I asked the Minister for Agriculture a question to-day, as to whether he would consider abandoning one of the maize meal mixture schemes, owing to the fact that it was costing pig producers from 3/6 to 3/- per cwt. more for maize meal than it would cost if no such scheme was in force. I pointed out that the maize meal mixture scheme had signally failed to do what it was supposed to do; that it had signally failed to effect what was held out as the only justification for it. We all know that the Minister has progressively increased the home-grown grain content of the maize meal mixture during the last six months. It was first 10 per cent., then 20 per cent., then 33? per cent., and finally 50 per cent. With every increase in the mixture the price of meal was raised, and finally a situation developed in which a protest grew up all over the country, that there were piles of barley and piles of oats that were quite unsaleable at any price. It was after that protest grew that the Minister finally increased the content of the maize meal mixture to the record figure of 50 per cent., innocently thinking that by doing so it would relieve the situation. Anybody who knew the Indian meal trade could have told him before he did that, that by increasing the maize meal content to 50 per cent., instead of disposing of more home-grown grain through admixture, he drove up the price of the mixture by over 8/-, and made it an entirely uneconomic commodity for the feeding of live stock. The people stopped using it. Whereas in the past that might have got rid of a certain amount of home-grown grain, now it has virtually got rid of none of it.
Then the Minister turned to a firm which has at its head a one-time Senator of this State. Arthur Guinness Son & Co. is the kind of firm that Deputy Corry is so fond of denouncing as a stronghold of the ascendancy, as a force of reaction, and an enemy of Irish freedom and progress. Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. was turned to by the Minister, and they stepped into the gap, as they had frequently done before, and took off the market an enormous quantity of barley which, for the moment, has removed the emergency in which the Minister for Agriculture for Saorstát Eireann found himself through his own fault. The Minister for Agriculture for Saorstát Eireann could not get out of it without the assistance of Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. It must be said for Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. that when anybody applied to them for any information as to the actual position, and what they were asked to do, they were informed that the firm had no information to offer. With that quixotic gallantry which characterises certain of the old-established business houses in this country, they do their job. They refused to reveal a single word about a transaction which they thought might be used to embarrass a Party which has denounced them in all moods and tenses. However, fortunately there are other ways of finding out what actually passed without getting it from Messrs. Guinness. If there were not such other ways we could not get the information, because Messrs. Guinness would not give it. The fact is that Messrs. Guinness, as far as my information goes, were approached directly or indirectly—not by the Government. I should think it highly probable that it was indirectly. The Minister will be in a position to say that he never approached them, just as he said a few days ago that he never approached the Bacon Marketing Board with regard to the price of pigs. He knows he approached the board, and I know he approached it, and he knows that I know he approached it. Yet, I admit, he is in a position to say that he made no direct approach. He told someone they ought to say to someone on the Bacon Marketing Board that such a thing should be done, and he told someone here that something should be done, and Messrs. Guinness did it.
What they did was, they let grain dealers know that, for one reason or another, they were prepared to take large parcels of grain at a price which was substantially better than the price the unfortunate grain growers could get in the open market—the market created by the Minister for Agriculture, the Fianna Fáil market, which was to spell prosperity for every grain grower. They instructed the grain dealers to put this considerable quantity of barley into the hands of the maltsters. The people are finding out the consequences of the scheme.
I want to quote a speech of Mr. Daniel Corkery, T.D., which was delivered a few months ago to the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis. He was fortified by a resolution from Macroom Comhairle Ceanntair. Mr. Corkery's speech is reported in the evening newspapers of December 4, 1935. He moved a resolution:—
"Requesting the setting up of a commission to inquire into existing conditions in congested districts and in the Gaeltacht with a view to improving the marketing facilities of agricultural produce, and reporting on the advantage, if any, which the people in those districts had derived from the different schemes initiated by Government Departments."
One of these schemes was the maize meal mixture scheme.
"The commission should be empowered to examine useful schemes because," he remarked, "this thing has come to breaking point with the people living in the poorer districts. They are barely existing at present, and it is the duty of the Government to see that some means be devised by which they will be able to live at least in some kind of comfort."
I must say that I sympathise with Mr. Corkery.
