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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Mar 1951

Vol. 124 No. 13

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed).

Mr. Blaney

When I moved to report progress last night, I was quoting an extract from the speech made by the Minister on Thursday last. It was in connection with the Minister's explanation of sub-head M (9)—Potato Reserve Scheme. I shall continue the quotation which I was reading last night. It will be found at columns 1636 and 1637 of the Official Report, Volume 124, No. 10. The Minister continued:—

"Whereupon, the lorries began to roll and the scarce potatoes, the nonexistent potatoes, began to arrive from the famine-stricken areas where men and beasts were dying from want of food, by night, and were hawked around the greengrocers of Dublin at any price they would fetch. If I am not mistaken, some fingers were burned in the transaction. I must say that I never smelt burning substance with greater joy.

Mr. Lemass: Would the Minister say how he came to lose this amount of money?

Mr. Dillon: Because I broke the market. I had to bring in the potatoes to break the market, and the measure of my success was the loss I made, because the gangsters held me up when I went to get potatoes, but, when I got the potatoes, I held them up, and the holding I did was much longer than the holding they did. I saved the citizens of this city, by the outlay of £5,000, probably £100,000. The only difference was that that £5,000 went into the pockets of relatively honest potato growers, whereas the £100,000 would have gone into the pockets of the racketeers who thought they could get away with murder but learned, by night, that they could not. I can assure the Deputy that if I lost £5,000, the racketeers lost 20 times as much, and I know that it will console him to know that the public were saved that exploitation by the expenditure of so modest a sum and he will be further consoled to know that the racketeers who sought to rob their neighbours were so sternly punished by the outlay of so modest a sum of public money, so prudently employed."

My principal reason for referring to that particular part of the Minister's speech was for the purpose of indicating that, contrary to what Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dunne had to say in his defence last night, the Minister is capable of using all types of terms to describe people who are not in a position to defend themselves in this House—as will be seen from this extract of his speech. I think we can infer that the "gangsters and racketeers" to whom he refers were principally Donegal people. I objected to that when I heard it in the House and I now make an emphatic protest about it. Is it not a fact that not only did the potatoes come in at that time from Donegal but that they came in from other parts of the country, too? Is it not a fact that not only did Donegal truck owners bring in potatoes at that time, but that trucks were scurrying from Dublin to Donegal trying to collect any potatoes they could collect and at any price? Is it not also a fact that this sum of £5,000 which we have to pay in respect of the scarcity at that time is purely to cover up the Minister's incompetence in dealing with the export market earlier in the year when he over-sold our potato stocks and left us in the same position as that in which he has left us recently in regard to Irish butter when we were without our full supply?

I want to apologise for misleading the House in regard to a certain matter last night. I said that the Minister referred some time ago to Deputy Cogan as a "scalded cat." He referred to Deputy Corry as a "scalded cat."

He is as cross as a cat himself.

Mr. Blaney

He used other terms at that time in reference to Deputy Cogan which were not meant to be complimentary to the Deputy. We have come to know the Minister, apart from his incompetence and irresponsibility, for his mud-slinging tactics in this House and outside, if for nothing else. A loss of £5,000, under sub-head M (9), was incurred as a result of the Minister's over-sale of our potatoes. As a result, he had to try to buy potatoes elsewhere to import into this country or to import into Britain in lieu of the contracted amount which we were to supply to those people. That is in keeping with the Minister's more recent effort in salesmanship, and it is surprising that a man who in his private capacity has apparently done quite well——

That has nothing whatever to do with this.

Mr. Blaney

——is unable when it comes to making a sale on behalf of the Government and the country to do so without incurring a financial loss and not only a financial loss but also severe hardship on our people by leaving us short of potatoes a year ago and short of butter more recently. It was pointed out in this House—and I believe it to be a plausible explanation—that the reason our butter was sold some time ago was to give us the idea that there was an over-supply of that commodity so as to keep down the price of milk and to bluff the farmers into the idea that, when there was an over-supply, they need not look for an increase, irrespective of the merit of that increase.

While the sale of our butter was objectionable, a more objectionable feature came to light more recently when we found that butter being replaced by Danish butter and later by New Zealand butter. I am absolutely amazed at Deputies on the Government side of the House, particularly those representing Dublin City who, by their silence on this question, apparently agree with the Minister's statement a short time ago that the quality of that butter could not be beaten. I heard the comment on that statement that undoubtedly that butter could not be beaten, as we say in the country, with a big stick. The fact of the matter is that the Danish butter supplied to us in Dublin a short time ago was not fit for human consumption.

You are eating it here every day in the Restaurant.

Mr. Blaney

You may be but I am not.

What would people in Ireland say if foreigners said that our butter was not fit for human consumption?

What did the Minister say of our butter? That you would have to wear a gas mask to go near it.

We did not export it.

Mr. Blaney

This butter might not entail the use of a gas mask—which I am sure we have not got—but it is of such a quality that it is not fit for human consumption.

That is a monstrous statement to make in an Irish Parliament.

Mr. Blaney

It is no monstrous statement. I am speaking not only from my own experience but also from that of others who had to buy that butter and only then realised that they could not use it.

What about our public health rules?

Mr. Blaney

There is a difference between the butter we are getting now and that which we got at first; whether it is a fact that the present butter is New Zealand butter and the other was Danish, I do not know. We have been led to believe and always did believe that Danish butter was, generally speaking, of a very high quality, and instead of coming into this House and telling us that the consignment we got in Dublin was excellent butter it would have suited the Minister better and would have been kinder to the Danes who produced it if some effort had been made to look into the complaints and discover why that butter was of such a quality that we could not use it.

Why did the Minister not send it down the country?

Mr. Blaney

Why not send Deputy Cowan down the country?

The Deputy is forgetting the butter that was left at the North Wall to stink during Fianna Fáil days.

Mr. Blaney

If I know anything of the feelings of the people in the city, Deputy Cowan will slide at the next election.

There is no money for elections in this Vote.

Deputy Blaney might be surprised himself.

Mr. Blaney

I do not think so, though there is always the possibility of somebody sliding.

I think that some Deputies are looking for a surprise in the immediate future.

Mr. Blaney

The Minister would have been better employed had he investigated those complaints instead of trying to tell the people that black was white.

The Deputy is repeating that for the third time.

Mr. Blaney

I am merely referring to it——

Mr. Blaney

——in order to bring to the minds of Deputies who represent Dublin on the Government Benches that they should refer to their constituents before condoning the Minister's speeches and trying to get themselves out of the fix.

I wish to say nothing further on this matter at the moment as, due to the nature of this Supplementary Estimate, the field is much too narrow to deal adequately with the administration of the Department of Agriculture in the past year. Therefore, I would again just draw attention to the fact that despite the protests made here last night, the terms used on this side of the House to refer to the Minister for Agriculture during the past few days, have been in my estimation and in the estimation of very many other people, very mild indeed, much milder than I think he actually deserves, but while we criticise the Minister and appear to take a personal dislike to him, we should not at all forget the fact that the Government as a whole are responsible for the Minister's administration, that it is the Government who are finally responsible and who were responsible in the first place for putting him in charge of that Department. If, due to his irresponsibility, he sees fit to do certain things with which we totally disagree, which cause grave and severe hardship to our people and injure our agricultural community as a whole, we should remember that in the last analysis it is the Government of the day——

Under the Constitution the Minister is responsible for the administration of his Department, not the Government.

Mr. Blaney

They are responsible for having him here.

His presence or his absence here does not arise. It might possibly on the Vote in which his salary appears.

Mr. Blaney

The action of this irresponsible Minister——

Complimentary terms.

Mr. Blaney

——is something which we deplore and we can expect that in the near future we will have an opportunity of putting him out as fast as we can—and that is being very charitable to the Minister from this side of the House.

Honest to God, a man's patience would get exhausted. I very rarely speak in the House, but my patience has become exhausted during the last two days listening to the speeches of the people on the far side of the House. What has taken me to my feet, really, is to compliment Deputy Cowan on the speech he made last night and to endorse every word he said. He spoke the truth fairly and honestly as a man, as he said himself, having an interest in neither one side nor the other. He is neither a farmer nor a great severe critic of agriculture, but he knows the difference. The people on the far side of the House should not waste public time, public money and public patience on expressing their attitude towards the Minister. The Minister's policy is a sound one, a sensible one, a policy that has produced results. Can we have better proof than facts and figures?

Have we not the facts before us? Has not bacon production gone up, has not butter and milk production gone up? When were the farmers of Ireland ever as prosperous as they are to-day? Not in my lifetime have I known such a spirit of contentment amongst the farming community as during the last three years. When there is talk about improvident purchases and sales, do we forget the improvident purchase of wheat by Fianna Fáil on the eve of the 1948 election?

Mr. Blaney

Is wheat on this Estimate?

I am sure wheat is a sore and thorny point with the Deputy. Do we remember the improvident purchase made on the eve of the General Election in 1948, when the country lost millions of money? There is talk about the Minister being hostile to wheat. Has he done anything else but encourage the farmers to grow wheat? Has he prevented the farmers from doing so? He is not coercing them. Thanks be to God, the day of the coercion of the farmers has ended. I stand up as a farmers' representative to compliment the Minister on every action and every step he has taken to put the farmers in the proud place they now occupy, of being the happiest, most prosperous and most contented people in the country.

I would add my voice to that of other Deputies who have appealed to the Minister to consider seriously the claims submitted legitimately by milk producers for an increase in price, on the grounds that the cost of production has increased considerably since the price of milk was fixed in 1947. Amongst the items which have not been and which cannot be challenged are the following: Rates have increased considerably, wages have increased and so has insurance, the cost of implements, fertilisers and seeds has gone up; and, later, bran and pollard have jumped from 14/- to 36/- a cwt. These enter into the cost of the production and, therefore, the Minister should consider seriously the reasonable claim put forward by the producers of milk.

On the question of wheat, I would appeal to the Minister to forget his prejudices. We are importing wheat at present at a cost of approximately £4 per barrel. Surely it would not be unreasonable to expect that the producer would get the world market price. If that is not done, the farmer instead of getting the subsidy about which he hears so much, is actually subsidising the cost of living by the difference between the world market price and what the farmer is getting. With the advance in the cost of production, when every other section of the community has applied and been granted increases in salary, wages and other sources of remuneration, one section alone should not be singled out and kept bound to the prices fixed four or five years ago.

In the minds of certain people, of which I suppose the Minister might be regarded as the leader, there seems to be a prejudice against the growing of wheat. I should like to quote, if I might do so, for the information of the Minister, the opinion of one of the most progressive farmers in Ireland, Mr. Robert McCulloch. Writing in Agricultural Ireland in June, 1947, he said:—

"It will surprise many farmers to know that a wheat crop makes no greater demands on the soil as regards nutrients than a crop of oats, as regards phosphates and potash, but wheat does demand more nitrogen and will not yield without it. In practice, wheat is the only cereal suitable for sowing when a properly managed wild white pasture is ploughed up. Oats or barley will certainly lodge.

If our farmers as a whole understood the care and management of wild white pastures, it would not be necessary for us to import any wheat at all. Further, economy yields of ‘Yeoman'wheat would be possible, so that the loaf made from home grown wheat would compare favourably with the loaf made from Manitoba No. 1 mixed with our ordinary Irish varieties, which are all so-called weak wheats."

I quote the opinion of that man, who may be regarded as an expert in his line, showing that a man who has practical experience held a view directly contrary to that so frequently expressed by the Minister. If the Minister is wise, he would forget his prejudices and encourage the people to produce more wheat, to produce everything they possibly can, so as to avoid a situation in which we have to subsidise the importation of foreign wheat and foreign butter.

The Minister, to conclude.

Three principal topics seem to have troubled Deputies, the sub-heads in relation to butter, wheat and the cost of production of milk. I should say, however, before I get down to the details, that I hope, for the sake of Deputy Blaney's immortal soul, he will continue to keep me within the theological catalogue of his charity; but apart from that, the more he dislikes me, the more I am assured of my continued worthiness to remain in public life. No greater catastrophe could overtake me than the adherence of Deputy Blaney, or his breed, blood or generation to a common policy. God forbid that any such catastrophe should overtake me.

Deputy Blaney's father fought for this country.

To deal with the specific matters raised, I have always admired the brazen-faced audacity of Fianna Fáil. They have rigidly cloven to the policy that if you give a good lie a good start no one can ever catch up on you. I have been upbraided for miscalculating the capacity of our people to consume butter. I made a mistake in underestimating the capacity of our people in the year 1950 to buy, pay for and consume 745,307 cwt. of butter. I made that mistake because in trying to form an intelligent estimate of what our likely consumption was to be. I referred back to the previous years in which butter production had reached the level that it reached in 1950. That brought me back to the years 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938. I think the Dáil will hear with open-eyed amazement the situation that then obtained and which Fianna Fáil has the effrontery to compare favourably with the mistake I made in 1950. In 1934, we produced 769,293 cwt. of butter.

Is that creamery butter?

Yes. We consumed in Ireland 324,466 cwt. of butter and we exported to Great Britain 454,434 cwt. of butter because our people could not afford to eat it. But that is not all the story. The House will wish to know the terms and conditions on which we exported that butter. We shipped to Great Britain in that year 454,434 cwt. of butter, for each cwt. of which the British paid us 52/10, and we paid the British 82/10 to take it.

You did not. You paid the Irish farmers.

The butter sold in London for 52/10. We paid a bounty and subsidy of 82/10 for that butter to enable the British to eat it.

To the Irish farmers.

In 1935 we exported 473,152 cwt. of butter. The butter sold in London for 65/9 and we paid the British 44/10 to eat it. In 1936 we exported 460,290 cwt. of butter. The British paid us 76/3 and we paid the British 39/10 to eat it. In 1937 we exported 333,387 cwt. of butter. The British paid us 87/10 and we paid them 34/3 to eat it. In 1938 we exported 327,636 cwt. of butter. The British paid us 118/- and we gave them 19/11 to eat it. Instead of paying the British 82/10 per cwt. to eat butter at 52/10, giving them the butter at 30/- for taking it, am I blameworthy for leaving it here in Ireland for our own people to eat and, as our own people eat more than I anticipated, bringing in more so that they would not go short? Is that a fault in me?

Mr. Blaney

It is.

Deputy Blaney says that the policy of 1934 was right and that my policy in 1950 was wrong. I will stand or fall by my policy in 1950. I would prefer to see my people eating the butter and able to pay for it than pay the British people 82/10 to buy our butter for 52/10; 5d. a lb. for Irish creamery butter and 9d. a lb. into their lap in order to make them take it.

That is the way to give a lie a good start.

Does anyone deny these figures?

I deny them. There was no money paid to the British with butter as far as I know.

The British paid 52/10 for the butter that cost us 135/8. We paid 82/10 and they paid 52/10, and they eat the butter.

We paid the Irish farmer.

There were two 56-lb. boxes of butter put out. The British paid 52/10 per cwt. and we paid 82/10. The British eat it and we got back the box. Is not that the case?

That is not true at all; the Minister knows well that it is not.

I want to settle this butter business. In 1934, when we delivered two 56-lb. boxes of butter in London, the British put down £2 12s. 10d. and we put down £4 2s. 10d. and the butter was sold. The British eat the butter and we got the box. Is not that the fact? In 1950, every pound of butter produced in this country we bought and eat and we paid for it.

That is nothing new.

Making the mistake of believing that our people would not be able to buy and consume 575,307 cwt. of butter, I shipped some abroad in the autumn. I discovered in the spring that our people were better off than I anticipated. I could have cut the ration or I could buy butter. I bought butter and they ate it. I have no apology to make for that to anybody.

I deprecate most strongly the statement in this House that Danish butter brought into this country was unfit for human consumption. That statement is not true. That statement is made by irresponsible individuals who are not considering the significance of the words they use and who by their own neighbours are regarded as unreliable and unimportant persons. Lest word should go forth that this Parliament was guilty of gross and unforgivable discourtesy to the Danish people by describing their exports as being unfit for human consumption, I want to say, with the full authority of the Department of Agriculture behind me, that the Danish butter was of excellent quality, that no reasonable person could fault it on the ground of quality, but, as our Danish neighbours will fully understand, their process of butter-making differing slightly from ours, some people found the flavour and texture of Danish butter strange, and for that reason had difficulty in adapting themselves to it.

There are three processes for manufacturing butter, one employed in Ireland, one in Denmark and another in New Zealand. Those accustomed to the product of any one of these processes find a certain strangeness in the product of the other two. Certainly, no responsible persons in this country will ever lend their names to the disgraceful allegation that the butter of New Zealand or Denmark is unfit for human consumption. They find themselves glad to acknowledge its excellent quality, in the assurance that both Denmark and New Zealand have, not infrequently, paid tribute to the quality of our own butter, which is in every respect equal to the Danish and New Zealand product, but which we have no valid right to claim is in any sense superior.

Perhaps the Minister will apologise for his denunciation of Irish farmers' butter?

The next point is one to which people have returned repeatedly, and that is the cost of milk and the price properly payable for creamery milk. There is not the least use in any Minister for Agriculture turning his back to facts. One of my predecessors, Deputy Dr. Ryan, in the Square at Ennis, said shortly before the 1939-45 war, that in his considered judgment the dairy industry of this country, as an exporting industry, was finished for all time.

I do not hold with that view, but I am prepared to say that unless we face the task, which we are eminently well equipped to discharge if we want to, of making the dairying industry here highly efficient, there is not the least use our attempting to compete with the highly efficient dairying industries of other countries. If we are prepared to do what, in my opinion, we are well able to do, Ireland is so situated and circumstanced that we can produce butter the equal of any butter in the world and in competition with any other producer whencesoever he comes. But if we have to produce milk for conversion into butter for sale in the markets of the world, I suggest to the House that there are certain fundamentals which must be accepted. One is that the milk must be produced from growing grass; that the cattle must be in large measure sustained during the winter from grass silage or other ensiled green crops and the produce of the land of the farmer to whom the herd belongs; and that in the cow byre and in the creamery every device designed to reduce the cost of production must be available to the farmer and scrupulously employed by him and the creamery manager.

There is not a single one of these desiderata which cannot be attained to-morrow morning, but there remains this consideration: if Dáil Éireann wants to build a creamery industry on the 300 gallon cow they may make up their minds to the fact that they will be subsidising the butter industry for evermore. Our aim, indeed, should be to attain a minimum 400 gallon cow and an optimum 800 gallon cow in the mercantile herd and I am certain that we must ultimately raise the minimum to 500 gallons. I do not want to press on the dairy farmers here a maximum in excess of 800 gallons. I believe the 1,000 and the 1,200 gallon cow may be a very desirable beast to have in the pedigree herd from which one is breeding pedigree stock in order to improve the general level all over the country; but, for the mercantile herd, the 800 gallon cow is probably the most economic bearing in mind the extra feeding the 900, 1,000, 1,100 and 1,200 must get if she is to maintain her health and continue to produce when reaching this very much higher bracket.

I do not believe that caterwauling about our deplorable circumstances helps anyone. I believe the proper course is to find out what we must do and go and do it. There is no farmer here who, if he has six cows or 100 cows, cannot install the most modern milking machine money will buy to-morrow morning and pay for it out of his creamery cheque as he goes along. There is no farmer here need have a bad cow byre. He will get a handsome grant to build a new one; he will get an ample loan repayable over 15 years and he can arrange with the creamery manager to pay the instalments out of his milk cheque as he delivers his milk to the creamery. There is no creamery need stand one day unequipped with the best that money can buy. All the creamery has to do is to formulate its scheme, satisfy the Agricultural Credit Corporation that reliable authority is on its side for the proposed reforms and the money will be in its hands the following morning, to be paid back over ten, 20 or 30 years in so far as circumstances will allow.

Now, we come to the cow. Admittedly we cannot metamorphose all the cows of the country overnight, but we are starting in East Limerick and West Tipperary, I hope on Monday week, with this proposal to every farmer: show us your uneconomic cow, we will buy her, and we will give you the cash value into your hand to go and use your own judgment on the fair green to buy a replacement, or go up to the Department's farms and there are there 800 inseminated heifers, inseminated from a 2,000 guinea bull; they have been tested for tuberculosis and inoculated against contagious abortion; take your pick of any beast you like; and, next year, if you find yourselves in the same plight with uneconomic cows, ask us to come back and we will take them out again and make you the same offer.

Money into the farmer's hand or his pick of 800 heifers.

What price are they?

For nothing. Swap the old lamps for the new. I will take the uneconomic cow and I will give the farmer the heifer instead.

And the taxpayer will pay.

No. It will not cost him a penny.

Miracle working!

The uneconomic cow yields a very substantial proportion of eminently saleable beef. The fact that she will not give enough milk to justify her existence in the herd is very often an indication that she is too beefy. If the farmer gives her to the cannery and they bone her and roll her up and send her out as the best of good cow beef, or put her in a can, very often she makes the full price of the heifer. Now, is that a mistaken policy? If there is anything any Deputy can suggest to me that will help further to expedite the establishment generally of the 400 to the 800-gallon cow, ultimately the 500 to the 800-gallon cow, that will help to improve the methods available to the farmer, or help to cut down the cost on the farm or in the creamery, will he tell me what it is, because I want to implement all the recommendations I can, if resources will permit, and I see no reason whatsoever to apprehend that anything necessary to be done will overtax the resources at our disposal at the present time.

Can the Minister give any guarantee that the heifer that replaces the uneconomic cow will ultimately be anything better?

Not the slightest guarantee, except that, if the Deputy gets half-a-dozen from me and finds in 12 months' time they have fallen short, I will come back and try again. What more can I do?

The farmers are doing that all their lives.

What more can I do? If there is anything, will the Deputy tell me so that I can try it out. So far as I know, that is the best I can do, and if we multiply, as we are multiplying, the proven bull in insemination centres so that he will be available to a far larger number of cows than he would be if standing on an individual farm, I think we are progressing on the right line.

It may seem indelicate to dwell unduly on these technical matters, but if one finds a bull which begets heifers that show a bigger milk yield than their dam, there is some advantage in inseminating 1,500 cows per annum from that bull instead of allowing him naturally to inseminate 80. It is not a rapid process. It takes years to get the full results, but it is progress in the right direction. As Deputy Ó Briain knows, Kerry will be covered shortly with insemination centres. I hope that Limerick will, Tipperary, Cork, the Dublin milk supply area, Cavan, North Leitrim and East Sligo. It is not bad cracking for 12 months.

Great work.

I hope to see the whole country covered with that service in the course of the next three or four years. Now, definitely, I want to nail my flag to this mast. I will never ask the Government to guarantee a price for milk designed to secure a profit for the 300-gallon cows.

People have to take a chance on that; they do not know what they are buying.

I will stay with the people who consider it my duty to be with them continually, helping the individual farmer to weed out the lowyielding milch cow, not to his detriment or loss, because circumstances, temporarily, in any event, I believe, make it possible for us to dispose of healthy but inadequately milking cattle on the manufacturing beef market at prices which enable us to make a good stab at the replacing of cattle which will yield far better in time to come.

I have often warned farmers to walk warily in the matter of costings. I have repeatedly expressed in this House a profound reluctance to bind myself in anticipation in respect of farm costings. The fact is that costings were done at the request of a group of Cork farmers by one of the best authorities in this country on agricultural costings. He divided the year into two halves, the summer half from May to October and the winter half from October to May. No sane man can attempt to produce creamery milk for conversion into butter from October to May. From May to October, while you have the growing grass, is the period when you should make butter. October to May is the period when you should have it in the cold store and sell it out as the demand occurs.

The costings in that connection, dealing with the cow, the average yield of which, between May and October, was 260 gallons and from November to April, 258 gallons, giving an annual milk yield of 518 gallons, were reckoned at 8.36d. per gallon in 1947, gross. Note the word "gross", because in the cost account it was then requisite to deduct from the gross cost the yield that the farmer secured by selling the dropped calf, and the manure of the cow, which he used in the improvement of his land. In 1947, the average price of a dropped calf in February, March and April, when most calves are born, certainly in the category of dropped calves for sale, was £2 1s. 6d., £1 16s. 6d. and £1 17s. 9d. respectively. In the year 1950, for the same months, the same calves realised £6 5s. 6d., £6 4s. 0d. and £6 9s. 6d.

What are the three categories?

The three months, February, March and April, which are the three months in which ordinarily the dairy farmers' calves are born. Allow, according to the argument of the people who urge that a higher price for milk should be made available, that the cost of producing a gallon of milk has gone up materially—and I am taking the figures roughly. Allow that the costs have gone up from 8.10d. to 13d.; allow that they have gone up by 50 per cent. to 12d., and deduct the price of the calf, which Professor Murphy valued at £1 for the purpose of his costings. I think he deducted. 98d. for the calf and the manure. Allow 4½d. as being the value per gallon of the farmyard manure and the calf to-day, and add to that costing 1½d. per gallon for delivery to the creamery. I doubt if it would be easy to establish that the net cost of producing a gallon of milk to-day is substantially higher than it was three years ago.

Bear in mind that the grass has been materially improved and bear in mind that the land is considerably improved. I know that people will make references to the rates, but do not forget that three-fifths of the rates are remitted. That amount is paid through the agricultural grant and, therefore, if the rates go up by 1/- they only go up by 1/- on two-fifths of the farmer's valuation in so far as the agricultural land is concerned.

Now, I must confess to the Dáil that this is what irritates me. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, when he is defending the interests of trade and industry, will find on every side of the House those interested in trade and industry vigorously backing him up and he is never pressed to the point of making the case that trade and industry are charging too much or have too high a protection. On the contrary, all who are concerned with trade and industry of that character are up in arms to say, whatever Party they belong to, that at any rate they are glad to see what he is doing for them all. If there is a matter relating to social services, the Leader of the Labour Party is guaranteed not condemnation for failure but because he is not doing enough. Why is it that the Minister for Agriculture is pushed into a position by Deputies representing the agricultural industry in this House of making a case against the farmers? Why is it that Deputies representing farmers think it is good policy to gang up on the Minister for, Agriculture to press him to the point of making the case against the farmers? I think that is a deplorable and obscurantist attitude. The farmers of this country are not highly organised. Traditionally they have been passionately loyal to their respective political Parties. Time and again it has been sought to organise them on a vocational or occupational basis and time and again they have broken away. For that I have the greatest sympathy. That is the tradition they were reared in. They never put their pockets nor their own interests in front of their traditional loyalty to a political Party.

I remember, during the economic war, farmers in rural Ireland having their attention drawn to the fact that they were selling the cattle for half nothing and they said that if they had to sell them for half again they would vote for de Valera in the morning. That is a sentiment for which I have the profoundest sympathy. Why is it that that quality in our people is exploited by Deputies represented in this House to their detriment when the other organised vested interests in this country are prepared to desert leaders, country and everything else provided their pocket is not at issue and only the farmer is victimised when it comes to the last pinch and it is his own pocket or the political faith that he has publicly avowed? It is the leader to whom he pledges his loyalty who prevails in this case.

I would urge Deputies in this House, whatever their animadversions may be on the individual who may for the time being be Minister for Agriculture to try and emulate the example of those whom they are elected to represent in this House and lay aside their personal prejudice at least when the interests of the agricultural community are under discussion and, instead of literally forcing the Minister for Agriculture for the time being to argue the case against the farmer, to get round him and give him a hand to make the relative position of the farmers of this country equal or, perhaps, a little superior to other sections of the community all of which ultimately depend upon the farmers and on the land they live on for their living wherever they may happen to work.

Would that help to get the Minister locked up?

Deputy Killilea is a man of simple mind——

That is right.

——and that is good for me, I suppose, because I cannot pretend to be a person of equable temperament. No doubt I store up for myself wealth in Heaven where rust or the devouring moth cannot consume by my forbearance with Deputy Killilea.

Meantime, the Minister has distorted the costings figures against the farmer.

I hope my angelic virtue will stand the strain of Deputy Cogan. At least Deputy Killilea comes at the right side of the Shannon. Now, we come to wheat——

Is the Minister finished with milk?

Not if I can be of further service.

Does his announcement mean that the Minister is going to do nothing from the point of view of the price that is available at the present moment?

What about the scheme of the new lamps for old?

That will take some time.

If the farmers get what they are asking they will try to do all that themselves without help from the Minister.

I have an almost inexhaustible supply of soft answers in the hope of turning away wrath but that can run dry too.

I am not wrathful. I am very serious. The Minister said he would not meet a delegation from the Milk Suppliers' Association because they were "a Fianna Fáil ramp." That is completely untrue. The chairman is a man named Fletcher from County Cavan whom I do not know at all. The vice-chairman is, I believe, Colonel Liam Fraher, a one time Fine Gael candidate in Limerick.

A decent man but when I came into office the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was the organising authority of the co-operative movement. As Deputy Ó Briain well knows, attempts have been made repeatedly to oust the co-operative movement from the exclusive operation of the dairy industry. It has been the policy of Oireachtas Eireann to commit the dairy industry exclusively to the co-operative movement to supply creamery milk to a creamery for conversion into butter. You must be a member of the co-operative with a right to vote in the committee. The committee of the creameries send up representatives who control the I.A.O.S. and they operate the organisation here. If the chairman and secretary think it necessary to come and see me they are heartily welcome. If it is thought desirable that a delegation should come to see me arrangements will be made to meet them. I have not the slightest doubt that the new organisation to which the Deputy refers have in mind two things. one, to smash up and grab control itself and the other is to make a wider bid to get a lot of decent men who trade about their loyalties to the farming industry to join in an organisation which will be made to appear in public as bitterly antagonistic to the present Government. It is an interesting thing that although I know Deputies are as solicitous about the farmers and are anxious and more anxious than I am about the price of milk, there has been very little talk about the recent association from this side of the House.

I was asked to join and I would not.

Maybe the Deputy did not join it, but he wants the rest of mankind to join it.

Nobody from Fianna Fáil will get up and say: "Are you going to meet the creamery milk suppliers?" They are not a bit interested when I say I am going to meet the I.A.O.S. to-morrow morning and that we are going to have a full discussion. They say: "We don't care about that, are you going to meet the new association?" The answer is: "I am not; I would not be seen dead with them, I do not believe it is a genuine body concerned with the best interests of the creamery industry." I am going to meet the I.A.O.S., a deputation of their choosing. I shall meet them as often as they want me to meet them and I shall discuss any topic they want me to discuss with them because I believe they represent the real milk suppliers of the creameries of this country. When they cease to represent them, they will disappear and make way for some other body that will do their job and I shall meet them, but I am not going to meet a jumped-up body, the sources of which I know too blooming well, which wants to supplant a body that has done its work, so far as I know, conscientiously and well for the last 50 years. If Deputies on the far side want me to repudiate the chairman, secretary and the executive of the I.A.O.S., and throw them overboard in order to supplant them with the tulips who are stumping round the country collecting money to run their great publicity campaign, my answer is "no". If they do not like that, let them take their £30,000 and plaster it where they want. I am not a bit scared and their names will be forgotten very shortly after the £30,000 is gone. They would be a damn sight better employed raising £30,000 for doing useful work, instead of announcing their intention to run a publicity campaign calculated to supplant Fr. Coyne and Harry Kennedy with Fletcher and the rest of them.

Let me come now peacefully to wheat. My advice to every farmer in this country is to grow more of every cereal crop his land is capable of producing, to grow more of every other tillage crop from which he can get for himself, his wife and family, a good profit, always provided that he leaves his land a little better in the autumn than he found it in the spring. I solemnly warn every farmer in this country that every acre he is in a position to cultivate this year under cereal crops it is his solemn duty to cultivate. I now announce that if the farmers of this country are not prepared to do voluntarily better than compulsion can ever make them do, once they are fully seized with the gravity of the situation, I shall cheerfully get out of office and make way for somebody who will approach them with a whip to flog them into doing that which intelligent request failed to persuade them to do. If the farmers in this country have to be flogged into doing their work, as Fianna Fáil apparently thinks necessary, I am not fit to be Minister for Agriculture and I shall get out and make way for another man.

I think, however, the farmers of this country should be notified, as I most solemnly notify them now, that every acre of land they have, which is suitable for the production of tillage crops, should be most fully employed this year more than any other year, owing to the situation rapidly developing as a result of the concatenation of circumstances arising from the Korean war, the Indian famine and the bad prospects of the winter wheat crop on the American continent. All these circumstances combine to give one identical warning, and that is, that every acre of tillage land in this country should be used to the best possible advantage for the farmer who owns it. He is the judge. I can claim for myself the credit that I brought in 100,000 tons of superphosphate of lime in the course of the last three months, cheaper than any other "super" sold in Europe this year and added it to the total supply available from our domestic resources. The fertilisers are there, the seed is there. There were more tractors purchased in the last three months than the entire number of tractors in this country in the year 1939. There are more tractors in use to-day than ever there were in Ireland before and we are trying to get as many more as money will buy abroad. The means are there, the seed is there, the fertilisers are there, the land is there, the farmers are there and I tell them now the need is there. If that does not produce results next autumn, I will most willingly make way for a better man for my policy will have failed and the policy of coercion should begin. If that be necessary in Ireland I have misjudged the Irish farmer and I would be ashamed to be his servant. To be the servant of a free man is to be glorious but to be the servant of a whipped slave is a degradation which I would not wish to experience.

People are worried about what the supplementary sum is required for. It is really quite simple. We are paying the subsidy in respect of flour to the millers quarterly. In 1948, when we came into office we had to meet the charge that came in course of payment for the purchase of the now-famous Argentine wheat by Deputy Lemass, the night before he went out of office, in respect of which wheat he paid £50 a ton which was, at that time, about £20 a ton above the world price. God knows why he did it. I have never found out and I do not think anybody else has, but he did it and we had to foot the bill. The Minister for Finance announced in his Budget that he proposed to spread the cost of the flour wheat subsidy over five years and to pay an average sum in each of the five years, not directly related to the demand in any one given year or the liability of that year. In the course of the last three years, we met the full charge which came in course of payment for the 1948-49 period, which was £9,000,000, out of current revenue; but between 1948 and now, we fell one quarter behind, that is to say, we paid the subsidy in respect of the period up to 28th February only up to 1st January. All that this Supplementary Estimate means is that, in this financial year, circumstances are such that we can pay five quarters instead of four quarters of subsidy, thus catching up on the quarter we fell behind on in the past three years. That, in substance, is what the whole business means.

What hare Deputy Aiken was chasing, I do not know, but if Deputy Aiken wants to make headlines in the Irish Times and in his own kept newspaper, he ought to have some regard to the significance of the language he is using. If Deputy Aiken wants to get up here and talk nonsense about subsidising wheat for animal feeding, he ought to realise that he was for a long time a Minister of this State, and that, when people abroad read that he has made up his mind from a study of the accounts that we are subsidising wheat to be used as animal feeding, it evokes a query from certain international authorities, and it is extremely difficult to convince them that Deputy Aiken is talking through his hat, because they say that he was Minister for Finance and studied these accounts and should know.

There is not a scintilla of truth in the suggestion that we are subsidising wheat for animal feeding. The wheat feed at present being sold in this country is being sold for its full value and, as we draw low-grade wheat from our accumulated stocks, we buy replacements. There are three cargoes of Manitoba No. 5 at present approaching this country. Nobody but a lunatic would sit on top of considerable accumulated stores of wheat of suitable quality for use in wheat feed and wait till the three cargoes of Manitoba No. 5 reached him from Vancouver, when, by a simple process of exchange, he could maintain continuity of supply.

May I remind the House that last September the welkin was made to ring in this House about the prospect of all the live stock of the country lying down and dying of starvation because there would be no feeding stuffs? Deputy Cogan was clapping his hands and saying that the cattle were being brought out and sold for half nothing, while other Deputies were telling me that you could not sell them at all, that people would not take a present of them for fear they would eat them out of house and home. The very self-same Deputies are now up clapping their hands, crying panic and saying that the mills are all packed with feeding stuffs they cannot sell.

Is there any shame in some people? There is none. The number of seedy politicians in this country who survive on their confidence in the shortness of public memory is always a source of admiring amazement to me. They can sing that black is white most melodiously in October and then get up and curse us solemnly, with bell, book and candle, for suggesting that black is not black the following March and shroud themselves in a mantle of outraged virtue because you find fault with them for being the hypocritical frauds you know them to be. I am a long time on the road now and I ought not to worry about that kind of thing—it is just that I feel amazed. It is like going up to look at the red-bottomed orang-outang, or whatever you call it, in the zoo. It does not matter how often you go up there, you are astonished by the blueness of its countenance and the redness of its posterior. I cannot remember exactly the name of the beast, but for years I never went to the zoo without going in to see whether its countenance could be as blue as I remembered it and its other end as red as it is. There are politicians in this country who fill me with a sentiment for which awe is not too strong a word by the courage they have—and they are right, because, if their faces are brazen enough and their hides tough enough, you can quote them from the printed word and it does not knock a feather out of them. They shake their heads and say: "Oh, nobody will read it".

I would rebuke myself if I failed to reply to the only decent reasonable intervention in this debate made from the Fianna Fáil Benches. Deputy Major de Valera had representations made to him and he raised them in a decent, civil way and asked for an explanation. I should be lacking in duty and in courtesy if I did not try to answer him in the same spirit. He gathered that a certain group of traders known as wholesalers had been ruthlessly deprived of certain trading profits to which they were normally entitled. I should like the Deputy to know what the facts are. In these trades—the milling trade and other monopolies and quasi-monopolies—a practice grew up at the time when the monopoly crystallised of a number of individuals enjoying certain privileges. Their identity is determined, and, as from the date of monopoly, everything becomes rigid, and it just so happened that there were, I think, 261 persons who managed to persuade the mills with which they deal to allow a wholesale discount of 10/- per ton on flour and offals, or flour or offals. In any case, there was this list of persons who enjoyed what they were pleased to describe as a wholesale discount of 10/- per ton. As from 1939, the door slammed. There were no additions to and no subtractions from that list. Membership of that list became a valuable asset and you would nearly dower your daughter with the right to be known as a member of that list. It was worth 10/- per ton on every ton of cereal products you handled.

Comes 1950, and I inquire why there are 261 people with this privilege and I am told: "That is the list we got when controls came into force". "Is there anybody else trading in these commodities on lines similar to these gentlemen?" I asked, and was told: "Oh, yes, plenty, but they are not on the list". I asked if this constituted the sole occupation of these gentlemen and was told: "No; they are all trading in a variety of things and they happen to be what are called flour wholesalers". Here is the evil of the system.

If you once acknowledge, in building up the price of a controlled commodity, that there is the cost of production, plus the wholesalers' allowance, plus the wholesalers' retailers' allowance, plus the retailers' allowance, plus the retailers' profit, you build up a price structure about five feet high. But when you go to one of the stages and ask: "What is this wholesalers' allowance?" you are told: "It is 10/- and they always got it." When you ask what they do for it you are told: "Nothing"—what heaps of other people do, nothing. Why did they get it? They managed to wangle it and they were there in 1939 and we have not changed anything since then. Some people think it is a terrible hardship on them but I do not think they should wangle it any more because, in order to accommodate them, you have got to put 10/- into the price structure which would not be there if they did not get it. So, I said, simply, close the melodeon; take out the 10/-, and let them work for the same margin of profit as all the other people who do the same thing work for. I was a shopkeeper all my life. I was as anxious to get discount as my neighbour. I was as anxious to get in on any softness or advantage that could be got. If I wangled something, I would feel grievously aggrieved to see the wangle fold up on me, but I did not go forth to protest that divine justice had been violated. I simply shrugged my shoulders and said that it was grand while we had it but now that we have not got it, we will have to do without it.

If Deputy de Valera investigates this matter, he will find that a group of perfectly respectable citizens had managed to get themselves weighed in with the flour and wheat offal costings to the tune of 10/- a ton; that we took out that; that we closed the melodeon that much, with the result that the instrument's notes got that much sweeter for the consumer and, I suppose, that much less euphonious to the 261 gentlemen who heretofore have been known as flour wholesalers.

That is the story, as I know it. I can imagine all sorts of disturbed public servants, with their heart missing three beats at my general description of the general circumstances surrounding that situation, saying: "He has left out some vital aspect of this problem." All I can say to Deputy de Valera, in that event, is that any time, without exposing himself to the embarrassment of calling personally upon his humble servant, the Minister, my Department is open and available to him. Here is Deputy de Valera now. If, on perusing the explanation that I have been trying to provide him with in reply to his polite and gracious inquiry made during this debate, he finds that I have not covered the points fully, I will be most grateful to him if he would get in touch with the flour and cereals section of my Department directly for any further information he requires. I venture to prophesy that, when fully seized of the facts, his judgment in this matter will approximate more closely to mine than it has done heretofore. If at any time he would wish to discuss the merits of the matter with me, in the light of that information, I shall be most happy to do so. I am only trying to do what is fair, just and reasonable but, if it is carried home to me that I have done anything wrong, I will be most happy to put it right.

In connection with the wholesalers profits, would the Minister answer a question?

If it is relevant.

It is relevant, I think.

Certainly.

The position is, I think, that these wholesalers are buying at something like £29 a ton. That was subject to a margin of 10/- per ton to the wholesaler, as far as I know. The small shopkeeper who dealt with the wholesaler may be placed in the position that he cannot procure supplies as the wholesaler may not stock this stuff. If that situation arises, will it not be difficult for the small shopkeeper?

I do not think it will arise because provision has been made that the price fixed for the offal is accessible to everybody—farmers, co-operatives, shopkeepers, and everybody else, on the basis of absolute equality, ex-mill.

The small shopkeeper who buys from this wholesaler may be placed in the position that the wholesaler will refuse to stock these offals. Where will he get supplies then?

The mill.

We would like to hear the conversation over here.

At the mill.

He will not get it direct from the Dublin mills.

If any shopkeeper fails to secure supplies, I will be grateful if the Deputy will inform me of it. I had a remarkable experience of having a man coming to me this morning saying that he could get only one ton of white pollard from a named mill. On my desk in front of me was a letter from that named mill saying that pollard was now flowing out of the mill, that they had no place to put pollard and where would I dispose of it for them. I was very happy to introduce the querist and the miller and to leave them to fight it out between themselves. I will be very happy to perform a similar function for any small shopkeeper who experiences the possible embarrassment envisaged by Deputy Beirne.

I would like to discuss it further with you.

I shall be very happy to do so.

Before the Minister leaves that point, will he say if the cost of feeding stuffs to the consumer will be reduced by the 10/- that is cut out?

I think the proposal was that the cost of the material would have had to be reduced by 10/- or, if I wanted to provide the 10/-, I would either have had to provide the money from the public purse to do it or pass it on to the consumer.

If the 10/- is cut out, will the feeding stuffs not fall by 10/- a ton?

No; it will avoid the necessity of increasing it.

Who will get the 10/-? Will the retailer get it?

What happens is, instead of charging the wholesalers, soi disant, £28 10s. Od., they will be charged £29, the same as everybody else. If that were not done, and the 10/- had to be made available to these wholesale accounts, it would have resulted in a corresponding diminution in the return to Grain Importers, Limited, which would have finally found its way back to the wheat subsidy account. What we tried to do with Grain Importers, Limited, is, over a period, to make them trade on a line ball. Sometimes they will be in deficit, and then they will go trading on a surplus until the deficit is extinguished. Then they will often trade on a line ball and may run into a surplus, when they will reduce prices, perhaps, lower than current market rates, to restore equilibrium. It is impossible, as the Deputy will readily understand, to keep following prices from day to day and I think it is undesirable. It is better over a month or two months to keep a flat price and, if you come out too high at the end of that period, to fix the price for the next two months a bit too low, or vice-versa.

The farmer need not expect a reduction of 10/- a ton?

No. The price of feeding stuffs now is so high that, though they may go higher, I cannot conceive of their going much higher.

I do not know that I am in a position to add any more on this Supplementary Estimate. I hope the House will excuse my inadequacy, if inadequacy there be, bearing in mind that the main Estimate for the Department of Agriculture will be before the House within the course of the next couple of months, when Deputies can talk till the cows come home and raise any subject they like. Before I conclude I would like to say a special word to Deputy Cowan and Deputy Beirne. I am not in a position to command either one or the other of them in any matter. As Deputy Cowan says, he not infrequently finds himself at serious variance with me. Sometimes I imagine that Deputy Beirne looks upon me with a disillusioned eye. Nevertheless, to both of them I want to express my profound appreciation that they thought it proper to take the trouble to give expression to the gracious sentiments they did express. In public life one so often finds one's critics invariably vocal, while those who approve, silently approve.

It is well deserved.

There is one question that I want to put to the Minister, by way of personal explanation. I raised the question of the milling of Irish wheat into feeding stuffs because the Minister, within the last two weeks, announced it in the Dáil, and I maintain that this Estimate is in fact being devoted, not to the subsidisation of human food, but to the subsidisation of animal food.

I assure the Deputy there is no element of subsidy in this Estimate for the grinding of wheat into wheat feed. I cannot do more than assure the Deputy of that. There is not, really.

I was a little puzzled at Deputy Smith being shouldered out of this debate by Deputy Lemass, and I thought it was a matter of substance that was troubling Deputy Aiken. I can assure him that there is no intention now, or at any future date, of subsidising wheat for grinding into wheat feed. There may be this element in it perhaps. We had incorporated into white pollard the pollard and bran which come off the flour milled for human consumption. That pollard and bran were arbitrarily valued, for the purposes of costings, at, I think, £11 10s. or £12 10s. a ton. In so far as they are incorporated into what we call a white pollard mixture, ground wheat and pollard, they are charged at £11 10s. or whatever the price was at which they used to be sold. In so far as that is an element of subsidy it is there, but it is nothing in addition to what was already there. If the pollard and bran were not put in the white pollard, they would be sold at £11 10s. As a result of putting them in the white pollard, it is possible to sell the white pollard without control, whereas, in respect of the ordinary pollard or bran, there never was enough to provide everyone with their needs. Only a small minority of farmers had access to it.

Motion put and declared lost.
Main Vote put and agreed to.
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