 13/-. There was a dispute about the price of beet. Therefore, the British interfered. The first thing they did was to examine the books of those factories. I am satisfied from the case that the beet growers have made, and from the failure of the factory to meet that case, that the growers have a good case. I would like to know whether the Minister for Agriculture has, in fact, gone into this very matter. If he saw that negotiations were fruitless and if he, as he later admitted when electioneering needs demanded it, saw that the right was on the side of the growers and the factory was in the wrong, and that the factory could pay a bigger price, why did he not take steps to place that information at the disposal of the Dáil?
There was the greatest possible difficulty in raising this question in the Dáil at all. It was suggested that because there were negotiations going on, or that they might take place, in some way it might prejudice the question if there was a discussion here. I take it that it is the duty of members of the House who are interested in this matter, when they were made aware of the losses that were accruing to their constituents, to press home the matter on every possible occasion. The British Ministry examined the question. They went into the books and satisfied themselves that the British factories were not making a great profit on the 38/-. On the other hand, they said that they were not going to compel the growers to accept a price that would be unremunerative until they had gone further into the question. They asked the factories what about the reserves they had, what about the profits they were building up, and what about the large sums they had set aside for depreciation. The British Ministry compelled the factories, at least the most important group, I think, the Anglo-Dutch group, to forgo all profits during the coming year. I think that probably the factories themselves had been accommodating in the matter. The British Ministry found it an easier task to deal with them than the Minister for Agriculture here would have; at least, that is his contention, in dealing with the Carlow factory. But if he found that it was necessary to take steps to do here what has been done in England, and that the factory proprietors in Carlow were not prepared to meet him, then I think he should have come to the Dáil for power to enable him to deal with the situation. Dr. Addison, speaking in the British Parliament on 16th March last, said: "My information is that the combine of the Anglo-Dutch Group of British factories are prepared to operate their factories for the manufacture of white sugar from homegrown beet, until January, 1931, not for the purpose of making profits or increasing their reserves, but in order to utilise the whole of the net proceeds of such manufacture for payment for beet." That has been carried a step further recently. A special additional grant of 1/3 per cwt. has been given. The additional grant is merely to cover the present exigency, and is to be repaid as soon as the price of sugar increases. It is also a condition in England that all the acreage offered to the factory should be taken up.
I submit that instead of pretending that this matter could have been settled by negotiation when in fact it could not have been, when the owners apparently were determined that they were not going to settle it, but rather were prepared to be at a loss for the present year if they could break up the Association and drive down the price to the growers to the lowest level for the remaining period, it was up to the Government to take some steps, such as the introduction of compulsory arbitration, or some other step to deal with the situation. I would like to know if the Minister is in favour of the position that has been put up in County Carlow. The small farmers in a large number of cases have been deprived of the benefits of the subsidy because they were only able to grow a very small acreage, but the amounts that they would have got even on a few acres would have meant a great deal to them, particularly at the present time. Is the Minister now prepared to subscribe to the doctrine that the growers who have made the factory a success up to the present, who have built up this Association, whatever its faults may have been, and who have proved themselves to be efficient, and who, as I think everyone will admit, have made such a very good case, should be wiped out of existence by the factory—simply to put them aside and to build up some form of new organisation where the basis of agreement will not be the price of labour and which, as Deputy Davin has brought out, will not affect the large numbers of labourers who are employed? You may have the small farmers, or even the cottagers, who place hardly any value on their own labour and do not take that into consideration in a commercial way, prepared to take a much smaller price. We have come to the parting of the ways. If I had thought that the Minister was in favour of that, that it was his idea that the big growers who having served their purpose, should be turned aside after the factory had been built up, if only the factory had been able to get the acreage from another type, and if he were satisfied that the country generally was going to benefit by a change in the type of growers, by giving people who hitherto have been excluded certain advantages over the remaining period, I would say that he had a case, but he has not a case. He has not stated whether he is in favour of that or whether he is open to the suggestion. There is at any rate the feeling in my mind that the Minister all along, seeing that a reduction in these prices was inevitable——