That is what he told me himself. When I asked: "What did you do?" His answer was: "I am not Minister for Agriculture. Why should I do anything?" I am very proud of what I have done. I did not deal with one grain grower at a time; I have been struggling to provide for the grain growers of every parish in Ireland. If Deputy Carter wants to charge Deputy Hughes with jettisoning the conacre man let me say this: when I see a gentleman come into this country, take 800 acres of conacre land, tear it all up, plant it with wheat and present a bill to our Government for the consequential product with the intention of skipping out of the country, I do not care what happens to him. I am not going to break my heart about what happens to that fellow. He came in here to make a speculation and to get rich quick at our people's expense. If his speculation has not come off, the devil mend him, as far as I am concerned.
I have spent the last six weeks day in, day out—and I will ask Deputies in this House to remember that when I say "I have spent" I mean the Department of Agriculture has spent, and when I say "I am proud of my achievement" I mean that I am proud of the achievement of the Department of Agriculture—in that sense I have worked 15 or 16 hours a day for the last six weeks to see that wheat was handled and taken off the hands of farmers, not in one parish but in every parish in Ireland, and I dare any Deputy in this House to say we failed. The wheat was taken, the wheat was dried and now we are in a position to say, millable or unmillable, it will be taken and paid for from anyone who tenders it to any mill in Ireland.
I could go into a much wider field if I chose to-day but you have ruled and the Ceann Comhairle has ruled that we are to deal with the motion put before us, that is,
"That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should, in the exceptional circumstances of this year, make an arrangement with Grain Importers (Éire) Limited to purchase at a fair price, all wheat rejected as unmillable."
We have done much more than that and we are proud of the result of our labours. Let us remember—and all Deputies will agree—that we encountered probably the worst harvest weather in living memory. Our prime concern must be for genuine farmers and not for speculators who are in a racket to get what they can out of it. On that basis I await to hear from any Deputy in this House an honest challenge to the performance of my task in helping farmers who grew wheat or any other cereal this year to get their crop disposed of at the best price obtainable in the circumstances.
The case has been made that when the question of millable or unmillable wheat comes to be determined there should be some arbiter other than the miller and the farmer to determine what is millable or unmillable. I want to say quite frankly that in logic there is no answer to that claim and, in evidence of that, I am free to say that I sent for representatives of Macra na Feirme and said, and I think I said it to the representatives of the grain growers' branch of the Beet Growers' Association: "Turn this matter over in your mind and consider this question as to whether you want to undertake the installation of an arbitrator at every point of intake for wheat in this country, but bear in mind what it involves." I reckon that, taking into account wheat agents, licensed millers and licensed wheat dealers, there must be between 300 and 400 points of intake for wheat. If all these are to be furnished with an arbitration officer it means you have to have between 300 and 400 of them. Bear in mind that in a shockingly adverse year of this kind lots of fellows will feel they would have done better if they had a third party there to arbitrate between them but recall that over a very long period wheat was being delivered into the mills in this country and the number of complaints were very few. What will happen if arbitration on these lines is established? The farmer will bring his wheat to the mill and the licensed dealer or miller will estimate its moisture content, and so forth.
There is a difference between the farmer and the miller and they cannot reconcile it. Then the arbitrator comes in. What can he do? He must take a sample, a representative sample to the satisfaction of farmer and miller and then the wheat passes into the mill and the price to be paid for it ultimately to the farmer will be deter mined by a test of the sample. A third of the sample will go to the farmer, a third to the miller and a third to the Department. That last third will have to be tested by experts in the seed-testing department for moisture content and other relevant points. They are scientists and they will be bound by no rule but the rule of objective, literal scientific test. They will apply the letter of the law of moisture content, millability, maltose content and glucose content. They will report on that and on that report the farmer will be paid.
I think farmers would be well advised to consider well whether in the average normal year they would do better under that system or under the system which has obtained heretofore. Think of this. In a normal year a licensed wheat agent or a wheat dealer gets his living by handling the farmers' wheat. He does not want to acquire the reputation in his district of being a stiff, cranky man. On the contrary, he wants his neighbours and the farmers from further afield to say: "If you go and deal with Pat So-and-so he will treat you fair; if the wheat is good he will take it and give you full credit for it." He does not want to get the reputation: "If you go to Pat So-and-so he will always say your wheat is 1 or 2 per cent. damper than any other miller would say."
The licensed wheat dealer or agent wants to handle wheat; the more wheat he handles the better off he is. The interest of the dealer and agent is to give the farmer the best price he can afford to get for it, because if he does not the farmer will go elsewhere. Remember, this year we had cases of farmers being offered a price by a dealer far less than he thought was fair and taking his wheat elsewhere and finding another mill which treated him much more leniently.
If, however, you set some system of arbitration—and in my opinion the claim cannot be resisted if it is pressed upon any Minister for Agriculture—the arbitration will have to be based upon the cold, objective, scientific assessment of the sample submitted. I will leave it to the farmers themselves to determine whether under that system they would do better than under the system which obtains at the present time. Wheat in great quantity has been accepted this year with moisture contents over 28 per cent. and up to 33 per cent. Do not let us forget that when the Beet Growers' Association, Grain Section, was discussing this matter with my predecessor — and bear in mind they had in contemplation a normal year — their view was that they were not interested in what befell wheat which was tendered for sale with more than 28 per cent. moisture content. I think that for a normal year that is a reality.
Now, I am charged with having treated the wheat growers with contempt, with indifference, with harshness; and the facts are that their own representatives are on record as stating that in their judgment wheat with a moisture content in excess of 28 per cent. was not fit to mill and ought not to be bought by any miller. That was the view of their own representative. The Minister for Agriculture, who is supposed to be the enemy of wheat growers, who is supposed to have treated them with indifference, harshness, and callousness, in fact required and secured that the millers would buy a very large percentage of the total volume of wheat tendered with a moisture content of between 28 and 33 per cent. I have told you the percentage of wheat which was rejected as unmillable — less than 3 per cent. I am not going to tell the House what my estimate is of the percentage of the total volume of wheat which was accepted at between 28 and 33 per cent. moisture content, but when the whole crop is in, if anyone wants to check on that we can go into it. I would ask the House to remember that, applying the criterion of the wheat growers' own representative, that should not be regarded as millable wheat at all. I insisted that it should.
I want to tell the House this, and it is as well you should know, as I believe in telling you everything. The point was put to me that if these grades of wheat were taken, unless there was dilution of the bulk by wheat of a lower maltose and higher glutin content, the resulting bread would be inedible and would create a prejudice against the whole policy of wheat growing. I agreed to permit the miller to bring in a certain percentage of wheats whereby to dilute the Irish wheat purchased with a moisture content of between 28 and 33 per cent., so as to ensure that the quality would be reasonably good for the bread users of the country and that the Irish product would not come to have a shocking reputation amongst those who were ultimately required to eat it.
As I understand the job of any Minister for Agriculture, when he is on the hustings he places his policy before the country, he asperses the policy of his antagonists and he abides the judgment of the people when the polls are taken. But once he is Minister for Agriculture, he is Minister for Agriculture for every farmer in the country. My duty was, whatever a farmer's problem, to help him to sell his crop for the best possible price that he could secure. I challenge any wheat farmer in Ireland in public now to prove that there was anything left undone, night or day, since the first sheaf of wheat was cut last September which could have been done to alleviate the distress under which he had to labour as a result of the appalling weather with which we all have had to contend.
I want to repeat that every single small or large farmer who is growing wheat or any other crop on his own land had a right to call on me for all the help that I could give to get him through his difficulties. Every Deputy had not only a right but a duty to call on me to help any farmer whose circumstances they knew of. Some Deputies did call on me and I do not think they called in vain. I think it is true to say that some Deputies on the other side of the House called on me and I do not think they called in vain. I deplore the action of those Deputies who knew distress amongst their neighbours and would not call on me. They knew perfectly well they had no need to call on me personally if they did not wish to do so; they could call on the Department without reference to me at all. But they were equally certain that if they wanted to call on me personally they were as welcome as the flowers in May; their right to do so was most readily conceded and their representations were most welcome, if they were a contribution to put anything right that was wrong.
I want the House to bear this in mind — Solomon himself could not claim that no mistakes were made, that there was no miscarriage of our plans in any part of Ireland. Of course there were; there were cases in which farmers were getting a raw deal; but I like to make the boast that no single such case was made to me without his grievance being redressed within 24 hours of my coming to know of it. Bearing in mind my corporate capacity I want to say I am proud of that performance. I am proud to be able to claim that no single case was reported to me of a farmer getting a raw deal, or being left in the lurch where help was not brought to his door within 24 hours of the information coming to me.