I am opposed to this Supplementary Budget, mainly for two reasons. One of the reasons is the decrease in the exports of our agricultural produce for the last eight or ten years. The second reason is the increase in taxation in this country over the last ten years. We have to take into account that our agricultural exports in 1926 amounted to about £28,000,000, and in 1937 the figure had fallen to about £18,000,000, that is a reduction of £10,000,000 in the main industry of this country. It is an industry that will always have to remain; it is an industry that will always have to maintain at least 80 per cent. of the people of this country.
Then we come to the increased cost of living. I do not want to go into a lot of details, as the whole thing seems to have been fairly well debated during the last five or six days. I will just take one or two items. Flour production in this country is costing the consumers of this country roughly £3,000,000. What is the position? We find that flour was produced and sold to the British consumer during the last four or five months—I may say the last 12 months—at 22/- a sack, while flour in this country is costing the consumer anything from 36/- to 42/- a sack. Surely the ordinary people in the country, who live mainly on bread as the principal food, should not, through legislation, be taxed to that extent. I may be told that the millers are responsible for it. I am not going to blame the millers for this increase in the cost of flour. Why? We have a Minister for Industry and Commerce and we have a Minister for Supplies; the Minister for Industry and Commerce is in charge of the millers and the production of flour in this country, and I am perfectly satisfied that it is legislation through the Minister for Industry and Commerce that is responsible for the increase in the cost of flour.
I say it is bad management that the consumers in this country have to pay 42/- a sack for flour that can be sold in England at 22/- a sack. What does the difference mean to the ordinary consumer in the country, particularly to the farmer, because the farmer has to make two of his meals per day out of flour? What does it mean to him, and to the consumer in every part of the country? The average overcharge as compared with the price of an 8-st. bag of flour to the consumer in England is, roughly, 8/-. The price quoted in to-day's paper for flour delivered in England is 22/- a sack, and that price is quoted at Liverpool. We down the country have to pay 42/- a sack for the same flour. It will be seen, therefore, that a man who purchases an 8-st. bag of flour per week has to pay an increased tax of 8/- per week. Take the unemployed man, who has to go out and depend on two or three days' work on relief schemes. His purchase is a stone of flour. What does he pay? On the stone of flour he has to pay 1/-. What is happening to the man who is buying a 2-lb. loaf? The increased price of flour increased the price of the 2-lb. loaf by 1½d. and of the 4-lb. loaf by 3d. I do not mind who is getting the benefit of the growing of wheat, but I do say that it is not fair to the poor people in counties where the land will not grow wheat that they should have to pay this increased price for flour. I am satisfied that that is wrong, and that if flour is to be manufactured in this country on the basis of the present legislation the Government should subsidise the millers to the extent of the difference between the value of the imported flour and the flour that we mill in this country.
Some time ago here—I think it was in July or August—we were given to understand that the Minister for Industry and Commerce had made arrangements with the millers whereby they would be allowed 1/- per sack to defray interest on capital for the purpose of having in stock a surplus of imported wheat to meet emergencies.
I should like to know what was the quantity of wheat that really was bought and stored to meet the emergency that occurred on the 1st September. If that wheat was in stock, and if those millers were paid 1/- a sack, I expect it would be more or less on the basis of interest for the capital invested in it, in the purchase and storing of it. Why should flour increase in price, within a fortnight or three weeks, from 35/6 to 42/- a sack? On the 1st September the general price for a sack of flour was 35/6 to 36/-; on 1st November the price was 41/6 to 42/-.
The producers of wheat, those who sell the wheat and get the fixed price from the millers, have got no increase for the wheat that was sold between 1st September and 1st November. The price was just the same. I do not know what is the exact mixture of Irish wheat; I expect it would run to 40 per cent. of our consumption of flour. We were given to understand that the surplus stock was there. If it was there, why did the Minister for Supplies, who must know all about it, allow the price to advance from 35/6 to 42/- inside three weeks? According to what we were told, the surplus stock was there.
We were told last week that the price of bran and pollard was increased. There was no further increase in the price of flour; flour was the same from the week previous to last week, and it is the same to-day. Pollard and bran are made out of wheat; wheat is the article that produces flour, bran and pollard? Why should they be allowed to increase the price of bran and pollard. Bran and pollard seem to be the popular feeding-stuffs for the farmer owing to the price and the scarcity of Indian meal. We have the same condition of things in regard to Indian meal. In yesterday's paper corn was quoted in the British market at £5 a ton and Indian meal was quoted at £6 a ton. There is a Minister for Industry in England and we have a Minister for Supplies in this country. I do not see why our Minister should not take up the same attitude in this country as regards Indian corn, having as the main object the production of meal to help the agricultural community here. I think they should work on the same basis as the British.
In this country we produce pigs, eggs, butter and other commodities for export; we have to produce them for export and we meet in competition with the British farmer, who has the advantage to-day of being able to purchase a cwt. of Indian meal at 5/- less than we can, and is able to purchase pollard at 4/- a cwt. less and bran at 4/- a cwt. less. These are the disadvantages that the farming community in this country are up against, and unless there is some remedy introduced I am satisfied that the farmers here will not be able to continue much longer. At least the purchasing power will be such that I am afraid the Supplementary Budget will not show much results.
I would be glad to see the Budget balanced, but my opinion is that you will get nothing from the tax on tobacco. Nobody can afford to pay 1/11d. for a half-quarter of tobacco. A man was talking about tobacco the other day and he said: "If I wanted a half-quarter of tobacco I would have to sell 1 cwt. of potatoes in order to get it. I live four miles from the town. That will not happen, anyway, because I will not do it; I will do with less tobacco." The consumption of cigarettes is sure to fall, and I believe the same will apply to whisky and stout. As a matter of fact, my information is that the consumption of these things is decreasing steadily.
I do not want to say anything on the sugar tax beyond the fact that it is certainly a tax that reacts on the poorer sections of the people. Sugar is a necessary article of food. It is an article that affords considerable nourishment and it is the main form of nourishment that the poor people have. The Government have increased the price of sugar; in fact, they have increased most of the commodities required by the average household. The sugar tax is an easy tax to collect, because it is such a necessary food. I suppose that is one of the reasons the tax was put on it.
We have been told that on this side of the House we want social services cut down. Deputies on this side have made no such suggestion. I submit that the Deputies on the other side of the House are the people who have reduced social services. Last year £100,000 was transferred from the Road Fund in order to balance the Budget. That money was taken away from social services and it was not this side of the House that was responsible. This year relief schemes, which may be regarded as social services, have not yet commenced in my county. Such schemes are very badly needed there and I hope they will be started before Christmas. Last year the relief schemes were started in October. We have now almost reached the end of November and we have a huge number of unemployed people in Mayo and no relief schemes have yet been started in that county. There are many people there who, for the greater part of the year, have to depend on unemployment assistance or relief schemes, and unless something is done soon to have the relief schemes started in our county, conditions will be very hard for the people. I trust the Government will see their way to remedy the situation.
It has been suggested that we want reductions in social services. I did not hear one Deputy from these benches making such a suggestion. Everybody on this side of the House has asked for a reduction in expenditure. I say that a reduction in expenditure is the only way to get over the difficulty, and that reduction can be achieved in one day. The black-out regulation was taken off in one night. You can cut Army expenditure from £4,000,000 to £1,000,000 to-morrow, and you will have £3,000,000 saved, £1,500,000 over what you hope to obtain from sugar, tobacco and drink.
There is very little more I have to say. As I said before, the thing has been gone into fully, and there is no use in repeating what has been already said. In conclusion, I say the Budget is a bad one, that it is a Budget that will react on the poorest of the population of this country. It makes no provision for helping the main industry in this country, the agricultural industry. Having mentioned the agricultural industry, I just want to make one reference to it. In a question yesterday I asked for our exports of eggs over a period of ten years taking every third year, 1927, 1930, 1933, 1936 and 1939. I asked for the exports for March and October of each year. The reason for that was that March is the biggest month in the year and that October is coming on to the smallest months of the year in regard to egg production. If we take one month, which is the month nearest to our recollection, the month that we have heard about and that we all know so much about, that is the month of October this year, what do we find? We find that in the month of October, 1939, our export of eggs from this country was 55,642 great hundreds, while the export of eggs from this country in 1927 was 197,651 great hundreds. What does that represent? It means that the difference between the total export in October, 1939, and October, 1927, was 142,000 great great hundreds. The average flat rate price for a great hundred of eggs in the month of October last was roughly £1. Therefore, that means that there was £142,000 less in the pockets of the farmers' wives and families who are gathering those eggs. I say that is a serious difficulty confronting the farmer. I say that it is even more important in this way that the heavy production of eggs in this country is mainly confined to a few countries which are very big producers, and that this big reduction in the value of egg exports is going to be confined to a few counties with very high population, where the land is poor, where the people cannot either grow beet or wheat, or make use of those crops, and will have to pay in excess for the purchase of flour. I say that this reduction in the egg production of the country, especially in October of this year, is a serious loss to the agriculturists. I am satisfied that this is a bad Budget and I am going to vote against it.