The money that was borrowed. No new scheme has been introduced over and above the schemes that were in existence when Fianna Fáil was in office. The same amount of money was spent on land reclamation under Fianna Fáil if one includes the farm improvements scheme. What new schemes have been introduced other than land rehabilitation? If one takes lime, one can put against that the subsidy given on fertilisers. One is just as high as the other.
The estimate presented in 1948 by Fianna Fáil was for £70,500,000. According to the present Minister for Finance, the value of the £ was then 10/-. To-day the value of the £ has been still further reduced. I am sure the Minister for Finance will not quarrel with me on that point. There has been a further devaluation of at least 10 per cent. and the Estimates have gone up by 20 per cent.
Since 1948 we have borrowed a sum of £39,000,000 so we have in all a bill of £83,000,000. When the Coalition Government took office the national debt stood at £100,000,000. To-day it is £183,000,000. Would any Deputy run his own business in the same way as this Government is running the country? The Government is tying a millstone around the necks of the people. The deadweight debt has increased. Interest and sinking fund has gone up from £3,250,000 to over £6,000,000. That money will have to be found during the next 30 years. If a farmer were to borrow money and run round enjoying himself until his capital liabilities far exceeded his assets, as they do in the case of the State liability now, he would not have his farm very long.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce has told us that the people are spending £44,000,000 per year on drink and £16,000,000 on cigarettes. Is that a good policy? Yet, we are told by responsible Ministers that the country was never better off. Possibly that is so. We are spending more on amusements anyway. During the 16 years Fianna Fáil was in office many important schemes were initiated and many important steps were taken. We paid £10,000,000 to England and in return were given relief to the extent of round about £80,000,000. We got back our ports. To pay our liabilities we borrowed £38,000,000.
We built more houses per year than are being built to-day. During the period that Fianna Fáil were in office, we divided more land than is being divided to-day. We gave higher prices, pro rata, to the farmers for cereal crops than are being given to-day. The only increase that there has been is from Britain in the price of cattle so that it is foolish and useless for Ministers to say that the farmers were never better off. They are well off. They were well off before this Government came into office and it is not anything that was done by the present Government that has made them well off. Fianna Fáil made them well off when they changed the policy of Cumann na nGaedheal, the rancher policy, and brought in a tillage policy. If the policy that now obtains and that the Minister for Agriculture wants to pursue is continued, in a few years' time the farmers will not be well off.
It is admitted, of course, that the people in rural Ireland are able to pay their way, but there is a section in this country—and many of the Deputies on the opposite benches know them—that may not be as well off. I wonder if the people who are living on unearned incomes are better off to-day than they were five years ago. What relief have those people got? Their cost of living has gone up. There has been no reduction in taxation as far as they are concerned and yet, taking National Loans, for instance, their dividends are the same. Those people are not better off. It is very easy to say that the country generally is better off but there are sections of the people who are not better off and that fact should be well known to some of the Ministers and to the Deputies on the opposite benches.
What would happen to a man who was running his own business in the same fashion as the Government is running the country, borrowing money for, in many cases, useless and unproductive projects? It is not the first time that I have stated that, in my opinion, the land reclamation scheme, as it has been carried out up to the present in many parts of the country, will be unproductive, that by the time the two-thirds that the Government will pay and the one-third that will be contributed by the farmer are expended, the land will not be worth the amount of money expended on it under the scheme. Time alone will tell. I know land that they have attempted to reclaim, and I know that nothing on earth can make it value for the money that will be expended on it by the time they are finished with it. The Land Commission are buying land at £10 per acre for afforestation purposes. Some of the land that is now being reclaimed will not be any better.
There are many things I would like to say in connection with the general policy of the Government over the past three years, and particularly in the present year. If that policy is continued, it will be bad, not merely for some sections of the people, but for the country generally. Let me take agriculture, for instance. Again taking the value of the £ as in 1948 and assuming that I am correct in saying that there has been a reduction of 2/- in the £ since then, the price of wheat to-day should be increased by 12/6 per barrel. If 62/6 was an economic price for wheat in 1947, when Mr. Smith, who was then Minister for Agriculture, fixed the price in October of that year for the following harvest, then it must be an uneconomic price to-day, or, putting it in another way, if Mr. Dillon, the Minister for Agriculture, believes that the farmers are getting an economic price for wheat to-day, then, in 1947, they were getting far in excess of its value from the Fianna Fáil Government. It is one or the other. The unfortunate thing about it is that the Minister for Agriculture cannot be moved, and as a result of that we will have less wheat grown in this country next year.
I have had the experience during the last week or two of speaking to seed merchants. I have been told that the number of people looking for seed wheat has dropped considerably, and that they are not taking anything like the same amount of seed as they took in other years. On the other hand, I have been told by maltsters that they have had increased applications for seed malting barley in this year. That means that we are going to reverse the policy and that we are going to produce barley to make drink rather than produce wheat to make bread for our people. The present price of wheat at 62/6 represents 3/1½ per stone. The price of malting barley is fixed for next year at 57/6 per barrel, which represents 3/7 per stone. Is it good policy, is it good economics, is it good national policy, that we should produce malting barley for the purpose of making available drink, which is a luxury, and prevent, because it is a prevention, our people from producing a commodity which is the necessity of life, namely, bread? If they were induced by way of a better price, there is a great number of farmers who would increase their acreage under wheat, and it is very necessary that the acreage under wheat should be increased. If war or an emergency should arise, what would be the position of this country in regard to supplies of wheat and flour? On 27th February, 1951, I asked the Minister for Agriculture—column 565, Volume 124, Dáil Debates—
"if he will state the total quantity of (a) seed wheat, and (b) millable wheat at present in the country, and (c) the estimated quantity of wheat required to meet our normal requirements of bread and flour for 12 months."
The answer I got on that occasion was:
"(a) Approximately 230,000 barrels of home-produced seed wheat have been assembled by the authorised seed wheat assemblers, and approximately 60,000 barrels of imported seed wheat have been landed or are in course of delivery. In addition, some 47,000 barrels of selected milling wheat which would be suitable for seed if required are being held in reserve. No information is available as to the quantity of wheat retained by farmers for seed.
(b) On the 10th February, 1951, the flour millers held approximately 178,000 tons of wheat, as well as approximately 12,000 tons of wheaten flour.
In addition, a further 99,465 tons of wheat are on load, on passage, loading or freight in course of arrangement.
The estimated quantity of wheat required to meet our normal requirements of bread and flour for 12 months is approximately 480,000 tons and our total supplies as set out above are sufficient to meet our bread requirements at present rate of consumption up to September 30th, 1951. We are at present negotiating the purchase of a further 97,000 tons of wheat which will be brought forward as storage permits."
My calculation is that, taking all the seed wheat that the Minister states is available, we have around 376,000 barrels of imported seed wheat. Last year we grew 366,000 acres of wheat. But 376,000 barrels are not sufficient to seed 366,000 acres. It will take anywhere from 23 to 24 stones, normally, of spring varieties, to seed an Irish acre, so that we have not enough seed wheat at the present time to seed the acreage that was grown last year. Even if we had, even granting the 97,000 tons that the Minister says he has negotiated for— granted that these were delivered— and even assuming we were going to get one ton per acre of the 366,000 acres that were grown last year, if you had an emergency in the morning I calculate, taking all these things into consideration, that normally, with the consumption at 480,000 tons of wheat per year, we would run out of flour in June, 1952.
That is something the Coalition Government should be concerned about. They have a greater responsibility than trying to kill the schemes that were initiated by Fianna Fáil. The people who are charged with the responsibility of government have something more to be responsible for than baiting the men on these benches or telling them that their schemes were wrong. They have the people in the towns and cities and in the country to feed and they have to ensure that, if they are going to fulfil their obligations to these people, they will at least provide them with bread. That is one of the responsibilities of government.
The Coalition Government, largely through the Minister for Agriculture, are failing in their duty. The Minister is not giving a price that will induce our farmers to grow wheat in preference to malting barley. If you had an emergency in the morning, and we were unable to get wheat, as might happen, we might have other countries very anxious to supply us with bread. We heard at Question Time to-day the Minister for Defence answering a question regarding warlike stores. He told Deputy de Valera that the position was entirely unsatisfactory, that orders had been placed and they were not delivered, and that the British attitude to this country was entirely unsatisfactory. Is it not good policy on the part of Britain to keep us in a disarmed condition? Is it not good policy on the part of Britain to keep us from growing wheat?
The unfortunate thing is that the person responsible for growing the foodstuffs our people require has been in league with Britain, not merely recently, but seven or eight years ago, when he wanted the people of this country to walk with heads erect into the British Empire. He has not changed. The leopard never changes its spots. The Minister for Agriculture has never changed his outlook. His spiritual home, his political home, is still across the water. For that reason it is time that the Government, and particularly the representatives of Labour in that Government, who also have responsibility, would see to it that provision is made so that our people will be supplied with bread.
If we want to retain our independence, if we want to carry out the policy announced by the Government and supported by Deputies on this side of the House—a policy of neutrality—we must make preparations for war. We must prepare to defend that policy and the first essential is to have food for our people and for our Army. What attempt is being made by the people responsible for doing that? We are making provision, of course, for malting barley to be consumed, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce said, in the form of drink to the extent of £44,000,000. There has not been a word about that. The Minister for Finance will not say a word about it. He is deriving a good revenue from it and because of that he will keep silent.
As the Minister for Defence said this evening, the British are reluctant or unsatisfactory in supplying warlike requirements, whatever they may be. I wonder would we have met with the same unsatisfactory position had we dealt with continental countries? We were told here in 1948 about the wonderful agreements made with Britain, when the British negotiators insisted on this country sending them 90 per cent. of our cattle and giving permission to this country to send only 10 per cent. to the continent. I wonder if the position had been reversed and if we had not been so much linked up with the British as we have been for the past three years—and we are heading in that direction every day— how we would fare?
We have seen how that agreement was kept. We have seen our people this year left without fuel. If the fly-by-nights that the Minister for Agriculture talked about then were permitted to come here and purchase our cattle, I wonder would our Army be devoid of these warlike stores that the Minister for Defence talked about? Unfortunately, it has been the policy of many of our Ministers down through the years to become more closely linked with the people across the water. It should at least now be time for them to realise the position in which they have placed themselves. The agreements they made in the last three years have been broken or unfulfilled. What about the poultry and egg agreement in 1948, or the agreements about coal, butter or bacon? Have all these agreements been fulfilled? It is time the policy of Fine Gael should change and that the outlook of the Minister for Agriculture should change. There is one thing that can be done, but it must be done very quickly if this country is to be assured of a supply of wheat for next year. A change of attitude must be announced this week regarding prices.
I heard Deputy Sweetman talking about turf production and how easy it was going to be made for county councils to produce turf this year. He gave his experiences in County Kildare. Let me give mine of County Kilkenny. Kilkenny County Council have been told they must produce 13,000 tons of turf and create an iron ration of a two-years' supply at least. In the peak years during the emergency, when we had men available, and equipment, and when we had carried out development work on the bogs and everything was ready just to walk in and cut and save the turf, the peak was 7,000 tons per annum. This year we are told that we must produce 13,000 tons. In 1947 when we produced 7,000 tons we were permitted to buy from the small producer, the farmer with a family who went out on the bogs, cut the turf and sold it to us. That will be denied us this year. We have been told by the Minister for Local Government that he will not permit that to happen, that all our requirements must be produced through the county council by direct labour. We were able to produce only 7,000 tons in 1947 with all the equipment and labour we then had.
Now we have to come and develop these bogs again and redrain them. Had the policy of Fianna Fáil been continued in 1948, had we been producing turf each year, had our councils been compelled to produce it, a situation such as has arisen now would not have arisen. We would have kept our people who had been working on the bogs during the four or five years prior to 1948 at home. We would have had the equipment and we would have had the reclamation work done so that this year, when the necessity again arises, it would not have been necessary for the Minister for Local Government to come along and say: "You must make provision for a two-year ration of turf in 1951." What was the reason for discontinuing the production of hand-won turf?