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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Jul 1941

Vol. 84 No. 16

Committee on Finance. - Cereal Prices—Motion.

I move the motion standing in the names of Deputy Bennett and myself:—

That the Dáil is of opinion that the prices fixed by the Government for cereals are insufficient and that, in view of the present prices of grain and feeding stuffs and the higher cost of production, increased prices are necessary to afford producers a reasonable margin and to encourage an expansion in production next season.

In considering this motion the House must bear in mind that, during this emergency and in the difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves with regard to supplies, the dominant consideration for the Government and for the country must be the production to our maximum capacity of essential food for our people and for the feeding and maintenance of our present live stock population. It is this major consideration, above all others, that has induced Deputy Bennett and myself to table this motion. In this national effort at food production people were compelled by the Tillage Order to grow all crops, with the exception of wheat and beet, without a guaranteed price. Since the commencement of the emergency the Government has been asked, both in this House and in the Seanad, by motion and otherwise, to guarantee prices to the farmers in order to stimulate production. The Minister's answer to that was that it could not be done. The Taoiseach told the House last week that in this food campaign they looked for a 50 per cent. increase in the amount of land under cultivation, and that they secured a 25 per cent. increase. To my mind, that was a confession of failure. I believe if reasonably attractive prices had been announced earlier last sowing season the position to-day would be much better than it is. The Minister said a few months ago that the question of guaranteed prices for cereals and other crops was impossible, but now we find him, after six months, adopting a policy of fixed prices. The farmers have been appealed to, on patriotic grounds, to produce food for the nation. While I believe that people living in rural Ireland are as patriotic as any other section of the community, they are only human; they have their financial and economic problems and they do not and cannot exist on patriotism alone.

The prices for this year's grain were announced, I think, on 12th July last. I know for a fact that farmers generally throughout the country were very grievously disappointed. They expected that, in appreciation of their efforts to produce the necessary food this year, they would be rewarded by a higher price, at least, than was announced for wheat and, certainly, a better price for oats and barley than has been announced. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that the present prices are bad prices. I do certainly say they are not good prices, and that they are not by any means attractive prices.

I believe if the Minister persists in these prices the stimulation necessary for further effort next year will be completely absent. In view of the likelihood of an almost complete absence of artificial manures next year, the incentive of a good price is a vital consideration. I think now is the time to adopt a policy that will ensure that the necessary incentive will be present for further production next year.

Viewing the whole supply position as it has been presented to us in recent weeks by the responsible Minister, one will appreciate the necessity for a further effort next year. For that reason I do not approve of the poor prices that have been announced by the Minister. On the other hand, I personally am not looking for prices that will leave excessive profits to the producer. I think we simply want fair prices that will compensate the farmer for his outlay, his time, his anxiety and his efforts. The Minister may say that he is carrying out the policy of the Government Standstill Order, No. 83, which fixes wages, and that a farmer is not more entitled to higher profits than a wage earner. I am not suggesting for a moment that he is. In fact, I believe that the profits arising out of the production of grain this year—taking the cost of production and everything else into account—will not be as good as they were pre-war.

Take the price of wheat. Immediately before the war we were getting 30/- as a guaranteed price, but we actually made 31/6 and 32/-. I believe that that left a higher margin of profit to the farmer than that for which he is attempting to grow wheat to-day —£2. I suggest only that the farmer is entitled to the pre-war level of profit: I am not suggesting that he should get any more, in view of the policy of the Government and the difficulties of the poor people of the country. At least, he is entitled to that.

The cost of production to-day is much higher. Take the cost of artificial manures this year as against last year. The ex-factory price of manure here is £8 a ton—that is, 100 per cent. increase over last year, while the pre-war price was about £3 a ton. The price of sulphate of ammonia last year was £10 a ton, and this year it ranges from £12— if you bought it very early—to £21 or £22 a ton, showing a substantial increase in cost. We all know the rise in the cost of seeds this year—particularly seed wheat, which costs as much as £3 or £4 a barrel. Ploughs and all plough parts are very much higher. On the mechanised farm the cost of kerosene has gone up considerably, and the cost of threshing will, no doubt, be very much greater. Wages, of course, are fixed much higher than pre-war. The cost of transport and delivery will be higher. In dealing with this matter, therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that, taking the costings into account this year as against a pre-war year, when the price of wheat was guaranteed at 30/-, that price in the net was better for the farmer than a guaranteed price of £2 this year.

If I were asked my opinion as to a fair price for the three cereals, I would say in round figures, 20/-, 30/- and 50/-. Deputies will observe that I am leaving a considerable margin between the price of wheat at 50/- and the price of oats and barley at 30/-. I think that is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that the food produced for home consumption will be so used. We must take into account the present cost of the meal mixture, which is round about 22/- or 23/- a cwt. On the figures that I suggest for both oats and barley, the cost of that mixture would be considerably less, even on the Minister's own figures as announced. The margin left between the price of oats and barley and the price of wheat is not sufficient to ensure that there be an inducement left there for farmers to keep wheat for animal feeding. There is a great danger that that may happen.

With our present position with regard to the supply of wheat, and assuming that we will get an average yield again next year, we certainly have a very big gap to make up between what we hope to produce this year and our normal consumption. Any arrangement or price fixation that might tend to induce farmers to use wheat for feeding purposes would be disastrous to the country. In order to ensure that that danger will not exist, I suggest that it is necessary to leave a considerable margin between the price of oats and barley, on the one side, and that of wheat on the other side. If that is not done, there will be a good deal of illicit traffic in grain between farmers, and there will be all sorts of blending and mixing going on. A certain amount of wheat will be kept back and mixed with oats and barley to make a better food. I am convinced that that is bound to happen if the Minister does not take the precaution I suggest, to ensure that there is a decent gap that will be attractive and that will make certain that farmers will deliver for milling purposes all the wheat they produce. There is no method by which you can ensure that except by making it sufficiently attractive for the farmer to deliver the grain for that purpose rather than keep it for the feeding of animals.

I understand that the Minister has taken the advice of the Consultative Council in this matter. The method of doing that does not justify its being called a Consultative Council. The Minister presents his prices to the council and permits them to express an opinion and, no matter what they say about it, he does not appear to change his mind. Before the Consultative Council is informed as to what prices the Minister intends to fix, he and his officials already have made up their minds definitely about them. I hope that will not apply to what has been said in this House. I believe that this is the proper place to have this matter discussed and to have the various views expressed and a decision taken.

Again on the question of the price of wheat, when I suggest a price of 50/- the Minister may say that, in fixing a lower price than 50/-, he has to take into consideration the purchasing power of the people—particularly the poor people—but that is not a logical reason why the farmer should be asked to produce at an uneconomic price. If the price that I suggest is so high that it will result in what the Minister or the Government may term a prohibitive price for the poor, then there is no reason why we should not subsidise flour here as they are doing in other countries.

If that is necessary, it should be done. We ought not to overlook the paramount consideration—to ensure maximum production. Even a subsidy that would reduce the cost of the loaf to poor people would not cost an enormous amount of money when one regards it from the point of view of what we are spending at present on the maintenance of the Army and on other services of the State. We have been considering a Bill this evening under which it is proposed to pay compensation for damage done by bombing. That, in itself, will involve a considerable sum, but suppose that one of the main thoroughfares in this city—say O'Connell Street—were bombed, the cost of compensating for that damage would be much more than the subsidy which would be necessary on bread or flour to bring it within the purchasing power of poor people. If necessary, that consideration should be gone into.

In announcing the prices the Minister informed the farmers that the price of wheat at 40/- is the price delivered to the nearest dealer or at the nearest station. It includes the cost of delivery and it includes the cost of sacks. To my mind, the Minister has worsened the position from the time the price was originally announced. When the price of 40/- was announced, the country understood that the incidentals to the price—delivery and that sort of thing—would be allowed for, same as last year or previous years. The price announced in previous years was the ex-farm price, so that the Minister in recently announcing that the farmer would have to pay for sacks and for delivery, has definitely worsened the position. When I suggest 30/- for feeding barley, I make a very modest demand in the present circumstances. Thirty shillings per barrel means 15/- a cwt. If that barley be put up alone without mixing in oats—the Minister has not informed us whether he proposes to continue the mixture or not— and if it is sold back to the farmer in a dry state, made up in cwt. bags, it will cost around 18/- per cwt. delivered to the farmer. That allows for the shrinkage, milling and merchants' profits.

Wheat at £2 amounts to 16/- a cwt., so that the farmer, in buying back barley at 18/—even at its present price, which I believe is not sufficient— will have to pay 2/- per cwt. more for feeding barley in its dry state than he is getting for his wheat. The tendency on the part of any intelligent farmer who goes into costings will be to keep a portion of his wheat back and feed it, with oats, instead of buying barley. That point must weigh with the Minister when considering this matter.

The Minister also fixed the price of malting barley. I do not know why he interfered with the price of malting barley at all. He is aware that Messrs. Guinness and the Beet Growers' Association negotiated the price of malting barley in recent years. More or less the price of barley was anchored to the price of wheat. If the price of wheat went up, the price of barley would automatically go up. The price of wheat was 35/- last year and, in relation to that, a price of 30/- was fixed for malting barley. It is unfair to those people who have always been producing malting barley that the Minister should interfere and fix a price of 30/-. That applies only to a limited quantity of malting barley, grown on light, sharp land, which will produce barley of excellent quality, the yield being very often low. Farmers know that they cannot grow an excellent sample of bright, malting barley on rich land. Such land will grow too much straw and produce poor grain, dark in colour. You will not get from it that excellent, bright sample that you get on other types of soil. If you grow for quality, you must sacrifice to quality. That sacrifice to ensure quality must be made good somewhere. The people who are buying that barley are prepared to pay for the quality, and I think it is unfair that the Minister should interfere at all. If the people who represent the barley growers, those who have looked after the interests of those who grew malting barley in the past, are able to negotiate a better price with Messrs. Guinness, I do not think that the Minister should interfere.

I believe that Messrs. Guinness would be prepared to pay a higher price. What is the Minister doing in effect? He is simply taking money out of the pockets of the farmers who grow malting barley and putting it into the pockets of the shareholders of Messrs. Guinness. I have nothing to say against Messrs. Guinness. They are a very useful firm to this country and, in recent years especially, I think they have behaved in a decent way and paid a decent price to the people who grew malting barley for them. On reconsideration of the whole matter, I think the Minister will have to agree with me that there is no necessity whatever to interfere or fix a price for malting barley. I do not know whether the Minister may think it necessary to fix a quota in respect of the malting barley that will go to Messrs. Guinness, but at all events the amount of barley that will go to Messrs. Guinness will be of first class excellent quality, and the people who load that type of barley are, at least, entitled to the price that Messrs. Guinness are prepared to pay. They are entitled to the price that the people who represent these growers are able to negotiate with Messrs. Guinness.

As to the price of oats, what strikes me as rather peculiar is that the Minister in fixing the prices of all grain has fixed one price only. Take the price of oats at 1/4 a stone or 18/8 per barrel. Irrespective of quality, the Minister fixes a maximum or, if you like, minimum price. Is the man who grows a sample of oats of excellent quality that will bushel well, that will bushel 42 or 43 lbs., to get only the same price as the man whose oats will bushel 37 or 38 lbs.? I do not think it fair to suggest that the man who grows a good quality oats, or indeed grain of any description, should be asked to accept the same price as a man who grows a poor quality and who possibly saves it at a bad time, in wet weather. The man who gives his grain the attention necessary to ensure that it will be in good condition, and that it will bushel well, is not going to get any credit for that work when it comes to fixing the price. If the Minister is afraid that prices will go too high and wants to prevent that—after all that is the meaning of fixing a price for anything——

It did not mean that last year.

No. Many of us would be glad to see a guaranteed price to ensure that people who have to sell early when there is a glut on the market, and when prices are likely to fall, would get that minimum guaranteed price. The Minister, however, thinks it necessary to peg the price so that it cannot go up. I suggest that there should be a minimum and a maximum price—that is a minimum quality, and a maximum quality, price so that a poor quality oats would be worth a certain minimum price and a good quality oats worth a certain maximum price. The same argument applies to wheat. When the Minister says that there is a price of 40/- for wheat bushelling 59 lbs., what about wheat that will bushel 65 lbs.? Remember that wheat bushelling 65 lbs. gives a poorer yield per acre than wheat bushelling say, 59 lbs. If you take Queen Wilhelmina, it will bushel about 59 lbs., whereas April Red which is a high bushelling wheat of excellent milling quality is a low yielder. Is it fair to ask a man to take the same price for wheat of a high bushelling quality, which gives a low yield as for wheat of a low bushelling quality which gives a higher yield? Incidentally, one is a white wheat and the other is a red wheat and, from the bakers' point of view, the gluten content of red wheat is greater than that of white wheat. For that reason it makes better baking flour altogether. Taking all these factors into account, I think the Minister in fixing prices ought not to overlook quality and the only way to determine quality is by bushelling. If the Minister fixes a price on the basis of 59 lbs. per bushel, he should fix a rising scale allowing for so much per lb. above that so as to ensure that the man who has wheat of good quality in good condition will be paid for it.

The Minister in considering this matter ought not to overlook the fact that there is a possibility of a bad season. Let us hope that it will not be a bad season; it would be disastrous if we had a bad season but, if we are to experience bad conditions during the harvesting operations, is the man who does his job well, to ensure that the moisture content is reduced to the minimum, going to get no more for his wheat than the man who is careless about his job and who is satisfied to deliver it in any sort of reasonable condition? There is no inducement or no encouragement there for a man to put his best effort into the job, to do it as it should be done, in the best possible way.

I should like to refer also to the order made by the Minister that grain must be sold to a dealer only. I think that is not fair at all. Why should a dealer be brought in where a deal can be effected between one farmer and another? I do not think it would be necessary to give a dealer a profit in that case. In any case, I think it unnecessary to have a dealer's licence to buy grain generally. I would agree with the Minister that it is absolutely right that a man should have a licence to handle seed—seed wheat especially. It is right that the Minister should license certain men to assemble wheat for next year, men who would be properly equipped for that purpose, who would have sufficient lofts and cleaning machinery, who will be in a position to select the best samples and to know something about the job. That in itself is, if you like, specialised work. For that reason it is right and proper that we should select the best people to do that job so as to ensure that we shall have good seed next year but, generally, I do not think it necessary that grain should pass through the dealer all the time or that he should get his bit of profit out of every transaction, particularly if one neighbour wants to buy grain from another. A question on this matter was put down recently by Deputy Keating and the Minister promised to consider it. I think that on further consideration he will come to agree to our point of view.

When speaking about dealers' profits, I might mention that there is a margin of 1/6 allowed to grain merchants who handle wheat for the miller. I suggest to the Minister that when a farmer sells direct to the miller, the miller should not be permitted to put that 1/6 in his pocket. It is only fair in that case that the farmer should get the 1/6. If he is in a position to act as his own agent, he is entitled to agent's fees. In that case the farmer ought to get the 1/6 instead of letting the miller put it in his pocket. I know for a fact that that allowance of 1/6 has meant that certain organisations have been set up in this country to capture that commission and divide it amongst themselves. I know that one particular organisation was set up last year. It practically amounted to a racket. They simply came in and claimed the 1/6. There was no question of handling the wheat. It was a question of buying and asking that grain should be delivered to a certain miller. It was bought by a group of people who formed themselves into a company to capture that 1/6. They were not a group of farmers. The way to stop that is to allow a farmer who delivers his wheat direct to the miller to earn his own commission. That will be an inducement to farmers to arrange as far as possible to deliver directly to the mill.

I take it that we shall hear the views of Deputies representing agricultural interests on all sides of the House on this motion, and I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House. It is a very important matter. We want to be very reasonable about it. We are not asking excessive prices in any way. We are asking a reasonable price, a price that will encourage people to till more land next year. We merely ask a price that will prove to men who have done their work in a very indifferent manner, and who do not believe in tillage—and I have observed many of them; I have observed grain crops that are thin and poor because they were neglected at a critical stage when they most needed attention in the way of rolling and harrowing—that it is a really profitable pursuit, well worthy of more care and attention. The reason their crops were neglected was simply because they did not believe there was any profit in tillage. Those people believe that the man who carries out extensive cultivation can only do so at a loss. I suggest the Minister ought to take his courage in his hands and adopt a bold policy, and show those people that tillage is profitable, if a man is prepared to do his job well. If the Minister does that, he will find our people are sufficiently enterprising to respond to the call. Let him take off his inspectors, and let the farmers do their work voluntarily—and they will do it in that fashion if it is made worth their while.

I second this motion. When, during the last two years, I appealed to the Minister at various times to prevent the farmers from being victimised in the sale of their grain—as they were being, to the Minister's knowledge—I little thought that when the Minister eventually came to arrange, not a minimum price, but a fixed price, that he was prepared to victimise the farmers almost to the same extent as they were victimised in previous years. The prices fixed for this year's crop are relatively little better than those obtaining last year, if we make allowance for the increased cost of seeds and manures, the almost certain increase in the cost of reaping and, eventually, an increase in the cost of threshing and transport.

To the knowledge of every Deputy, seed wheat was sold almost universally this year at £3 to £4, 20/- to 40/- above the price the Minister has now fixed. The same occurred in the case of barley, though I have not the same knowledge of barley as I have of wheat. Oats were sold at 1/6 a stone, or 21/- a barrel, over the fixed price. If we relate this to the ultimate crop it has this effect, that it reduces the fixed price by something like 2d. a stone. If the farmer was forced to pay 1/6 a stone or 21/- a barrel more than the price now fixed for seed oats, it necessarily follows that when he is compelled to sell his oats for 18/8 a barrel, or 1/4 a stone, the loss on the seed that he put in will have the effect of reducing the average return by something like 2d. a stone. You actually knock 2d. off the 1/4 by the increased cost of seed this spring.

The cost of manures, as Deputy Hughes said—where they can be procured, and very few farmers can procure sufficient—is up by 80 per cent. or 100 per cent. Farmers who cut their own grain will have additional expenses in the cost of petrol, oil, etc. Smaller farmers who engage a hired reaper will have to pay more. The reapers have already intimated that they will charge more. Threshing will be dearer. A well-known man who threshes a good deal in the Minister's county told me the prices there would be considerably advanced. That applies to every other county. The cost of the transport of the grain will be dearer and there will be difficulty in some cases in carrying the grain. That difficulty may be got over, but it will cost more.

The increase the Minister has offered has disappeared at the start by reason of the increase in the cost of seeds, manures, harvesting, threshing and transport. The farmer will not be any better off than he was last year and he will still be the victim of the indisposition to give him a fair crack of the whip. If the Minister had not chosen to interfere this year, there is almost a certainty that the price of grain would be higher than the fixed price. I am not advocating anything along those lines. I have been appealing to the Minister as a fair and just man for two years to prevent the farmers being victimised. I did not expect the Minister to adopt the rôle of victimising the farmer.

Some nights ago the Taoiseach said that the food supply was the most important thing in the life of the State, that it probably ranked in front of defence. I am in total agreement with the Taoiseach's statement, but if we expect the farmers in the first line of defence to make the maximum effort to meet the nation's needs, just as we expect the soldiers in the other line of defence to make theirs, it is only reasonable that the farmer should get some adequate compensation for making that effort. None of the farmers can afford to be, even if they so willed, unpaid volunteers in this fight for existence. As regards the price of wheat, the Government are at the moment endeavouring to obtain wheat from other countries. It is right and proper that they should, and more luck to them.

At £5 a barrel.

They are anxiously endeavouring to get it anywhere and at any cost. I believe its cost at Dublin port is £3 to £3 3s. 0d. a barrel, and maybe more. They are prepared to pay for ships anywhere to bring that wheat here. They are prepared to pay almost any price for the ships to bring the wheat here at £3 a barrel, yet the same Government are not prepared to give the farmer at home a reasonable price for producing the wheat that they say is as good as the wheat they are getting from other countries.

I have no doubt that practically our full requirements in wheat could be produced next year if the State were as generous in their payment to the farmers as they are for wheat, imported under grave difficulties, from foreign countries. Deputy Hughes covered practically all the ground necessary in order to make our case for increased prices. The increases that we are asking are not exorbitant. We have no objection to the Minister fixing prices, as we want to prevent a repetition of the ramp experienced last year and the year before. In preventing that ramp, we do not want the Minister to set such a low price for the farmer as will leave him little better off than he was last year, in fact no better off. The Minister himself admitted that the prices given last year to the farmer were out of reason, lower than they should be.

Deputy Hughes said that there should be a premium on quality. I agree that wheat bushelling 63 or 64 lbs. ought to get a better price than wheat bushelling 58 or 59 lbs., and that oats bushelling 43 and 44 lbs. ought to bring a higher price than oats of lower grade. There should be some attempt made to fix a price according to quality. The main point is that the prices fixed by the Minister are not fair in relation to the cost of production this year, which included an extra price for seeds this spring, the extra cost of threshing and harvest transport. I believe that if there was an honest expression of opinion by Deputies they would agree with me on that. Therefore, I say that the margin left to the farmer will be very small if last year's prices are not considerably increased. We know that there was considerable dissatisfaction in connection with last year's prices. If that situation is going to be repeated, then the same dissatisfaction will exist this year. In this hour of the country's need an inducement must be made to every section of the community to pull its full weight. Such inducements have been offered in various directions, but so far no inducement has been offered to the farmer.

The argument will be made that present prices are fair prices. They might be in normal conditions, but they certainly are not in a war period when the Government ask and expect, as they have every right to, a maximum effort from every individual in the country in the production of essential commodities. While a genuine extra effort was made this year to increase production it would, in my opinion, have been far greater if fair prices had been offered to the farmers. We are not asking extravagant prices. A price of 50/- for wheat is just a relatively good price, as is 30/- for barley and at least 21/- for oats. No one can say that 21/- is an extravagant price to ask for oats when we consider the times in which we are living. I know the Minister's answer will be the effect that such a price would have on the cost of feeding stuffs. Whenever any of us mentioned feeding stuffs during the last four or five months we were told that there were certain people who could make money out of feeding, and that there was a good time ahead this year: that even if the Minister advanced the price of grain a couple of pence per stone it would be all right, since it was held that feeding stuffs would be considerably cheaper than they were during this spring or summer. I do not think there is any farmer in this State who feeds animals who will hesitate to give his support for a little extra for the various cereals, oats, barley and wheat—that is, so long as the price is not an extravagant one. Considering the times in which we are living, no one, I think, can say that the prices suggested by Deputy Hughes, 21/-, 30/- and 50/-, for oats, barley and wheat, respectively, are extravagant.

I was rather surprised at the price for wheat named by Deputy Hughes, seeing that on the 5th February last he did not give his support for the payment of that price for wheat on the motion that was put forward by Deputy Belton.

And when all the Front Benchers were absent.

When Deputy Belton's motion was put to a division, only nine Deputies voted for it.

That is right.

I do not think conditions have altered so much since as to warrant the change of front that we have witnessed this evening. I think it is reasonable that the price of barley meal should be anchored to the price of wheat. I say that definitely as a farmer who is anxious to see all the wheat that is grown in the country this year used for human consumption instead of animal consumption. If you have to buy barley meal round about £18 10s. 0d. a ton, and if farmers have to sell their wheat at £16 a ton, then, naturally, they are going to feed the wheat to animals. That risk is there, and it is a very definite one. I urge on the Minister to see that the price of barley meal and the price of wheat are at the same level If that is not done, then roughly about 20 per cent. of the wheat grown by the agricultural community this year will be fed to live stock. Anyone who has any knowledge of the value of wheat for feeding purposes to fowl or live stock, as compared to barley, will admit the truth of that assertion. If to-day's prices for oats and barley are bad, the unfortunate farmers of the country can put the blame for that on Deputy Bennett and Deputy Linehan, who put a motion down asking the Minister to fix prices. Deputy Bennett comes from the large grain-growing county of Limerick, where they always ploughed and grew grain, and with him is Deputy Linehan, who has no knowledge whatever of agriculture. They asked the Minister to fix a price for oats and barley.

A minimum price.

The motion asked the Minister to fix prices.

There was no demand from the farmers for any fixed price.

That is so. We were prepared to take our chance whether there was a slump or a rise. If the prices paid to-day are not satisfactory, the responsibility for that falls on Deputy Bennett.

This House is responsible.

Deputy Bennett and Deputy Linehan brought forward their motion demanding that there should be a fixed price for oats and barley. The farmers know that the minimum price is always the maximum for them. That is the position.

The Minister has made it so.

Then they come along here and complain because the Minister has taken advantage of the situation which they created. I consider it very unfair of Deputy Bennett, after making the trouble, to come in here and complain about it. He should not do so. I do not think Deputy Bennett's constituents will thank him one bit for what he is doing, because we will have to feed them this winter. We have always had to feed them. There is not enough grain grown in County Limerick to feed the hens that are there. Deputy Bennett's constituents will not be thankful to him for trying to increase the price to them. I do not think the Minister had any right whatever to interfere in the price of barley to brewers. For the past five years we have always met the brewers every year and fixed fairly good prices with them. We had fixed the price for this year, and the Minister, in fixing the price of malting barley, is taking at least £1 a barrel out of the farmers' pockets.

Of course that is why he is fixing it.

We have to face facts, and facts are stubborn things. We fixed the price last year with Messrs. Guinness, and we entered into an agreement with them for this year. We anchored the price of barley to the price of wheat; let the Minister lift one as far as he likes, the other follows. We did a good job for the farmers in any case, whatever about anyone else. I have no sympathy as far as the brewers are concerned. From 1919 to 1922, the price of barley was somewhere between 48/- and 52/- a barrel, while the price of the pint of stout was the same as it was up to last year, and the duty on the pint of stout was the same as it was up to last year. For 14 or 15 years in this country, when the brewers succeeded in forcing the price of barley down to 14/- a barrel—and I saw it at that—they took the difference between 14/- and 52/- and put it into their pockets as excess profit. At the price fixed by the Minister at present, 30/- a barrel for barley, the brewers have 22/- a barrel more profit than they had during the last war. Despite that, the moment there was an extra bit of duty put on here, they jumped the price of the stout and jumped the price of the whiskey. I have no sympathy with those profiteers, who apparently have succeeded in closing the eyes of the Prices Commission, and I have my doubts as to how they closed them.

The Prices Commission may not be discussed on this motion.

The fact remains—

That the Prices Commission does not arise on this motion.

Agreed, but the fact remains that we have had that continuing for a number of years, as must be apparent to anyone who watched the dividends on Guinness shares from 1918 to 1922, and who watched the price which the farmers got for their barley being knocked down step by step, month by month and year by year, until the time came when the farmer had to deliver his barley to them in September, and they told him at Christmas what they would give him for it. That was the condition of affairs in Cork county in 1930 and 1931. The price of barley at that time was 14/- per barrel, and the difference between that 14/- and the 48/- or 52/- paid during the war was taken by Messrs. Guinness and put down into their pockets. That may suit the Minister for Finance, in view of excess profits or something else, but it did not suit the unfortunate farmer who was paying the piper for the whole thing. Certainly, in my opinion, there should have been no interference with the price of malting barley.

I consider that the price of oats is fair enough. As compared with other things I think the price of oats is reasonable. Whatever amount of oats is grown in the country this year, and whatever barley is not taken up by the brewers, will have to be bought by the farming community; they have no other feeding stuffs. Between now and 15th August, when the harvest will be in, the Minister should publish the price of barley meal, the price of oats, and the price of oatmeal to the consumer—the difference between the price at which the farmers' stuff will go in to those people and the price at which it will come out to the farmer. That should be published. We are entitled to get that at any rate. In addition to that, the price of seed wheat should be published before the farmer sells his harvest this year, so that if the farmer considers the price exorbitant he can hold his own oats for seed.

He should do that in any case.

Unfortunately, a lot of them cannot do it. Deputy Hughes stated that there should be further inducement to the farmers to grow wheat next year. In my opinion, at any rate, and I stated it here before, the point at issue is not so much a matter of price; it is the absolute impossibility of getting sufficient credit to buy the seed, and the one thing that this House should definitely insist on——

Is the Deputy satisfied with the present price?

I say definitely that no farmer will sell wheat at £16 and buy barley meal at £18 10s. 0d.

Is there not an emergency order compelling him to do so?

He is not going to do it.

Is the Deputy satisfied with the £2?

Like the Deputy, I take all I can get. I do not think that £2 a barrel for wheat this year is as good as the price we got for it last year or the year before, taking into consideration the fleecing that the agricultural community got from a gang of profiteering merchants during last year. No step was taken to stop them from charging 70/- a barrel for seed wheat which they bought for 35/-. There is no mystery about it. I gave the whole facts of that profiteering here in this House. There are, undoubtedly, two definite things that we shall have to watch this year: No. 1, the prices that we sell at, and, No. 2, the prices that we buy at. I say that on the day we are selling we should know the price we are going to buy at. If we sell barley at 30/- a barrel, we should know the price of barley meal, and if we sell oats we should know the price of crushed oats and oaten meal. Those things should be published before the harvest, so as not to have the farmers in the blind position of selling their stuff first and then being at the mercy of every twopenny ha'penny thief that comes along to rob them. They robbed them last year, and they will rob them again this year if they are let.

There is another point that I wish to emphasise to the Minister, and it is this. We should endeavour, so far as we can, to prevent any vested interests from climbing up around the production of wheat by the farmer and the sale of that wheat to the miller. If you do not prevent that, the farmers will find themselves, year by year, getting less while these middlemen are getting more. This year the Minister is allowing 1/6 to the dealers. I say this much here openly, that for any wheat that I shall sell to a miller this year he will have to pay me that 1/6, and if he does not pay it he will not get my wheat, and I intend advising farmers in my constituency along the same lines and organising them along the same lines.

Let them form a co-operative society.

We saw enough of the "co-ops". Take this difference. I am selling my wheat to-morrow. In the ordinary course, I would bring that wheat the six or six-and-a-half miles into the millers in Cork City, but under the present arrangement it will pay me to go out into Donoughmore, get a dealer there and sell the wheat to him and let him sell it to the miller in Cork rather than that I should sell it to him. I will get 9d. a barrel more, at least, by doing that.

That is a good case for the establishment of a co-operative society.

We shall have another day at that. I do not want to delay with it at the moment, because I want to stick to the point I am at. Those are facts and they have continued for a number of years. There is gradually growing up a definite vested interest, stepping in between the producer of the food and the miller, between the producer of the wheat and the miller, and I say that any farmer who sells his wheat direct to a miller is entitled to that 1/6 at any rate, that he has the same right to that 1/6 as anybody in this country, and a better right to it than the dealer. I think we should insist on that 1/6 being handed over, anyway.

You need to get control of the rake-off as well as to control the price.

You cannot control the rake-off. I know where I stand in it, and I know where every farmer stands in it. There is only one remedy, and that is to keep the power of that vested interest as low and as small as you can. There are too many drones at the present day living on the farmers' sweat. There are too many of these get-rich-quick gentlemen doing that, like the gentleman whose case I mentioned in the House some time ago, who wanted £66,000 profit. There are too many of these people hanging around, living on the farmers' sweat. You have these vested interests, and you have the middleman who has to come between the farmer and the miller, and I say definitely that the farmer who delivers or sells his wheat direct to the miller is definitely entitled to that 1/6 and will have to get it. In my opinion, the price of wheat should be definitely anchored to the price of barley meal. The two of them should be on the one level. If they are not, the people of this country, the ordinary community here, are going to lose as much larger proportion than they can afford to lose of the wheat which should go into bread, because there is no farmer who is going to sell his wheat at £16 and then go in and buy barley meal at £18 10s. 0d.

If they are anchored at the one level, do you think that the farmer would not use the wheat as a feeding stuff? Is not wheat a better feeding stuff?

Well, doctors differ, and people differ on that too. I do not think so. But I honestly believe that the price of barley meal and wheat should stand together, that there should be no distinction between them. I do not wish to delay the House because other Deputies are anxious to speak, and I should like to hear every farmer Deputy or every Deputy from a rural constituency speaking on this. I am giving my own views and, in my opinion, they are the views of the people of my constituency also.

The people in the cities are concerned in this matter also.

The only concern the city people have, or ever had, is how to drag as much as they can out of the farmer.

I do not want to score any Party points against the Minister in regard to the prices he has fixed, but I intend to appeal to his good nature and his good sense. I think that in fixing these prices he has made a very serious mistake, and a mistake which may have disastrous results for the entire economic future of the country. Our entire existence as a nation depends upon the tillage side of farming being promoted and developed to the fullest extent, and it is, therefore, absolutely essential that the man engaged in tillage farming should be assured of a decent remuneration for his labour and his risk. The farmer is compelled by law to pay a fixed minimum wage to his workers. It is absolutely essential, therefore, that the price he secures for the produce of his own labour and of the labour of his employees should be sufficient to enable him to pay that wage and also to secure that wage for himself and the members of his family who are engaged in labour on the farm. Now, I am satisfied that the prices of 18/8 per barrel for oats, of 28/- for feeding barley, of 30/- for malting barley, and of 40/- for wheat, are not sufficient to provide those engaged in the work of production with the fixed agricultural wage.

I am one of those who appealed to the Minister for Agriculture, again and again, to institute a system of recording costs of production in agriculture. When it was decided, during the last Great War, by the British Government, to institute a system of price fixation we had, at the same time, a system by which the costs of production were ascertained and recorded. A number of farms were put under test, and the costs of production were carefully accounted and estimated. That was done under the former Government, but when our own Government took office they dropped that system and, since then, it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued simply because any recording of costs of production during the past 20 years would have proved that agriculture was an uneconomic proposition, that the farmer was either paying his men slave wages or allowing his dependents and himself no wages, or else he was working his farm at a substantial loss.

Now, a number of farmers in different counties were asked to go into the cost of producing wheat, barley and oats for the present year, and owing to the different systems of computing costs their figures were not exactly the same. That is why I am suggesting that there should be an official system, under the Department of Agriculture, for recording costs. The average costs computed by a number of organised farmers in different counties have worked out at £12 10s. 0d. per statute acre for oats and barley, and £16 per statute acre for wheat. These are average costs. If you take the average production per acre of oats, barley and wheat as supplied by the Banking Commission for the three years ending 1936, which were exceptionally good grain-growing years, the average yield per acre in this country was 8½ barrels for wheat; 11 barrels for oats and 10 barrels for barley. Now 11 barrels of oats at 18/8 per barrel would be £10 odd, thereby leaving the farmer with a net loss of over £1 per acre on the growing of oats. Again, wheat at the average yield would leave a small profit and barley at 10 barrels per acre at 30/- per barrel would also leave a small profit. That is why I entirely disagree with Deputy Corry when he says that he is satisfied with the price of oats. I am satisfied that there is a definite loss on the growing of oats at less than £1 per barrel and I do not see any reason why those farmers who grow oats, that is farmers in the poorer counties, should be compelled to grow it at less.

We may be told in regard to oats and barley that the product of the farmer's labour is required by farmers as feeding stuffs, but no farmer demands that his fellow farmers should provide him with feeding stuffs at a price less than the cost of production. If we are to engage in the production of grain, it is absolutely essential that all grain crops should be sold at such a price as will leave the producer some small margin of profit. So far as the price of wheat is concerned, a very important factor enters into consideration, and that is that in order to ensure that wheat is reserved for human consumption, the price of wheat must be substantially higher per cwt. than the price of oats or barley, as otherwise there would be an irresistible temptation to farmers to use wheat as a feeding stuff.

All the Deputies who have spoken— Deputy Hughes, Deputy Bennett and Deputy Corry—have strongly urged that the price of wheat should be substantially increased, and I think there is an unanswerable case for the price demanded last spring of 50/- per barrel. I am not satisfied that the prices suggested by Deputy Hughes for oats and barley are sufficient to meet the cost of production. I think that at least 25/- is essential for oats and 32/- or 32/6 for barley. Those prices would, having regard to the average yield in the Twenty-Six Counties, enable the farmer to meet his production costs without having to suffer a loss. In this matter, even farmers themselves are inclined to differ. Farmers on good land may labour under the impression that £1 per barrel for oats might be sufficient. But we have to take the average yield over the Twenty-Six Counties. It is essential, if the requirements of this country in regard to grain are to be met, that not only the good land should be cultivated, but also that the inferior land should be put under cultivation and that the entire area under tillage should be very substantially increased during the coming year.

I said at the outset that I was appealing to the Minister's good sense and good nature, and I think he has plenty of both. I think he has still time to remedy the mistake he made with regard to the prices now fixed for oats and barley, and also the mistake he made earlier in the year in regard to the price of wheat. The feeling of farmers throughout the country is that the price of oats and barley has been fixed this year, not to ensure that the farmers will get a decent price, but in order to prevent prices from going too high. Last year farmers complained bitterly that the price was excessively low and, when they asked for some increase, they were told that any increase would increase the cost of feeding stuffs. We know what happened afterwards. We know the price that feeders of poultry and pigs had to pay for feeding stuffs in the latter half of the year. We know that the miserable prices which the growers got for their produce did not in any way help the feeders of poultry, pigs, and other live stock. They only had the result of putting easy money into the pockets of middlemen and profiteers.

The Minister cannot escape from the accusation that he is fixing prices this year, not to help the farmers, not to help the growers, but in order to prevent them from getting good prices. For that reason, I ask the Minister to reconsider the prices fixed. It is no answer to say that any increase will increase the cost of feeding stuffs. You cannot maintain agricultural production in any branch when the cost of the finished article is less than the cost of production. The whole policy in regard to agriculture in this country must be based on the fact that the agricultural labourer is getting a minimum wage of 30/- per week, which is not a very high wage by any means, and it is essential that the farmers must be in a position to get that wage also for his dependents and for himself, and have some little margin of profit on his business. For that reason and in order to enable such a small profit to be made, it is essential that those prices should be revised.

It is only natural that I, as a farmer, should be anxious, if it were possible, to see those prices increased far more than they are at present; but I realise that we have to face facts and that those who are confronted with the fixing of the price of cereals had to take all the relevant facts into consideration. I was rather surprised to find Deputy Hughes abandoning the position he took up last February when this question of the price of wheat came before the House. I do not see any reason for that change of attitude on the part of Deputy Hughes.

What was the change?

Deputy Hughes agreed at that time with the 40/- as against the 50/-.

I did no such thing.

The Deputy spoke in favour of it and voted for it.

I suggested a compromise.

That is quite a different matter.

It is quite different from what the Deputy has suggested.

Of two evils, the Deputy chose the lesser, that is, the 40/-. He suggested it would be holding the country to ransom if we were to look for exorbitant prices.

I think it is unfair to misrepresent a Deputy like that. If the Deputy persists in referring to what I said, he should quote from the Official Report.

Deputy Meaney has not purported to quote, and Deputy Hughes has made his position clear.

I put it to the Deputy, through you, Sir, that it would be holding the country to ransom——

That is not a point of order. If a Deputy purports to quote, he must quote correctly. If not, he is simply interpreting.

I do not see any reason for changing that attitude, since the cost of labour, the cost of manures and all the other costs connected with the growing of wheat could have been visualised last February as clearly as we see them now. Personally I should like it if I conscientiously could get a higher price for grain crops, but we cannot have it both ways. I expect that this wheat, for which 40/- a barrel will be paid this season, will be milled into flour for sale to the Irish public, and from what I can gather that will mean a substantial increase in the price of the loaf to all and sundry, including those who can pretty well afford to pay for it and those who can but ill afford to pay for it. The farmers of the country, from what I know of them, would not try to hold the country to ransom in respect of the price of wheat or flour, and particularly they would not wish to hold the poorer members of the community to ransom.

A good deal of play was made by some of the speakers in regard to the increased price for barley and oats. I want to speak my mind candidly, and, as a grower of the three cereals mentioned, my opinion is that the price of barley, taking all the circumstances into consideration, is fixed at a somewhat high figure. After all, to whom do the farmers think oats and barley will be sold? They will be sold, of course, to other farmers, to the industrious farmers, and particularly to the smaller type of farmer living on the hillside, who probably has not land of his own to grow these crops, and who will use them for feeding to live stock in order that he and his family may eke out the necessaries of life. If the prices of these cereals were fixed at such a figure, coupled with the transport, storage, kiln-drying and milling expenses attached to them, as not to leave a margin of profit to the feeder, the feeder would naturally leave the crop on the grower's hands. On the other hand, if a fair price is fixed for barley and oats, the growers will not discontinue the growing of these cereals for sale. If you got four farmers, each representative of one of our provinces, I do not think you could get agreement on what the price of oats and barley should be.

I am saying that as a farmer, but we may as well face the facts. I am backed up in that view by the reverse opinions expressed by Deputy Hughes and Deputy Cogan in this debate. One suggested a certain price and the other a far bigger price. In this connection, I think it would give rise to less confusion in the public mind if the prices were fixed on a standard weight, on cwts. because the barrel of wheat, as we know, is 20 stone, the barrel of barley, 16 stone, and the barrel of oats, 14 stone.

The only thing that troubles me about this matter is that the price of barley, to my mind, is somewhat high. I think it should be somewhere around 26/- per barrel, or 13/- per cwt., in order to bear the costs which are bound to fall on it between the producer and the consumer. The bacon industry must depend on home-grown cereals now, and, if the pig feeders cannot get feeding stuffs at a price which would allow them a reasonable margin of profit, they will naturally go out of production, which would mean a serious loss not only to those engaged in the feeding industry, but also to the industrial side, the bacon curers, the transport services, etc. I suggest to the Minister that the prices of feeding stuffs manufactured from home-grown cereals be fixed by order and, further, that the price of seed oats, barley and wheat, be fixed for the grower, and the retail price also fixed for next season. There is no use in trying to compare the prices fixed at present with the prices fixed last spring for the various seeds. As farmers, we all know that the price prevailing last spring was too high, and we do not want a repetition of that. It would undoubtedly not be wise to increase the price of wheat this season when the Government is trying to keep down inflation and to keep down prices. I think it would not be fair to ask those affected by the standstill order, as it is called, Order 83, to pay a very much increased price for their loaf for the coming year. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, I believe, while I might not be in full agreement as to the price of barley, that at least an honest attempt was made to do justice between all concerned, from the grower to the consumer.

Deputy Belton rose.

I would point out to the House that Standing Order 80A has not been suspended. I presume the Minister desires to intervene and that Deputy Hughes would like sufficient time to conclude to-night. There would not be a quarter of an hour left for to-morrow. It is for the Deputies themselves to act according to this intimation, if they so desire.

Will the Ceann Comhairle say when we started?

I think I should place on record my intense gratitude to Deputy Corry for the great compliment he paid Deputy Bennett and myself. I was not aware at any time that either Deputy Bennett or I had anything like the influence with the Minister for Agriculture that Deputy Corry supposes we have. I am absolutely astounded. If I had the faintest idea that my influence with the Minister was so great there are a thousand and one other things I would have loved to have told the Minister. I did not think he would take very much notice of what I would say and I was satisfied until to-night that we were talking to a stone wall very often.

You tried often enough.

Deputy Corry says that the motion standing in Deputy Bennett's and my name early in the year was the cause of the Minister fixing the prices now and the cause of the prices he did fix. What Deputy Corry hopes to make out of that, I do not know because, if he went to the trouble of reading the motion that was down on that occasion he would find it was not a motion asking for fixed prices at all. It was a motion asking for guaranteed minimum prices in order to avoid the losses that occurred last year. Deputy Corry seems to be concerned—I am sure more in sorrow than in anger—about the feelings that the farmers of the constituency I represent are going to have towards me after that. He suggests that they will not be very satisfied with what I have done for them. In other words, because I induced the Minister to make the order fixing these prices, they will not be quite satisfied. Deputy Corry came in here and made a speech. He wants to support this motion and he wants bigger prices but he could not say outright that he wants bigger prices. He knows as well as I do that he wants bigger prices and he hinted that he wants bigger prices but he was not going to commit himself to saying so. We had two different opinions from the Fianna Fáil Benches to-night. We had Deputy Corry, who wants bigger prices but who does not want to say so, and then Deputy Meaney who, honestly enough, admitted that he thought the price of barley was too high. I think that Deputy Corry would be very well advised, when he is speaking to a motion like this, to tell us what he really means and not to worry about the influence that Deputy Bennett and myself may have on the Minister's judgment or what effect anything I may say in this House will have on the farmers of North Cork. I am sure when that position comes to be threshed out, Deputy Meaney and myself will be quite capable of threshing it out without the intervention of Deputy Corry, who seems to suggest that the farmers had to sell in a losing market and that this year they hoped to sell in a rising market. In the early part of the year, our motion was put down for the express purpose of preventing what happened last year, preventing the type of thing that Deputy Meaney was referring to, not alone as far as animal feeding stuffs were concerned but as far as human foodstuffs were concerned, to prevent the sort of thing that happened when unfortunate people sold their oats at 7/6 a cwt. and are now paying 5/6 a stone for oatmeal. That is what we want to prevent. If the Minister's order went some distance in preventing that sort of thing certainly the order was justified and the only thing I am sorry about is that the Minister did not make any order he was making on those lines early in the year or at the time of the sowing season.

I do not agree that the price he fixed for oats is high enough. I am more interested in oats than anything else. I am not going to ask the Minister for anything impossible but I think a reasonable price for oats—and I am giving the opinion of many people who have spoken to me on the subject— would be 21/- a barrel, or 14/- a cwt. 1/6 a stone was their idea of a fair price for oats. I think that is a reasonable price for oats. As Deputy Meaney knows, there is quite a number of people in the constituency I represent who, owing to their financial and economic position, find it necessary to cash their crop immediately after the harvest and, of course, those are the people whom the Minister has to cater for, the people who cannot afford to hold their crop. There are others who have not enough accommodation even if their financial resources would permit them to hold their crop. Those are the people that, early in the year, I was particularly anxious to cater for and for whom I am still anxious to cater.

We had the extraordinary reference from Deputy Corry, again, when he spoke about this gentleman who was going to get £66,000. I would hesitate lest I should wrong Deputy Corry but I understood—possibly I was wrong— at that time that a certain gentleman in the country had bought a lot of oats from the farmers, undoubtedly at a very low price, and that at some time later he proposed to sell it to the millers at a figure which would allow him a profit of £66,000. Whether I am wronging Deputy Corry or not I do not know, but I understand that he was throwing up his hands in holy horror at the idea of anyone in this country being clever enough to get away with buying cereals, holding them for some time and then holding the millers up to ransom and making a profit. What happened? No matter who bought from the farmers at that time the farmers were not going to get any more. Anybody could have bought at this low price. But what hurt Deputy Corry's feelings was that this man was clever enough to get in before the millers and then when the price went up he sold it to the millers at the price ruling at the moment, making a profit of £66,000. It was a business transaction and I am quite sure if that man had not acted at all and if the millers went to the farmers at the time that man bought from the farmers the millers would have paid the farmers the very same price. I have never yet heard that they are so magnanimous as to pay more than they need.

I resent anybody like Deputy Corry attempting to make a case of this nature. This motion was not put down for the fun of it. Neither was the motion that was down early in the year put down for the fun of it. If that motion did induce the Minister to fix the prices now, I am not responsible, and neither is any other Deputy in the House unless he was consulted by the Minister about it. As to the prices fixed by the Minister, if I were satisfied with the prices fixed, I would say so. If I am not satisfied, I am entitled to say I am not satisfied. I do not claim to be an expert like Deputy Meaney in the growing of the three crops. I am talking about the crop I know most about—oats—and I am quite satisfied that a fair price for oats is 21/- a barrel. Would the Minister say if I am correct in saying that on one occasion, in consultation with the millers, it was suggested to his Department that a price of about 12/6 a cwt. would have been a fair price for oats early in the year? I do not know if that is correct.

I do not remember. I wonder if Deputy Meaney was quite accurate when he said that labour costs and everything else could have been visualised quite clearly last February. I very much doubt if, in the present state of the world, there is anybody long-sighted enough to be able to visualise anything over a period such as from February to July. I hope that Deputy Meaney can do it, as, if he is able to visualise things that will happen, he will become very much richer.

Farmers could not exist unless they did that.

I do not believe there is any good in talking, when there is a question of increased prices, about farmers holding up the country to ransom. There is no farmer who wants to prevent anybody from getting bread at reasonable prices. However, I put up a case that this is a question of farmers in general not being satisfied that they can produce wheat at the price. That is the first of Deputy Meaney's evils. They will find it hard to produce, as they cannot get a profitable price. If there is an increase, on the other hand, you have the second of his evils, that it will make the loaf dearer. Somewhere between these two points you must find an alternative, if you want to get a price that will keep people in production, and want to get the oats milled and turned into bread at a price that will prevent any great increase in the price of bread. Surely there will have to be some measure dealing with that matter and, if necessary, to subsidise it.

I do not think that the Minister's prices are such that there would be any grave reason to attack the Minister over what he has done, whether he was influenced by anybody or not. I really think that the Minister should have gone a little bit further. If I ask him to get something done, I do not believe in putting up a bidding figure, in the hope that he will go half way. I am particularly concerned about oats and believe that, if he advanced the price to 21/- a barrel, he would be doing satisfactory work. In addition, he will not have the terrible rise in the price of foodstuffs, because —as some Fianna Fáil Deputies have said—quite a lot of the oats is used by the farmers themselves. The unfortunate man who has to sell before the threshing should be given more money this year, and not be mulcted as he was last year. There is every reason for hoping that the Minister would advance a little bit. Even though the Minister thinks the price of barley is sufficiently high, I am certain that, if he takes Deputy Corry around the corner and asks him what price he ought to give for oats, wheat and barley, the Minister would get the surprise of his life.

I will take only as little time as possible, as there are other speakers who may wish to say a few words on this motion. Many complaints were made by Deputy Hughes. In fact, if any person had not been taking an interest in the order I had made and had listened to Deputy Hughes speaking, he would find it very hard to think that there was anything good whatever in the order. It was very hard to find any note of agreement at all between Deputy Hughes and myself.

The Minister should understand that I was trying to be reasonable and to make reasonable suggestions, and that it was not in any spirit of criticism that I spoke.

I do not want to find too much fault with the Deputy at all. Some of them are points of detail and others are already covered, as far as I am concerned, although perhaps some of them have not been published. It may be that, when we go through these various points, we may find there are not as many points of difference as we had starting off. The farmers of this country have carried out a colossal job in the way of tillage. I do not think anybody realises it, as the figures have not been published in full yet, but that will be done in the course of a day or two.

I will give two facts. We have only records for acreage under production as far back as 1847. The wheat crop this year—assuming an average yield for the last ten years—will be the biggest crop since 1847. That is, one must go back 100 years to beat it. The total production of all food this year— wheat and grain crops—is the biggest on record—if we assume an average yield. That is what I have to say about the farmers and the way they have responded to the appeal made to them in the beginning of this year. I must say also that many Deputies were present at meetings held last January and February, where appeals were made to farmers to increase production. At every meeting I went to— and I think the same applies to every meeting to which the officials went, where I was not able to go myself—the farmers entered this tillage campaign as a duty and did not go into small details about prices or anything else. They regarded it as a duty and said they would take up this tillage campaign, and I must say they did so magnificently. I am not going to say now that I wish to take advantage of the farmers because they did a patriotic duty. When they threw in their lot in this general effort to meet the situation, we cannot expect them to go on doing that unless they feel they are properly remunerated.

Deputy Hughes thinks these prices are too low—generally speaking, anyway—and he makes the case, along with other Deputies, that the costs are very much higher now than they were in pre-war times. Wheat is the crop that we have been discussing more than the others. After all, there is an increase in the price of wheat by 33? per cent. over the pre-war figure. I know that it is extremely difficult to agree on costings, but I do not think that a case could be made that the costings in growing an acre of wheat are higher by 33? per cent. than they were pre-war—labour, rent and rates, manures, seed and so on, all taken into account. If it is approached in a reasonable way, I think it will not be found that the costings are so high.

Has the Minister a set of costings?

No. I have not. As I have often said in this House, I think it would be extremely difficult, if I were to give costings, to come to agreement on them. If we were to set up a tribunal and get them to draw up the costings it might be a good thing, but a lot would depend on the personnel of the tribunal as to whether we would accept them or not. In making up costings, you have to allow so much for rent, labour, seeds, and so on. Any Deputy who compared the 1938 figure with that now will, I think, find that it will not be more than 33? per cent. up. Various Deputies have suggested prices that might have been paid and that would be reasonable. For instance, Deputy Hughes suggests 50/- for wheat, 30/- for barley and 20/- for oats. Other Deputies have suggested other prices. I think wheat is in a different category from the other two, as wheat is grown for human consumption. If the farmers get more for wheat, it is a net gain to them, except what they have to pay for flour and bread afterwards. It is a net gain to them on the whole and, especially in the case of those farmers who grow wheat for their own use.

Deputies who have advocated these higher prices for wheat at the same time argued that we should have announced guaranteed prices at the beginning of every year. We did do that in the case of wheat. We announced a guaranteed price early in the cereal year of 37/6, and we came along in December and made that 40/-; so that some farmers had sown wheat under the impression that they would get 37/6, and a number of others sowed their wheat after December under the impression that they would get 40/- this harvest. If guaranteed prices are to mean anything at all, we must be satisfied to stick to them, and that those announced at the beginning of the year, before the farmer sows his crop, will be paid when the crop is reaped. I think, therefore, there is not very much case to be made. A case cannot be made with any great force for increasing the price of wheat. There are other arguments put up, not so much on the justice of the case. There is the argument that, if we do not give more for wheat, the farmers may feed it to stock. That is a different matter, that will arise later on the price of barley. There is also the case made by Deputy Hughes about which I want to make this very clear in regard to the farmer who thought he was going to get 40/- in his haggard for his wheat.

Now, there is a misunderstanding about that, and I should like to make it perfectly clear. The order made every year since 1933 was a minimum price order. The announcement always stated that the price was for wheat delivered to the nearest store or railway station. The position is the same this year. There has been no change whatever in the announcement, and that order still holds.

Are the millers trying to put that over?

I do not think they are.

The Minister should explain that the price of bread is fixed now, whereas it was not fixed in the past and it was possible for certain individuals to negotiate a price higher than the fixed price with the millers. Can that happen this year?

Because there is no margin there.

There is. The Deputy must remember that since the Prices Commission came into operation they have fixed the price of flour on the minimum price of wheat. That will remain.

Does not that make the price of wheat a maximum price?

It does not. When we were considering, in the Department, the margin to the wheat dealer, it was argued that he was getting too much. After hearing all the arguments I came to the conclusion that we could give the dealer the same margin that he had for the past three or four years so that he could not put up the argument that his margin had been cut and that he would have to get the farmers to deliver the wheat. He is getting sufficient margin to take delivery of the wheat in the haggard at the minimum price. There may be a difficulty this year which we had not in the past, regarding petrol, but if the dealer finds that he cannot send his lorry into the grower's haggard to take away his wheat, he has sufficient margin to compensate the farmer for delivering the wheat to him if the farmer has to send it in in his own cart. He can split the margin of 1/6 for delivery if he likes. If any farmer delivers direct to the miller, the miller is entitled to give to the farmer as much as he likes of the 1/6 margin. There is nothing to prevent his doing that in the order. It is for the farmer to negotiate with the miller and dealer on that point and get the best he can out of it.

Another point made by a number of Deputies was that if we take the price of barley meal at 18/6—that will probably be the price of barley meal by the time it goes through the hands of the merchant, the maize miller, the retailer and back to the farmer—there is a great danger that the farmer who has wheat at 16/- a cwt. will keep the wheat and not buy barley meal. It is very unfair to take barley which has been put through all the stages—which has passed through the hands of the merchant, been railed to the maize miller, been milled by the maize miller and been passed by the retailer back to the farmer—and compare that with wheat which has gone through none of these processes. If the farmer wants to use his wheat, will he not have to put it through all these processes?

Can he not mill it himself?

What is to prevent him from milling the barley himself?

He will have cheaper feeding.

Not at all. If he has barley on his premises at 1/9 a stone and wheat at 2/-, surely, if he himself is in a position to mill, he will have cheaper barley meal than wheat meal for animal feeding. If he is not himself in a position to mill, he will have to send the wheat to a miller to be ground.

Suppose he has no barley?

He can buy it. If we go a step further and suppose he cannot buy it, I admit there is a difficulty.

Suppose he has no barley but has wheat and has to pay 18/6 for barley meal to the grocer or keep some of his wheat.

Either the farmer has a mill himself or he has not. If he has a mill himself, why does he not buy barley and sell his wheat? If he has not a mill, it will be necessary for him to have his wheat ground and he will have the barley meal as cheap as wheat meal. He must get the stuff milled somewhere. There is no use in making a comparison between barley which has gone through all the processes and wheat on the loft.

What is the need then for the order prohibiting the farmer from using wheat for any purpose except human food?

That order was made at a time when feeding stuffs were costing 23/- and 24/-.

Will it be revoked when the harvest comes in?

No. It is better to have it as a safeguard.

You want to keep a balance. That is sticking out.

It is not. That order should be made because it is very unreasonable for any farmer to compare the wheat on his loft with barley which has gone through all the processes.

You were unable to convince the farmer that you were right and you said to him: "If you do not agree with me, I will make you agree."

Many other orders were made in the same way. If everybody could reason out things properly, there would be no necessity for half the laws. Many of the laws are made for people who have no sense.

The Government has all the sense.

No, but the Dáil has.

The people outside do not think that.

The law represents the combined sense of the Dáil. Another argument advanced was that, by fixing the price of malting barley, we conferred some benefit on the brewers. I do not know whether it is true or not that Messrs. Guinness had agreed to anchor the price of barley for malting purposes to the price of wheat. Possibly they had followed that rule up to a certain stage. If there is anything in that point, I do not want to be the cause of preventing farmers from getting more from the brewers if they are able to get it. There is not much in the point and I think they will not get very much more whether we make that a minimum or fixed price or not. I shall, however, inquire into it to make sure.

The next point made by Deputy Hughes was that we only fixed a price for one quality. That matter got very full consideration. If we did the other thing, it could be criticised too. It is very difficult to administer orders of that kind. Suppose we were to pay a higher price for oats bushelling 42, another price for oats bushelling between 38 and 42, and a third price for oats bushelling less than 38, how are we going to follow these prices through? It is impossible to follow these prices through. If we did that we would have to come along and fix the price of these various classes to the miller and the price ex mill. Are we going to fix three prices for crushed oats, ground oats, etc., and say that the top price is for oats bushelling 42, the next price for oats bushelling between 38 and 42 and the lowest price for oats bushelling under 38? A Deputy who has any sense will see it is absolutely impossible to do that. You may be very well sure that the maize miller would charge the top price for all oats going out of the mill and he would try to persuade us that it was all high grade oats he bought.

Another difficulty is that if there is a demand for oats the merchants will take oats down to a fairly low standard. If there is no great demand for oats, they will take oats only of a fairly high standard. They will say if they are asked to take oats of a lower standard: "We do not want it" and you cannot compel them to buy—at least we have not gone so far yet. All we can do is to fix a price for oats of good merchantable quality. We can only hope that the farmer will keep oats which is not of good merchantable quality and use it on his own farm.

Another point on which the Dáil did not seem to be very clear was whether every farmer had to sell to a dealer or not. Every farmer must sell to a dealer for resale. That is as far as I can go at the moment. This is a matter which will require a good deal of consideration because all sorts of cases will arise. I see no difficulty in allowing one farmer to sell to another if the farmer to whom the grain is sold is going to keep it for seed or for feeding. That would be outside the order. Then we have the case of, say, an owner of a training stable who wants to buy oats. I see no objection to his buying direct from the farmer, and I think such transactions should be allowed. Then we come to the case of a small retailer who sells oats in quantities of a stone weight or thereabouts to poultry keepers and people such as these.

Or for seed.

I think the case of seed will be dealt with all right. I am dealing with the question whether a farmer should be permitted to sell direct to a small retailer who sells oats by the stone to a poultry keeper or to the owner of a horse in a town. I see that a difficulty will arise there. We must draw the line somewhere and I am not sure at the moment where it can be drawn. The Deputy may take it that there will not be any objection to one farmer selling to another. The idea of compelling merchants to get a licence is that these merchants are buying for resale——

Why should a farmer be obliged to sell to these merchants?

The whole idea is to fix the price right through. How can you fix the price if we do not know who is buying the oats and who is selling it again? If it is not bought for resale they do not want a licence. I do not see what difference it makes to the farmer. The farmer has been selling to the merchants up to this, and we say now that the merchant must get a licence.

Can the farmer sell to a consumer of oats who is not a farmer?

I think so. There is a border line case there which we have not fully examined.

A good deal of the oats is sold in the early part of the season to shopkeepers for later sale. If the farmers had not somebody like that to purchase it it would be left on their hands.

There is a difficulty there and I am not sure what can be done about it.

The farmer usually gets credit from the shopkeeper against this oats and he will not get credit in future unless the shopkeeper is permitted to purchase it.

All these questions have been examined by me for hours and the more I went into them the more difficult they became. It is a matter that requires quite a lot of consideration.

You are going to raise a lot of difficulties if you compel shopkeepers to get a licence.

Maybe so.

Annul the order and give a free market.

And give a chance to the merchants to corner supplies?

Is the Deputy suggesting that small shopkeepers will corner supplies?

No, I am not.

Deputy Bennett suggested that if we gave a sufficient price for wheat, we would have got all the wheat grown that we wanted and we would not have to go to the foreigner at all. That is a view I welcome. I had been optimistic enough myself to make that statement very often in the Dáil but I did not always get agreement from Deputy Bennett and others. There is no doubt from the experience we have had this year and the acreage that we have been able to get under wheat, that what the Deputy says could be done, that we could grow all the wheat we require.

We would have been assured of that last February if you paid a proper price for it and it would cost you much less than the wheat that came from New York to Lisbon.

I do not think so.

What did it cost to bring that wheat here?

The Deputy is depriving himself of an opportunity of making a speech by asking questions.

The Minister is standing in the way.

I shall go ahead if the Deputy will allow me. If we grow 300,000 tons of wheat at 40/- and if we import 30,000 tons at 60/-, the total cost of that would be much less than to grow 330,000 tons at 50/- which the Deputy wanted.

This is the new orientation of self-sufficiency. Buy your requirements in the big foreign market.

Only ten per cent. in the foreign market. It is no new orientation. It is a simple sum in practice which I learned forty years ago. Deputy Corry asked if we could publish the price for barley meal, crushed oats, etc., so that the farmer before he sells his oats and barley would know what he would have eventually to pay for meal or crushed oats if he wanted to buy them later. I hope we may be able to do that. That is a question that is being examined at the moment and I hope we shall be able to publish these prices before the harvest comes in.

Are you going to allow the millers to use pulp in the mixture?

If we allow compound feeding stuffs at all, we shall definitely exclude certain things.

Such as oat hulls.

Yes. There are many arguments put up against compound feeding stuffs.

We shall mix them ourselves.

I think that is best. I think it is right that the farmer should know before he disposes of his grain what he will have to pay for his crushed oats, ground barley, etc. Deputy Cogan says that no farmer should be asked to sell grain below the cost of production. The cost of production is a question upon which it is very hard to agree. We have to have some regard for what the farmers think at the other end. If the farmer is tied to a price of so much per pig, so much for eggs and poultry and fat cattle, he knows what he can pay for feeding stuffs and, if we ask him to pay more, the inevitable result will be a reduction of stock. We have had that reduction in the number of pigs for some time, because the cost of feeding stuffs is too high. That is not going to do the grower of grain very much good. It will kill the market he has and there is no use doing away with that market.

One more cow, one more sow, and one more acre under the plough.

We got the one more acre under the plough, and we kept the sows and the cows.

And we killed the calves.

We did not succeed in killing them. I do not want to say that Deputies were not perfectly sincere in what they said, but I think that Deputies are inclined, no matter what I might say, to look upon the price as not quite an adequate price. I start off with 18/8 for oats, Deputy Hughes says it should be 20/-, Deputy Bennett asks for 21/-, Deputy Cogan for 25/-, and Deputy Belton has yet to speak.

Give us a free market.

Only one-sixth of the oat crop is sold in this country. It is not a very big matter for oat growers. I do not think there will be any more sold in the coming year; in fact, very probably there will be less than one-sixth. I think that those who have crops, whatever they may be, whether oats, barley or potatoes, will be inclined to keep what they want for themselves and they will not be inclined to sell their grain and buy it back later on, as they have done in past years. Deputy Belton made the allegation, by way of interruption, that we were fixing these prices in order to prevent the farmers getting a good price.

It is questionable whether one should reply to that interruption.

I do not say it was done deliberately, but it will have that effect.

I do not think so, and I think if that price were not fixed for oats there would be a slump in the price of oats during the autumn. In order to provide against that slump, which may come even in spite of the fixed price, we are trying to get some sort of reserve buyer who will come into the market and take up the surplus oats.

That is the solution, and not a fixed price.

And would he not have to fix a price? I am inclined to think that such an agency will be required. I hope not, but I would be surprised if it is not. We have, as Deputies are aware, a very big crop of oats, about 100,000 acres more than last year. It looks as if it will be a very good crop and, if Providence is good to us, we may have very much more oats thrown on the market, especially early in the year, because the crop was grown where there was no great amount of tillage before and where the farmers are not accustomed or inclined to store or stack their oats for a later part of the year. There is a danger that a lot of oats will be thrown on the market and we may not be able to deal with it.

Remember that the idea that we have in mind is to fix right through. That means that we must have a fixed price, not a minimum. It means we must have registered dealers. It means we must have one price for oats or barley of merchantable quality. Having started off with licensed buyers, we must have a fair and equitable distribution of the grain between the maize millers, the oat millers, the maltsters, a class that I would put in as the forage people, the feeding stuff manufacturers, and there may be others. I am setting up a committee to deal with that matter, and I am putting on that committee the various people I have named, maize millers, oat millers, forage people, maltsters, feeding stuff manufacturers——

Seed merchants?

No, they will not be in it. In addition to those I have mentioned, I am putting on the committee cooperatives and farmer consumers.

There will be very little oats by the time they all have a bite out of it.

That committee will act for me under regulations laid down by me in the direction and the disposal of all that grain. In other words, they will direct the licensed buyers when and where they are to buy their grain, and when they are to sell it, so that there will be no holding up by merchants for any time other than under the directions of that committee.

It is a pity that we have not the census relating to agricultural production this year while we are debating this matter. I think the Minister would be doing a service if he brought in some token Vote when the census in respect of this year's crops is before the House.

The figures will be published in a few days.

Will the Minister do as I ask?

We will not be here then —I hope.

It would be important to have a debate on this matter with all the facts before us. As a large grower of corn—I have over 200 acres this year—I am dead against any fixing of prices. Look at the machinery we have set up. Once you start going away from the law of supply and demand, you will require an inspector at every cross-roads, probably a committee inspecting him, and even an inspector inspecting the inspectors.

The Deputy must be a free trader.

I am not a free trader. I am a national free trader, if you like, but I do not want to be subsidising inefficiency. The price of wheat that the Minister finds is not adequate for his requirements shows that it is fixed on an inequitable basis. The Minister knows it is the elementary rule of agricultural economics that the most profitable way to dispose of a farm crop is when you can dispose of it directly as human food. Therefore, normally, you should dispose of wheat as a human food at an equitable price. That would be the most profitable way—to dispose of it at the ruling price. But he finds that it pays people better to feed wheat or wheat meal to pigs rather than sell it for human food. He admits that by having to make an order that it is an offence to use wheat for any purpose except for human food. I think this whole matter has been debated in an unreal atmosphere, an atmosphere that is not proper to the situation.

We should approach this subject not from the point of view of price but from that of the quantity of food that we are producing this year for man and beast. Have the prices that were offered induced enough production to meet our food requirements for man and beast this year? If they have, then the Taoiseach has been misleading the country by his statements. Personally, I do not think they have had that result. The Minister, after throwing bouquets at the farmers, told the House how they had responded to the appeals made, and said that we have 100,000 acres more under oats this year than last year. Does the Minister think that this increase will be adequate to meet our requirements, bearing in mind that pre-war we imported half our concentrated foods for livestock and consequently have to carry on without these 200,000 tons of feeding stuffs? We know there will be a wheat shortage. Even with no extraction from the wheat, we are told that there will not be enough flour to make all the bread we need so that it is going to be necessary to pump oats and barley into the flour. I do not think that the increased acreage under oats that the Minister spoke of, plus the increase, if any, in barley, will go any way near meeting our requirements. The Taoiseach when speaking at Tullamore a few weeks ago had, I suppose, a rough idea of the acreage under production this year, and, with that knowledge, he warned the farmers that in the case of a shortage of food livestock might have to be killed off in order to conserve whatever food we had for human consumption. I regard that as a very alarming statement from the head of the State, and because of it I do not think we should be debating here whether or not we should pay a few shillings more or less for this crop.

If production is not going to be adequate to meet our needs, the question we should ask ourselves is, why not? Have we offered a sufficient inducement to the farmers to give us the production we need? In a debate that took place here last February it was said that 40/- per barrel would be a fair price for wheat. It would if you were only growing a couple of hundred thousand of acres of it on choice land, but to meet the whole of your requirements we will need at least 700,000 acres, a lot of which will have to be grown on very inferior land of low production. Production under such conditions is going to cost the farmer more, and in view of the fact that a good part of the land will be of inferior quality, he has to run the risk of failure. To say that 40/- a barrel for wheat, compared with pre-war, is a fair price, is in my opinion a wrong basis to go on. The first thing to be borne in mind is that we want about 700,000 acres of wheat to meet our requirements in seed and flour. In order to get that we will have to go in on land on which wheat has not been grown for perhaps 100 years. Experienced farmers know that there is hardly a 10-acre field in the country, which has been under grass for 30, 40 or 50 years, from the whole of which you are likely to get a crop of wheat. It may look all right in grass, but when it is ploughed up one will notice the piebald appearance of it on a dry March day. Growing wheat on land of that sort will mean that on patches of it you will get no yield at all. The same thing is to be observed in connection with the growing of winter wheat. Is not that the story from Donegal to Cork and from Dublin to Galway, where old pasture land has been broken up for wheat growing? A great part of the land of the country is very dirty for tillage purposes since it has not been used for tillage to a great extent over a long period. The farmer, in tilling land of that sort, has to face the loss of seed and labour and other losses. If we want to produce a sufficient quantity of wheat, then I say we must offer the better price to the farmer. Figures with regard to the acreage under crops this year are not yet available. The increase of 100,000 acres under oats, to which the Minister referred, is, I believe, going to prove entirely inadequate to meet our requirements. Any cattle man will tell you that there will be no stall-feeding of cattle next winter because we will not have the imported feeding stuffs.

I thought the Deputy did not approve of imported feeding stuffs?

What made the Minister think that?

Are you not a self-sufficiency man?

The Minister was an apostle of that doctrine, but, I am afraid, judging by his statement tonight, that he is now an apostate from it. Has the Minister any idea of the acreage under wheat?

490,000 acres.

It will take in or about 100,000 acres of that to give us seed, so that we will have, in round figures, 400,000 acres of that wheat for flour. But that wheat, milled whole, without any extraction, will not give us enough bread to meet the requirements of our people. The result is that we will have to mix with the wheat either barley or oats, or both. Will we have enough barley and oats to make up for the deficiency of half our requirements in feeding stuffs, pre-war, which we used to import—the 200,000 tons of bran and pollard that we will be eating in the bread instead of having it in feeding stuffs? Will we be able to make up all that in our production this year, and if not why not? That, I submit, is the point to which this debate should be directed. Are we going to have enough food for man and beast, and have we offered a sufficient inducement to the farmer to give us that production? The Minister indicated that in the course of the next few days we will be furnished with particulars about our agricultural production this year. I suggest to the Minister that it would be a very good thing if he were to bring forward a token vote for £10 so that we could have a debate on agriculture. As regards the fixing of prices, I am against that altogether. When the Government appealed to the agricultural population to increase production, I submit there was an obligation on them to put up granaries in which to store the food. When the corn is put into the granaries advances should be made to the producers. Let us then leave the market free, let us put our stuff on the market in time, or let us take the risk of keeping it until the end of the season. The Government have mishandled the situation. The Minister is throwing up his hands and saying that he cannot do anything. He is afraid that there will be a glut on the market and that later there will be a scarcity.

We are going to deal with that.

By taking it off the market.

By appointing another "Big Five", who will corner the whole thing and make huge profits, as they made them in Dublin out of the cattle. I suppose we will have some other fellows coming along now, getting their pockets lined, if given a monopoly to buy. Why not put up the granaries so that we can all put in our stuff?

Why not do it your way, and nobody else's? Because we are not such fools.

I am glad to see you are becoming wise, because the first time a man gets sense is when he realises he is a fool.

Then the Deputy will never get wise.

There is just one point about having a free market for oats: if the price is fixed too low, that drags down the market; if it is fixed too high, what good is that to a man who has fifty barrels of oats to sell? Is it not better for him to be able to sell it at a reasonable price, instead of having a fixed price that is above the market?

The only reply that Deputy Corry and Deputy Meaney could make to my reasonable and modest demands was that I did not support Deputy Belton's motion last year. On Deputy Belton's motion last year I suggested a compromise. The Minister referred to Deputies in this House who helped him and supported him in his tillage campaign down the country. I happened to be one of those Deputies in Carlow. I think the Minister remembers that.

That is right.

I felt at that time that there was a danger in holding a pistol to the heads of the Government to demand a high price, or what was considered a high price, because in doing that we might prevent people from going into extensive cultivation. I was not prepared to take that responsibility at the time. But the land is under cultivation now, and is producing wheat, and the situation is different, so I am availing of this opportunity to put it up to the Government that they ought to mend their hand in this respect. The Minister took some advantage of the position, too, and suggested that the price was fixed before the farmers sowed, and, because it was fixed before the farmers sowed, the farmers were satisfied. The Minister must remember that the farmer was compelled to sow by the Compulsory Tillage Order; the Minister paid the farmer the compliment of asking him to do his part in this emergency. If the Minister wants to show real appreciation of the farmer's efforts in that respect, he should do what we suggest. As I said before, the demands are modest and reasonable. The Minister said that this was the collective responsibility of the Dáil; that it was the Dáil decided this matter and not the Minister. Surely, if the Minister wants unanimity in the House on this matter, he ought to be able to meet us. There is not very much in it. We are asking 1/4 a barrel increase in the price of oats, and the Minister says there is only one-sixth of the amount of oats produced in this country marketable; in fact, in his opinion, there will be less than one-sixth marketed this year. If that is the position, surely an increase of 1/4 is a very modest demand. For feeding barley, we are asking an increase of 2/-.

The farmer has to pay that difference.

It has been pointed out to the Minister that, unfortunately, the man who is going to suffer is the man who is growing this on the poor land and is forced to sell. A great many will not be forced to sell, and the Minister approves of that policy, and so do we, but what about the man who is forced to cash his crop?

Remember it is a question between farmer and farmer all the same.

Quite so, but I think the Minister will agree that this has to be operated within the price fixed for our livestock by the British Government, and I think that within the price fixed for our livestock products next year it will be possible to operate this slight increase which I suggest. It is not in any spirit of criticism that we raise this matter at all. It is to get the unanimous decision of this House. I do not want any credit for this at all. I want the Minister to agree and let us all agree that a reasonable case has been made.

On the question of barley and oats, it is just a matter of opinion; it is between farmer and farmer. Wheat is different.

Quite, and the reason this is brought in is to protect the man who has to sell during the glut period, so that he will not be fleeced as he was last year. There is a possibility that during a glut period that may happen, although there will be no great glut this year. On the other hand, the Minister feels it may soar too high. There is a difference of 10/- a barrel. That may seem high, but I do not think it is so very high. We cannot overlook this aspect of the matter, that there is no analogy between the price of wheat and the demand made by wheat on the fertility of the land, as against oats and barley. There is no doubt about the fact that, where wheat has been grown intensively in recent years under the Government wheat scheme, there is a tendency towards soil exhaustion in some districts.

We cannot overlook that fact, and the farmer is entitled to be paid for that loss, because it is a capital loss to him. In growing wheat intensively he is mortgaging the future fertility of the soil, and the people who come after him will have to suffer as a result of it. In order to give the soil the compensation it demands for supplying food, the farmer needs money for artificial manures. Coupled with that consideration, from the point of view of securing that wheat will not be used for animal feeding but for the purpose for which it is intended, namely human consumption, it is necessary in my opinion to increase the price. It is not fair or just to ask the farmers at the present time to grow wheat at £2 a barrel. What has been happening here in recent months during this crisis is that the Government did not act in time. In a great many cases it made up its mind too late. Too late, it realised that the position was very critical. The Government should look well into the future and weigh the position accurately, instead of regretting its inactivity when it is too late. Now is the time to face the facts, and to realise that there is a necessity for this increase if you want to expand production. Now is the time to hold out that incentive, that inducement to expand production next year. If the Minister decides to meet our modest demands, he will secure that co-operation which is so essential at the present time.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 30; Nil, 52.

  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Brodrick, Seán.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cole, John J.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Cosgrave, William T.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Daly, Patrick.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Esmonde, John L.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Hickey, James.
  • Hughes, James.
  • Keating, John.
  • Linehan, Timothy.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Qg.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McGovern, Patrick.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Sullivan, John M.
  • Rogers, Patrick J.

Níl

  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Carty, Frank.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Tadhg.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Fuller, Stephen.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hogan, Daniel.
  • Keane, John J.
  • Kelly, James P.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Francis.
  • McCann, John.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Meaney, Cornelius.
  • Morrissey, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Mullen, Thomas.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Brigid M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Victory, James.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Conn.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Smith and Kennedy.
Motion declared lost.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m., until 3 p.m. Thursday, 24th July.
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