When the Fianna Fáil Government came in this time they found that in their entire Parliamentary Party there was not a man fit to be Minister for Agriculture. But the present Minister is back now, in default, and he has come back with his admiration of himself in no way minimised. Let us have regard to the case he has made here to-day, because I never had the experience before of a Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture so clearly justifying the actions and the policy of his predecessor.
What is the gist of what the Minister said? His defence for his Government's decision in relation to wheat is that he complains that there is now, and was last year and the year before, a surplus of wheat in the country. Accordingly, he said that that surplus must be sold off for feeding stuff and that the farmers must be prevented, discouraged from growing wheat. I wonder is that a defence and a case prepared merely for the purpose of this motion? I want Deputy Nicholas Egan, Deputy Martin Corry, Deputy Medlar, Deputy Moher, to listen to this very carefully, because they were the shock troops of Fianna Fáil 12 months ago.
This time 12 months each of these gentlemen was getting hoarse talking about the terrible injustice done to wheat farmers by the inter-Party Government. They are told now by the Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture that the result of Deputy Dillon's policy was to produce in this country a superabundance of wheat. They are told that as a result of the policy encouraged and put into operation by Deputy Dillon too much wheat was sown and that accordingly there is a surplus. Let us compare that statement now with the case made by Fianna Fáil when they were in Opposition, because this motion is designed to deal with that case.
Let us compare what the Minister now says with the dreary campaign that was being carried on in this country, starting in 1954, and only ending at the last general election. There was a wheat motion introduced in this House at the last general election. There was a wheat motion introduced in this House on the 2nd December, 1954, by eight Fianna Fáil Deputies. It was a motion condemning the then Government's decision to reduce the price of wheat from 82/6 to 70/- per barrel. In the course of that debate—I am not going to refer to many of the things said, but I shall take one quotation which illustrates the point I want to make—Deputy Aiken, now Minister for External Affairs, said, and he was supported by other Deputies in his Party:—
"My belief is that instead of getting the food requirements of our people in addition to our seed requirements, this sudden, disastrous cut in wheat prices is going to drive the wheat away downwards. I do not know how far. The Lord knows how far."
That remark was repeated by the present Minister for Lands and by Deputy Nicholas Egan and by every other Fianna Fáil Deputy participating in that debate. Their complaint was that because the price of wheat was reduced by 12/6 a barrel our farmers would go out of wheat growing. The proposer of the motion even went so far as to say that the very security of the nation was endangered.
That was 1954. In the intervening years the wheat wave continued throughout the country. Every available opportunity was seized upon by Fianna Fáil speakers to suggest that the reduction in the price of wheat was cruel and unjust and that it was driving people out of wheat growing. The Taoiseach will remember that in the newspaper of which he is the controlling director there was a banner headline after the wheat cut: "£2,000,000 taken from the farmers of this country." There was the whole Fianna Fáil campaign designed to get not wheat farmers, because they knew what they were doing, but people living in the towns and cities to believe that national security was endangered, that wheat growing was disappearing under the policy of Deputy Dillon as Minister for Agriculture.
We know now that that was so much ballyhoo and nonsense. We know now that that campaign was sheer political drivel because when all the noise is over the result is, on the figures the Minister gave us to-day, that on the 1st September, 1956, the year after the price of wheat was cut, there was a carry-over of 55,000 tons of wheat representing an excess of 20,000 tons, that, in the following year, despite the fact that 1956 was a bad year with a bad harvest, the carry-over was 75,000 tons of dried wheat and that, accordingly, in relation to this year there is a further carry-over of 95,000 tons.
That is point No. 1. The Fianna Fáil charge made against us on these figures is proven to have been unjustified. The policy that Deputy Dillon embarked upon did not reduce wheat growing. That policy, in fact, succeeded in maintaining our national requirements in wheat and further, and more important, in encouraging our farmers into growing coarse grains. It was a balanced tillage policy and that is proven by the Minister to-day to have been the fact. Therefore, so far as policy and outlook is concerned we can say from this side of the House that it is a notable fact that the commendation of Deputy Dillon's policy comes from a Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture.
The Minister complained to-day that he had this problem of surplus wheat which had to be disposed of and that a month after the present Government came into office they had actually sold 20,000 tons of surplus wheat for compounding. I wonder do Deputies remember that Deputy Corry, who has fled the House, when the change of Government took place was so excited with regard to the Fianna Fáil campaign in relation to wheat that he had the temerity six days after the change of Government to ask the caretaker Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for External Affairs, what the new Government proposed to do in relation to increasing the price of wheat. The then Minister for Agriculture, the present Minister for External Affairs, said at column 44, Volume 161, of the Official Debates of the 26th March, 1957:—
"No alteration of the price of wheat in these last days of March could appreciably affect the acreage of wheat this year.
I can, however, assure Deputy Corry that the necessity for securing an adequate acreage of wheat is fully realised by the Government, and that an announcement regarding wheat prices will be made in good time to enable farmers to prepare for the autumn sowing season."
The autumn sowing season is gone and what the Minister for External Affairs was referring to was the necessity this year further to increase the acreage under wheat. It is implicit in that parliamentary reply that he and his colleagues under the Taoiseach were satisfied that there was an inadequate acreage under wheat and that something had to be done to increase it. Did ever fraud find itself out in such a way? The present Government were so consumed with their own propaganda that, sitting in office, they proceeded to indicate that farmers could expect this autumn the necessary inducement to provide an adequate acreage of wheat.
Nevertheless, the Minister for Agriculture tells us to-day that at that time the Government was up to its neck in wheat, that it had accumulated a surplus of some 75,000 tons and that they were busily trying to sell off that surplus for feeding stuff. Who is playing straight with the people of this country? Who is telling the truth? What did the Minister for External Affairs mean on the 26th March by suggesting in his reply that he was going to see that there was an adequate acreage under wheat this year when in fact the problem facing the Government was that there was a surplus of wheat? I think it is not unreasonable for us to say that there has been appalling duplicity on the part of the Government Party in relation to this whole business.
I said that the purpose of this motion was not to debate the tillage policies of the present Government and Deputy Dillon because that has gone beyond the realm of debate. It is now agreed by the present Minister for Agriculture that Deputy Dillon's policy was the sound policy. The purpose of this motion is to draw the attention of this House and the country to the pledges given by the present Government in relation to wheat when they were seeking electoral support. This motion asks this Dáil to condemn the Government—
"for their repudiation of the specific undertaking given to wheat growers during the election campaign, as set out in their official election literature, that only an immediate Government decision to restore the 1954 price of 82/6 per barrel could save Irish wheat-growing from disaster."
I propose, as briefly as possible, in relation to this motion, to demonstrate to the satisfaction, perhaps not to the pleasure, of all Deputies that such pledges were given. There is, or was, a monthly circulation under the style and title of An Gléas and it used to be the practice and habit, when I and my colleagues were in Government, to send us a complimentary copy each month. I am very glad that was done because I have now a full file of all the productions. It calls itself the official gazette or magazine of Fianna Fáil. What has An Gléas to say in regard to the price of wheat?
By the way, I think that perhaps I am being unkind because An Gléas, I understand, has recently died and I do not want to say anything unkind about the departed. Perhaps, however, the good that has been done lives after it and certainly in this instance litera scripta manet. In the January, 1956, issue of An Gléas here is what was said —representing, I must emphasise, the official Party attitude. I know the Irish Press is not official; it is just a bystander. Here is what the official Party gazette had to say about wheat:
"A few days ago the Taoiseach received a deputation from the National Farmers' Association, which put the case for restoring the price of wheat to the 1954 level. From every point of view it is to be hoped that the Government will overrule Mr. Dillon and accept the unanswerable case which has been made for a restoration of the Fianna Fáil price."
It goes on:—
"It is now recognised by all that the slashing of the wheat price was a grave error of judgment by the Government. The results of this error will become still more serious should there be a further fall this year in the acreage under wheat. Only an immediate Government decision to restore the 1954 price can save Irish wheat-growing from disaster."
There is the official Party attitude defined and declared in their own pet monthly circulation and sent to Deputy Dillon and other members of the Government. In March, 1956, An Gléas goes on to say:
"In 1954 the Coalition cut the price of wheat by 12/6 a barrel, and so brought about a reduction in wheat acreage of 120,000.
Fianna Fáil warned Mr. Dillon of the dangers of this policy, and pointed out the effect it would have in swelling our adverse balance of payments. The warning was ignored.
As a result of the new levies, the Government hopes to cut our imports by £7,000,000, yet the increase in the imports of wheat and maize last year came to more than that figure.
The cutting of the wheat price saved the Exchequer the sum of about £1,000,000 a year—though Mr. Sweetman did not use this saving to reduce taxation. Now through the import levies, the public are to pay an extra £4,000,000 a year in taxation.
Someone should give Mr. Dillon a lesson in elementary economics."
There is the policy of our opponents as printed in their "pep" magazine, sent out to all canvassers, candidates and campaigners throughout the country. There is the Party line to be used by the Party when it was seeking electorate support. I am sorry that neither Deputy Nicholas Egan nor Deputy Kieran Egan is in the House, but we know that in the by-election in Laois-Offaly—a good wheat growing constituency—crocodile tears were shed for the poor wheat growers of the Midlands. In April, 1956, they were told by every Fianna Fáil speaker who could string two words together that the cut in the price of wheat was a terrible thing and that it could be restored only by a Fianna Fáil Government.
Later on Deputy Medlar was sent by Carlow-Kilkenny with sheafs of wheat sticking out of his pocket in order to demonstrate that Deputy Medlar and Fianna Fáil would increase the price of wheat. I remember—I think it was this day last year, or just 12 months ago—listening with interest to the present Minister for Finance as he spoke over the radio to the people of this country as they sat by their firesides one cold February night. Deputy Dr. Ryan, as he then was, had a lot to say about agriculture. He had a lot to say about farming, about prices and about costs. In particular he had a great deal to say about wheat. Deputy Dr. Ryan, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, on the 25th February last year, said that the cut in the price of wheat made by the inter-Party Government was cruel and unjust. He went on to say that under a Fianna Fáil Government there would be a remunerative price fixed for crops such as wheat.
I challenge any Deputy in the Fianna Fáil Party to explain that what was intended by that radio broadcast was anything except to suggest that the cruel and unjust cut would be remedied by a Fianna Fáil Government and that the remunerative price for crops such as wheat would be an increased price. I challenge the Minister for Lands, if he intends to speak, or any other Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party, to explain what other meaning could be gleaned from that radio broadcast which stated that the cut in the price of wheat was "cruel and unjust" and that a Fianna Fáil Government would see that a remunerative price would be fixed for crops such as wheat.
The people, a few days later, to be precise on Ash Wednesday of last year, went into penance because they elected a Fianna Fáil Government, and that Government, having got into office, we charge, have disregarded the pledges which they made. We charge them here, in the interests of public decency, that their actions should be condemned by Dáil Éireann. It is not right and it is not honest that public men at election time should enter into undertakings, and make commitments, which they have no intention of honouring.
It is not right that the Fianna Fáil Party should have allowed Deputy Dr. Ryan, as he then was, to speak over Radio Éireann and promise the wheat farmers of this country that the "cruel and unjust" cut would be restored, and that a remunerative price would be given to them by a Fianna Fáil Government. When the Government found they could not honour that pledge, it was the Taoiseach's duty to tender the resignation of the Government to Dáil Éireann. What has happened now is that the Government feels, with the support of Deputy Medlar, of Deputy Egan, of Deputy Corry and of all the other people who used to talk about wheat in this House, securely pledged, the Government can continue in existence as long as the law will permit. They apparently feel that they can shrug off as so many awkward encumbrances, these speeches, pledges and commitments which they gave so clearly this time 12 months ago.
It is a depressing thing that we are now discussing: a decision by a Fianna Fáil Government, taken in direct conflict with its terms of reference in Government, taken in direct opposition to the pledges made, a decision which is intended to ensure a fall in wheat production in this country. It may be said, and I am quite certain that some Fianna Fáil Deputies would like to have the courage to interrupt me and ask: "What would you do if you were faced with a surplus of wheat?" That would be a fair question. We were faced with such a surplus in 1954 and the country knows what we did, what we in Fine Gael particularly did. We faced up to our responsibilities. We said: "We are fixing a price of 70/- per barrel for wheat and any farmer who desires to grow wheat is guaranteed that price for the crop he sows— there will be no back-peddling, no heel-tapping, no dishonesty—there is our price and if you do not like it, you can lump it."
That is what we did in 1954. I dare say, if we had the responsibility, that is what we would do again. What do these people do? They are afraid to declare a price, to come out into the open and declare a policy. They introduce, instead of guaranteed prices, a jumble of words intended to cod the farmers. This jumble of words will have the effect that next July, when the crop is in the ground, a number of officials of both sides will come together to estimate yields, estimate surpluses, and estimate what will be got in an autumn market for surplus wheat. The result will be that next July the wheat price will be declared and, of course, we know the cut will be from 6/- upwards. I suggest to the Government that that is a coward's way out. That is the action of a timorous Government, afraid to face up to its responsibilities. It is bad enough to make promises which were not believed in; it is bad enough to disregard solemn pledges made 11 months ago; but it is far worse to come to a decision which is not clear and which is not honest.
The Minister for Agriculture said here to-day that he was not happy about it. I am not surprised. He said that this would not have been his policy. Whose policy has it been, then? It is the Minister's responsibility and we are entitled to assume that this is his policy, or is this a Government at all? Is there collective responsibility in this Government? What is the sense in the Minister standing up here and saying: "I would not have done this and I do not believe in it", when in fact it is done in his name by the Government, or was he overruled by the townies, that Deputy Esmonde referred to? Is there some hidden third force in the Government to-day that is against the farmers and against the agricultural industry? If so, we should be told about it. In any event, the whole thing has been discreditable. This Government has failed to live up to its responsibility, in this context and in others, and we have the appalling defence made by the Minister for Agriculture to the effect that Fianna Fáil last year got a blank cheque from the people.
