asked the Minister for Agriculture if there will be a guaranteed price for this year's flax crop and whether a market will be assured to growers of this crop in County Monaghan in 1949.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - County Monaghan Flax Crop.
Since 1939, all the flax produced in this country has been purchased by the British authorities at prices agreed in advance with my Department. Some time ago the British authorities declared that this arrangement would cease after the 1948 crop had been disposed of and that they expected the linen industry to negotiate the purchase of the 1949 crop. Subsequently, representatives of the Northern Ireland Fax Spinners' Association, Limited, called on me and made a tentative offer for the purchase of 4,000 tons of flax at a price to the grower based on 31/3 per stone for Grade V dam-retted, hand-scutched flax. This was 3/3 per stone lower than the price of the 1948 crop. I informed the association that if they were prepared to pay prices equivalent to those payable for the 1948 crop I would encourage farmers here to grow flax. The association promised to consider the matter and to communicate with me but did not do so until a very long time had elapsed when they made the surprising offer to purchase 2,000 tons at the unattractive price of 32/-per stone for Grade V, while at the same time a price of 40/- per stone for growers in Northern Ireland was fixed (but that included a Government subsidy amounting to about 7/4). This offer was even less satisfactory than the previous one and as a counter proposal I informed them that I would recommend growers to accept, under protest, 35/- per stone for Grade V but that the limitation on quantity to be purchased should be removed. The matter is now being reconsidered by the association. Unless they can see their way to improve their offer it will not be possible to make any official arrangement with them for the growing of flax in the coming year.
Is the Minister aware that owing to this, untold hardships will be inflicted on the farmers of County Monaghan in the matter of sale for their flax? The Minister must be aware that they have suffered considerable losses over oats and that they were trying to retrieve the position by sowing flax. This is not very encouraging for them. Does the Minister hold out any hope that the farmers in Monaghan will get the price for their flax they are demanding?
I cannot pretend to the Deputy that her supplementary question has greatly strengthened my hand in the very difficult negotiations which I am at this moment carrying on. I had hoped——
Why has it not?
God save the flax growers.
——to maintain, as I intend to maintain, that none of our people are dependent upon the charity of the Northern flax millers, and if they do not choose to pay our people a fair price for the extremely laborious crop of flax, this Government will be no party to the exploitation of our people by the Northern flax spinners. I trust that we will be able to provide from our own modest resources some other form of reward which will ensure that the Northern flax spinners cannot now or at any future time inflict hardship on our people.
In view of the fact that a good deal of land in my constituency has already been prepared for this crop, could the Minister give us an assurance that he will endeavour to terminate the negotiations at present proceeding as expeditiously as possible and make an effective and categorical statement on the hookery of the Northern buyers?
Is the Minister aware that lands are now being let in the area which he himself represents and in some other areas as well and that while the price to be paid by the Northern spinners is of great importance, a more urgent question still is whether there is to be any limitation on the amount to be taken by those spinners? From his contacts with those people over the past few months he ought surely, I suggest, to be in a position to say now at the mouth of the month of March whether or not an unlimited quantity of flax will in fact be accepted by that organisation.
Surely the Minister must realise the importance of this cash problem to the farmers of Monaghan, particularly to the small farmers. After all it is their main cash crop; they do not grow wheat or barley or beet. This is pretty bad news for those farmers. I would ask the Minister, if it is a thing that the negotiations with the Northern spinners break down, which looks likely, he should guarantee to the farmers of Monaghan that the Government will come to their rescue as it did to the beet growers and wheat growers with a form of subsidy. After all, I fail to see why the Minister cannot now open negotiations with the British Government to take any surplus flax that we have, in view of the fact that we grew flax for them during the recent emergency.
Is not this sabotage while negotiations are going on?
I am prepared to assume that those who have asked the last supplementary questions did not advert to the consequences of what they have done. Up to to-day, my negotiating position was reasonably strong. As from to-day, my position, vis-á-vis the Northern Ireland spinners, is that all the Deputies of the Opposition take the view that I should gratefully accept the offer, the grossly inadequate—the shamefully inadequate offer—that they have sought to thrust on our people.
We take no such view.
If Deputies have overlooked that aspect of the matter, I wish they had consulted wiser heads before they intervened as they have done here to-day. I would like to know, am I to interpret the supplementary questions addressed to me by the members of the Opposition as an expression of their view that I should submit, on behalf of our people, to an ultimatum from the Northern Ireland spinners that they will take 2,000 tons at a price 8/- per stone lower than is going to be paid for the same crop produced in the six north-eastern counties of the country?
Will the Minister stop talking and get something done?
It took you 16 years to do that.
The matter is very urgent.
I opened these negotiations last October, and the spinners attempted to drag them out until the ever of the sowing season in the hope that I would be embarrassed by the pressure of the sowing season coming upon us and the natural anxiety of our farmers. I confess that the risk of my being so harassed and embarrassed in this House by Deputies representing flax-growing counties was one with which I did not reckon. In that I was mistaken, and I must now do the best I can with that handicap upon me.
Surely the Minister realises——
There are two Deputies attempting to speak.
My object in speaking was not to embarrass the Minister, but I realise, and the Minister must realise, that this is a matter of the greatest urgency.
Do you think that I do not realise it?
I hope so. I would like to know what you are going to do if the negotiations with the Northern spinners have broken down?
Do you want me to go on my knees to them?
In no circumstances.