This Bill is of course now going through and anything we here have to say on it cannot be taken as opposing the principles involved in it but merely as sounding a note of precaution. We, who introduced sugar production to this country, and who have been working on it experimentally for a few years, introduced it, not as a hobby, but to endeavour to gain experience and, after having given a fair trial to sugar production, to see how far it would be wise to proceed on the lines on which we set out, to produce all our own requirements in sugar. It was always realised by us, even by those outside the Government, who urged the Government of the day in 1924 and 1925 to experiment in sugar production and in the growing of beet, that money was never going to be made on the production of sugar. There were other considerations that we considered would compensate for any monetary loss in the production of the sugar beet crop. I hope Ministers who are sponsoring this Bill have considered every aspect of the case and have rid their minds of prejudice bias, or any ulterior motives, that they have weighed all the factors, and that they are satisfied that the loss, which must be inevitable and which has been inevitable in every country in the world where sugar has been produced from sugar beet, can be recouped by indirect benefits from the industry. I hope they are satisfied that on the whole the economic advantage of sugar production will be greater than the apparent loss in the book-keeping returns of the venture. I am sure Ministers have gone well into that aspect of the matter and that they are satisfied that the economic advantage will be greater than the book-keeping loss.
While we here, on this side, have not had perhaps the same data recently to work on as the Ministry had, we are not without certain misgivings about this plunge. We are especially apprehensive because we have fathered this project up to the present, and we would regret very much if too much haste now might spoil all that has been done up to the present. It is well, however, that the country should know the exact position, nationally speaking, with regard to this project. Some Ministers, I think all of them who had a hand in the Bill in this House, have tried to mesmerise the House and perhaps the country as to the advantages that will accrue from the production of sugar, to meet our entire requirements. All I intend to do is to put the facts on record as to the position as I see it and I shall invite Ministers to controvert them, not by any sleight-of-hand trick, but by cold argument and by solid facts. We are going to produce another 80,000 tons under this Bill, to supplement the production of the Carlow factory and to meet our entire requirements. The Carlow factory will, if it operates until the year 1936, when I think its agreement runs out, cost this State £400,000 a year. Assuming we were able to start next year with four similar factories to produce 20,000 tons each, we are going to incur another national deficit of £800,000 a year. The Minister for Industry and Commerce shakes his head in disagreement. The disagreement, I am sure, is a suggestion that my figures as regards loss are too high. Nobody in this House would be more pleased to know that the figures are too high than I myself would be. I am putting the case as I can analyse it—not from any research outside this House, but according to the figures given by the Ministers opposite. I should like, and I am sure the House would like, and it is due to the House and to the country, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce will do more to reassure the House and country than shake his head in disapproval of this particular point I am making. It is not really a point. I do not want to make a point and I hope that, if it is construed as a point, the Minister will be able to knock it down. The more success that will attach to this the better for us all and for the country, and if the figures I am giving err on the side of being too high, I shall be glad to have them proved to be too high and I hope the Minister for Industry and Commerce will prove them to be so. That £400,000 that we lose on the present factory in 1936 and the £800,000 that, as I see it, we are going to lose on the other factories if we start them, will mean a national loss of £1,200,000. We are going to lose £1,200,000 in the production of sugar, and I put it to the Ministers opposite that this year and for many years past, on the average, we could buy that same quantity of sugar for £1,000,000. So, we are going to lose £200,000 a year more than the cost of the article would be and we have to produce the article as well. That is the position as regards production. The Minister's own figures are 23/- a cwt. at which we can produce it here. The best he anticipates is 20/8 a cwt. It is not a few thousand pounds one way or another that we are concerned with, but with the principle of the way the thing works. Assuming that we can produce it at 20/- a cwt.—and that is 8d. a cwt. less than the Minister for Finance hopes, in his brightest moment, to produce sugar at other prices that he has given for raw materials and costs here and there throughout the process—20/- a cwt., or £20 a ton, for 100,000 tons is £2,000,000. The Minister for Finance stated, in his opening speech on the Second Reading of this measure, that we can buy that sugar for £10 a ton below on the quays; so, even when the large subsidy that is being given to the Carlow factory is brushed aside and we have five factories operating under this Bill producing 100,000 tons of sugar, we must look to a perpetual loss on the industry of £1,000,000 a year. These are the figures supplied by the Minister for Finance. I am not saying that, because of that, the Bill should not go on, or should not be enacted, and that the factories should not be set up. I am just putting it as I see it and the responsibility of securing, notwithstanding those figures, an economic advantage to the country will certainly rest with the Government and, I dare say, more particularly with the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I certainly pay a tribute to his courage in facing that and I hope he will be successful.
As regards prices of beet, the Minister fixed 35/- a ton as the highwater mark to pay for beet. He said that if the farmers will not accept that price then the whole scheme falls. I think I am quoting him substantially correctly when I say that. I mentioned here before the working of a German factory at which a guinea, or a decimal over 21/- a ton, was given for beet, and sugar was produced in that factory at an all-in-cost of 8/6 a cwt. I should like the Minister to justify the allotment of prices he is making to the producer of beet and to the refinery in the light of those German figures. In Germany, at a guinea a ton for beet, it meant that the producer of beet got at the rate, roughly, of 3/6 per cwt. of sugar, and it meant that the refinery got 5/- a cwt. to produce the sugar. So that, the cost was 8/6 a cwt.
