I noted Deputy O'Hara's references to the use of live weight scales for buying pigs. I have a constitutional reluctance to pushing people about. I am aware that the practice of buying pigs on live weight scales exists in certain parts of the country. I believe it results in the producer getting less for his pigs than he would get if he sent them to the factory and had them graded. I am not convinced yet that I have any duty to coerce people to do better for themselves than they are at present doing. As at present advised, I feel my duty is done when I provide people with an opportunity of getting the value of their produce. But if they choose to take what appears to them a more convenient course of action and they want to pay for it by accepting a lower price than they otherwise could get, I do not know if I have a duty to constrain them in that matter.
Any person is now entitled individually or collectively, as Deputy Sheldon suggests, to bring his pigs to the factory. He is entitled to go in and see his pigs graded. The officers of my Department attend that pig factory to superintend the grading operation, and if a man is producing grade A pigs, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that he will get a better price for his pigs by following that procedure than he will by bringing them to the scale and selling them by live weight, but I think he has a right to make that choice himself. However, I would be prepared to hear representations that something further should be done. As at present advised, however, it seems to me that the existing provision is sufficient. I believe that, in the long run, our people will come to realise that the production of grade A bacon is their best bet and I think our experience over the last six months, which shows an increase in the percentage of grade A pigs received at the factories from 54 to 63 per cent., is fairly good evidence that our people are making considerable progress.
Deputy O'Hara also said that he thought the marketing system in Great Britain should be improved so that the customer would get the highest possible percentage of top quality bacon from Ireland. There, again, I am dealing with a large number of factories, some of which are proprietary and some of which are cooperative. I suppose I could ask the Oireachtas to impose upon all these factories a uniform system of marketing in Great Britain, but the fact remains that many of these factories have been in business for close on a century and they have their contacts in Great Britain. They make the case that by using these old and valued contacts they can market their products better than any other system would market them and I am reluctant to tear up a well-established pattern of trade relations and substitute an untried and new procedure unless there are overwhelming reasons for doing so.
Perhaps Deputy O'Hara has overlooked the fact that we are trying to achieve the end that he has in view, that is, that there should be a uniform supply of top-grade produce. We are subsidising only the export of grade A bacon. If anyone wants to send grade B or grade C bacon to England he must market it there at whatever it will fetch.
The only bacon in respect of which we guarantee a price to the curer is grade A bacon and I am asking the Dáil under this Bill to give me the authority to require every factory, if that should be necessary, to send a percentage of its entire output of grade A bacon to the export market. At present, curers have voluntarily undertaken to operate such a scheme themselves but the curers have said that they would wish me to take that power lest the voluntary agreement should break down and that certain individuals would concentrate all their output on the domestic market to the detriment of others who were trying to meet what they conceive to be their duty in maintaining a constant supply on our export market. I propose to use the power, if I get it from Dáil Éireann, should it be necessary to do so, in order to maintain constant supplies of bacon on the foreign market, and I would hope ultimately, of uniform quality comparable to the best that Denmark can produce.
Deputy Moher, I think, dwelt on that aspect of the situation too when he said it was important to maintain uniform quantities and uniform quality. That is the objective towards which we are moving by the devices to which I have referred.
Deputy Moher feels that, as we move over to the exclusive use of home-grown barley instead of imported coarse grains, we will have to provide larger and larger storage facilities. I am sorry to hear him express that view because I think Deputy Sheldon's view is the sounder.
I think it would be much better if we could enable farmers to spread out the threshing of the barley crop and allow the barley crop to come on to the market gradually. Deputy Moher has overlooked that, if you provide storage at immense capital cost, the cost of storage per week is appalling and, if you have any kind of central storage, the cost of transporting the barley from the farm to the store, the cost of taking it into the store, the cost of handling it in the store, the cost of taking it out of the store and bagging it and unbagging it and then transporting it to the mill and then grinding it and transporting it thence in the form of meal or compound to the ultimate consumer would be shocking. It would be infinitely better if these charges could be eliminated and, in so far as it is possible, to have the grain consumed on the farm where it was grown or, in the alternative, where there is a surplus available for sale, that it should go straight from the farm to the mill and thence to the consumer. Every intermediate stage adds immensely to the costs and we have got to bear in mind that we are here dealing, not with a product that will be consumed on the domestic market where we can fix the price, but with a product which is the raw material of an export industry and, therefore, we have got to see that the price is kept at a reasonable level. If there are to be heavy storage charges and heavy transport charges and heavy housing and unhousing charges, either the pig producer or the barley grower will be mulcted for those charges. I think the man who grows the grain or the man who feeds it is entitled to any profit there is in it.
