During the period in office of the previous Government, it was our objective to secure for the farmers their raw materials at the lowest possible price at which they could be procured. At the same time, we recognised that there was in existence here a fertiliser industry which could, with advantage, be expanded, albeit that it is an industry the raw materials of which must be imported, as to 80 per cent. from abroad. The superphospate industry is founded on the import of phosphate rock, mainly from the North African shore. For the purpose of securing that the farmers of this country would have their raw materials at the lowest possible price, while at the same time, securing that the existing industry, and any development of it, would be protected from adverse consequences, we undertook to see that the domestic industry would be assisted by the Exchequer to meet any competition it was called upon to meet from superphosphate imported from any source. The net result of that was that the domestic industry collected £200,000 per annum in subsidy to assist it to meet competition from superphosphate from abroad. That resulted in the farmers getting not only the domestic superphosphate at £200,000 less than they would have had to pay for it, without the arrangement we made, but it also enabled them to buy foreign superphosphate at the lowest possible price.
The present Government—I think wisely—have superimposed upon that a general subsidy of £4 per ton wheresoever it may come from for the benefit of the farmers, but, so surely as we establish a system whereunder the open competition that has operated to keep down the price of superphosphate over the past three or four years is suspended, the greater part of that subsidy will go into the industrialist's pocket and not into the pockets of the farmers for whom it was intended.
The point I want to make is that this is not an issue between town and country. This is an issue of survival for all of us. There is no living creature here, whether he lives in city, town or rural Ireland, whose livelihood and standard of living does not ultimately depend on our success in exploiting the resources of the land. To exploit these resources effectively, we must use superphosphate of lime. If we fail to use it in sufficient quantity, the net result of such failure will be a diminution in the national income. If the price of superphosphate is suffered to rise, it will result inevitably in a reduced user of it and a reduced output from the land.
There is one national statistic that is susceptible of accurate check, that is, the volume and the value of our agricultural exports. I admit that there are statistics for national output, gross national product and net national product. I confess that after 20 years of careful study, I am wholly unable to make head or tail of them. They seem susceptible to such wide variations and unascertainable elements that they mean nothing to me. But there is one statistic which is inescapable because it is measured physically at the point of export and the point of import. That is the volume and the value of our exports.
In the 10 years between 1947 and 1957, we doubled the volume and we trebled the value of the exports of this country. If we had not done that, where would we stand today? Those exports consist, as to nearly 80 per cent., of agricultural produce, and the bulk of them is livestock and livestock products, fed on grass. Remember, they must be fed on grass, because that is the only feeding stuff which can be made available to farmers at a price which will leave them any margin of profit at all on which to survive. If they are forced over to feeding concentrates, the outlets we have for agricultural exports are not such as to leave our farmers a marginal profit over the feeding of concentrates. You may take it, therefore, that an essential raw material of the bulk of our agricultural exports is an increasing quantity of superior quality grass, either growing on the land or in the form of silage or hay. There is the foundation of the dairy industry. There is the foundation of the livestock industry. There is the foundation of the sheep industry, and the wool industry. All these exports go together to build up the livelihood of everyone in this country.
I want to warn this House against acceptance of the principle that the raw materials of that fundamental industry should be taxed or restricted in any way. The Minister makes protestations —in which, I have no doubt, he believes—that these quotas can be administered without increasing the cost of our fundamental raw material. I speak with long experience, not only in my capacity as a Minister for Agriculture but also as a merchant handling these materials and selling them to farmers; there is nothing of which I am more convinced than that, if we remove the element of competition in the manufacture and distribution of superphosphate of lime, the price will rise to the farmer so certainly as to morrow's sun will rise upon the new day. There is no device the Minister can operate to prevent it. That danger is doubled and trebled under a system by which the Government are providing a subsidy of £4 per ton, for this reason that by and large, single super is selling today in rural Ireland at about £9 a ton, and that is after you have taken the subsidy off. The current world price at which super would be available to this country would be something in the nature of £12 15/- or £13, but the Government subsidy makes it possible to sell it at £9 per ton. Next year or the year after—I should say next year—trade concessions should make it possible for the fertiliser industry to bring down the price by about 10/- per ton.
As certainly as we are in this House, if there is no competition to force them to do it, human beings, being what they are, will come to the conclusion that by bringing it down by 2/6 or by 5/-, they are not doing so badly, and the farmers who are buying at present at £9 per ton, when they know the world price is £13 per ton, will lose the real advantage they should enjoy of a further reduction of 10/- and, in the last stage, we shall find ourselves pouring this subsidy, not through the farmers' hands on to the land, but through the distributors' hands into the manufacturers' hands.
There is no contest between providing superphosphate to the farmers at the lowest world price available, and preserving our domestic industry in full production. The only contest is where is the wherewithal to achieve that purpose to come from? Is it to come out of the exiguous profits of the farmers of the land, or is to come from the Exchequer and be measured by this Parliament, and be known by this Parliament? I say that to take it from the exiguous profits of the small farmer in a way no one can measure —because if it is extracted from the price nobody will ever know quite what the volume of the levy is— means you are putting a burden on that section of the community least able to bear it.
There are thousands and thousands of small farmers throughout the country for whom a sufficiency of super, at a price they can afford to pay, means the difference between something approaching destitution and a very modest degree of comfort. If the price of this commodity is suffered to rise to a level at which they cannot afford to use it, bearing in mind the price they will get for their end product, it will reduce the standard of living of everyone who needs it. Not only will they suffer, but we shall all suffer, because the trade deficit which this year is £80 million—£80 million sterling is the probable deficit on this year's trading—will rise in proportion as our agricultural exports fall.
I ask the House to pause and consider with a trade deficit of £80 million this year, what would that deficit be if we had not doubled the volume, and trebled the value, of our exports between 1947 and 1957? It would be at a level which would involve an early economic collapse of this community. I am imploring the House to face the facts. We have an opportunity and a duty to expand exports so that we may maintain the economic viability of our society, and we can do that. If we fail, it will be through our own folly. We have 12 million acres of arable land: we have a splendid population who are eager, willing, and well able to exploit it to the best advantage. We have the greatest market for agricultural produce outside our door in which to dispose of the output of our land, if we have the intelligence to effect satisfactory trade agreements with 50 million people who are, at present, the greatest food importers in the whole world, and we are the only country in the world within 30 miles of them. We have free access to that market and every variety of livestock that can be reared on grass, and there is no other country in the world which will be permitted to send livestock on those terms.
