I find this measure, as I found the original Act, extremely complicated. People down the country have the same experience. That is, perhaps, unavoidable, but it does not tend to allay a feeling of unrest and uneasiness in connection with this matter. I am sorry that the Minister does not appear to have information on some vital matters in connection with this Bill. If he has that information, he did not take the House fully into his confidence on a number of points. We have a clause in the Bill to obviate a certain abuse. When the Minister was explaining that particular clause, he did not commit himself to the statement that the abuse actually existed. He said the accusation had been made, and contented himself with that. If legislation is proposed to deal with an alleged abuse there must be some solid foundation for the belief that the abuse exists. I cannot believe that a Minister would seriously put before the House, particularly in an amending Bill, a clause to deal with an abuse if he had not made inquiries and found that that abuse actually existed, apart from mere speculation.
The House would have been in a much better position to discuss this whole matter if an answer had been given to the pertinent question put by Deputy Dillon on the last day on the question of prices and profits. We had the statement made by the Minister, at the very close of Friday's debate, that he had no information as to what profits were being made by the big factories. That information is absolutely vital when we are regulating a trade of this kind, but the Minister was unable to help the House in the slightest degree. He said he had not the information. I accept that, but I think it is very strange he has not information of that kind, seeing that the board and the various firms have been operating under the Principal Act for the last two years. That information is vital to a proper and satisfactory discussion of this measure. It is regrettable that the Minister is not in a position to give that information to the House, because very serious charges were made on the last day by people who know a great deal more about the business than I do regarding the extent of the profits. If those charges be true, something more is required than is to be found in this Bill. Nobody can go to the country without being struck with the dissatisfaction that exists amongst the producers, the ordinary farmers and the people in the small towns regarding the operation of the Principal Act. When an amendment is proposed, or when a new Act comes in, I think that dissatisfaction must be taken into account to see whether this Bill will do anything to remedy it. I cannot see that it will.
It may have been a mere coincidence of time, but Deputy Haslett pointed out on the last day that in his county, before the operation of the Act, there was a glut of pigs, but that now there is a scarcity in Monaghan. Is that not what will inevitably result, if there is any tittle of foundation, and I am afraid there is a great deal of foundation for it, in the complaint that you hear practically all over the country, amongst the farmers and in the towns, namely, that pig producing has ceased to be profitable? It may occasionally be profitable and just slightly over production costs may be got for the farmer, but that occurs not sufficiently often and the amount of the surplus is not sufficiently great to induce them to continue in pig production. They point out to me that the cost of feeding stuffs is such at the moment that they cannot possibly produce. The Bill does not make any attempt to cope with a situation of that kind and yet, if we are considering the future of pig production here, surely it is a factor which is absolutely vital and which should have been dealt with in the Bill.
Secondly, there is the plaint—and this is very widespread, I can assure the Minister, and I am not now imputing anything more than ordinary commercial ability to any of the curers— that the farmer never knows what he is going to get for his pig until the pig has been slaughtered. He is completely, he says, at the mercy of the curer and he does not know how the pig will be graded—whether it will be first grade, or so on, downwards— until the pig is dead. He points out that that is rather too late for him to find out, whereas under the older system which these Acts replace, he at least knew what he was getting for the pig. That creates in his mind something like that suspicion which did prevail, and for which the Minister has provided, in connection with the dummy buyers who are being sent around, that he is not even getting a fair deal, apart altogether from the cost of production.
There is the other factor which is of considerable importance and which has been brought before the attention of the Minister on several occasions— the destruction of the pig markets in the smaller towns. I have heard complaints again and again all over my county in that respect and I see nothing in this Bill to remedy that; rather do I see that under this Bill there will be an intensification of the evil results that follow from that. The Minister, I think, on one occasion, pointed out that, after all, if the farmer brought his pig a long distance into the market and got a better price, he would have more to spend in the local town. That, of course, does not hold because he will not go into the local towns on the fair days because the fair days will not exist. Pig fairs in many of these places have practically ceased to exist because pig buyers have to a large extent gone out of business as a result of the attempt to regulate the trade, and it is impossible to believe that either the consumers or the producers have benefited much by these attempts at regulation, one of which we are now dealing with.
The Minister says there is nothing in the Bill to cause any anxiety to a Deputy like Deputy Everett, or anybody who is interested in the maintenance of the minor curers. There is nothing in the Bill that absolutely wipes them out of existence. That is perfectly true; but the Bill certainly, to put it at its lowest, envisages their disappearance from business. It provides means that will quickly get them out of business. It does not actually legislate them out of business, but it does provide means that will soon put an end to their business. Undoubtedly they will be quickly gobbled up by the larger men, and how far that process will be continued between the larger people themselves, only the future can tell. Undoubtedly, whatever the Minister may pretend to the contrary, there is a danger of monopolies being set up and gradually more and more concentration of this business. As I say, the public, facing a situation of that kind, has not the necessary information to know whether that is likely to be good or bad for the trade of the country, to know whether there is any foundation for the very serious charges by people who know about the matter, that enormous profits are being made, and that, whereas the public pays very high for bacon, the farmer gets a very low price for his pig. Both the producer and the consumer suffer, and yet those who come in between are in a position to make very comfortable profits. The Minister has neglected to get information on that point, and, therefore, is not in a position to put that information before the House.
He pointed out the last day in his opening statement that undoubtedly one of the consequences of the wiping out of the minor curer would be that the pigs would be brought in, and, therefore, could be cured at less cost in the bigger centres. That is obviously quite in keeping with the general line of the Bill. The Bill does not need to legislate these minor curers out of existence, if it provides the means by which they will get out of existence. Compensation certainly must be payable to them, but here it would look as if compensation will be paid to them at the expense of the public and not at the expense of the person who is buying the business. These monopolies will be fostered, so far as the wiping out of these tends towards centralisation, at the expense of the public. How can it be prevented, taking human nature as it is? That undoubtedly will intensify the damage at present being done to the small towns, and remember that, even from the point of view of farming, these smaller towns are of considerable importance and they should not be so easily and so readily damaged as the Minister apparently wishes to damage them. The people in those smaller towns are very often the people who help the farmers to keep on in troubled times, and, to a certain extent, the shopkeeper is a kind of banker to the farmer who does not charge the usual banking rate of interest. They are apparently to be hit without any advertence to the fact that ultimately it will come back on the farmer himself. Certainly the immediate advantages to the farmer are not apparent.
I have met many complaints in the country about the policy of the Government, but I have met universal complaint throughout the country so far as this is concerned. It may be that the farmers do not know their business. They ask what can they do and say that this is a most complicated business. They bring in their pig, and the first they are told about the grade of the pig is when it is killed. Before that they are given no information and are in no position to know whether they will take it home or not. They do not know the price. That is how they put it to me, and I presume they are speaking from experience. If that is playing into the hands of monopolies, as it seems to be, especially international monopolies, there is everything to be said against the Bill, and I think the House ought to reject it.