One thing which I am anxious to know from the Minister is whether it is his intention to feed the people of this country before sending anything out from this country to other countribs. In the course of his opening speech the other day, he said that if we had 20,000 cwts. more of butter, we could do with them, but I know that for the period of the last four months over 62 tons of butter were shipped from the port of Cork, and, knowing that the people here are not able to get butter, I should like to hear from the Minister whether it is his intention to pursue that policy.
I listened with great interest to the remarks made by several Deputies about milk, and when one considers that in this country we drink sixteen-twenty-fifths of a pint of milk per day per person as against one and a half pints per day in Sweden and America, and a larger amount in other countries, one wonders what the mind of the Government in relation to milk is. I am pretty familiar with the position in Cork, where for a few years what is known as a milk board has been operating. The price paid for milk for distribution in the city to the milk board producers is 1/0½d. per gallon, and, for distribution they get an extra 7½d. I know that within six miles of the city milk is being sent to the creameries at a price of 6d. or 7d. a. gallon, and I often made inquiries as to whether anything could be done with a view to supplying the people of the city with a reasonable supply of milk which they would be able to purchase. I find that, during the 12 months ending last December, of the milk sold by the milk board to these retailers, over 75,000 gallons were sent to the university dairy and sold there for something like 7d. per gallon. That, of course, is termed by some people surplus milk which they could not sell in the city, because the minimum which the poor people have to pay is ? a gallon; but, strange to say, that same milk was sent day after day for a year, to the amount of 75,133 gallons, to the university dairy and sold there for 7d. per gallon. To me, our milk boards are nothing less than restriction boards which impose fines on producers if they sell milk at less than these prices.
I do not want to be misunderstood in relation to the payment of a fair price to the farmer. From the meagre knowledge I have of farming, I am quite satisfied that no man could produce milk to-day at 8d. or 9d., not to speak of 6d. or 7d. a gallon and we are not opposed to giving the farmer a proper price and the standard of living he is entitled to have. No man who was not supplying milk to Cork City prior to the introduction of the milk board can now supply the citizens with milk. If he does so, he is fined; but, notwithstanding that regulation, we find surplus milk being sent to the college for 7d. a gallon for which 1/0½ was paid by the retailer, the retailer getting 7½d. a gallon for distribution, so that the man who produced it got less than the man who distributed it. That is obviously a situation which requires remedying, and one which the Government should take very strong measures to rectify.
On the 23rd of last month, the Taoiseach, addressing the Country-women's Association, made the following statement:—
"In reference to milk consumption, the subsidising of butter exports always seemed ridiculous to him. If they were to double their milk consumption, there would be no surplus butter to export and if prices had to be subsidised, the subsidies would be strictly for the good of our own community."
Anybody can subscribe to that, but one would imagine that it was an ordinary man in the country who made that statement. That statement came from the Leader of the Government, but I am rather surprised that he did not follow it with the query: "What is the remedy?" Why is he not stopping that situation? If we were to go back over the past three or four years and make up the total of the subsidies paid in order to give butter to the English people, we would be more than surprised. There is no good in telling people to drink more milk if we do not give them the purchasing power to buy milk, and if we read some of the reports of the medical officers we shall find a good indication of what is wrong. It is that the people are not able to buy it.
Deputy Beegan last night, speaking on somewhat the same lines, advocated greater consumption of milk and gave reasons for doing so. There is no good in talking loosely about people drinking more milk, if they are not given the power to buy milk, and I wonder do we ever try to realise how much milk and butter a man in receipt of 10/6 a week to feed, clothe and shelter himself can buy, or how much milk and butter an unemployed man with five or more children in a country town who gets 14/- from the State, without a voucher, can buy, or how much a man in a city or big town who gets a maximum of 23/- per week for himself, his wife and five or more children, with five vouchers, can buy. It is about time we faced realities, and dealt with the question of giving people the means to purchase milk rather than discuss why we should subsidise butter.
Yesterday morning I was travelling to Dublin by train, and at Knocklong and Charleville quite a number of men entered the train on their way to England. One out of the number sat alongside me. He told me he was going to England and that he was 49 years of age. I asked him what he usually worked at and he said that most of his time he worked with farmers and he also worked on the roads. He told me that he had ten children and, as, he could get only 14/- a week at the labour exchange when there was no work to be done in his district, he thought the best thing to do was to go to England. Everyone of us here should realise the significance of that. Here is a man who is rearing ten children for the State, who has worked, on the land and also worked for the county council on the roads, and his only hope now is to go across to England in order to earn enough to keep himself and his family. These are the things we should be considering rather than the subsidising of this, that or the other.
Instead of having a milk board operating within an area, the Government should create a national milk board that will give the farmers an economic price for milk. I know what it is to buy milk. I am purchasing milk from a farmer and I know the difficulties experienced in milk production. The farmers have to get up early every morning and work hard; they have very little time for a holiday, and I am satisfied to give them any price they demand for milk because they are doing a national service—they are producing food for the nation.
I am anxious to know what the Government intend to do for agriculture in the immediate future. The Minister gave us a detailed explanation of what was done during the past year. I think that if we continue to deal with agriculture as we have been doing we are likely to be hungry. I am not satisfied that sufficient land is being tilled. I am aware that big fields that should be cultivated are not being sufficiently tilled. We have not tackled the question of allotments as we should have. I have already made representations to the Minister on this matter. I have advocated the acquisition of land for plotholders in Cork. Quite a number of unemployed people there are anxious to get allotments, but when we asked that certain steps should be taken to enable them to obtain plots, we did not receive much encouragement. No real effort was made to enable those men to acquire plots. We should devote more attention to tilling the land and enabling the people who are prepared to till to do so and in that way get as much food as possible out of the soil.
The people who are at all times anxious to till and produce the greatest amount of food are the small farmers. I am satisfied that they are badly handicapped through lack of credit. They have no machinery or equipment; they have not adequate housing accommodation for their pigs or poultry; they have not the necessary capital to put their holdings into a proper state of production. It was indicated here some time ago that if the farmers obtained money from the Agricultural Credit Corporation they would have to have two securities and pay 6 per cent. interest on the money received. If a farmer got a loan of £100 he would pay back £160 over a period of 15 years. My suggestion is that the Government should issue money to the small farmers free of interest for a number of years. If some effort along that line is not made, we may be faced with difficult times within the next two or three years; many people may go hungry, all because the small farmers are not in a position financially to cultivate their holdings properly.
I often wonder what the people of the next generation will think of us. We have any amount of boards, including milk and marketing boards. It regard them all as restriction boards. We hear a lot of talk about bacon. How many of the working-class people are able to buy bacon? In Cork some time ago one of our Ministers told us that he did not see much hope for the agricultural community. One thing he did advocate was that the wages of industrial workers should be reduced so as to bear some relationship to the wages paid to the agricultural community. Is there any reason why the agricultural workers should not have £3 a week? What is the reason they have not got it? Is it because they are unorganised, or the victims of circumstances?
I am satisfied that the whole position of the agricultural community is due to our capitalistic system. We have a large number of small investors and a small number of big financiers, directors of insurance companies, directors of banks, gamblers in currency, and moneylenders, who do nothing at all in the way of actual production. These are the people who are dominating the administration and the legislation in this country. There is no inclination to change that system. I suggest that if more attention is not paid to the requirements of the working classes, they may very soon overthrow that system. I am anxious to hear from the Minister what steps he will take to see that our people will not go hungry.
