When the Dáil adjourned on Friday last I was dealing, in connection with the Turf Development Bill, with certain arguments which were advanced by Deputies opposite, and which appeared to be directed against the principle of developing systematically our peat resources, on the ground that at some stage supplies of imported coal might become available at lower prices. In that connection I stated that, whatever may be the prospects concerning future coal supplies, it will always be good policy to develop our own resources, and that there is now, by reason of the work done by the Turf Development Board, good reason to believe that by mechanised peat production it is possible to make available from our own resources solid fuel which will be of a consistent and satisfactory quality, and which can be sold in wide areas of the country at all times at a lower cost, value for value, than coal is ever likely to be sold at. Again, time will prove whether that expectation is well founded. Having regard to the work already done and the information gathered as the result of that work, I think there is very little room for doubt that the hopes now entertained will be realised in the event. We have, of course, an immediate fuel problem, which cannot be met either by increased coal supplies or by mechanised turf production, because both methods of improving the fuel supply of the country will take some time to operate. I think there is no prospect whatever that increased fuel supplies to a substantial extent will become available in the near future and, as I have already stated, the programme for mechanised turf production set out in the White Paper, and which it is intended to implement, will take some years to complete.
Deputy McGilligan believes, or endeavoured to convey the suggestion, that it is possible for us now to obtain increased supplies of coal by means of a bargain with the United Kingdom and that the Government has failed in its duty by not seeking to make such a bargain. In that connection he referred to a recent statement reported in the Press by the British Minister for Fuel and Power. Mr. Shinwell is reported as having stated, as one reason why coal miners in Great Britain should produce more coal, that if more coal was available for export it would be possible to obtain increased food supplies from this country in return. It is, of course, correct that if we could obtain more coal, more fertilisers and more equipment, we could increase the production of foodstuffs here and, consequently, the surplus over and above our own needs available for export. But, Deputy McGilligan is aware and the House is aware that there is no bargain with Great Britain involving the exchange of cattle or other foodstuffs for coal nor are our exports of cattle or, other foodstuffs related to our imports of coal.
Deputy McGilligan put in juxtaposition to that statement by Mr. Shinwell a statement I had made here in 1943, that we had no bargaining power. That statement was made by me in 1943 in relation to the circumstances of 1943 and was directed to the contention which was then being put forward that we could in that year have secured increased supplies of coal or other materials from Great Britain by utilisation of what was described as our bargaining power. It was, of course, a dishonest debating trick to relate that statement, made in the middle of the world war, at the most critical period of the war, and which related to the circumstances of that time, to a statement made last week by a British Minister, for the purpose of showing some contradiction.
It is no longer true that we have no bargaining power. As circumstances permit of variation in the forms of production here or as trade with other countries who are now anxious to obtain supplies of foodstuffs, cattle and other farm products, from us, develops, our bargaining power increases but it still would be a dangerous illusion to believe that we have the world by the tail and that we can dictate the terms upon which the world will trade with us. That is not true and it is merely, I think, an indication of Deputy McGilligan's usual contempt for the intelligence of the average person that he put forward that suggestion here knowing himself that it was untrue but in the expectation that some people less familiar with our general national position might be induced to believe it.