Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Apr 1951

Vol. 125 No. 10

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

Debate resumed on the motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy Smith.)

Má tá Gaeilge agat labhair í.

B'fhéidir, nárbh aon díobháil tosnú le roinnt Ghaeilge. Is maith liom é sin a dhéanamh i gcónaí chun dea-shampla a thabhairt do mhuintir na Dála seo. Is é bhí beartaithe agam aréir ná cuid de na rudaí a bhí agam a chur os comhair an Aire as Gaeilge. Ní chun locht d'fháil ar an Aire ná ar an Roinn Talmhaíochta ar fad a sheasaím anseo ach chun rudaí áirithe a phlé leis— rudaí go mór mór a bhaineann leis an dáil-cheantar go bhfuilim freagarthach dó. Bhíos ag cur síos ar an slí. inar chaill cuid des na feirmeoirí amuigh fán dtuaith a gcuid stoic de dheasca na droch-aimsire agus de dheasca easba bídh agus, go deimhin, is ceist í sin gur cheart don Aire agus don Roinn cuimhneamh uirthi. Ní dóigh liom gur thuig an tAire aréir chomh dona agus atá, an scéal. Ní abraim go bhfuil sé chomh dona san nach féidir leigheas d'fháil air ach chur chuige ach na feirmeoirí beaga ná fuil ach timpeall a cúig nó a sé, nó suas go dtí deich gcinn, de bhuaibh acu agus go bhfuil cuid acu caillte agus nach féidir leo fóirithint orthu féin, níor, mhór rud éigin a dhéanamh dóibh.

Having regard to the fact that the Minister is not satisfied with my remarks in Irish——

Tá mé lán-tsásta.

An Maor de Valéra

Ar phointe orduithe, bhí an Teachta Ó hUigínn ag cur isteach ar an díospóireacht aréir á rá nach raibh a sháith daoine sa Teach. Iarraim anois go ndéanfar a bhfuil de dhaoine sa Teach a chomhaireamh.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

When I moved to report progress last night, I was dealing with a few things concerning the office of the Minister for Agriculture. I was trying to impress upon the Minister the seriousness of the position in certain parts of the country by reason of the fact that there has been a certain degree of mortality in cattle especially in the poor areas where the farmers——

On a point of order, Deputy Kissane said this in English last night and he said it in Irish at 6 o'clock this evening. How often is he going to repeat himself?

According to the daily paper, the Deputy did discuss the mortality of cattle in Kerry.

I did refer to it last night, but, unfortunately, during the course of my remarks, there were so many interruptions from the opposite side that I found it difficult to put my point of view before the Minister. I now seek to do that in as brief a discourse as I can. The Minister seems to cast a doubt on what I said. He also doubted the accuracy of Deputy Moran's statement in the House as regards this mortality in cattle. I have seen the Press report in to-day's papers and I would like to correct what I have seen. The report stated that I said in the House that cattle were dying by the hundreds. I made no such statement. I said that cattle were dying here and there. I say now that it is incumbent on the Minister to make inquiries through his departmental inspectors to find out for himself and satisfy himself as to what the position really is. I consider that in the case of small farmers, who have only, say, six, eight or ten milch cows and have lost two or three of them or maybe more and, perhaps, some young cattle, it would be very difficult for them to replace their herds without getting some financial assistance from the Minister and his Department. The way in which the Minister will come to their aid is a matter for himself and the Department to decide.

I suggested to him, and other Deputies have also suggested, that some action similar to that taken by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1947 might be taken and loans made available free of interest to these farmers to enable them to replace their herds.

Every bit of this was said ad nauseam last night.

It is all very well for the Minister to say that cattle need not be allowed to die for the sake of 30/-, which is the price of 1 cwt. of maize, but where several cattle have died and where the others have to be fed over a period, it is a serious matter. I also said last night that the farmers in my part of the country had been finding it very difficult to procure anything like sufficient hay for their cattle.

Is the Deputy not repeating it on his own admission now?

I was reported in the Press as saying that there had been something like a near stampede at the fairs. I did not say "at the fairs"; I said at the markets, because hay is not sold at the fairs in my part of the country.

I touched on the subject of the price of milk last night, but I submit I did not discuss it at any great lenath. I suggested, as I suggest now, that the Minister, in his handling of the Milk Suppliers' Association, did not behave in the proper manner and that his branding of the Milk Suppliers' Association as political racketeers was nothing but a smokescreen—that is the word I used—behind which to hide so that he would not have to increase the price of milk to farmers who deliver milk to creameries. I also pointed out that those Deputies who had spoken of an increase of ld. per gallon in the price of milk were in error.

Is the Deputy on his own admission not repeating what he said last night?

There is one point in connection with it which I want to mention and which I did not mention last night. In my opinion the increase of 2d. per lb. which the Minister has put on the price of butter, plus the amount he is raking in in respect of butter sold off the ration would more than finance an increase of 2d. per gallon in the price of milk. Therefore, from this whole transaction, the Minister and the Government are actualty making a profit, and it is very hard to understand why they should have recourse to this juggling system when we consider the amount of money they are spending in other ways. They are spending at present roughly £2,000,000 per week, and it is extraordinars that, out of that sum, they could not find money to increase the price of milk in any other way than the imposition of 2d. per lb. on the price of butter. This impost, as I have said, will cause hardship to many people throughout the country. Even as the position was before the price was raised, many householders with large families found it difficult to provide butter for their families, not to speak of putting an additional impost of 2d. on the price. However, I do not intend to travel back again on that road.

One matter which has been mentioned in the House before is the average yield of wheat per acre. The Minister in his opening statement tried to impress upon us that we were getting a greater average yield per acre now from a lesser acreage than we were getting in other years from a greater acreage, but the Minister was careful to select the zero year of the Fianna Fáil régime, 1947. That year is always chosen by Ministers of this Government when referring to this matter.

1934, 1935 and 1936.

I have the figures here and I will give them to the Deputy.

What about the calves at that time?

We might get greater speed if there were no interruptions.

I remember, when the Vote on Account was under discussion, the Minister for Finance, in replying to the debate, mentioned this question of wheat yield and he, too, was very careful to select 1947 as the year for comparison. I notice also that Deputy O'Higgins mentioned the same year here last evening. I consider that of no use whatever. In fact, it is worse. It is, in my opinion, dishonest to select one year like that—one abnormal year. —as a basis for comparison.

Would the Deputy agree that this was an abnormal year?

Would it not better to get the figures for the various years? I hope to be able to satisfy Deputy Collins with the figures. I remember that when I asked the Minister for Finance, on the occasion of his winding up the debate on the Vote on Account, to give us the figures for, say, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945—no—he said he had not the figures by him. He did not want to have them, of course. He did not want to get them. But he got the figures for 1947. It would be much better, in my opinion, to find out what the yield was over a number of years, and here are the figures.

Might I interrupt the Deputy to ask a question? Is he now about to give the estimated yields or is he going to give the actual deliveries of wheat to the mills in these years?

I am going to give the average yield.

Estimated yield.

The average yield, as given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach.

The estimated yields are of no value at all. I can give the Deputy the figures for the deliveries to the mills, if he wants them.

I think it was Deputy Cogan who asked a question in this House in regard to this matter on the 14th March last. He asked for the average yield per acre of wheat for each year since 1933.

Delivered to the mills?

Major de Valera

These are the estimated yields.

The answer which Deputy Cogan received from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach is as follows:—

Year

Cwt.

1933

21.0

1934

21.7

1935

21.9

1936

16.5

1937

17.0

1938

17.2

1939

20.0

1940

20.5

1941

18.8

1942

17.8

1943

17.1

1944

17.0

1945

17.3

1946

14.4

1947

10.8

1948

15.8

1949

19.9

1950

17.9

The reference is column 1841 of the Official Report of Wednesday, 14th March, 1951. These are official figures. I think we are bound to accept them.

As against the figures quoted by the Deputy—which represent the estimated yield of wheat—I should like to quote the figures which I have before me and which represent cwt. of wheat per acre delivered. They are as follows:—

Year

Cwt. per acre delivered

1933/34

6.50

1934/35

11.07

1935/36

14.87

1936/37

12.15

1937/38

11.79

1938/39

13.69

1939/40

14.83

1940/41

12.61

1941/42

9.55

1942/43

9.64

1943/44

10.11

1944/45

9.54

1945/46

10.70

1946/47

9.82

1947/48

6.31

1948/49

12.30

1949/50

16.74

1950/51

13.72

On a point of personal explanation. I asked that question With a view to ascertaining accurately the yield per acre over the entire period in question. I received the reply from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach. I assumed that the figures which were supplied were the correct figures of the yield per acre. Does the Minister now contend that the figures which were supplied to me in answer to the question which I asked are incorrect?

This is an easily understandable misapprehension on the part of the Deputy. He was not accustomed to statistics. Every year there is made, by a variety of agricultural instructors, and so forth, an estimate of the yield per acre of given crops. But, side by side with that, we receive the actual intake of native wheat into the mills That latter figure is a figure which is mathematically precise because we know to the bushel how much native wheat is taken in. If we divide that figure by the total acreage, we get the quantity of wheat per acre delivered to the mill. The other figure—the estimated yield—is, as the Deputy knows, largely dependent un the optimistic outlook of a farmer who does not like to admit that the yield of his crop has been relatively poor. I ask each farmer: "What did your wheat thresh out at?" but the only test is what quantity of wheat reached the mill in respect of the total acreage of wheat grown in the country .

In order to clear up this matter, might I point out that the amount of wheat delivered to the mills is not a true estimate of yield because particularly during the emergency years——

I am not saying that at all.

——when bread and flour were very scarce, considerable amounts of wheat were used——

On a point of order. Is it in order for a Deputy at this stage —a Deputy who has already spoken— to intervene and to make another speech?

We are trying to clear up a point.

The Minister and the two Deputies were endeavouring to clear up the point.

They have made confusion worse confounded.

Major de Valera

Deputy Collins is not correct. The figures given by the Minister tally with figures which were given on the 7th March. I have just done a check of these figures and they are consistent. It is just a matter of different interpretation.

It has always been said that statistics can be made to prove anything. In an endeavour to get precise information as to the average yield per acre of wheat for each year since 1933. Deputy Cogan put down this question to the Taoiseach and the Parliamentary Secretary gave the reply. Therefore, I am entitled to put these figures before the House in order to show that what this Minister and the Minister for Finance and certain other Deputies on the Government Benches have been trying to impress upon us is not altogether correct— namely, that the yield per acre from wheat now is much greater than it was during the years when the Fianna Fáil Government were in office.

The intake to the mills is.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to reconsider the question of the price of milk delivered to the creameries. I think he has not treated the people who are engaged in that industry with the respect and the courtesy to which they are entitled.

Once again, it is a matter of regret to me that in approaching the Estimate for this Department the same Party spirit that has always animated the discussion is manifested on this occasion. I think it is a pity that, in considering an Estimate of this size, the matter could not be approached objectively—without the contending Parties on either side of the House endeavonring to score points, one against the other. This is an Estimate for, roughly, £14,000,000. Even though there is a reduction of about £1,000,000 compared with last year for this Department, the matter certainly gives grounds for serious consideration rather than for the scoring of points against one another. In approaching it from that angle, the first question that occurs to my mind is: why is it necessary to spoon-feed the agricultural industry to the extent of £14,000,000 per annum? We hear until it becomes disgusting from every Deputy in the House and from every spokesman outside it that agriculture is our main industry. If it is, why is it necessary to spoonfeed it? If it is necessary to aid it from State funds to the extent of £14,000,000, it must be a tottering industry. If it is, what is the cause? There is an Estimate for £7,000,000 for bread and flour subsidies; can that honestly be charged as an aid to agriculture? There is a further Estimate of, I think, £3,025,000 for dairy produce subsidies although the Minister has admitted in reply to a parliamentary question that it is not a subsidy to the producer of agricultural produce but to the consumer. Why do those two figures amounting to over £10,000,000 appear in the Estimate of the Department of Agriculture? Is that proper accounting? Is it not a misrepresentation of the agricultural industry to put down £14,000,000 as a subsidy to it while it includes two amounts totalling over £10,000,000 which have absolutely no relation to aid to agriculture but are aids to the consumer of agricultural produce? Even if those two figures are deducted, there still remains a considerable amount of money and one is entitled to ask why agriculture needs it.

The only way we can approach the problem is by endeavouring to get down to bedrock. We cannot discuss agriculture by itself but can only discuss it in relation to other things which either weigh upon it or aid it. To get a full picture of the position of agriculture in relation to State economy one has to go back a long way. The State first began to interfere in the lives of people during and subsequent to the 1914-18 war. The State began then to regulate the national income and the personal income of its citizens. I do not know when the cost-of-living index, the agricultural prices index and so on were adopted, but I know that the basis taken was pre-1914. To get a correct picture of the relationships of those figures I put a parliamentary question to the Taoiseach on the 29th November, 1950 (Volume 123, No. 9, column 1376-7). The question was:—

"To ask the Taoiseach if he will state what would have been the present index figure for the cost of living, cost of clothing and agricultural prices from their original base of 1914=100, if the present basic periods had not been introduced."

Deputy Cosgrave replied:—

"In mid-August, 1950, the cost-of-living index (all items) is estimated to have been 319 and the index for the clothing group to have been 488 to the original base, July, 1914 =100. The original base in the case of agricultural prices was 1911-12 =100, and to this base the index in September, 1950, is estimated at 288."

If the price of clothing represents even approximately the price of all manufactured articles at mid-August last, why is there such a difference in the increase in it and in the price of agricultural produce? Unfortunately, I could not get figures showing the relative increase in the cost of manufacturad articles. I put a question to the Taoiseach on the matter and was told that there were no specific figures which could be used as a basis of comparison between pre-1914 and mid-August last for manufactured articles. However, from personal experience I think that the price of clothing is a fair indication of the rise in the cost of manufactured articles from their original basis. If that is so one can see at a glance why agriculture has to be aided from State funds at the moment. In further proof of this the volume of agricultural output in 1949 was only about the same as pre-1939 while the volume of industrial output had increased by 43 per cent. Furthermore, while the numbers in the agricultural industry were dwindling in 1949, the Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that 22,000 more persons were employed in industry than had been the year before. What is the cause of that? Why has agriculture not progressed as well as industry? Why, when submitted to the one test of the efficiency of any industry, that is its employment of human beings, does agriculture continue to employ less and less while industry employs more and more?

May I ask the Deputy if he considers it would be more efficient to build a pyramid with 10,000 Egyptian slaves or with four cranes and 20 men?

My education hardly goes over such a wide range as that of the Minister.

Oh, the Deputy is not such an innocent man.

I am concerned with agricultural industry in relation to the economy of the State.

Its efficiency.

Is it suggested that less people on the land would mean more efficiency?

That is an equally idiotic conclusion to arrive at.

To illustrate my point as to the inequality of the increased income of those engaged in agriculture in comparison with other groups, let me quote portion of the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, as he then was, on the Estimate for his Department last year. It is to be found in Volume 121, No. 10, columns 1450 to 1451 of the Official Report of 7th June, 1950:—

"...this country is to-day enjoying the greatest and widest measure of protection for its industries than was ever afforded to them in the past. I have given protection in greater measure to some industries that already had it. I have given new protection to other industries. I have reduced quotas. In some cases I have guaranteed almost the entire market to some of our principal industries, for example, the footwear industry. I reduced that quota from 1,250,000 pairs to 40,000 pairs.

I want to assert here—and again it will be accepted by Deputies if they are going to be honest, and there is no use in beating about the bush and in trying to deceive ourselves, much less the people—that in most cases, I do not say all cases, the increasing of protection leads to some extent, to a great extent or to a small extent, to an increase in the cost of the protected article. There is no question about it. I am making no apology for it."

I submit there is an explanation of the need for aids to agriculture. The industries of the country, in an effort to build them up, have over the past 25 or 28 years got protection through tariffs against imports, and even quotas, so that the native products could command the price that they would not otherwise command if they had to face international competition. I do not complain of that. It might appear from that, that I am opposed to the development of native industries. That is not the case. I have always been a supporter of the products of native industry, and in pursuance of that I issue a challenge to the Minister or to any other interested person to come down to my farm and see if he can find anything there that is not the output of an Irish factory. It is the same with personal apparel. In so far as I can secure it, the same applies. I have in that way given practical evidence of my support of native industry.

The point I complain about—and it is borne out by a comparison of the figures relating to the increase in manufactured articles and the increase in agricultural prices, since the original cost of living figures and agricultural index figures were introduced— is the position that has directly resulted, whereby the manufacturing industries have fleeced and have, in effect, become parasites on, the agricultural industry. The agricultural industry, by reason of the fact that it produces largely for export, must go out on the export market and face international competition. In some instances, the farmers have had to face very heavy penal tariffs, so that no matter what it costs to produce the article, there was no control of the price. The agricultural producers could not assert that it cost them a particular amount to produce the article, because then the individual would refuse to buy unless he got the article at least at as cheap a rate as what he could buy it for in any other country, with the result that the farming community suffer in that respect. Having to buy the manufactured articles for the home and the farm in a market that, according to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, never enjoyed such a measure of protection as it does at the present time, the farmer has to pay artificially high prices for his requirements, whilst at the same time he has to go out with his produce on the foreign market and sell it at a price that bears no relation to the cost of production.

We will be told, of course, that there is no obligation on the farmer to produce for export and that he could cut down his production. Unfortunately, the farmer cannot suddenly change his economy. Furthermore, by appeals and inducements, he has been encouraged to produce for export, so as to provide funds for the nation to pay for necessary imports, even though those necessary imports might not be very much used in the agricultural industry. He was encouraged in that direction, largely by people who had no interest in agriculture beyond the fact that, being in a sheltered position themselves, they were glad to see somebody producing for the export market in order to get the funds necessary to buy other things.

There was another point, that when the farmer was encouraged to produce large quantities for export and sell that produce at a very poor price, the home consumer then benefited, because he got the farm produce at the low price at which it had to be exported. There was no protection for the farmer. To give a case in point, as a result of the increased production of eggs, the nonproducers, as I said on another occasion, with their tongue in their cheek, are eating the twopenny egg, whereas they paid 3d. for an egg two years ago. I can well understand why they cry out for increased agricultural production. It is a great benefit to them.

On the other hand, if the export market in any respect is a benefit to the farmer, immediately, at the request of consumers and industrialists, the clamp is put down on the export of agricultural produce. Take the case of bacon pigs, cattle hides and sheep pelts. If the farmer were allowed to avail of the export market for bacon pigs, he could probably get 30 or 40 per cent. more than he is allowed to get on the home market. He is pinned down to a price because the Minister for Industry and Commerce has declared that bacon must be sold at the price fixed in the price freeze Order of December last. The first effect of that was that the farmer who had not his pigs ready to sell in that week got 25/- a cwt. less for them in the next week. He was not fortunate enough to sell before the Minister for Industry and Commerce made that Order. Even at the moment if farmers were allowed to export their pigs across the Border they could probably get £14 and upwards, whereas now they are getting around £10 10s. or £11 a cwt.

£12 10s. in the market to-day. That is in the evening papers.

I know it was £12 10s. before the price freeze Order was re-established. These are the matters that weigh heavily on the agricultural industry. These are the matters that bring about the condition that we have a dwindling population and a rush into industry, professions and business, particularly business in the City of Dublin, which has now become what might be called a monster in the body politic. The fact that Dublin now contains nearly one-fourth of the population must be regarded as an unhealthy state of affairs and that situation has been brought about by the flight from the land. Very few people have come into the country from outside, so that it must be the result of poor conditions and the poor income of those on the land that there is such a rush into the city, until it has become, a monster in the body politic. On the farm, if you had an ass that had a head a quarter of the size of the whole animal it would be regarded as a monster. A city that contains one-quarter of the population of the country must be regarded as a monster.

Why does the Deputy say it is a quarter? It is nothing like a quarter.

I submit that it is a monster in the body politic.

It is nothing like a quarter.

The Deputy knows that.

It is half a million out of three million, that is a sixth.

Perhaps the Minister would allow me to proceed. I want my suggestions to be helpful and, if I fail, it will not be for want of trying. We are at a disadvantage in the time at which this Estimate is taken this year in relation to other years. It is about two months earlier. Usually the Estimate is taken in June or July. This year it is being taken in April.

At the present rate of progress, it will most probably be July before it is finished.

We are at a disadvantage. In introducing his Estimate in the last two years the Minister made the point that the best test of a policy was results, the best argument facts. In pursuance of that idea, he quoted figures showing the increased production of live stock—cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, and so on, and byproducts, not only for the preceding year but for the early months of the year then under review. Speaking from memory, I think last year he gave figures showing the increased milk and butter production up to the end of May and the increased export of eggs up to the beginning of June, and increases in other commodities. It is significant that there is no mention of production in the early months of the present year. That is not possible, as we have not yet reached the month of May. If the Estimate were taken at the same time as it was taken in other years, we could have had comparative figures.

The Minister tried to put over in other years that increased exports, increased production, and so on, tended to show that the farmer was very prosperous. Why should the farmer increase production if it was not paying him well? He said it was difficult to argue against that. If we accept that as a criterion, how can we explain the present serious drop in production, particularly during the months from November up to the present? Even at the risk of being called a pessimist, as I have been often called in this House, I say the worst is not yet. The months of May and early June will be a still greater testing time.

By way of parliamentary question, I have elicited the fact that butter production, since 1st November, has declined by roughly 28 per cent. compared with production in the same months last year. When April and May come along I fear the position will be very much worse. As a matter of fact, I understand that milk supplies to the creameries at the moment are only about 60 per cent. of what they were at this date last year, and probably the month of May will show an even greater discrepancy.

The number of pigs reaching the factories, also, is down by about one-third, although the number of bacon pigs exported during 1950 was not very considerable. According to a reply I got to a parliamentary question, I think it was only about 850, which would not materially affect the number of pigs going into the factories. I am quite prepared to admit that there was a considerable export of store pigs. I have not the figures, of course. Nevertheless, even taking into account the export of live pigs, it would not cover or nearly cover the reduction in the number of pigs reaching the bacon factories since 1st January compared with the figures for last year.

In the case of eggs, the Minister has told us that exports are down by 60 per cent. in the first three months of this year, in comparison with the first three months of last year. To continue still further on the export of eggs and their value, from a reply to a parliamentary question which I received yesterday, I find that the number of great hundreds of eggs exported in the months of January and February of the present year was 121,764 to a total value of £186,668; in 1950, for the same two months, the number of great hundreds exported was 300,292 to the value of £460,451; in 1949, the export in the same two months amounted to 431,150 great hundreds valued at £711,405, while the same months in 1948 were little better than the present year, the exports being 161,103 great hundreds valued at £275,397. Taking even these two months in 1948, we received almost double as much money for the eggs we exported as we did in the same two months of the present year, while in 1949 we received, roughly, about four times as much money for our exports. Are these drops in production and exports evidence that agriculture is going backwards? If they are not, were the increased figures in the years gone by evidence of the very prosperous times the farming community was enjoying? I submit, Sir, that neither conclusion is correct. The position is that agriculture has been, is now and ever shall be, influenced largely by conditions outside its own control.

If we make comparisons showing the increased production from the year 1947, when the land of Ireland was exhausted to such an extent that the Minister described it in 1948 as being able only to grow féar gorta grass, if we take that as the standard year to point to the great prosperity of the farming community and come back so soon, only four years later, to find a very serious drop in production and exports, I suggest it is no indication at all of conditions in the industry. To my mind the human element is the acid test of the prosperity in any industry. If agriculture is as prosperous and has been as prosperous as we were led to believe, if we are told that the farmers were never so well off as they are at present, why are not more people employed on the land, rather than flying away from it? Why in some instances is it difficult for the farmer to get even the heir-apparent to remain on the farm? I can bring the Minister, or anyone else, to a farmer who last summer told me he had reared a family of seven. He was then getting on in the sixties and he could not get one of the family to remain on the farm. He offered to assign the farm to one son in particular and the son said: “No. I can earn at least £6 a week, although I have never served my time to a trade, building houses for the urban council in Cavan. How Could your farm provide me with an income like that?” There is much less relative prosperity in agriculture in comparison with the protected industries. There I submit is the acid test. The child obviously is wiser than its father or mother. Youth cannot be induced to remain on the land while they have such a good income in sheltered positions, covered by all sorts of insurances and protection in the protected industries. So that in considering agriculture we must consider it only in relation to its position in the national economy.

I overlooked, in dealing with the question of exports of eggs, to mention a reply I got to another parliamentary question yesterday. The question was addressed to the Minister for Agriculture, and it was to this effect: "If he will state the total number of day-old chicks supplied by hatcheries to poultry keepers for the hatching seasons 1948-49, 1949-50, and for the 1950-51 season up to the latest date for which figures are available." Here, again, I suffer from a disadvantage because of the taking of the Estimate for Agriculture in the month of April instead of in the months of June and July as in years gone by, as we cannot get figures for the complete turn-out of day-old chicks from hatcheries until the end of the season, which in other years was 31st May. We had them every other year in time for the debate on the Estimate for Agriculture.

This year they will be given to the end of July.

However, in the reply I got the particulars requested were as follows: "1948-49 season—1st December, 1948, to 31st May, 1949, the total number of day-old chicks supplied by hatcheries was 3,830,000; 1949-50 season—1st November, 1949, to 31st May, 1950, 3,590,000; 1950-51 season (part)—1st November, 1950, to 31st March, 1951, 1,570,000." In spite of the fact that there are more attractive prices offered for cockerels and even pullets—for table purposes— pullets that would not be allowed to be exported in other years can be exported this year—there is a drop in the number of chicks turned out. What would appear to be the quite attractive price of 3/6 per lb. for cockerels is not sufficient to induce the farming community to take anything like the same number of chicks from hatcheries as they have been doing. Unfortunately, I have not got the figures as to the number of chicks turned out up to the 31st March last year or the year before, but the difference between 1,570,000 turned out this year up to the 31st March and the 3,590,000 turned out last year for the complete season to the end of May can hardly be made up, even with this attractive price.

The point I want to make is that here again we suffer from the disadvantage that we have to go out on the export market. During the years from 1948 on the farmers' wives went wholeheartedly into the increased production of poultry and eggs. They availed of every assistance offered for better housing, the provision of incubators, hoovers, chicken-houses, poultry-houses and so on. They made marvellous progress. I understand that the target of the Minister for Agriculture in 1948 was that, when the scheme would be going at top speed, 8,000,000 day-old chicks per annum would be turned out from the hatcheries. Yet, if present indications are anything to go on, it is doubtful if there will be very much more than 2,000,000 turned out. What is the cause of that? Is it not the ruinous price of eggs at the present day? I am not blaming the Minister entirely for this price because he had to sell the eggs to a customer who could snap his fingers at him, but I do think that the Minister was foolish in the years gone by when he made such statements as he did: when he said that he would drown the English people in eggs in one year, and last year when he said that 2d. an egg was not a bad price for eggs while still endeavouring to encourage the farming community to increase production.

I think that either statement was not a help to him in making a bargain for our produce with the British or in planning for greatly increased production in the years ahead. The making of these statements would appear to suggest that the farming community was well satisfied with these prices. We then reached the point when the 2/- a dozen became effective. I would ask Deputies to bear in mind that 90 per cent. of the farming community never expected, even when the bargain was made early last summer—they could hardly imagine it—that such a ruinous price would ever have to be accepted for the eggs. When they did, was it on any advice from the Minister that they began to curtail production? No. The Minister has told us that the exports of eggs during the first three months of this year are down by 60 per cent. as compared with the same months in last year. Obviously, the farmers' wives did not wait for a lead from the Minister to reduce production. I suggest to the Minister that, when he was making that bargain whereby our eggs were to be sold at 2/- a dozen for seven months of the year, and at 3/6 a dozen for the other five months, if he had then said that he was going to advise the farmers' wives not to produce eggs at these prices, he probably would be in a much better position to make a bargain than by saying that 2d. an egg was not a bad price.

When we come to milk prices we have the same story. We have seen the struggle made by the farming community over the years to get a better price for milk supplied to the creamery. In the course of that struggle the producers have been met with several excuses. One that is nearly always trotted out is that any increase in the price of milk supplied by farmers to the creameries was going to still further increase the sum set aside in the Estimates for agricultural produce subsidies which at present is something over £3,000,000. We have been told that any increase in milk prices was going to still further increase that sum and have been asked why should the taxpayer be called upon to put up an increased amount of taxation in order to subsidise the producers of milk. I think that theory was pretty well exploded when the Minister admitted some time ago that this was a subsidy to the consumer and not to the producer. But, should not the cost of the production of any article be the first consideration rather than what the consumer had to pay or what the State has to contribute in order to give it to the consumer at less than the cost of production? In the case of any other industry, if the cost of production of some article goes up, a case is immediately made for an increase in the price of that article, such as margarine. As a general rule it is conceded even though such increase goes on to the consumer, and even though in that case the consumer was largely the farming community because, ultimately, in these cases the increases pass along the line until in the end they are dumped on the farmer.

But, whether from good nature or yielding to pressure, the Minister has announced an increase of 1d. per gallon in the price of milk during the summer months from May to November, and no increase for the expensive months which are the winter months. The point has been made by other Deputies and by myself by way of supplementary question that this imaginary ld. per gallon of an increase is in reality only ¾d. by reason of the fact that 80 per cent. of the milk is produced during the summer months and the balance of 20 per cent. during the winter.

It is £1,000,000 sterling per annum.

I hope I will not forget that figure later on, and that the Minister will again remind me of it. I suggest that increase of ld. per gallon works out at ¾d. a gallon for milk produced over the year. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied that at least half of the ¾d. will go to meet the increased cost of running the creameries in the present year, so that the producer will get three half-farthings of an increase to meet his increased costs of production. There will be a still further inroad on his three half-farthings of an increase by reason of the fact that, when the unrationed butter was arranged to be sold at 3/6 a lb., while the rationed butter of eight ounces per week continued to be sold at 2/8 per lb., there was a concession made to the members of the farming community. The concession was that, on the average, they got, I think, about ten ounces of butter weekly over the year at the rationed price, but that concession has now been withdrawn. In the first instance, the concession was given to the milk producers in the hope of encouraging them in the same way as a concession was given to the beet growers to encourage them. The concession in their case was that they were given the beet pulp at a reduced price, a concession not enjoyed by the farmers in the non-beet growing counties. However, as I say, the concession in regard to butter given to the suppliers to the creameries on the two ounces above the ration has been withdrawn, so that now, if farmers want to buy anything beyond the eight ounces on the ration, they have to pay 3/6 a lb. for it. That is a further inroad into this three half-farthings increase. The Minister has given us a guarantee of this price for a five-year period and thinks we should be well satisfied with getting that. But, might I ask the Minister, what is the prospect of increased coats of production in the coming five years? Is there anything to indicate a decrease in the cost of production of anything, any manufactured article, for instance? Is there any hope that costs will be reduced in any way?

No hope at all.

Probably next year or the year after this guarantee will be absolutely useless.

You are the most pessimistic creature ever born.

Even though the Minister may consider the price a good one, it may be absolutely useless in a year or two or three years from now. There is one thing which has increased very considerably since the present price of milk was fixed in April, 1947 and that is labour costs. Everyone will admit that labour costs in any industry are a very heavy item in the cost of production.

They will go up.

They will go up, and more power to them, if they do. But I hope we will get the assistance of the Deputy in recouping the farming community through the prices for produce for any increase in labour costs. The minimum wage as fixed the Agricultural Wages Board up to the period when the present price of milk was fixed, was 44/- a week. The minimum for a considerable time past has been 60/-. The Minister assured us that not 10 per cent. of the workers were confined to the minimum wage. I agree with him and I am glad of it. Farmers were never advocates of low wages. All they ask is that there will be available, through the prices of produce, to the farmer and his family at least a labourer's wage.

Other increases have taken place as well as the increase in wages. By reason of legislation passed in this House in the past two years to provide increased national health benefits, the increase that the employer had to pay was 13/- per year. By reason of the increased liability of the employer, the insurance companies have put up, the premium that he had to pay for his workers by 27½ per cent., or £1 5s. a year. Since then, legislation passed in this House has made it obligatory on the farmer to give his worker an annual holiday of one week, an increased charge at the minimum rate of wages of £3.

Legislation nearly completed now, and I do not doubt it will go through, provides for a weekly half-holiday for agricultural workers, and that will mean an increase of another £13 a year at the minimum rate of wages, making in all £17 18s. 0d. per annum for each worker employed on the farm. That, I submit, is a very considerable increase. Coupled with the increase in wages of 16/- a week since the present price of milk was fixed amounting to £41 12s. 0d. a year, it makes the increase in labour charges £59 10s. 0d. a year, or almost 23/- on the 44/- a week which brings the increased labour costs to about 50 per cent. To meet this we get an increase of three half-farthings a gallon in the price for milk which will work out at something like 3½ per cent. We get a 3½ per cent. increase in the price for milk to meet a 50 per cent. increase in labour costs.

I am prepared to admit that in normal times in the present year and the past year calves were more valuable than they have been, though at the moment they are not so good. On my way up here I passed through the fair of Virginia. I spoke to some farmers there and asked them how they were doing and they said: "You could not give away a suck calf." That is due to the fact that nobody has milk to spare at the present time.

If you meet any more of them, ask them to give them to me.

What will you pay for them?

The Minister will, I suppose, accept these calves at giveaway prices in the month of June or July.

I thought you were offering to give them away.

The Minister always endeavours to draw wrong conclusions. I said that in the fair of Virginia farmers could not sell calves. Not alone that, but the tanglers who bring calves from other areas could not sell the calves in a place where they usually could sell quite a number of calves. I am not saying that that was the case last year, nor that it is likely to be the case later on this year. But even allowing for the increased value of a calf in comparison with 1947, due of course to the splendid prices that are obtainable for beef cattle, which the calf is ultimately intended for, as a result of the good stand made by the Argentine Government in refusing to give cheap beef to Britain and getting an increase of 50 per cent. on the price they refused to sell at last year— even allowing for an increase of £3 in the value of a calf in comparison with 1947, I do not think it would bring the income of the dairy farmer up by more than 15 per cent. to meet increased labour costs of over 50 per cent.

How much per gallon?

Lest I forget it, it might be better to refer to the Minister's suggestion that the increased price of milk amounts to £1,000,000 a year for the farming community.

Does not £3 a calf amount to 2d. per gallon of milk?

I have pointed out that half of this increase would go to the increased upkeep of the creameries and to the other matter I mentioned. Even taking £1,000,000, amongst how many people is the £1,000,000 to be distributed? Probably 1,500,000 people, Or at least 1,000,000. Therefore, we should put our hands up and cheer because we are going to give them £1 a year increase each. I should like to see the workers in any other industry who would cheer if they got an increase of £1 a year. Quite a number of them are demanding an increase of £1 a week and are using very effective methods to secure it and succeeding to a great extent, even to the extent of holding the country up to ransom. I made the point at the outset that agriculture might appear to some to be a pet because of having all these millions made available for it. I pointed out the fact that all other sections of the community are parasites on the agricultural industry. I pointed out that the aids that are given are simply easements in compensation for the depredations of these parasites on the agricultural community. Even those easements are not sufficient to maintain the people who are actually engaged in agriculture. They are still moving away as fast as they did in the past despite the assurances of others that the farmers were never so well off.

There is one suggestion I will make to the Minister now. If the farmers are so well off, why not put it to the test? There was a motion down in the last year or two challenging the Department of Agriculture to take an average-sized farm in each county and run it entirely on hired labour, under the direction of the county agricultural instructor, an officer who should be proficient at his job and in a position to direct the working of the farm along the most economic and, at the same time, profitable lines, and see what the result would be; see will it pay the labourers even the minimum wage and still show a profit. That challenge was laid down to the Minister's predecessors. Yet neither he nor they have accepted it. Why not do it now when the farming community is, as we are told, so prosperous. We are quite prepared to make the challenge again if there is any prospect that it will be taken up. We are quite confident of the results. We are quite confident that the results will not show a profit.

We had a classic example last year when, in reply to a parliamentary question, the then Minister for Health gave figures showing that where milk production was carried out entirely with the help of trade union labour on the farm attached to Grangegorman Mental Hospital in the year 1949—a very, very good year for milk production—the cost was 2/10½ per gallon; the year before that it was 3/1. We had another instance of it on a farm owned by the urban council of Kells, a farm of something between 300 and 400 acres of good land-much better land than we have in County Cavan. That farm, run entirely by trade union labour, showed a loss of £1,371 on the year's working. These are no mysteries; they appeared in the local papers at the time.

Is it any wonder then that successive Ministers for Agriculture have been afraid to take up the challenge and face the results of the test? Will the Minister tor Agriculture now put the matter to the test? The sops given to the agricultural industry in an endeavour to maintain it are useful. Agriculture might be described as the "ass" in our national economy; the ass, of course, is not too well treated anywhere. Because the agricultural industry is useful to those who have escaped from it they like to see it maintained and, therefore, some State funds are made available to it to keep it alive in order that it will be in a position to provide them with what they cannot get from outside in times of scarcity. When we take out the £10,000,000 which covers the flour and agricultural produce subsidy from a total estimate of £14,000,000 we have not very much left. Even so, it is useful. There is a sum of £2,500,000 for land rehabilitation. I said last year that I considered that to be a very good investment; anything that will increase the productivity of the land is certainly of benefit to the nation. I made the point—I make it again now— that most State aid is to some extent a premium on laziness inasmuch as the farmer who over the years has dug his drains, with the aid of the shovel, the pick and the crowbar, gathered the stones and has his land well drained, cannot benefit because land rehabilitation is primarily for drainage and reclamation.

I made the point, too, that a large proportion of that sum should be spent on fertilisers for the land which was brought to such a state of degradation as that described by the Minister in 1948 as being capable only of producing féar gorta grass. The land was reduced to that condition because fertilisers were not available during the war years and because of the increased tillage to produce food for our people. I hold, therefore, that there is a moral obligation on the State to restore the fertility of that land. It was that land that had been drained by the farmer without any State aid over the early years of the century that produced the necessary food during the emergency. It was not the land that has been drained during the past two years since the introduction of the land rehabilitation scheme.

No money was made available for fertilisers except for land that had been drained and rehabilitated. I claim that that is a very short-sighted policy. Fertilisers may become scarce again in the future. Ample supplies were available in the last two years and if these supplies had been purchased they would have been very useful should another scarcity come, apart altogether from the question of doing some measure of justice to the men who produced the food during a period of scarcity. We hope, of course, that fertilisers will not become scarce again. God is good.

Cheerful, as usual, and hopeful.

And certainly not foolish.

War conditions impose hardships on people and, if war comes, people will have to put up with scarcities of one kind or another.

There is one good feature in this Estimate. I refer to the distribution of ground limestone. I think that is a very useful scheme.

Unless we use up all the limestone in the country, in which event there will be a scarcity of that.

What about the rocks in Connemara?

Major de Valera

They are not limestone.

The Minister was going to make nylons out of seaweed.

In 1949 the subsidy on burnt lime was 3/6 a barrel in my county. In 1950 it was reduced to 1/9. Although there was a considerable quantity available, it was not nearly sufficient. I am glad to see that the Minister has decided to utilise some of the Marshall Aid grant to make ground limestone available at 16/- per ton no matter what the distance is from the works. Unless a sufficient quantity of lime is made available the land will never be properly fertilised. I got an estimate for ground limestone showing it would be 27/- a ton delivered last year. Now it is 16/-. I am glad to say I have got it now at 16/- and I intend to apply a considerable amount of it.

Regarding the £40,000,000 for land rehabilitation, I understand that comes from Marshall Aid loans and grants. I would like to know if there was a stipulation by the E.C.A. administrator that this £40,000,000 was to be spent on the land and some other small items, or if our Government were free to apply it to any purpose. If there was such a stipulation —I cannot say with authority—we need not thank the Government for it. If it was a free act, we must thank them. If there was no stipulation and the Government found that they had millions accumulated in the Counterpart Fund, on which they would have to pay interest next year and in 1956 begin the repayments, that that sum lying there in the fund was not bearing much interest, if any, it was a good idea then to give it for the land, and if it continues to produce cheap food the State will benefit. I am asking for that information and I hope I, will get it.

What is the rate of interest?

The financiers here can discuss that. I do not know.

Does Deputy Davin know? An authority on banking like Deputy Davin ought to be able to answer that question, instead of asking it.

It is the spring cockerel season, you know. He was bound to crow.

In reply to a parliamentary question last week, the Minister suggested that bran would continue to be made available to farmers at the old price. I have tried to get it and cannot, and I would be glad if the Minister would tell me why. We were assured that it would be available at the old price. I could buy bran at 15/6 a cwt. and am now paying 30/6 a cwt. As far as the naked eye can see, there is no improvement in the quality. I would like to know if there is any addition, in the same way as pollard. I have not been able to get bran at 15/6 now. When I questioned the merchant, he got his invoice to show he was paying £29 a ton at the railway station, and had to pay carriage from the station to his shop and then he charged me 31/6 a cwt.

A point made by the Minister yesterday caused me some surprise. It was that the interest free loans would be available for the re-stocking of farms where cattle had died, were dying at present or were likely to die, from malnutrition. When I warned the Minister of the danger of this last November, he did not take very kindly to it. He talked of gloom and pessimism and tried to keep up our hearts by saying that no animal need die in Ireland on account of the bad hay. To supplement the bad hay he was making available ample supplies of maize on credit terms, through the Agricultural Credit Corporation, the co-operative societies and local agencies. He also said that the complete output of bran and pollard would be available to the farmer for the feeding of live stock. Bran and pollard was available at 15/6 but we are now paying 30/6. That will require some explanation.

Secondly, the maize was made available, but as I pointed out then the people who had suffered serious losses, some losing considerably more than half their year's income, through flooded meadows, flooded crops and so on, found that credit was not sufficient, and their financial resources were such that they did not like to stick themselves deeper in debt. Farmers realise that if they once get into debt it is a millstone round their necks that is very difficult to get off. However, if my memory serves me correctly, in the White Paper issued to us with the Minister's Estimate, the figures were given of the average weekly purchases of maize in 1950.

Have you not got the White Paper there?

Yes. It shows the average sales in 1950 were 6,600 tons per week and in 1951, 5,049. It is significant that during the months in which maize is very necessary— January, February and March—the purchases have fallen away to such an extent. Is that not clear evidence that the people were unable to purchase? If they were able to purchase, would they allow their stock to die?

They were getting £20 a ton for hay last week.

The people who were wise enough to dispose of their stock in the Autumn and did it in the hope of survival whilst those who held on had to go out in panic during the storm of the last two weeks, a panic that was not surpassed in 1947 with all the talk—they were the people who got the £20.

It is a good price.

It certainly is. They benefited, as the Minister has said on former occasions, on the misfortunes of their neighbours.

Woe, woe, universal woe.

The Minister never likes to hear his own words repeated.

Deputy Cogan and Deputy O'Reilly might now give us the Miserere in E flat, a duet. The oboe will be supplied by Deputy MacEntee.

Deputy O'Reilly on the Estimate, please.

Again, even at the risk of being called a pessimist, and while I am not aware my self of any cattle dying I would like to quote this paragraph from the Anglo Celt dated the 14th April, 1951:

"Many of our cows have calved down this year in very low condition. Many of them have little milk and in some cases retained their cleanings. It is within the bounds of possibility that we will not have enough milk produced within the country in 1951 to provide sufficient butter to meet our present ration."

That was not from Fletcher.

That is a report in the local paper——

It was from the Molly Maguire's.

——which gets its news from correspondents in every area. I do not suppose that is a pessimist report. The fact of the matter is that we are in a worse position than even I feared. At the risk of being called a pessimist, I say that the worst has not been reached. I would be very glad to get the figures in respect of milk supplied to creameries for the months of April and May of this year and to compare them with the figures for the same period last year. There was a very considerable drop from the 1st November up to the present but the worst has not yet come.

The instructions which I received from my organisation were to ask the Minister to take back his Estimate to his colleagues in the Cabinet and tell them that the farmers are not terribly prosperous but that they are surviving and that other sections of the community are well provided for and get their demands regardless of whether the industry in which they are engaged is paying or not—sections such as Córas Iompair Éireann, which after getting loans come along for £1,000,000 a year that will make up funds that will pay wages. These sections are cushioned against competition. The cost of haulage of agricultural produce from the farm to the port of export and the necessary imports of fertilisers are an increased charge on the agricultural community. Since all sections insist on their costs of production and conditions of employment, my instructions are to ask the Minister to tell his colleagues plainly that the farming community is entitled to at least the same protection.

How many millions will it take.

No matter what the cost of production may be, when we set those results, we will then be able to tell Deputy Davin how many millions it will take. I hope at least that it will not take as many hundreds as it took to run a farm at Kells or to produce the milk on the farm attached to Grangegorman. My instructions are to ask the Minister to take back his Estimate to his colleagues and stand up to them. The farming community want him to stand up to them. They want him to insist on a measure of justice for the farmers sufficient to enable them to provide at least a labourer's wage for their families.

There is danger of a still greater burden being imposed on the agricultural community. I refer to the charges of the Social Welfare Insurance Bill, which, having passed its vital Second Reading, is as good as a certainty excepting a miracle. This is going to be a very heavy charge on the agricultural community and will crush still lower those who remain on the land. It used to be said of Daniel O'Connell that whenever he was praised by the London Times he examined his conscience. But when the Minister is praised by Deputy Cowan, himself a deserter from the land, and other city Deputies and representatives of industrial workers, I do not know if the Minister will examine his conscience. I can assure the Minister that the agricultural community are examining their consciences. I appeal to the Minister, from a sense of justice, from a sense even of national survival, to stand up for agricultural interests and insist on a more equal distribution of the national wealth. If, as we are told, the share which the agricultural community secure of the national income is £1 out of every £3 10s. 0d., that surely should be evidence that there is an unequal distribution of that wealth. If the demands of my organisation are not acceded to, I am directed to vote in favour of the motion to refer back the Estimate.

Major de Valera

There has been some comment on the participation of city Deputies in this debate. My purpose in intervening is twofold. There are two problems, one of which specifically affects city constituencies and the other the community as a whole. The specific one to which I refer is a problem which is perhaps unavoidable, but that fact should not be an excuse for evading it and simply allowing things to drift. It is the problem of catering for the consumer, or adjusting the problems of the consumer, when prices and costs are rising for the agricultural producer. It would be unfair not to realise that there is a problem there, but, in order to secure a balance, there are some facts in relation to it which I should like to bring to the Minister's attention. I am sorry that the Minister has left.

The first of these is the matter on which we have already had some discussion here, the matter of butter and fats. It would appear that now there is not only the supply problem involved but the consumer is going to be faced with an increase in the price of butter, if I understand the announcements which have been made. I should like the Minister to realise that that increase must be taken from the consumer's point of view, in conjunction with increases which have already taken place in regard to margarine and jam, and, if certain forecasts or rumours current only this day are correct, there may be a question of an increase in the price of bread. Anybody who knows conditions in the city will realise that bread and spread, as it is called, is an important item in the diet of families in certain strata in the city and, if my recollection serves me, the nutritional survey would indicate that it was a fairly important item in the case of large families.

What the consumer is, therefore, faced with, if the promised increase in the price of butter and the rumoured increase in the price of bread are to take place, is an increase in bread and what is spread on it—every alternative item of spread, whether jam, butter or margarine, goes up in price. I can understand the difficulties of that problem and it would be quite unfair simply to look at that aspect of it without relation to the agricultural and other aspects; but what I say is that that problem should be considered in conjunction with these other problems, that an effort to strike a reasonable balance should be made and that it is not sufficient to let things drift and work themselves out.

My fear of drift in that regard can be given some substance by figures obtained by Deputy Smith in answer to a question yesterday, when we relate it to the problem of meat supply. Again, I am sorry the Minister is not present. We are in Committee and these are problems which I should like to give him an opportunity of answering directly as I make the point. In the case of meat, we have all been aware of the problem created by the fact that the prices payable for the cattle we raise had their repercussions on the price at which meat was available to the consumer in the cities. The price payable for our cattle rose, an advantageous thing, no doubt, both from the point of view of the producer and the community, but, alongside that rise, there was the problem that it reached a point at which butchers found it uneconomic to buy cattle as the price was then controlled.

I need not refresh the memories of Deputies with the story of this problem which has existed in an unsolved condition for three years, but the fact is that the net result for the consumer in the towns was an inferior supply of meat in many cases; in other words, the meat available was very often not up to the prime standard that it would have been, had there been no difficulties of that nature there, and, secondly, a constant difficulty about price, and one has only to read the newspapers over that period and the attitude expressed by various interests to see what the picture was. The Minister—I think the relevant Minister is the Minister for Industry and Commerce—did allow a certain increase. He has always been careful to blame his predecessors for it, but nevertheless one authorised increase did occur in 1948. Thereafter, nothing was done about the problem. It was evaded, avoided and there was drift.

What is the result? These figures are very interesting in relation to that overall picture. We find from the Minister's reply yesterday that the estimated number of cattle consumed at home in the years 1948, 1949 and 1950 were 279,000, 219,000 and 189,000 respectively. That series of figures seems to indicate that the net result of the drift in this matter has been that our people are eating less meat.

Considerably leas.

That is quite different from saying less meat.

Major de Valera

The Minister may have a point there and it is very fair, but, if these figures are an indication at all, they show that such problems must be taken into account and that it is not sufficient merely to let the matter drift. Everybody knows the problem of the meat in the city. Neither the butcher who sells it nor the consumer who buys it has been satisfied with the position. Any housewife will tell you that definitely it has resulted in the effective prices being, in many cases, greater than the national controlled prices.

Is the Deputy suggesting that the Minister for Agriculture is responsible for the fixing of prices?

Major de Valera

This is in relation to his Department. I am merely using it as an illustration. The quality of the meat is certainly a question for the Minister for Agriculture. The quality of the meat available has been the subject of complaint in very many cases.

Is the Deputy suggesting that the price of cattle should be controlled?

Major de Valera

I am not. Here is the Minister for Justice trying to bring me into just the very thing which I was careful to avoid, namely, a one-sided approach. If the Minister cares to recollect what I have said or to inspect it in the Official Report he will see that I was meticulously careful to avoid a one-sided approach. If, however, he wants me to use my ammunition to the greatest effect, from the point of view of attacking the Minister for Agriculture, I can do so but I am trying to deal objectively with this rather difficult problem. Whatever way the Minister looks at it, 93,000 head of cattle less were consumed by our own people in 1950, as against 1948.

It would take a lot of mutton to make that up.

Major de Valera

Let us get back, however, to the way I prefer to face this problem. I have used that question in regard to cattle and the amount of meat consumed to show how drift, in face of such a problem, and how the ignoring of such facets in a problem will ultimately lead to undesirable results—and results, in the case of meat, as Deputy MacEntee has said, which can be interpreted as a lowering of the cost of living.

What I am anxious to help the Minister for Agriculture to avoid is a similar type of picture appearing in the case of butter. Apparently, there is going to be an increase in the price of bread, if rumour is correct. Already there has been an increase in the price of jam and in the price of margarine. With bread and spread, as it is called, occupying the important place which it occupies in the family diet of certain sections of the community, then, if there is now going to be an increase in the price of butter, as well, to the consumer, there is a problem there. I admit that when one takes the whole problem and looks at it, it is not a problem capable of very easy solution.

What I want to do on this occasion is to commend that facet of the problem to the Minister for Agriculture, to ask him to bear it strongly in mind and to see that in this particular adjustment the load does not altogether fall on sections of the community which are least able to bear it. I think I could not be fairer than that. In saying so, I realise the problems in regard to milk production. I realise the danger, even to the consumer, if milk production were to fall for the want of an adequate price. Nevertheless, I want to take this opportunity of putting forward that side of the problem which, in any balanced and considered approach to the over-all problem, should be taken into account.

There is another matter about butter which I should like to mention to the Minister for agriculture. He has already—earlier in this debate— shall I say, used some representations made by me as an excuse for certain action taken or not taken. The fact of the matter is that he was asked whether it would not be possible to make a proportion of Irish butter available in the city, where, for a time, only foreign butter was available. If he did make the butter that was available for a while, available on our representations, we are glad of that and we can appreciate his effort. Nevertheless, the fact now is that apparently he did not find it possible to work out the problem as he attacked it. It is hardly fair to blame other people for that. After all, he is in control and it is up to him to make his decisions and to carry them through.

The next aspect of the problem with which I should like to deal is the over-all problem from the point of view of the community. It is impossible to deal with it without having some regard to the over-all picture of the day, to the over-all situation, even to the over-all situation in the world during the past three years and at the present time. We hear very frequently, almost as a catch-cry, phrases about the importance and the fundamental nature of our agricultural industry in our economy and our national life. That is all very true, but because of its very fundamental nature and because of its very importance, the policy directing our agriculture, the policy of the Minister for Agriculture at the time, must have regard and must be adjusted to the general situation ruling at the time and the likely situation—in the immediate future, at any rate. Now, what was that situation over the past three years? It is important to ask that question in order to judge whether the approach of the Minister for Agriculture and the approach of the Government was sound or whether it was not—and the over-all picture was this, if I can summarise it.

After the world war there followed a certain period of very uneasy peace during 1945, 1946 and 1947. During that time the world had hopes of moving towards what it called normality— something approximating to the pre-1939 position. It was a period during which incidents were occurring which gave cause for misgivings. It was admittedly a period of uncertainty—a period when the wise thing would probably have been to be careful, to guard against the possibilities of deterioration but principally to look forward and, as far as one could, to base oneself on a policy of returning more or less to normal, in time. However, that situation changed and deteriorated more rapidly than people might have suspected at that time. If my memory serves me rightly, it was in or around this time in 1948 that the Scandinavian countries sounded the alarm, so to speak. It was in or around that time that Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and their staffs, started to pay attention to the possibility of a deterioration in the situation and the danger of another war. Now that is undoubtedly a historical fact and even at that time some staff officers in Sweden actually presented a memorandum to their King on the subject. That was the first warning.

People on this side of the world might be forgiven for not paying the attention to that which subsequent events would warrant. I would not be too hard an anyone for misjudging the situation in the summer of 1948 but in the following autumn some very significant events in the British House of Commons were an indicator of what was happening. A debate on defence took place and I gave the reference in this House within six months of its occurrence. It pointed out the deterioration in the situation and it was clear from that time onwards that the possibility of a deterioration in the economic situation was greater than people would wish and that there was only one sensible approach to our economic policy: one of self-reliance and one of guarded preparation. Following that you later had devaluation and then a progressive deterioration in a situation which at its worst promised war within a certain time and at its best promised times of difficulty of supply and economic disturbance and trouble for any country that did not look after its own house and rely on itself as far as it could. Devaluation only accentuated that picture and then there was Korea and a complete deterioration to the situation we have at the present time and the problems we have to face. That was the over-all picture, the actual factual specific situation to which any wide-awake Government would have had regard.

What in fact happened, however? This Government and this Minister for Agriculture took a line which I will not at the moment criticise on general economic grounds but which I will say in that specific set of circumstances existing then was not wise and was in fact dangerous. Their outlook was to discourage the production of food at home, in other words to discourage mixed farming and go back completely to live stock. It was very similar indeed to the old pre-1932 Cumann na nGaedheal approach but there was less to be said for it in that situation than there was to be said for Cumann na nGaedheal. Remember when the late Mr. Hogan, Minister for Agriculture in the Cumann na nGaedheal Cabinet, was conducting affairs from the seat now occupied by Deputy Dillon the situation was different. In those day's you had a strong, relatively powerful England and a situation of normality. A case could be advanced—although we did not subscribe to it—for basing our economy completely on the English economy by supplying cattle and hoping to get a return. A case could be made for that grazing or ranching policy but no such strong case could he made in 1948 in the post-war period when you had a totally different England and a totally different world situation.

The weakness of that approach was accentuated by two other things. It was accentuated by the fact that irresponsible promises were made about feeding stuffs and it was usual for the Minister to make statements which had obviously not been completely thought out. The result of these statements in many cases was to cause farmers to adopt a certain approach to problems and then to find later that they were faced with difficulties which they had no reason to anticipate from the assurances which they had been given. Oats, potatoes, poultry—everybody knows the list.

It was accentuated also by the fact that the farmers knew that they had an administration which would not support them in any effort towards self-reliance. Then, of course, there was the famous occasion at the time of devaluation when assurances were given that prices—I think that fertilisers and maize were mentioned—would not rise. That approach had its result in a tendency to unbalance between the production of live stock and the production of crops. As we took the view that there was a need for ensuring for the future, that appeared to me and to us on this side of the House to be an unwise approach.

The situation this year is such that at the last moment the Minister has had to reverse his policy. He is up against the difficulty that after what happened to poultry and oats, after the declarations about the price and availability of foreign feeding stuffs, after all these things which have misfired, he is not likely to be the best person to get the best response from the farmers to any exhortations he might give at the present moment.

I was looking at the debate on this subject last year. Some of these points were brought to the Minister's notice and his policy was criticised from the point of view that it was based in the past two years on a live-stock trade with Britain. The Minister frankly admitted that he was still basing his policy on live stock. I feel that the fundamental difference between the Minister and us is there; while we should like to see our live-stock industry exploited and built up by all means to give the maximum benefit to the community, we want it balanced on the production as far as we possibly can of the foodstuffs required for man and beast and to have as self-reliant an agricultural industry as we can. The Minister, on the other hand, even this year, seems to take the merely commercial view that if he can exploit the live-stock industry he is prepared even to rely on imports to maintain that industry.

Lest I should be accused of misquoting the Minister I think it would be well to give verbatim what he said on that subject. A year ago, in volume 122, column 216, he said, in effeet— there I can be checked in that reference, if necessary—that his policy was based on live stock. This year, in the current Official Report, Volume 125, column 847, he said:—

"We should never consent to the folly of assuming that our live-stock production must be limited by the capacity of our own lands to produce fodder. When our domestic produce is extended to the full we should supplement it by the importation of raw material for conversion, just as the manufacturer imports cotton for spinning and the brewer imports hops to brew into beer."

If that should mean—and I do not want to press it any further than what the Minister does mean—an agricultural policy aiming at a maximum export of live stock to be maintained by the importation of foreign feeding stuffs, then I would say that that is not a safe approach for us under the present circumstances; that the experience of this year alone shows that it is not a safe approach. There are difficulties to be anticipated in the future. Even on the assumption, and with the hope, that ultimately a conflict will be avoided, there will, nevertheless, be difficulties ahead and, with these difficulties there, I suggest that approach is dangerous for us and that the approach should rather be to try to balance our agricultural industry so that we will be as independent as possible of foreign food supplies.

That is as much, I think, as a person who is not familiar with the details of agriculture or the actual working out of farming problems can go, but I think, nevertheless, it is a fairy rational approach, available to any citizen who cares to study the drift of the times and think out what the problems before us are, and how they should be placed. The importance of these problems is not only economic; it is fundamental to any approach to our future. Whether we will have trouble or not, as I have said so many times, there are difficulties of supply ahead. There is no more effective way of dictating to a people than by starving them, than by attacking their food supplies, and the greatest demoralisation, the greatest dislocation of life in this country, whether under war conditions or not, that could be conceived, would arrive most likely from shortages of that nature. If you find that you are in difficulties about providing your own foods, you are much more susceptible to pressure from outside and disorganisation at home and disruptions of all sorts, so that it is of primary importance to ensure that at all times we can count on sufficient food for our human population and also for our animals, in order to avoid that threat. So far as my limited knowledge goes, it would seem to be well within our power so to do.

Now, there is another aspect of this where a good deal of figures have been given and I would like to get them presented clearly. It is largely a question of acreages and yields. Perhaps, if one deals with wheat, the problem can be put more clearly. The Minister for Agriculture, in opening this debate, said that there was sufficient wheat up to 30th September, and he gave a figure of 2,100,000 barrels, which would work out to about 263,000 tons. In column 837 of the current Official Report, he said:

"It is comforting to know that on 31st March, 1951, the wheat in stock, floated, loading and waiting to be loaded was 2,100,000 odd barrels and in respect of maize coming within the same categories we have 121,000 tons. This satisfactory situation would not be a source of equanimity unless we were satisfied as to the available storage waiting to keep it. In that connection, a careful survey of the storage has been proceeding and, in round figures, we count on having available in September, 1951, in silos at ports and mills and in storage at mills, merchants' and malsters' emergency storage up and down the country approximately 421,000 tons of storage which represents approximately one year's wheat supply, were it all employed to that end."

I have certain difficulties in reconciling these figures with figures already given but, as the Minister is not here at the moment, and perhaps he may return before I have dealt with some of the other points, on second thoughts I will leave this particular aspect over for the moment.

I will turn to deal with another problem. This other problem is also related to the possibility of emergency and again, even at the risk of repetition, I want to make quite clear that when I talk of an emergency in that sense, I am not saying that certainly we should bank everything on the probability of another war. What I am saying is that there is danger, but that whether it comes or not, the time ahead will be difficult. We will have difficulties with regard to supplies and the prices to be paid for supplies. We cannot see an easing of the situation with which we are confronted, for some time at least. In that type of situation the obvious, the sensible, the safe thing for us to do is to try to rely on ourselves to the greatest extent possible. That means, in relation to our agricultural policy, growing as much food as we can here and aiming as far as we can—and I would be surprised if it is not completely possible with proper driving direction—to ensure that, even if we were completely isolated, we could produce all the food we needed for our human population and for our animals, if we were put to it.

To that consideration of mine, I would like to add two others. One is, on the ordinary economic point of view, taking prices as they are, taking, for instance, the price are have to pay for maize at the moment, the price of fertilisers, and all that kind of thing, even on an ordinary costing basis, there seems to be a reasonable hope that the approach that I have indicated is the best in the long term and the safest in the long term and might also be the most economic for us, if a drive were made in the right direction. Certainly, as far as the layman can judge from what we have heard about oats, poultry and all these other things in the last two years, the approach heretofore has not been conspicuously more advantageous than the other. If that is so then the growing of food, that is, tillage, should take and assume an important and permanent place in our agricultural economy. That in turn, when translated into practical language, means acreage under crops. It means more. If it is to be maintained, it means the maintenance of the fertility of the soil and that in turn means fertilisers.

One of the weaknesses in our position at the moment as I see it, anyway, is our almost total dependence on foreign resources for fertilisers. It was a lesson that we earned during the war. It was a lesson that, at any rate, should have been self-evident. There were difficulties in meeting that problem. It seems to me, however, that during the past few years there were relatively favourable circumstances for meeting the problem if we had been prepared to avail ourselves of those circumstances. Before the war, in times of open supply and open competition and large established firms seeking markets and selling where they could, there were problems indeed for any country who wanted to produce fertilisers or other chemicals, starting late in the day from scratch, such as we would have proposed to do. Almost a century of possible development of that nature was lost in this country and always, in facing such a problem, that handicap will be there. It was particularly there in those days pre-war but, even then, considerable progress had been made towards meeting it and proposals had reached a fairly advanced stage. Of course, the circumstances leading to the war and the war itself nullified all these good intentions but, during the war, we learned one thing, and that was the scarcity that can take place in regard to such essential commodities, the need for such essential commodities as fertilisers and the high price that has to be paid for them.

It is interesting to recollect that, notwithstanding the substantial tonnages of, say, phosphate that were imported pre-war up to 1939, at a competitive price, by 1942 our imports had fallen to zero and the price had risen to nearly £30 per ton, and that happened in spite of efforts to get rock from America and to develop at a late hour the reserves of rock available, such as they were, in this country. With all that lesson there, surely the sensible thing at the end of the war was to see that such a problem could not arise again and to establish in this country an industry to supply these essential materials for our basic industry. It there was a case for the establishment of any industry as next to agriculture, it was a case for establishing a fertiliser industry in the primary sense, that is, an industry which would actually produce the materials that go to make the fertilisers as we know them. What we have existing are fertiliser factories, if you like, but they are secondary; they make the fertilisers out of imported material. What was needed here, if it were possible to be achieved, was a basic industry which would supply these materials.

The question was, was it feasible? What materials did you want? Primarily you wanted phosphatic fertilisers and you wanted nitrogenous fertilisers. Broadly speaking, that would be the group. In the case of the phosphatic fertilisers you were justified in setting up your industry in developing your existing industry, in fact; it would have needed little else—to produce what you had to produce. You had phosphate rock and sulphuric acid and you had alternative processes available, if you had to fall back on electric power. That was justified, for this reason, that you had sufficient reserves of rock in the country which would warrant you, first of all, stockpiling against an emergency when you could get imports knowing that, even after your stockpile was absorbed, you then had a reserve of rock. So you had a feasible approach to that.

As regards the nitrogenous fertilisers, the raw material was fresh air. As regards the sulphuric acid that you wanted, the raw materials were here, if a proper drive were made to develop them, and so forth. In other words, to cut it short—this is not the time to go into it in any detail—the elements were there to make it practicable to build such an industry. The opportunity was there and, what is more, the very difficulties of current times would have afforded in themselves opportunities. Where, before the war, the difficulties of free and open competition to which I have referred existed, now, the restricted circumstances, the circumstances of ruling high prices, and all that, would have created a very favourable environment in which to develop such an industry.

Lastly, on top of that—although I am going outside the bounds of this debate, but the Ceann Comhairle may allow me to make this remark—such an industry would have been the most natural nucleus for a chemical industry in this country, based, as it would be, on our primary industry, agriculture, its side-lines could be branched off.

There was a project fundamental to almost our whole economy with possibilities, not only for agriculture, but in our industrial life as well. It was a project that should have had attention and so far nothing has been done about it.

Much has been said about the land reclamation scheme and many people have said that it would have been better to have concentrated on the fertility of the land that is there rather than to go on reclaiming land of the type that has been reclaimed. I will not enter into that controversy. It is one for people who have more specific knowledge than I have. Having perused the acreages under crops which we had during the emergency and, therefore, the acreages presumably available, and the yields corresponding thereto, having looked at these statistics and having come to the conclusion that the possibility was there to achieve the self-reliance of which I spoke, then I would say unhesitatingly that it would have been a wiser and a better approach for the Minister for Agriculture to have spent such money as he had available in building up the present fertility and providing for the future fertility of the land that was available in priority to the reclamation of other land, although I shall not condemn him for the idea of that either.

I say that as objectively as I can This is the stigma that must attach to this Government here, that there were two easy years in which this Coalition was in power, two years of opportunity and that, at the end of these two years of opportunity, all that they can do now is, haphazardly, furtively and rather lately, reverse into a policy that they should have adopted earlier but which they decried and undermined, and that these years of opportunity have been lost.

Supposing these years had been utilised, surely the sensible thing to have done would have been to go all out on a scheme of fertilising such land as was available. I can remember that Deputy Aiken made one move in that direction when as Minister for Finance, in spite of all the enemies by which he was encompassed at the time of the emergency Budget, he had the courage, the foresight and the vision to provide under these straitened circumstances a subsidy for fertilisers. It was his hope and the hope of his colleagues that, if they were in power in the subsequent years, the farmer would be encouraged by every means available to the State to secure fertilisers to fertilise his land but that in itself would not have been enough. It would have been necessary, in addition to that approach for the present, to provide a long term approach by establishing the industry about which I have been speaking. If that had been done a very sound investment would have been made for the country's future and perhaps our strongest bulwark would have been erected against any difficulties in the future and a degree of independence and of self-reliance would have been achieved that would have put our people into a very favourable situation indeed.

It is rather sad to note, too, that while Deputy Aiken as Minister for Finance was talking in these terms, his colleague Deputy Lemass had already taken active steps in his Department to get this fertiliser industry, this basic chemical industry to which I have referred, going. Three years have passed, three years of promises unfulfilled and of prognostications that have been proved to be, in fact, untrue about fertiliser supplies and their prices, but the industry of which I have spoken was not developed. On the other hand, the other scheme went on. I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser and better to devote these efforts generally in the way I have outlined. I say "generally". In every problem its specific aspects must be considered and adjustments must be made but I do feel, generally speaking, that the programme, aimed at raising and maintaining the fertility of such arable land as was already available, should have taken priority over speculative schemes designed to reclaim land which would need constant further effort for its maintenance.

Quite candidly, I have looked at this in a rather general sense. I have looked at it in this sense because I had hoped and I know that other Deputies will deal with the specific pressing individual problems of agriculture. I should like to say that even yet it should not be too late, if energy is put into it, to get back on the right lines, and that would be my exhortation to. the Minister.

I left the question of yields, but the Minister has not returned so I suppose I had better deal with them. There is an interesting sequence of figures here from which certain conclusions can be drawn. In view of all the talk that goes on about figures and statistics and the taking of partial statistics at certain times, perhaps it would be no harm to put the complete lists on record. Between the years 1931 and 1939, taking wheat, the acreage under wheat was increased more than ten-fold. It rose from nearly 21,000 acres in 1931 to 255,000 acres in 1939. During the war years, the acreage rose as high in one year, 1945, as 662,000 acres. The conclusion that one draws from the sequence seems to me to be that it was a fortunate thing, vis-a-vis the emergency, that the habit of wheat growing had been fostered and that the expansion of tillage noticeable in the pre-war period had taken place, because it was, so to speak, the base on which the emergency production of the war years was built.

We can be glad to say that we are still, on our previous experience, at a level from which we can get back. In other words, the deterioration has not been sufficient to bring us down below the starting level, but I have doubts about the time it would take. It was 1942 before the acreage under wheat was sufficient to meet our requirements, according to the estimates the Minister has given. In fact, we know that, from the point of view of deliveries to the mill, we always went on importing, but from the point of view of getting our acreage up, it took until 1942 to get the acreage over 500,000 acres. It, therefore, seems to me that our present position is such that there is a good deal of leeway to be made up if there is any question of isolation. The Minister said there was a year's supply. He was answered by Deputy Walsh, who pointed out that there would not be enough flour to carry on and that, to my mind, is an unsatisfactory position. Our present position is that, if foreign supplies were completely cut off, there would be a serious shortage before our production could be got up to the stage of meeting our estimated annual requirements. That is a statement, I suppose, that I should be asked to prove, but it seems to me that it is apparent from the figures. We must, first of all, go back to what the Minister's own estimate is. In reply to a question here, he said that 520,000 tons were required annually, of which 480,000 tons is applicable to millable wheat and 40,000 tons applicable to seed wheat.

I am afraid that the figure of 480,000 tons must be taken as meaning wheat delivered to the mills. If that is so then, as far as I can see, the allowance of 40,000 tons as seed wheat, if you want to have a year's supply, is quite inadequate.

If we take the reply which was given by the Minister to Deputy T. Walsh on the 22nd February, he had about 190,000 tons held, when you take flour and wheat, and there was coming 99,465 tons. That was the position then. The figure which the Minister referred to in this debate was 2,100,000 barrels which works out at about 263,000 tons. Therefore, on his own showing he had, approximately, sufficient up to the 30th September. That is our position. Where are we with that? Supposing you had an acreage last year of 366,000 even at the high yield of 20 cwt. an acre, and that would be a very high yield, you would, as Deputy Walsh pointed out, have run out of wheat before the year was out. That figure does not seem to allow for seeding. In other words, our position at the moment is one of a certain degree of peril, and one which should be mended as quickly as possible. What should we aim at? The aim, of course, should be to have sufficient wheat in stock to carry you over until such time as you will have a yield from a harvest that will give you a year's supply.

I think Deputies will allow that this year is now practically gone. The Minister has delayed. Admittedly, there have been difficulties about the weather, but finally, he has been half-hearted in his efforts, and so there is little likelihood, so far as I can see, that the next harvest will produce a complete year's supply of wheat. We are, therefore, for the year 1951-52 going to be still dependent on outside wheat resources—in other words on the importation of wheat. That is a situation which should not be allowed to continue because it is one which is inherently dangerous.

There is another factor. What acreage is required, even at the high average yield of a ton per acre? According to the Minister's own figures, you would need to have 520,000 acres under wheat. But of course, we know from our war experience that you would want something more because all that wheat is not going to be delivered. I take it that the Minister's answer on the 15th March referred to the estimated requirement delivered to the mills, so that you cannot even say that the 366,000 acres which you had in 1950-51 is to be related to the 520,000 acres. It is to be related to something greater. Our emergency figures are there to show us that, from 1942 to 1945, with the exception of 1943-44 when it was very slightly lower, the average acreage of wheat during those years of the emergency was very much greater indeed than this figure.

This series of figures shows one thing, and it is that, on the experience of the last emergency, the 366,000 acres that were under wheat during 1950-51 will not be a lot more than half of the acreage that would be necessary if anything of the kind experienced on the last occasion were to arise. I do not know if there is any method by which one can put a table on record when discussing an Estimate like this. The Minister was good enough to pass over a sheet giving some figures. When one adds to that some other information which he gave in reply to a question one gets a very instructive table indeed. Before going into that, I should like to refer to explanations that were given by the Minister, and that were given by way of an interjection to Deputy Cogan in regard to it.

The Deputy will understand that he can only get the table on record by reading it.

Major de Valera

I appreciate that. The Minister gave a table which I will read in a moment. I would like to say that having checked it—it is only a question of simple division by two—the table is consistent both with the answer that was given by the Parliamentary Secretary on the 7th March, and with the reply to Deputy Lemass, and that it is not inconsistent with the answer which was given to Deputy Cogan on the 14th March to which reference has been made. It is a question of which yield you take. You can compile a table showing the year, then the acreage, then the tonnage delivered to the mills, and then the yields.

Now, we have two types of yield to deal with. One is the estimated yield per acre which is what, I think, every one in the House would mean by yield. But the Minister has chosen to divide the tonnage delivered to the mills by the acreage under wheat, and to call that the yield. I suppose in a sense it is the yield to the mills per acre. But here are the figures in tabular form.

WHEAT ACREAGES, DELIVERIES AND. ESTIMATED YIELDS.

Year

Acreage

Tonnage deliver- ed to mills

Cwts. per acre delivered

Cwts. estimated yield per acre

1932/33

21,388

1933/34

50,491

16,425

6.50

21.0

1934/35

93,817

51,950

11.07

21.7

1935/36

163,473

121,550

14.87

21.9

1936/37

254,521

154,750

12.15

16.5

1937/38

220,263

129,870

11.79

17.0

1938/39

230,426

157,750

13.69

17.2

1939/40

255,280

189,370

14.83

20.0

1940/41

305,243

192,500

12.61

20.5

1941/42

463,206

221,250

9.55

18.8

1942/43

574,739

277,120

9.64

17.8

1943/44

509,245

257,500

10.11

17.1

1944/45

642,487

306,700

9.54

17.0

1945/46

662,498

354,620

10.70

17.3

1946/47

642,595

315,560

9.82

14.4

1947/48

579,646

182,900

6.31

10.8

1948/49

518,383

319,010

12.30

15.8

1949/50

362,805

303,750

16.74

19.9

1950/51

366,012

251,200

13.72

17.8

As the Minister is here, I should like to go into this matter with him. He says that our annual requirement is 520,000 tons, of which he would require 40,000 tons for seed wheat. That is the answer he gave to a question, and I am taking that as a basis for calculation.

400,000 tons for consumption, plus the seed wheat.

Major de Valera

The actual answer which the Minister gave on the occasion to which I refer was given to Deputy Walsh and is as follows:—

"The storage capacity required to store 12 months' requirements of millable and seed wheat amounts to approximately 520,000 tons, of which 480,000 tons is applicable to millable wheat and 40,000 tons is applicable to seed wheat."

I am taking that as our annual requirement for the purpose of examining the figures. We can take it for granted also that the Minister's figures in the answer he gave on the 22nd February, generally speaking, tally with the figures he gave in this debate. It all boils down to the fact then that the wheat at his hand, whether here or from outside, will just take him to the next harvest.

Will the Deputy appreciate that the wheat requirement depends on the extraction?

Major de Valera

I appreciate that.

And the traditional calculation has been one sack of flour per head of the population.

Major de Valera

I will bear that in mind. Meantime, I want to continue this sequence. I shall be glad if the Minister will assist me should I appear to ignore any factor. On the present basis of calculation, if I understand him correctly, he will go to next September. That means that, should there be any cutting off of supplies within the next six months, saving the elasticity that the Minister himself has mentioned, we would be dependent on the next harvest for all our requirements during the ensuing year. If the acreage is not increased above the acreage last year, as Deputy Walsh has pointed out, we will run out of wheat somewhere about May or June, perhaps a little later, of 1952, again subject to the elasticity available by restricting consumption and increasing extraction. I grant the Minister all that.

I think I have made a fair statement of the position. If that is a fair statement of the position we would want now to aim at an immediate production of somewhere in the region of 550,000 acres on that calculation but on examination that will be found not to be safe for two reasons. First of all, the calculation is based on an assumption of an average yield of one ton per acre; I mean now yield on the ground, not yield to the mill. On the figures supplied in the last column of this table that I have already read out that is too high an average yield to expect. I know that it was reached and exceeded in a few years, notably before the war. The last year in which it was exceeded or reached was 1940-41, but it seems to be too high an expectation altogether. Secondly, there must be an allowance for seed for the following harvest. That must be taken into the calculations. I can only talk about statistics and I must leave it to the farmers to calculate what will be required there. I suppose 10 per cent. might be a fair calculation in as far as such a calculation can be useful at all. It can only be a rough indication. But allowances must be made for seed.

In perusing these statistics there is another factor that must be taken into account; that factor is the tillage available during the war. As the Minister very well appreciates, on that calculation and assuming that our requirements have not changed very much over the years, as I do not think they have, we should have had ample wheat for all our requirements on the acreage under cultivation during the emergency and we should not have had to import anything. We know very well that we had in fact to import wheat. We know that our requirements were not met at home. The discrepancy will be found between the two last columns, what the Minister calls his working yield per acre and what the farmer might call his yield per acre, that is the estimated yield; in other words, all the wheat grown does not find its way into the millers granaries. It is significant to note that in the column on yield as given by the Minister, with the solitary exception of the year 1949-50, nowhere have the deliveries in the whole period from 1932 to the present time exceeded 15 cwt. per acre.

And rarely come near that.

Major de Valera

And, as the Minister has said, rarely come near that. In fact in 1949 where it does exceed it there was a corresponding collapse in oats prices. Possibly that has something to do with it. These figures mean, then, that our wheat requirement for practical purposes is apparently substantially in excess of the mill requirement; consequently, the acreage under wheat last year was wholly deficient from the security point of view. In the net, what I want to urge upon the Minister on foot of that argument is: supposing I concede to the Minister—and I must concede this since it is a cogent point— that there is elasticity and leeway to make up the deficiency by (a) possibly restricting consumption within certain limits, and (b) increasing extraction, then the Minister has that to make up on that side: but on the other side there is still a big void to fill and there is this discrepancy between yield per acre and yield to the mill, which I interpret as representative of wheat consumed by the farmer himself. If that is not what it means, what does it mean?

An excessively optimistic estimate by the farmers of the yield which they believe themselves to be getting.

Major de Valera

Who estimates these yields? I am dealing with official figures.

The county agricultural instructors, the Civic Guards and the farmers themselves in answering queries put to them at the time of census.

Major de Valera

Are we then to disregard the answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Cogan?

I think we are bound to discount substantially the estimated yield per acre of any cereal crop owing to the well-known tendency of farmers who are cross-questioned for the purpose of census returns not to admit that the yield of their crop has been lower than or inferior to that of a neighbour; and every neighbour is anxious to name a level yield which will not make him appear inferior to the next man who grows the same crop in his parish. The only reliable test we have are the deliveries to the mills; but, of course, to that you must add one percentage for retained grain either for human consumption or animal feeding.

Major de Valera

I am not competent, as the Minister will appreciate, to comment on that. I just do not know enough. I am merely working on the statistics. I must leave it to the people with first-hand knowledge to join issue with the Minister on that matter, if necessary. For my part, I accept his explanation. The point is, there must be a certain amount used up by the farmers for their own purposes. I understand the flour regulations were tightened up, and I take it all these things have a bearing on the matter.

Will the Deputy allow me to make one point? The figures of delivery to the mills per year are not altogether comparable as the proportion that may be retained each year may vary. When there is a shortage of bread and flour, a greater percentage is likely to be retained than when there is a plentiful supply.

Major de Valera

The Minister seems to corroborate Deputy Cogan to some extent. It is somewhat significant that in the years when oats were cheap there were bigger deliveries of wheat to the mill. That seems to suggest itself from the sequence of figures here. However, I am dealing with a set of statistics, and I will not pretend that I can deal with the matter from first-hand knowledge. Supposing, for the sake of argument, I take the Minister's yields, that only strengthens the argument I am advancing to him. I think he will appreciate that, because, if the yields are of the low order he talks about, and even conceding his point about extraction, it does seem to point then to a real urgency in increasing our wheat acreage to a self-sustaining figure.

What would that figure be?

Major de Valera

That is a fair question, but if the Minister's figures are right, as given to me, first, in taking the war yield, I was prepared to base myself on a minimum of round about what we had during the war. Now it is quite clear that it must be greater. This is something to which the Minister must give his attention. I am not concerned with what the Minister's view has been in the past. We have a specific situation to face in a specific set of circumstances. In regard to this most important item of human food, I urge that we should get as quickly as possible to the stage where we can say that, at a pinch, we are able to get by on such wheat as we can produce here. I think that from these figures it is not impossible. Even 660,000 acres under wheat during the war was not sufficient at the then rate of consumption on the then standards. On the other hand, we were never rationed for bread or flour during the war.

We ate 100 per cent. extraction.

Major de Valera

Quite true, and we could have afforded to tighten our belts a bit. These figures warrant us in saying that the target which I have asked the Minister to put before himself is feasible and attainable and within the practical regions of policy.

It would require between 800,000 and 900,000 acres of wheat.

Major de Valera

At the present rate of consumption? Is that the Minister's estimate?

Taking the figures during the war.

Major de Valera

I doubt if it would be as high as that. We used to estimate at that time about two-thirds and the average for the war was not as high as 600,000. These are niceties of arithmetic, very intriguing at times, but when one goes into such details one can overemphasise their importance. I want to point out that we are not in that position, that on all the evidence available, if supplies were cut off during the period before next harvest we would be in a very serious position for a year. Thereafter, having regard to the likely acreages for next year, unless some very energetic action is taken by the Minister, that precarious position will not only last for the year ensuing but will go into the next year as well.

Having regard to the over all situation, I think that is dangerous and I commend to the Minister to pay as urgent and energetic attention to that problem as he possibly can. If the worst were to come—and I do not want to be a Jeremiah about it—we could face a very serious and unmanageable situation indeed.

Not wishing to give the Deputy a short answer, what would he suggest should be done, except to pack the storage with wheat and plough as much land as we are able to plough?

Major de Valera

This year there has been the question of weather.

We could not sow it.

Major de Valera

This year has been difficult, but I think a lot of the difficulty has been due to a lack of foresight in the past two years—as I said before the Minister came in.

The farmers were not asked to grow wheat until the 1st of April—that is the whole secret.

Major de Valera

Next year the same thing might happen. These very same points were made by myself more generally last year and the Minister would not see what was before him. I know that the Taoiseach and the leaders of the Government formerly took one view and I suppose the Minister took line with them; but they have thrown over that one and with all their talk about difficult situations and difficult times ahead, coupled with the existing situation which the Minister has to face, it is time to cut out the talk and do something.

Does the Deputy realise that 50 per cent. more wheat was grown in this country this year than there was in 1939?

Major de Valera

Let us look at the figures. In 1939 there were 255,000 acres under wheat and in 1950-51 366,000 acres.

Look at the yield. The yield was 189,000 tons in 1939 and 251,000 tons now.

Major de Valera

That is to the mills?

Major de Valera

Even so, that does not answer my point. I am always ready, and so is everyone on this side, to concede that we were fortunate in many respects the last time and were not put to the pinch that a real emergency would require. We are all willing to admit that, but the fact that a kind Providence gave us the possibility of learning a lesson so painlessly is all the more reason why we should buckle down and see that such a weak position does not recur. The position was weak enough, in spite of the fact that the tillage under wheat in 1939 was something over ten times the tillage for 1932, when the Fianna Fáil Government took over. However, that is the past and what I am concerned about is the future.

Turning from the question of wheat, which is a staple food for the human, we had better look at potatoes. In the acreage there, there has not been any very spectacular change. Nevertheless, the acreage last year at 336,000 is down over the emergency years and is only very slightly greater than that of 1939. I am not going into the yields and acres there, but there is one thing I would mention, as a result of a question yesterday. I asked his colleague for some information in regard to chemicals likely to be essential and likely to be in short supply; and amongst those chemicals was copper sulphate, bluestone. When I turned up the statistics, I found that we imported in 1949, 2,730 tons and in 1950, 2,369 tons. I imagine that the bulk of that was used for agricultural purposes. I may be wrong and am open to correction, or even to be laughed at, if the point is a silly one. If it is not a silly one, it is high time we considered the question of adequate supplies of bluestone in case of a cut-off. The famine of '48 was, I understand, the result of blight. Will the Minister for Agriculture depend on such supplies? I wonder if the Minister is giving any attention to that problem. It is one that should receive attention under the present situation. The Minister appreciates why I raise the matter now. I was told that there was no other chemical beyond two already mentioned under active consideration. That and the other matters which I mentioned earlier really merit attention now.

It gets me back to what I was saying earlier—perhaps I should not repeat myself—when I was pressing upon the Minister, in his absence, the need for a basic fertiliser industry here. I was criticising him on the ground that it would have been better to aim at fertilising and maintaining the fertilisation of the land which we already had available, in priority to reclaiming other land. If there were funds available and while the chance was there, we should have been building up this basic industry for the provision of fertilisers. The raw materials can all be provided for, not only in current times but also for a considerable period of absolute isolation. That industry would be not only important to our agricultural economy, but it could be the nucleus about which a chemical industry would expand.

Is the Deputy referring to phosphates?

Major de Valera

I am referring to the whole lot.

We have to import potash.

Major de Valera

Let us deal with all that. What do we need? Phosphates in some form or another. In regard to phosphates, with a proper drive surely we could have been able to stockpile. I agree that that by itself is weak, but in this case it is justified: there is an emergency reserve in Clare. With regard to potash, you can get a certain amount of potash locally if you go about it. You could organise to get it. There are certain sources from which it could be got— kelp, say.

Seaweed. There is no need to reduce it to kelp.

Major de Valera

For the nitrogeneous fertilisers, you need fresh air and electric power.

Which means fresh air and coal.

Major de Valera

Power.

Which is coal.

Major de Valera

It is a question of co-ordination. You need sulphuric acid or, alternatively, you can, if you have power, use your phosphate rock and get phosphoric acid. In any event, there are pyrites there. It should not be beyond the power of man to get over these problems. If the Minister can put all his energy and drive into getting that industry established, I feel it will be a permanent benefit.

The matter of pyrites is being dealt with, but not the further matters, the manufacture of nitrogenous manures.

Major de Valera

I understand that sulphate of ammonia is being examined.

It is not. I will leave the matter that way.

Major de Valera

There is a very strong case, to my mind, for getting after this problem. We know from the last emergency and from what our common sense tells us, that that lacuna in our economy is a very serious one for us. The tragedy of the lost opportunity is that you would have been able to base a chemical industry with relation to your primary industry, which is agriculture, and service your other industrial needs as well.

If you can import the coal.

Major de Valera

There are other forms of power. Electric power could have been available. I am surprised to find the Minister turning to excuses. The Minister must realise that excuses are the easiest things to make. It is difficult to get anything done, but it is surprising how you can get it done if the job is tackled.

It is a question of whether we should or should not, and that is a matter for argument.

Major de Valera

I would be very glad to have all the considerations put before us, as we have had no statement from any Minister and no indication over the past year. I have personally asked a number of questions and all I can elicit from the Minister for Industry and Commerce is that the matter is under consideration. If the Minister will be good enough to furnish us with information upon which we can join issue more specifically, I will be grateful.

We talked about storage. I confess I am not quite clear as to what the position is. It was a big problem the last time and it will be interesting to find out where we stand in regard to that problem now. Again, there is the problem of mechanisation.

I am afraid the Deputy has not read my White Paper.

Major de Valera

Yes, I have.

I think it is mentioned there.

Major de Valera

There are a number of things mentioned. Perhaps the deficiency may be in me. Nevertheless, it is a very important matter. The next thing is the question of the mechanisation of agriculture. I think we were agreed last year that a certain tendency in that direction is inevitable under modern conditions. It is very hard to go against the tide, but it does in itself pose a problem, a problem in regard to parts, in regard to equipment, in regard to fuel for tractors and so forth. The Minister was sympathetic when the matter was mentioned last year. If he has anything further to add to that, it would be of interest.

I have talked on this Estimate exclusively from two points of view, as I said in the beginning. I talked from the point of view of the consumer in the city on certain problems and thereafter dealt with the general situation. I was concerned with the possibility of facing an emergency in the future. That was my approach. I think it is a justifiable approach now and I think the Minister is not now going to say I am an alarmist.

If that is to be our approach, it finally gets me back on general policy to the Minister's statement which I quoted. The Minister will recollect that in opening the debate he said that he did not want to limit our live stock to the capacity of our own lands to produce and he visualised the taking in of raw materials for processing and then exporting the live stock. I indicated that I joined issue with him in that respect, even on the basis of normal economics, and said I thought it was dangerous to take that point of view at present, if the result is going to be excessive dependence on outside and if it is to be achieved at the expense of that self-reliance about which I am pressing him now. In making this case, I am trying to do so as objectively as I can. It is not a matter of saying: "We told you so"; or of scoring a point for the moment. There is a big national problem there, a problem which in the interest of the country, must be solved as rapidly as possible.

I want to suggest in connection with this question of the balance of food supplies that, when the increase in butter prices and the rumoured increase in bread prices takes place, that the Minister bear in mind the increases in jam and margarine which have already taken place. In saying that, I wish to put before him for consideration in a nut shell the problem of the consumer in the town in relation to that over-all and admittedly difficult problem which he has. I can appreciate his problem in regard to milk and the danger to the consumer of failing supplies, and the argument even from the consumer's point of view for increasing the price of milk so as to ensure the consumer's supplies. Nevertheless, there is this specific problem for the town consumer, and if bread is likely to go up as jam and margarine have gone up, and if butter is to go up, I should like the Minister to take it into account and do what he can.

While talking about butter, he made some reference to me and to my representations in that matter. He may not recollect it now.

Perfectly.

Major de Valera

I was not aware that it was on my representations that he tried to meet the city situation by making more available. I should like to be courteous and to say that that is appreciated. I am sorry that it cannot be continued, but in relation to that problem also where the whole country is involved, again I should like him to take the town aspect into consideration as well as the other.

It is hoped next year that, if the necessity to import butter arises, the imported butter will be distributed exclusively off the ration and the Irish butter entirely on the ration.

Major de Valera

That even is something. In any event, I can leave it at this, if the Minister will look on me as still urging my point of view as strongly as I can but, I hope, as reasonably as I can.

There is another conclusion which might be one for the Minister to reply to. His colleague, the Minister for Industry, mentioned mutton when I spoke about beef, but it is rather interesting to find a rather big decline in the quantity of cattle consumed at home.

Bear in mind the consumption of bacon.

Major de Valera

Yes, but I do not think that will answer it completely.

That is my information.

Major de Valera

The first reaction on seeing it was that it was an offshoot of the problem of the butchers and so forth, about which we have been hearing so much.

That occurred to me, but my advice is that it has to do with the consumption of bacon.

Major de Valera

On the fat and protein end of diet, there is certainly a problem. We have margarine, butter and meat problems but again I can leave it by asking that the townsman's point of view will not be overlooked, particularly because in this debate all the problems which confront the Minister in his very difficult task naturally tend to be looked at from the point of view of the farmer.

I can leave the rest of the debate to people more competent to deal with its details than I am. I purposely tried to deal with it in the over-all sense. There is no use in our talking about preparing for the future; there is no use in talking about defence; and there is no use in trying to build up our people or to provide for them in the difficult time that is coming—it may be that there may be no calamity and let us hope there will not be; I should like to believe that there will not, but whatever is in front of us there is going to be difficulty and the Minister will agree that there is a period of difficulty ahead of us-without the self-reliant approach which I urge. I think it is best for our people in any event, and, in spite of the Minister's former views we can point to the facts in regard to one emergency as justifying those who took that view in the past. No matter what our predilections might be, the hard facts of the present situation dictate one approach, and I think we should be all agreed upon that now.

I want to pay certain tributes to the Minister and to make certain criticisms and appeals to him. During the past few days we have heard people—shopkeepers, solicitors, barristers and publicans— telling us how prosperous the agricultural community are, and I think we were told that some of them even have motor-cars. There are certain aspects of this matter which we should consider carefully and seriously on this Estimate. Some of these people probably spoke sincerely and honestly and others may have spoken with ulterior motives. I will go into the details in the near future, but there is one person who gave expression to certain views yesterday, a person who is qualified in many ways to give such an expression of views so far as the agricultural community is concerned whom I should like to quote. I refer to the co-adjutor Bishop of Cork, Dr. Lucey, who is a very brilliant man. He is a bishop and has special knowledge of rural conditions by reason of the fact that he is a member of the Emigration Commission and has heard all the evidence placed before that commission. He said yesterday as reported in the Cork Examiner of to-day:—

"How often do we not hear expressions like: ‘Oh, he is only an "ould" farmer': ‘the farmer does nothing but grumble': ‘what is the world coming to with farmers buying motor-cars, if you please.' Until we get over the notion that farming is less respectable than trading, working in a Government office, being a civil servant, etc., we are not valuing the farmer at his true worth to God and the community."

Later on he says:—

"I don't want any levelling down of the townsman's wage to the country rate—God forbid. The townsman's wages are low enough God knows. But I do want a levelling up of the country labourer's wages to the urban standard. And that can come only by way of a just price for milk, eggs, pigs, poultry—the produce of mixed or genuine farming. At the moment the prices for these commodities are too low to give the farmer himself or his man the standard of living others in the community have."

I think that that is an answer to the gentlemen who prate here about the tremendous prosperity which the farmers are enjoying.

We heard a great deal about subsidies. We were told that the farmers are being subsidised to the extent of something like £10,000,000 a year. Let us analyse that statement. Where do the subsidies come from? They come from the general community—from the taxpayers and from the consumers. It will be seen, therefore, that the farmers themselves are contributing a large portion towards those subsidies. In addition, the agricultural community are paying a heavy land tax. That tax is called "annuities" but at the moment it is a land tax.

According to the Minister for Agriculture, the farming industry is subsidising the leather industry or the bootmakers industry, I do not know which, to the extent of approximately £2,000,000 a year. I believe that that is correct because the price of hides is artifically depressed in this country.

There is a subsidy on butter. The Minister himself and every reasonable man must admit that that subsidy is a consumer's subsidy because there is a general price for butter in this country which is higher than the subsidised price for butter.

There are many other respects in which the agricultural community are paying—and they are paying colossally more for subsidies to somebody else than the subsidies which are being paid to them.

Under the present Party Government we have a lovely idea—it was very successfully worked by the previous Government and now it is being successfully worked by the present Government—and that is to bribe the people with their own money, after deducting a considerable percentage for administrative expenses, something on the scale of the sweepstakes. Once upon a time it was illegal to bribe a voter with the candidate's money. However, a much better system has been found and that is to bribe the voter with his own money and to pocket the rest of it for the Exchequer. I am afraid that in the case of the present Government, as in the case of the previous Government, we have had an indication on several occasions of this urban or Dublin mentality which has affected any piece of legislation affecting agriculture in this country. Recently the Minister for Industry and Commerce put himself on record as saying that if we were to adopt the collective farming scheme, advocated by Deputy Cowan, the farmers would be a much lesser draw on the Exchequer—in spite of the fact that this is an agricultural country and that the only real wealth we have in this country is the wealth produced by the agricultural community. The Minister for Industry and Commerce tells us that if we adopt Deputy Cowan's system of collective farming the farmers will then be a lesser draw on the community as a whole.

I think that the Minister, as a Minister of a democratic Government, was wrong in refusing to meet a group of people who claim to represent the dairying industry. The Minister— rather bad-manneredly, I think—told the people that he would not meet the Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association but that he would treat with the I.A.O.S. Last year the Minister said that unless his lovely scheme of 2d. a gallon less for milk over a period of five years was accepted, some very terrible results would fall upon the dairy farmers of the country. When the Minister wanted the I.A.O.S. to impose that proposal and that scheme on the country, what did the I.A.O.S. do? They held a meeting in Plunkett House and they said: "We are an organisation to set up co-operative societies. It is none of our function to deal with the matter of price. Our function is to give advise in respect of the formation of co-operative societies and to give what technical advice we can give afterwards—but we have nothing to do with the matter of price." Nevertheless, the Minister refused to meet the Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, and said that he would deal with the I.A.O.S., who made that decision less than 12 months ago.

The Minister has also said that the costs of milk production have not increased since 1947. It is possible that the Minister may seriously believe that statement but if the Minister believes it I may say that nobody else does. The Minister has claimed in this House that he has increased agricultural wages by 33 per cent., that he has given an annual holiday to the farm workers and also that a weekly half-holiday is being given to them. The Minister must realise that these three steps in themselves must of necessity increase the costs of production. In reply to two questions which I put to the Minister he said: "There will be no increase in the price of milk this year." Yet, a couple of days after giving me that reply the Minister announced that the price of milk was going to be increased.

Does the Deputy purport to quote my reply?

I propose to paraphrase the Minister's reply.

The Deputy must not do that.

I certainly may.

If you say that you are paraphrasing my reply—but not otherwise.

I can say that on two occasions in this House the Minister told me that he would not agree to any increase this year in the price of milk.

Now the sails are being trimmed.

That is a fact. However, the Minister then came and offered an increase. After meeting the people who told us last year that they had nothing to do with the matter of price, the Minister came and increased the price by 1d. a gallon.

Since this debate stasted the Minister has, on a number of occasions, said: "£1,000,000 a year is a great deal for the farmers." Everybody knows that the farmers are not getting £1,000,000 a year. The Minister knows that since 1947 the costs of manufacturing milk in creameries have increased. The Minister knows that they are increasing again this year.

The Ministier must be aware that the managers have applications to the Labour Court in respect of increased wages for creamery employees. The Minister must be aware that the price of packing and the price of packets and of everything else in the creamery is going up. Surely, in these circumstances, the Minister must realise that the increase of ¾d. or 1d. a gallon will be swamped in the extra charges that have occurred already, and that will continue to occur, before the end of the year, and that the extra money will not go into the pockets of the farmers at all. It is part of the propaganda however of the urban-minded people in this House to increase the price of butter by 2d. a lb. and say: "That is more of the stuff the farmers are sucking out of us" while at the same time the increase is only enough to pay some of the increased costs of manufacture, some of which were imposed by the Government and some by circumstances completely outside the control of the committees running the creameries.

A very famous quotation was mentioned to-day and I would like to add to it: there are lies, damn lies, statistics and the Minister quoting Professor Murphy's costings. The Minister has on several occasions misquoted in a most dishonest way a scientific document prepared by a professor in University College, Cork. The Minister is a man of ability and must know that he was misinterpreting him and every officer of his Department must know that too.

Deputy Desmond speaking on this Estimate said that he had found a solution for the farmers' difficulties. His solution was not 1d., 2d. or 3d. per gallon but that everybody should get cows like those Mr. Quill had in Blarney. I am afraid that Deputy Desmond will find it difficult to get the Minister to agree to that because the cows Mr. Quill had in Blarney happened to be Friesians and the Minister said that it was only cranks and old maids that keep these Pekinese breeds.

I asked the Minister a very simple question to-day. It was:—

"To ask the Minister for Agriculture whether he has made an Order to prevent milk, other than pasteurised milk, from being offered for sale in any specified area in the State."

Any sane man would think that the answer to that was yes or no. The second part of the question was:—

"If he has not made an Order in such case, whether he will give an assurance that he will not do so?"

Any sane man would think that the answer to that was yes or no, too, but instead of that the Minister gave me a big rigmarole and started by making this statement:

"It has been suggested that there was some delay on my part in replying to this question. There is no foundation for this allegation."

You put down the question wrong and they could not find you for ten days to correct it.

The Minister made that statement; I asked the Minister who made the allegation and the Minister said that I had. I told the Minister that I had not, that I had made no such allegations at all. I put down the question more than ten days ago in a different form and the Ceann Comhairle disallowed it. The clerk in the Ceann Comhairle's office came to me yesterday and told me that the Ceann Comhairle had disallowed the question. I should like the Minister to explain why he said that I made the allegation that there was a delay on his part in replying; I never made any such allegation. However, yes or no is what I am looking for and this is the rigmarole:—

"I might add to the reply just given to the same question by the Minister for Health that there is, of course, no question of genuine opposition by the public...."

I do not think I should bore the House with that, but the final paragraph states—because the Minister must have a crack at somebody:—

"I cannot believe that the Deputy is prepared to characterise himself as an advocate of the sale of tubercular milk."

That is the answer to my question asking whether he had made an Order —that I am an advocate for the sale of tubercular milk. However, we will leave it at that.

On the question of pigs there is one matter for which I should like to pay a tribute to the Minister, that is for the courageous action he took in opening the Border for the export of pigs at the time when the bacon curers were trying to hold the producers up to ransom. They wanted cheap pigs and dear bacon. I know that it was a difficult and courageous thing for the Minister to do and I want to say that we thank him and that we appreciate the courageous action he took.

The price of pigs was controlled on the 2nd December by the Prices Advisory Body but shortly afterwards the control on the price of pig feeding-stuffs was removed.

I do not think that the price of pigs was controlled.

I think it was. The price of bacon was controlled and that pegs down at a certain level the price of pigs. It depressed the price of pigs while at the same time the Advisory Body took the control off the raw material for the feeding of pigs and there is something wrong about that.

The Deputy will agree that the price of pigs was not controlled?

It affects the price of pigs. The price of bacon was controlled on the 2nd December and that pegs the price of pigs down to their 2nd December price but the price of the raw materials which were being put into the pigs was decontrolled. The price of the raw materials can soar as high as it likes but the price of pigs is kept down.

What is the price of pigs to-day?

It is down to the 2nd December price in Cork but I agree that it may be higher in Dublin.

It is 235/-.

With regard to eggs, I hope that the Minister will be successful in making a satisfactory agreement in England. I can tell him that there is very grave dissatisfaction throughout the country at the existing price of eggs and I think that the Minister is quite well aware of that himself. I hope that he will succeed in making a decent agreement which will give some sort of reasonable remuneration to the people who are trying to produce eggs.

The only thing I have against the Minister in that regard is the fact that he publicly said that 2d. was a good price for an egg. I thought he was terribly indiscreet on that occasion. It was also very unfortunate that the price of eggs should fall and that the price of meal should increase at the same time, particularly when the Minister had given an assurance that devaluation would not affect the price of meal and that the price of meal would not increase in the foreseeable future.

What will the Deputy say if the price of eggs goes up and the price of meal comes down?

I will have great pleasure in coming in and congratulating the Minister.

You will not have a chance.

Would you join in, if you got one?

I will not have a chance.

Would Deputy Corry join him if he got the chance?

I always thanked the Minister for any good he did——

No further interruptions. Please allow Deputy Lehane to continue.

——but I got very few opportunities, for he did no good.

We have heard a great deal from Deputy de Valera on the question of wheat. I do not want to delay too long about it, but the Minister has admitted that it is difficult to grow satisfactory wheat, due to the climatic conditions.

Adequate quantities of satisfactory wheat.

What the Minister said—Volume 125, column 835— was:—

"The second lesson that we may learn, with advantage, from our trying experience is the folly of pretending that, in a climate such as ours, we can with any degree of certainty depend on our domestic production of wheat..."

The Minister, having admitted that because of our climatic conditions it was very difficult to grow any sort of decent wheat in this country, has made a definite statement. A number of people, both on this side and on the other side of the House, have made a very great error in talking about an increase in the price of wheat. There is no increase in the price of wheat bushelling a standard weight.

I take it that it was unintentionally the Deputy broke off his quotation in the middle of a sentence.

I gave the column from which I quoted.

But not the full sentence.

I merely wanted to quote that portion about the climate.

The Deputy broke off the quotation in the middle of the sentence.

I did, when I got to the part I wanted.

It is scarcely customary to do that.

However, there is no increase in the price of wheat.

May I trouble the Deputy to finish the quotation, at least to the next full stop?

Read the full page.

Will the Minister tell me when to stop? Here is the quotation:—

"The second lesson that we may learn, with advantage, from our trying experience is the folly of pretending that, in a climate such as ours, we can with any degree of certainty depend on our domestic production of wheat for our essential bread supplies."

The point I am coming to is that the price of wheat bushelling 57 lb. is still the same this year as it was last year. The Minister has admitted that our climate is not conducive to good wheat growing, or the growing of good quality wheat, so actually there is no increase in the price of wheat of standard weight, but we may anticipate there will be a reduction in the price of wheat below 57 lb., because the regulations will probably be enforced more stringently than in the past. But, apart from that, wheat bushelling 57 lb. this year as last year can be purchased, or will be purchased, for £25 a ton——

——and at the same time producers of live-stock products and poultry products are expected to pay £32 or £33 a ton for maize. I am afraid it is very difficult to get people to market wheat at £25 a ton or even, if it bushels 62 lb., at £27 a ton, and buy a mixture of one part maize and three parts sorghums for £32. I do not think the Minister is doing what he says he is doing, that is, getting wheat grown by price inducement, because there is no price inducement in growing wheat to produce flour and bran at £30 a ton when it is out of proportion with the price of the animal feeding stuffs on the market.

The Minister has referred to certain problems in the West, particularly problems where cattle got certain diseases that it took the veterinary officers a long time to discover. They found that by shifting them from the island to the mainland, and vice versa, they were able to get over some of the difficulties. The Minister said he had great regard for some of the views of the old people in the area, because they had learned in the old and tried school of experience. Since the Minister is in that frame of mind, I may tell him that the people in West Cork have a similar idea about sea sand and, so far the Cork County Committee of Agriculture cannot learn much from the Department. At least, what they have learned is that the scheme had to be dropped this year.

The Deputy will be consoled to know that I agree with the old people of West Cork in respect of sea sand.

May I take it that the scheme in Cork has been approved?

At this stage I do not propose to elaborate my observation.

Then you agree with the old people to whom I have referred? Thanks. There is one matter I should like to mention, and it has reference to ground limestone. I am afraid the Minister has not found the solution for this. The Minister has passed over transport of the ground limestone completely to Córas Iompair Éireann. Córas Iompair Éireann come along and dump the ground limestone on the side of the road. I suppose it is the Minister's idea that some local lad should buy a lime spreader and shovel six tons of lime into the spreader and take it out to the field, perhaps one or two miles away. I think the Minister is not handling that situation in the way it should be handled. The Minister should give the benefit of the subsidy to anybody with a lime spreader who is prepared to take the lime from the depot. It rather looks as if the present system is wasteful and as if the Minister is subsidising Córas Iompair Éireann rather than the farmer, because in many cases the Córas Iompair Éireann lorries may not go within a mile or two miles of the farmer's field, as they will not leave the public road; they will not go on any small byroad.

I think they go on any hard road.

I have my doubts. I know they do not do it in other cases where manures and beet are concerned; it is taken on to the main road.

Has the Deputy any complaint to make? Have any complaints reached the Deputy's ear on that score?

There were a number.

I would be glad to have particulars, so that I can deal with them.

I will be glad to give them. The Minister referred to water supplies on the farmers' holdings. I wonder is there any use in appealing to the Minister about cases of farmers who carried out work after the Minister announced he was introducing this scheme? The farmers got the work done and because they did not wait for sanction from the Department they were cut out of the grant. Will their cases be considered? It can be proved conclusively that the work was done within certain dates and there was a period of only a few months between the Minister's announcement that the scheme was going ahead and the time when they put it into operation. Will the Minister give sympathetic consideration to the cases of those people so that they can be brought within the scheme?

In general principle, no, but every individual case where an element of doubt exists is always considered sympathetically.

There is one other point and that is in connection with some of the creameries or milk producing areas in West Cork. The Minister was down there for the by-election and he promised them creamery facilities. There are certain districts in that area where facilities should be provided. There are numbers of people who had not creamery facilities and who were making farmers' butter at the particular time when the subsidy was removed. There is a grave need for a separating station, at least, on Whiddy Island. That is one thing that might be done. There will be plenty of milk on the Island if they get facilities.

Is that not in the Drinagh Co-operative Society's area?

It is in Bantry Bay. I do not know how far out in the Bay the Drinagh Co-operative Society extends, but the island is in Bantry Bay, and it is quite close to the Dairy Disposals Board. I appeal to the Minister to give due consideration to these people. They are in a bad way and they desire a creamery.

Proposals have been made.

I am aware of it, but they are quite unsatisfactory proposals.

I thought they were pretty good.

They are quite unsatisfactory. I move to report progress.

Progress reported, the Committee to sit again to-morrow.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 26th April, 1951.
Top
Share