Deputy Dillon gave notice to-day that he would raise, on the adjournment, the subject-matter of Question 23.
Private Deputies' Business. - Adjournment—Price of Pigs.
Two matters arise in connection with Question 23. One is the attempt which has been made by the Minister for Agriculture ever since the Bacon and Pigs Act passed to shirk responsibility for the duty of inquiring, from time to time, from the Pigs Board or the Bacon Board, as necessity may arise, the reasons for the various Orders they make. When the Pigs and Bacon Bill was going through a special Committee, the Minister tried to make these two boards absolutely autonomous, and the Opposition proposed amendments giving the Minister the right to ask such questions as he deemed necessary from time to time. The Opposition inserted those amendments in the Bill for the purpose of giving them the right of questioning the Minister, from time to time, in this House, about developments in the bacon trade and the pig industry. It is a matter of primary importance that it should be established, once and for all, that that right does belong to the Opposition—that they have a right to get replies to Parliamentary Questions on matters such as are raised in Question No. 23. The Pigs and Bacon Act gave these two boards the right to fix a production quota, a foreign sales quota and a domestic sales quota. One thing it did not give these boards the right to do was to fix a price for bacon in the home market. They could fix, and do fix, prices for pigs and the grades under which pigs should be sold. I now allege—I challenge the Minister to deny it—that, with his knowledge and with the connivance of his Department, the machinery of these boards has been used for the purpose of facilitating bacon curers in forming a ring and in fixing prices for bacon out of all proportion to the cost of bacon to them. I now allege that that was done with the connivance of the Minister because the Minister wanted to let the bacon curers mulct the consumer and compensate themselves out of the profits for the miserly bounty the Minister was prepared to pay on the bacon that was being exported to Great Britain.
The present arrangement is that the bacon curers get a certain quota which they are allowed to export to Great Britain. On that, they have to pay a tariff. The Minister used to pay a bounty of varying amounts to compensate for that tariff. I now suggest that the Minister is paying an inadequate bounty, and conniving at the bacon curers knocking an altogether exorbitant price out of the Irish consumer to compensate themselves for the inadequacy of the bounty made available by the Minister from the Exchequer. The Minister will say that the Pigs Board have fixed a price of 58/6 per cwt. for pigs. It is true to say that that price has been fixed, but it has been fixed for only one grade of pig and there are five grades of pig below that. While 58/6 is the price for that grade of pig, it comes down to 48/- for the ungraded pig. I should say that the average for all pigs would be nearer 50/- than 58/6. Let us say that the average price for pigs purchased at the factories works out at 53/- a cwt. How can anybody attempt to justify a price of from 90/- to 96/-for bacon on the basis of 53/- per cwt. for the pig? Seventy-five shillings would be a fair price and would allow the bacon curers an ample profit. Ninety-six shillings is, in my opinion, highway robbery.
Some farmers in this House have been sufficiently foolish to get up and say that the result of the Pigs and Bacon Act is that the farmers' co-operative in Waterford is making more money than it ever made. Of course, it is; but the farmers' co-operatives in Waterford and Cork are curing, between them, about 5 per cent. of all the pigs cured. Who are getting the profits on the other 95 per cent. of the pigs cured here and from whom are these profits being got? The profits on the 95 per cent. of the pigs which are being cured by private enterprise are being knocked out of the farmers who produce pigs and who eat bacon, and out of the people in the City of Dublin and elsewhere who eat bacon, if they can afford to do so. As a result of the prices ruling for bacon, there are many people who are now unable to buy it. I could understand the Minister if he came in and said: "I am prepared to get for the pig producers on the home market a price of 75/- and, in order to get that price, I have to get 96/- from the consumer for bacon." We could argue the prudence of setting so high a price for pigs as to make 96/- a fair price for bacon. I could understand the Minister saying: "I shall not stand for a high price for bacon. I shall not allow the curers to charge any more than 60/-, or the pig producer to get more than 40/-." We could argue on that position, but no rational man can defend an arrangement whereby the pig producer receives 53/- and the bacon consumer has to pay 96/- for bacon.
There are pigs being sold in this country at 48/- but let us take the average price at 53/-. I put it to the Minister that it is absolutely unjust to fix the price at that level if he is going to continue the policy which raises the price of Indian meal from 5/- to 9/3 per cwt. I can speak only for the area in which I live and, in that area, maize meal admixture is selling at 9/2 per cwt. A superior quality of maize meal is selling across the Border for from 5/- to 5/6. I have given Deputies figures from the Statistics of Agricultural Production. They have seen that one of the striking changes has been the immense decrease in the value of eggs and the immense decrease in the fowl population. That is directly attributable to the present cost of Indian meal. The cost of Indian meal has been raised so high that it is impossible to produce either fowl or eggs to compete in a foreign market.
The question on the Order Paper seems to deal with pigs.
I shall pass on to that. I suggest to the House that if the present prices of feeding stuffs are maintained they will kill the pig industry. Farmers who find that the opportunities for getting ready money are becoming scarcer and scarcer will stick for a long time to an industry like pig-raising in which they can turn over their capital on their little farm fairly quickly. When you buy a bonham and rear it to the stage of a store pig, when you keep it for a couple of months or three months and turn it out as a store pig, you get money. You have bought the feeding stuff on credit. You bought your bonham for 25/-. You sell your store pig for £2 15s. 0d. and you have a profit of about 30/- on the transaction. You go into the shop and you pay something on the feed bill and buy another bonham and you start the cycle all over again. You are slowly going into debt, always leaving a little balance after you, because the production of the pig ceases to be an economic proposition as the cost of the feeding stuff is too high. But the small farmer does not work out his costings on every turnover on pigs. He only learns slowly that pigs do not seem to pay him as well as they used to, and when that begins to dawn on him he will drop production, just as his wife has been obliged to drop eggs and poultry over the last four or five years. It will be a slow development, but it will do material damage to the country.
I will press two things on the Minister. I will suggest to him that he should take early and urgent measures to remedy those two abuses. If the bacon curers are going to go on paying the producers of pigs 53/-a cwt., average price, then two things should be done. First of all, they should be required to reduce the price of bacon by 15/- to 20/- a cwt., and, in the second place, the Minister should take such steps under the Cereals Acts as may be necessary to reduce the price of the maize meal mixture. Alternately, if the Minister is going to allow the curers to go on charging 90/- a cwt. for bacon, he should insist on the Pigs Marketing Board raising the whole level of prices of pigs.
It is one of the difficulties of debating on the adjournment that one has to anticipate much of what the Minister may reasonably be expected to say. The Minister may make the case that the whole purpose of the pigs and bacon legislation was to give an artificially low price in the autumn in order to discourage people throwing a glut of pigs on the market. I quite appreciate that the primary purpose of the Bill was to depress prices at that period in order to encourage the production of pigs at another time of the year when our farmers do not usually turn them out in large quantities; that is, in the spring and the early summer. We always have a lot of pigs in the autumn because everyone puts in pigs to eat the small potatoes, the remaining cabbage leaves and the rejected farm produce which cannot be sold in the ordinary markets. When the spring comes, that kind of food is not so readily available and pig production drops off. The object of the pigs and bacon legislation was to level out that curve and get an even price prevailing at all times of the year.
The Minister may say, "I admit the price is low, but we want to make it low in order to encourage people to rear more pigs in May than in October." My answer to that is that the purpose of the pigs and bacon legislation was to make the price of pigs in the autumn comparatively low —not absolutely low—as compared with May. I am asking you not to raise the price in October and to drop it in May, but if the price of 90/- is to be allowed, to raise the whole level of pig prices. If the Irish consumer has to pay 90/-the pig producer is entitled to demand a higher level. I do not think the Minister can escape from the reasonableness of the request I now make.
The difficulty under which I labour, and under which any other Deputy labours, in dealing with this question, is that the pigs and bacon legislation is not easy to understand, and only those of us intimately associated with pig production can fully understand the difficulties under which farmers labour. The Minister ought to understand those difficulties just as well as I do. He ought to realise that the pig is largely the product of the congested areas. If you take the areas where there is most unemployment, where there is the smallest holding and the greatest congestion—those are the areas where the pig population is highest. I submit that these areas are entitled to favourable consideration.
It is a gross injustice to subsidise the comparatively well-off areas of the Midlands, places like Kilkenny and Tipperary and Offaly, and the other areas that are producing large quantities of barley and other grain; it is a gross injustice to subsidise them through the maize meal mixture scheme, at the expense of the congested areas where the people are poor and live on miserable holdings. That is what is being done at the present time. The exploitation of the consumer and the exploitation of the producer constitute a grave injustice that cries out for an early and a radical remedy.
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Dillon is right when he says that the boards have certain powers with regard to fixing the home sales quota, and the Pigs Board have a certain function with regard to the fixing of prices. But it may not be stated in the Act that they have any power to fix the price of bacon, and I do not know whether they fix the price of bacon. Deputy Dillon may allege that I am aware that they have met and formed themselves into a price-fixing organisation. All I can say is that I am not aware. Even if a certain number of bacon curers meet, and if they happen to be members of the Bacon Board, and if they from themselves into a trade organisation and try to fix prices, I do not see how any Act can stop them. The Deputy says that the prices are out of all proportion to the price of bacon. They would be if the Deputy's figures were right, but his figures are not right.
Where do they err?
Dr. Ryan
The Deputy alleges that I have connived at these prices in order to make up for the loss on the export market, owing to the fact that I was paying a very inadequate bounty. As a matter of fact, they are deriving 80/-or 81/- net on the export market. It is true that the bounty is not equal to the tariff on the other side. On the other hand, they are not deriving anything like 90/- on the home market. The average price is about 80/-. Not only am I sure of that from figures which I have got through my own Department, but I actually purchased a side of bacon a week ago and got it for 8½d. a lb., which is 80/- a cwt.
Where?
Dr. Ryan
I do not know if I should give the name of the particular trader, but I can tell the Deputy where he could get bacon at that price.
The Minister got a side of bacon at 80/- a cwt.?
Dr. Ryan
At 8½d. a lb.
Retail?
Dr. Ryan
I purchased it at that price. Is it not a retail transaction if I purchase it for my own house?
And the Minister bought a side of bacon for 80/- a cwt.?
Dr. Ryan
Yes, for 8½d. a lb.
He knew it was the Minister.
That is a most interesting declaration.
Dr. Ryan
No, I do not think so, because I said to that person that it seemed rather cheap and he replied that he would sell bacon to anybody else at the same price. Deputy Dillon talks about 58/6 a cwt. as the top price——
May I interrupt the Minister for a moment. I wish he would tell me more about that side of bacon. The current price for smoked bacon is 106/-, for green bacon, 96/-to 100/-, and for hard salted, 93/- to 96/-. Would the Minister mind telling me more about it, because I should like to buy 12 or 15 bales of it to-morrow morning?
Dr. Ryan
Is the Deputy deciding to buy bacon?
I should like to buy 15 bales of it to-morrow morning.
Dr. Ryan
I bought it, anyway, and it was very nice bacon.
Would the Minister give me the merchant's address in private?
Dr. Ryan
Yes.
Thank you.
Dr. Ryan
The top price the Deputy quotes is 58/6 and the average 53/-, with which I do not agree, because I was told some time ago by the Pigs Board or the Bacon Board—I do not remember which—that between 60 per cent. and 65 per cent. fell into class 1A.
Has the Minister been sending any pigs to the factory?
Dr. Ryan
Yes. As a matter of fact, I sent pigs within the last fortnight. I only sent eight and six were class A. That is 60 per cent.
I take it they knew where the pigs were coming from.
Dr. Ryan
If those allegations are going to be made, there is no use in going on with the argument. I could quite equally say that the people who quoted bacon to the Deputy knew whom they were quoting to and knew that they had a soft thing. Class 2A concerns a lot of the other bacon, so that if you take 58/6 as the top price, I think the average price would be very close to it—about 57/-. Whether that is the average or not, we must go on to another matter. When the Deputy speaks of the curer paying 58/6 or 57/- average for his bacon, he does not include the 6/- which the curer has to pay by way of contribution to the hypothetical price. Deputies will remember the Act. There was a hypothetical price and an appointed price, which was what the farmer got. The hypothetical price was what the curer paid. Sometimes he pays a higher price and sometimes a lower price. At the moment he is paying 6/- more than the appointed price, so that if a curer buys a pig at the rate of 58/6 a cwt., he pays that to the farmer and pays 6/- to the Board.
That is not per cwt?
Dr. Ryan
It is, because the idea is that, in order, I suppose, as the Deputy has already said, not to give too great a fillip to autumn production they bring the prices to the lowest; but in order to encourage spring production they want to give the appointed price plus 6/- in spring so as to encourage farmers to produce pigs at that time as far as possible. There is another thing. Under the recent fall of prices, while the top prices of class 1A were brought from 60/- to 58/6, if any Deputy wishes to look at the whole price Order, he will find that the lower grades were brought up because it was felt, by some members of the board, I believe, that the spread of prices was far too great. The curers agreed with that contention at the meeting at which that Order was fixed, and it was felt that they should bring up the lower prices and bring down the top price. The medium price would remain about the same. I am not referring to the average price.
Deputy Dillon also spoke about the price of maize and the maize meal mixture. I have not got any figures of the price of maize meal in the Six Counties for some time, but it seems extraordinary to me if they can sell it at from 5/- to 5/6, because it was only within the last two or three weeks that I inquired the price of whole maize landed at Dublin port and it was over £6 a ton. I might also say that it is scarcely possible to have a difference of 4/2 a cwt. There is no restriction on maize-milling in this country and we may take it for granted that the maize millers in competition with one another will keep the profit down to a reasonable level. Perhaps they are getting a big profit, but they will not allow one another to get enormous profits, because in that case the big mills would do more than they have been doing, and it is scarcely possible to imagine that there could be a difference of 4/2, considering that only one-third of the mixture now is homegrown grain. As a matter of fact, the home-grown grain is not very much dearer than maize at present. Maize is something over £6 a ton, barley would be about £8 a ton and oats something less, and I do not think there could be that difference. The fact that eggs and poultry are down is due to various causes, amongst them being the loss of the Spanish market at present. That is the biggest cause.
Does the Minister honestly believe that?
Dr. Ryan
Absolutely. If the Deputy would care to consult any of the large exporters, they will tell him that. I state it as the cause given to me by some of the large exporters here in the city. They say that not alone are our eggs shut out of the Spanish market, but that the eggs of other countries, which would in the ordinary course go into the Spanish market, go into Britain against us, and in that way prices are being brought down.
I wish the Minister would ask his own inspector what he thinks of that view.
Dr. Ryan
The Spanish market, it must be remembered, was one of the biggest markets in the world for eggs. Not alone so far as we are concerned, but taking all the exporting countries in the aggregate, it was the biggest market in the world for eggs.
Does the Minister mean to tell me that the Spanish market was a bigger market for eggs than Great Britain?
Dr. Ryan
I would not like to say that. It is a very big market for eggs and if it is closed against those other countries which send large quantities into Spain and if they are dumping their eggs into Britain instead, naturally the prices come down. I know that it is rather difficult to convince the Deputy that any country can compare with Great Britain in any way, but there is some truth in what I say. It is a very important market.
I do not want to make any uncivil reply to the Minister, but I think he ought to review his opinion. Deputy Donnelly is breaking his heart laughing.
Dr. Ryan
If we amuse Deputy Donnelly, it is something gained.
That is true. No one will deny that the Minister serves some useful purpose.
Dr. Ryan
Another thing I should like to say before concluding is that if the Pigs and Bacon Board, and the Bacon Act have done nothing more than keep up the price of pigs at the level at which they have kept them this year, they have served a very useful purpose. The top price was 58/6. This is the lowest period now and I think that if we go back a good many years, we will not get a price during the month of November to compare with it.
What is the price in Northern Ireland at present?
Dr. Ryan
I do not know, but if we had no Pigs Act, we could not have anything like that price, and neither could they without a Pigs and Bacon Act. I am speaking of the service the Pigs and Bacon Act has done here. They are at their very lowest now, but since the recent Order was made, so far as I have been able to get acquainted with the prices, the price of bacon in Great Britain has improved slightly. If the number of pigs is somewhat less now than it was at that time — I think they are getting somewhat less — they will be able at the next meeting to increase the price again. I think they intend to hold their next meeting towards the end of November.
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. We will sell no pig until the end of November.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, November 12th, 1936.