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.