I regret that a comprehensive Bill like this has to be squeezed into such a short space of time for discussion on the Second Stage. Perhaps we can agree to that if it is acceptable to have it referred to a Select Committee where, I am sure, potential as well as actual producers or feeders will be represented, and will deal with the question on business rather than on political lines. I am not fully convinced that this is the best way of dealing with it. Other countries have had to organise their pig-raising and bacon-curing industry. Our industry is influenced, if not controlled, by the British market. We have to fall into line with Britain, Holland and Denmark in carrying out an organisation scheme of this kind. The whole trouble in connection with this arose when England instituted a system of quotas to give effect to the policy of its Minister of Agriculture of preserving a certain percentage of the British market for home producers. In order to do that quotas had to be instituted. Under the quota system a certain allotment was made to the countries that had been supplying bacon to the British market. These quotas did not enable exporting countries to send in as large supplies as when there was an open market in Britain.
It was stated in evidence before the Pig Industries Tribunal in England that in Denmark cards were given out to producers allotting them a certain quota of pigs that they could produce at a fixed price. That did not preclude the Danish farmers from producing more than the allotted number of pigs, but what happened was that for the pigs they were able to send to the British market the price they received was two or three times greater than the price they received for pigs for which they had no cards. That shows the relative importance of the British market to the Danish producer. It provides a useful lesson, too, for our Minister for Agriculture and for the Government in its pursuit of external matters.
The fact that Britain set about organising her bacon trade by allotting a quota of pigs made it necessary for other countries, including our own, to organise their pig and bacon industry. That is shown in the Bill we are discussing. The Bacon Marketing Board and the Pigs Marketing Board in Britain are both representative of the bacon and pig producers of that country. When corresponding boards are set up here I feel strongly that they should be equally representative. I was not impressed by the suggestion made with regard to the fixing of prices for pigs and bacon. The ideal way would be to relate the price of bacon to the price of pigs, and the price of pigs to the price of feeding-stuff. That is the principle that has been adopted in Great Britain. They take the price of feeding-stuffs for the previous four months in fixing the price of pigs marketed at a particular time. They also allow something for management and a small margin of profit. I think that is a reasonable way of doing it.
The necessity for the control of pig production in Britain became necessary in view of the policy of the British Minister of Agriculture to reserve a slice of the British market for their own producers. It was easy for Britain to arrange to fill that. In fact it has been filled much more quickly than was anticipated by the British Minister; so quickly that it created a new problem for him. The position now is that Denmark and Holland have to control not only the manufacture of bacon but pig production as well.
As we do not control the British market, it is not a very easy matter for us to relate the price of bacon to the price of pigs, and the price of pigs to the cost of feeding stuffs. Our position is also different from that of Denmark—the same applies to Holland —because she exports bacon to Great Britain. Though the amount of bacon that she is allowed to put on the British market is large, it marks a definite limit to the amount of pigs that she can produce for that market. Different circumstances govern the industry here, because we have a bacon quota to Great Britain. I do not think we have any pork quota. We can send as much pig meat to Great Britain as they will buy from us, or as the price offered will induce us to send, without any quota restrictions. We can send it over to be used as pork on the other side. We can send it over as pork to be converted into bacon on the other side. In neither of these categories will it be affected by the quota in the British market. We can also send it over—and this is a very large trade—in the form of live pigs. It will not be affected by the quota in that way. I do not know that there is violent need for an elaborate Bill of this kind in these circumstances. I would go into much greater detail in criticising that principle, only I am aware that the matter will, in all probability, be dealt with more expeditiously in Select Committee than we can deal with it here in a general debate.
There is a Bacon Marketing Board and a Pigs Marketing Board in Britain and there are corresponding boards in Northern Ireland. In neither of these places do the boards take the nominated or ministerial form to the same extent as they are to take it here. I understand from the Minister that the principle on which these boards are to be constituted can, if it be thought wise, be modified or amended on later stages of the Bill. Consequently, I shall only make a passing reference to it. The Bacon Marketing Board is to consist of seven members, with a chairman nominated by the Minister. The seven ordinary members will be selected by the bacon curers of a certain capacity. The large curers are those who cure 77,000 cwts. of bacon or over; the medium are those who cure 33,000 cwts. or over and the small curers are those who manufacture less than that amount of bacon from pork.
The Minister has not disclosed in the Bill or in his speech how many large curers or medium curers or small curers there are. He has told us, however, that it is his intention to allocate two seats on the Bacon Marketing Board to the large curers, three to the medium curers, and two to the small curers. The House has not much information as to the equality of that allocation, but that is a matter that can be dealt with by the Select Committee and on the Committee Stage of the Bill here. It is not necessary to seek information as to that now, because I am sure the information will be available in Committee and that those acting on the Select Committee will act wisely. This Bacon Marketing Board will regulate the number of killings, the amount to be put into cold storage, the amount to be taken out, the amount to be exported and so forth. It will control the whole curing and handling of bacon.
I have not seen anywhere in the Bill provision for anybody to take the place of the wholesalers of bacon. The Minister will appreciate the need for something in the nature of the marketing facilities heretofore provided by the wholesaler. Very few grocers stock only one brand of bacon. Those grocers who want to have a variety of brands, because their customers demand it, will not have a sufficiently large trade to warrant consignments from the factory if the manufacturer or curer is to be his own wholesaler. The price will, therefore, be put up to the retailer, who will, of course, pass on the increase to the consumer. I suggest to the Minister that he should provide some sort of distributing machinery corresponding to the distributing machinery of the wholesale merchant at present.
The Pigs Marketing Board is to consist of six members and the chairman, who will be nominated by the Minister. Three members of the Board will be nominated by the Bacon Marketing Board which, in turn, is the nominee of the bacon curers, so that the bacon curers are to have 50 per cent. representation on the Pigs Marketing Board. The seven members of the Bacon Marketing Board are elected on a register consisting of bacon curers. We may take it that they will usually elect people of common sense who, after looking after the general interests of the bacon and pig industry, will have a special eye to the interest of the bacon curers.
Excluding the chairman, these three members will represent 50 per cent. of the Pigs Marketing Board, which is the only part of the machinery which can be used for the producer. In the case of 50 per cent. of the membership of that Board, their selfish interest— if they want to be selfish and there is a certain amount of selfishness in all of us—will lie in two things; getting cheap raw material for their industry and getting a big price for the finished article. Their selfish interest as members of the Pigs Marketing Board would be to get pigs—the raw material of their industry—as cheaply as possible, without regard for the pig producer. The other 50 per cent., who will act as a counter-irritant on the Pigs Marketing Board, will be three persons nominated by the Minister. I think he said, nominated from associations of big producers—but, anyway, his selection. I have a very decided objection to the constitution of the Pigs Marketing Board. Firstly, I am not convinced as to why the bacon curers should have any interest there, or as to where any special interest of theirs lies there except a selfish interest, and I do not see why they should be given any representation on that Pigs Marketing Board. The connecting link between the two Boards, of both chairmen being nominated by the Minister, in my opinion would be a sufficient connecting link, and I do not see why the bacon curers as such should have representation on that Board. I would not be so much against giving the Minister the right of nominating one or two on that Board—selecting them from anywhere, but of course selecting them because of their business capacity and business efficiency—if they were not either bacon curers or pig producers; but I would insist on that Board being substantially representative of pig producers, elected by pig producers by some machinery that I admit is not there at the present time. The business, however, is of sufficient importance to a large number of people and is such an economic asset to this country that it is well worth while providing the machinery to have such representation on the Pigs Marketing Board.
The Ministers of Agriculture in Holland, Denmark or Great Britain had a less difficult job to perform than our Minister for Agriculture has to perform if this Bill becomes operative, because, in the case of Great Britain, all they had to do was to regulate how much of the market they wanted and to control accordingly. In the case of Denmark, all that had to be done was to produce according to their lessened market, and similarly in the case of Holland. Here, however, we have, in addition to bacon, pork and live pigs going over. That presents a difficult problem if there is to be fair-play in the legislative machinery provided to deal with the whole matter. Let us take, first of all, the daily fluctuations in bacon, as given in evidence before the Pig Industries Tribunal. Adequate machinery should stabilise the prices for some fairly reasonable time, instead of having 5/-, 6/- and 7/- per cwt. of a variation in the price of pork from day to day. Of course, there is machinery provided here in the Bill, but I do not think it will be adequate when it comes to the test. Suppose, for instance, we hit upon a lean period, provided that there is certain machinery in this Bill which will enable the Pigs Marketing Board to go into business and buy up pigs at a better price than the demand would warrant—cold store them and deal with that bacon somewhere else—then they would buy pigs at a rate lower than the market rate when the prices would be high; but in both these circumstances you have operating a demand for pork. You have to take into consideration the buyers and exporters of pork and their side of the trade. You have also the live pig side of the trade. Now, let us take a period when prices are low. Pig producers must lose, and, of course, there is very little competition because, if pig prices are low here, it is only an indication that the demand for bacon and pork has fallen off on the other side or that there is too much raw material over on the other side. If our Bacon Marketing Board comes into the market to buy during that stage, they can raise the price very little without taking a terrible risk. Then the cycle passes on and, because of bad prices, there follows a period of small supplies, because the business was not paying. Our Minister for Agriculture is in the position of having to fill a quota for bacon in the British market. This is the function of the Bacon Marketing Board—to watch the pig market and to make sure to get sufficient supplies to fill that quota.
There are pains and penalties here, right down through the machinery of the Bill, which are to be imposed on each individual if he does not provide the quota allotted to him. He has got to do that or pay those fines. The Bacon Marketing Board wants to fill that quota. Let us say that there is a scarcity of pigs. That scarcity creates a demand. English buyers come over here and they buy those pigs alive, which is outside any quota, and they can export them alive for use as pork or to be manufactured into bacon on the other side. Confronted with that situation, I submit to the Minister that there is nothing in this Bill—and I admit that it is very difficult to devise appropriate machinery—to deal with that situation equitably for all concerned, bearing in mind that the producer, who was knocked about in the market in the previous cycle and who had to part with his pigs, if he could part with them at all, at a loss, now has the ball at his foot, and the bacon curer is under an obligation to fill a quota or else lose, perhaps, his place in the British market. The Minister has machinery here to fine all and sundry if they do not supply their link in the long chain of this Bill. What is he to do? Will he issue an order, or will he have power under this Bill to issue an order, saying that no pigs, either in the shape of dead pork or live pigs, can be exported from this country until he is assured that sufficient pigs are available to allow the Bacon Marketing Board to fill the quota he has contracted to fill in the British Market? That is a matter which I should like to put to the Minister just as I see it, without any adverse or favourable criticism, because it is a matter which needs to be dealt with, as I said in the beginning, in a business way and not in a political way by this committee which it is proposed to set up. If this committee were not being set up, not without a very convincing winding-up speech by the Minister, would I be in favour of all the restrictions in or even convinced of the need for this Bill at the present time, for one reason, and one only— that there are two arms to our pig trade, even to our export pig trade.
Up to the present, we have the free export of dead pigs as pork, to be manufactured into bacon on the other side or to be consumed as pork, and then we have the live pig trade. Because we have those two arms to our trade I am not really convinced of the need for the elaborate machinery proposed to be set up here. However, when it is fighting its way through those committees through which the Minister will have to pilot it, we will know a lot more about the need for it. We will then get the information which has convinced the Minister of the need for an elaborate Bill of this kind. We will surely be wiser then, even if we are not more convinced than we are at the present time.
Finally, I do wish to impress on the Minister that, if there is to be a ghost of a chance of this Bill working, the producer must get his rightful say in the Pig Marketing Board. There are some things in which I claim to have experience. In regard to others I frankly admit inexperience. As far as my recent activities go, I have not had much experience in the bacon or pig industry, but I am versed in it in a general way, although not in the special way in which I claim to be versed in other branches of agriculture. I am speaking for people who are not only in the pig industry in a practical way, and in a pretty large way, but who are in it in a scientific way. Whatever the cost, I would appeal to the Minister to make the Pig Marketing Board as truly representative of the pig end of the industry as he contemplates making the Bacon Marketing Board representative of the curing end of it.
There is another phase of this Bill which I do not like, and I admit that it is a difficult one. The working of this Bill will eliminate the small curer, classified in this Bill as the minor curer. I have noticed that elimination of the small man in a lot of the legislation by this Government. I do not think it is a good thing. We have got enough of big combines recently, and we are getting enough of them at the present time without saying any more about them. I fail to see how anybody can get into the bacon-curing business in the future who has not his head in at the present time.