I move that the Bill do now pass.
Private Business. - Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill, 1932—Fifth Stage.
This Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill was to be the great hall-mark of the Minister for Agriculture as an agriculturist. We were told all through the summer that we were to wait and see, and that, no matter how desperate the conditions might be to which Irish agriculture had been reduced, as soon as the Minister for Agriculture had placed his great remedies before the country, all our difficulties would vanish away; that the most wonderful vista of prosperity would be opened up to the agriculturist; that he would have nothing to do except to walk forward very straight and easy and play his cards to win. Those were the promises which were held out when this Bill was still in the mind of the Minister for Agriculture. But when this Bill came before the House, and when we had an opportunity of seeing this great measure of relief for Irish agriculture, we discovered that it is a Bill which can be of only the most trivial benefit to the farmers in any part of the country, and it can be of no benefit but it will, as a matter of fact, act to the detriment of the majority of the farmers of this State.
As a result of this Bill we are going to have these fantastic regulations as to the mixture of portions of homegrown grain with Indian meal. That is to be one of the great cures for the distressed state of agriculture now— that one farmer is to sell his grain to another farmer and buy back the other farmer's grain in exchange, there being nothing but the miller's profits and the retailer's profit placed in between those two farmers. Farmer A wants yellow meal and he is compelled to buy yellow meal or Indian meal which contains certain proportions of the refuse corn from Farmer B's farm. If Farmer B wants to buy a certain amount of yellow meal, he has got to buy a mixture which will contain the refuse corn from Farmer A's farm. This extraordinary business by which one farmer is to sell his corn to another farmer is supposed to make both rich, instead of doing what it will do—tend to impoverish both. Though a man will have a certain amount of his own oats which he can use, he has to buy at a higher price some proportion of some other farmer's oats, barley or wheat, and this is to set Irish farming upon its legs! That is to enrich the Irish farmer!! And then we come on to this encouragement to the growing of wheat to such an extent that it is going to enrich every farmer in this State who decides upon growing wheat.
If there is one thing clear at the present moment it is this: that in no part of the world is wheat growing at the present moment profitable—that in no part of the world at the present moment can wheat growing be made pay. There is an enormous overproduction of wheat. There is a surplus of wheat all over the world. Growers of wheat are at a loss what to do with their wheat owing to their inability to find a market for it. It is just at this time that the Government here decides that the one crop which the world over is being sold at a loss to the producer is the crop upon which a very considerable sum of the money of this State is to be expended. I have here in my hands a circular sent out by one of the largest importers of wheat in this State. It is a circular sent out to the customers of that firm. It is dated 10th November, 1932, and it contains this very significant remark:—
"In a cable from Winnipeg yesterday the Times correspondent mentions the fact that sawdust is dearer than wheat.”
It is not surprising that sawdust should be dearer than wheat, because in the large wheat-growing areas of the world, since they cannot sell their wheat as a food for man or beast, they are compelled to utilise it as a fuel. Naturally, they find sawdust a better fuel than wheat, and at the present moment in Winnipeg, the centre of the great Canadian grain-bearing district, people are actually receiving more for sawdust than they are for wheat.
This is the time at which the Minister thinks it well that State money should be—I will not say lavished— expended for the purpose of inducing farmers to grow an unprofitable crop. I listened to the very hard-hearted speech in which the Minister introduced this Bill and I know that he is now satisfied that the Bill is going to have very little effect indeed. I believe he knows that failure is going to attend its operation. His estimate of the amount of tillage that will follow the expenditure of State money is, I think, in the neighbourhood of 60,000 acres. A great deal of that land, no doubt, is already under tillage. But 60,000 acres, out of the millions of acres of arable land in this State, represents little more than a flea-bite. Wheat-growing this year, even under the Minister's most sanguine estimates, will affect but an infinitesimal portion of the area of the State and will be of advantage only to a very small number of farmers. If you look at the area under wheat in Connaught you will observe that even if it were twice as large—and that is the estimate of the area to be put under wheat next year—it would still be insignificant. For the whole County of Mayo, so far as I can calculate, it will mean a subsidy of only £800.
We were told—I do not think we will be told now, because, after all, there is a limit to human audacity—that once this great measure was operating the Irish farmer would immediately see salvation at hand. It seems to be quite clear that, apart from small areas especially favoured by climate and special pockets of soil, this is not a country in which wheat can be grown with any reasonable prospect of being able to compete with the enormous wheat-growing areas of the world, which, for generations to come, can more than supply the world's wheat requirements.
I know it has been said that Ireland at one time produced a very considerable amount of wheat. No doubt that was the case, but it was wheat grown under circumstances absolutely different from the circumstances of to-day. At that time the plough was known only to a comparatively small extent in this country and almost all the work was done by spade labour. Wheat was undoubtedly grown, but its cultivation was already declining. That was a period when a man received only six-pence as wages for a whole day's work. Spade labour was practically for nothing and the land could be tilled in a fashion which would be absolutely impossible nowadays. In those days this country was competing with other countries in which mechanised production had not come into being; it was competing with other countries before the steamer had become a practical proposition and, in consequence, the dues for the importation of wheat into this country or Great Britain were very much heavier than they are now.
Except possibly on one or two farms in certain areas, I do not believe you will get anybody to agree that he can grow wheat profitably under the terms of this Bill. Nobody will agree, I think, that the country is going to be lifted by this measure out of the state of poverty in which other measures of the Government and the folly which the Government have shown since they came into office have plunged the entire farming community. They have practically killed, so far as it lay in their power to kill, the industry which must always be the principal industry of the country—the rearing of livestock of all classes. If agriculture is to be carried on in a common-sense fashion in this State that must surely be regarded as the principal industry. At the moment the Government have practically killed it and they have reduced all our farmers, especially the small farmer, to a state of poverty.
This Bill, instead of helping the small farmer, is going to hurt him. He can get no advantage from any subsidy which this Bill provides. He will have to buy the flour and the yellow meal which it is necessary for him to have. Flour nowadays is regarded as a necessary, but if we have the present Minister for Agriculture in office for another few years it may not be regarded as a necessary of life in this State; the ordinary small farmer may have to regard flour, as the Minister for Finance told him not so long ago, as an unnecessary luxury. The small farmer at the present time does think that he is entitled to a better diet than mere potatoes. He thinks he is entitled to have flour as a food for himself and his family. He thinks he is entitled to the full advantage of the fall in wheat prices and he believes that fall should be reflected in cheaper flour. This year, when the cattle trade, the pig trade, the egg trade, and all the other trades upon which the farmer has been living have broken down, is essentially a year in which every single thing which is a necessary to the farmer should be kept down in price. There should be a subsidy for the importation of flour just as there should be a subsidy for the importation of meal and artificial manures, instead of having a tax upon these things. The ordinary farmer is being hit by this measure and not helped. If you are helping anybody, you are helping just a favoured few in a favoured area.
When I turn to the Bill itself, I see failure written all over it. When I look at the details of the Bill, when I see the elaborate machinery that is to be set up, when I have regard to the cost of that machinery, and when I consider the number of new officials which will be necessary if the Bill is to be in any way workable, I say that money which might be spent profitably to the farmer is, so far as he is concerned, being flung away.
The Minister for Agriculture must admit that, in its present form, the Bill is unworkable. It would only be workable if the Minister would give us some definition of "millable wheat." If there is to be no definition of "millable wheat," if it is to be any stuff which can be put into a mill and ground, then God help the unfortunate persons who have to eat the flour. Every grain of wheat, no matter how defective it may be or how diseased it may be, whether it be a crop affected by smut or a crop that has grown a second time in the stooks, can be put into a mill unless there is a definition of "millable wheat," and unless the wheat must conform to a certain standard before the subsidy can be paid for it. The Minister tells us that it passes his wit and the wit of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and their joint wits to produce a definition of "millable wheat." But they will have one, they say, some time. They will have a regulation. If they are able to frame a regulation, why cannot they frame an Act of Parliament? If they are able to define "millable wheat" for the purpose of a regulation, why cannot they define "millable wheat" for the purpose of this Bill? Are their brains going to improve suddenly; are they going to be very much superior intellectually next April or May, or at this time next year? Are they going to be intellectually better so that the feat impossible to-day will be possible to them a year from now? Will they tell us the reason why they expect a problem that defeats them to-day to prove soluble in the immediate future? It is plain to the intelligence of every person that the reason why we have no definition of "millable wheat" is that any definition which the Minister would venture to put forward would shut out nine-tenths of the wheat crop of this State. The definition would have to be so lax and the quality of flour which the consumer would have to accept and be satisfied with would, in consequence, be so wretched that the Minister is afraid to put a definition in the Bill.
Last night we discussed this precious maize section, under which a certain amount of maize in stone bags, as it originally was, was to be allowed to be sold, at a necessarily enhanced price, to the poor, who are portion of this community and who have to take maize meal as portion of their diet. The Minister told us that by means of his amendment he would bring in regulations later. Why are all these regulations to come later? Is it not that the Minister finds it now beyond his capacity to frame a workable Bill and is endeavouring to postpone the evil day? He sees as clearly as everybody else that he cannot frame a workable Bill upon these lines and he is deliberately asking for time to have regulations brought in. If his mind were clear, if he had thought out this Bill, I presume he would be just in as fit a position at present to let us know his thoughts upon these subjects as he would be at any future time. But he shirks; he will not let us know. He is simply begging for time, so that the period of his being found out even by his own most rabid supporters will be somewhat postponed. This is a rank bad Bill all through. It is a Bill which is supposed to help the farming industry and it is a Bill which is not helping the farming industry. It is a Bill which, I hold, is a waste of public money and a detriment instead of a help to the farmer. In consequence, I shall ask the House to vote against it.
Since Fianna Fáil came into office one Bill after another has been brought before this House for a declared purpose. On examination, it has frequently been proven that the declared policy is subsidiary to a very different line of policy enshrined in the Bill. So far as this Bill is a Bill to prevent any individual getting monopolistic control of the milling industry here, it is a good Bill. Monopoly by an individual or by a Government is bad. But if there must be monopoly, I should rather have a monopoly controlled by an Irish Government than a monopoly controlled by an English, French or German syndicate. If the Bill stopped at providing safeguards against a monopoly of the milling industry in this country I should support it. But it does not.
This Bill embarks upon a much wider field of activity and it starts that journey without any steering gear, because the Minister was forced to confess in the early stages of this Bill that neither he nor his advisers could devise a definition of millable wheat. That admission immediately opens the scope of this Bill illimitably and denies to this Dáil any knowledge of the true amount of its liability under the provisions of this Bill. As far as we were able to find out in the course of the debate, the Minister, according to the circumstances prevailing in each year, can raise or lower the standard for millable wheat, and even as he raise or lowers it he will not be able to define any general rule for any particular year by which every sample of wheat is to be judged. Where that blank in the Bill is going to lead him I do not know, and I do not think he knows himself. That in itself I think condemns that part of the Bill.
What is the principle underlying the Government's policy of promoting the growth of wheat? I could understand a policy designed to increase tillage with a view to absorbing unemployed persons in rural areas at any cost, but I would expect any Minister for Agriculture to have as the sheet anchor of his policy the encouragement of farmers to use their land to the best advantage. I ask the Minister this question: If there are two varieties of wheat which may be sowed and one will produce 15 barrels to the acre and the other ten barrels, which would his Department recommend the farmers to sow? Surely the one that would yield 15 barrels. If that be true, if the Minister for Agriculture knows that the farmers can sow some crop other than wheat and dispose of that crop and with the proceeds of that sale buy all the wheat their land could produce and have a margin over, why does he subsidise them to grow wheat? Why does he encourage them to make a use of their land which is not the most productive use that they can make of it? Why does he encourage them to cultivate an uneconomic crop and a crop which he knows in this country is particularly vulnerable to weather? The only answer I have heard from the Minister so far to that question was that he desired to create a situation wherein the people of this country can survive war or the cutting off of foreign supplies of wheat. If the Minister seriously recommends a Bill of this magnitude to Dáil Eireann on the ground that there is hanging over this country the continuous peril of war, then I think he has chosen a weak ground on which to defend his Bill. But I cannot imagine any other answer than that weak and futile answer to the dilemma I put to him. I would be interested to hear from the Minister, before he seeks final approval for this Bill, what his answer is to the question: Why his Government encourages the people to sow a crop which he knows himself will not give the best return that they might get for their industry?
Now we come to the last objection to this Bill and, to my mind, the gravest. It is the duty of every State, I should think, to look after the interests of every section of the people they are called upon to govern, but their first solicitude should be for the weakest section, and the weakest section of the community is the poorest section. This Bill, by its provisions in Part VI and the other parts governing the milling of maize, by the Minister's own admission is calculated to increase the cost of the staple feeding stuffs of the pig-rearing industry and of the egg-production industry. I do not have to tell the Minister, or any member of this House, that these two industries are the mainstay of the people in the congested areas. Since the first day that the land war was started in Ireland it has been the purpose of Irish leaders to do everything they could to ameliorate the conditions of the people living in the congested areas, and, under the British Government, the special difficulties they had to contend with daily were recognised by the institution of the C.D.B. There was a removal of red tape, there was a freedom of action given to the C.D.B., because the Government were compelled to admit by those who represented the Irish people at that time, that the circumstances under which the people in the congested areas lived called for very special treatment and nothing was allowed to stand in the way of making their lot easier in so far as the Government could do it. I need not remind the Minister of the way in which the C.D.B. was financed. If he would cast his mind back to it he will see that it typifies the whole attitude of the then British Government towards that problem.
Now the first big act of policy on his part as an Irish Minister for Agriculture is to tell these people plainly that he is going to increase the cost of the sheet anchor of their principal industries of pig-rearing and egg-production. I do not know how he could have avoided doing it if he was resolved to proceed upon the lines outlined in this Bill, but I think that that consideration alone should have convinced him that these parts of the Bill which were calculated to do that should have been abandoned.
There is a wider consideration, and a weightier consideration even than that. Deputy McMenamin and myself, and I have no doubt the members of his own Party—Deputy Brady and Deputy Blaney—have informed the Minister that maize meal is an essential foodstuff not only of the congested areas as a whole, but of the poorest people in the congested areas. I want to place on record now my appreciation of the readiness with which the Minister attempted to meet that matter, but I think the mere fact that he was obliged to admit that that aspect of the situation had escaped his notice entitles me to believe that he did not examine that aspect of this case exhaustively before committing himself to this policy. I think the Minister has gone a long way towards meeting the food aspect of this problem, and I do not despair that he will come the rest of the way by making regulations for the congested area rather earlier than he proposed to make them. I cannot believe that if the Executive Council had thoroughly appreciated the great difficulties they are putting in the way of the everyday life of the poorest people in this country in making their living by pig rearing and egg production, or if they had realised the burden that their proposals were going to lay on those people who use Indian meal as a foodstuff, they would have sanctioned the introduction of this Bill in its present form. I am satisfied that in so far as this Bill promotes the sowing of wheat in this country it will be a failure. As I said before, I recognise that the Minister has certain loyalties, and I respect him for them. I can very well remember when one of the main planks of Sinn Féin was that we should make this country self dependent and starve John Bull. I think I can even remember when Deputy Finian Lynch was in charge of the business of starving John Bull by slaughtering pigs on Aston Quay.
That is a mistake.
Well, I have no doubt he was an equally trusted member of the Party——
He is in America now.
——of which the Minister for Agriculture and Deputy McGilligan were such adornments. I respect the Minister for that tradition, but I do think that when the responsibilities of office fell upon him he should have considered his loyalties with that same dispassionate calm with which some other things are considered. I heard recently another stalwart of his Party referring to the extraordinary difficulties of dealing with the transport problem in this country. He said that in Opposition the solution of the difficulties that lay in the way of the Government in the matter of transport seemed easy, but that from the Government Benches they assumed a most extraordinary complexity. All honour to him for that admission. He went on to say that when his Party perceived the complexity of the problem they made up their minds it was not a problem into which they should rush without very careful consideration, and that they were giving that very careful consideration to the problem now. I am afraid that in the matters referred to in this Bill those prudent counsels did not prevail, and loyalty to an old and out-of-date belief prompted the Minister to draft the later parts of this Bill, prompted the Fianna Fáil Party to support the later parts of this Bill, and will encourage the Fianna Fáil Government to make it the law of this land. If they do, it will not be the first misfortune that Sinn Féin brought to Ireland, and I am afraid it will not be the last.
The self-supporting, independent policy of Sinn Féin was a tragedy according to Deputy Dillon, and apparently the benevolence of John Bull in catering for the congested districts was a blessing, according to him. I do not know if we can accept that to be the fact in view of our experience in later years, and even in the years when this wonderful, benevolent John Bull catered so very well for the congested districts of this country, according to Deputy Dillon. He accused the Minister of loyalty to an old policy which he holds is out of date. I am afraid that Deputy Dillon is an upholder of an older policy, which is much more out of date, and even out of custom, than the one he accuses the Minister of upholding now and enshrining in this Bill.
If Deputy Dillon were not so overcome by loyalty to an old and out-of-date policy he would be able to advance with the times—he would be able to see something good in the measures which are brought forward here to make this country self-supporting and independent of John Bull, and he would not criticise them from the old and ancient standpoint which we used to be accustomed to years ago from another Party in the very early days of Sinn Féin. The only real reason, as far as I can see, why this measure is being opposed by people on the opposite benches is that we cannot, they hold, compete with outside countries in producing wheat. Because Canada can produce wheat at a very low figure, this country should not make an attempt to produce wheat. Can Deputy Dillon or Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, who criticised this measure, tell us of anything we can produce here that cannot be produced in an outside country at a cheaper rate? Can they point to any industry that has been established here by the aid of subsidies from Cumann na nGaedheal, or the aid of subsidies from this Government, that can be carried on here cheaper and more economically than it can be carried on by any outside country?
Does the Deputy want an answer?
I do not know of anything, except perhaps politicians of the type of Deputy Dillon or the type of Deputy McGilligan.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that cement could be sold here at a lower rate. The Deputy asked a question, and he is not ready to listen to the answer.
The Deputy is entitled to make his speech without interruption, but may, if he so desires, give way. Two Deputies should not be on their feet at the same time.
Deputy McGilligan is not so well bred as Deputy Cosgrave. He does not understand such matters. By a little more association with Deputy Cosgrave he may be able to imbue some of that good breeding, and be able to conduct himself in this House a little better. We are told that wheat should not be grown here because it can be produced cheaper in Canada. Let that suggestion be carried to its logical conclusion and we ought to give up all our industries and buy in the cheapest market outside. There is no other logical conclusion which can be reached from the arguments of the Opposition.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's remedy would be not only to buy wheat in the cheapest market, but this year he would subsidise the importation of flour; he would subsidise the importation of maize meal; he would subsidise the importation of every type of feeding stuff that is to be used by people in the West of Ireland for the feeding of pigs and fowl. That is Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's alternative to this Bill. I wonder would he go to the County Mayo and preach that doctrine. If he would, where are the subsidies to come from which would go to aid the farmers in producing live stock? Where would you find subsidies for the importation of flour and the importation of feeding stuffs? I think Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney would have to increase the taxation to find those subsidies which would go to help our farmers. I know that the British may have done very well in their days of benevolence, if we are to believe Deputy Dillon, in looking after the Gaeltacht and in having the Congested Districts Board, but I know people in the West of Ireland who are more anxious to avail of this Bill than they were of any of the British Acts which were introduced in the West of Ireland. The Opposition are not aware evidently that in the County of Mayo agricultural instructors cannot supply the amount of seed which is at present being demanded of them by the small farmer in preparing for the growing of wheat. They have not half the amount of seed available which is being asked for by the farmers of Mayo for the growing of wheat this year, and I suggest the small farmers of Mayo know their business just as well as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, who is not a small farmer or a tillage farmer in any capacity. I think that fact alone should be a lesson to those who oppose this measure. The farmers are convinced there is something good in the measure, and I think the Minister is to be congratulated in letting this measure pass through the House.
We heard talk of a monopoly being made by the flour millers. There was a monopoly created during the Cumann na nGaedheal Government of flour millers. That was quite acceptable. That was quite all right to Deputy Dillon and the others. Or was it simply because those flour millers could be circularised by Deputy McGilligan for Cumann na nGaedheal funds? Is it because all that is to be changed and that flour millers can no longer be circularised by Cumann na nGaedheal for election funds that all the opposition is to this measure? I suspect it has a lot to do with it. If that is the real reason I am convinced more than ever that this is a good Bill and will be accepted as such by the farmers throughout the country.
It is a pity we cannot discuss wheat without having a Deputy of the type of Deputy Cleary thrown in as part of the landsturm to try and turn the tide, and when the trap drops on Fianna Fáil he has to fall back on the economic policy of the Government. Deputy Cleary made a statement once about the Civil Service. When I asked his leader about that, the Deputy got the most scornful repudiation that any decent man ever had to submit to, and I hope I am not misquoting him in using those two words. On another occasion the Deputy made a particular statement in this House and was challenged to produce evidence to support it and in the end the House accepted that the Deputy was behaving as usual, and that he had deserved the imputation which his own President put upon him with regard to the accuracy and with regard to the objective truths of statements he has been guilty of from time to time in this House.
We are told by the Deputy, and I put it on a par with most of his other statements, that the small farmers in the county he represents are so keen about wheat growing that the instructors cannot supply sufficient seed. Is the Minister for Agriculture going to increase his estimate for the amount of subsidy required in the coming year, or did he know previously about this terrible rush to the instructors to get seed wheat for Mayo? We will judge the Deputy again on the increased acreage under wheat, but we will only judge him when we see the increased acreage, because his statements so far have not attracted from the House the merit of being believed. So, too, we get this running down to a phrase that if we are going to have as our test for everything in this country the price charged to the consumer for the produced article, then we ought to try our hands at everything. His own Minister had the brazenness here, about three weeks ago, to tell us that under the particular measure he had for cement we could get cement produced here under the cost at which the cement was being imported.
I agree with Deputy Cleary when he says he does not put much credit in that statement. Of course we have produced many things here cheaper than they could be brought in from outside. That is how the whole economic system of the country is being built up, on the basis that people went in for the type of production that paid them best, and there is no other way in which the economic system is going to be built up in any country except on that particular basis.
Deputy Dillon has spoken of the machinery of the Bill, and stated that a more cumbrous measure has never been before the Oireachtas. When we had it discussed the only refuge of the two Ministers in charge was to refer back to the Agricultural Produce Eggs Act. I was interested to look back over the course of that Bill when it went through the previous Parliament, and the first thing that marked a difference between it and this Bill was this, that the Minister for Agriculture in introducing it had stated that he had it considered with the six or eight organisations which represented the trade in the country. They were not merely in agreement with its terms—they wanted him to go further. The measure was brought into this House and it was accepted by the then Opposition and the only difficulty the Minister for Agriculture had in the House with regard to that Bill was to prevent more restrictive clauses being put into it—clauses which would not restrict the Minister—they would have given him greater powers—but would have restricted the producers.
The only amendment which was brought forward with regard to giving publicity to matters in this House was the one brought forward by the then Deputy Baxter and accepted, and at every stage it was expressed and reiterated that the measure was brought forward after consultation with, and with the consent of, the people who were most concerned. What about this measure? We have been told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce on many occasions that the flour millers are against it. In fact he fears a conspiracy on their part to defeat the objects of the Bill. We have been told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the maize millers are against it and he also fears a conspiracy on their part to defeat the object of it, and so he has produced certain drastic clauses in order to give him power to coerce them to do his bidding.
The two groups mainly concerned and who are affected by this Bill are not in agreement as were the groups affected in the other case. They are in open hostility to this measure. Deputy Dillon referred to the pivotal point of this measure as far as one part of it is concerned. We have three big things attempted in this Bill; one is the imposition of tariff duties upon flour and the attempt to get flour manufactured in this country. Another is the attempt to get wheat grown in this country and have it milled in this country. The third thing attempted is the maize meal mixture part of the Bill and all that that part of the Bill attempts.
But the pivot of the whole measure is in regard to the growing of wheat. The incentive that was supposed to be given under this Bill was the greater acreage under wheat in this country. On that the whole thing pivots and on the success of that part of this Bill pivots the whole economy of Fianna Fáil. Yet, as Deputy Dillon pointed out on Clause 6 of this measure, the Minister was compelled to admit that he despaired of getting a definition of millable wheat. He said later that he was not so despairing now, and so the weakness of the case in bringing in the measure turned entirely as to whether there should be a standard prescribed as to wheat—as to whether the wheat should be standardised as millable wheat. But having come to the conclusion that a definition was unattainable that left him in a peculiar position. Now we get a statement from him that he believes it will be possible for him to get a definition.
I believe with Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney that it is ludicrous to say that it is not possible to enshrine in some form of words a formula or definition as to what millable wheat is. But the real explanation of that is the explanation given by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. If the Minister establishes a definition which is really a wheat definition, the definition of wheat which is fitted to be milled, he knows very well that there is not going to be 16 cwts. of wheat to the acre grown in this country able to pass that test, and he has got to increase it by subsidising what he calls wheat. He has got to attempt to increase tillage, and the only way he can do it is by having a definition so fantastic that he may be able to get 16 cwts. to the acre out of 18 cwts., which is the normal local production in the country, passed as millable wheat. And in that connection Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney referred to the matter of the price, and this is the point or one of the points which affects the community mainly, and it has got to be attended to.
How is the price going to be regulated under this Bill? As far as the community is concerned we know the community has got to pay the difference between 25/-, that is, the standard price, and whatever is the average ascertained price in any year; and if that average price is very low the cost to the community is going to be very great. Further, if that average price is very low as representing a very low type of wheat sold, the average cost to the community is going to be very great. Further, if that average price is very low as representing a very low type of wheat sold, the average cost to the community, from the angle of the bread they buy, is again to be increased. Surely then it is clear that why there is going to be no definition of millable wheat is because the amount that would pass the standard, if a proper millable standard was fixed, would be so small that the hope of getting an increased half a million acres under wheat in this country would be blown up immediately.
Supposing we are not going to have a standard prescribed—and we will come to that point very soon—it will pay the miller to take whatever wheat is offered to him or, rather, whatever is offered to him as wheat, no matter what rubbish it may be; pay a very small price and convert what is offered to him into flour, not flour that is going to be eaten by humans but into feeding stuffs for animals. That will be used in some mixture as animal food. If the price can be beaten down to a half of what it is now because of no standard being prescribed, the miller will find it possible to take anything offered and the grower is not to lose, because for the rubbish he will get the difference between the price paid him and the 25/- that is guaranteed.
The Minister's answer to that is that it is the farmer's look-out to get the best price that he can. But then he runs into another difficulty, that the farmer, in fact, has the miller by the throat, because the miller is to be in the position that he must take a certain quota and mill that certain quota of millable wheat, because in certain areas the farmer or group of farmers can offer him whatever they have got and offer it to him at whatever price they ask. That, of course, will resolve itself in one or two ways. Surely the easier way to resolve that difficulty is not to hold out against the price demanded by the wheat grower. The miller on the whole is the better able to stand the strain. And there comes a point when if the farmer cannot get a good price it pays him better to get a low price, because he will then be able to sell a very big amount to the miller. Again, the farmer will not lose, because the miller will get something which he is not bound to put into bread and he can make use of it in some other way. The grower must get as a bounty the difference between what is paid and what is laid down as the standard price from year to year.
The object of this as far as the wheat sections are concerned is to increase wheat production in this country. We are told that is a desirable thing. When we look for arguments as to why it is a desirable thing we are generally told to look at what the acreage was under wheat in 1847 and we are to forget all the circumstances of that ominous year. What is the use of quoting to us what was grown in this country under entirely different circumstances in 1847? I may as well point to the fact—and it has been pointed to as an argument in another case— that at one time we used to produce an enormous number of ordinary farmers' carts and governess traps. But if anybody was to start a factory and hope at this moment to produce and sell the same number of governess traps and farmers' carts as were sold, say, 50 years ago, he would find it would be a very unwise speculation. Would anybody go now into the business of producing stage coaches in this country because of the fact that we had stage coaches some years ago?
Why go back to 1847, a time when the wheat lands of the world were not as extensive as they are now, when there was not the competition that there is now, and when the people of the country could not have got the importation from outside at the cheap price that they are getting it now? There are people here who think, by merely quoting and pointing to a date when we had a particularly big acreage under wheat, nearly 100 years ago, that that is an argument why we should now go back to that type of production. The Minister sought to give an economic reason for this. On the 10th November the Minister said:
"There are certain things we would all feel the loss of very much if we were prohibited from importing them. But if we could reduce certain of our imports by producing these cereals in our own country we would then be in a position to lessen our exports and allow our own people some of the meat, milk and butter that we are exporting. We could, on the other hand, enlarge our imports in other directions and import some luxuries that we cannot afford to import at present."
That is the nearest we got to an economic argument upon this point. The Minister said "Let us cut down on certain imports and produce at home. Then, if we did produce at home we would not have to export so much." So far, without reservation, that might be taken as correct; but then there is a sudden jump:
"We would then be in a position to ... allow our own people some of the meat, milk and butter that we are exporting."
Would the Minister like to develop that economic thesis at length? Will the Minister take this as a plain statement against his argument, that if you proceed to produce dearly in the country what previously you have been importing cheaply, the purchasing power of the community is to that extent lessened?
If a man has £100 to spend, and part of it has to go for breadstuffs and he can get enough breadstuffs in a particular period of the year for £5; and if, through production having to be done at home, he has to pay £15 for his breadstuffs, then he has £10 the less to spend on everything else than he previously had. So far from being able to enjoy some of the things that used to be exported, and even if the country were hopelessly full of previously exportable matter, he is not going to gain in the end, because his purchasing power has been considerably reduced. That is the thesis on which all this turns—produce at home, no matter at what cost, and you have immediately gained an advantage. The argument is that if you can produce at home what you were previously importing and sell it at the same cost you have an advantage, and if you can produce at home what you were importing with only a slight difference in the cost, you are probably gaining, but the probability has to be examined in the light of the wealth produced at home and the new employment given. But if you are going to produce dearly at home in order to make up for previous cheap importations, you are losing, and the whole community, in the matter of breadstuffs, is going to lose because the purchasing power of everyone will be affected; there will be less to go round for other things, necessaries or luxuries.
At any rate, we are going in for the production of wheat. We are going to grow, under conditions that are recognised as unsuitable for wheat production, some increased amount of wheat. I am glad that the hopes are so restricted in the first year, even though it does mean the postponement of the entry into the new Paradise for a longer period. We are only working up from about 22,000 acres to something less than 70,000 acres, despite the rush for all the seed for the wheat. The whole thing is going to cost the community, by way of subsidy, £200,000. When that wheat is dried and transported, and when it is eventually milled and turned into bread, there is going to be some cost on the community in addition to the £200,000. The Minister expects £200,000 to be paid for getting an extra 40,000 acres under wheat. We will pay in the price of bread, we will pay in the quality of bread.
I heard this Bill described as being the nearest thing to the Scriptural phrase: "Casting your bread upon the waters." We are going to have given to us for the future wheat with an enormous moisture content and we are not even going to have the Minister determining what is millable wheat. We may have any rubbish. We may even find that the subsidy per acre on tobacco will work out to the good of the flour millers or to the bad of the flour millers, as the case may be. We are going to have this dear production at home in lieu of the previous very cheap importation. We are doing it at a time when this grain was never cheaper. In the body of the report presented to the House last night as a result of the Ottawa Conference the difficulties of the cereal countries were set out at length, but all turned upon this, that so far as Canada was concerned the type of production which used to bring them in about one-and-a half dollars had now got to the point where for the same quantity there was being given to the producer something slightly more than 50 cents.
We are going in for this type of a cereal two years after the condition of Austria had become so precarious that the brains and the finance of the League of Nations had to be diverted to the disposal of Austria to get her out of wheat and into the production in which we now are, the production that is so much despised by the Government Party. With the whole tendency of the world running against this type of production we are going into it under Government pressure, with a host of officials and under circumstances in which even the Minister has declared that he does not know if it would be possible to determine what millable wheat is. This matter was previously the subject of discussion and examination by a Committee. That Committee was not, as many other Committees that have examined into the matter have been described—it could not be described—as an expert body. They had before them many experts who gave us the advantage of their particular point of view and their experience in the country.
The result of that was that nobody could be found, except members of the Fianna Fáil Party, to write down their names to the statement that, eventually, we could get produced in this country the wheat we require for our breadstuffs. We got a report to that effect signed by them, and we got an addition by two Labour members who sat upon that Commission that they thought that something less ambitious might be achieved in time. But they carefully refrained from saying at what cost. The majority flatly turned down the whole scheme. In face of that, we are going into it in this haphazard way. We are told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in his usual contradictory fashion, that those who oppose this Bill are making the last rally to be made by "the advocates of the grass ranches and the bullocks in defence of the policy that has prevailed here for almost a century." The speeches here, he said, "marked the swan song of that policy; the introduction of this Bill marks the end of it." Having expatiated on the evils of cattle production in this country, he went on to say:
"Deputies spoke of it as an alternative to the raising of live stock and the production of live stock products. It is nothing of the kind. There is nothing inconsistent with a tillage policy and nothing inconsistent with a wheat policy and the operation of raising live stock and the production of live stock products. In fact, it is possible to get a greater development of live stock production and the production of live stock products if we have tillage as a basis of our agricultural economy than otherwise."
When you speak against this Bill, you are speaking in defence of the ranches and the bullocks, but the argument for the Bill is not that it is going to do away with either the bullocks or the ranches but that it is going to lead to more bullocks as well as to more wheat. That shows the confusion behind this section of the Bill.
The second part of this Bill deals with flour. Deputy Dillon has expressed the opinion that if this Bill aimed only at the prevention of a monopoly in the flour milling business in this country, he would vote for it and that he would be particularly pleased to vote for it if it prevented monopoly control of home flour milling by an outside group. If that case had been made at any time, it could have been answered. There is no attempt to make the case here that there was a monopoly of Irish flour milling by an outside group. What we do know is that the Flour Millers Association is in definite hostility to this measure and that that Association is composed, in the main, of Irish millers and not of foreigners. No statistics have been produced to show, say, that the imports of wheat are going down and that the imports of flour are on the increase. There is nothing over the last five years—you have got to take some period like that to allow for changes produced in a small number of months by big purchases made at sea— to show that flour importations were on the increase and that wheat importations were decreasing. There is nothing to show that the flour milling industry in this country was on the decline. Nothing whatever can be shown to prove the contention, so often advanced, that the flour milling industry was passing into the control of foreigners. One business transaction alone took place—an ordinary business transaction. There was no danger of a monopoly and there was certainly no danger of a monopoly under foreign control. If there was such danger, the minute it was shown, it was possible to meet it. Because it was recognised as being easily possible to meet, no attempt was made to enforce such a monopoly. We have the importation of flour now under licences. We have everything regulated and controlled by the Ministry so as to get flour manufactured here. In that matter, too, we are lucky; we had that considered by a Commission. That Commission, in a lengthy document, reported in a brief way in so far as the main contentions of the millers were concerned when applying for a tariff on flour. The Commission pointed out in that Report on the application for a tariff on flour that the applicants do not claim that even with the reduction—a reduction was likely to take place because the applicants would be operating to greater capacity than before—their costs would be as low as the present costs of the British mills with which they have to compete. In a later page—page 41—of this Report they say:
"The applicants admit that they themselves will take advantage of their monopoly of the protected market to raise the price of their own flour to a point higher than the price now prevailing but lower than that of flour imported subject to a duty of the amount which they have proposed."
The Commission further said:—
"The main difficulty which has confronted us in dealing with this application and has prevented us from recommending in its favour is the smallness in the increase in the number of persons likely to be employed in consequence of a tariff, together with our disbelief that the additional output secured by a tariff to the Saorstát millers would enable them to reduce their costs of production sufficiently to prevent a rise in the price of bread."
They reported against the application for a tariff which was small in comparison with what is now on. They reported against it because there was no great extra employment going to be given and because the applicants admitted that they were going to raise their prices, and that that increase of price was going to be reflected in the price of bread. There is a calculation which can be easily made. On the tariff there requested, and without any additional, cost being imposed on the millers through the necessity of having to mill home grown wheat, the extra cost would be £350,000 a year. We have already £200,000 for a subsidy on wheat and some unascertained amount representing the increase which will take place in the price of bread because of the difficulty of manufacturing Irish grown wheat into flour. We have the calculation that getting flour manufactured at home, even if it were from imported wheat, would cost about £350,000 more. We get very little increased employment, and if it is necessary to prevent a monopoly growing up in the country the answer is that we should wait until that shows itself. It is only imagination which suggests that it has shown itself already. The forces which have prevented any attempt at a monopoly are still operating, and will continue to operate to prevent any monopolistic growth in regard to flour milling in this country.
Finally, we have the portion of the Bill which deals with the maize mixture. In that, also, we are fortunate inasmuch as a Committee has inquired into and reported on it. In that also we have the advantage of knowing that the people mainly concerned are definitely and clearly hostile to this measure, and that they base their hostility—they agree almost entirely—on the reasons set out in the report that was published when this proposal first came forward. They have their own calculation as to the costs that are going to be entailed on the consumers of these mixtures afterwards. They believe that there is going to be very little advantage to the producer and grower, and there is going to be a heavy cost upon those who mainly use these things. It must be remembered that the people who mainly use these mixtures are producers of other things, and these mixtures have to be regarded as the raw materials of a business on which the country used to live and from which it derived considerable profit.
The report is there to be read, but a summary of it was recently given by the Secretary of the Cork Farmers' Union, who wrote upon this proposal when it first emerged in this Bill. He makes the calculation, founding himself on the facts produced before the Committee, that the very minimum cost of the admixture proposals is going to be £446,000 in a year. He calculates, and it is a calculation borne out by the figures given in the report, that if the cost of administration, transport, etc., be added, the proposals would entail a total of about £600,000 in increased costs to farmers and breeders. So we have £600,000 from the maize mixture proposals, £350,000 from the manufacture of flour, leaving out the fact of home-grown wheat altogether. The Minister's calculation is that, upon the small increase of wheat production which he looks forward to of from 20,000 to 60,000 acres, there is going to be a subsidy paid of £200,000. If his hopes are fulfilled, and his desire to see this country getting into a half million acres of wheat production, that subsidy will be enormously increased. Remember that the 40,000 is not even extra acreage. It may be a substitution by people who are doing other things at present. But to get wheat substituted for something else is going to cost, as far as the subsidy alone is concerned, £200,000; flour manufacture in the country, £350,000; and the maize meal mixture, according to the calculation of those who have written upon it and whose arguments lie there for refutation, if they can be refuted, an extra cost of £600,000. For the £200,000 part of it, we are to get whatever increase of employment will be given by the 40,000 acres newly put into wheat. For the milling proposals we get something inconsiderable. For the maize mixture it is difficult to say if there is anything. In fact, I think the general defence is that there will be nothing in the way of increased employment, but it is going to prevent certain people going out of a particular type of production. We are told in this report in a series of paragraphs that the drive for the adoption of these admixture proposals came from the barley-growing districts; that they had their origin in the difficulty of selling the surplus production of that grain, consequent upon the decline in the demand for barley on the part of the brewing and distilling industries. Then this paragraph follows:—
Despite the fact that the oat has been always by far the largest cereal crop grown in this country... yet oat growers as such, constituting as they do the vast majority of the grain growers of the country, have made no serious demand for the adoption of the admixture proposals as a means of providing them with a market for their produce.
They report that it is impracticable to suggest any scheme for the administration of a law based on those admixture proposals and they wind up with the point that has been so clearly stressed by Deputy McMenamin and by Deputy Dillon.
The adoption of the proposals would impose serious hardship on considerable numbers of people in certain parts of the country—small farmers, cottiers, labourers and others—of whose daily diet, maize meal, a wholesome and relatively cheap food, forms an important part.
Then they go on to the question of cost. In other respects, they say:
"The admixture proposals do not possess the advantages claimed for them by their advocates—we are satisfied that a mixed meal composed of 85 per cent. of maize and 15 per cent. of home-grown grain could not be produced at the cost of maize meal."
Then follows a calculation as to price.
Here is the new economy. We are going out of a type of production that has brought profit to this country. We are going out of a type of production that the most distressed country in Central Europe was asked to go into and we are going into the type of production that that most distressed country was helped out of. We are going into wheat at a time when wheat was never cheaper. We do not know what it is going to give in the way of increased employment. There has been no suggestion that it will mean anything, but we know the Minister's calculation is that £200,000 is to be paid by the people of the country in the way of subsidy on this matter alone. We are going to make our own flour at a cost of £350,000 extra in the price of bread and we are going to have these admixture proposals, as to which the Tribunal, the maize millers, and at least one farmers' union, vocal on the subject, have estimated that the cost is going to be not less than £600,000 in a year. All that is being done because the Minister thinks this is a sound economic argument: that if we could reduce certain of our imports by producing cereals in our own country, we would then be in a position to lessen our exports and allow our own people some of the meat, butter and milk that we are exporting.
For these things, and without any appreciable impact upon employment, we are to pay the total of £200,000, £350,000 and £600,000. It means that the purchasing power of the community has been lowered by about one million in the year, and that sort of economic advantage is not going to allow this country to be wealthier or happier. But that is the only approach to an economic argument that they give, and it is entirely vitiated by the fact that the Minister did not take this into the calculation: Are you going to substitute a production at home which is either as cheap or cheaper than you used to import? If you are not going to do that, and you cannot claim you are going to do that, there must be some other argument used. If we are going to produce more dearly at home what we used to import cheaply, what are the advantages to offset the loss of purchasing power? Is it employment? Is it wealth of production? Is it something that will show afterwards that whatever we do produce will be produced better—a finished article that will be some way better? These arguments may be used, but they have not been used. No case has been made on them and the cost to the community at home would damn these proposals.
In addition to that there is the fact that they will probably prove unworkable. The Minister said that for the wheat part he would only require two experts at about £1,500 for the two. He has estimated, I think, the cost departmentally for the whole measure is not going to be more than a couple of thousand pounds this year and probably three thousand in a full year. We would like to have that further investigated. It possibly may not cost more than two thousand or three thousand pounds, but, if it does, it will be because these things will be regarded as unworkable. They will be derided through the country and nobody will take advantage of them. But that is not the only hope we have. The Minister could assist that hope by getting a definition of "millable wheat," and by getting one that would stand the test—one that would indicate wheat and not rubbish—but he says he despairs of getting that. Again, I agree with Deputy Fitzgerald - Kenney that it is not a despair of getting a formula to enshrine a thought. If there is a thought about what millable wheat is it can be defined in many terms; it can be defined in the general type of definition that is in the British Bill, or in terms of constituents, certain strength or uniformity. Unless there is a definition there is going to be no reason why the miller should not buy anything that is given to him and mill that, not, happily, for human consumption but for other purposes, and there is no reason why the grower should refuse to take a small price because the community will pay in the long run, and there will be an increased cost to the community in other respects. That is, however, the only hope we can hold out—that the Minister will persist in this idea, that he will be ashamed to give a definition which would pass 16 cwts. per acre of Irish wheat as millable, and that in the end the Bill will break down by reason of the many absurdities it contains.
Before I call Deputy Bennett, I should like to say that it has been intimated to the Chair that an agreement has been reached among all Parties regarding the adjournment—that the business should be concluded at 7.30 and the motion for the adjournment taken then, the debate to conclude not later than 10.30. An agreement has been reached amongst all Parties on the lines I have indicated to the House.
The principal argument against this Bill, is, I think, the silence of the Deputies on the Government Benches other than the Front Bench. I do not think there is a single Deputy on the Government Back Benches who has got up to make a serious defence of the Bill. One or two Deputies did speak, but they alluded to the Bill at no great length. We had an example of that to-day in the speech of Deputy Cleary. He spoke for some time, but as far as I know he made no reference whatsoever to the Bill. He did make his usual reference to the actions of Deputies and ex-Ministers on this side, and of course Deputy Cleary could not allow his speech to conclude without his usual reference to the actions of Deputies and ex-Ministers on this side, and of course Deputy Cleary could not allow his speech to conclude without making what I might call a very ignoble reference to Cumann na nGaedheal. He said—these may not be his exact words—that Deputy McGilligan was possibly not interested in the millers except for what he could drag out of them in contributions to the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. I say that is a statement that no Deputy with any consideration for veracity ought to make in this House, but it is only what we should expect from our experience of speeches made by Deputy Cleary. Beyond that, and one or two other little generalities, he did not make any reference whatsoever to any sections of this Bill. Evidently he was unable to defend the Minister in regard to any sections of it. I think it was Deputy Dillon who said that the Bill itself was an attempt to put into effect the Minister's loyalty to an old faith. Perhaps that pretty well expresses it. We know that the Minister has for years been imbued with the desire to compel farmers to grow wheat, and he is not alone in that. The Minister for Industry and Commerce and other Ministers were imbued with the same desire. It used to be compulsory.
It never was.
Well that was what we got into our minds as regards the policy of Fianna Fáil.
We cannot help your minds. For goodness sake do not blame us for your minds.
What about Deputy Frank Aiken of Castlepollard?
On the annuities question there were insinuations made that farmers would be compelled to grow wheat. Anyway, the Minister has forsaken that idea, if he ever held it.
I object to this. First of all, Deputy Bennett comes in here and speaks about an absent Deputy. Now, although I have denied his statement, he persists in it.
No, I accept the Minister's word, and I will accept his word on behalf of his Party if he wishes. Anyhow the Minister if he ever held the view, and I accept his word that he did not, has now adopted persuasion in lieu of compulsion. Persuasion in this case is to be a bait to the farmer who grows wheat of a bounty on that portion of his wheat which will be millable. I will advance for a moment no argument on the word "millable." It has been pretty well discussed on the various stages of this Bill. This Bill is split up into two parts. The first part concerns itself mainly with what has come to be known—to the farmers down the country, at any rate—as "the mixture." Hitherto the farmer, up to the introduction of this Bill by the Minister, or this Act if it becomes law, has by experience found that one of the cheapest—perhaps the cheapest—fat-producing foods he could use was maize. He proceeded to use maize, and for a considerable number of years he has used maize as the cheapest and the most efficacious fat-producing food he could buy here or elsewhere. The Fianna Fáil Party, in the person of their Minister, imbued with a desire to—if they could—carry out their own policy of increased tillage, thought it wise that the use of maize, if it was to be used at all, should be greatly curtailed, and that the farmer for the feeding of his pigs and other animals —and in certain parts of the country, I am sorry to say, even for the feeding of human beings—was to be compelled to pay a greater price than he had hitherto paid for this greatest fat-producing commodity; not alone this, but that he should be compelled, if he used this food at all, to mix it with certain other foods, which perhaps were cheaper, but which in the main were not as good as far as results in producing fat were concerned, with the exception of, perhaps, barley. Barley, the Minister himself said in his speech—and he quoted some notices to prove it—might be as good as maize, weight for weight, in producing fat, but that, taking price as the basis, it was not as good because it was dearer. This meant that the farmer was to be compelled to use a mixture of maize, barley and oats—or perhaps some of the wheat that the Minister would be unable to persuade anybody to use for any other purpose —and those substitutes for maize will be dearer than maize. The resultant price of the whole mixture will be much dearer than the pure maize that the farmer hitherto used for feeding his animals, with the added cost of the manufacture and the added fear— and this is what most concerned the farmer down the country—that when all is said and done he can have no guarantee that the mixture which reaches his house will not be contaminated by the addition of dust or other adulteration.
The Minister answered us in an earlier session of the Bill that that would be made impossible, that inspectors were being appointed and other precautions taken. I agree that the Minister would take every precaution to provide against that, but in the long run, when this mixture has passed through innumerable hands—whole-salers, retailers, millers and everybody else—the farmer will have in his mind a suspicion that he will be unable to get rid of that the mixture is contaminated by something other than maize, and, mind you, he may be right. There is no general justification, in fact, no justification at all, for this mixing process provided for in the first part of the Minister's Bill, and I believe that the majority of the farmers, small or large, if they were personally asked, would give their verdict against it.
We come to the second portion of the Bill and it mainly applies to wheat. Now, as I said, the Minister attempts to persuade the people and the farmers of this State to grow wheat by the bait of a bounty, and by the bait of a guaranteed price of 23/-per barrel. In any debates we have had during the last four or five years on the subject of wheat the prospective price then was not 23/- but 30/-per barrel. I think I am not misquoting anybody when I say the price mooted during the debates on this subject for the past two or three years as an economic price for the farmer to grow wheat was 30/- per barrel, and here we have in this Bill the Minister coming forward with a guaranteed price of 23/- per barrel as an inducement for the farmer to engage generally in the production of wheat. Now I deny that 23/- per barrel for wheat is sufficient to compensate the farmer. Even if he gets 23/- for every stone of wheat he grows, and of course the Minister does not propose to give him that, but I will admit he is making a great effort to give it to him in this Bill, he would not be paid. Now Deputy McGilligan says that this Bill pivots round the word "standard"—the definition of what is or what is not millable. I do not know but that I was perhaps the first to start the hare in this respect and I might be one of the last to speak about it. Arising out of the discussion on this Bill, the one thing that struck me in it was the standard, and I asked the Minister then what was likely to be the standard which he hoped to produce. Was it perhaps a standard that would be compared with the standard of No. 3 or No. 4 Canadian Wheat? The Minister, I suggest, did not answer that in any part of the debate. He did say later on that he despaired of finding a standard for millable wheat.
That reduced the Bill for the moment to something in the nature of a farce. In endeavouring to save the Minister from his despair, or perhaps to compel him to seek other sources of information that might lead him to change his mind, I ventured to put in an amendment to a section that the word "may" in the section should be changed to the word "shall" so that the Minister would be compelled somewhere to set up a standard. Unfortunately, I was not here to move my amendment when it came on, but the Minister's reply, I think, was to the effect that he would like to accept it and that it appeared that he would have, at any rate, to fulfil what Deputy Bennett was aiming at. I am glad to see the Minister has come to the conclusion that under the Bill he must prescribe a standard and so we have arrived at a stage when by a particular section the Minister, on his own words, is compelled unwillingly to put into operation, or to define in regulations, a definition of the word "millable," which he already had stated definitely in this House was impossible of defining. The Minister in a section of this Bill has provided for himself the solving of an impossibility. I am rather in sympathy with the Minister in his task, but even yet when the Minister is replying we should like to have some idea of the lines upon which the Minister will proceed in solving the impossible. The Minister stated there was no definition of millable wheat. I suggested there was the British precedent and he said the British precedent meant nothing—the British definition meant nothing. Anyhow, it did make an attempt to define the word "millable." I suggest again he could add to it that there was such a thing as percentage of moisture, there was even such a thing as standard of wheat per quantity, a standard of wheat per bushel, or if you like, a standard of wheat per gallon—that would be of use in determining the quality of wheat. There are other standards, as Deputy McGilligan pointed out, such as the percentage of glue; and various other things that the Minister, if he wished to get any information about, could have done so and I hope now that he is compelled to prescribe a standard that he will do so, otherwise this Bill which on the face of it is a bad Bill but which all of us would like to see being put into some workable condition. The whole Bill, as I said, centres round the word "millable." Quota is even governed by millable; the percentage which in other sections relates to it is altogether governed by millable; the bounty which the farmer receives, and mind you that is what concerns me mostly, is primarily governed by what is millable.
Deputy Cleary, in his only allusion to the Bill to-day, said the instructors in Mayo were unable to distribute sufficient wheat seed. Perhaps that is so, but I say it is only an attempt to persuade the people to grow wheat. I admit there was a little enthusiasm this winter to grow wheat. So far as the condition of the farmer is concerned, he is anxious to grasp any straw, and from the enthusiasm of the Minister and from the speeches made in this House, perhaps there were a small share of farmers inbued with the hope that wheat-raising would be a profitable scheme. I venture to predict that unless the Minister can achieve what I believe in his heart he really wanted to achieve—a definite price per barrel for all wheat grown and not for the portion which is millable—the unfortunate farmer who is engaging in the growing of wheat this year will be thoroughly disillusioned. I am sorry to be a doleful prophet but I believe that a very much less quantity than the Minister has suggested will be millable wheat—that is, that a less percentage than four-fifths of the quantity of grain grown will be millable because that would be about what the Minister inferentially suggested to the House when he said that there were provisions for a bounty on 16 cwt. per acre. Now 16 cwt. per acre would be four-fifths of the estimated possible return from wheat. Even on the basis of the most excellent climatic year that we should be likely to expect, the Minister would not get that return and he knows he would not. It is because he knows he would not that he is so reluctant to put into operation a definition of the words "millable wheat." I think it is due to the House that the Minister would give us the benefit of any researches or conversations or any information he has acquired since he lost hope as to what he now proposes to put into the regulations as a definition of the word "millable," because he admits now that he has got to put in something. It is not left to his own discretion. He has no discretion. We should have a definition because it would be an easier way out for the Minister. It is due to the farmer, to the miller and to everybody else in connection with this measure that they should know where they stand. If the farmer is to grow an acre of wheat it is due to him that he should know where he stands as to the bounty and as to the collection of whatever bounty he gets for the wheat he grows.
I, for one, will not be satisfied until I know what the definition is that the Minister is to give of "millable wheat." The basis of 23/- per barrel offers the farmer very little. It does not offer him a paying price so far as the raising of wheat is concerned. The Minister and his advisers may forget that if wheat is grown to any great extent it will be in substitution for oats and barley. I take it the Minister is anxious to maintain the acreage under barley and oats. I do not think he wants to lessen in any way the acreage under these cereals. If the farmer is to grow an additional crop under wheat to the extent of one acre it will mean that four acres will be put under tillage. He will not only have the expense of one acre under wheat, but four acres in the ordinary rotation. How is the farmer to dispose of the produce of the other three acres used in the rotation? He cannot use the other three acres in the growing of cereals. He has got to use them in the production of turnips, mangolds or some such crops for which there is no demand beyond his own consumption. He will have to produce not only one acre but four or five acres of tillage for every acre he puts under wheat. He must have not one but four acres additional.
It is due to the House and to the farmer that we should now be told how he is to dispose of these root crops particularly as the Minister's colleagues have imposed by tariffs additional charges in the way of tillage operations and manurial operations in connection with turnips and mangolds. The Government have definitely taxed artificial manures which are largely used in the growing of these crops. I do not want to delay the House unduly but I want to point out that this Bill offers nothing to the farmer. It is a camouflage on his intelligence. It puts every conceivable difficulty in the way of the millers—difficulties that they have never asked for. Lastly, and this is the principal objection I have to the Bill, it puts an unjustifiable imposition on the people who are least able to bear it.
As Deputy Dillon said, there is the case of the very small farmers, who, perhaps, derived their main profits from feeding pigs and other animals. These producers will be discriminated against owing to the increased price of the mixture. But it is on the very much larger section of the community that this Bill, when it becomes law, will impose a burden and that is on the consumers of the main article of food in this country—bread. Whatever defence the Minister or any other Deputy makes for this Bill, one result and the ultimate result of the Bill must be that the price of bread will go up and the quality deteriorate so that in the end what we are compelling the unfortunate consumer to do is to pay a dearer price for an inferior article. In these hard times that is a consideration sufficiently strong to induce any Deputy in this House to oppose this Bill.
It is surely fitting that in a debate like this we should have Deputy Bennett, the ex-Australian sheep rancher, taking the part of the big ranchers in this country.
Another one of Deputy Corry's misrepresentations.
It is a fitting job for Deputy Bennett to take up the case for the diehard ranchers here. If Deputy Bennett made any case at all he led some of us to believe that there is some case for taking from the like of the Deputy the land they hold and depriving them of it owing to the way they are misusing it. The Deputy told us about the prices of wheat. He said the price should be 30/- per barrel and that the bounty offered is not sufficient. Why did not the Deputy put down an amendment to have the price raised to 30/-? He would have done so if he were interested in the farmers or in anybody else but in the old hardhearted ranchers who produce bullocks——
Would it have been in order for Deputy Bennett to have done that?
Not at this stage.
Or at any other stage?
Not on this Bill.
And Deputy Corry knows that too.
Deputy Bennett and his leader, Deputy McGilligan, talked about millable wheat. I wonder how it was that 138,000 acres of wheat were grown here in 1918. I am sure the farmers did not sow it for a joke or for fun, apparently the farmers sowed it to make a profit on it. That wheat was milled and I remember many of the old ranchers of the Deputy Bennett type coming along to my house looking for a bag of that wheat and taking it to the mill rather than eat the black bread which John Bull was giving them at the time. They were glad to get that wheat. I did not hear anyone of them say that it was not millable wheat. I can speak as one who grew five to ten acres of wheat every year from 1918 to 1926. I grew it until the policy of the last Government drove the corn growers out of the market. I can speak with that experience and I can say that the lowest yield I had in wheat during those years was never less than 16 cwts. per acre and it went as high as 25 cwts per acre. Out of these 25 cwts. I sold one ton of millable wheat. At least the millers had no objection to it. Men of the type of Deputy Bennett will be always found in this country. Unfortunately the late Government took their advice, with the result that they found themselves in the mud. Deputy Bennett talked about the price we suggested three or four years ago. He lost sight of the fact that the price the farmer got three or four years ago and the price he got last year for his bullocks were very different. He knows very well that in the last three or four years there has been a reduction of £13,000,000 in the value of the farmers' produce. There was a difference of £13,000,000 between what the Irish farmers got in 1931 and the price they got in 1924 and 1925. Thank God we now have an Executive Council who will see that the land is tilled and that employment is given to the people.
Does the Deputy suggest that since 30/- a barrel was stipulated as a fair price the cost of production has fallen by 25 per cent or 30 per cent.?
If Deputy Bennett thinks that, he is a bigger idiot than I give him credit for.
That is no answer.
Deputy Corry must be a little more careful of his language when speaking of another Deputy.
Deputy Corry looks what he is.
Deputy Bennett declared that apparently there was no one on the Fianna Fáil side prepared to support the Front Bench in connection with this Bill. I would be ashamed if anybody on this side did not do better than Deputy Bennett did. He spoke about giving all the help he could to improve the Bill. He introduced a dozen or so of the most ludicrous and silly amendments any Deputy could be guilty of introducing. He talked about his desire to improve the Bill, but he made very little effort in that direction. I do not believe this mixture is going to contain dust. Deputy Bennett and other members of Cumann na nGaedheal seem to think that the Irish miller or Irish farmer cannot be honest. If it is a question of mixing Irish barley and oats, they consider it is going to contain sand and dust. When you receive the maize exported by the honest farmer in the Argentine or in America there is no question raised about it at all; there is no inspection or no inquiry necessary; it is sure to be right and the Irish farmer is always safeguarded. But the dishonest Irish producer cannot be trusted.
We never said he was dishonest.
Cumann na nGaedheal cannot afford to trust the Irish farmer. They tell us that he is going to put sand into it; that it is going to be sandy and dusty and it will go against the breath of the pigs in the Gaeltacht. Deputy Bennett said that Deputy Cleary had made most unworthy imputations against Deputy McGilligan. Why did not Deputy McGilligan deal with that himself?
It was beneath contempt.
Deputy McGilligan spoke for about an hour and he could have devoted himself much better to that imputation than to the things he actually spoke about. But it was only when Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Cleary had left the Chamber that Deputy Bennett raised the matter. We were asked what the benefit of this Bill is going to be. I said there were three big advantages to be derived from it. I pointed out we have been paying ten million pounds a year for cereals and if we could only succeed in spreading that money amongst the farmers by getting them to grow the wheat, barley and oats necessary to replace the imported cereals, we would increase the farmers' income by ten million pounds.
Do not say that.
What do they do with ten million pounds worth of imported cereals? Do they produce anything with them?
That is a perfectly fair question, but it is so simple that I can scarcely imagine anyone with intelligence asking it.
If I were dealing with intelligent people it would be a different matter.
It is obvious that the wheat is converted into bread and the maize is fed to livestock. Our policy is to grow our own wheat and manufacture our own bread and grow barley and oats for our livestock. That is simple enough.
I thought that the policy of Fianna Fáil was to reduce the livestock.
No fear. If Deputies will only read the history of this country they will be in a better position to realise things. What can be said of this country can equally be said of Germany and Denmark and they have always advocated increased tillage. If you go back to 1871, and even to the time of the Famine, you will find that when tillage increased the number of livestock increased. We have had it proved in our own country and in other countries that the more tillage there is the more livestock there will be.
Is that right?
That is right. We are not going to lose the livestock, at any rate.
We have lost our market.
The Minister must be given adequate time to reply.
This Bill gives an opportunity to our farmers to grow their own barley, wheat and oats. I said that this measure will mean increased employment. Deputy McGilligan referred to the Economic Committee that examined into the matter. There were figures put before us on another occasion by the then Minister for Agriculture relating to the cost of growing wheat, barley and oats. Manual labour was set out at £2 6/6 per acre. Our additional requirements in cereals will amount to 1,300,000 acres. Multiply that by £2 6/6 and you will have the amount brought to the agricultural workers or the working farmers.
Deputy Dillon said that I gave an argument that in the event of war we would be secure here. I mentioned that, but that is not the principal argument. I am told that I am only half-hearted in this thing because I did not speak much about it. On the Second Reading the closure had to be moved and I did not get an opportunity of speaking. On the Committee Stage Deputy Bennett and others like him took up the whole time of the House on silly amendments. Even then I did not get an opportunity of speaking on the Bill. It almost looked as if I would have to move the closure again to stop Deputy Bennett. At any rate, I am not half-hearted. One of the reasons indicating why I was half-hearted was that the bounty is so low. It was mentioned that in 1929 I argued that 30/-would induce farmers to grow wheat. At that time it would, and it would pay them well to grow it. At that time the farmer would have a profit by getting 25/- a barrel.
When we give a guaranteed price and a guaranteed market we expect to have the wheat grown, but at the same time we must watch the interests of the taxpayers. We have started at 23/6 and 25/- and, if necessary, we may have to go higher. We consider it will not be bad if we get 65,000 acres the first year. We pointed out that the price of wheat must be guaranteed two years in advance and the reason for that is that the farmer must be given an opportunity to prepare the land the year prior to growing the wheat. In the first year he must turn up the land and put a root crop on his lea land and in the second year he will grow wheat. Generally they sow a root crop on the lea and then wheat. We could very well claim that no advantage need be expected under this measure for the next two or three years, because the farmers must prepare for the crop. Deputy Bennett argued that a farmer could grow wheat only once in four years. In the circumstances, Deputy Bennett should not expect any advantage sooner than three years from now. He says it only comes in rotation once in four years.
Is there no potato or turnip soil in the country?
There is a little. The chief argument against this Bill is that we cannot define "millable wheat." That is a lovely Cumann na nGaedheal point. Unless you can define "millable wheat," the scheme is going to fail. I wonder could Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney or Deputy Bennett define "cooking butter" for us. Yet "cooking butter" is sold. Could anybody define it? Could any one define "malting barley." We do not define "malting barley," yet we know that the farmer brings his barley to the buyer and that he takes it if he thinks it is fit for malting. If he thinks otherwise, he tells him to bring it home. Likewise, the farmer will bring his wheat to the miller and, if he thinks it is fit for milling he will take it. If not, the farmer will bring it home. That is the best definition of "millable wheat." Unfortunately, I am compelled to put it into words but I do not think it makes the slightest difference. It will all depend on what the flour miller will take. If the farmer succeeds in selling his wheat to the miller, it will be millable wheat. The definition is the docket the farmer gets when he has sold the wheat. Deputy McGilligan spent hours on this point. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney woke up to the point to-day and began to talk about "millable wheat." Deputy Bennett told me a fortnight ago that he could give me a definition of "millable wheat." He came back on that point to-day. Within the next four or five months, I am going to give a definition of "millable wheat." Deputy Bennett said that we had the British definition, and that that may be the best we can get. I am not sure about that, but as soon as we get our advisory committee together we will ask them to look at the British definition. That committee will give me a definition and I will put it into the regulations. How much better will we be when all that is done? It will remain with the miller to take the wheat which he considers millable from the farmer and it will remain with the farmer to get him to take it. The definition will be forgotten. It will be put out of the way.
Is the Minister aware that he has entirely changed his attitude since the Committee Stage of the Bill?
I do not think so.
On the Committee Stage, the Minister said that he might raise the standard or depress it according to the circumstances of the year. Now, he says that the only test for "millable wheat" is whether the miller will buy it or not.
I do not altogether agree with the Deputy. I think what I said was that we might raise or lower the percentage. That, the Deputy may say, amounts to the same thing but I never had the standard of "millable wheat" in mind. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said that we could not give a definition of "millable wheat" because if we provided for a decent standard, as the British standard is taken to be on the other side, nine-tenths of the wheat here would be unsuitable——
In some years.
That is the usual view of Cumann na nGaedheal about Irish products.
I some years and in respect of this particular product.
We are told that there is a surplus of wheat the world over and we are asked why we should go into wheat. There is a surplus of everything. Deputy McGilligan referred to Ottawa. I remember sitting on a committee at Ottawa for hours and hours with Australian, New Zealand and other delegates and trying to find what they would do with their surplus meat. Another committee was set up to find out what would be done with surplus butter. Meat, butter and cereals were being dealt with and after that, there was, I think, a committee to deal with fruit. There is a surplus of everything —a surplus of meat and butter as well as of wheat. We were told about Austria and the League of Nations trying to get them to go out of wheat and into meat. The whole difficulty is to find an export market for meat, butter and other products. We are not going to look for an export market for wheat. We want to use it at home and it is evident to everybody that it is easy to fix a price for wheat or anything we want to use at home, when it will be years before we have a surplus, if we ever have. To fix a price for beef, of which we have a 90 per cent. surplus, is a difficult matter. It is difficult to find an export market, as every country knows. We may be finding it especially difficult at present but, apart from that, every country is finding it difficult to obtain export markets for its products.
The provisions of the Bill, we are told, are very harsh on poor people. Even Deputy Bennett talked about the poor people to-day. The provisions are also very hard on the miller, we are told. Deputy McGilligan tells us that the principal people concerned are the millers. They are not the principal people concerned. They are only brought in to this because we had to bring them into it. The people concerned are the producers. We would not have troubled about this Bill if the millers only were concerned. We had to consider the interests of the producers and, in so doing, we had to deal with the interests of the millers. Some of the millers may be hostile to this Bill. We have discussed the Bill with them and met them as far as possible, but there must come a point at which they will have to give in in the interests of the common good. The same Deputies who speak about the hardships on the poor, the hardships on the millers and the hardships on the farmers who are going to feed their stock tell us that the Bill is unworkable. If it is not going to work, it does not matter. They can save themselves the trouble of talking about it. They say that we cannot grow wheat in the country. If wheat is not grown, no subsidy will be paid and the thing falls through.
Deputy Dillon says that the farmer should use his land to the best advantage. That is why we have not used compulsion on any farmer to grow wheat or oats or barley. We have given them an inducement to grow these cereals to fulfil our requirements. I am accused of having the old belief in the Sinn Fein policy of self sufficiency. That belief is shared by practically every country in the world. Only three countries have not done something to encourage the growing of wheat—Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark. Now, Great Britain and Ireland have taken the matter up and only Denmark remains.
Is that why the world is in its present position?
Not that alone. We were asked by Deputy McGilligan to take the test of the charge to the consumer. What struck me immediately was that if we had taken that test in the case, say, of the Shannon electricity scheme, Deputy McGilligan and his Government would have been proven an absolute failure.
That is absolutely wrong. Will the Minister prove his statement by figures or other means?
The rates were increased by 20 per cent.
That is not the case. It is that kind of thing that is bringing discredit on the country. If the rates were fixed too low and were increased by 20 per cent., that does not indicate that the scheme is not an economic proposition. It is such nonsense that has the Minister in such a mess with the present Bill.
The rates in Dublin have gone up since the Shannon scheme started.
The rates for electricity were reduced considerably just when the Electricity Supply Board came into operation. They are no higher now than they were when reduced that time.
I do not believe the Deputy.
Then the Minister should not make these statements without inquiring further.
I would make the statement again, because it is true.
It is just on a par with all the statements that we had.
If some of the Party opposite thought a little more we would be better off.
We think and act. We do not spend all the time thinking like the Deputies opposite.
You think continually of being gentlemen.
We cannot help that; that is natural.
Deputy McGilligan says that he examined the Eggs Act because we quoted it here so often. He says that in that case the Minister consulted the interests concerned. We consulted the interests concerned. We could not have consulted the interests concerned in a better way. We went to the farmers at the last election and told them that if they returned us to power we would bring in a tillage scheme. They did return us and we are bringing in a tillage scheme. He said that there was only one amendment introduced into the Eggs Bill as it went through the House. It would have been well if the Opposition had been as sparing in their amendments to this Bill, because most of them were absolutely destructive and had no other idea behind them, and the others did not show very much thought. Deputy McGilligan said the time will come when it will pay millers to take bad wheat at any price, and let the farmers get the remainder of the bounty, and turn it over to feeding stuffs. I thought the Deputy had read the Bill, but it is evident that he has not read all the Bill, because Section 76 would have shown him that if a flour miller buys wheat from a farmer he must use that wheat in flour for human consumption and cannot dispose of it in any other way.
Deputy McGilligan made a very long speech and his three main points were (1) Wheat cannot be grown in this country; (2) unless you can define millable wheat the whole thing is a failure; (3) that the principal interest concerned was the millers. Comment on that is unnecessary. He went on to say that there was no case made that an outside monopoly attempted to get control of the flour mills here; that there was no danger of a monopoly; certainly no danger of a monopoly under foreign control. After developing that point for some time, he said that we could at least have waited until it showed itself. Deputy McGilligan did wait until it showed itself. Imagine Deputy McGilligan or any Deputy saying that foreigners were not getting control and getting a monopoly of flour milling in this country! It is a well-known fact and does not need arguing that Messrs. Rank and Company were coming into this country and taking over the flour mills. Everybody knows that. Yet Deputy McGilligan says that there was no such thing as foreigners getting control of our flour mills. That is a most extraordinary statement for any Deputy to make. A more extraordinary statement still, perhaps, was when he said that we should have waited until there were signs of it. Suppose we did wait longer and let Messrs. Rank and Company get control over the flour mills. If we brought in a Bill to take over these mills from Messrs. Rank and give them back to the original owners, what would Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney say? He would say that it was real rank confiscation in that case. He says that the people mainly concerned in the maize mixture were opposed to the whole thing, namely, the maize millers. I do not think the maize millers are the people mainly concerned. I think the people growing oats and barley who want to get a price for their corn after they have tilled the land, are those mainly concerned. It is because we want to get a price for these people for their oats and barley that we are bringing in this Bill. We had to do it in some way or other. We could have imposed a tariff or we could have kept maize out and in that way raise the price of oats and barley. We could have done it in several ways. In the end, we decided that the best way was to compel the maize millers to use a mixture of home-grown grain. It is only accidentally that they come in, but as they have come in it is, in our opinion, in the interests of the growers of grain and the country generally that the maize millers should fall in with certain regulations that they must now fall in with. Before the introduction of the Bill we had a conference with the maize millers, and we discussed this matter for about three days, but when the conference was over-I admit that the maize millers were just as hostile as when we met. At least I did my best, but I could not do any more.
This Bill, of course, is not a panacea for Irish agriculture. Surely we will be able to do something more for agriculture than this. Surely we have done a little more than this for agriculture, if it comes to that. But it is part of the agricultural policy of Fianna Fáil. I believe it is going to do a great deal for agriculture. As Deputy Cleary said, it is going to do a great deal for agriculture even in Mayo, which is represented by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. It is quite true, as Deputy Cleary said, that some of our overseers in Mayo in charge of the distribution of seed wheat were the first to send word to the Department that the supplies had run out and they asked for more seed to be sent. So that even in Mayo there is a sort of enthusiasm for the sowing of wheat.
The Minister challenged me to-day when I drew attention to something he said on a previous occasion. I want to ask him if he has been correctly reported on column 42 of the official reports. He was deprecating the setting up of a Milling Advisory Committee composed of flour millers for a certain purpose and he went on to say:—
"It is not the sort of committee to which we would put the question:—‘What is millable wheat?' They would naturally require the very highest standard of wheat. We, on our part, might be anxious to get them to take more wheat than they would regard as of the very best standard."
The Minister to-day said that the test of what millable wheat will be is what the millers will mill. In this he said that under certain circumstances he will make them mill what they would not ordinarily mill-what they would reject. Surely there is a great difference in principle between these two dicta.
There is very little difference when it comes to the point. The miller will be asked to take a certain percentage. He knows he has to take, say, 100 tons of Irish wheat. He will take the best 100 tons that he can get.
The question is: "That the Bill do now pass."
Division.
Might I ask your ruling on the point that, if a division is challenged, according to the Standing Orders, so many members should be called upon to stand up and demand a division.
If the Chair thinks that a Deputy challenges a division just for the sake of interruption, or something like that, the Chair can ask to see how many members are in favour of a division by asking the Deputies to rise in their places who are challenging a division. It has always been accepted, however, that when an occupant of the Front Bench challenges a division he has the sanction of his Party for doing so.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá 69; Níl 45.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Bryan.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Clery, Mícheál.
- Colbert, James.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Curran, Patrick Joseph.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Everett, James.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Gormley, Francis.
- Gorry, Patrick Joseph.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Keyes, Raphael Patrick.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gradv, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sexton, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doherty, Eugene.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Duggan, Edmund John.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Gorey, Denis John.
- Hassett, John J.
- Hayes, Michael.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Keating, John.
- Keogh, Myles.
- Lynch, Finian.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Burke, Fatrick.
- Byrne, John Joseph.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Connor, Batt.
- O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Shaughnessy, John Joseph.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Reidy, James.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- White, John.
- Wolfe, Jasper Travers.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Boland and Allen; Níl: Deputies Duggan and Doyle.
Motion declared carried.
Bill ordered to be sent to the Seanad.