Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Nov 1933

Vol. 17 No. 24

Payment of Export Bounties.

Mr. Counihan

I move:—

That in the interests of the production of stall-fed cattle and fat pigs, the Seanad requests the Executive Council immediately to issue a statement as to the future intentions of the Government with regard to bounties on the export of agricultural produce to Great Britain.

My object in putting down this motion was to obtain from the responsible Minister a contradiction of the persistent rumours which have been going around, that no bounties will be paid on our exports of live stock and agricultural produce after 31st December next. There is no use in the Minister making a vague statement such as was made on the occasion of the issue of the last Order—that bounties would be paid until further notice. That sort of statement will not create any confidence amongst the farmers. We all know that the bounties cannot continue to be paid at the present rate for any considerable time. That is a cause of uncertainty amongst the farmers. To remove that uncertainty, the Minister should make a definite statement that the bounties will be paid at the present rate until a fixed and definite date. I suggest that the Minister should state that the bounties will be paid at the present rate until 1st May, 1934. We should know where we will be up to that time. This statement should be made in the interest of stall-fed cattle-production and it should be made immediately or it will be too late. It is also necessary in the interest of the production of fat pigs, in the interest of agriculture generally and with a view to keeping agricultural labourers in their employment.

The farmers are going out of production. For the past couple of years, the more they produced the more they lost. They are not going to continue to do that. They would be very chary about producing anything if they thought they were not going to receive the bounties which are being paid at present. If there is no stall-feeding, I should like to know what is to be done with our oats, with our surplus barley and our other tillage crops. The Minister has promised to pay 10/6 per barrel next summer to registered corn merchants, who pay 9/- per barrel for the best white oats. He is to pay that next summer, but, if there is no stall-feeding, and if oats are not going to be fed to live stock, what is the Minister going to do with the oats? Oats have been sold at 5/- per barrel, and less, during the present season. Does the House realise that it would take the whole of 20 acres of oats to pay one agricultural labourer for a year? The Minister's policy aims at the production of oats, wheat and barley. How are farmers going to continue to produce oats if they are only going to get that price, or if, in a short time, we are to have no market for them?

With regard to the bounty on pigs, the Government's policy has muddled matters to such an extent that I am afraid our pig trade is doomed. The farmers are now thrown on the mercy of a few bacon merchants. There is no competition. Competition is completely wiped out, and farmers are not going to continue producing under existing conditions.

Since I tabled this motion a new Order has been issued by the Government with reference to bounties. They now propose to pay a bounty of 20/- a head on calves six months old. The previous duty on such animals was 25/- a head. The Government's fresh proposal is, from a national point of view and from the point of view of preserving our live stock, as mad a proposal as they have made up to the present.

I would like the House to give me permission to make an addendum to my motion to the effect that the Seanad objects to the payment of a bounty on young stock intended for export, and they recommend that a bounty be paid to the rearers of calves who keep them until they are 15 months old.

Cathaoirleach

I would not like to allow that addition to the motion without notice.

Mr. Counihan

I am not against the payment of bounties to farmers. Every farmer, irrespective of the class of farming with which he is concerned, excepting the farmer who sells milk in the towns, requires all the assistance and the bounties he can get. In my opinion, if the Government's present policy is continued the country will be denuded of young stock. When the Minister was introducing the Cereals Bill and the Dairy Produce (Stabilisation) Bill, his principal contention was that those Bills would help to keep the producers of live stock and would tend to preserve our live stock trade in the bad period during which we were passing. We passed those Bills on the assumption that they would help live stock production. We agreed to pay £6 a cow for every cow in a creamery district. Now we are to give £1 for the calf that cow produces and which is intended for export to England.

In other years it was argued that we were selling our raw material to England, and that the cattle we were sending out in an unfinished state should be kept in this country and fattened. The Minister is endeavouring to reverse that policy to the extent of encouraging the export of stock, but in my opinion his policy will result in denuding the country of practically the whole of its valuable stock. That is a very serious position.

I believe it is the deliberate aim of the Government to kill the cattle trade of this country. No member of the Executive Council can be so very stupid as not to realise the effect of the Government's present policy in the country.

Mr. Wilson

I beg to second this motion which really sets out to allay in the minds of the farmers a suspicion following upon news circulated in the country that bounties will cease entirely at the end of the year. In my opinion farmers would be wise to consider the present situation between this country and England as a normal situation, a situation that must continue during the lifetime of the present Government. It would be as well for farmers to assume that we are working under normal circumstances, that our agricultural products will be tariffed and, as against that, we will retain the £5,000,000 a year. It would be as well that farmers should recognise that as the normal position.

From June of last year up to the present time the men who had cattle purchased before tariffs were introduced have suffered very severely. From now onwards the small man, the producer, is going to suffer. So far he has not suffered anything in comparison with farmers or graziers who held considerable stocks of cattle that were purchased before tariffs were imposed in England and that were sold subsequently subject to a tariff. These men are now in the market to buy and they will buy subject to the tariffs that will be enforced when they are selling and, naturally, they will buy so low that the producer, the small man, will have a bitter realisation of what the economic dispute amounts to. The fact of the matter is that the people producing the cattle will get no return for their labour. Suck calves are selling in the Dublin market at 7/6 to 10/-. The whole incidence of the tariffs in England is operating against the cattle breeders in this country.

The present position is that a beast of 18 months going to England is tariffed to the extent of £2 10s. If the beast is two years old it is tariffed to the extent of £4, and if it is sold after that period it is tariffed at £6. Put yourselves in the position of a man who goes to the markets and buys an animal against the exporter to England. If that beast gets over the frontier there is a tariff of £2 10s., but of course that case is subject to a bounty. Take the case of a farmer who buys that animal and keeps it for four months. If that animal is sent to England it is subject to a tariff of £4, and if the farmer does not finish the animal within six months the amount increases to £6. How could the industry carry on under such conditions? It could not possibly hope to do so.

Cattle must be bought subject to a £6 tariff in the very beginning; otherwise there is no profit for the feeder. Senators can understand, in a position of that sort, what effect this suspicion that these bounties are going to be removed will have on people going into the cattle market to purchase cattle. Unfortunately, our big industry in this country is the live stock industry. Exporters of cattle pay a tariff of £6 on a beast and they get back a bounty of 35/-. If I were a shirt-maker and I were sending my shirts to Great Britain I would pay a tariff on them but I would get back the whole tariff.

A Senator

That is not so.

Mr. Wilson

That is so. But because I am a farmer I pay £6 on a beast and I get back only 35/-, losing £4 5s. That is the position. The whole tariff on a manufactured article from this country which is exported to Great Britain is refunded from the Treasury here. The producer gets a refund of the duty on that article. The amount of the refund in the case of cattle varies from 15/- in the case of young cattle to 35/- in the case of fattened animals. I put it to the Minister for Agriculture that that particular incidence in the tariff on cattle to Great Britain will kill the cattle-feeding industry. If these men who fatten cattle in this country are to be on the safe side they will buy their cattle from the small farmers at such a price that the original producers will get a sum that will be unremunerative. If the buyer or feeder in this country keeps the young cattle for six months he pays the difference between £2 10s. and £4, and if he keeps them for more than that period he loses the difference between £2 10s. and £6. How can such an industry go on?

Mr. D.L. Robinson

Why not sell as baby beef?

Mr. Wilson

That means marketing cattle with the calf teeth. I have some experience of this baby beef as well as others. You go into the market and you buy calves. You are subject then to a duty or a tariff of £2 10s. on these calves. You will want to be very smart if you are to get them out of the country before you will have to pay a duty of £4. You will have to be smart in order to get them out with the calf teeth. The position is that cattle feeders are hit and they are not going to buy them in the future but at such a price as would not pay the producer to rear the animals. I have seen quite recently three suck calves bought for 25/-.

Mr. Counihan

If the buyer shipped these he would get a bounty of £3.

Mr. Wilson

Yes, that is so. On calves that cost 25/- he would be paid a bounty of £3. The result of such a state of things will be that you will have an export trade in young cattle and people in this country will not feed cattle. In the view of some people that is perhaps a good thing. At any rate I would be very sorry to see the country without cattle in it. There has been a cattle population in this country all the time of round about 4,000,000. These 4,000,000 cattle were bringing into the country a revenue of £12,000,000 or £13,000,000 a year. As a farmer I would be very sorry to see that particular class of trade abolished. I look upon the land annuities question as settled and I put it to the Minister now that he might, perhaps, advance towards a settlement in another direction. I was very sorry to see the other day that contracts amounting to £1,700,000 were given to the Germans. If I were Minister for Agriculture I would endeavour to have that contract placed in Great Britain and in return endeavour to get into England £1,700,000 worth of cattle free of tariff in consideration of our giving Great Britain that contract. There are a whole lot of tariffs against the British that we could remit. Even if we could get £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 a year remitted or £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 a year of our cattle exports to Britain let in without tariffs it would take something off this incubus on the Irish farmer. The question of making a trade deal in the existing circumstances should be considered as normal. I fail to see how anybody could have any objection to that. It would be no surrender; it would be good business for this country.

Miss Browne

I wish very strongly to support this motion. Unfortunately it affects the county which I represent and which the Minister for Agriculture at present quite misrepresents. It affects Wexford more than any other county in the Free State or than any other county in Ireland. We were the largest tillage county in Ireland and we were also the largest fattening county. Naturally one thing depends on the other. How, in the name of commonsense, is a tillage policy to be carried out when the cattle fattening trade is at the same time being killed? How that is to be done passes the comprehension of any reasonable person. Practically every farmer, small as well as large, in Wexford fattens and finishes his own cattle. Few people in our county sell off their young stock. A great deal of young stock passes from the Saorstát small farmers' hands into the hands of the big farmers of Wexford. They finish and fatten these young stock. When I speak of big farmers in Wexford I mean farmers holding from 100 to 200 acres. In Wexford we have no people to whom that ridiculous term "rancher" can be applied at all. Under present conditions what is to become of tillage? What is to become of the oats and green crop and the hay and straw produced on the land if we cannot fatten our cattle?

I can endorse what Senators Counihan and Wilson have said as to the anxiety in the minds of the people at the present time about what is going to happen in the near future. A whole series of blunders is being bolstered up by these bounties but it is only robbing Peter to pay Paul. The whole thing is a hopeless mess of confusion and bungling. The farmers do not know where they are. I wish to deny a statement made here when another motion by Senator Counihan was under discussion some little time ago. That statement was made by Senator Connolly. I speak of him as Senator Connolly because I do not remember at the moment what he is Minister of. He might be called the quick-change Minister. He is one thing one day and another thing another day. I cannot tell what he is at present. He is such a success in one Ministry that he has to be passed on to another in order to make a success of that. He made a statement here the last day that this outcry against the policy of the Government only comes from the large farmers. That statement is absolutely wrong. We have a very large number of United Ireland Clubs in County Wexford and the vast majority of the members of these clubs, which I visit very often, are small farmers. What we call a small farmer in Wexford is a man with 20 or 30 acres of land. I suppose in the North of Ireland it is only a man with five or ten acres who would be called a small farmer. A man with 100 or 200 acres of land in Wexford is called a large farmer.

Senator MacEllin

Oh, oh!

Miss Browne

These small farmers all over the country are suffering. There is no cause for levity in this, and I think it is a disgrace to see Senators laughing in a matter of this kind. It is an insult to this House to see them laughing. But it is no laughing matter. It is a matter affecting the life and death of the people of this country. I need not say very much more to impress the importance as well as the danger of the present situation. Evidently the Government has got into that state that it is in such a hole that it can neither move backwards nor forwards, having bungled all along the line. They have got into that state, and they can only continue bolstering up the blunders as long as they are allowed. I hope the Seanad will pass this motion and let the people see, at any rate, that there are a few here who will not allow this tragedy to continue hidden, but that they will bring it forward and have it ventilated until something is done, if it can be done, to save the situation, which has now gone so far that it seems almost irretrievable. I wish to support the motion, and I hope the Seanad will also support it.

Colonel Moore

Senator Wilson began his statement with the suggestion that we were to consider the present position of our trade with England as stabilised, and that we must continue in a state of hostility with England for evermore. He then gave a balanced statement of how much we had lost. I do not know what would have been said at the beginning of the Great War if somebody had got up and said that they were to consider the position in 1914 as stabilised for the rest of the century. There is just about as much sense in that as there is in Senator Wilson's statement.

Mr. Wilson

There is no war.

Colonel Moore

There is no war? I have always heard the Senator say that there is an economic war, which is just as bad as the other sort of war.

Mr. Brown

Worse.

Colonel Moore

Why does he suppose that this question will never be settled? He seems to know a great deal about it.

Cathaoirleach

He cannot make another speech and cannot answer you, so you had better carry on, Senator.

Colonel Moore

I did not say he could. I am making my speech and criticising his statement, and I am entitled to do so.

Cathaoirleach

Certainly.

Mrs. Costello

But you are asking him questions.

Colonel Moore

My opinion is that this quarrel with England will be settled at some time—I do not know exactly when it may be; it may be settled in a few days or a few months, or maybe later still. I should like the Seanad to consider what will happen to the cattle trade when that settlement is reached. Once the question of the annuities is settled and the war with England is over, the farmers will no longer have any claim to bounties, no more than I or any other business man would have a claim to a bounty on anything we export. We must look at what is likely to happen following the settlement of the war and the abolition of the bounties. How does the Senator suppose his cattle trade will then continue? If it is to continue at a loss when all those things are settled, the farmers will have no complaint because nobody will be at fault once these questions are settled. I wonder how the Senator is going to reconcile that position with his argument? He began on a false foundation and built up on that false foundation, but the whole argument tumbles down once it is explained. I do not think it is necessary for me to go any further.

Miss Browne

Senator Moore started the whole business and I should like him to tell us how it is to be finished.

Cathaoirleach

You cannot speak again, Senator.

Mr. Garahan

Senator Wilson's statement was that we might consider the present state of the live-stock trade as normal during the life of the present Government. He did not say for all time but during the life of the present Government. I do not know whether the last speaker got a correct impression of what Senator Wilson said, but if he did and if he remembers the words that the Senator used, he must be under the impression that the present Government will continue in power for ever.

Mrs. Costello

It looks like it.

Mr. Garahan

Under no other impression could be assume that Senator Wilson said that the present state was to be regarded as the normal state. I repeat that Senator Wilson's statement was that the position was to be regarded as stabilised during the life of the present Government, and I agree with Senator Wilson. So far as indications go with regard to the intentions of the present Government, there will be no settlement during its life.

Mr. D.L. Robinson

The British Government or the Irish Government?

Mr. Garahan

The Irish Government and those who had hoped for a change from a different English Government are, like Senator Moore, under the impression that there will never be any change either. If the present Government exists long enough, this country will financially cease to exist. It will not be very long before that result is brought about. One does not like, or it is hardly worth while, to speak so often about the results of the present policy with regard to the agricultural industry of this country. That policy is ruinous to the agricultural industry, and every effort made to do what one Senator has referred to here—to bolster up mistakes which are being made by the Minister and those who support him in his policy—is calculated to ruin the agricultural trade without any doubt whatever. One does not like always to be talking about the economic war and the destitution and the misery it is bringing about and has brought about in this country already. The people in the cities do not realise how things are in the country. There are people who are living in hope of something being done to remedy the existing state of affairs, and there are people who do not know what it is to have ready money in their hands—both large and small farmers whose profits from what they sell are so small that they are hardly able to buy the necessaries of life without speaking at all of paying for what are described as overhead charges.

It is time, as Senator Miss Browne said, that the position ceased to be a hidden one. It is nothing less than a hidden position because there is no outcry made against the present circumstances, but it will come for certain like an avalanche with the failure of this country to carry on financially. Certain people are not able to pay rates in the country at present and those who are anxious to bolster up the present Government policy have to resort to the unfair and untrue statement that the failure to pay rates in many cases is due to a conspiracy. There are very few people who will run the risk of not paying rates and of getting into trouble as a result if they are able to pay but there will be plenty of trouble about it because so many people are unable to pay.

Mr. MacEllin

How are you going to determine whether a man is or is not able to pay?

Mr. Garahan

Those who support the present Government seem to know because they have decided that people are able to pay. If they know people who are able to pay, surely it is just as easy for us to know those who are not? I earnestly hope that I am mistaken in my estimate of those who are unable to pay rates and those who are able to pay them, but when they do pay them, how many of them will be able to pay annuities? It is only when this Government finds that neither rates nor annuities can be paid that they will realise the position. That time will not be long coming. It has come to some extent this year. It will come to a greater extent in the next year.

I assure you that I do not want to achieve a reputation as a prophet in so prophesying. I can, however, state it as a certainty, a simple mathematical calculation. It takes two and two to make four, but when one two is lost and you have only another two remaining, you have no two and two to make four. That is the position, at the present time, in the live stock industry in this country. How, in the name of common sense, could any man, from a logical point of view alone, even if he had no knowledge of the farming industry, think that if the farming industry is barely able to carry on even in the best of times it could be successfully carried on under present conditions? Judged purely from the financial point of view it has never been a wonderful industry. Whatever advantages it possessed were other than enabling a person to get rich quickly. Some people think that it has an advantage from the point of view of rearing a family, the members of which have to go out into other walks of life afterwards to earn a livelihood. There will always, however, be some who will remain to carry on the industry. Without such people this country cannot get on. It cannot get on while the farming industry is being killed.

It is idle to expect people to be able to carry on the agricultural industry under the conditions now prevailing and to pay the demands, let them be great or small, that will be made upon them. There is a difficulty in eking out a livelihood without having to pay charges such as rates, taxes or annuities. One man may, perhaps, through the accident of his domestic circumstances, be able to carry on more cheaply than another. He will last longer than his neighbour under present conditions. A man who has to carry the average burden and to rear a family will go down very quickly, but the man who is laden for one reason or another with heavier burdens, and who has more to contend with than the average farmer, that man is failing this year. That is a man who will not be able to pay his rates this year no matter what supporters of the Government may say about his belonging to a conspiracy to refuse to pay rates. I can assure this House that if the refusal to pay annuities or rates were depending on a conspiracy to keep it alive, it would not have a very long life. The tendency of farmers in this country is to pay whatever call is made upon them for such charges as rates or annuities, if it were only for the purpose of not endangering their title to their holdings which all these farmers love. The farmer loves the holding in which he has lived, in which he was probably born and where his ancestors before him lived. He does not like to risk the title to that holding, and no conspiracy can be made sufficiently water-tight to prevent his paying his rates and annuities. Many, however, are being prevented this year and there will be more next year and the following year by the fact that they are not able to pay.

Mr. O'Connor

I desire to support the motion of Senator Counihan and his statements with regard to the agricultural position in the country generally. It is undeniable that conditions are very bad at the moment. The state of affairs in which we now find ourselves has been looming on the horizon for a considerable time but things are going steadily from bad to worse. The losses which the agricultural industry has sustained were at first more or less confined to people who had fat cattle for sale, cattle that were ten cwt. to 12 cwt. live weight. Now these losses are being felt by the people from whom stores were bought, the small farmers. They are now suffering and have to bear their own share of the bad times. I say with all respect to the present Government that they should very seriously consider the position before it is too late.

As Senator Garahan has pointed out, the time when insolvency will face us is coming a good deal more quickly than people imagine. From my own knowledge of the country and the circumstances prevailing, I can say the conditions are considerably worse than any Government would care to admit or acknowledge. At the commencement of these troubles when Mr. Thomas imposed his tariffs, as a set-off against the retention of the annuities, his action was looked upon as something that might be of advantage to the country's interests but now these hopes have been dispelled. The thing has remained on too long. It is now a certainty that in the losses incurred by the farmers, they have paid their annuities more than four times over. Nobody can deny that now. I am personally aware of that fact, knowing the prices that cattle are making and the prices that people have paid for them. It is deplorable to think that in this matter the Government should be so blind.

There has been a tendency amongst many people who hold views different from those held by the general body of the farmers, to sneer at people, to whom they refer as graziers, as to their ability to pay their annuities and their rates. It is said that these people can pay at any time they like and that there is more or less a conspiracy to prevent their paying. I say with all due respect to these people that the last thing the general body of farmers would do would be to repudiate anything they owed. That much must be said to their credit. They were always looked upon as being honourable men. A motion somewhat similar to this was brought forward as a very urgent matter in the last session, but I had an idea from the arguments made in favour of the maintenance of the present position, that the Senator and everybody else who had spoken on this subject, were only wasting their sweetness on the desert air. It is only a question of time, however, and if the present position continues that time will not be long coming, until the country is plunged into bankruptcy. That stage has practically arrived at present. If this thing proceeds much further I warn the Government that it will possibly end in rebellion. That is a step that I would be very sorry to prophesy. The sensible people who are entrusted with the Government should not allow such a condition to exist or come to pass in this holy Ireland of ours.

These bounties are leading to a certain amount of confusion. Farmers are in a state of anxiety and do not know whether they can continue farming or not. I know personally that there are a great many farmers who are most anxious to have a definite settlement made. They are anxious to know how long the Government are going to carry on their present policy. They do not want to dismiss their labourers, but if something is not done to remedy the present position many farmers will not be in a position to keep men in employment. The farmers are in this position that they do not want to let their land go out of cultivation, and yet when they grow crops they cannot turn them into cash. Their position is a pretty hopeless one at the present time. In the case of men who stall-feed cattle, they do not know whether it is worth their while to continue doing that, because they have no assurance that when the cattle are finished they will be able to get anything worth while for them. I would be very glad if we could have from the Minister an assurance that the Government will take steps to let the farmers of the country know where exactly they stand and help to put them on their feet again.

The argument is very often used that we are no worse off than the people in other countries. I am not so sure that that is true. I remember hearing a story of black '47. A farmer who dug out his potatoes early and saw that they were black ran across his fields to tell his neighbour about the terrible calamity that had happened. But when he went into his neighbour's field he found that his neighbour's potatoes were also black. That man went home more or less consoled that there were other people as badly off as himself. That, I suggest, is a poor way of looking at things. It is poor consolation for the farmers of this country to tell them that the farmers in other countries are as badly off as they are. In conclusion, I submit that it is a matter of the greatest possible urgency to have the present position remedied. The Government should give some clear idea to the farmers as to the prospects that are before them if they are to continue farming.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

When I read this motion that has been put forward by Senator Counihan I thought it was quite reasonable that such information should be asked for from the Government. I came here in a reasonable state of mind to answer any reasonable questions that might be put to me. But, to my surprise, when I arrived I heard from Senator Counihan and the members of his Party speeches that I had heard at least a dozen times in the Seanad during the last 12 months or more. The speeches to-day, and over that period have been all in the very same strain. Senator Counihan knows quite well that if he wanted to get an answer to his question with regard to our policy on bounties he could very easily have got it. If he asked for the information I would have given it to him, and if I was not able to do that then I would have told him the reason why. But it is quite evident that Senator Counihan did not come here looking for information. He came here with the intention of making a propagandist speech, and in that he has been followed by other members of his Party. We heard from the Senator again to-day about the economic war, and the disaster that is coming. I remember coming here about this time last year and of being told that the disaster would be here before last Christmas. When I came here some time after Christmas I was told that it would be with us in the spring, and then it was postponed until the autumn. We have been hearing during all that time about the disaster that was to follow from the economic war. We have it for certain now, that it will take place in six months time. Senator O'Connor told us that if it continues very much longer there is going to be a rebellion. So far as a rebellion is concerned, I think we have dealt with that. There might have been a rebellion on the part of some of the followers of the people opposite, if we had not taken the situation in hand in time. But we did, and there will be no rebellion as far as we can prevent it. I want to tell that to the followers of Senator Counihan and others.

We have also heard that there will be no settlement of this economic war as long as the present Government remains in power. I do not know whether there will or not. I hope there will be a settlement, and one that will be satisfactory to this country. But I want to say this definitely, that if Senator Counihan and his friends had their way there would be no settlement as long as this Government is in power, because they have done everything possible to prevent a settlement by pointing out the imaginary weaknesses of the people of this country, and encouraging the British Government to hold out in the hope that they may bring us to our knees. They have done that for political reasons, for the advantage of their own Party, in the hope that this Government may be defeated at some future time and that the Party to which Senator Counihan belongs may come back into office again. I am afraid it will not. I hope, too, they will not get their wish in this matter. In fact I am confident that they will not. We have been told also that there has not been a sufficient outcry about the condition of the people: that the position is hidden and that there is not a sufficient outcry. Senator Counihan and his friends can congratulate themselves anyway that as far as they are concerned there has been a sufficient outcry—that is as far as they have been able to do it. They have done their best to rouse the country about the ills of the economic war. They have gone around organising these new clubs, telling them that, of course, it was illegal not to pay their rates, but that everyone knows quite well that they cannot pay their rates and that it was a shame that when people cannot pay the Government should come down and make them pay. In other words, without committing an illegality, they have gone as far as they possibly could go to tell the people not to pay their rates. We were told to-day that while the people may be able to pay a little at the present time, in six months time they will not be able to pay at all. I have heard these statements over and over again in the Seanad. The same speech fits every motion that Senator Counihan puts down on the Order Paper. It does not matter what the motion is the same speech fits it. In view of that I will content myself in future, whenever the Senator puts down a motion, by reading up some of the old debates and remaining at home. What does Senator Counihan and the members of his Party want with regard to the economic war? Do they want us to give in? No, of course not. In public they will not admit that they want us to give in and pay the five millions a year over to England.

Mr. Kennedy

Are they not being paid?

Dr. Ryan

They are not. Although it may perhaps be some disappointment to some Senators, we are not paying. The British Government have failed to get the five millions from us, although they have done their best to get them. It may be a very unpalatable fact to some Senators who are more friendly to the British side than they are to the Irish side to be told that the British Government have failed to get the five millions, and I believe they will continue to fail to get them. There may be some Senators, apart from the mover of the motion, who would genuinely like to know what our position is with regard to the bounties. I came here prepared to tell the Seanad what our position is, and in spite of the way this motion has been dealt with I propose to tell the Seanad, though I would like to repeat that that was not the object Senator Counihan had in putting down the motion. We have announced the payment of bounties from time to time, and in making the announcement we have generally said that they will be payable "until further notice." We have stated that because there are various considerations which might influence us either to alter a bounty up or down or withdraw it altogether. I want to tell the House what those considerations are, and then let Senators make up their minds for themselves. These bounties will remain until 31st March unless there is a change in the condition of the foreign market. If, for instance, there is free trade again between this country and England the bounties will be withdrawn in all probability. That is the first condition on which the bounties will be withdrawn in the meantime. The second condition is, if there is a substantial improvement in prices which would justify their withdrawal—an improvement which, for instance, might take place in the case of pigs and bacon. We were advised by the bacon curers when we were advancing the bounty on the last occasion that, in all probability, prices would improve between this and the 31st March to such an extent that we could again reduce the bounty. But we have no intention of reducing the bounty unless prices improve considerably above what they are at present. Then there is one other contingency, and that is the case of shortage in the home market. For instance, we withdrew the bounty on butter to keep it at home for our own market. We might possibly have to do the same in the case of other commodities later. There is no intention to do that at the present time, and these are the only exceptions that I can think of. With these exceptions the others remain in force until the 31st of March.

Mr. Counihan

The same as at present?

Dr. Ryan

At least as high as they are at present, so that the farmer feeding his cattle and feeding his pigs may take this for granted, that we will not reduce the bounty until prices improve or until the conditions I have mentioned are covered. There are a few other things that I want to say. One of these applies to grass seeds. Quite recently we put a tariff on grass seeds coming in. There is not sufficient produced, so there will be no necessity to export grass seed and no necessity for a bounty. If there was production for which there was not sufficient home market and that we were protecting the home market, we might withdraw the bounty but the price would not be lessened. There is also a case brought to my attention by one of the daily papers, and that is in connection with the bounty we are granting to horse breeding. My attention was drawn to the fact that it was of little or no use to blood-stock breeders. I am having that case investigated. The Government have no intention of paying £40,000 unless some good is going to come from the expenditure of that money. If, on investigation, we find that the statement I refer to has no foundation, then the bounty will be withdrawn or changed to suit the circumstances but it will not be done without proper investigation.

One thing more about the bounty. In some cases our bounties were paid not on an ad valorem basis, but on a quantity basis. In some cases we found during the last 12 months that we were paying bounties on a quantitative basis, where the tariffs on goods going into Great Britain were on an ad valorem basis, and where the bounty at times exceeded the tariff. I might take a certain period during the last seven or eight months this year where the bounty payable on eggs was much higher than the tariff charged upon eggs. There was also a period when the bounty paid on bacon exceeded the tariff on bacon going into Great Britain. I just mention that in reply to some of the statements made here that the producers in this country are paying the full extent of the tariff into Great Britain. The tariffs into Great Britain are calculated to produce something like three and a half millions a year. Against that I say that the bounties payable on this side amounted to something more than two millions a year. At times the bounties do not compensate for the tariffs payable on the other side.

Mr. Counihan

Is the Minister going to continue the bounty on young calves of 20/-?

Dr. Ryan

I think if the Senator will read Senator Wilson's speech when it appears in the official reports he will find ample justification for it.

Mr. Jameson

We have been all debating this matter as if all Senators were farmers. Sometimes one has to think of the ordinary citizen who has to pay all these bounties, and should have some little regard for him.

Mr. Wilson

He is getting the five millions.

Mr. Jameson

The ordinary citizen is paying his share of all the bounties —I do not think there is any doubt about that. I would like to point out to Senator Counihan that it is useless to ask the Government for a statement with regard to the bounties. I think he put it in regard to exports. If the Senator would look back about two or three months, if he put his question, say, in September, and if he asked as to the intentions of the Government, the answer he might get would not have the slightest thing to do with what happened in the last two months, because I do not suppose that the Government then had any intention of doing things that they have had to do since. It is very important, of course, for the farmer to know what he is to get for his pig and his cow and everything of that sort, but I do not think that it is any use asking the Government as to their intentions.

Mr. Counihan

The Minister has given them.

Mr. Jameson

What are they worth? Just take the question of agricultural produce, and consider the matter of the bounties. It must be remembered that these bounties are to be extracted from people most of whom have no connection with agriculture. It is no use in talking about bounties paid to people who export goods. The people in this country are paying bounties on things that they themselves consume at the present moment. There is no question about that. You must take these things into consideration when you look at the position of the ordinary citizen. Let us take the case of wheat. The Government promised 23/- a barrel to the farmers who sold millable wheat. If we had been buying millable wheat in this country at its market value in other countries, I do not think it would be more than 15/- a barrel. When the Government found themselves faced with this fact they got the millers to give 17/6 for millable wheat, and they paid about 5/6 to complete the budget. The millers must get that out of the man who sells the flour, and the man who sells the flour and bakes it must get that out of the man who eats the bread. We have to find the whole of that from our own citizens. If we had not this kind of thing we would be buying wheat, and there would be so much more wheat in the country. We have to realise that in order to encourage this extra growth of wheat at home we are paying an enormous price for it. Because flour and wheat are kept out we have to pay a big price for that produced in the country, and that price has to come out of the bread of the people who are the consumers.

Then we have the question of oats that we have heard about. I believe that if the Government had really been studying agricultural interests well they would have known that a certain acreage would have produced all the oats that could have been consumed in this country and they should have done their best not to have more oats produced than the country could consume, because they knew perfectly well that we could not export the oats. If they had done that we would have, roughly speaking, sufficient oats, and there might have been a decent price for it. If there was not too much oats grown there would not have been this terrible lot of oats offering for anything they can get for it. Apparently they did not know themselves until they saw the oat crop they had to deal with. Now we have a surplus of oats which will be lying idle until the middle of next year. Senator Counihan quoted something about 10/6, to be given next June for good white oats for which the buyers are to pay 9/- now. I have not heard it stated that there is to be any sampling of these oats next June. All I have heard is that the man who pays 9/- for this oats and puts it into his loft will get 10/6 for it from the Government next June. Those of us who have experience of oats buying know that unless a very great deal of money is spent upon turning the oats, putting it into a perfect loft, and everything else, it will be no use for human food, or even cattle food, next June.

Dr. Ryan

It is subject to all these conditions, of course.

Mr. Jameson

We have not heard of those conditions. At any rate, it will not be a good bargain, as far as I know the cost of lofting oats from now until next June, to get 10/6 for it after they paid 9/- for it. Then we have to consider the situation next year. There will be a whole pile of oats. There was a lot of oats this year, and we had great difficulty in keeping these oats out of the deliveries this year. Next year there will be tens of thousands of barrels of oats lying there, and there is no information that the Government will tell the farmers that they will have a quota for growing oats next year. We are just piling up trouble for ourselves if that state of affairs goes on. I mention this to show that last September the Government did not know the oats situation which was in front of them. It is a brand new thing coming on top of us.

We have just heard about the horses. The position in reference to horses is, of course, about the biggest tragedy in the whole situation. We had a great reputation for breeding good stock. As far as I can see from the figures, our exports of stock have gone down by a couple of millions, the reason being that the best of the sires and mares are going out of the country. I have no doubt that the Minister will look into the matter and try if he can to restore that trade. It is very hard, however, to get a thing back when you have lost it. There has been no proposition yet put before the country to show that anything that has been done by the Government is going to restore high-class horse breeding in this country. That, again, only came up the other day because, I suppose, the horse breeders and the people who are paying tens of thousands for young yearlings did not make enough of noise and, therefore, nobody listened to them, and that part of the business is gone.

With regard to this new thing about young cattle, I am only pointing out to Senator Counihan that I do not think anything that the Minister can say to-day will have anything whatever to do with what will happen during the next few months as regards any bounty. The Minister is quite straight. He has to alter his hand as he sees the situation he has to deal with. The whole system of bounties to meet the situation as regards the duties that are being clapped on our produce on the other side, coupled with the determination to try to force the people here to consume everything that we produce and keep everything else out of the country, puts an immense tax on our people not only in the bounties paid upon exports but the high prices that everybody in this country has to pay for everything that comes into the country that is guarded by a heavy import duty. When we come to balance things up and see what the Free State citizen has to pay as against the ordinary British citizen and see how much worse off we are, then we will begin to appreciate what is going on. I doubt if there was any use in asking the Minister to say what he will do in regard to bounties and duties and things of that sort for the next six months because I do not believe that he could give an answer at all.

Mr. Counihan

I want to thank the Minister for being so kind as to give the information I asked for. Although he may have given it with a rather bad grace, still I think it will be a welcome announcement for many stall-feeders and farmers. The Minister asked if any Senator would say that we had paid £5,000,000. I say that it would be very much better if this country continued paying the £5,000,000. We would not be in the plight we are in if the stoppage of the land annuities had not occurred. There is no necessity, however, to pay £5,000,000. If the Executive Council would act in a reasonable common-sense way there could be a settlement of this in the morning. Senator Moore anticipates that there will be a settlement. He said that it would be very wrong to say that the bounties will continue to be paid suppose there is a settlement and we get back our markets. The President, in a recent speech, said that the farmers might as well look for the moon as the British market for agricultural produce and live stock in future. That is a different statement from that of Senator Moore. The statement made by Senator Moore has been going round the country since the start of this dispute. The supporters of the Government and prominent Fianna Fáil members have been stating month after month that this would be settled in a very short time—that it would be settled next month or the month afterwards. Now we hear the honest people coming out with the statement that we might as well look for the moon as the British market. The Minister seemed to have great satisfaction in stating that the British Government had not received the five millions which we owe them. He admitted that we are paying three and a half millions in duties. If he adds to that the amount paid in bounties he will find that it is more than five millions. It is not five millions that the country has lost, but 50 millions. The Minister complained of the Seanad, and particularly myself, raising questions about duties and bounties in connection with the economic war. I consider I would not be doing my duty if I did not bring before the Seanad and the country the position farmers and the cattle trade are in to-day, owing to the economic war. I am here as the representative of the live-stock trade and of the farming industry, and while I am here I will do my duty, whether it pleases Fianna Fáil Ministers or not.

Cathaoirleach

I will put the motion to the House.

Mr. Counihan

I do not think there is any necessity now. I have got what I was looking for.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.