This is a Bill which I am sure all Parties in the House would like to agree upon, with the idea of having our own sugar produced at home. It is a principle we all accept, but it is a matter that should be discussed very freely and frankly as to whether it is in the best economic interests of the country to endeavour to do so, and, in view of the experience we have got through our experiment in Carlow, whether we are justified in taking such a big step now. The Carlow factory produces about 20,000 tons of sugar. Our total requirements are roughly 100,000 tons. This Bill visualises a development which will enable us to produce the remaining 80,000 tons, making 100,000 tons in all. The Bill, stripped of all its technicalities, means that either as a State concern, or with the backing of the State, the taxpayer is going to be committed to produce this sugar from beet.
Those of us who interested ourselves in, and perhaps to some extent led Government enterprise some years ago to take up experimental sugar production from home-grown beet here, would like to see this venture successful. The misgivings I have about it are that the actions proposed in this Bill are rather precipitate, and might injure a praiseworthy attempt, which, if it were unsuccessful, might sour attempts in the future. The most that the Minister for Finance, in the figures he gave us, contemplates under this Bill is that he hopes we will be able to produce sugar here at £20 a ton. It is a little over that, but for round figures and for purposes of comparison we will call it £20 a ton. Any little criticism I may have to offer on it is not hostile criticism, and I hope the Minister will correct my figures if they are wrong. As I have been able to follow the Minister when he was introducing the Bill, and in the short time I had to devote to a copy of his introductory speech, this is the meaning I take out of it: he hopes at best to be able to produce 80,000 tons of sugar at £20 a ton, or approximately £1,600,000. We can buy that sugar, according to the Minister's figure, for £800,000. Now, as a matter of plain commonsense business, is this House justified in committing the taxpayers of the country to pay £2 per unit of sugar by producing it at home when they can buy that unit of sugar at £1 ready for use? That is really the whole problem.
As regards the experiment which we have made, we have shown that we are able to produce as good beet and as high a yield per acre in this country as in any other country. We are able to produce beet with as high a sugar content in this country as in any other country. Even the experiments that were tried here leading up to the establishment of the Carlow sugar factory gave very satisfactory results, both as regards yield and sugar content. As regards quality production and quantity production we are able to do the job of growing beet as well as any other country in the world, but are we able to produce it as economically? That is another matter, and that is a matter which the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Agriculture—perhaps it is more the province of the Minister for Agriculture—should have explained to this House. As a matter of fact, there are three Ministers concerned, and it is a pity that all three did not speak in an introductory manner on this Bill, so that they could give their contributions from the particular angle of their Departments. I am glad that the Minister for Industry and Commerce on Friday last—it is time we came down to some little commonsense and realities on the subject—put a query which shows that the Government are at least coming to realities. He put a query here—in answer to some question that was thrown at the Minister for Finance I think—what country in the world is producing sugar from beet economically? Of course, that was a question and answer in one. No country in the world is producing it economically, or has ever produced it economically. With the best of countries at this job it is a matter of how little the loss will be, and how best to apply Government help to meet that loss. Those are the two problems in connection with the matter. There is another important point that should be borne in mind in connection with this beet question. I understand that, with our experiments of growing sugar beet in the last few years, we have not been let into the secret of the strain of seed we ought to grow. It is a very dangerous thing, apart from whether it is a paying proposition or not, to commit the country to a big experiment, for that is more or less what it is, of this kind, in which the taxpayers must look forward for a period in which they will have to meet a certain loss. The best the Government can do is to minimise that loss as much as possible, for it would be superhuman to hope to get out of loss altogether.
Now it should occur to the Ministry that without having a good seed you will not have good beet. I venture to say there is not one grain of beet saved in this country. Is it wise, in face of that, that we should go in for the entire production of sugar for ourselves, spend over a million of money on extra plant for sugar refining, and encourage the farmers to grow the necessary quantity of beet without being able to guarantee them, within the shores of this country, one ounce of seed for that job? Further, even if we were producing a seed is it not time that we got further than this?
Beet, I understand, sprang from a discovery of a freak mangold with a very large amount of sugar content. Speaking from long experience of the sugar content of mangolds, I should say it is about 2 or 3 per cent., but in that freak mangold the sugar content was over 7 per cent. The problem of making the production of sugar from beet profitable depends on whether we can get seed that would either increase the yield of mangolds, or the yield of the sugar content in mangolds, or whether with the present yield of mangolds the yield of the sugar content could be increased. There are two fields for investigation by our Faculty of Agriculture in the University, and I think I am right in saying that the matter is really getting no attention whatever. Not only should we save the seed for our own beet crop, and not only should we know the kind of beet, but we should be able to prove experimentally the history of that beet and, where any improvement is shown in the seed, we should know the strain from which that seed is bred so as to help in the investigation and development of seed breeding. Not only do we not raise seed, but we are not doing any laboratory work in connection with the breeding of seed in this country. Every practical farmer knows that foreign seeds introduced here, whether for oats, barley, potatoes, wheat or anything else do not do well until they get acclimatised. They are always better after two or three years' sowing. It is a pity that the same attempt is not made to improve the beet industry in that way.
The Minister made an extraordinary attempt to juggle with the figures. He said that all the people concerned in the industry must cut down their losses or gains. But before I come to these details, I wonder has the Minister for Industry and Commerce thought of any other solution in the development of this industry except on the lines of the Carlow experiment, which has only shown us that we can grow a good quantity and a good quality of beet to produce 20,000 tons of sugar in four years which will cost the taxpayers about £4,000,000. Has he thought of any other method than that? I remember when the experiment in Carlow was being contemplated a few years ago. I knew a celebrated chemist who had a thorough knowledge of the chemistry of sugar refining. He studied the business in England, Germany and the United States. His idea of running the industry here—I do not know whether it is a possible idea or not, but according to him it was—was that we should have factories over the country that would deal with the extraction of the juice from the beet, and then that we should have a central refining factory, say, in Dublin or some other big port, with a good connection of background in the country, while itself open to ocean-borne traffic. His contention was that it would be a very big loss to have £1,000,000 worth of machinery lying idle for nine months of the year. You will have to keep certain people in the industry whether you have work for them or not for the whole 12 months, because it would not make for efficiency if you let them go after three months work which roughly covers the period of the operations for beet. If you had that refining factory in Dublin to deal with the juice extracted from the beet down the country, in centres where beet was grown largely and if that juice was brought to Dublin and refined into sugar, then during the period of the year that you would not have beet juice to refine, sugar cane could be imported and the machinery could be kept going all the year round, diminishing the overhead charges for such refining machinery. If you could keep that going for 12 months, then that machinery would be producing over four times as long as it would be in the work of refining sugar from beet alone. That is one way of reducing the overhead cost and a way which I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce should investigate. It is a way that might not occur to the ordinary person, but I am not giving it as coming from an ordinary person, but as coming from a man who has a first-class knowledge of the sugar refining industry which he studied in various parts of Europe and the United States. He would back his whole reputation on it. I think that idea would be worthy of consideration.
Another experiment was made in connection with sugar juice when extracted from the pulp. I understand it must be worked quickly or it discolours. Some time ago I saw where an Italian scientist discovered some means by which that discolouration could be overcome, the juice being extracted when the crop is gathered, stored in casks and refined throughout the year. I do not know how far that experiment has been successful. The great point about the two suggestions I am making is that if £1,000,000 worth of machinery, working three months, will produce our requirements, then £250,000 worth of refining machinery should be able to produce our requirements in the 12 months. Less machinery would be required and you would have the staff working the whole year. It would make for efficiency. That is with regard to the industrial side.
It is proposed to offer farmers 35/- a ton for beet. The average yield of beet, given by the Minister, is 11 tons to the acre. The Minister mentioned that 20,000 tons of sugar were produced here every year since the experiment started except in the year 1931. I am sure he knows why 1931 was an exception. The price then offered to the farmers was 38/- a ton and they said they could not produce it for that. The Minister shakes his head, but I think he made many eloquent speeches in that area telling the farmers they could not produce beet at 38/- a ton.