Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 May 1935

Vol. 56 No. 1

Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Bill, 1935. - In Committee on Finance—Financial Motion (Resumed).

Mr. Belton

When the debate was adjourned I was putting the proposition to the Minister, whether it was really worth while trying, or whether it was a business proposition to keep up this question of butter exports at all, seeing that, in effect, the home consumers had to put up 39/- for every cwt. of butter exported. That is as much as we would get in net cost for exporting butter. While we would get 72/- we would pay the British 40 per cent. of that in tariffs and odds and ends. I doubt if we would get 39/-, or a little over 4d. per lb. for our butter. The Minister told us to-day that the economic price would be round about 140/-. Speaking nationally, when all the expenses are paid we are barely getting 39/- per cwt. Deputy Dowdall laboured the question strongly. It has been laboured here so strongly and so persistently that the camouflage is now too transparent; that there is agricultural depression all over the world. There is. But prices have not been falling recently in the agricultural world, particularly in the British agricultural world. Agricultural prices have consistently gone up since Britain went off the gold standard. It was to lift prices that she went off the gold standard. She would have failed in that move if she did not lift prices. She devalued the £ down to between 11/- and 12/- in order to put up the paper money value of commodities. She has done so. Prices have not gone up here. Deputy Dowdall knows that perfectly well. I am surprised at a businessman like him trying to camouflage the situation. Agricultural prices have gone up in America by the dollar being devalued. Prices have also gone up in Belgium recently. It was to save the economic situation that Belgium devalued her currency. Has that been reflected here? Whatever agricultural prices are or whatever the price of dairy produce, we have to bear special tariffs. The Minister should consider that. Australia was confronted with a problem somewhat similar, only that ours is of a more aggravated form, because in Australia there was no economic war. In Australia and New Zealand farmers set themselves out against inflating the price of butter to home consumers. I am not saying that they were right. They believed they were when the crisis came a few years ago. They are stronger in their belief to-day than when they took that decision. I am sure the Minister is aware of that. The Minister was forced into taking a decision and he had to camouflage other subsidiary lines, dairying or cow-keeping.

In addition to the depressed condition of the butter market and our inferior position compared with that of Denmark and the British Dominions, we had what was perhaps a subsidiary product of dairying annihilated. A calf that was worth £3 has been sold freely in the dairying counties during the last few months for a bob a time. That is what has created the crisis in dairying. Let the Minister consider what a little bit of dope will do for the butter trade. How much is lost in a calf? From £2 to £3. £2 for a calf would represent more than 1d. a gallon in milk. Old or young stripper cows in fair condition can now be bought in the Dublin market for £1 a head. When milked out that is what they are worth. I am sure the Department has statistics and knows that. There have to be cow replacements of one in five every year meaning a loss of £10 over five cows or £2 a cow representing another 1d. gone in the value of milk. I do not think the Minister would claim that yields on the whole average more than 480 gallons a cow so that £2 represents at least a loss of 1d. a gallon on milk. I agree it would be impossible to carry on the dairying industry only for this camouflage, and this taxation of 7d. on every pound of butter. I agree a long way with Deputy Dillon that the Minister should consider the withdrawing of this Bill. It is only a Bill to camouflage the position. If it is true, as Deputies said here to-day, that milk is fetching 5d. per gallon in the Six Counties, that speaks volumes. I should like to hear from the Minister why he accepts the position that Danish butter can maintain a price of 20/- or 22/- per cwt. in the British market over our price. What has the Department of Agriculture being doing for thirty years? Is the Minister satisfied with his department. Is he satisfied with all that has been and is being spent, on the Department of Agriculture if we are to accept as a matter of course that the Danish product is worth 22/- a cwt. more than ours. The Minister is also aware that New Zealand, Australia, the Argentine and South Africa are comparatively new arrivals in the butter market, and they are beating us. Deputy Dillon mentioned to-day the old story of what militated against our retaining a position equal to that of Denmark in the British market. I think the Minister said that we would want co-operation with Australia and New Zealand in order to get in line with Denmark.

Deputy Dillon advocated winter dairying. Of course under normal conditions winter dairying here is out of the question. We have summer grass butter from New Zealand now, which we did not have twenty years ago, when we were talking about winter dairying. Twenty years ago at certain times of the winter butter reached its peak. Latterly, with the supply of butter from New Zealand, Australia and the Argentine, butter actually falls at that period of winter. I think, therefore, that the question of developing winter dairying here, no matter how armchair farmers may suggest storing grass and that sort of thing, is out of the question. Again I would in all seriousness ask the Minister for Agriculture to remember that he has a very important duty to the agricultural population of this country. I notice that so much alive were the Six Counties to the operations of finance that immediately the news came that Belgium had gone off the gold standard the Northern Minister for Finance went over to London to see how it affected the linen trade. Here, no matter how the international financiers juggle with money, there is no notice taken of it. If, for instance, Britain gave a special import preference duty to Denmark which it did not give to us, would we not say, "Oh, it is the Saxon again; it is the Saxon hatred of Ireland"? But that is exactly the position we are in to-day. The Dane has 25 per cent. of an exchange advantage. New Zealand and Australia have 25 per cent. of an exchange advantage. By any manipulation which the Minister attempts here, levying from one section to pay another, how can he hope to compete against conditions of that kind? In Belfast they were alive to the situation. They knew that if Belgium went off the gold standard, and had depreciated currency, Belgium could sell her linen goods and cut out Belfast. The Northern Minister went over to London to look after the position, but here no Minister looks after our interests in the realm of international finance, nor have they taken any power to look after them. I hope that the Minister will appreciate his duty and realise that no matter what schemes he puts through on paper, if the question of money value and exchange is not looked after, any other efforts will be futile.

When he is winding up, I hope to hear the Minister make a better case for the exemption of the Kerry cattle area. If we were here considering a scheme for the establishment of creameries I could understand the argument which the Minister has put up, but we are here considering a levy on farmers' butter. Farmers' butter is produced and sold in areas where there are no creameries. We are not concerned at the moment with the reason why there are no creameries; we are only concerned with the fact that they are not there. The Kerry cattle area is, therefore, at no more of a disadvantage than a similar area in Clare, Galway, Donegal, or even Meath, where there are no creameries. Why should one area be exempted against another? Certainly the reasons put up by the Minister did not convince me, and I hope he will go further into the point when he is winding up. If this is not a temporary measure, and if the present relations in trade between this country and Britain are going to continue, I do not see that the little bit of butter export trade we have is worth saving. We are paying too large a price for it. We are losing too much. In order to get 39/- a cwt. for butter, which is only one-third of an economic price according to the Minister's statement here to-day, we have to tax our own producers to inflate the price of butter here so as to subsidise giving it over for almost nothing to Britain. I should like to hear the Minister on that aspect of the matter; I should like to hear him make a case for the continuation of exporting butter to England. Personally I see none. We would save considerably and obviously if we dumped that butter into the Liffey, or used it for cart grease instead of sending it over to Britain.

Mr. Brennan

I am afraid the introduction of this Bill by the Minister was not very illuminating. He left us to guess a good deal. The Minister gave us to understand that everybody as a matter of fact would be better off as a result of this Bill. Nothing is going to be put on the consumer, the farmers are going to be better off, and the creamery owners are going to be better off. Personally, I cannot follow that. The Minister was endeavouring to explain the benefits to be conferred on farmers who were manufacturing butter and selling it to private customers, but I cannot follow his reasoning.

I was amazed at the speech delivered here by a business man, Deputy Dowdall. His speech was one of the most amazing things I have heard for a long time from a business man. Deputy Dowdall started off by saying that the price of agricultural produce had gone down all over the world; that it was not the fault of the Fianna Fáil Government, or even of the previous Government, that prices were so bad in the British market—that good old British market which, the Minister for Agriculture told us to-day, is willing to take all the butter we have in any quantities we state. Deputy Dowdall told us that very bad prices were ruling in the British market and that the dairying industry in this country had to be helped out and relieved as a result of these bad prices. Last year it cost us £1,221,232 already extracted from the dairying industry of this country in order to get the butter into the British market—that good old British market! In addition to that, Government funds contributed something over £800,000. Deputy Dowdall went further, and, while supporting this Bill, he went so far as to say, in reference to something which Deputy Bennett suggested, that if the people who followed dairying in Limerick would take off their coats and work and do something else in addition to dairying, they would be better off. As a matter of fact, that is where I find the great fault with this Bill really. I think the Bill is inequitable. I think it is unfair and unjust. Let us take any dairying industry in this country. In any of those areas in the South where dairying is the industry they follow dairying as the main source of their incomes. That is the industry they follow for their livelihoods. In addition to that, they are entitled to follow tillage or any other kind of farming. Is there any reason why a non-dairying part of the country should be obliged to come to the rescue of the main industry in that other particular area by paying a direct subsidy by way of levy towards the dairying counties? I think it is most inequitable. I do not see any justice at all in it. I do not see why Roscommon, say, or Galway, or those other places where you have hard-working people following mixed farming and tilling a good deal, and where the wives of these farmers supplement their incomes by selling butter to private customers, should have to pay 4d. per lb. in order to help the dairying districts in which, Deputy Dowdall says, the people ought to take off their coats and work at something else. I do not think there is any justice in it.

Personally, I am afraid that the Minister will come to grief if he endeavours to administer that portion of the Act which relates to the registration and the imposition of a levy on farmers' butter. For instance, as the Minister explained here to us to-day, I am led to believe that all butter that is exported out of this country is not liable to a levy, but butter sold for consumption in the country is liable to a levy. Take the case of a butter exporter, or rather a butter merchant, living, say, in Athlone or some such town. He buys butter from farmers who are unregistered. There is no need for them to be registered. All they have to do is to sell to a registered dealer. That dealer has the right to re-sell that butter to people in the town of Athlone, and he also has the right to export that butter. Suppose we take it on a fifty-fifty basis, and that he exports fifty per cent. and sells the rest locally. From whom is he going to deduct the levy? He is entitled to deduct it in respect of the butter he sells locally, but not in respect of the butter he exports. What will he do? He will deduct it from everybody. It is quite a common occurrence all over the country that we have butter merchants who are supplied by various producers—some of them good, some of them middling, and some of them not so good. Now, locally, in the vicinity of that butter merchant there are people who want a particular person's butter from him. They want that particular butter and will not take anything else. That is quite a common occurrence. If that man wants to keep his customers he must supply them with the butter they want. According to this, that will mean that it will be bought for 4d. less than inferior butter. How does the Minister propose to work that? I certainly cannot see any solution for that particular case, nor can I see any equity or justice whatever in asking the farmer's wife, who is supplementing her small income by supplying the local bank manager or the local Civic Guard Superintendent with home-made butter, to pay 4d. per lb. in order that the dairying industry in the South may be subsidised. I think that the Bill is ill-thought-out and unworkable. As Deputy Belton pointed out, I should like to see this Bill, or any Bill of this kind, discussed in this House in an absolutely non-political atmosphere. It would be a great matter, certainly, if we could dissociate this Bill, or the necessity for this Bill, from the economic war, but we cannot do it. It is part and parcel of it, and certainly, as the dairying industry exists in this country to-day, it must be subsidised from some source. Why must it be subsidised from some source?

Taking the figures from the Government publication—that is, the Trade Journal—I find that in 1931 dropped calves were £2 17s. 3d. per head. That was the average price all over Ireland. To-day, according to the same authority, they are 17/6. In 1931 calves under six months were worth £4 4s. 9d. —that was the average made out by the officials. What are they worth to-day? They are worth £1 14s. 6d. If you kept them for 12 months in 1931 they were worth £7 12s. 6d. At the same age to-day they would be worth £3 3s. 3d. That is the average price. In addition to that springer cows have dropped from £18 9s. 3d. to £10 12s. 0d.

Let us take the case of a dairyman who has 30 cows. The peculiar thing about it is that some people, even the Minister, do not seem to realise that we cannot have butter without cows, and we cannot have cows without calves—they are the essentials. The man with 30 cows drops £2 a head on calves, and that amounts to £60 in a year. That would be the loss if he sells them as weaned calves. If he keeps them for six months he loses twice as much, and if he keeps them a further six months his loss is very considerable. If he wants to keep his herd up-to-date he will be cashing one-fifth of them every year. If he is breeding his own cows they come to him from the calf stage. He loses £8 10s. 0d. on every cow as compared with 1931 prices. A man with 30 cows is, owing to the economic war, losing a considerable sum yearly, and certainly that man must be subsidised. That is the position, and there is no use endeavouring to camouflage it. We cannot get away from it.

The Minister's attempt to right the situation by this Bill is sheer humbug. This morning he told us he had a plan by which he could drop half the levy and leave everybody better off than before. Of course he can, by not charging any levy on the export and consequently paying less of a bounty. It amounts to taking 1/- out of a man's pocket and giving him 1/6. It would be as good to give him 6d. in the first instance and not take the shilling at all. That is exactly what the Minister is doing.

The principle behind this Bill is that there is a tax to be collected. Instead of the Government collecting that tax in the ordinary way—and if they want to finance the economic war let them finance it out of taxation—they are trying to make tax-gatherers of all the farmers' wives in this country. That is one of the effects of this Bill. It will have another effect. You will have, I am afraid, a repetition in regard to butter of what we have had on the Border with regard to cattle, and that is smuggling. On the whole the Bill is a kind of camouflage, a kind of humbug. I believe that the portion of it that refers to the levy on farmers' butter will be absolutely unworkable. I think this measure is inequitable and unjust. In my opinion the Minister would be well advised to withdraw the Bill and bring in some measure that would really and honestly meet the situation from his own point of view.

Mr. Corry

I think it is rather a pity that the Price Stabilisation Bill was introduced so soon. It is a pity that some of the farmers were not left to feel the results of the drop in prices. If there were no economic war, and if farmers were selling their butter in the British market at the price obtaining now and during the last two years, and they were realising from 1½d. to 2d. a gallon at the creameries, it would be a very easy way of ending the problem of the bullock. I do not know of any farmer, even Deputy Brennan's farmer, who would produce milk at that price or be prepared to sell butter at 6d. a lb. Naturally, if they had to do that, they would get out of cows. Deputy Brennan attributes everything to the economic war. The Scotch farmers, who have all the benefits of the English market and the profits arising from them, have a different story to tell. I saw a statement from them yesterday indicating that they had dropped £15,000,000 a year during the last five years in the value of their agricultural produce. And they had all the benefits that could possibly accrue to them from the English markets. So much for Deputy Brennan's arguments in that connection.

Mr. Brennan

What price per cwt. were they getting?

Mr. Corry

Deputy Brennan knows as well as I do that the price of beef to-day in the English market is not paying the cost of production.

Mr. Brennan

What is the difference between our price and their price?

Mr. Corry

Get out of it. I got out of it seven years ago and I consider myself as good a farmer as Deputy Brennan any day of the week. At the very period when Deputy Brennan continued rearing the bullock I found the difference in price between a heifer calf as against a bull calf in Cork City was 5/-. That was seven years ago. I found the difference in price between the two yearlings after rearing them and taking them to the local fair was £2 and that you were paying 35/- extra for rearing the bullock and I got out of it.

Mr. Jordan

You got out of more than that.

Mr. Corry

I did. I did not rear a bullock calf for more than seven years. Deputy Brennan considers that we should go on in the same old way, telling the same old tale and dragging ourselves out of the same old mire every year.

Mr. Brennan

Go bhfoiridh Dia orainn.

Mr. Corry

Well, that is the idea that has left Deputy Brennan and others where they are to-day.

Mr. Brennan

And left the dairy farmers where they are.

Mr. O'Leary

Is Deputy Corry quite happy there?

Mr. Corry

I am.

Mr. O'Leary

I doubt it very much.

Mr. Corry

I know Deputy O'Leary will not be happy until he is over here.

Mr. O'Leary

I have no doubt about it—that will not be long.

Mr. Corry

I would not like to be shaving the Deputy until then. I consider that the levy that is being put on home-produced butter under this Bill is far too high. Anyone looking at the two sides of the question and looking at the prices at which farmers' butter is sold to-day and the price at which creamery butter is sold will admit that. The difference is some-think like 2¾d. per lb. The Minister and his advisers in the Department know very well that the imposition of 4d. per lb. on home-produced butter is just going to drive that butter out of the market. He should know it at any rate. I consider that the Minister's advisers would be far better placed in providing those people with an alternative. In my constituency in East Cork we should get the very same treatment as the Kerry farmers. An application was put up to the Minister from my constituency two years ago. That was a proposition for the setting up of creameries there. We asked for a central creamery and five auxiliary creameries two years ago. We had several inspectors down to visit the place and they slept on it. They have not provided the facilities we asked for. The farmers concerned are at present engaged in home-butter making. If those facilities were provided, that would solve the problem of the people there far easier and far better than imposing this system— coming down on the unfortunate farmer who is producing home-made butter and clapping a levy of 4d. a lb. on his butter.

I consider that fixing the levy on home-made butter at the same figure as the levy on creamery butter is unjust and unfair. It will only have one effect and it can only have one effect. Our proposals were put up definitely to the Minister two years ago. The Dairy Disposals Board and the other boards dealing with the question left a pretty nice mess after them. I admit that in a particular area in Kerry you will not get the facilities in the production of milk within an area that would be covered in the ordinary way by an auxiliary creamery. But I say that in other districts, where there are no creameries, the Minister should send down his Departmental officials and get his scheme going of setting up creameries there. It would work far better than the system under this proposal or it should come side by side with it. The farmers get something like 8d. per lb. for home made butter as against 10¾d. for creamery butter. Working it out on that basis, the fixing of the same levy on farmers' butter and creamery butter is undoubtedly unfair and unjust. It is endeavouring to drag too much out of the farmer who is producing home-made butter. I think the Minister should reconsider the portion of the Bill dealing with levies. He should reconsider it in the light of the figures that undoubtedly are at the disposal of his officials.

I do not see very much in the other arguments put up on this particular matter by the Opposition. Were it not for the Stabilisation of Prices Act there would undoubtedly be no dairying in this country now. There would be no cows in the country to-day even if there had been no economic war at all. I ask Deputy Bennett, who spoke against this Bill, what would his constitutents be getting for their milk now if there had been no Stabilisation of Prices Act? They would be getting 2d. or 1½d. a gallon. That would be the price, on the basis of the present price of Free State butter in the British market. Deputy Bennett knows that and he proved that he knew it when he broke away from Deputy Mulcahy here and voted for the Bill. We had the two inseparables walking into different lobbies on that occasion. That proved that Deputy Bennett was alive to the interests of his constituents. That Bill was undoubtedly required, but I think that this part of it dealing with the levy on home-produced butter will militate unfairly and unjustly against the farmer who has no creamery to which to take his milk. It will militate against the man who has followed the policy of manufacturing his own butter at home. He will be getting a lower price for his butter than the man who is turning his milk into butter at the creamery. There is no gainsaying that argument, and I suggest that this particular section of the Bill should be reviewed in the light of the figures that the Minister must have at his disposal.

General Mulcahy

I do not know why Deputy Corry wants more creameries in Cork except it is to supply more Irish money and more Irish work and Irish sweat to producing more butter that will be forked over to Great Britain with a sum of money on top of each lb. to provide the people of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with cheaper butter. For what else does the Deputy want more creameries in East Cork? I do not know. I come from the City of Dublin and I am ignorant of these matters and do not understand them.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Mulcahy proved that when he voted against the Stabilisation of Prices Bill.

General Mulcahy

I made a suggestion that this Bill should be discussed in a non-Party spirit. Until Deputy Corry changed the atmosphere on the Fianna Fáil Benches we might as well be discussing this Bill before a group of beings in Mars as discussing it before the Fianna Fáil Party. The only people who broke the mummified silence on the Fianna Fáil Benches were the Minister and Deputy Dowdall. We addressed suggestions, remarks and appeals to the members on the Fianna Fáil Benches who say they know something about farming and who say they have some interest in the Irish farmers. We asked these men to tell us what they think they are doing for the Irish farmers, why are they doing it, and what this Bill proposes to do. I know little about the butter industry, coming, as I do, from Dublin, where all we know about this business is that we have to pay 5d. a lb. more for our butter than the people in Newry or Belfast or the people in other places across the Border and in Great Britain have to pay. We might as well be discussing this matter in a museum in Mars for any hope we have of stirring up the Fianna Fáil Party to what is happening. Deputy Corry has made an appeal for a certain class of farmer in Cork, but that is all that will happen about it, and Deputy Corry knows that. An ignorant person like myself listening to this discussion here might remember that the Minister for Agriculture described the dairy industry as the foundation of our agricultural industry here. I remember that part of our agricultural industry that brought in the greatest income in the past to the Irish farmer was the cattle industry. The Fianna Fáil complaint on that part of the agricultural industry now is that its productivity has to be cut down, say, by two-thirds. We are to produce only for our own needs. When I see what is happening with regard to the dairy industry, it strikes me that there is an analogy with the cattle industry; that what should be happening with regard to the dairying industry is that we should be cutting it down by one-half; because, whether there is an economic war on or not, it seems to me we are putting a lot of hard Irish work and useful Irish money into the provision of something to be given in a very cheap way to Englishmen, Scotchmen, Welshmen, and the people who live in the North of Ireland.

We sent ninety-two per cent. of our butter to Great Britain last year. They say the value of that was £1,158,000. Leaving out of consideration any money raised by the levy, we have to clap the greater part of £823,000 on top of that butter to get John Bull and Co. to take it. He valued it at £1,158,000, and, as I say, the greater part of the £823,000 had to go on top of it or he would not take it. Deputy Corry is concerned about producing more of that kind of stuff, and no doubt providing more money by taxation from the people to get these results of Irish capital and Irish labour shipped over there. I find it very hard to understand it. The Minister told us that the collection of one and a quarter millions in twopences and twopence-halfpennies last year and paying it back to the same people was simply machinery for fixing the price that the Irish purchaser of butter will have to pay. He has now found a simpler way. He will have only to handle £600,000. All that £600,000 will be collected and paid back. He is stabilising the price the Irish consumer will have to pay for butter in another way. I suggest to him that he is stabilising it at one penny per lb. more than the people were paying last year, as high as they were paying.

The great mystery, however, is where the £600,000 is going to come from, or the £700,000 or £800,000 that the Minister says it may run to. When we were dealing with the Financial Resolution I pointed out that the Minister told the House during the discussion of the original Stabilisation Bill, as reported in column 1376 of the Official Reports of 4th May, 1932: "We consume about 300,000 cwts. of creamery butter. We consume only a small amount of factory butter. Only about 40,000 cwts. of farmers' butter, so far as we know, are sold by farmers for consumption in the Free State." The levy is to be raised now only on butter sold in the Free State. In dealing with the Financial Resolution, the Minister stated when dealing with the amount of the levy: "It will amount in the coming year to £400,000 on creamery butter. I cannot say what it will amount to on non-creamery butter. It will not, I am sure, be as much as that. It may be considerably less, certainly something less. We may take it that it will be somewhere round £700,000, at any rate less than £800,000."

I take it that when the Minister speaks of the amount that will be raised in the coming year he is talking of a full year. If he is talking of the present financial year, in which the full proposals of this Bill will not be in operation, then I would like to know that from the Minister. I am taking the figures he has quoted as being for the full year. He is going to raise £400,000 on creamery butter. Creamery butter sold in this country is going to pay a levy of 39/- per cwt. The Minister told us before that we used 300,000 cwts. of creamery butter. He said that we used little or no factory butter. Apparently the factory butter is to be exported in the coming year as it was usually in the past. He told us that we only consumed in this country 40,000 cwts. of farmers' butter. If the 300,000 cwts. of creamery butter is still going to be consumed here and only £400,000 is going to be raised on that, where is the other £300,000 to be raised from? Is it to be raised off the 40,000 cwts. of farmers' butter that the Minister says is consumed in this country? If the Minister stands over that figure, then the whole thing seems to be absurd.

I would ask the Minister explicitly if he is going to raise £300,000 on, say, home-manufactured butter in connection with this levy. If he is, will he tell us what are the up-to-date figures of the sale of home-manufactured butter by farmers in the country? He indicated on the Financial Resolution that he was going to explain all these things on the Second Reading of the Bill; but he certainly has not made it clear that he is going to put this burden of £300,000 on the farmer producers, or, as it will be passed on if possible by the farmer producers, on to the consumer of farm-produced butter. Deputy Dowdall thinks it is a very reasonable thing, if the butter industry is to be subsidised, that it should be subsidised by an imposition on the consumer of butter in this country, and he is astounded that there should be any other kind of suggestion. If the creamery industry is to be subsidised by a tax on the consumer of butter in the country, then the position we have is that the taxation for that industry is being put to the greatest possible extent on the poorest section of the people.

The Minister indicated that farmers who consumed their own butter did not care what the price of butter is on the market—that they simply make their butter and eat it. Deputy Dowdall, if he accepts the Minister's point of view, should know then that the price of butter does not matter to the greater part of the agricultural community. A farmer may have a family of eight or ten children and he has not to pay 1/5 per lb. for butter. A workman living in the City of Dublin or in the City of Cork is the man who is bearing this burden. In the fantastic situation we have—if the people of this country are to be taxed to keep up an industry which is apparently overproducing and is dishing out the over-production, not only at a cheap price, but is also throwing money into the laps of people with whom we are fighting an economic war—the burden should not be placed on the direct consumers of butter. If it does it will fall on the poor people.

I should like to hear the views of some Deputies on the Labour Benches on the principles enunciated by Senator Dowdall. The Minister has had two full years' experience of subsidising the butter industry in this particular way. He puts his proposals before the House without any review of the dairying industry, and without giving Deputies any chance of understanding where the £700,000 that he is to collect by a levy is to come from. He told us that £400,000 would come from creamery butter. Impliedly £300,000 is coming from the producers of butter on the farms. If that is so, the Minister should state it explicitly. There is no other source from which it can come. If that is the intention, the Minister has completely misinformed the House with regard to the extent of home-produced butter coming on the market, which he told us was only 40,000 or 60,000 cwts.

As far as I am concerned I can tell Deputy Corry that I am completely opposed to the Bill. I should like to hear the views of farmers on the Fianna Fáil benches. Deputy Corry said that what I pointed out with regard to the farmers was all wrong. If it is all wrong from Deputy Corry's point of view I should like to hear whether it is right from the point of view of any other Deputy on the Fianna Fáil benches. If it is wrong then the Minister's whole scheme is wrong. Perhaps it is of very little moment to any one in the agricultural industry at the present time there are so many things wrong. It indicates the attitude in which agricultural matters are discussed here when we had the attitude of the Fianna Fáil benches this evening—such as it was.

Mr. Smith

Expert number nine.

Mr. Victory

In intervening on this Bill I do not intend to pursue the course of lectures we have had from the Opposition. Some of the Deputies think it right to lecture us on our duties to our constituents. These Deputies would have quite enough to do if they looked after the interests of their own constituencies. I do not intend to go into the provisions of the Bill. I realise the Minister's difficulties. I realise the mess he had to face in handling the whole dairying industry. While I say that, I ask him seriously to consider the 4¼d. per pound to be levied on farmers' butter. There is no creamery in the county I represent. Recently many of the farmers there got hand separators. At present farmers in that county are supplying the county home and the mental hospital with butter at 1/- per lb. They are lucky because they can add the 4¼d. to their price. But what about people who are supplying local contracts? Is 4¼d. per lb. to be deducted from them? One Deputy stated that the tendency in the country generally was from farm butter towards creamery butter. If 4¼d. per lb. is deducted from the price of butter it means that a number of people will get out of the business unless prices are raised. That will be a serious matter from the point of view of farming and cottage industries. Are we to turn our backs on that method? In my opinion 4¼d. is entirely too high a levy and seriously I ask the Minister to consider it again. If it is passed by the House I can tell the Minister that it will have a very bad effect in the county I come from, particularly amongst people who go in for producing a first-class article. The first-class butter will be exported and the butter used at home will be paying the levy. I ask the Minister seriously to consider the matter.

Mr. Haslett

If anyone can claim to discuss this Bill as a non-Party measure I can make that claim. I preface my remarks by saying that previously I fought with the Minister for Agriculture for not giving some assistance in the marketing of butter. As the position is intensified since, I hold that it is essential to give some subsidy to butter. Butter is a by-product of a key industry, and if something is not got for the by-product the key industry will suffer. I am in agreement with the Minister, and I think something should be done. I am not able to follow this Bill in all its implications. Perhaps some parts that I have not been able to grasp can be explained. It seems to me that in our agricultural economy we are working ourselves into a position where we are bound hand and foot by regulations. Within the last nine months we have had three Bills dealing with agriculture. We had the Cattle Slaughter Bill, the Pigs and Bacon Bill and now this Bill, and running through all are regulations tying the most valuable people in the State hand and foot. If I might illustrate the position it is all like the old type of mowing machine that some of the senior Deputies will remember. There was so much machinery in it and so many gears and wheels that there was no power left to cut the crop. We have so much machinery, and we are so interlocked, that any benefit accruing from any of the measures will be exhausted before it reaches the person for whom it is intended. I would suggest to the Minister that he should explore another avenue by which he might benefit the producers of butter, or rather that he should attack the problem more directly and subsidise the production of milk. I am sure consumers like Deputy Mulcahy professes to be—a town-dweller, buying his butter and buying his milk—will need a great deal of explanation as to why they are paying at least 4d. a quart for milk while it is taking all this machinery with which we are concerned here to-day to get us 4d. a gallon. That is really what it amounts to.

We had the annual meeting of our creamery on last Friday night, and we had a representative of the Irish Agricultural Society there. On reviewing our balance sheet he congratulated us on having maintained a higher price than the average through the creameries at which he attended in his rounds. Our price would work out at about 4d. per gallon. If we have all this machinery to help us to pay to the producer 4d. per gallon, while the new milk vendor is getting 4d. a quart, I am sure, as I have said, that Deputy Mulcahy and other town dwellers like him will ask us for some explanation. Butter at the price at which it has been for a great number of years is, in my opinion, a luxury. The ordinary market price has not been a price related to the cost of production. Were it not for other side lines that were worked into the economy it could not be produced at the price at all. Most of those who deal with milk and butter know that on an average it would take two and a half gallons of milk to make a pound of butter. Somebody will tell me, of course, that in the creameries where they take the last out of it a pound of butter would be got out of two and one-third gallons. It will be seen that when it takes that number of gallons to make a pound of butter there is no relation whatever to the price we get for that pound of butter.

I agree with those Deputies who have spoken as regards the levy on farmers' butter. It was my opinion that that should never have been put on. I remember a year ago some of our members on the committee of the creamery were advocating that farmers' butter should come under the levy just the same as creamery butter. I opposed that, and I would oppose it still. I think it is a mean and contemptible thing that we are going to bring in regulations to deal with small farmers who are only selling a few pounds of surplus butter. The Bill, I understand, aims at giving them exemption up to five pounds per week. That will operate for, I suppose, 40 weeks of the year, because they would not have a pound of butter to spare for those 40 weeks, or during some such period, but after that they might have a few pounds to sell over the five pounds. Whilst we may pursue dairymen, and so on, in the interests of public health, I think it is a contemptible thing to pursue a small farmer who is only selling his few pounds of surplus butter, and to pursue him not for health reasons but for levying purposes.

I think it was Deputy Victory who deplored the want of creameries in certain areas. I have not very much sympathy with that point of view. At the present time creameries can be organised on a co-operative basis. There is no reason in the world why any community, no matter how small the farmers are, should not go together and get a creamery separating station with the proper plant. I come from a county of small farmers. I think two-thirds of the farmers in County Monaghan would be under £15 valuation, and yet there is no excuse for any person who wants to send his milk to the creamery; there is a creamery available within a reasonable distance, which can be reached by cart or lorry. That is the only way that we can put a uniform article on the market. My opinion is that we should not have a levy on this farmers' butter, because it is a dying industry. Most of us are old enough to remember the time when we had big butter markets all over the country to which there would be a substantial amount of butter brought in baskets. To-day there is no such thing as a butter market. Any butter that is being sold is sent into the shops or to private customers. It is an industry that is fading out because there is no future for it. When butter is collected from hundreds of small butter-makers, it is impossible to produce the same sort of article that could be produced at the creamery, where the milk is separated and the butter put on the market in the proper way. In my opinion the farmers' butter should be exempt. The imposition of the levy will not benefit the State; it will irritate everybody and no good will come of it. I can quite sympathise with the Minister's intentions, but I do not think that this Bill is going to help. It will be like the Calf Slaughter Bill, where we have all the irritation and none of the benefits. We are setting out in this Bill to be more irritating to the small producers, and we are setting out to do the impossible. We are looking after them and giving them the licence, and so, with what is produced, it will be as bad as trying to satisfy the Surveyor of Income Tax with regard to your income, and you will have to supply information as to how many eggs and how much butter you produce. I think that the Minister would be well advised to leave that out of the Bill altogether and just to see that what is produced in the proper way is marketed in the proper way.

There is a good deal in the Bill which, I suppose, is necessary and I do not propose to deal with it further. I agree with the Minister in trying to help the price of butter and to help the producers of butter for export, because butter is a by-product of a key industry. No matter how Deputy Corry, and other Deputies with a jaundiced outlook on the cattle trade, may express themselves, we still must have dairy cattle in the country, and it will be on those cattle that our future prosperity will depend more than on some of the other schemes that are being pursued.

Mr. Holohan

One point that I should like to stress is the levying of this 4d. per lb. on butter. I am living in a dairying county which is fairly well supplied with creameries, but at the same time I realise how hard it is for some people, not living on main roads, to get their produce to the creameries. Such people, with only five or six cows, find it very hard to get the milk to the creameries. In many cases it would take them half a day to get to the creamery and they think that using their own separator at home is more profitable, from the point of view of saving time, than to send it into the creamery. I think that it is a great hardship to put a levy of 4d. per lb. on what these people make at home. Most of these people do not live on the main road and it is inconvenient for them to send their milk to the creamery. I know of a number of people around our own area who are similarly circumstanced, and I know how hard it would be for them to send their milk to the creamery. I think they are at more expense, really, in making the butter at home than in sending it to the creamery, because they have to keep up their little equipment and so on; and if they are in a slightly better position and perhaps getting a little more out of their industry, I think they are entitled to it. I think it is unjust to impose any tax at all on butter, and that is what I am opposed to in this Bill.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

One point raised by Deputy Dillon was that we should make an attempt to supply butter regularly to the British market during the winter as well as the summer. Deputy Belton, I think, replied to that very effectively when he said that in recent years the price for New Zealand and Australian butter during the winter months has been lower than in the summer. That is true. I think that we would be very foolish, taking into account the way prices have gone during the last few years, to hold over butter in the hope of getting a better price. I was asked what are the sales of butter in this country. I cannot say. I can give the sales of creamery butter because the creameries make returns of their sales and production, and their sales on the home market amount to about 27,000 cwts. per month, but what the sales of farmers' or factory butter are I do not know. We know that factory butter, at least, which was leviable, was about 20,000 cwts. per year for the last two years, but we do not know what farmers' butter, or producers' butter as it is referred to in this Bill, would amount to, and it will not be known until the Bill has been some time in operation.

I said here that some British merchants were willing to take all the butter we could give them. Deputy Dillon, of course, naturally wanted to make a point about the great British market which was almost dead. I could also say that there are British cattle buyers who would take all the cattle we could give them if their Government would allow them to take them. In fact, I have had such buyers here with me begging for licences, but the British Government would not allow them. If the British Government puts certain restrictions on the import of butter, then it does not matter what the British merchant is willing to take. He will only be able to take what his Government allows him to take, and we cannot help him. Have we not heard a great deal from Deputy Mulcahy and other Deputies on the other side about the price the farmer is getting for his cattle, even if he is allowed to export them to England? We have heard statements from Deputy Belton and others to the effect that it would pay the farmer better to throw his cattle into the Liffey than to sell at that price. Compare the price of butter now, however, with what it was in former years. Irish butter in Liver pool this week is 76/-, and that is a good deal better price than prevailed for a great part of last year. Seven or eight years ago the price of Irish butter there was 176/- instead of 76/-. Well, if there is a drop of two-thirds in the price of butter, surely it is not much of an exaggeration to say that the British market is gone? It must be remembered that there was no economic war in 1932 when we brought this Bill in first. Suppose there were no economic war now and that we were to accept British prices, even without tariffs or bounties, and so on, our farmers would get 2½d. per gallon for their milk.

Mr. Bennett

He would get at least 3d.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Bennett says 3d. I say 2½d. How much does the Deputy think it costs to market the butter?

Mr. Bennett

100/- gives us 4d.

Dr. Ryan

Take off 20/- for the cost of manufacture. The Deputy is assuming that it will cost nothing to manufacture.

Mr. Bennett

It will give us 4d.

Dr. Ryan

If 100/- gives us 4d., 76/- will give us 2½d.

Mr. Bennett

No.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy is more stupid than I thought he was. I think it is a long time since the Deputy went to school.

General Mulcahy

The Deputy is in a hard school now.

Dr. Ryan

What is the price of Irish Free State butter in Liverpool this week? We are talking about New Zealand and Danish butter and all that, but in Liverpool this week the price of Danish butter is 95/- to 96/-. The price of New Zealand butter in Liverpool this week is 77/- to 78/-, and Australian butter is 73/- to 74/-. The price of Irish Free State butter in Liverpool this week is 76/-. Any Deputy here can go down to the Library and look up the Report of the Tariff Commission on butter, and he will find that for the eight years from 1922 to 1930 we were 23/9 behind Danish butter during all that time and that we were 9/4 behind New Zealand butter during all of the same period. This week, as I have told the House, we are 19/- behind Danish butter and 1/- behind New Zealand butter. So that we certainly have not worsened our position. It will be seen from that that we have improved our position relatively to New Zealand and Danish butter.

Mr. Dillon

Were you not getting as much, and more as for Danish butter at one time?

Dr. Ryan

I do not remember.

Mr. Dillon

I have got it here before me. On the 23rd August, 1932, Danish and Irish butter sold for the same price.

Dr. Ryan

That may be possible. It is quite possible that for a period, or even for a year, we might do better than New Zealand butter or any other butter.

Mr. Dillon

On the 23rd August, 1932, Irish butter sold on the London market for the same price as Danish butter.

Dr. Ryan

It is quite possible that that could happen on a particular day, but I am taking the average for the eight years. The Deputy is taking a particular day but he should take the average for that period of years. Any Deputy can make out the average for himself, and he will find that for the last three years our position, as compared with New Zealand or Danish butter, has improved considerably during that period. I do not say at all that we are satisfied to remain that distance below Danish. Because we are not satisfied, we are endeavouring to do something to get a regulated market for our butter in Britain. Many Deputies disagreed with this Bill because there is a levy going on farmers' butter. Deputy Dillon took the case of a trader who buys farmers' butter and passes it on to the factory who, he said, would pay the levy and deduct the levy from the producer, so that the producer would not get the advantage of the bounty. In the example that the Deputy took, there would be no levy at all payable. It is laid down in the Bill that the last registered person to receive the butter is the person who pays the levy. If it goes from one registered person to another, the last registered person who sells the butter at home will pay the levy. If he exports the butter, he does not pay any levy. In the case Deputy Dillon mentioned, the butter was exported in the end so that no levy was paid.

It is rather tiring to try to instruct the Deputies here on the provisions of Bills. They waste a great deal of time making speeches and attacking proposals that are not in the Bill at all. They make cases for things that are provided for in the Bill and appeal to us to do things that the Bill provides shall be done. In that way, we come to nine o'clock before the discussion ends. We are quite justified in putting a levy on farmers' butter. If Deputies opposite were courageous enough to act honestly, they would not oppose this Bill. They will not gain anything politically by this sort of backsliding. They think that they are going to reap an advantage and get a few extra votes by saying that they would not put an impost on farmers' butter. What is the position?

It was, I think, Deputy Dillon who said that butter would be 10d. per lb. here if we had not this Bill. As a matter of fact, it is 1/5. We have put it up 7d. per lb. by this Bill. I am told that farmers' butter is about 2d. less, as a rule, than creamery butter. I think it was Deputy Curran who said that. Therefore, the price of farmers' butter is 1/3. If there were no Stabilisation Bill, that butter would also be 2d. less. Deduct 2d. from the 10d. and we have 8d., so that the farmer who sells his butter has the advantage of getting his butter raised from 8d. to 1/3. The supplier of the creamery is paying for that. He has to pay the levy, and is it suggested that the farmer producer should get an advantage like that and not pay anything for it? There are Deputies on this side of the House who do not like that provision but they will at least have the courage to face the people and say that it is a just clause. They will not act as Deputy Bennett has done and say: "I dislike this Bill on account of that provision but, on the whole. I shall vote for it." He will vote for it because the creamery people in Limerick would not support him if he did not, but he wants to save himself by saying that he would not put a levy on the farmer. If Deputy Bennett had the courage to vote against this Bill, he would not be so contemptible, but he has not that courage. He is going to vote for the Bill and stick out for the farmer producer at the same time by saying that he does not agree with the levy on farmers' butter. If we put a levy of 4½d. on creamery butter, is it not equally just to put a levy of 4½d. on farmers' butter?

Mr. Dillon

Why put a levy on any butter?

Dr. Ryan

That is another point of view. Deputy Bennett wants the creamery provisions retained but he also wants to keep the farmers who are not supplying the creameries on his side.

Mr. Bennett

I do not want anybody levied. I want the State to bear the expense.

Dr. Ryan

That is the most popular thing of all. The Deputy could not put forward a more popular proposition than that. The State should pay out £1,000,000 to the farmers who are producing butter and take nothing from them?

Mr. O'Leary

You are taking it from them.

Dr. Ryan

The farmers see that Deputies opposite have no case. They saw through their game before and that is the reason they put them out.

Mr. Bennett

We did not play that game. We played a fair game.

Dr. Ryan

It is not true to say that the production of creamery butter is on the increase. In certain districts where there was a contest between creamery and farmers' butter and where the creameries were surrounded by farmers who were producing their own butter, they were beaten by the farmers' butter. Some of the creameries had to close down on that account.

Mr. Haslett

Does the Minister say that there has been no increase of creamery butter?

Dr. Ryan

There has been in the creamery districts.

Mr. Haslett

There was an abnormal increase last year.

Dr. Ryan

But there were several districts, where the creameries were surrounded by farmer producers, in which creameries had to close down.

Mr. Curran

What districts were these?

Dr. Ryan

I shall give the names of the creameries to the Deputy in private if he wishes. Three or four creameries had to close down, but I should not like to give the names here. The farmers left those creameries and went back to making their own butter because it paid them better. Is it fair that they should get off scot free, go back to make their own butter and leave the creamery in a mess, while others had to stick to the creamery because they were guarantors?

Mr. Belton

Is there an increase, on the whole, of farmers' butter on the market?

Dr. Ryan

I do not know. There probably is, because there is no great increase, if any, in the consumption of creamery butter at home. There is an increase in the production of creamery butter but there is no increase in the home-consumption of creamery butter.

Mr. Belton

You cannot say if there is an increase in farmers' butter?

Dr. Ryan

No. We have never had exact figures as to the consumption of non-creamery butter at home. There was a calculation made in 1926-27 of the output of agriculture and that is the only figure we have.

Mr. Belton

If a tax of 4d. per lb. is put on farmers' butter, it will put it off the market.

Dr. Ryan

Why should it?

Mr. Belton

If there is no increase in consumption now, a tax of 4d. per lb. will mean that it will go off the market.

Dr. Ryan

It is generally held by those who have tried to make the calculation that the greater part of farmers' butter put on the market is sold to factories and non-manufacturing exporters. These people were not able to give a very big price because they got no bounty. The levy was 2d. and the bounty 2½d. If we make this levy, more will be given——

Mr. Dillon

Two minutes ago, you were arguing that they were getting too much.

Dr. Ryan

No. These people were selling to the factories. I cannot help the Deputy if he cannot understand. A case has come under my notice in the Department of a creamery which actually sold its cream to an official of the creamery to enable him to go out and make farmers' butter with it. That was the only way they could make the creamery pay.

Mr. Belton

That is proof that the whole thing is taxed out of existence.

Dr. Ryan

I say that farmers' butter was paying better than creamery butter during the last two or three years. No Deputy can deny that it is ordinary justice to put a levy on every producer equally. On the other hand, I know there is a party there composed of Deputies who, whatever the justice is, will resist that because they think it is popular to resist it. Deputy Bennett says 100/- is not enough.

Mr. Bennett

Is it enough?

Dr. Ryan

It is not enough, the Deputy says. How is the Deputy helping me to get anything for him? He wants to be on the popular side, not putting a levy on anybody. This Bill does not do enough for the creamery farmer, according to Deputy Bennett. I agree with the Deputy that the farmer should get more if at all possible, but Deputy Bennett is not very helpful about providing funds to do it. He will not allow any levy; he will not allow anything to be taken. If the Deputy will suggest any tax, I do not care what it is, I will submit it to the Minister for Finance. The Deputy has not the courage to suggest any tax for fear he might offend somebody in the County Limerick. I defy him to suggest any tax to raise this money. He has decided to vote for the Bill, of course.

Mr. Bennett

I did not say I would, yet.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy said that in his speech. There is a very big number of creamery suppliers in County Limerick who will be voting at the next election and that is why the Deputy will vote for the Bill. The Deputy should have some courage and decency and vote against it. I would hate to be found in the same Division Lobby as the Deputy. He says the Bill satisfies nobody. Deputy Curran wants an open vote. Deputy Curran talked about the North of Ireland where they are getting 5d. and 6d. for their milk. That is quite true since April of last year, but for two years before that they were getting 1d. to 1½d. less than our farmers.

Mr. Curran

Do you agree that 4d. is not enough?

Dr. Ryan

It is not enough. I suggest to Deputy Bennett that he should mention some form of taxation by which I could get this money and I will recommend it to the Minister for Finance.

Mr. Dillon

Settle the economic war.

Dr. Ryan

The North of Ireland, strange to say, has also a levy. Deputies do not know about it. They have a levy on the retailers of butter. They get 5/- a cwt., so they are making their consumers pay for it too. Deputy Mulcahy will disagree with their scheme, I take it, because they are putting up the price on the consumer. In any case, the North of Ireland is in a different position from the Free State. They are not exporters of creamery butter there. They import it, as a matter of fact. Our difficulty is the export of the surplus butter. This Bill has nothing to do with the economic war. The Government subsidy that is paid on butter is more than sufficient to equate the tariff, and always has been. At present on 76/- the tariff would be 20/6 and the Government subsidy is in or about 27/-. The Government subsidy has always been higher than the tariff. The Bill is dealing entirely with world prices. The original measure was brought in to deal with world prices.

Mr. Belton

Is not the tariff 40 per cent?

Dr. Ryan

I will come to that calculation in a few minutes. Deputy Belton objects to the dictatorial powers this Government is taking. If Deputy Belton ever gets into these benches— and I hope he will——

Mr. Corry

What?

Dr. Ryan

I hope he will. He has a good deal more sense than most of the others over there. If ever he gets into these benches I think he will agree with me that when he is bringing a Bill in here the more power a Minister takes the better. Generally speaking that is true—to cover contingencies.

Mr. Belton

I do not think it is good for the Minister to take so much power.

Dr. Ryan

It is quite true we are dealing with butter only, and while special provision is made for the Kerry cattle area, it would not be true to say that we are trying to cover cattle. We will have another suggestion to make about the cattle.

Mr. Belton

Roscrea?

Dr. Ryan

No, another one. Roscrea will help, but this is for milk only.

Mr. Belton

What disadvantage is the Kerry cattle area under that the Mullingar cattle area is not under?

Dr. Ryan

It is largely on account of the geographical lay-out of the district and the round-about roads.

Mr. O'Leary

What about the people over the county boundary, the people in Cork who are adjoining Kerry?

Dr. Ryan

There is part of Cork in the Kerry cattle area—Castletownbere, for instance. We are putting a creamery in Ballingeary.

Mr. Belton

The economic disadvantage of the Kerry cattle area apparently is that they have not a creamery. They have not a creamery in Mullingar.

Dr. Ryan

Let them put up a creamery in Mullingar. They could not put up one in the Kerry cattle area because of the geography of the district.

Mr. Belton

The Minister knows well that you could not make one pay anywhere in this country at the present time. Who would put money in a creamery now?

Dr. Ryan

I wonder when I will be given an opportunity of speaking?

Mr. Dillon

May I say, with all respect, that the Minister would get an admirable hearing if he did not invite interruption?

Dr. Ryan

I am sorry if I upset the Deputy.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want the Minister to think we are discourteous, but we rather assumed from the tone of his speech that he desired to be interrupted.

Dr. Ryan

Very well, we will proceed on the other basis now. Deputy Belton took the figure of 72/- in Britain and I want to explain how that is calculated. We deduct 4/- for expenses, which the exporter is entitled to do. That leaves 68/- and two-sevenths of that constitutes the tariff, which would amount to 19/6. If the Deputy deducts 19/6 from 72/- he gets 52/6, not 43/3.

Mr. Belton

That does not represent 40 per cent.

Dr. Ryan

That is when the tariff is added on to it. As a matter of fact 40 over 140 is the tariff. The tariff is on the net price. It comes to about 52/5, and at least there is that much. If a man throws his butter into the Liffey, as Deputy Belton suggested would be a good solution, he gets 52/5 less, so it is not a very good policy to throw butter into the Liffey.

Mr. Belton

What is the cost of producing that?

Mr. Dillon

Might I submit to the Minister that we have now reached the stage when we must exhort the farmers of the country not to throw their butter into the Liffey, and the Minister is urging them against that course?

Dr. Ryan

Denmark, we are told, is getting 95/-. Denmark has to pay a tariff of 15/-, so that Denmark's net receipts will be in the region of 78/-. That is all the Denmark creamery gets. If Deputy Bennett were translated to Denmark and sat in the Opposition there he would be shedding crocodile tears for the farmers of Denmark. The creameries there are getting something like 78/- less expenses, while here the figure closely approaches 100/-. Deputy Belton spoke of Australia altering her currency in order to give better prices to her farmers. Australia was the first country to adopt this system of levy and bounties. I think Deputy Belton's calculation about the cow is rather far-fetched. He says you will replace one cow in five each year, and that the replacing of a cow now is £10 more costly than six or seven or eight years ago. I do not think so. Cows are selling at much less now than they were six or seven or eight years ago.

Mr. Belton

What is a freshly-calved cow worth?

Dr. Ryan

From £12 to £15.

Mr. Belton

What is an old stripper worth?

Dr. Ryan

I do not know. She was worth 50/- on the first of June. Deputy Belton, when talking on finance, spoke of the increase in the price of butter in the last couple of years. The price of butter has not gone up in England in the last couple of years. On the whole it has been falling during the last two or three years.

Mr. Belton

Might I say to the Minister that the price has fallen because, in the interests of their suppliers of butter, Australia, New Zealand and Denmark have depreciated their currency below the English standard. I notice Deputy Corry laughing. It is a sad commentary on legislation like this when a Deputy laughs at the state of the currency of the country to which we are exporting our commodities. It supports the English contention that we are not able to govern ourselves.

Mr. Corry

I only wanted to say——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think at any rate, the Minister should be allowed to make a statement on what Deputies say is an important measure. He is entitled to make a statement on the subject without a running-fire of comment from Deputies. The Minister should be allowed to proceed without interruption.

Mr. Belton

I hope the Minister did not take what I said as an interruption. I am anxious to help the Minister, not to interrupt him. Deputy Corry ought to go and learn something before he comes in here.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Corry has complained that we have done nothing for the creameries in East Cork. I think there are three new creameries in course of erection or planned to be erected in East Cork. In Mullingar there is nothing to prevent the people and in East Cork there is nothing to prevent the people from building three more if they want them. I believe these are suitable districts for creameries. Deputy Corry says that East Cork is a suitable district. If the people there combine to build a creamery and put up a good proposition I do not believe the Department of Agriculture would advise me to refuse them a licence.

Mr. Belton

Even if they have to export the butter at 52/5 a cwt.?

Dr. Ryan

I want to put this to Deputy Corry and to other Deputies. They spoke of the injustice of fixing the same rate of levy on farmers' butter as on creamery butter. That, of course, is not necessary. If a case can be made later on showing the yield from the levy on non-creamery and creamery butter, and when we see how our funds stand with regard to bounties, it is possible that a difference can be made. But for some little time I am afraid no difference can be made. We must first see the yield from both figures. With regard to the yield from the levies, I want to say that they are for the whole year, that is from the 1st April, 1935, to the 31st of March, 1936. In the figures I gave the House I made a mistake for which I want to apologise. The mistake was not in the total, but in the way in which the total was made up. The total is expected to come to about £700,000. I said that the yield from creamery butter was £400,000. I was wrong in that figure. The figure should be about £526,000. The remainder would be from non-creamery butter. It is merely an estimate or calculation of what we are getting from non-creamery butter. We are not at all sure of what that figure may be, but we can give a fairly firm estimate as to what the creamery levy is. It will amount to £526,000 at the present rate of levy. There are exported 50,000 cwts. of non-creamery butter. We have not any good information to go on with regard to the estimation of the consumption of non-creamery butter at home. The figures we have may be considerably out. If that is so it will be known within three months, and the rate of levy or bounty will have to be altered to make things right.

Deputy Haslett was rather severe about the regulations that are being put on the producers both in bacon and milk production as well as on everything else. I would like to point out that there is hardly any country in the world where these regulations are not becoming necessary. In Northern Ireland and at any rate in Great Britain every producer is registered, and he has got to make the necessary returns. There are more regulations there than we are looking for here. In Great Britain they are getting perhaps better prices for milk than we can give here. Deputy Dowdall told us what they were doing in South Africa with regard to the sale of butter. In practically all these countries there is a great deal of regulation. The difficulty is that we cannot do anything to improve prices in butter or bacon without a considerable number of regulations. Were it not for this, these regulations would not be looked for.

Mr. Haslett

Are these regulations extended to the crofters in England and Scotland?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, they are down to the four-cow man. I do not think we are going very much below the four-cow man. Deputy Bennett spoke of the man of one cow who would produce 7 lbs. of butter in the week. It is true that the family of the one-cow man do not eat very much butter but I do not think there is any man with one cow who could sell 7 lbs. of butter. A man with one or two cows is not going to come under this Bill. Why should such men trouble to come under it? Is it not much easier for them to sell to a registered distributor? We have had a lot of talk here about the small man. We all feel for the small man and in drawing up Bills like this we always try to exempt the small man if it is at all possible. I tried to exempt the small man here as far as I could. But I must draw the line somewhere. If it is agreed, as some Deputies would be prepared to agree, that we cannot make the distributor or the grocer pay the levy you will have to deal with the very big farmer. Suppose the farmer had 200 cows, and begins to produce butter for the market. Surely he should not be let go on producing butter from that number of cows and selling it in the market against a distributor or grocer paying a levy. So that you will have to deal with him. You will have to deal with the big farmer, and the line must be drawn somewhere between the big and small farmer. If I have drawn the line too low at 5 lbs., Deputies can discuss that on the Committee Stage. I think it is only a question of the stage at which you draw the line between the small and the big farmer. The creameries could not carry on to any great extent unless the big factories and non-manufacturing exporters were also subject to the levy. That was plainly recognised when we brought in the first Bill in 1932. They in turn could not carry on unless we put a levy on the distributors and large grocers, because the position was that these non-manufacturing exporters and factories had to buy butter knowing that they would have to pay the levy. The grocer, who was buying side by side with them, could afford to give 1d. more, and sell at 1d. less per lb. and in that way make the same profit as the person paying the levy. After our experience in the last two years we had to take in the distributors and grocers.

Mr. Dillon

Am I to deduce from the arguments the Minister has just used that he agrees with me that under this Bill the producer seller is going to be a little worse off than he was before? The Minister has explained that he got an extra 1d. per lb. by selling to the grocer before this Bill was introduced and that created an abuse vis-a-vis the manufacturer. This Bill is designed to prevent that, which means that the farmer producer is going to get a little less for his butter than before.

Dr. Ryan

I shall answer that question later. There was a defect in the previous Bill, because we had to serve notice, and the result was that grocers sprang up every week who had not to pay the levy. Apart from that, there is no doubt that the grocer in the small town, paying a levy, could not compete against the very big farmer who has 50, or 60, or 200 cows. We have to levy that farmer. We could levy him under the old Act. Then we have to levy all farmers and, as I say the thing is where shall we draw the line? That can be discussed in Committee. To come to Deputy Dillon's point, the producer who is selling butter direct to consumers and who sells all his butter in that way will have to pay a levy under this Bill which he was not perhaps paying before, although we had power to levy it before. There were, I believe, a few very large farmers levied under the old Act—at least we attempted to levy a few. I hold that at least in the districts I know there are not very many farmers in that position. They do, in the winter, supply to consumers; but during the summer the big surplus of butter they have is sold to dealers and is sent to the factories and exporters. That particular butter will be in a better position under this system than before—that is the surplus part of the product will be in a better position. In other words the price will be levelled out more. Under the old system, we had perhaps farmers selling butter at 1/2 per lb. to consumers and selling their surplus at 6d or 7d to exporters. I am taking rough figures. Now the position will probably be that they will sell at 1/- to consumers and perhaps get 9d. or so for their surplus. In the aggregate I believe all the farmers will be better off. It is hard to say how any individual may fare.

Mr. Dillon

Are we to understand that if the figure of 5 lbs., which the Minister mentioned and which he now says he may increase to 7lbs., stands, a farmer who sells more than 5 lbs. of butter in any given week to consumers must register his premises and keep the records set out in the Bill?

Dr. Ryan

If he sells direct to consumers.

Mr. Dillon

If he sells more than 5 lbs. in any given week to consumers, he must register his premises, keep records and pay the levy?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, that is correct.

Financial Resolution put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 53; Níl, 43.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corkery, Daniel.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Daly, Denis.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Dowdall, Thomas P.
• Flinn, Hugo. V.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Geoghegan, James.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Jordan, Stephen.
• Kehoe, Patrick.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kelly, Thomas.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kissane, Eamonn.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Maguire, Conor Alexander.
• Moane, Edward.
• Moore, Séamus.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Doherty, Joseph.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C.

Níl

• Beckett, James Walter.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bourke, Séamus.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Broderick, William Joseph.
• Burke, James Michael.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Coburn, James.
• Costello, John Aloysius.
• Curran, Richard.
• Daly, Patrick.
• Davitt, Robert Emmet.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McGuire, James Ivan.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Morrisroe, James.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, James Edward.
• Nally, Martin.
• Desmond, William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Finlay, John.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Holohan, Richard.
• Keating, John.
• Lynch, Finian.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• O'Leary, Daniel.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Reilly, John Joseph.
• O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Reidy, James.
• Rice, Vincent.
• Rowlette, Robert James.
• Wall, Nicholas.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies P. Doyle and D. O'Leary.

Motion declared carried.

Motion reported and agreed to.