I say that it is necessary to make that clear because once it is understood, I think a large part of the loose and ill-founded talk which we have listened to in this debate will not be repeated. I am rather sorry that I should have to deal with some of the speeches in this way. I would rather deal with speeches such as that made by the Leader of the Opposition which, although its arguments, too, were vitiated by a number of errors, did present a case in a reasonable way. It is quite true that people were enticed to grow tobacco and the reason why it was necessary to entice them was that, during the ten years which preceded our advent to office, there had been a continuous discouragement manifested by the former Government towards the cultivation of tobacco in this country. The former British Government had offered certain inducements to our farmers to cultivate tobacco and one of the first acts of the preceding Administration was to withdraw those inducements altogether and to create the impression in this country that tobacco could not be grown here and that any tobacco that was grown was unsmokeable. Consequently, about this whole question of tobacco, there existed a feeling of prejudice which extended even to the farmers themselves.
That was manifested by the fact that even though we did offer substantial inducements in the first year by allowing tobacco to be grown duty free, very few people availed themselves of it in the first year. In the second year, there was a remarkable increase and people began to consider it seriously and those who did take it seriously made very substantial profits indeed. Deputy Cosgrave referred to the hardship imposed upon people by the fact that some of them had invested money in drying sheds and other necessary appurtenances to the cultivation of tobacco. He said that in one case the amount was, I think, £200 and in another case £1,000. I cannot accept those figures without having an opportunity of verifying them for myself, because I do not know of any case in which for the cultivation of an acre or two acres of tobacco it would be necessary to incur such a substantial expenditure. If one person did expend £200 in providing drying sheds we must assume that he went in for the cultivation of the crop upon a somewhat extended scale. If he did, we must also assume that he had some prior experience of it, and that, therefore, he was able to produce a crop which would be saleable at a fair price. The fact is that there are people in this country who, out of one acre of tobacco, have secured as much as a net profit of over £200. If the grower to whom the Leader of the Opposition referred was an experienced grower and a prudent man—no prudent man would invest £200 or £1,000 unless he was certain of getting a return—he must out of the profits of two years' tobacco crop have cleared any capital expenditure which he undertook, and he is now in a position to cultivate tobacco with the assurance that all his overhead charges have been wiped out by the profits of the first two years, and that he will be able to sell his crop, if it is a marketable one at all, at a remunerative price.
It is true that quite a large number of people went in for tobacco growing, but securing the cultivation of the crop is only one part of our problem; we have to ensure its sale. While I know of numerous cases where very substantial prices have been secured for home-grown tobacco, I know also that there are other cases where tobacco was not sold at all, for the reason that the crop was of such poor quality that no manufacturer would purchase it. One of the innovations in the new scheme is that we propose to secure for the person who grows marketable tobacco a real market for his crop. He will no longer be in the to secure for the person who grows marketable tobacco a real market for his crop. He will no longer be in the position in which he was in the old British days when he got a rebate of duty if he grew tobacco, but the tobacco might lie on his hands for years, and he might never be able to dispose of it. Under our scheme, he will get such a rebate in the duty as will enable him to reap a secure profit from his crop—I put the profit in some cases at almost as much as 1/- a lb.—if he produces a smokeable article at all, as the manufacturers will be compelled to take that crop from him. That is where this proposal which is now before the House represents a real advance upon the proposals of last year. Under the proposals of last year tobacco was grown free. Large quantities of tobacco were produced, most of which we believe will be sold fairly readily, but some of which will not be sold at all. This year, under the scheme which we are now considering, any tobacco which is produced and which is smokeable will have to be disposed of. Every year the acreage under tobacco will be extended, until the 10,000 acres are reached. The concession in this year in respect of the tobacco duty here is going to cost us £70,000. That is a very substantial subsidy indeed to the Irish tobacco grower. Next year it will cost us more, and so on, until, as I say, we have 10,000 acres of marketable tobacco grown in this country, able to bear, I hope, a reasonable duty to produce the revenue which will enable us to provide for the numerous Government services, including the social services in which Deputy Morrissey and others are so greatly interested. I regret to hear that Deputy Cosgrave proposes to divide the House on this Resolution. Possibly that may be due to the fact that I did not make it sufficiently clear, though I did mention it in my introductory remarks, that one of the features of this scheme would be the compulsion which it would impose on manufacturers——
