Deputy Hughes has given notice to raise on the adjournment the subject matter of Question 24 on the Order Paper.
Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—Price of Farmers' Butter.
I submit that the question I addressed to the Minister for Agriculture is of paramount importance to the consuming public. I asked him what steps he proposed to take to provide a subsidy for butter produced by farmers so as to bring the maximum quantity of butter into the rationing pool and treat the farmers on a basis of equality with the creameries. Anything done by the Minister to bring the maximum quantity of butter into that pool will be very much appreciated by the consuming public, particularly when it is remembered that, out of a quantity of creamery butter aggregating 543,000 cwts., last winter we provided a ration of two ounces for the public. 470,000 cwts. of butter were produced privately, no part of which was brought into the rationing pool or was available for rationing purposes. It all went, one way or another, to people in a position to buy outside the ration. When we remember that that substantial quantity of butter has been ignored up to the present, we get one reason why the ration has been so low.
The Minister directed my attention, in his reply, to a Press announcement. I am not impressed by the Press announcement. That Press announcement has made for nothing but confusion. No attempt was made in that announcement to explain to the public the purpose of the scheme which was announced. I think that the Minister was so ashamed that he wanted to keep the real purpose of the scheme hidden away. The purpose was to bring more butter into the pool by a mean method. The fixed price of butter is 2/8 per lb., and it is illegal for any person to offer butter for sale above that price. The Minister is empowering the proprietors of butter factories to pay a price of 2/11 per lb. and is subsidising the butter factories in their production by 3d. per lb.
Why should any difference be made between people producing butter privately and those who produce butter in the creameries? I feel that there is neither justice nor equity in the proposal. It will create more and more black-marketing of butter and that is most undesirable. The bulk of the people producing butter privately would be quite prepared to sell in a legitimate way if treated fairly. That will not be done unless the Minister is prepared to change his scheme. He is offering a subsidy of 3d. per lb. in respect of privately-produced butter processed in a factory. That is an insult to people producing good butter.
The subsidy to the creamery is 3¼d. per lb., plus an addition of 5d. now, making 8¼d. The private producer is expected to pay portion of that 8¼d. to the creamery producer and, at the same time, receive himself a subsidy of only 3d. The Minister spoke about the cost of butter-making in the creamery, as if the private producer was at no expense and as if the housewife who makes butter is not to expect any compensation for her work. The making of butter in a dairy involves cost. The Minister should remember that. The processing of that butter in a factory is adding insult to injury. Some of this butter is first-class. Quite a quantity of it is superior to any creamery butter, both in my opinion and in the opinion of judges. To suggest that that butter should be processed in a factory is nothing short of an insult to those who engage in the art of good butter-making. The Minister has adopted the best possible method of destroying the art of good butter-making and of driving butter into the black market. The housewife who is proud of her ability to turn out first-class butter will be insulted by the suggestion that her butter should be sent down to a factory to be processed. Did any good butter-maker ever make butter with the intention of sending it to a factory? Does the Minister think that good butter-makers are going to the trouble to produce for the purpose of selling to a processing factory which may mix up the good butter it receives with butter of the very worst quality and brand it all with the same name—"factory butter"?
I suppose some Deputies will avail of the opportunity of going out to the show of the Royal Dublin Society this week. They will see there a big competition in butter-making, designed to encourage young girls to make themselves proficient in the art. The competitors there have won renown in many countries. The Minister insults those girls by telling them that, when they go back to their farms, the butter which they produce will be fit only to be sent to a factory for processing. The Minister should adjust his ideas if his Department has come to those conclusions. I am speaking of good-quality butter. Butter which does not come within that category might be sent to a factory. What is to prevent the Minister appointing in the different towns in those areas where butter is privately produced agents to buy the good quality butter? Let them buy the first-grade butter and pay a price fair and equitable to the producer—the price given to the producers of creamery butter. I do not see why the price should be inferior. We are paying the subsidy on butter whether creamery butter or, in the case of the new subsidy, privately produced butter, not to help the producer but to help the consumer. Butter cannot be economically produced at 2/8. If the consumer considers the price of milk and compares it with the price in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, he will appreciate why a subsidy is necessary. I suggest to the Minister that first-class butter ought not to be processed or sent to a factory but that agents should be licensed to buy it. First quality butter that ought to command top price should be set aside and sent into consumption immediately. The butter that is not of good quality could be processed in the factory. The processing of first-class butter will only disimprove it, by mixing it with butter of lower grade. It is an insult to the women and girls making that butter, and I want to protest against such treatment being meted out to them.
On behalf of the consuming public, I want to say that the Minister's scheme is going to drive butter out of the pool which would be available there for the public if the thing were properly and intelligently handled. This is a very important matter, as small children have to get the vitamins which are in butter, and butter only. There ought to be responsibility on the Government, on the Minister for Agriculture and on the Minister for Health to ensure that those children are provided with the maximum quantity of butter available, so that they may get those valuable vitamins. The Minister may think I am over-emphasising this matter. I am particularly interested in it, as I come from a district where we have no creamery but where there is a very substantial quantity of butter produced privately. I feel that the scheme announced by the Minister will result in very harsh and unjust treatment. I am simply demanding justice —equal treatment of the people producing this valuable commodity for the community. I am asking no more and no less than equitable treatment for all.
I have suggested to the Minister in a rough way how this could be done. If it is going to cost more by way of subsidy to do that, I am saying to the Minister that there is a responsibility on him to do justice to all and I am asking for nothing more or less than justice. I am sure that note will help the Minister when he is replying but I do not think he wants any notes.
I think not.
I would appeal to the Minister to review this matter and to think of what is coming next winter. We were told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he had an estimate from the Department of Agriculture which indicated an increase in creamery butter production in the coming year. I think that is not a sound estimate. Cows all over the country are in so emaciated a condition that the milk yields for the coming year will not be up, and there should be some anxiety on the part of the Minister and the Government to ensure that the maximum quantity will be available for legitimate distribution, to ensure that the poor man will get a fair share of whatever butter is available, as well as the man who can put his hand down in his pocket and pay any amount. I am sure that 80 per cent. of the people producing privately, if offered a price which is fairly comparable with that paid for creamery milk or butter produced on a creamery basis, would sell in a legitimate way. That would represent a very substantial quantity brought under control. If the Minister is not prepared to do that, I honestly think he will drive more butter into the black market, far more than he considers, at all events, as the people who make first-class butter will resent the insult offered to them through this scheme.
Deputy Hughes is one of the Deputies who talk a good deal in this House. No doubt, he knows a good deal and likes to have other members of the House realise just how much he knows. However, I suggest to him that, in this matter, he does not know as much as he would require to know to talk about it in the authoritative way to which we have just listened. The price of milk has been fixed at 1/2 per gallon for the summer months, and the summer months represent the big volume of milk supplied to creameries. It takes 2½ gallons of milk, they say——
Two and one-third, I think.
——to produce one pound of butter and at 1/2 a gallon, that works out at somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2/11. That is what the creamery supplier is getting; and it is 2/11 that is being offered to the home manufacturer of butter, through my scheme. What does Deputy Hughes want me to give him?
He is to get nothing for making it?
Does the Deputy suggest that I should have asked for the home producer a price greater than is given to the creamery supplier?
What about the cost of making the butter?
Let the Minister speak.
I do not want to be misrepresented.
Am I stating the facts?
No.
Is the price of milk during the summer months 1/2 per gallon?
Yes.
Is it not claimed, by those who know more than Deputy Hughes or myself, that it takes two and a half gallons of summer milk to produce a pound of butter—and that is 2/11 a lb.?
That is correct.
And is not that the price the farmers are offered for producing butter at home?
Does it cost nothing to make it?
What does it cost the farmer to get his milk to the creamery and pay cartage on it, or if he takes it himself what time does he lose in doing so? Has he not the advantage of the buttermilk rather than the skim milk? I suggest that I am justified in tendering to Deputy Hughes on this occasion the advice that, while he may know quite a lot about a lot of things, there are times when he can say too much about some things in which he is not as well versed as he would require to be to stand up here or in any other place and talk about them.
This scheme was designed to try to tap the greatest quantity of the 400,000 cwts. of butter that, according to the statistics, are made in the farmers' homes. It is nonsense to say that there is any very considerable quantity of that available, as a large amount of it must be consumed by the farmers themselves who produced it. There is undoubtedly some quantity of it sold, as Deputy Hughes suggests. There is a quantity of it that is made as he suggests and that is excellent butter, and it needs no further processing, as it is as good as any butter you will get anywhere. I invite Deputy Hughes or anyone else to face the practical proposition of getting into the central pool the largest quantity of butter in order that it will be controlled and in order that we may take advantage of any surplus in excess of what manufacturers or confectioners may require and use it for the purpose of increasing the ration at a certain time of the year. I told the House and the Deputy this morning that this was a matter to which we had given considerable attention, after discussing it with those who know as much as any member of this House about the way in which home butter is produced and offered for sale and finally disposed of.
Who were they?
The people who work on the land, the people who milk cows, the people who turn separators and churn and convert the butter into rolls for sale.
I did not hear that from any of them.
The Deputy said that he did not. I would like to tell him that we move about through the people just as he does, and that we have just as close contact as he has with the people who live and work in the manner that I have described. We have those contacts, and if we do not know a thing ourselves then we take advantage of those contacts in order to improve our knowledge. I want to assure the Deputy, and everybody else interested, that very many of those producers are very glad indeed that on this the first occasion an attempt has been made to give them conditions similar to those obtaining for those who supply milk to the creameries. Very many farmers who produce butter at home have written and spoken to me and have expressed themselves as being very pleased indeed with this effort which has been made.
They are very easy to please.
I always expect sympathy from the Deputy but at times he somehow disappoints me. I do not want to add just one further disappointment to the list that is already there. I was anxious to secure that the farmers who produce milk and convert it into butter would find themselves in this position, that they would get for that butter a price similar to that which is obtained by those sending milk to the creameries. That was the first purpose. The second was that I was determined to do what I could to drag into the pool the largest possible quantity of farmers' butter, so that we would have in the pool a quantity of butter that could be used for the purpose of increasing the ration if we should find ourselves at the end of this year in a position similar to that in which we found ourselves during the year that has passed.
As I have said already, this scheme has been devised in consultation with those who produce butter, who handle butter and who process butter. The scheme may not be perfect, because, after all, if the home-produced butter could have been as easily tapped as Deputy Hughes now suggests, it is an extraordinary thing that it could not have been tapped long ago. I do not say that it is an easy matter to tap that source of supply. I am not sure if this scheme will prove as successful as I would wish it to be. I think that if Deputies examine all the difficulties that are associated with laying one's hand upon that source of supply, they must see that this is only a scheme. There is no question of an offer to those who produce butter of the type to which Deputy Hughes refers and to labour that point is just of no use whatever.
Will the Minister say how many, in his opinion, are going to make first-class butter for the purpose of sending it to a factory for processing?
I do not know, and I cannot help that. Is it seriously suggested that I could nominate somebody in Carlow, Kildare, Offaly or Laoighis and all over the Twenty-Six Counties to say to those traders: "You go out and buy farmers' butter of superior kind," and is it suggested that butter, bought under these conditions and under such a scheme as that, could be rationed? Is it suggested that, on butter bought under a scheme of the nature suggested by Deputy Hughes, a subsidy could be paid, and that the State in doing that would know where it was going? Does not anybody with any intelligence whatever know that a scheme of that kind would be unworkable?
Are not the people that the Minister is now going to use capable of buying and grading?
They will buy and grade as it is.
And process the whole lot?
That is a matter for themselves. Surely, the Deputy is not suggesting to me that we could pay a subsidy through the widespread organisation that he suggests for butter graded in the fashion that he has described? He knows, of course, that the thing is absurd, and he is not so devoid of intelligence as to think that such a scheme as that could be worked.
During the period of over 20 years that I have been a member of the House there has never been a question raised on the Adjournment in all that period for which, in my opinion, there was less justification than this one. The only reason Deputy Hughes has for raising it is due to his disappointment at the fact that I came to the home producers of butter with a scheme which has been so acceptable to them, a scheme which, for the first time, places them on the same footing as their neighbours who are sending milk to the creameries. In addition, I have given the added assurance to the consuming public that if there is any butter there that can be used in the manner I have described, the producers of it are being offered a price that is as good as their neighbours are getting, a price that should tempt them to sell it so that it would be in the pool to be used for the purpose that I have explained.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 7th May, 1947.