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Seanad Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 13 Dec 1932

Vol. 16 No. 7

Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill, 1932—Second Stage.

Question proposed—"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill is a comprehensive measure, and its administration will fall partly to the Department of Industry and Commerce and partly to the Department of Agriculture. It is, consequently, a measure which perhaps could be usefully discussed in two stages, but it was considered desirable that all the provisions of the scheme should be embodied in the one Bill so that the danger of overlapping, which would be natural under these circumstances, would be reduced to a minimum. The purpose of the Bill is to provide, first, for the encouragement of the growing of various cereal crops in the country; secondly, to ensure that there will be a market for any such crop grown; and, thirdly, to provide the industrial concerns for the utilisation of the wheat crop and the marketing of the other crops in the form required by the Bill. It is, I think, hardly necessary to expatiate on the desirability of securing increased production of the various cereal crops with which this Bill is concerned or the utilisation of those crops for feeding purposes by the breeders of live stock, in so far as that is practicable, in preference to imported cereals. Neither should it be necessary to advocate at length the desirability of securing that the flour requirements of the Saorstát should be provided in full from mills established in the Saorstát. Apart altogether from the question of the increased employment involved and the greater national wealth resultant from that employment, there is the broad question of national safety.

In most civilised countries governments have been concerned to encourage the production of wheat and other cereals as well as to preserve the milling industry as a key industry. There is practically no European country in which State assistance of one kind or another to encourage wheat production is not given, or in which the flour-milling industry is not protected. I know there are some people who believe that for some peculiar reason Ireland is the one spot upon the earth on which it is not possible to grow wheat, and the one country which, for some reason, might find it advantageous to depend on outside sources for its supplies of an essential commodity of food, namely, flour. That view, however, is I am sure not generally held anywhere. It has always been one of the points of the national programme here that State action to restore wheat as one of the main crops of the country, plus action to develop the flour-milling industry, should be undertaken. That is the design behind this Bill. It is, of course, possible to criticise the machinery that has been established to achieve these ends, but I do not think anyone can dispute the desirability of attaining these ends. It may be that the machinery is capable of improvement. It may be that alternative methods of achieving the same purpose can be devised, but the desirability of the purpose is, I think, beyond question. If, therefore, we accept that contention and examine the Bill from the point of view of its practicability and the machinery which it purports to create, I think we will find that whatever defects the machinery may have it is at least capable of working. Senators will, perhaps, be enabled to appreciate that fact better if I go through the various Parts of the Bill and explain what they are intended to achieve.

Part I of the Bill is mainly confined to definitions of one kind or another. Section 3 is a list of definitions all of which are, of course, important because the significance of the terms used in the Bill rests upon the phraseology of that section. Sections 4 and 5 are designed to secure, in respect of the flour-milling industry, the operation of the principles which were embodied in the Control of Manufactures Act. Senators will remember that the milling of wheat was expressly excluded from the scope of that Act because of the intention to introduce this Bill which makes special provision in the case of the milling industry. Section 10 provides for the establishment of an Advisory Committee, the duties of which will be to advise the Minister for Industry and Commerce in respect of the execution of his functions under the Act.

It is when we come to Part II of the Bill that we get to the vital clauses of it. Part II provides for the control and regulation of wheat milling. It is, perhaps, well at this stage to point out that to a very large extent the scheme outlined in this Part of the Bill is at present in operation, and that it would be possible in any event to bring the entire scheme of the Bill into effect by purely finance legislation. To a large extent that has been done, but it was considered desirable and just that the details of the scheme should be set out in legislation and those affected by it given all the protection required. Part II provides that it shall not be lawful for any person to engage in the business of milling wheat without a licence. For those who were engaged in the industry during any part of 1931 that licence is automatically available. It cannot be refused to them or made subject to any conditions except those that are set out on the face of the Bill. In respect of concerns established after the passage of the Bill, or silent mills which were not in production in 1931 but which were in production some years previous to that, a licence may or may not be granted, and such licence may or may not be subject to special conditions. It is our aim to secure that the milling capacity of the country will be brought to a point somewhat in excess of the country's requirements. It may be considered desirable to allow milling capacity to grow, to an extent, after 100 per cent. of the requirements had been satisfied, but those who have been watching the experience of other countries, and, particularly, the experience of Great Britain, which, during the war, became very much over-milled, will realise that there are, in connection with this industry, very considerable disadvantages associated with too much competition. Consequently, it would be the policy of the Government to be very reluctant to issue new licences for the establishment of additional mills after the point had been reached at which we could say that the entire requirements of the country were being met from existing mills, and something more, that something more being intended to ensure that the element of competition would enter and have its influence on price levels.

Pending the day on which we will be able to supply all our requirements, flour must, of course, be imported. At present, there is a 5/- import duty on flour, with a licence provision. That licence provision is being operated to allow in that quantity of flour which is required to supplement the production of the existing mills, with a little more. On September 1st, that scheme came into operation. The duty on flour was imposed in July but it was not made effective until 1st September. On that date, the normal importation of flour was reduced by one half and it continued at that rate until November when a much more substantial reduction was made. The reduction which was made in November was very substantial because it appeared obvious, during the months preceding it, that we had, to some extent, underestimated the supply of flour in the country and over-estimated the quantity of flour required. Consequently, although we reduced the importation by half as from 1st September, the existing mills did not come, as we intended they should come, into full production, and, in fact, some mills here and there had to close temporarily, for a week or so, in order to clear stocks. We effected, on 1st September, therefore, a much more drastic reduction, although it is possible that, at the end of the next quarter, when the position is being reviewed, an increased quantity of flour will have to be allowed in. However, the intention is to get the existing mills to the point of producing to capacity and allowing in the quantity of flour required to supplement their production and to supply our requirements plus a certain percentage designed to ensure that the element of competition will operate.

A number of applications in anticipation of the passage of this Bill for licences to erect new mills or to extend the capacity of existing mills have been received and we have, in fact, more or less planned out the flour-milling scheme as it will finally appear. An intimation has been given to various parties that, on the passage of the Bill, the licence they require will be issued to them. The purpose behind the giving of these undertakings was to ensure that there would be no delay in the construction of new mills or in the extension of existing mills necessary to bring production to the point at which it would meet requirements.

If, and when, Senators are inclined to criticise this Part of the Bill and the measure of control which it gives over the flour-milling industry, there are some points I want them to bear in mind. The first is that the flour-milling industry has been controlled in the Saorstát for a number of years. Senators will remember that, in 1926, after the establishment of the Tariff Commission the flour millers of the Saorstát applied for the imposition of a protective duty against which the Tariff Commission recommended. Some time after that refusal of a protective duty, the flour millers of the Saorstát entered into an arrangement with the flour millers of Great Britain concerned with this market. An organisation called the Mutual Millers' Association was formed and the Saorstát market was parcelled out between the importers and the home producers.

The arrangement permitted home producers to manufacture flour to half the capacity of their mills and to supply what were roughly half the requirements of the country and permitted the importers to supply the balance. Any Saorstát flour miller who exceeded his quota under the arrangement became liable to a fine, and a more substantial fine than is provided for in this Bill. The money secured from these fines went into a fund which was designed to facilitate Saorstát flour millers to get out of business. The whole industry was rigidly controlled by flour millers, in the interest of flour millers, and those who will take the trouble of studying the movement of flour prices will note that, since the scheme came into operation, the movement has been continuously upward. That situation was one which, in our opinion, was most undesirable. It was complicated by the fact that a very big English combine was gradually acquiring a controlling influence over the industry and, at the time of the change of Government, somewhat more than one-third of the total milling capacity of the country was under the influence of that combine. That position has not been disturbed. It is true that the proportion of capacity which that particular group will control will diminish as the total capacity increases, but it is not intended to refuse a licence under this Bill to anybody who was, in fact, engaged in milling flour during 1931. We are merely stepping in to prevent the position becoming worse but we do not attempt to go back over anything that has been done although certain action has been taken voluntarily by people concerned which has, to some extent, redressed that position.

The scheme here provides for the issuing of quotas in respect of each licensed mill. It is intended that these quotas will be fixed on the full capacity of the mill during the year 1931. A miller may mill less than the quota to the extent of 10 per cent. If he fails to mill this quota by more than 10 per cent., he commits an offence under the Bill and is liable to punishment, but, apart from the legal punishment provided, he becomes liable to a reduction in his quota. If he mills more than his quota, he has to pay a fine of 3/- per sack on the excess. Three shillings is, of course, a fairly substantial amount, but a fluctuation of 3/- in the price of flour, in the course of a year, is not unusual and it is quite conceivable that certain mills in the country may find it profitable to sell in excess of their quota, paying a fine of 3/- per sack and still be able to compete with other mills, and there is nothing in the Bill to prevent them from doing that. The inefficient flour miller is not safeguarded by the Bill. There will be, apart from any other consideration, a surplus of flour; that surplus will have to find a market and it will find it at the expense of the most inefficient miller. That miller will not be able to sell flour to his quota, consequently, and, in the following quota year, his quota will be reduced, and, step by step, he will go out of existence. Apart from that, there is always the possibility of the other factor operating, that the more efficient miller may be able to undersell him in his own district, despite the 3/- fine, in which case he will be unable, to a much greater extent, to mill to his quota. Quotas are liable to variation as circumstances require but, generally speaking, it is our intention that quotas will be fixed at the capacity of the mill and will only be increased in consequence of the operation of our definite plan. There are certain mills in respect of which we have already given an undertaking that, in the event of the Bill becoming law, an increase in the quota will be permitter, and these firms, in anticipation of the passage of the Bill, and on the strength of that undertaking, are, at the moment, installing the additional machinery required.

It is not intended that the whole of the difference between present capacity and requirements will be filled in that way because there are a number of districts in the Saorstát in which there are no mills at present and in which it is eminently desirable that mills should exist. I might mention the northern part of the country as an example. If we draw a line from Dublin to Galway we find that there is only one flour mill, near Sligo, north of that line, and, in view of the number of bakeries in the eastern part of the country, in North Dublin and also in Donegal and other places, it is obviously desirable that we should have flour mills in these districts. It is intended to hold some part of the quotas for mills which have been established there or in respect of which steps have already been taken. Similarly there are other parts of the country in which any one glancing at a map of the country on which the location of flour mills is marked, will note that it is desirable that mills should be established, and steps to this end are being taken. Companies are being formed and capital being raised. In other places, the situation can easily be met by extending the capacity of some existing mill and that also is being done.

It is our desire that, to whatever extent is possible, the mills should be established in rural areas rather than at the ports. The whole tendency recently, of course, has been to concentrate flour mills on the quayside at the larger ports because of the savings effected in the unloading of wheat from ships, but if we are going to have a wheat promotion scheme and any considerable quantity of wheat available in the country, the principal advantage of a port mill does not operate and, in fact, it becomes, on balance, desirable to have the mill in rural areas rather than in port areas. There are, of course, some flour millers who are very strongly of opinion, and who have given voice to their opinions in the Press, that, in any event, a rural mill has a substantial advantage over a port mill and that it can produce more economically and sell more cheaply, but that opinion is not widely held. The tendency, however, has been, in recent years, towards the erection of huge mills with tremendous capacity on the quayside. I do not wish to say that I would favour, to any great extent, the establishment of very small mills, but mills with a capacity smaller than some of the larger port mills, situated in rural areas, under the new circumstances, would appear to be quite as competent to mill and to sell as cheaply as any port mill. In pursuance of our general policy, the licensing powers conferred by this Bill will be operated to that end. Of course, we must always bear in mind that the large centres of consumption are the cities and, consequently, the necessary provision to supply the requirements of the cities must be made.

Section 29 requires that every licensed flour miller shall mill in each year a fixed quantity of home-grown wheat. The quantity will be determined by the Minister for Industry and Commerce after consultation with the Minister for Agriculture, having regard to the reports received of the quantity of wheat grown in the country. A definition of millable wheat will be made, but it will be necessary in the initial stages to work upon some rough and ready calculation in fixing the quota of home-grown wheat to be milled by each miller. Power is taken to vary that quantity from time to time during the season as it is found we have underestimated or overestimated the supply. Power is also conferred upon any flour miller to arrange to have his quota of home-grown wheat milled on his behalf by another miller. It is not unlikely some flour millers will arrange to have a large part of their capacity devoted entirely to the milling of home-grown wheat on behalf of those flour millers whose mills are not at the moment sufficiently equipped to handle home-grown wheat in an efficient manner. There are mills in the country which milled home-grown wheat in the past. These mills are equipped with the necessary kilns for drying wheat and they possess facilities not possessed by other mills. Some arrangement of the kind I have referred to may be made with flour millers and this section makes adequate provision in that respect.

Part III provides for subsidies to inland mills in certain cases. When the Bill was being drafted, we had in mind that it might be necessary to provide some inducement to millers to remain in rural areas until such time as the supply of home-grown wheat was available and this Part was inserted in the Bill. During the period between the drawing up of the Bill and its introduction in the Dáil we went into the matter with very great care and in very great detail. We discussed it on a number of occasions with the organisation of the flour millers and with individual millers. Finally we came to the conclusion that, on balance, there was no case for a subsidy for inland mills. Whatever disadvantages they had vis-a-vis the port mills, they had also compensating advantages and most of them could hold, and were in fact very successfully holding, their own against port mills and could be expected to do so. We did feel there might be isolated cases of mills in particular districts suffering from particular disadvantages which, in the general public interest, should be preserved and we felt that some subsidy arrangement might be necessary in their case. Consequently, we amended Part III of the Bill during its passage through the Dáil so as to give us power in certain cases to provide, for limited periods, subsidies to mills so situated. I do not anticipate that power will have to be exercised to any extent.

Part IV of the Bill provides for the registration of flour importers, distillers, wheat importers, wheat dealers, wheat growers, maize millers, maize importers and manufacturers of compound feeding stuffs, It also imposes a restriction on the carrying on of certain businesses. It is necessary that not merely should flour and maize milling be brought under supervision and control, but that certain consequential provisions should also be made in respect of other industries. Distillers must be secured their supplies of wheat and it is also necessary to ensure that there will be no possibility of the State being defrauded by any part of the subsidy available for the encouragement of wheat growing being expended in respect of imported wheat.

The scheme for the subsidisation of wheat-growing is, I think, easily understandable. All wheat-growers are required to register with the Department of Agriculture. When the farmer offers his wheat for sale he offers it to whatever flour miller is prepared to take it. A record of the sale is made and transmitted to the Department of Agriculture. At the end of the year the officials of the Department determine what has been the average price paid for home-grown wheat. There is then paid to each grower, to each farmer, the difference between that average price and the standard price set out in the Second Schedule of the Bill. The standard price varies for different periods of the year and the variation is designed to encourage farmers not to market all their wheat at once but to hold it till after the turn of the year and then offer it during that period. Farmers who can keep it are induced to hold it. If a farmer cannot keep it, he can market it at once. There are certain farmers who may be able to hold the wheat and the higher price operating in the second part of the year is designed to induce them to hold the wheat.

There is every inducement to a farmer to get the highest price possible from a miller. If a farmer has wheat of first-class quality and succeeds in getting an exceptional price from the miller, a higher price even than the standard price, the subsidy will still be available for him. Then there is the case of the farmer who grows a low quality wheat and who gets a low price. The farmer with the low quality wheat may get less than the average price, while the farmer with the better quality wheat will get the standard price. If you can imagine all the farmers combining and entering into an arrangement with the flour millers and fixing a price for wheat, the State might be made to pay substantially more than we anticipate at the moment; but we do not think that is likely. The individual farmer will always have a substantial inducement to get the best price possible and the better the price he gets the higher will be the average price and the lower will be the subsidy payable.

I do not propose to deal with any of the points made from time to time in public speeches, in newspaper reports and newspaper articles about the difficulty of growing wheat here. The Minister for Agriculture will, presumably, answer any criticism on that point, although I think the whole subject has been so debated that there is very little that is new to be said. We have the concrete fact that wheat was grown here. In the year 1847 there were 750,000 acres of wheat grown. That is the first year for which agricultural statistics are available. I know some people get the impression that we are taking the year 1847 because it has some relation to the Famine. That is not so. We are taking it because it is the first year for which we have agricultural statistics for this country. We have also the records of the various bodies responsible for these things, which show that there has been no change in our climate since then. There is the same average amount of rainfall and sunshine. We have also the fact that there have been improved methods of agriculture brought about. We have artificial manures and a number of other advantages which the farmers in 1847 had not got. We have also the fact that the farmers in 1847 got an average yield of 16 cwts. per acre, which is much higher than the average yield in Canada, France or Germany to-day. We can, I think, anticipate that farmers at the present day will be able to get a higher average yield with the improved methods of agriculture now available.

Wheat can be grown successfully in this country, and it is our belief that the only inducement which the farmer requires to grow wheat on a much more extensive scale is the advantage of knowing that a market for his wheat exists and that he will be able to ascertain in advance what price he is likely to get for it. A guaranteed market is much more important than a guaranteed price, but we are proposing to give him both. In the immediate past the farmer had no certainty if he sowed wheat that he could turn it into cash and he had no opportunity of foreseeing what amount of cash he was likely to get, because the price of wheat in recent years has been falling very rapidly. It has fallen to such an extent that the Canadian Government has recently had to resort to a scheme for the subsidisation of wheat production.

The position is that if wheat is not grown, then there is no harm done. No subsidy will be paid and we will be just exactly as we were. If wheat is grown to any substantial extent, although it will involve the State in the payment of the subsidy it will also mean increased employment on the land and a much better utilisation of the land from the national point of view. It will also mean a substantial diminution of what is probably the largest single item on our import list. We spend approximately £7,000,000 upon wheat and flour. Assuming flour imports cease, we can anticipate a substantial increase in wheat imports during the next few years until we can get to the point where that import will begin to diminish with the increased production of wheat here. I do not know if any of us will see the day when we will be able to supply entirely our home requirements, but we can get a considerable way along that road with definite advantage to the nation.

There are other sections which can be more usefully discussed on the Committee Stage, because they relate entirely to the details and the machinery. There is, however, one provision which must be dealt with and that is the part of the Bill which requires that when any maize meal mixture is offered for sale there must be contained in it a stated quantity of home-grown cereals. There is a prohibition on the sale of maize and maize meal and it is intended that those who grow oats and barley will also be given some security as regards a market, although they are not getting the same guarantee as regards price that the grower of wheat will obtain. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure a guaranteed market and also to make a start upon the substitution of home-grown grain for imported cereals for the feeding of stock. There is a very large annual sum exported for maize and it is, I think, generally admitted by all those who claim to talk as experts in the matter that to a great extent maize can be substituted with advantage by the native grain. The means of getting to that end proposed in this Bill is the compulsory admixture scheme. Other devices are, of course, feasible or conceivable but this is the one that appeared to us less likely to cause any dislocation and most likely to produce the result desired.

There is also a provision in the Bill which has aroused some comment and with which it is necessary to deal. That is contained in Part VII, which provides that under certain circumstances the Minister for Industry and Commerce may acquire and operate a flour mill and that the Minister for Agriculture may acquire and operate a maize mill. It is not anticipated that the powers conferred by that part of the Bill will have to be called upon at any time. They are merely provided by way of safeguard. It is conceivable that, in some eventuality, the flour millers of the State might decide to cease milling flour and leave us in the position of having to depend entirely on outside sources, which might not be able to supply our requirements. It is obvious that there must be authority in somebody to come in and work the mills in those circumstances for the benefit of the people. Apart from that consideration, special circumstances may arise in particular districts which may make the conferring of that power upon the Minister desirable. It is intended more as a deterrent than anything else and, as I said, it is not anticipated that the power will have to be used. I, for one, sincerely hope that the circumstances under which it would have to be used will never arise. These are the main features of the Bill. It is, undoubtedly, a major measure but it is one which must have been anticipated as soon as the result of the General Election was known. I think that quite a number of farmers proceeded to take the necessary steps in anticipation of the introduction of this measure as soon as the change of Government took place. The Party composing the present Government had been advocating a proposal of this kind for some years and had committed itself to embarking upon such a scheme. We think that it will be found by experience that this is a policy which is desirable in every way. If it is successful—and we must all hope, even those amongst us who are doubtful, that it will be a success—it will effect a very considerable change in the life of the country. It will mean that the land will be utilised in the production of wealth to a greater extent than heretofore, that much more employment will be given upon the land, that the necessity we are now under of exporting a large quantity of agricultural produce in order to pay the importation of a smaller quantity of agricultural produce will have been removed and, consequently, that there will be a substantial increase the standard of living of our people.

It may be that our hopes are unduly optimistic. It may be that those who have been taking the pessimistic line will prove to be right. But, in that event, as I have pointed out, this Bill will do no harm. It can only do good and we, on our part, have no doubt as to what the results will be. There is already an indication that it is likely to be a success. We anticipate that some 65,000 acres of wheat will be grown this year. That figure is based upon reports received in the Department of Agriculture from their inspectors throughout the country. That, as a start, is not too bad. It represents an increase of substantially more than one hundred per cent. on the acreage.

In the present financial year, it is anticipated that the cost of operating the Bill will not be very heavy. In a full year, the cost of the additional staff required for the operation of the measure has been estimated at about £5,500. In the present year, only about £1,800 will be expended under that head. In the year 1933-34, it is anticipated that the wheat subsidy will amount to £120,000. It will, of course, vary from year to year with the quantity of wheat grown.

Upon what price was that estimate based?

The current price—15/- per barrel. It is proposed, in the present year, to make advances to seed dealers to enable them to sell seed wheat on credit and provision for a sum of about £40,000 is being made in that connection. Of course, that amount will be repaid in the next year when the wheat will have been grown and the subsidy will come to be paid. It is not anticipated that there will be any expenditure in respect of subsidies for inland mills. I have explained the circumstances in that connection. From the point of view of statistics, the requirements of the country in flour are taken at 2,900,000 sacks. The capacity of the existing mills is roughly 2,200 sacks and the balance has got to be provided by new mills. The requirements of the country in wheat can be supplied by roughly 800,000 acres but it is not anticipated that we will have 800,000 acres of wheat next year.

I wish to deal as a practical tillage farmer with this Bill. I have several years' experience of farming in the best tillage county in Ireland. I believe that this Bill is a thoroughly bad one and that it will be a hopeless failure. I base that opinion not on my own knowledge but on the authority of every practical farmer with whom I have spoken concerning it. As the Minister said, the arguments against this measure have been stated ad nauseam, but there are a few points which I did not hear mentioned before. In a year or two, I believe that there will be a number of very disillusioned people in this country as the result of their attempts to grow wheat. We have had this year, a remarkable year —one of those years which come once in 25 or 50 years. It may have led some people who would have had doubts otherwise to think that they can grow wheat. Of course, wheat can be grown in very special land in a good season. Given these factors, you can produce fairly good wheat but not at all as good as the wheat from Manitoba, which is the best in the world. The Government are certainly setting out on a big scheme when they go out against nature and seek to change the whole taste of the people. I admire their courage although I cannot agree with their methods. The people are going to be taxed to pay the subsidy and to raise the price of wheat to 25/- per barrel of 20 stones. At the present time, the price of the very best Manitoba wheat is about 30/-. That is the best wheat the world can produce. Why did not the farmers of Ireland grow wheat during the war, when there was a very big price for it? Why did they not grow it during the eight years recently that the price was maintained at about 30/-? Will a price of 25/- induce them to grow it now? I believe that the only people who will try this experiment is the down-and-out farmer, who does not mind whether he wins or loses, or the person without experience.

I do not like to touch upon the vexed question of climate, because so much has been said about it. The only thing the Minister mentioned in connection with climate was the rainfall. It is not the amount of rain that matters, it is the time the rain comes—in the spring and harvest. It is the foggy, damp atmosphere and the humidity of the climate that count. We are in the Arctic latitude— the same latitude as Labrador, which is snowed up for the greater part of the year. The Gulf Stream comes along here and changes what could be snow and ice into vapour, making this climate specially suited for certain things. It provides us with the best grazing in the world and makes the land suitable for the production of any green crops and unsuitable for the production of grain generally. My father was a large tillage farmer and grew from 70 to 80 acres of corn every year. He never grew wheat in my time. I asked him why he did not grow wheat. He told me that it would not pay him to do so. Like many a foolish person, starting out I had sentimental ideas about the growing of wheat. I thought it was not right that we should be importing such a large amount of flour and wheaten meal and that we should not attempt to grow wheat for ourselves. My experience of wheat sown in the spring was that it was a most precarious crop. I ploughed it up more than once and sowed barley where it had been, losing the seed and labour. The soil in my part happens to be a heavy, clay soil. It is difficult of cultivation and unsuitable for the growing of any winter crops on account of the dirty condition in which they leave the land. I tried the growing of winter wheat. Winter wheat has ten months in the rain-sodden earth. I have sown it and it succeeded fairly well until the month of July or August. I have seen it then sprouting up—the second crop— and being an absolute failure, time and again. These are things for which the farmer who wants to grow wheat will have to be prepared.

There is one matter to which I should like to call the attention of the Minister for Agriculture. Perhaps he will be able to give me an explanation of it. What is the cause of the extraordinary growth of rushes all over the country during the last five or six years? It is quite phenomenal and people have not been able to explain it. Even on high land, we have this growth of rushes, showing that it is waterlogged. I know land which was thoroughly drained—some of my own land was drained in my grandfather's time— and which never grew a rush within anybody's memory until recently.

I do not think that it is proposed to grow rushes under this Bill.

Nobody but a lunatic would attempt to grow wheat where rushes grow. The increased tillage during the war, followed by a succession of wet years, is put forward as one cause of it. It is well known that tillage increases the growth of rushes. If you have a field where you can get very good grazing and if you use certain fertilisers of the lime variety—there may be a few rushes here and there—you will get very good grazing. Till that field and put it into pasture after the third year and for every bunch of rushes you had before, you will have twenty now. That will go on increasing year after year and if you go on tilling that field you will have a waste and a swamp. Many other things besides rain have an effect on climate. Great masses of trees attract rain and, at the same time, they absorb the moisture of the air and of the bogs.

I have the figures here of the acreage under woods in Ireland. It is very much less in the Free State than it was half a century ago. It is 40,000 acres less now. I do not know whether that has very much to do with the climate or not. It may have a little. We have heard that a lot of wheat was grown in 1847. Is it possible that the Government want to go back, is it possible that the Labour Party want to go back to the awful conditions of 1847? I do not mean in connection with the famine only but to go back to the general conditions under which the people then lived. At that time the people lived on potatoes and buttermilk. I have seen in my own time people eating barley bread. The worst sort of bread was a real luxury to them then. The taste of the people has since then changed. It is the working people now who buy shop bread.

The man who grows a little patch of wheat for his own use is the small farmer. I know hundreds of them who grow little patches of wheat. They bring it in small quantities to the mill where they get it ground into flour. If you have large quantities of wheat you will find that after it has been kiln-dried it will re-absorb the moisture and become mouldy. I foolishly tried getting wheat ground into flour but it was not a success. I know that people use wheaten flour but as a rule in very many cases they mix it with the good flour made from foreign wheat. This lightens it and makes it less heavy. The wheat that I made into flour was very bad stuff indeed. It was a dark heavy glutinous substance which we found impossible to make into good bread. We tried it with yeast, buttermilk and other things. In the end we had to use it for feeding calves. The flour got mouldy and lumpy. I might mention that this was of course kiln-dried wheat.

With regard to the wheat which was grown in 1847 it is well to know that this was only grown in certain parts of the country and not over the whole of the country. There were large areas in the country in which wheat was never grown. The vast amount of the wheat was grown in a few areas. I think it was the Minister for Agriculture who mentioned in the Dáil debate that we had not had a heavy frost for a long time. Now a heavy frost is one of the most valuable assets to the tillage farmer because it puts the land into good condition for tillage. In this country we have not had a heavy frost for thirty years and we have had very many wet years.

As to the employment provided by the growing of wheat I should say that no practical farmer believes it will increase employment. It is really the mixed system of farming which increases employment. The growing of beet now is quite a different thing from the growing of wheat. I was amazed at hearing the Minister say "Why not pay a subsidy on wheat as well as on beet?" I wonder somebody did not advise the Minister before he made that statement. The Minister ought to know that sugar beet gives more employment than any other crop. From the time it is put into the ground until the beet is loaded on to the railways it has to get constant care. I have grown beet every year since the factory was established at Carlow except last year when there was a dispute with the Sugar Beet Company. There is no crop gives more labour than beet. The crop has to be weeded three or four times and it has to be given much more care than mangolds. The clay has to be kept around the beet all the time. If beet were treated in the same way as mangolds it would die. However, from the very start beet was an assured success as a paying crop and everybody knew that.

Except the Minister for Agriculture.

What I mean is that in general the experiments with regard to beet had been successful, and from our knowledge of green crops like mangolds and turnips, which are closely allied with beet, we knew it was going to be a success. We always had heavier crops of mangolds than were grown in England. There was a certain amount of risk of course. That was mainly in the difficulty of getting people to grow a new crop but there is no risk now in the matter of beet. Wherever tried it is a success and of the greatest benefit to the people. There is only one thing to be regretted and that is that beet is only grown in ten counties while the rest of the State has to pay the subsidy.

The Minister for Finance came into this House and mentioned that sugar beet was one of the four white elephants which the late Government had placed on the country. The Minister mentioned that one of the greatest of the white elephants that had been imposed on any country was the Carlow Beet Factory. Now I want to say that the Carlow Factory is one of the bright spots in the agricultural life in this country to-day. Only for it many of our farmers would be very badly off indeed. That is the case in my own county for instance. There is just a little story I heard lately and I cannot refrain from telling it. A short time ago the incident happened. A man was sowing a bit of wheat in a part of his field. A stranger came over the fence and discussed wheat-growing with this farmer and he said to him, "The only mistake you are making is that you do not sow this whole field and your whole farm in wheat." The farmer said "I do not know who you are or what your business is, but you know very little about wheat when you speak foolishly like that." It happened that the stranger was the County Agricultural Instructor. That man I must say knows his business well but he is carrying out his orders from the Minister in recommending the people to grow wheat wholesale. Who is going to be the scapegoat if that farmer did not know his business and if he was foolish enough to sow that big field in wheat? Who is going to be the scapegoat when the farmers find a lot of musty wheat on their hands?

There is only one good feature about the wheat scheme and that is that it is left to the farmer to act voluntarily in this matter. Nobody is going to make a fool of the farmer unless he wants to do so himself. But it is different with the maize mixture. The farmer has to take that maize mixture. He will have to pay more for the mixture than for the barley. If the mixture were to be entirely of oats it would not be half so objectionable in my county. I come from the county where more than half of the barley produced in the Free State is grown. In the County of Wexford we grow a great deal of barley. Barley has about the same feeding value as maize but its results are very different from maize. I speak of its food value to farm animals. Barley is an indigestible food and it is unfit for young animals. Barley is usually fed to grown animals, bullocks and stall fed cattle whereas you can use maize with great success for everything from the smallest chicken to the biggest animal on the farm.

I do not know of anything more valuable to the farmer than flaked maize. It was a veterinary surgeon first recommended that food to me for horses and it is a most valuable food. For the future we cannot buy maize unless it is mixed with barley which makes it an unfit food for a great many animals on the farm. Already every good farmer mixes his home-grown grain with the maize but he does not give the same kind of mixture to every animal. Now all animals on the farm must get the same mixture and take it or leave it. As a result of the mixing the price is at least one shilling a cwt. higher than the price of the pure maize. Of course large farmers have given up the custom of boiling Indian meal. People at one time used to think that the animals could not do as well on the food in its raw state. Of course it is as good in its raw state and farmers who use a great deal of it did not cook it on account of the additional expense. Still the small farmer who loses less of it is accustomed to boiling the maize. Possibly it is more palatable for the animal in its cooked state. But nobody would cook oats or barley. They are fed in the raw state. Now you have a mixture one part of which is better in the cooked state and the other better in the raw state. The whole thing is a muddle from end to end and it is going to cause great hardship to people. The result is that people are not feeding at all and people who used to feed are giving it up.

The Minister mentioned that people were getting very cheap food this year. I can tell him that they will get very little of it next year. At present the stuff is on the people's hands and they have to throw it away for any price they can get for it but they will not feed next year. At the time this mixture was introduced I could buy whole maize, grind it at a little mill in the neighbourhood and have it home at £6 per ton. I was in the habit of getting some of it crushed for horse feeding and some of it made into fine meal. Last year the meal had to be mixed with the oats that we had grown because the oats was of such a bad quality that the horses could not live on it. Now everything is upset.

It seems to me that the policy of the Department of Agriculture is to increase employment by tillage. That policy is absolutely foolish. The growth of wheat will not increase employment. One man with a pair of horses can plough a considerable quantity of land and when he has the wheat sown he can lock the gate and need not go near the field until the following September. It is the mixed system of tillage where cattle, horses, sheep and pigs are raised that gives the extra employment. It seems to me that this policy of grain growing is dictated by a small group of fantastic theorists, people generally know who they are, where they exist, and where their ideas are being fostered. But the practical farmers of the country on the whole know that this is a vast wanton proceeding like a great deal of the rest of the Fianna Fáil legislation—meddling in business. The farmer knows the possibilities as to what is best to be done by practical experience of what he has learned in recent years. I prophesy that this scheme will be as great a success as the heifer scheme has been and that is the worst that could be said of it.

I listened with great attention to the speech delivered by Senator Miss Browne. I listened with great attention because her vision is clear though her horizon is limited by the Wicklow Hills. There were very many things she said with which I did not agree. She said she could not bake Irish home-made bread out of Irish wheat——

I said home-grown wheat made into flour.

All I am telling her is that her poor old grandmother could do it. I am giving her a bit of advice and that is to put more barm into it and it will be all right. She also said that you could not possibly have a mixture of barley and oats, that the barley would not boil and that the oats would be raw or vice versa.

I did not say that. I said that it would be waste of time to try it.

It reminds me of the story of the sailors and the rum. If you put them into the same compartment you will have disaster. Keep the barley separate from the oats. That is my advice. I want to give another bit of advice. I am a farmer and the son of a farmer. We grew barley, oats and wheat. I remember what an old fellow said to me in Irish, which, in the Seanad, I suppose I must construe into English. Here it is:—

"Barley bread will do you good;

Rye bread will do you no harm;

Wheaten bread will sweeten the blood

But oaten bread will sweeten the arm."

Abair as Gaedhilg é.

I will not now. I will give it you another time. That was said in beautiful Gaelic 200 years ago by a poet about wheat, barley, oats and rye grown in Ireland. I am in favour of this scheme but I may say that my support is what, to use another language, I might call sub modo. We will give it a chance. I think the Minister is right in concentrating on wheat. I will tell you why. Senator Miss Browne knows well that you have to put down winter wheat in October if you expect a crop. You can wait until March and put down spring wheat, but as the Senator very properly said you will have a lot of weeds. You will have to weed the land but that is good for you and it is good for the land. After the weeding you can have the other crops in regular rotation. Wheat is the pivot of Irish agriculture and that is the reason why I give the Minister my full support, purely temporarily and sub modo. Senator Miss Browne said that barley was indigestible. Take the culms off the barley and it is all right. Cut it well and it is all right. The Senator said that beet could not be thinned like mangolds because if one beet was pulled another one was loosened and would not grow.

I never said any such thing.

What the Senator said was that if one beet is pulled another one comes up half way and will not grow.

On a point of explanation. I am being misrepresented. I said it took a great deal more care to thin beet than mangolds. You cannot go along fast. It takes twice as many people to thin an acre of beet as to thin mangolds.

I agree that in the thinning of beet you must be careful, but my advice is that when you pull one beet you should put your thumb or your finger on the other beet that you want to stay where it is. I am afraid I am giving professional advice. That was the system I learned long ago when I was a farmer. The arguments put forward by Senator Miss Browne are capable of being answered. I think tillage is absolutely necessary for this country in the circumstances in which it is placed. We want more employment. The best way to get employment, and the best source of employment, is tillage and the soil of Ireland. Whatever method is proposed with that object will have my full approval. The proposals in the Bill have been carefully thought out by the Minister and have my approval at the present time. The Bill may have its defects, and may have limitations, as what may be suitable for one area may not be suitable for another area, but I think on the whole the proposals are sound and are promoted by the patriotic desire to get employment and be remunerative to the people, remunerative to the farmers and of advantage to the entire country. I think that is the impulse, and that being so— although I could be critical—I am inclined to give the Bill my full support and encouragement. I think the Minister will succeed. I hope he will succeed.

He deserves it.

I hope the climate will favour him. I agree with Senator Miss Browne that there may be bad seasons. Let us hope that there will be good seasons and good wheat. If there is, as we hope, good wheat, it can be "raised" with barm. Let an additional piece of yeast be put in and, as Senator O'Hanlon says, if it can be properly raised the Minister's proposals will be the success that I I hope they will be.

I have considered this matter with much sympathy, because it is a well-meant effort to relieve our unemployed population by means which are calculated, rightly or wrongly, to be remunerative to the State. Much of the opposition to the Bill has been sketchy and uninformed, and the support accorded to the measure has been—if possible—of less advantage to the Minister's ideas. At the outset I agree that if 50,000 men are employed to carry out the various processes connected with the growing of wheat, they will grow 1,500,000 acres in 300 working days and will earn £3,000,000 in wages. The figure does not take machinery into account and is on the high side. As it is, however, it suffices for the purpose of argument. As to the estimated saving of £9,500,000 I see from the Statistical Abstract that our imports of wheat and wheat products of every kind total just on £5,500,000, and even if you add 10 per cent. as being deducted from the maize imports, the saving still appears to be under £6,000,000. Allowing, among a host of other incidental items, for the loss of labour at the ports, and the port dues which would be consequent on this policy, and adding to that the capital exported for the purpose of purchasing new milling machinery, the interest on which will be a first charge on the industry, then the saving would appear to become smaller still, and I do not think that the House should accept the figure given without some detailed explanation.

There is also an important point in connection with the figure given as to potential employment. I am prepared to agree that the operations in connection with setting one statute acre of corn, and thereafter handling it into the stack without reaping machinery, would occupy one man for ten working days or rather for two periods of four days and six days. This is the result of practical experience on which the Minister lays stress. In view, however, of the general impression which has been created both in the Oireachtas and on public platforms—and which has not been corrected—that 50,000 men will get constant employment, it should be made clear that the ultimate scheme would employ 750,000 for two periods of four days and six days in each year, and that without the work afforded by our participation in the trade created by the British live stock market, these workers would have to stand idle for the remaining 290 days of the year.

If we are to believe that some of the public statements of some prominent members of the Government—and the Minister's own statement in the Dáil —are responsible utterances, those 750,000 are going to be maintained during the 290 days of idleness at a cost of 1/- a day for each person or £37,500, making the total cost over that period £10,875,000.

The figures appear extremely fantastic but that is really what the scheme without the British market means. It is extremely regrettable that the possibility of success of what is a big conception should have been prejudiced at the outset by the Government's ill-considered policy in other directions. Unlike another critic of the Bill I do not want to see it tried out in its present form at the expense of the country. I would prefer to see it improved so as to make it of real advantage when it comes to be operated. I am not so much concerned with this aspect of the Bill as I am with Part V and I will only deal with that question shortly. Provided there is proper inspection, at an economic cost, I see no objection to admixture. In fact I think that the percentage of home-grown cereals could be increased to 25 per cent. without any disadvantage. But I do object to any regulation which increases the cost of living and the cost of the raw material to the producer, at a time when prices are at bed rock and world competition was never more intense. A short time ago in my own district I was able to buy 20 stone of fine meal for 17/6, but now I pay 19/- for the admixture or a tax of 12 per cent. If I buy fine meal for household use, I pay at the rate of 23/- for 20 stone or a tax of 33 per cent., which is a colossal increase. On the whole of our imported maize we are paying a tax of 12 per cent. or some £444,000 and on a portion of it we are paying a great deal more. Is that reasonable? I am not aware that the figures have been presented in this way before, and I submit that they show very clearly what the housewife and the producer are paying as a result of the Government's policy in this matter.

As to Part V of the Bill, I can speak as one of those whom the Minister classes as the best type of farmer—in fact better than his best—because I not only feed my own grain to my stock but I mill it and feed it to my household as well. Strictly between ourselves I admit that there are occasional complaints as to the millable quality of the flour, but as I am in the happy position of being able to make my own regulations, without consulting the Minister for Industry and Commerce, they have to grin and bear it and eat it without effective remedy.

Do you eat it yourself?

Yes. I admit generally the statistical aspect of the figures given in regard to climate and yield; but in all his utterances the Minister has been meticulously careful to avoid committing himself to any statement as to the quantity of millable corn which has been grown in past years. The farmers' bounty under the scheme depends entirely on that factor. For that reason I lay stress on the question of milliability. Except in sheltered spots in the West, much of the wheat will be laid. When it is cut and stacked, the laid portions will not be separated from the better corn and, in the result, the whole sample will be spoilt and the farmer will get no bounty. As an example, I have used my binder only once in the last four years and some sixteen acres of corn have been cut with the scythe. Wind in the West of Ireland is almost as much trouble as rain, and a neighbouring raingauge records 69 inches per annum over a period of 14 years and 212 days on which rain fell in each of these years. You cannot provide that all these days will be in the winter months. Nor has the Minister spoken of the extremes and their effects. As one instance. In the years 1872 and 1879 the yield fell by 29 per cent. below the normal. If that was to happen next year there would be more disappointment than millable wheat. It is not the bumper years which matter; and with the rapid and constant changes in world economics which modern civilisation produces, recovery from a bad year is a difficult matter. Again, the mention of '47 struck me as being somewhat ominous and the statement by a Minister in the other House, that the failure of the wheat crop in Canada left 35,000 families in one province alone to be supported by the State, does not encourage the adoption of a policy which puts all our eggs into the one basket.

The Minister has quoted an average figure of 16 cwt. and no doubt he will say, and many will agree with him, what better figure than an average could I take. But any set of similar figures can be averaged and there is the very greatest danger of misleading ourselves unless averages are very carefully handled. The average of one and ninety-nine is fifty, but it is easy to see that a very wrong conclusion could be drawn from the use of an average of two elements differing so widely. An opposite instance of this is provided by the large scale wheat experiments of the year '26-'27. In this year 259 plots were sown, but for various reasons only 176 were eventually weighed. The best material was provided and supervision was exercised by skilled agriculturists. The best result was 42 cwt. and the worst, which, as will be seen, was by no means an isolated instance, was Zero. But the average of these two figures is 21 cwt. Out of the 176 plots of approximately two acres there were 29 complete failures, which means that, if these experiments are of any value as a guide to wheat growing, 16 farmers out of every 100 who grow wheat, with every possible care and the benefit of experience, will fail to get any produce whatsoever. Is it wise to propose a scheme of this kind to this country without more examination?

The acreage on which these experiments were carried out amounted to 1/179th or 1.2 per cent. of the total wheat acreage; if we apply the figure of 16 per cent. to the acreage we find that 58 acres out of 358 were unproductive and presumably 4,560 acres of the total wheat area in the country gave no return either. We have only to carry the argument a little further to find that 240,000 of the additional 1½ millions must be unfruitful. Although the estimate the Minister has made of 16 cwt. is to my mind conservative, it is going to be obtained at the expense of a large number of casualties.

So far I have dealt mainly with the figures given in explanation of the Bill; the remainder of my argument deals more directly with the difficulties inherent in the measure as it comes before us. The three types of farmers have each of them a different position in relation to the working of the proposal. The tillage farmer can turn over from one cereal to another and can generally increase to the extent of the housing he has for the extra stock he will require—he has the implements and he has the experience. The mixed farmer is such both from wisdom and from necessity; his land generally varies and he knows that there are only portions of it which can be profitably tilled. He has the experience but he will find himself short of housing and even if he has the land he will find it difficult to increase tillage at a reasonable cost. The grass farmer has no implements and little housing. He has no capital to start with or cash to wait with and no experience. In the first two cases, therefore, most of the wheat area will be substitution and in the last case results will be long delayed. I think substitution will do little more than to absorb those who would otherwise be thrown out of employment in the coming spring, but normally it would have forced up the price of other cereals in proportion to the amount of wheat substituted and so provide a quid pro quo for the man who could not grow wheat. But if the Government's isolation policy is pursued the position will be that only sufficient livestock to maintain 3,000,000 people will be produced. Add another million of people in which case you would require another 66,000 tons of beef which is only one quarter of the fat bullocks alone, to give every man, woman and child half a pound of beef throughout the area.

Do you know the average they consume to-day?

I do not. When you really get your oats and barley they will become a glut upon the markets and gradually will cease to be ground. I see, therefore, nothing but a loss to the man who cannot grow millable wheat. I am doubtful as to whether the House fully realises how this bounty is going to operate. There are five counties which have a rateable value per acre of under 10/- and of these three are as low as 5/-; the remaining counties run from 10/- up to 22/-. I admit that if a revaluation was to be made, much unprofitable land would be put on a higher basis than Griffiths thought it worth, but nevertheless he gave us a pretty general idea of where the wheat land lies. Reasonable confirmation of this is provided by the Statistical Abstract which states that in 1929 only 2,400 acres were grown in those five counties which cover an area of approximately five million acres against 26,000 which were set in the 11 million acres which comprise the remainder of the Saorstát. It seems, therefore, fairly clear that nearly all of the bounty will go to the 1¼ million living on what I call the ploughable lands at the expense of nearly half a million souls who are existing on the spade areas, and the admitted injustice which accompanies the distribution of the agricultural grants will be intensified.

Debate adjourned (The McGillycuddy.)
The Seanad rose at 7.15 p.m. and adjourned till to-morrow (Wednesday), 14th December, 1932.
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