I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This Bill is, in effect, a Bill to do now what the 1947 Flax Act, 1936 (Suspension) Act then did, with this additional feature, that the Flax Act (Suspension) Act, 1947, suspended the 1936 Act for a limited period, while this Bill would suspend the 1936 Act for an unlimited period and the 1936 Act would not come into operation hereafter unless and until an Order to that effect was made by the Government for the time being. The purpose of the original Act in 1936 was to promote the cultivation of flax in the country. It fixed the minimum prices and it was hoped thereby to evoke in certain areas of the country about 5,000 acres of flax.
In fact, the provisions of the 1936 Act never functioned because the minimum prices which it was thought expedient to fix under it never reached market prices, which were consistently in excess of the minima fixed. Then, with the outbreak of war, a variety of factors operated which made it highly unlikely that the provisions designed to promote the cultivation of flax would be necessary and it was deemed expedient to suspend the Act. That situation obtained until 1948, which was the last year in which the Board of Trade in Great Britain made itself responsible for buying the entire flax crop of this country. When the Board of Trade in London withdrew, the future market of flax grown in this country by our people became a matter between the growers and the Northern Ireland spinners. The Northern Ireland spinners, as the House will remember, suggested that a lower price than had been paid in 1948 should be acceptable for our growers in 1949. Their final offer was to buy 2,000 tons of flax at 32/6 per stone for grade 5. That was a reduction of 2/6 on the prices paid for the 1948 crop. I advised the spinners that that was not a proposal that I considered myself justified in recommending to the growers in this country in view of the fact that contemporaneously the Northern Ireland flax spinners not only proposed to maintain but to raise the prices payable to the growers in Northern Ireland. Subsequently the Association of Flax Spinners in Northern Ireland met representatives of the growers and agreed to purchase 3,000 tons at prices ranging from 26/6 for grade 6 to 34/- for grade 1 with an additional 1/6 a stone for turbine scutched flax. Arrangements, I understand, have been made in respect of 1950 for the sale of 3,000 tons. The prices agreed on show a further reduction of 3/- on the prices ruling in 1949 and are 10/- per stone less than the growers in Northern Ireland will receive. The House should know that in respect of the flax crop in Northern Ireland an arrangement has been arrived at whereby the spinners will pay a basic price and the Northern Ireland Government will pay a subsidy under the Flax Act, 1949. I have a copy of the Flax Act (Northern Ireland), 1949, and in the First Schedule to that Act there is an interesting declaration. The First Schedule contains the growers' agreement.
"Whereas the cost of growing flax in Northern Ireland exceeds considerably the world prices of flax of equivalent quality and whereas it is important that the growing of flax in Northern Ireland should be encouraged and the quality improved..."
It then goes on to set out that a subsidy shall be made available to the growers by the Government. Inasmuch as the Government of Northern Ireland, recognising that the price provided by the spinners is inadequate to give the growers of Northern Ireland a tolerable and acceptable standard of living and that the growers could not be expected to accept it, feels constrained to subsidise the crop in order to produce the raw material of one of its principal industries, Deputies of this House will readily recognise that an Irish Minister for Agriculture could not accept the implication that growers in Ireland should gladly accept from the spinners of Northern Ireland a price 10/- lower than that which the Government of Northern Ireland considers to be a reasonable price for the growers of Northern Ireland. In those circumstances, as I do not anticipate that the fixing of minimum prices is likely to be requisite in the early future because I would not recommend a flax crop to our people except on the basis of their receiving from it a standard of living and a measure of reward for their effort in its cultivation commensurate with the minimum which is thought suitable for the farmers of Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Derry, I ask the House to suspend the Flax Act of 1936 unless and until at some future date it appears necessary to invoke the powers of that Act in the interests of such sections of our people as may desire to engage in the business of growing flax in Ireland.