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Dáil Éireann debate -
Saturday, 6 Jul 1935

Vol. 57 No. 14

Public Business. - Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill, 1935—Final Stages.

Question—"That the Bill be received for Final Consideration"— agreed to.

I suggest that the House take the Fifth Stage now.

Is there any reason for taking it now?

Dr. Ryan

If Deputies will examine this Bill they will find that there are a good many of the provisions which would need to come into operation on the 31st July or the 1st August. Therefore, it would be necessary for the Bill to become law by the 31st July. I think if any Deputy will consider the time table he will find that this only gives three weeks to the Seanad for the ordinary examination that they are entitled to give to the Bill. They would probably take the Second Stage next week, the Committee Stage the following week, and the Final Stages the week after. If the Seanad proposes to insert any amendments there will be very little time at the end of that period for the Bill to come back to the Dáil, either for agreement or disagreement with the Seanad amendments, as the case may be. On that account I am anxious that the Dáil should take the Fifth Stage now.

It was at the Minister's request last night to the Chair that the view of the majority in the matter of urgency was accepted here. The Minister was the man who was put up to move that. He probably had in the back of his mind this Bill. Now we find that the particular urgency is that there is a measure going to the Seanad which happens to have in it the date 1st August. Is that date inflexible? Can it be changed by an amendment?

Dr. Ryan

No.

It could not?

Dr. Ryan

It would be very difficult.

Dr. Ryan

Because the cereal year commences then.

What is the difficulty about having the cereal year put back a bit, say by a fortnight?

Dr. Ryan

There is great difficulty. If the Deputy will examine the Bill——

Listen. You are explaining now. Go on.

Dr. Ryan

It would be extremely difficult to outline in detail the various amendments that would be necessary.

Supposing I thought it necessary in this House to put back the date of the coming into operation of some section until 14th August, would the Minister require an amendment?

Dr. Ryan

It would require a large number of amendments.

Supposing I moved them all? Supposing I made the Appointed Day the 14th August, what is the difference?

Dr. Ryan

It would require a very big number of amendments.

To shift the date from the 1st to the 14th August requires a big number of amendments. If the Minister is too tired to do it I will get them put down in the Seanad for him, if he will give me the chance.

Dr. Ryan

I would not rely on the Deputy.

Possibly not. I ask the Minister to explain to me some difficulty arising from the circumstances and not from the drafting. I have not referred to any difficulties in drafting. The Minister said that there would be a number of amendments required, but I have not yet had explained to me any reason why the Bill will not work as well running from the 14th August as 1st August.

You must take the harvest into consideration.

And for the purposes of the Cereals Bill the harvest is to coincide with the 1st August. It would not do on the 3rd August. Supposing some of the harvesters in the West want to go to Galway races, and they postpone operations until the 2nd August?

Go down to the South.

My spiritual home is elsewhere. That is one point. The second point is, what was the date of the introduction of this measure? What was the date when the Second Reading was taken and when the Committee Stage came along? Was there any delay which the Minister could have forestalled, or could he have cut out something in the running of this measure? Did he take the Second Reading as quickly as possible after the First Stage was put through, or was the Second Reading taken on the day for which it was first arranged? There is a lot to inquire into when we begin to talk of urgency. If the Minister has landed himself into something of a mess he should have come to the House with a plea based on the lines of compassion. Instead, last night he came in in the most irregular fashion and submitted a proposal, an unprecedented thing in the whole history of the Dáil, at about 20 minutes to midnight, on the grounds of urgency. Now we find this is one measure in regard to which there is urgency. I am quite prepared to ask Deputies on this side of the House to agree to the Minister getting even the last stage now if a case will be made for it, but there is no case made for it yet. The Minister's phraseology shows that last night's business was merely a stunt.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy's point about altering the date in the Bill could apply to any measure. Even the financial year could be changed.

We are talking about the Cereals Bill now.

Dr. Ryan

It may be done by amendment, but it may lead to very great inconvenience. As Deputy Donnelly says, we cannot change the harvest.

Tell us how legislation starting on the 14th August will interrupt the harvest?

Dr. Ryan

The harvest commences in the first week of August.

The Minister should be allowed to explain.

Will he give me the text of one section, the operation of which will be badly inconvenienced by changing to the 14th August?

We have had another of the Bills in regard to which we were told last night there was urgency and we see the value of it. I have a constitutional objection to-day to speak to less than 20 Deputies.

There is not a quorum.

Will you take a motion for the Adjournment? This is the second or third time that this has happened.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present

This is the other Bill about which there is urgency. The Minister is making his case, and watch how busy he is at it. He moved the question of urgency last night and we thought it referred to the Finance Bill. Now we find the urgent matter is the Cereals Bill and not the Finance Bill at all. For some occult reason, unexplained to anybody—possibly the Ministers may want to attend races or something— we are not taking the Finance Bill on Tuesday. That was the Bill about which there was so much urgency and pother. The urgent Bill now is the Cereals Bill. The Minister wants to get it passed to-day and the Finance Bill can wait until Wednesday. The Cereals Bill cannot wait until Tuesday. Does it get to the Seanad a moment sooner than if it passed here on Tuesday?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

He would get it there on Wednesday, anyhow.

Dr. Ryan

It could not be taken in the Seanad next week if it is not passed here until Tuesday.

I can assure the Minister that it has often happened.

Dr. Ryan

But that is the rule in the Seanad. They do not take a Bill on Wednesday that has been passed here on the previous Tuesday.

I have known it to be done repeatedly.

Dr. Ryan

Deputies opposite may have more influence with the Seanad than we have.

The Seanad may not do it when these bludgeoning methods are tried.

The Seanad never tried to hold up any Bill which they were willing to let pass. They never tried to hold up such a Bill on a technical point like the Minister suggests. I never knew them to hold up a Bill unduly which they were willing to let pass. If they objected to a measure and objected to it altogether it would be different, but in the case of a measure which they were determined to accept they never unduly delayed it either in the time of this Government or the other Government. The whole plea last night of urgency and the whole business of telling the Chair that this measure was urgent is mere moonshine. It is only for the purpose of showing their contempt for the House.

We object to taking the Fifth Stage of this Bill for another reason, and that is, that apparently the Government side of the House, anyway, are not in a position mentally to take part in the discussion on this Bill. Judging from the tired expression on the faces of the Government Deputies and our experience of them during the Committee Stage on the Finance Bill they are not in a condition to do so. To my mind it would be lamentable if the whole onus were to rest on the Deputies on this side of the House. We have largely assumed that duty in the debate on the Finance Bill. It is asking rather too much of Deputies on this side of the House that they should take the onus of presenting this Bill to the Seanad in the way in which it should be presented and as it would be presented if the whole intelligence of the House were concentrated on it. Perhaps, in one sense, the whole of the intelligence of the House has been concentrated on it but, at all events, whatever intelligence is on the other side of the House should be added. If the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill had gone through last night we would not have heard a bit about the urgency of the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill. I am sure the Government would in that case be quite satisfied that the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill could wait until Tuesday next. It can wait until Tuesday next week. I submit there is no need for this hurry and rush now.

I understand there must be the unanimous consent of the House before the Fifth Stage of this Bill can be proceeded with. As far as I can see the Minister has brought forward no reasons which satisfy my mind as to the urgency of the measure. I understand the House must be unanimous before the Fifth Stage can be taken.

There is no such rule.

It has been the general practice and rule.

No, there is no such rule; the House can decide the matter.

Question put: "That the Fifth Stage of the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill be taken to-day."
The Committee divided: Tá, 50; Níl, 15.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Cleary, Mícheál.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Corbett, Edmond.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Daly, Denis.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Doherty, Hugh.
  • Donnelly, Eamon.
  • Flinn, Hugo V.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Geoghegan, James.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hales, Thomas.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hayes, Seán.
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Keely, Séamus P.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Pearse, Margaret Mary.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.

Níl

  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Burke, James Michael.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Redmond, Bridget Mary.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Neill, Eamonn.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Rice, Vincent.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
FIFTH STAGE.

I move: "That the Bill do now pass."

Whatever the majority Party may think about the power to tax the people without giving any explanation for that taxation, I can say that, though the Minister has not been silent like his colleague, he has put up no defence for this particular tax. On every stage of the Bill it has been put up to the Minister that what he is doing is financing wheat-growing by means of a bread tax. He has offered no defence to that. As far as I know, he has evaded the issue right through, until now on the last stage there will be no possibility of examining any reply he may deign to give to the charge. That there should be obvious hesitation on the part of the Minister for Finance to defend these taxes is understandable enough; that there should be equal hesitation on the part of his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, to defend this bread tax is equally understandable. My objection to the Bill on that ground is twofold, because it is a tax on the most necessary article and the most universal article of food. I hold that any Government or Party, whatever majority they have, in trying to impose such a tax on the people are behaving in practically a criminal fashion. Further, they are making an effort—and from some reactions occasionally observable on their benches it can be seen that the effort has met with a certain amount of success—to conceal from the people that this is nothing more than a bread tax. I do not know that it has been denied at any stage by the Minister that that is what it amounts to. A levy on bread or a tax on bread amounts to the same thing. I can well understand their anxiety to conceal that from the people as well as they can.

I do not think that even the Minister for Finance, with all his willingness to grind the last penny out of the people, would have dared, on account of Party consideration, to have come down to the House and in his Budget propose a tax this year of £350,000 or £400,000 on bread. This is a tax which it has been made clear on various stages of the Bill is bound to mount up until ultimately, even according to the conservative figures of the Minister for Agriculture, it is going to amount to at least £1,500,000. I do not believe that the Minister for Finance would have dared to make such a proposition openly and brazenly to this House. I believe that Party considerations would have kept him from doing it. I believe that the Minister, who did not shrink from taxing tea and every other article of food, except, as I said the other day, potatoes, would have shrunk on account of Party considerations from imposing this bread tax on the people. I am amazed that people who have protested through the country against the tax on sugar, the tax on tobacco, and the taxes on other things, have failed to protest more loudly against this most iniquitous of all taxes—a tax on bread.

Who might they be?

I agree that the Deputy does not know who the people are.

We are the majority.

You proved it. You have used your majority, as we saw, in a very questionable manner, and to give wrong information to this House on the question of urgency. You used your majority for that purpose, and I hope you are satisfied. The fact that there has not been that outcry against this cynical imposition of a tax on bread shows how well the concealment has taken place—that the people are not yet alive to the fact that they are being so taxed.

They are stupid.

No wonder you laugh. At whom are you laughing now? At the speaker or at the Chair? It might keep you quiet for a while. What is this being used for? The ordinary taxes are raised to carry on the business of the Government, to finance various projects of the Government. What the Government are doing is really to take one particular portion of their policy, namely wheat growing, and to try and get acceptance of the bread tax because they pretend it is going to the subsidising of wheat. They could do that with every other tax—try to get it accepted by binding it up with the particular thing it is meant to finance. There would be no trouble about that. There would be no difficulty, as we saw, in the various stages of this Bill in getting a modification of the subsidy system. If it was necessary to provide a subsidy it could have been taken as subsidies are taken for other things out of ordinary taxation. Here the Government has chosen the most essential of all necessaries of life upon which to put a tax which shows that there is no limit to the lengths they will go to grind down the people of this country. That is what this Bill stands for.

This is an amending Bill, and I am speaking only of the amending Bill. We are not talking of the policy of subsidising wheat. To do so, I am told by the Chair, would be out of order. Therefore, we are not discussing the original Bill. We are discussing this amending Bill and we are only entitled to discuss it so far as it changes from the original Bill. The change it brings about is in the method of helping wheat-growing and, therefore, the question of policy does not arise. The change brought about is the change in the method of collecting money for helping the flour milling industry. This is a change from the ordinary practice where income tax and every other form of tax have to bear their share. It is a change where the particular tax is put on to bread. The majority of this House are determined to put that tax on to bread. When it came to the Schedules I expected more discussion, because even the Government benches were vocal upon this matter. It was pointed out that the actual subsidy given in this Bill for wheat-growing was too low and was uneconomic. We heard a great deal about 23/6. We were informed that that was the general figure that would be paid. But I am informed, by people who know all about farming, that a 60 lb. bushel is not the normal all over the country. Therefore, when you speak of 23/6 you are not speaking of the normal price to be paid. I have been told by farmers with a thorough knowledge of farming that on making inquiry elsewhere they were informed that a 58 lb. bushel is the average for ordinary good wheat and not 60. Therefore, when you speak glibly that the normal price is 23/6 you are misleading people; that is according to the information I got from people who know all about these things.

For these reasons I am opposed to this Bill. As I said it has nothing to do with helping wheat-growing and that question does not arise, and there is no use pretending it does. The principal change effected by the Bill is a change in the incidence of the taxation to help wheat-growing, by separating the tax from ordinary taxation such as income tax and various other taxes and putting it on to bread, because the subsidy offered in the Schedule is inadequate.

This, as Deputy O'Sullivan has pointed out, is an amending Bill. We are opposing it because from our point of view, whatever section of the community you take, it offers no advantage beyond the original Bill. There is no provision whatever which shows that the position of the producer, when the original Bill was brought in to help wheat-growing, can be in any way improved by this amending Bill. I am not quite sure that his position will not be worsened. I think it will work out in practice that the average price paid for wheat under the amending scheme will be something in the neighbourhood of 23/6 per bushel. I think the average farmer got at least that, and something more, last year. Whatever way you take it, the farmer's position is not going to be improved, and it may be worsened by the main sections of this Bill. The chief reason that we are opposed to the Bill is, that while it does not improve the position of the producer of wheat, it puts a certain burden on people who are least able to bear it. The result of this Bill will be to put an additional cost on bread consumers.

What about butter?

The position is that the Government are now going to make the millers tax gatherers for whatever burden is put upon the consumers in respect of bread. In the previous Bill we had farmers paid a subsidy, and they were guaranteed a certain price for certain quality. That is not much changed in this Bill, but, to my mind, they will get a little less than they got under the original Bill. The Government are relieved of the subsidy, and they are passing it on to the millers and to the consumers. But there is something else in the shape of charges to be collected, and these did not fall upon the consumer last year.

Under this Bill we have several sections amending the original Bill. The millers will have to undertake a large expenditure if they are to fulfil the conditions of this Bill. They are to provide storage for the wheat, and drying-rooms and other things which the Bill compels them to do. We know the millers will not bear that additional cost and that they will pass it on to the consumer. The Bill also provides for other incidental expenses which the millers must undertake.

We had a discussion yesterday on another impost on the bread consumer. And it works out in a tax on foreign wheat of 6d. per cwt. That is going to mean 2/- per sack additional on the cost of flour. And this Bill on top of all that will add many another two shillings per sack to the cost of flour. The result is that flour here at the moment is, in price, beyond all comparison with what it is in another part of Ireland. Already we have the price of bread creeping up even before this Bill can come into operation. Bread rose by a halfpenny, I am told, in Dublin, and in County Limerick it rose by a penny. In different parts of the country it rose one halfpenny to one penny and, perhaps more in some distant places. We are going to have it dearer still. Everything points to bread being a luxurious necessity in the future, and what puzzles me is how any farmer-Deputy could have defended this Bill. If, in my sympathy with the farmers of any grade, wheat producers or otherwise, I could see anything good for the farmers as a result of any legislation in this House, I would support it, but if anybody tries to prove to me that wheat at 23/- or 23/6 is going to help the farmer in any way, everything else in the farming world must be at a very low ebb.

Wheat is being produced at that price because there is nothing else they can produce without losing much more than they would lose by growing wheat. I should like to have had the advantage of hearing, before I got up to speak, some Government Deputy make a case for this Bill and show me in some way what it does to help the farmer, or even what it does to help the miller, but in any event to show how the Government can make the case that it does not throw an enormous burden on the already overburdened consumer. I do not think that any sensible Deputy in this House, who had any care for the people whom he represents, whether in town or country, could, with a clear conscience, vote for this measure.

This Bill is one which is very hard for the ordinary person to understand, because it is difficult to see how a Government which knows, or is presumed to know, the conditions of affairs in this country at the present moment, could introduce such a measure. The object of this measure, we are told, is to keep wheat growing advancing. I cannot deal with that matter, I am aware, on this particular Bill but I can point out to the House that the present measure will not have any greater success than its predecessor had. I should also like to point out that if you take the area under wheat and the area under oats, there was, in 1934, actually a lesser area under wheat and oats combined than there was in 1933. In 1933, there were 50,491 acres of wheat and, in 1934, 93,817 acres—an increase of, roughly, 43,000 acres. On the other hand, oats, of which there were 634,675 acres in 1933, shrank to 583,430 acres in 1934, so that, taking wheat and oats combined, we find that the shrinkage in the area under oats is greater than the increase in the area under wheat.

It is, in order to subsidise wheat growing, as against oats growing, that this particular measure is brought before the House. I am aware that under the rules of the House I cannot follow that line any further, because we are not discussing the policy of subsidising wheat, but I can and will point out that this new method of subsidising is a wrong, cruel and unjust method. Last year the subsidy on wheat was a subsidy paid by the ordinary taxpayer which came out of revenue and, accordingly, the proportion which each taxpayer paid towards the subsidy on wheat was roughly in accordance with the financial position of that taxpayer. The richer the man was, the larger the share he paid. This year, it is the opposite. This year, the tax is to come out of bread. It is to be taken off the shoulders that were bearing it last year and transferred to other shoulders; it is being taken off the shoulders of persons who could bear it, if any persons in the State could, and it is being taken off strong shoulders and transferred to the shoulders of the very weakest in the community.

Take the case of the man with a large income—the man with £5,000 a year or £10,000 or any other income you like. That man ought to pay a larger share of any single tax imposed in this country than the poor, wretched, struggling little agricultural labourer or small holder, but under this new scheme of finance, this scheme of finance which makes an appeal to the Minister for Agriculture, this scheme of finance for which he asks this House to vote, this scheme of finance which, I have not the slightest doubt, every Fianna Fáil Deputy here will vote for, he is taking a completely different line, because it is not the person who is richest, but very often the person who is poorest who consumes most bread. Therefore, he is the person who will pay the larger proportion of this tax. I ask every single member of this House to ask himself in his own heart and mind: "Is that fair; is that just; is that equitable?" After all, if there is one tax which you should not lightly impose, it is a special tax upon the main article of food of the poorer classes. You should not so arrange your taxation that the poorer the man is, the larger the share of any particular burden he will bear, and that is what this new taxation is doing.

That is what this new change in the wheat subsidy is doing. The ordinary, poor man will probably and, in fact, does eat more bread than the richer man. The richer man has substitutes for bread in the form of meat, fish and other things. But the poor man's range is very limited, and the main item of food upon which he must rely is bread. Therefore, you are putting on a tax which is weighing more heavily upon the poor than upon the rich. But your tax has a worse result. There is real and desperate poverty in a great number of remote districts in this country now. I know that the condition of part of my own constituency is far worse than it was two or three years ago. Anybody who goes down to the mountainy and poorer districts of Mayo—and it must be the same in Donegal and in Kerry—and examines these poor districts and how the poor people are living there at present, knows that they are in far and away more straitened circumstances than they were a couple of years ago.

It is almost impossible for many households to get the money to buy the actual food which will keep body and soul together. Is it fair in these circumstances, which cannot be denied, to increase the price of a vital article of food? Is it fair or just, or is it a thing that the House should do, to increase the price of bread? It appears to me that not only is it hitting the sound foundations of taxation but it is likewise hitting the ordinary rules of modern justice. I do not think this House should vote for a tax which is going to bring want into many households and absolute destitution and hunger into others. The areas in which I am particularly interested, the areas on behalf of which it is my bounden duty to raise my voice in protest against this tax, are areas that receive no benefit from the wheat subsidy. The subsidy on wheat has helped the rich and fertile areas but it has been of no assistance to the unfortunate persons in the poverty-stricken areas who are endeavouring to eke out a livelihood on the less fertile, non-wheat growing, areas of the State. You are subsidising the better-off people at the expense of the poor. That is the policy which is being adopted by this measure.

I shall assume on his own behalf that the Minister for Agriculture hates this change in the incidence of taxation as much as any decent-minded man can hate it. I dare say, and I shall assume on behalf of the Minister for Agriculture, that before this change was made, he exhausted every persuasive effort with the Minister for Finance. I shall assume all that, and I shall assume that the Minister for Finance, unable to make ends meet, unable to balance his Budget, turned round to the Minister for Agriculture and said to him: "You cannot get a single halfpenny out of the general finances; you will have to follow the policy which we are told is the Fianna Fáil policy. You will have to go wherever you see a single halfpenny to take, and wherever you see an article that can produce taxation, tax it. Wherever you can see an article that cannot evade taxation, because it is a necessity of life, that is the right and proper article to select for taxation." That is the doctrine we heard enunciated from the back benches of Fianna Fáil. That is the doctrine to which the Minister for Finance, at any rate tacitly, has given his approbation. It is obviously in pursuance of that doctrine that the Minister for Agriculture has been forced to change the incidence of the taxation which is producing this subsidy.

I put it to the House: are you going to have subsidised wheat on the one side, and want on the other? Are you going to have subsidised wheat and to have starving women and children in this country? Are you going to have subsidised wheat and to have children reared without proper food, without proper nourishment, driven off the bread standard on to a potato diet? Is it better to let wheat grow unsubsidised and to have a sound, growing population or is it better to subsidise wheat and to have a stunted, underfed population? I do not think this House recognises the real gravity of this Bill. I do not think this House and I do not believe that the Executive Council themselves recognise the real cruelty, because it is nothing less than cruelty, of imposing a very heavy bread tax at the present moment. As has already been pointed out by Deputy Professor O'Sullivan, by direct taxation this year the price of bread is being increased. There is also the fact that the price of bread has been greatly increased already for those who bake their own bread because of the increase in the price of flour. It is a cumulative increase. This is adding to it further. Certainly, anybody looking at the social side of it must consider that the Government are doing a grave and serious wrong. I would ask the House in all sincerity to regard this tax in its true light. For once do not be led away entirely by Party discipline. For once do not let the Party whip absolutely drive you into what you yourself know is wrong-doing. Do not impose this cruel and heartless tax upon the members of this community who are least able to bear it, who are not only least able to bear it but who cannot bear it at all, who will be driven to go altogether without the staff of life, without wheaten bread.

I desire again to offer my opposition to this measure. I am not a bit surprised that the Minister for Agriculture last night moved the closure and compelled the Dáil to sit this morning, because by doing so he has cut down a good deal of the discussion on this Bill. A great many Deputies who were opposed to this measure, and who went home yesterday evening, were under the impression that the Dáil would not sit later than 12 o'clock last night. I do not think it necessary for me to take up much time of the House in speaking on this measure. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has put the matter very clearly. He represents a constituency which is very similar to mine. I, too, protest against putting a tax on the poor people of my constituency in order to maintain the people on the better lands in other parts of the country. Discussing this question here within the last month, and its effect on the country generally, I asked the Minister for Agriculture, who boasted that next year we will grow 200,000 acres of wheat, what it is going to cost. I asked him what it cost per barrel last year, and he said 6/6 per barrel. I then asked him how many barrels he allowed to the acre. He said seven. I pointed out to him that his own published figures were eight barrels per acre, and that, taking the yield at eight barrels per acre and the subsidy at 6/6 per barrel, it would mean that there would be a subsidy of 52/- on every acre. I asked him who was going to pay this. Dr. Ryan said that the taxpayer paid it last year, but now they were going to put it on the consumer. That appears to bear out the statement of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. As Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney put it, the man with £5,000 a year will pay less under this tax than the poor unfortunate labouring man with seven or eight shillings a week.

That is the policy sponsored by the Government and the Party behind it. I would follow no Party when it comes to a question of standing for the people I represent, and I put it to the Deputies on the back benches of Fianna Fáil whether they are representing their constituents in voting for this measure. Flour, as everybody knows, is already about 15/- per sack dearer in the Free State than it is in Northern Ireland or in England. That is a terrible burden on poor people. I know that there are unfortunate poor people who, formerly, were able to buy a sack of flour, and who now have to buy it in halves. I am prepared to give evidence of that if the Minister is willing to set up an inquiry into it. When my Party was in power certain steps were proposed in regard to a matter of this kind, and I stood up and said: "If you do this, I am going to vote against you. I am going to stand for the people I represent, and I am not going to tolerate the placing of any extra burden upon them." I stood against that then, and for that reason I am going to vote against this Bill, which will bring a lot of hardship to unfortunate poor people all over the country.

I am going to vote for this Bill. I am sorry I have to part company at the end of the week with some Deputies here. Though I have been in their company throughout the week, I have been in their company through conviction, and not because of Party ties. Like Deputy O'Leary, when it is a question of national economic policy, no Party fetters would bind me, even if I were in a Party.

How did you get elected originally?

You got elected on false promises.

I have as much objection to this Bill as the Deputies who spoke against it but not from their angle. My objection is that it does not go far enough or in the right way in dealing with the extension of wheat growing. But it does go in that direction and it is for the Bill or an alternative which would be an opposite I have to vote. Hence, I am voting for the Bill. I failed to follow Deputy Professor O'Sullivan's contention, that this is a bread tax. It is nothing of the kind. Deputy O'Leary often sold milk below the cost of production. If a Bill were introduced to give him the cost of production, would he call it a milk tax?

On a point of explanation, I was not discussing the cost of production. I was discussing the hardship on the people. If the Minister wants to subsidise wheat, let him subsidise it from the Central Fund.

If the Deputy had to sell his milk below the cost of production and a Bill were introduced to give him the cost of production, would he say that that was a milk tax? Would he say that it should not be paid by the consumer but should be paid out of the Central Fund, as a subsidy, to bridge the gap between what he could get for his milk and what was an economic price?

Dr. Ryan

So long as he got it, we would not hear anything about it.

The people never had to look for subsidies from any Government until this Government came in. If they restored to-morrow the markets we had, we could tell them to keep their subsidies. That is the policy I stand for and that Deputy Belton, in his heart, stands for.

That is precisely the policy I stand for but I am dealing with circumstances as they are. I am not dealing with the view I would have under other circumstances. To fix upon an economic view for to-day, we must consider and weigh the economic circumstances of the day.

I am not dealing with the matter from that point of view.

I am sorry the Deputy did not follow up that point. I was dealing with the point which Deputy O'Sullivan endeavoured to make—that this was a bread tax. It is a bread tax if Deputies accept the doctrine that they should not pay an economic price for any commodity when they can get that commodity dumped from foreign countries at far below the cost of production. Which should be the basic price—the economic price or the dumped price of a surplus?

If you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, are prepared to allow me to discuss that question, I shall do so.

I shall not allow Deputy Belton to go very far on that line. He is raising a question as to the Government's policy in subsidising wheat, which question does not arise on this Bill.

I should not like the stigma to be on me, if it is to have a place at all in the public mind, that I voted for a bread tax.

It is a bread tax and nothing else. Did not the Minister say that it would be passed on?

If you go in and buy a new suit you have to pay the trades union rate of wages. That charge is passed on to the consumer. I am not concerned with Fianna Fáil policy. In 1928, before there was any sign of Fianna Fáil becoming the Government of this country—and, if it were in my power, I would not allow them to become the Government—I used these words at an agricultural congress:

The Department of Agriculture should be requested to instruct committees of agriculture to endeavour to treble the wheat crop. There will be no difficulty in obtaining this increase if the Government at once pass legislation providing that from and after the 1st November, following, all flour sold in this country must contain at least 15 per cent. of home-grown wheat.

What Government was in office when you said that?

The previous Government.

Deputy McGilligan was in office then.

And we would not tax bread.

My friend Deputy McGilligan also refers to a tax on bread. The tax on bread seems to be the outstanding point made here. It was the whole point of Deputy O'Sullivan's argument. As one who proposes to vote for this Bill and who has done so all along, except on one occasion when I made a mistake, I want to clear up that point. Incidentally, reference has been made to the 6d. on imported wheat. That is a bread tax so far as it goes. I hold that the farmers are entitled to an economic price for their wheat.

Why, then, do you vote for the Government? They will not give an economic price for anything owing to their policy.

These questions are too big for discussion now. We can deal with all these points on the Agricultural Estimate. We are circumscribed now and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is watching. I shall not go outside the bounds, though I may go to the border-line. Deputy O'Leary said that his constituents were opposed to this Bill. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said the same. It would be very hard to govern if every Deputy looked merely for such legislation as would suit his own little bit of the world. I put this to Deputy O'Leary that we have an export trade in cattle and in milk products, etc. The part of the country for which Deputy O'Leary and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney spoke is more suited to the raising of these products than to the growing of wheat, but do they realise all the wheat land that is competing with them in producing live stock?

On a point of explanation. Is Deputy Belton aware that the people in the wheat-growing part of the country are better off than the people in the poorer parts, and that the people in the poorer parts are producing store cattle for which they can get practically nothing to-day?

Deputies should realise that the matters that Deputy Belton is endeavouring to discuss do not arise on this Bill.

I was simply dealing with some points raised by previous speakers. Is it not obvious to Deputies that when you narrow down the production of an article you help the fellow who is allowed to go on with its production? Therefore, when you take away from cattle raising the land that is now engaged in that form of production, you automatically increase the productive value, for cattle raising purposes, of all the land not suited for wheat growing.

And we are killing the calves.

We discussed that before, and there is no use in getting into it now. I want to discuss the question of wheat growing that is before the House. It was, perhaps, wise enough, though I never believed in it, to subsidise wheat growing for a year or two, but it is now getting a bit out of hand. When you expect to have 30,000 or 40,000 acres of wheat grown in a year, you can fix a price for it, leave an open market to the producer for millable wheat, and have the difference by way of subsidy to be made up by the Central Exchequer. That is all right for a year or two until you see how the experiment will work. I understand that this year we are going to have at least 25 per cent of our requirements grown in this country. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the time has come to make a change.

Is the Deputy not now dealing with the Government's general policy of a wheat subsidy? Surely he knows that has already been decided.

But does not this Bill make a change? Instead of a subsidy it is proposed to pay on the loaf. I submit that I am dealing with that change over.

Personally I would prefer if what is proposed in this Bill had been in operation from the beginning. Therefore, I am in thorough agreement with the change over. Deputy McGilligan, whose intelligence I certainly do not question, seems to say that that change over is from what you may call free bread to a tax on bread. At any rate, that point was made by Deputy O'Sullivan. The point that I want to emphasise is that the Minister in this Bill is fixing a price for wheat that he considers economic. I do not. I plead guilty to a certain degree of negligence that during the passage of the Bill I did not take steps to express what, in my opinion, would be an economic price. But certain things happened in my private life that called me away, and it was then too late for me to do anything. I did press on the Minister, on an earlier stage, that he might do something on the matter, but I am afraid he was not as warm on it then as he seemed to be on a previous occasion.

The Minister in this Bill is providing 27/- a barrel for wheat. I suggest to him that he might as well have put in £27. Whether the Minister intended it or not, that figure is the merest eyewash. The Minister must know from his personal experience and from his experience as Minister since he became definitely interested in agricultural politics, that wheat bushelling 64 lbs. is not the rule. There are exceptions, of course, but you very seldom get that. Would the Minister tell us how many samples of wheat bushelling 64 lbs. he had last year? Therefore, that can be cut out. If the wheat does not bushel that amount, the 27/- will not be paid, so that what we come down to is about 23/6 a barrel. We can take that as the average price. I do not consider it an economic price, though I admit it was 9/- or 10/- a barrel more than the average price of wheat on the world market last year. But that world price last year, and for some years past, has been fixed by the surplus wheat on offer.

At the end of the year 1926-27 there was a carry-over of 184,000,000 bushels; in the year 1928-29 it was 454,000,000 bushels; in 1932-33, 625,000,000 bushels; in 1933-34, 589,000,000 bushels, and in 1934-35—the year 1934 was a very dry year—the carry over was 310,000,000. The reason why wheat was so cheap on the world market was because that surplus had to be dumped. The real explanation is that the world's greatest authorities say that they cannot fix on any stabilised price for wheat. Owing to last year being a dry year, and the measure taken to push wheat for live-stock feeding, in order to reduce the carry-over, and also the subsidies to people in wheat-growing countries not to grow wheat——

Surely that is no reason why we should not grow it.

That has nothing to do with this question.

That is why we are killing the calves.

This has nothing to do with the killing of calves. It was the violent change in the economic system had to do with that. The change was too violent.

It was too much for the calves.

It was brought about too abruptly.

Dr. Ryan

What about killing the cows?

Give us our markets and we need not kill them.

Until there are no surplus stocks left, there will not be an economic price for wheat. It has been advocated by Deputies O'Sullivan, Bennett and O'Leary that world prices should rule our market. They said that we should take the basic price as that at which the world ranchers are prepared to dump wheat into this or any other market. The difference between these Deputies and myself is that I will not take that basic price. I will not even take the line of the Minister for Agriculture but, in preference to what they want, I will vote for this Bill.

I did not say anything of that kind.

The Deputy said that the price of bread last year was so much, and that there would be an increase in the price this year because there would be a bread tax. Then ipso facto the Deputy is basing the basic price upon the price that obtained last year, and that price was dictated by the world's surplus stocks, which they wanted to dump.

I only suggested that this Bill did not give any more than was given last year.

There is the big principle, whether the consumer of the article should pay an economic price, or whether we are to collect it in general taxation, letting the Central Fund pay a subsidy to make up the difference between what the consumer would pay and the economic price. The Deputies who preceded me take one view and I take the other view. I endeavoured to give my reasons to Deputy Bennett, but he does not agree with them. That is the position.

We will talk about it on the Minister's Vote. We will be free lances then.

The price of wheat has gone down gradually since 1926-27, as surplus stocks increased. These surplus stocks increased because the wheat consuming peoples are consuming less per head than they did ten or 12 years ago. The open spaces of the world produced more wheat as national economics on such lines developed. These agencies combined to bring about the glut. That glut had to be unloaded and as a result we had the bread price here and in England last year at the unloading price. The question the House has to decide is, are we to vote for a scrap price for wheat as the basic price because wheat ranchers want to unload stocks, or are we to fix the basic price, and consequently the price of the loaf, on the economic price of wheat grown here? We are only going a quarter of the way towards an economic price. The most sanguine expectations are that we are unlikely to get beyond 25 per cent. of our requirements this year. Assuming that the Minister's figure is an economic standard—I do not hold that it is—the average selling price will be about 23/6 a barrel. We could buy all the wheat we want at 14/- or 15/- a barrel. We get only 25 per cent. at 23/6 and we pay 14/- or 15/- a barrel for the other 75 per cent. That will bring us a quarter of the way towards an economic price. The more wheat we produce the higher must go the price of bread. From the little knowledge that I have of the world's wheat position, I am satisfied that within five years no wheat will be grown under 25/- or 26/- a barrel. Other people want to get a fair price for wheat just as we do. Deputy Bennett has experience of wheat-growing in Canada and he knows that 14/- or 15/- a barrel will not pay for wheat grown there. He knows that wheat cannot be got there for human consumption at 14/- or 15/- a barrel. Wheat cannot be got at that price in Australia or in any wheat-growing country. The peoples of the world are taxing bread consumers in order to fix an economic price for wheat. The only fault I have with the Minister for Agriculture is to the nature of the wheats grown here, the price given, and the bushel weight required. I wonder if I am right in saying that substantially the top yield last year was about 60 lbs. to the bushel.

Dr. Ryan

There was a good deal at 62lbs.

The Minister took a big bite when he said 64lbs. The last yard is the hardest in a race of 100 yards. A man who minds his crop, and does everything humanly possible to get 62lbs., finds that it is much easier to get the first 60lbs. than to get the last 2lbs., and that it might be beyond him to get these 21lbs. I suggest that the Minister should seriously consider raising the price for wheat-growing. Many people who are against this whole principle of wheat-growing consider that if we are going to grow wheat there should be a fair price paid for the crop. There is a good deal to be said for that point of view. I am sure the three Deputies who spoke against wheat-growing will agree that if we must grow wheat there should be a better price than is being given. I do not think the price offered is a fair one. I intended to deal with that on this stage. I was asked by Deputies who had to go to the country not to overlook it. I mentioned on a previous stage that the Minister should, even in this Bill, offer an enhanced price next year for hard wheats. Curiously, I had a letter from a man, who I did not know was farming and who is farming in Western Canada. I received that letter since the debates on this matter started here, and he criticises very adversely the danger of our going in for the growing of very soft wheats in this country and the danger of filling the land with disease if we are not careful as to the kind of wheat we grow. I think that the Minister should consider that aspect of it at once. That, I think, covers all the ground that I meant to touch on.

Deputy Belton's speech was marred by two glaring fallacies and by a whole heap of lesser mistakes. The first fallacy is that, as a matter of theory, Deputy Belton apparently makes no distinction in his mind between a price brought about by the artificial mishandling of politicians and a price brought about by a natural economic law. Apparently, he sees no difference. I see a big difference, but I see a bigger difference than that in this matter, and the whole Bill turns on this point. I refer to the iniquity of off-loading the sacrifice that you must get in any of your legislation on to a commodity that is used to sustain life at its most primitive point.

But that is what you are producing.

Deputy McGilligan is wrong.

I am told that last year we had free bread; at least, if I say that and if it is wrong to refer to it in that way, I can say that we will have taxed bread in this coming year.

We had sweated bread last year.

All right. Let us say that we had sweated bread. Considering modern development, I do not believe that this country is ever going to be able to produce wheat at the same rate at which the mineralised earth and the hot sun of Canada can produce it.

We did it before.

We never did.

Read Griffith!

I have read Griffith, but that has to do with other times and other conditions. If Canada were to go back to the primitive stage of our wheat growing, then we might be able to stand competition, but with recent development and the breaking up of huge tracts of land, I do not believe it will be possible for us to compete. It was the breaking up of one area in Northern Canada, about three miles wide, and bringing it into cultivation somewhere about the years 1919 or 1920 that brought about the glut to which Deputy Belton referred.

By breaking up new land.

It was by providing wheat suitable for the soil.

Nobody here will be able to compete.

We provided the wheat before, and for twice the population.

If the Deputy would consult the agricultural instructors, they would tell him the facts. We could stand comparison with Canada at a time when everybody grew wheat in the same way. As one of these instructors put it on one occasion, the growing of wheat was back-breaking work; it was done with the hand and the foot.

That is right.

It was back-breaking work, and it was back-breaking work again when it came to gathering in the harvest. You are still in that position in this country, whereas, against that, in Canada you have huge farms where they have tractors dragging 15 or 20 machines.

But the Deputy forgets that in this country it is drawn by water.

I do not quite know what the Deputy means by that, but I agree that there is a heap of water in this country—even in the land of it— and that there is very little sun here, and a heap of it in Canada. You have only to scratch the Canadian earth, and you will be able to raise a wheat crop. Canada has its difficulties at times also, such as when there is a sudden rush of disease in the wheat, but that occurs only very rarely. I do not believe that the time will ever come when this country will be able to produce wheat at the same rate as we can import it at. If and when that time comes, we will grow wheat.

Would the Deputy believe it if he saw it in print?

Yes, I would believe it if I saw it in print and if I had the print analysed and explained, but it is ludicrous to believe in the possibility of wheat growing simply because, at one stage of our history, before other countries had developed, we had grown wheat here. It is ludicrous to found a policy on that assumption. You might as well say that, because there was a time in the world's history when this country grew the best rushes for strewing on the floors, we should do away with carpets and grow rushes to be used instead of them. It is just the same as to ask "What do we want carpets for?" That is the hair-shirt policy which certain people in this country would like to have as the fashion, but modern conditions do not tend towards that. Modern conditions tend towards getting the best the world can give us, and economic nationalism is against that trend.

Sure, we got gold in this country.

I do not know about that. I believe it was so, but I believe that in these ancient times it was the case of Malachi wearing the collar of gold and not a case of someone going to collar the gold, as it is now. I am against a tax on bread. That is the main thing in this. I agree with Deputy Belton that agriculture generally ought to get an economic price which it is not getting. But what you are trying to do now has already failed in Russia, and that is, you are trying to produce in this country an urbanised industrial population and you are trying to rear that urban population on the back of an impoverished farming community. Nowhere has that policy succeeded. It did not succeed in Russia. The ordinary farmer, on whose surplus the industrial community had to be reared, soon ended that problem by going out of surplus and back into subsistence. That is what happened in Russia, and if our farmers do that and go back into subsistence, we will have no surplus, and what the urban population is going to be reared on, whether money or goods, I do not know.

Leaving that aside, however, this is the problem at the root of the whole economic change that is being attempted here at the moment, and anybody who reads modern history—even the history of the last seven years— will realise that it can never work. It can only work under the conditions which obtain in Russia at the moment. You can make it work, as in Russia, by a system resembling Black and Tan squads and sending people to prison and to exile, and so on, because they will not produce a surplus and because they will not give up that surplus when the urban community want it. You have not got to that stage here yet, but you will have to get to that stage if you are going to try to make the farmer produce without an economic price. I think that there is a great deal to be said for letting the consumer bear his full whack of the burden. If you want to test the reaction to the policy being adopted now, put it directly on the bread. That is the way to bring it home to them. Let us look at the impact of this. Every person who is living on money that he earns is going to feel the impact of this as a tax. You are definitely down now to the necessity point. You are breaking in on every man's standard of living. You are breaking in on every man's wages. You are hitting at this urbanised community when you tax bread. You are hitting at the miserably poor wages of the people in the country.

Everybody eats bread.

Yes, everybody eats bread. This compulsory levy hits at everybody. Suppose you said to every man, woman and child—because it must be remembered that the child is affected, too—in the country, "We will take so much from you in the year," there would be an outcry. If you were to propose that people who are earning £1 or 30/- a week would have to pay 1/- or 1/6 there would be an outcry. You are certainly doing that in the bread tax. The calculation has been made here, and not denied, that you are helping about one farmer in eight by your wheat subsidy. We hear comments on all sides that the subsidy is not enough. It has a good reaction on one farmer in eight, and it has no possible reaction on the town population. But the town population and the eight farmers are to go on paying for it while the subsidy goes to one in eight. If it were possible to get this help in some other way, if it were possible to put the tax on a luxury, it should have been done. It is clearly not possible. The price of bread will go up. The price of bread, of course, has gone up. There are three things affecting the price of bread; there is the revenue tax on wheat this year, there is the tariff on flour, and now we have this question of wheat. Those three things are all putting up the price of bread. Why should bread have been picked out? You have only to let your imagination run a little bit to see that bread is the thing people should keep most away from when there is a question of tax.

It is not bread; it is wheat.

It is eventually on bread that the tax is paid. The object of this Bill is to make bread bear the tax.

To get an economic price for wheat.

Let us get to the question of paying an economic price when we are tackling the whole matter of economic prices for the agricultural community. What is happening at this moment is that an economic price for a product that is going to be grown by one farmer in eight is being charged against the whole community, town and country dwellers as well.

What would be the rural population versus the urban?

I think it is three to one—one in the urban to three in the rural.

If we gave the subsidy to the rural people we would not be doing too much harm.

You are not giving it to the rural people; you are giving it to one in eight, and the other seven out of the eight as well as the whole urban community are paying.

They cannot have as much grass land when they are growing wheat.

They have, because they put wheat where they were growing oats.

Let us take the figures. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney talked of the comparison between 1933 and 1934. It is much more educative if you take a comparison between 1930 and 1934. The figures for wheat and oats in those years are 670,000 acres and 677,000 acres—a difference of 7,000 acres between the two years.

Dr. Ryan

Why do you leave out barley?

I will add it in if you like, but we are not subsidising it in this Bill.

Dr. Ryan

Why do you leave out barley?

What has this Bill to do with barley?

Dr. Ryan

As much as it has with oats.

No, because the suggestion is that what happened is just the same as what happened in the sugar beet area around Carlow—that there was no new tillage. What happened was that the people went into sugar and out of something else. The suggestion here is that the people have gone out of oats into wheat.

Dr. Ryan

But suppose they went out of oats into barley?

Even if they did, it all bears out my point—that you have no new tillage.

Dr. Ryan

You have, if you add in barley.

To a certain small extent.

What is the total?

As between the three, it has gone up from 786,000 acres to 819,000 acres, a difference of 33,000 acres.

Where do you get that out of?

I hope the Deputy is not casting contempt on the Government statistics?

Indeed I am not.

Not at all. Bread is to be taxed. I think bread comes into every phrase you can think of that deals with poverty, or a low level of life. The people who queue up for food in America are called the people who go into the bread line. The first thing they have got to get to sustain themselves is a bit of crust. When Germany was at war, and when there was the impact of the blockade, what was supposed to be the way in which that most injuriously showed itself on the population? They had to turn from the ordinary wheaten bread or even ordinary rye flour bread to potato bread, which was regarded as a substitute. When people were boasting of the effect of the blockade they boasted that the Germans had been driven to this potato bread. Later, when the Germans themselves wanted to show the terrific hardship and inhumanity of the blockade, they always pointed out that they had to go off bread. The phrase has been used here that bread is the staff of life. In the case of a tax on incomes, there is always a certain amount of the income exempt from taxation. There is the subsistence point; you have your £150 or £170, or whatever the figure is, and that is the amount which a man is supposed to spend on food for himself and his wife and children. It is spent mainly on bread, and the lower the level of life is at the more of a particular income is spent on foodstuffs. You have only to go to the cost-of-living figure to see how the index is arranged here; you will find that great weight is given to foodstuffs. From calculations made on a variety of small incomes, it was found that the lower was the amount of money coming into the household the greater was the percentage of that money which went on bread. We are deciding that that is what is to be taxed.

What was your experience of the war bread?

Like the Deputy's conversation—terribly dry and ugly to the taste. I should like to hear any person who represents an urban community—a community in which there are tenement dwellers——

You have Deputy Belton.

——justifying a tax on their bread in order to provide a subsidy, of whatever type it may be, to one in eight of the rural community.

Will you get the trade unionists to advocate the use of goods produced under sweated conditions?

Ask the people on those benches.

Those are not the fellows I represent.

This matter of dumping is one which we have heard spoken of theoretically here. We have never got the concrete issue faced up to.

As far as I am concerned, if we could get the wheat with which Canada and other parts of the world are now glutted, in here without any imposition of duty, I believe that by selling the bread at the figure which it would reach, and by paying a pension to the farmers who were attempting to grow wheat in this country, we would be better off. We would be better off by paying them something for doing nothing.

But would it not be hard if the Canadians put up the wheat then?

I do not believe in taxing the people of this community for ten years in order to meet the theoretical danger that Canada might raise wheat at a particular point. Wheat must go up some time, but that it is going to go to a point which would make it economic for us to grow wheat in this country I do not believe.

It was economic.

We never grew it at an economic price under modern conditions.

Then all our economists were wrong?

They were right in their day.

Arthur Griffith was wrong?

No; he was right in his day. Arthur Griffith himself, towards the end of his life, and he was quoted in this House, said he did not think his propaganda writings, dated to a certain period, should be used in an attempt to solve modern problems.

Was he talking of politics or economics?

Economics distinctly, and he was talking particularly of protection. Supposing we were back in the good old days of the sending out of marauders, aggressor parties, that we could conquer a certain part of Canada, enslave a certain number of the Canadian citizens and put them at work on their land to grow wheat for us at a miserable pittance for themselves. Suppose we did that through the strong arm of conquest, would anybody object to our getting the benefit of it in the shape of almost free bread at home? Why do you object now to what previously the strong arm of might would have brought into play? Just envisage that. Why should we prevent ourselves getting the benefits of very cheap food if it can be got willingly from the people who grow that food?

Find the cheapest market and sell in the dearest market.

I cannot see any objection in that procedure; that is, the problem of taking the commodity that can be produced in such circumstances that it can be sold cheaply here.

But this is an island country.

I do not know what that has to do with it.

In time of war supplies to this country might be torpedoed.

The Deputy seems to fear that this country might not have enough food if there was a war on. What would be happening in this country if there was a war on? We would be simply glutted with food.

What about compulsory tillage?

That was not meant for this country. This country was never as well off as in the days when Britain was blockaded, because they got their stuff from us; and the compulsory tillage order was not for the purpose of getting more foodstuffs for this country but to get more foodstuffs grown here for England. That was the advantage of our insular position. I am speaking of commodities that can be grown elsewhere and that can come in here at a rate less than they could be produced at here. So far as the bounty is concerned, one always fears the bounty, because eventually the bounty will be withdrawn and then we will have to face the blast. As long as the sun gives heat in the proportion it does to Canada and to this country, this country will not be able to produce the wheat at anything like the cheap cost that applies to Canada.

I am prepared to depend, so far as wheat and bread are concerned, on the Canadians and if ever any danger arises I know we will have plenty of food in this country; we will not have any deprivation; and if Canada raises her prices we have our own resort after that. I certainly am not going to go in for that foolish policy of insurance of having wheat grown for 20 years at a nonsensical figure here, because the contingency may arise that Canada may find it necessary to curtail her supplies or raise her price. We can meet that devil when the time comes. We are not going to do any better or any worse in regard to wheat than what the world experiments have shown. Most of the countries that went in for wheat are now trying to get out of it. France, which was the leader, passed a law preventing any development of wheat; definitely there is a law preventing it.

That is wrong.

Dr. Ryan

Beyond her own requirements.

She had a surplus on her markets; she was glutted.

She has screwed down the thing lower than her own requirements.

Dr. Ryan

To 98 per cent.

And, on the 98 per cent., the calculation has been made by French economists, and it was never denied in their Parliament, that it would pay them better to vote the money and give it to the French farmers for doing nothing than to put it into wheat growing. The only thing that prevents them doing that is that they have their unfortunate peasants used to this, and there might be a revolution if they tried to stop it. But it really would pay them better to give that money to those peasants and tell them not to grow wheat. That has been stated in the French House.

It is a strange theory.

It is not a strange theory. It is all worked out, and it is as clear as the daylight. The same thing has happened with regard to industrial alcohol factories. The best expert opinion based on those things after the war was that if they blew them up they would be better off. That expert opinion was passed as sound. Of course, England did not go in for that sort of nonsense.

They believe in growing wheat in England.

They would get out of it just as quickly if they could.

There is no country in the world believes so much in growing wheat as England.

Deputy Donnelly ought to permit Deputy McGilligan to make his speech.

The wheat-growing in England represents three per cent. of their agricultural economy.

I will give you the papers.

It might have been a good policy in certain areas, but it represents three per cent. of their total agricultural economy. At any rate this Bill is definitely putting a tax upon bread, and I object to that. If I was going to be cynical about it I would welcome it. When you are trying out a tax of this type, referred to as a subsidy, possibly the best way of having the reactions of it understood would be to say to the people who consume the article: "We will teach you what it is to grow wheat. You will pay for it in your bread and we will make you pay." If one were to adopt that attitude, one could welcome this Bill.

Is it not a good thing to let the people decide whether they will have that policy or not?

Perhaps it is a good thing to bring it home to them in that way, but it is a harsh thing to bring it home to them by means of a tax on their bread. Here is the way I would like to envisage this as happening. Let us introduce a new system. You have unemployment insurance and national health insurance, in connection with which cards are stamped. What about a wheat-subsidy stamped card making everybody, just according to whatever their income is, put stamps on the card, labelling these wheat-subsidy stamps? You would make it a little bit clearer to the people then. Every man would know what it means. Very few now realise what they are getting from it. By such a method we might get it to the people's heads after a bit what they are paying for. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that the price of bread is not up by so much. That is not the question. Has it gone down as much as the ordinary economic law would permit it to go? That is how you would get at the difference in what you are paying for your wheat; and that is what the stamps on the wheat card would show you. If you could get it that way there would be nobody then I think who would be willing to vote for this subsidy. But if you take the other point and say: "Let us pay the least, particularly when it is to be dragged from everybody and let us use the less payment for letting these men idle and let us get our wheat in from beyond——"

Would not the same apply to boots and ready-made clothing?

The same would not apply to boots and ready-made clothing. That is the argument that is thrown out so often—that there is nothing that comes into this country that could not be produced cheaper elsewhere. That matter has been dealt with by economists. I think the great American statesman, Alexander Hamilton, was the man who had the best social theories? He had the view that you cannot allow your own people to be a mere pastoral people. He held that even with a cost to your own people you have got to get a certain range of activity and there is no doubt that in this country we have a consuming community for clothes and boots and certainly for a number of other things which ought to make it possible for them to be produced here. Even if they are not being produced as cheaply at home as abroad it may be for an otherwise very desirable reason. I do not object to things being dearer here if the community benefits by their being produced here.

The Deputy does not object to a social tax.

That is travelling very far away from the Bill now.

I do not know what the Deputy means by a social tax but I do not see that there is any proof that the community is getting any benefit by this tax on bread. There is reason to believe, however, that a certain number of people, employers and their families are getting a benefit. But look at the £4,000,000 wages bill. It has been increased by only £25,000. That surely ought to make strong tariff reformers sit up and take notice. I am in favour of taxation on these things that can be produced at home if it is shown that that is going to give additional employment but the position under these tariffs is that that is not so as we see from that £25,000 increase on a wage of £4,000,000.

Deputy McGilligan knows how far he is travelling outside this Bill.

See how quickly I will get back to it. I do not believe in any tax to get the people of this country rooted in agriculture. That is because of the fact that they are already rooted in agriculture.

They are so poor that they cannot get out of it, but this is a lifter to them.

How does it lift them?

It is helping only one in eight of the community.

We had a good deal here to-day about majority rule in this House. But we must have majority rule governing this country in other ways too. I would like to have the majority, or somebody representing the majority, tell me that they are satisfied to pay this subsidy. I would like them to tell me why it is better to pay a subsidy in relation to wheat and in relation to the people's bread. How is it fair or right to ask people in the back streets of Dublin or in the slums of Cork to pay a tax on their bread for the benefit of one farmer out of eight farmers in the country? There are certain parts of this country that never can get any benefit from this tax on wheat.

What about the coastal areas?

If so many acres are taken in the Midlands for the growing of wheat, it means that there will be less grasslands left in the Midlands and less competition with the grasslands in the West of Ireland.

The cattle graziers in the West are to get more benefit because they will be able to raise more cattle in the West. Is that the argument?

How does all this arise on the Bill?

I will let the agriculturists ponder on that argument and leave it for the moment. Why tax the man in the back streets of Dublin and in the slum areas of Cork and the other cities, and why tax the bread of their women and children—why tax the thing that they must get to sustain their lives in order to give this benefit to one man in eight amongst the farming community?

Why tax the farm labourers throughout the country in order to give a bigger price for boots and ready made clothing to the people who produce these in Dublin?

If the agricultural labourer is going to give a big price to the boot and shoe manufacturer at home, and to the maker of ready made clothing, I am against it. But if the making of boots and ready made clothing is to give a big benefit to the urban population, I am for it. When you make it possible for the urban population by a tariff on these things to get more wages, of which the community as a whole will get the benefit, that is a different matter. Boots and shoes are a bad thing to take, because everybody must wear them.

The same as bread.

It is not bread the people are eating now, but stirabout.

Boots and shoes are not on the same level as bread. At a pinch people can go without boots, and even when they are nearly worn out you can mend them, but the people have to get their meed of bread every day if they are to sustain their lives. I do not know to what point we have been reduced. We have to choose most the taxes that do not press on us. The reason why we have this Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill dealing with this matter is easy enough to understand. I can understand quite seriously the orders given by the Minister for Finance at the beginning of the present financial year. I can understand his saying to his colleagues: "You must lighten the boat." The poor old ship was waterlogged and the tax had to be put on bread and butter and something else, and something had to be got out of the Unemployment Assistance Fund and out of the old age pension. I can understand the Minister for Finance saying: "Do not let me go into the Dáil to face them with all these taxes. You will have to get the money out of bread and butter and unemployment and all the other things." That is why this Bill has come up here as a special Bill and why the Government is making a change over from subsidising wheat-growing out of the Exchequer. The Minister had got to rid his Budget of these subsidies. The water was pouring in and all hands were needed at the pumps and he had to lighten the cargo. There used to be an old poem about "...a loaf of bread beneath the bough, A flask of wine, a book of verse... And thou. And Wilderness is Paradise enow." Look at the change we have made—Spanish oranges without juice and a bread tax in the Finance Bill for 1935. Deputy Donnelly may think that that is as near paradise as he can get.

Paradise enow.

What are the agricultural community getting as a result of the increased price that the people have to pay for their bread? What are they to get; are they to get employment, or are they getting an increase in their wages? In so far as we can get an interpretation put upon the statistical information that the Minister for Agriculture gives us for the three years during which this policy has been pursued, we find that the agricultural community are getting a rate of wages and that in so far as the type of agricultural labourer that you expect to see getting an increased wage by measures of this kind we find, in fact, that they are getting less and, further, we find that permanent employment amongst the agricultural labourers is becoming less. I would like to ask the Minister or any member of the Fianna Fáil Party, or even Deputy Belton, who is watching this wheat experiment with plenty of interest, to tell us that the agricultural labourers throughout, say, the Province of Leinster, where so much of this subsidised wheat crop is grown on top of the subsidised beet crop, that the agricultural labourers are now as well off as they were when this policy was started?

They would be worse off if the beet and the wheat were not grown.

I would like to hear that argument pursued and hear of the things that would make their position worse; and whether all the Minister's figures for last year have shown that the farm labourers' position is to be better next year. If we take the provinces, we find from official statistics that the wages of agricultural labourers in Leinster were down by 3/- per week in 1934, as compared with 1931, the year before this experiment was started; that in Munster they were down 4/-; in Connaught, 2/6; and in the three counties of Ulster, 3/-.

Dr. Ryan

This Bill does not change the experiment.

This Bill is changing it in such a way as to hide the enormous and growing cost to the people. Up to the present we were able to say that this experiment was costing, say, £192,000 one year, and £300,000 the next year. No one knows what it will cost in the year to come.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy McGilligan says this will make plainer what it will cost.

According to the way it works out. I do not see how it is going to be plainer to us how much this is going to cost when every halfpenny to be paid will be paid across the counter on the loaf. We may know when we make a careful calculation. But we were told in a simple way up to this every year by the Estimates what it was going to cost. So that while the cost is going up in such a way that the Minister has to hide it by taking it off his Estimate, less wages are being paid than before the experiment began. County Wexford, if we take the increase in the beet area and the wheat area since 1931, is growing one-sixth of the total increase in the 12 counties of Leinster. Leinster itself, as well as growing two-thirds of the increased beet crop, is growing over 50 per cent. of the increased wheat crop. So that if the results of this particular policy are to be seen any place in the province of Leinster, they ought to be seen in Wexford. But the Minister knows that the County Committee of Agriculture in Wexford three months running in the beginning of this year appealed to the Government to apply the free beef scheme to agricultural labourers in Wexford. For what reason?

Dr. Ryan

To get rid of the beef.

Because, as was stated at the County Committee meetings, the average wage for agricultural labourers in Wexford was 8/- per week and their food.

Dr. Ryan

There is not a word of truth in it.

The Minister has had many months to point that out to the County Committee in Wexford.

Dr. Ryan

I say the County Committee did not do it.

The County Committee of Agriculture three months running appealed to the Government to put the free beef scheme into operation in respect of agricultural labourers in Wexford, on the ground that their wage was 8/- per week and their food.

Dr. Ryan

On the ground that there was too much beef in the country.

The Minister will have an opportunity of getting details with regard to that, and we will have another opportunity of giving them to him. That is the case that was made before the County Committee for the giving of free beef. So much for wages in Wexford where, as I say, one-sixth of the increase in the beet crop and one-sixth of the increase in the wheat crop of the whole province of Leinster was grown, and Leinster grew 50 per cent., of the new wheat since 1931, and two-thirds, or about 64 per cent., of the new beet. What is the position with regard to employment? In County Wexford, there were in 1934——

This is an amending Bill, which does not deal with the wheat scheme, but with an alteration in the wheat scheme. The main provisions of it are, fixing a new cereal year, fixing the percentage of Irish-home-grown wheat to be milled, and the minimum price of home-grown millable wheat. I find it very difficult to see how the percentage of wheat and beet and the agricultural wages paid in Wexford are related to these three matters.

This Bill also shifts the cost of this scheme from the Estimate of the Minister for Agriculture on to the people, and hides it in the loaf and the price of flour. When dealing with a measure that takes the cost to the people from a place where we can examine it, and throws it directly on to the public in a way in which we can only imagine what the size of it is, are we not entitled, when taking up the attitude we do, that the cost of this scheme is increasing, that it is increasing so much that it has to be hidden from the people as far as possible, to ask whether the results of this scheme are worth the increased cost at all and, particularly, worth putting the cost of it in such a way that the people cannot readily understand what the cost of it is——

Dr. Ryan

It was also in your programme at the last general election.

I am asking the House to take into consideration that, while the price of flour and bread is being increased to the community, and machinery is being set up under this Bill to hide the cost of it and change the incidence of it, we get no results either in increased wages or increased employment for the agricultural community. If I refer specifically to County Wexford, it is only to point out that Wexford is a county where this scheme, if it is bringing benefit to the farmers, should be bringing it to the farmers and agricultural labourers in the clearest possible way. I want to point out that wages are down so that the agricultural labourers in Wexford are reduced to the position that I have pointed out. As far as employment is concerned, there were less permanent agricultural labourers over 18 employed in Wexford last year than there were before the scheme was brought into operation. If we look a little bit further we find that there were 1,630 more agricultural labourers over 18 years of age permanently employed in 1934 as against 1931. There were 54 less in Wexford. But when we look at Westmeath we find there were 192 more employed there. There was an increase in the permanent agricultural labourers over 18 years employed in Westmeath in 1934 and a decrease in Wexford. Westmeath is a place where the Fianna Fáil writ does not seem to run at all economically, whatever about politically. It is neither touched by the beet scheme nor by the wheat scheme, yet we find we have an increase of permanently employed agricultural labour there.

Dr. Ryan

Is there no wheat grown in Westmeath?

Compared with Wexford there is little. There is an increase of 1,500 acres in Westmeath; in Wexford there is an increase of nearly 7,000.

Dr. Ryan

What were the figures in the three previous years?

In 1934 there was an increase in Westmeath of 1,469 acres—from 71 acres to 1,540—but when you come to Wexford the increase was nearly 7,000 acres—11,544, as against 4,628 in 1931.

Dr. Ryan

Only an increase of 100 per cent., whereas in Westmeath the increase was nearly 1,600 per cent.

In Westmeath in 1931 eight acres were under beet, and in 1934 31 acres—an increase of 23 acres. In Wexford in 1931 there were 2,047 acres under beet, and in 1934 6,125 acres, or an increase of 4,078 acres.

Beet has nothing whatever to do with this Bill; neither has the number of labourers employed or unemployed in the different counties. That argument would be equally applicable to beet or any other agricultural produce, and might be reviewed on the Estimate for the Department. The Bill does not deal with the wheat scheme, but with a change in it, and the Deputy is not entitled to go into the employment or unemployment figures for beet and wheat all over the country.

I only mentioned beet because it was a matter that might give rise to increased employment. Over the whole country there is only an increase of 1,700 labourers employed. But in Wexford, where the whole incidence of the wheat crop falls, there is a decrease in agricultural employment. We have nothing to show that there is an increase in agricultural employment given or any hope of anything, but a falling off in agricultural wages. In this Bill the Minister is asking us to shut our eyes and put our hands into our pockets to give more for this scheme.

Dr. Ryan

I think it should be quite obvious to Deputy Mulcahy, or any other Deputy, that they do not want to quote the statistics that are available here. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney compared the acreage of wheat and beet and left barley out. Deputy Mulcahy quoted Westmeath, where there has been an increase of something like 2,000 per cent. in the area under wheat, and then he refers to Wexford, which is a big county and where a man could put ten or 12 extra acres under wheat without having to employ additional labour. In Westmeath, if a farmer goes into wheat at all he must employ extra men. It is obvious that if we were to get our 800,000 acres of wheat a big increase would have to be made in the employment of agricultural labour in counties where there is no tillage whatever. If Deputy Mulcahy knew a little about the intricacies of agriculture he would know that if a farmer has three or four men employed for a number of years he may till ten or 20 acres, while in other years he may till 40 acres without having to give increased employment. Ten acres make little difference. If a Wexford farmer increases his tillage by ten or 12 acres it does not necessarily mean any extra employment.

But should not the wages be going up?

Dr. Ryan

The wages should be better, and I agree that that question of wages must come up for review in a very comprehensive way before long. Deputy McGilligan made a statement, by way of reply to an interjection from this side of the House, that if there was a blockade, or a war, we in this country would not have any trouble in getting food in. Our real trouble, he said, would be in getting food out. I contend we would have trouble in getting food in. We all remember the Great War. Everybody will admit that it was a most unpleasant experience going into a hotel in Dublin and being only able to get a spoonful of rice, while, of course, being able to get plenty of potatoes and other vegetables. That is the position we would be in again in the case of a blockade or a great war. Before the Fianna Fáil Party came into power 11,000,000 cwts. of maize were imported. We have not enough carbohydrates in this country, while we have too much meat and too much beer. But a man must have some carbohydrates, and it is not true to say that we would suffer no inconvenience if there was a blockade.

To deal with the points raised by Deputy McGilligan, I must take his arguments backward. He says we cannot grow wheat in competition with Canada. I say we have a much better yield than Canada. They have all kinds of trouble with their crop in Canada. They have the trouble of disease, the trouble of frost and the trouble of drought. We never have the trouble of drought and frost with our wheat. Our wheat grows through the heaviest frosts and is never injured. In Canada they have to put down their seed before the frost, or otherwise their whole crop is gone. Very often in Canada they have only ten days' margin to sow their wheat. Our position is that we can start to sow in September and we can continue until April. We have seven months for our crop more than they have in Canada. Yet one would think, hearing Deputy McGilligan, that they had most admirable conditions in Canada compared with ours here. I think the crop we grow here is up to the world's standard. Statistics will show that we get the very best yield for good quality wheat. Our farmers are not working under any conditions of slavery. They have plenty of time to put in their wheat, and plenty of time to reap it too. Whether they are getting a sufficient price I do not know.

I said at another stage of this Bill that nobody knows what the price of wheat should be. We are in a position to hire our men at the street corner, put them at the plough and, again, we have them ready to sow and reap the wheat. The farmer must use the men he has for various things. He cannot possibly give costings for each individual crop. It is only after years that the farmer can give an impression whether the crop is paying or not, and it is only then that we will be able to find out whether the farmer can go on growing wheat at this price. These are the only tests.

Some of the figures quoted by Deputies on the other side were absolutely outrageous. They selected certain special figures to try to prove their case. That is an old trick. Perhaps dishonest is too strong a word to use but it certainly is not fair. Anyone could select figures, some here and some there, and use them to try to prove his particular case. But they are not prepared to hand them over to the other side to have them examined and their true meaning discovered. Deputy O'Leary said that flour was 15/- a sack dearer here than in Great Britain. These are the kind of figures we hear quoted to bolster up shady cases. If it is necessary to bolster up cases in that way, or to indulge in exaggerations of that kind the cases they are intended to support must be very poor indeed.

One would imagine that the Opposition were against wheat growing from the way they spoke, but, at the last general election, whether they were against it or not, they told the farmers that if they returned them to power they would continue the wheat policy. If they are against it, it was very dishonest to say that at the last general election, because a political Party— even the Fine Gael political Party— should have a little more morality than to say to the farmers that if they were returned they would continue the wheat policy, although they disapproved of it. Either that or they are dishonest now, because they are trying to make out that they are against it, even though they were in favour of it in 1933. It may be that the result of their promise in 1933 has made them a little sour about the whole thing but, at any rate, the fact is that in 1933, at the general election, they were in favour of the wheat policy and now they are against it. We do not know why that change was made.

Is this a bread tax? I do not know whether you would call it a bread tax or not, but call it a bread tax if you like, if it is going to increase the price of bread. I agree absolutely with Deputy Belton, and I think it is scarcely necessary to restate the case as he stated it, that if you want to give an economic price to our own producers, whatever it may mean in the price of the finished article, the consumers have to put up with it and it is really scarcely fair to refer to it as a bread tax. There is no doubt that everything we consume here, whatever Deputy McGilligan may say, is dearer than it would be if we were to throw our ports open to imports from other countries. Our consumers are paying a tax on bacon. We could get much cheaper bacon than our own from other countries. If we threw our ports open and allowed bacon to come in from outside, our consumers would get cheaper bacon. Because we are making them pay more through a tariff, they are paying a bacon tax.

The same applies to mutton. We have a 6d. a lb. tariff on mutton, and, in spite of that, last spring, lamb was imported into this country, paying the 6d. tariff, so that the consumers of mutton and lamb in this country are paying a mutton tax. They are also paying an eggs tax. Take the Shannon scheme as an example. Some people hold that the electricity from that undertaking is dearer than it could have been got by other means— by steam or as it was being provided in Dublin City. The people in Dublin are paying more for their electricity. Are they paying an electricity tax? Why was that not paid out of general taxation, and why were the people not allowed to have electricity at ordinary economic rates? All these things are taxes, if you like, but there is no reason why we should talk about a bread tax any more than anything else. With regard to the fixing of this price, from the figures returned in the Department last year—and we had to get returns from every individual farmer as to what his wheat bushelled —we found that 60 lbs. a bushel was the average and, therefore, we put in 23/6 as the price of 60 lbs. of wheat. There was a good amount of wheat up to 62 lbs., but very little, I believe, over 64 lbs.

Was there any 64 lb. wheat?

Dr. Ryan

There was at least a little —I do not know how many samples, but at least a few. Whatever we may make the price of wheat bushelling 60 lbs., we should at least give a graded price until we come to 64 lbs., because if Deputy Belton, for instance, succeeded in growing wheat bushelling 64 lbs., I am sure he would be disappointed if he did not get a little more than the person whose wheat bushelled 62 lbs.

Or even 65 lbs.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Belton said he was anxious to insert an amendment to increase those prices. Those prices are in the Bill in order to implement the Orders made by the Executive Council already with regard to guaranteed prices for the harvests of 1935 and 1936. They are the minimum prices already settled by the Executive Council. It is not necessary to insert any amendment in this Bill to enable the Minister or the Executive Council to increase that price. We cannot go below it.

You cannot go above it.

Dr. Ryan

The Executive Council can at any time make an order increasing them. If Deputy Belton could convince me that a higher price would be advisable and if I, in turn, could convince the Executive Council, there would be no necessity to amend the Bill at all, because an Order would be sufficient.

Work in that direction.

Dr. Ryan

Use your influence in that direction. Deputy O'Sullivan said that farmers had told him that the average bushel weight of wheat was about 58 lbs. That is not right. Deputy O'Sullivan must be in touch with a rather poor class of farmers. He should consult some of those hardworking farmers who mind their own business but vote Fianna Fáil, and he will find that they have much better wheat.

Is the Minister sure he is consistent in that—"who mind their own business and vote Fianna Fáil"?

Dr. Ryan

I think it is quite all right. After all, we do not take up very much of their time.

We will think about it after this week's rest.

Dr. Ryan

In conclusion, I want to say that I find it very difficult to understand the opposition to this Bill which has been worked up during the later stages. On the Second Reading, we had a very friendly discussion here and everybody appeared to be satisfied and the Bill went through without a division. On the Committee Stage, a little opposition arose and, I think, there were a few divisions against the Bill. The Fourth Stage appeared to go fairly smoothly again but, on the Fifth Stage, I think we had the greatest opposition, in length of time at least, whatever way the vote will go.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 50; Níl, 12.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Cleary, Mícheál.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Corbett, Edmond.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Daly, Denis.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Doherty, Hugh.
  • Donnelly, Eamon.
  • Flinn, Hugo V.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Geoghegan, James.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hales, Thomas.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Keely, Séamus P.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Pearse, Margaret Mary.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.

Níl

  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Burke, James Michael.
  • Davitt, Robert Emmet.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Lavery, Cecil.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Redmond, Bridget Mary.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
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