I expected yesterday that the Minister, when introducing this Estimate, would have told us something more about the details or would enlarge on them, so as to give us sufficient information in order to make a comparison with the paper issued. We are told that this £750,000 is required in addition to the sum of £2,250,000 already voted for export bounties and subsidies. The statement of the details set out that "additional provision" is required "for bounties and subsidies on agricultural and industrial commodities exported from Saorstát Eireann and for expenditure connected with trial consignments of such commodities to external markets. The payments will be made," we are told, "in respect of such commodities at such rates and subject to such other conditions as the Minister for Finance may from time to time approve." I asked the Minister yesterday, by way of segregating one item, what were the industrial commodities on which bounties were paid and for which portion of this sum was likely to be required in the future. He promised to get these items. I would, also, expect that he would come prepared with the statement as to the trial consignments upon which this money is to be spent. In that connection one would think that we should hear something as to the results that have accrued from these trial consignments up-to-date.
We do know that the Minister sent cattle to Belgium and lost on that transaction. Here we have a Minister, not operating as an ordinary commercial man, and, I presume, not subject to the ordinary circumstances that surround a trade concern in the ordinary way, having everything of the best, yet he did definitely confess a loss, which was infinitesmal compared with the losses incurred every day in big matters which form a very big percentage of the amount of money risked on such consignments. We know that butter was sent to the Continent and we know that in certain consignments of butter trials there was serious loss. But no one told us the true story about certain butter which certainly was prepared for export to the Continent. The circumstances, as I heard them detailed, are that a certain biggish consignment of butter, lying in Cork for some time, was opened, and was discovered to have round it a thick black scum. When an attempt was made to take it off, it was then found that the scum went deeper than the mere opening of the receptacle revealed at first glance. The story went on that this consignment of Government butter was sold, at a big loss by the Government, to certain blenders in this country on the condition that they would not export any of what they had blended. In other words, that this partly decomposed substance was to be blended with certain other butter in this country and then sold to consumers in this country. That, in every sense of the word, was a dirty trick, apart from the fact that that loss was incurred.
Again I do not know if there is complete truth, or some truth, or any truth at all, in the rumour which gained great currency in Berlin regarding a certain trial consignment sent out to Berlin in charge of a rather respectable, highly paid civil servant acting, more or less as a commercial traveller. I understand that one of the items in this consignment was geese. We had a reputation for "wild geese"; they were known on the Continent before. But we sent some domestic ones this time. They were apparently not taken there in the height of their bloom, or apparently the bloom had gone off. The story was current in Berlin that the geese went high. That was only to be expected, as they had been kept a certain time not in a refrigerator; so the articles of this trial consignment had, in fact, to be destroyed. They were not condemned as a nuisance. I understand they did not go to that point. Have we had any estimate of the loss incurred there? There certainly was a loss, a financial loss and there was a terrible loss of prestige. I do not know whether that is to be regarded as an indication of the success of other activities such as cow testing activities, butter grading activities, and so on, with a view to preparing for market produce of the highest possible standard. But these are the trial consignments one has heard of.
We heard in relation to a Vote discussed here last night that statistical experts who visited this country during the year were regaled with great stories as to the magnificently progressive department of statistics there was in this country. They used to be progressive, and they used constantly to turn out figures which Ministers are rather sorry to see. These figures we get no more. They are not presented to us as information when the information is requested here in the House. We are left without any indication as to what has been the result of the trial consignments which the Minister has ventured to send abroad. We have no balance sheet and we have no idea as to whether the consignments were sent in such condition as indicated that they had a chance of success, apart from financial success, in exploiting foreign markets in which we have to sell. I do not mind about financial success—because nothing has been done on a financial basis—if you can get our produce in a good condition, have it sold or slaughtered or given away, so that, by some method, you can get rid of it. It does not matter a whole lot who pays if some ordinary commercial consideration is brought to bear upon it, some activity as to costing and prices, and some attempt made at striking a balance between these things. The Minister did, however, tell us one very interesting thing last night: that this country had a unique experience in the summer of this year, when there arrived the millenium in one small matter. He said that we had reached a position in this country in regard to some article of pig production when it was more profitable to sell at home than to sell abroad. And the Minister immediately took steps to redress that. He found that although it was more profitable to sell at home, a certain factory—and he described this as one that took the long view—preferred to sell even at a less profit abroad, which in this instance meant England. It can hardly be said of the Minister for Agriculture that he wants to destroy our trade with England. The people with the long view decided it was desirable to sell at a less profit in England, and he complimented them by describing them as the people with the long view. He did more than compliment them with having that view. There was a bigger bounty given to ensure that when they took the economic circumstances into account, which made it more desirable to develop that trade than to sell at home, they would not lose, and there was an extra inducement offered to those who wanted to take the long view.
Now, why should it be regarded by the Minister, with all his other activities, as having the long view when one decided to sell, not at more profit at home, but at less profit in England? We had to keep the quota. Whatever figure had been given, we had to see that that was filled. Otherwise, there was the chance that the British might take us at our word when we said we did not want their market. They might take us at our word when we said that at times it was more profitable to sell at home and they might decide to leave us to our home market. Why is a thing right in regard to pigs and wrong in regard to cattle or to cows? What is the terrific difference? If self-sufficiency with regard to wheat and beet is a proper aim, and if it is so definitely the aim that we have got to slaughter surplus cattle, why should we not be content with self-sufficiency in pigs, particularly when we get to the stage that it is more profitable to sell at home than abroad? Why not try to develop that and see that that circumstance will always last instead of being a very odd phenomenon? How is it reconcilable to say of people who produce pigs that those with the long view will keep open the British market, and then to speak, of those who wanted to take the long view, say, in regard to cattle, in the way in which the Minister did?
Deputy Dillon already referred to this speech. It is worth reiteration. The Minister, as reported in the Irish Press, on the 30th June, said: “The Government had been accused of being in favour of tillage and out for the destruction of the live stock industry. The person who made that accusation,” said the Minister—this was the striking speech he made before the Irish Farmers' Protection Association—“was either a fool or a knave to think that the live stock industry is to be destroyed, for if we till we must have live stock; otherwise the farmers cannot use up their barley, straw, or other products, or get manure.” And the conclusion was drawn that we must at least maintain the amount of live stock we have.
That was the 30th June. When the Minister began to speak this year on the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Bill, he gave us a somewhat different picture, but I think that all the while he held on to that—that it was necessary to keep cattle, at the present level, or, as the odious phrase has it, that the cattle population of the country should be kept more or less what it is now. Deputy Dillon had already called attention to the contradiction, within a year, by a colleague of the Minister, Senator Connolly, who, at Kilcock, said that although it had taken one hundred years to establish the cattle trade in the country, with God's help it would not take 100 years to kill it. That was on the 9th June and, as if that were not sufficient, he hied himself away to Strokestown, in the West, within ten days, to say that it was a damn good thing that the market for cattle in England was disappearing. We need not go, however, to these rather minor lights of this House for examples. The President said that the market had gone and he thanked Heaven for it.
That is one side of it. We are told, in relation to cattle, by the Minister for Agriculture, that we must at least maintain the live stock that we have. His colleague, Senator Connolly, who has been reduced to the woods and forests of the country, speaks differently. He wants to kill it; and the President, if he does not exactly want to kill it, at any rate explains what is happening, with the best possible grace, by saying that the market has gone and thanks Heaven for it. The answer may be that we must maintain the live stock of the country, that as we have them in their numbers there will always be an exportable surplus, but that there need not be dependence on England. Hence the trial consignments and hence the extra losses. That thought ran through many a head before the elections.
Deputy Kennedy sometimes bills himself as an agricultural expert on the Fianna Fáil side. Speaking in 1931, in the month of October, he said:—
"They tell you you have no market but the British market. It is an extraordinary thing that Canada is sending cattle to France and every other European country as fast as they can send them, and we are within two days' reach of these places. Why should we not do the same?"
I wonder does Deputy Kennedy stand in an interrogative way in front of the Minister for Agriculture from day to day, when he is talking of subsidies and bounties with regard to exports to Great Britain, and remind the Minister that Canada is sending cattle to France as fast as they can and that we are only within two days' reach of the country; and I wonder has he answered satisfactorily as to why we cannot do what Canada is doing?
Deputy O'Reilly, I think, is recognised—his solitary qualification is agriculture, I think—as the real agricultural expert in the Fianna Fáil ranks. I think that his biography says that he has travelled many countries in search of information on agriculture. The weight of his information on agriculture in 1931 was declared to this effect:—
"There were people in Meath who would say that Fianna Fáil means to destroy our present market, the only market which gives us a living. It was not their intention to destroy that market. It was their intention and business to develop any market which would buy from them to the fullest extent possible. That was their policy and their duty."
That is rather in line with the Minister for Agriculture, who wants to maintain live stock at their present level; but it is contrary to what Senator Connolly and the President desire.
Is there really a policy with regard to this cattle matter? I think it was on the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Bill that the Minister for Agriculture, in answer to an interjection, said that he had always admitted that in respect of cattle the farmers of the country are suffering, and that when one touched on that article of the farmers' production and its sale, he had to admit that there was a definite setback for the farmers of the country. In the speech that has been referred to, however, he has to join up cattle with everything else. If they till, they must have live stock. Otherwise, he said the farmers could not use up their barley, straw and other products, or get manure. So when the Minister for Agriculture says, as he has said from time to time—and which he must still hold if he has not changed—that his view is that the live stock industry is the only thing in which the farmer can be set back, he is pointing to the basis of all agriculture in this country, judging by his own comment. He has said that tillage and the live stock industry go together. Surely, he must realise that when these two things are so related, and when he says that it is only in relation to live stock that the farmer is suffering, he must also recognise the deduction that if there is suffering in that, all of agriculture is suffering.
Now, is there a policy that sooner or later, and the sooner the better, we must stop exporting cattle to England? The Minister for Defence says "yes," because he at any rate has realised this—I think it is the only economic argument he has indulged in—that as long as we continue to send cattle to the English market, so long will England be able to exact the land annuities and that, therefore, we must stop exporting cattle to England if we are to be able to hold the land annuities. Is that the policy? If that is the policy, is it also the policy that we must maintain live stock at around about their present price? If so, and if that means an exportable surplus, does it mean the further addition to policy that we must get a market elsewhere? If all these things are correct, where is the market to be got?
Deputy Dillon pointed out the other night that not merely are we suffering because there has been exacted, in a rather roundabout and destructive way, the full amount of money that used to be paid without any of this obstruction or destruction of the market. Deputy Dillon pointed out that not merely is the money being taken from us as before but that, in addition, there is a serious change taking place. The Deputy pointed out that there has been a quota put from time to time on various types of cattle but that the British, at any rate, have not been so blind to their advantage as to do one thing, that is, they have put no quota or restriction on the export of the herds of the country—the milch cattle of the country. One has only to count and to get an analysis of what crosses from time to time to find out that within a comparatively short time we shall not merely have paid, up-to-date, the annuities and the R.I.C. pensions; we shall not merely have done that at a greater cost and suffering to ourselves than if the moneys had been handed over freely, but we shall have made an exchange of greater value to the British, and at a greater loss to ourselves, than is represented by the cash value at the moment. For years the British have been driven back upon this country because their herds were deficient. They are now getting, as more or less worthless animals, all the carefully-selected and bred herds of the country. If it is recognised that that is happening and if it is agreed either that we cannot prevent its happening or that it is a good thing that it should happen, why do we not get at any rate the best value for the animals? They are worth more than merely sale as they are going out at the moment. Why would not the Minister make an offer to the British that we would transfer from time to time, say, quarter by quarter, so much of the herds as the English want? Let us openly and clearly know what the sacrifice is and what the future is going to be.
It is very hard to discern any deliberate line of policy through the activities of the Government. In a debate here the other day, one of the Deputies, who ordinarily speaks on these matters, said that, at any rate, the export of money from this country had been stopped. Almost immediately there was the revelation made, that as far as money is concerned, all the money he talked of, in italics, all the annuities and the R.I.C. pensions, is being collected on the other side. Everybody knows it is being collected except the Fianna Fáil supporters, who blind themselves to it. In addition to that peculiar view, which is accepted from time to time by Deputies who do not want to see the opposite—the truth —we get the other type of phrase which was used in the debate quite recently: "There is no good in our sending cattle to England at the moment, the Englishman cannot get a fair price for his own cattle in his own market, and if that market were free and open and there were no tariffs, it would not pay."
The obvious answer to that is the Border. Are we to assume that cattle are being driven and smuggled across the Border just simply for love of excitement? There is no bounty that we know of being paid on smuggled cattle. There must be some inducement to send them across, and the inducement, presumably, is the ordinary one of gain. But Deputies will seriously use, apart from the restricted market, this further argument, dealing only with the value we may get in the English market for whatever scope it may have, that it is no good, because the price to be got at present for cattle in England is so small. Unless there is going to be the allegation that in the Six-County area they would fetch a higher price than they do in England, or that the Six-County buyer, through sheer bewilderment or some peculiar idea of self-sacrifice, pays a higher price than our cattle would fetch in England— unless that argument is put up, there has been as yet no attempt to meet the argument which faces Ministers immediately. Cattle are being regularly run across the Border. There is no bounty paid on them. They are sold simply on account of the ordinary law of supply and demand. We must conclude that they are sold at a more advantageous price than could be obtained here. The ordinary law of supply and demand rules the price.
