Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 10 Jul 1935

Vol. 20 No. 5

Public Business. - Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill, 1935—Second Stage.

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

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

This amending Bill makes certain alterations that are necessary to deal with the cereals legislation as it stands. Up to the present, when a farmer sold wheat to a registered dealer or a registered flour miller, he was paid what was regarded as a price equivalent to the world price on the quality of his wheat. On returns being made to the Department, the average price paid for all wheat was taken, and the difference between that average price and 23/6 was paid by way of bounty to the farmer out of Exchequer funds. The first big change made by this Bill is that when the wheat is delivered to the miller or dealer the full price will be paid to the farmer. That will be a distinct advantage as far as the farmer is concerned, because the complaint during the last few years was that the farmer only got two-thirds or three-fourths of the price on selling wheat after the harvest, and had to wait two or three months before getting the subsidy or the part paid out of Government funds. I am sure farmers will be glad to get the full amount on delivery. The next question that arises is: how do consumers and taxpayers fare under the change? As Senators know, the subsidy paid on wheat came out of Government funds, or, in other words, was contributed by the taxpayers. If this Bill passes, the effect will be, as far as the present intention of the Government goes, that the consumer will pay for his bread whatever may be passed on from the flour millers to the bakers in the price of the wheat bought from Irish farmers. In other words, if world prices of wheat remain as they are, and if Irish wheat is dearer to the millers, consumers will in future pay the increased cost of the Irish wheat, instead of the taxpayer.

In this Bill there is nothing to prevent any Government, if they so wish, paying the subsidy, that was paid up to the present to the farmers, to the flour millers. Even if this Government intended to continue paying the subsidy, we would have made this change because it appears to be a more convenient way, as well as being more convenient for the farmers to get the full price. If the Government find that the remedy would be to pay the subsidy to the millers instead of to the farmers, that can be done by this or by any other Government when National finances permit. I do not want to leave the Seanad under a misapprehension. The Government has no intention of paying the subsidy to the flour millers this financial year. As a result, consumers will pay for Irish wheat, as by consuming Irish wheat they will pay more for bread than they would pay if wheat was imported at present prices. That can be defended quite easily, if we recognise the principle that producers must get what is a fair price for the wheat, so as to cover the cost of production. Surely no fault can be found with the principle that producers should get that price, whatever it may be. It is not a big impost on the consumer. The difference during the last two years worked out at about 6/6 per barrel of wheat, which when worked into the price of bread, does not amount at the outside to more than ½d. in the 4-lb. loaf. If I am to be taken up on the point, that the consumer ought not to have to pay an increased price for bread, that we should continue to import wheat grown by other countries at the lowest possible cost, or that if there is to be an encouragement of wheat growing in this country that encouragement should be provided out of State funds, I am afraid I have to remind the Seanad that if that argument was pushed to a logical conclusion, it would prevent us growing anything in this country. Our farmers could not possibly carry on if they were to be thrown into competition in the production of butter, bacon, eggs, poultry, sheep or lambs. I will give one instance. We had a tariff of 6d. on lamb coming in, yet we imported lamb during last spring from another country. The tariff of 6d. was paid and that lamb competed against lamb in the home market.

Mr. Counihan

What month?

Dr. Ryan

During the spring, think it was April or May.

Mr. Counihan

Was no lamb produced in this country?

Dr. Ryan

If there was no lamb, mutton was produced. I believe there was lamb last April. At any rate, it came in when Irish lamb was coming on the market. Senators will agree that there need be no argument on this point, that there is not a single thing we produce but could be imported at a lower cost. As to whether we should allow in wheat free of cost, it is a question of degree where we should or should not stop. I am only anticipating that that argument might be used. Perhaps I am wrong in suggesting that Senators would use an argument with so little behind it.

The second point the Bill deals with is, that it requires millers to take a certain percentage of home grown wheat, not only for the year, but each month of the year. As the law stands, we fixed by Order the National percentage of home grown wheat which millers must use. Last year we fixed it at 10 per cent. A few months after the harvest we found that a good many farmers were complaining that they could not get rid of their wheat. On the other hand, we found that a number of millers had bought some of the National percentage, but not all. They pointed out, quite rightly, that there was nothing to compel them to buy the whole lot at once; that they had 12 months to buy the 10 per cent. This legislation is for the purpose of encouraging the growing of wheat. We cannot do that unless we help farmers as far as is reasonable. If wheat is to be left on farmers' hands for two or three months, if they cannot find buyers, or if the crop deteriorates, as it may when farmers have not proper storage, it discourages them from sowing the crop again.

We feel that it is necessary to have the wheat taken off farmers' hands as soon as it is available. If this Bill is passed, the National percentage will be fixed in future before the end of December for the following year. Then, after that, before September 1, an order will be made requiring millers to take so much of the National percentage during each month of the cereal year, from September on. For instance, in the coming year we might require millers to take 25 per cent. in September, 45 per cent. in October, or from 65 per cent. say to 80 per cent. in December. The figure would be accumulating. That order can be varied if we find, as some millers appear to fear, that farmers and dealers are holding off the market in a particular month in the hope that millers will pay more than the fixed price in order to fill the percentage fixed. In the Bill we have power to lower the percentage so as not to put the millers in that particular case at the mercy of the farmers or dealers. It is necessary to have an order of that kind. Now that our acreage is getting rather substantial, I am convinced, that if millers were to say at any time there was no necessity to take any wheat before Christmas, or that it was quite time enough to take it in April or May, the whole policy would become unworkable and farmers would suffer a severe loss in trying to hold wheat until the millers chose to take it from them.

In this Bill we have also provision for the storage and drying of the grain. We have been warned for the last three years that we are gambling on fine weather. I think the experts have not the slightest doubt about the growing of wheat as far as our climate is concerned. If Senators will look back over the yields during 10 years, wet years with dry years, they will find that there was very little difference in the yield per acre. In the very wet years, the wheat crop was as good as in the very dry years. The danger is the growing acreage with perhaps a wet harvest. If there was a wet season and if the wheat was cut and harvested in a wet condition, I am told by flour millers that they have no great fear of that wheat, if they get it quickly, as they can deal with it and can make it good millable wheat. The real danger I am assured by the flour millers is that it should be left on farmers' hands for three or four weeks after threshing and become mouldy. It then gets into such a condition that it cannot be made right. To meet that danger the millers will be required to provide storage for a certain quantity of wheat, which will probably amount to about 80 per cent. of the quantity of Irish grown wheat that they are required to deal with for the year. In future the order will be served on flour millers as soon as possible after January 1st in each year, and they will have about eight months to prepare for the coming harvest as regards storage. This year the Bill, not being law, no such order has been served on millers, but they were called together in conference last January and I told them that I intended to seek the sanction of the Oireachtas for this measure, and that they would be very well advised to have storage ready for the crop that we expected would be grown this year. Even this year, I think the millers will not be taken at a disadvantage, because they have been warned.

We are also taking power to supervise drying facilities. If the wheat comes in in a rather damp condition, owing to bad weather, if it is dried and stored properly, it will come all right. We want to see that every miller provides drying facilities to deal with the amount of wheat that he will be required to take for the year. It is calculated roughly that if a miller had facilities to dry all the wheat he would receive in about 50 days, that the capacity for drying it ought to be sufficient to deal with his requirements for the year. That is assuming that, during the month of October, there will be a bigger rush of wheat than there would be for any other month of the year. To cover that abnormal rush during that particular month, so far as I have seen it worked out, a plant that would deal with the whole supply in 50 days would be sufficient. These are matters that will be dealt with by order and, after a year or two years' working, the orders can be altered, after consultation with the millers and dealers. We may be wrong in our calculations and, if it is pointed out by the millers that we are wrong, the order can be amended so as to bring the amount of storage required and the capacity of the drying plant required into conformity with the facts. These are the three big matters dealt with in the Bill. It is felt that these are matters that necessarily arise at this stage. The Bill brought forward about three years ago dealt with the growing of wheat on a more or less experimental basis. It was held very strongly by one Party that the growing of wheat could be made a success. It was held equally strongly by another Party that it would never be a success. In these circumstances, it was but right that we should disturb things as little as possible with the growing of wheat. It was only right that no miller should be asked to incur any great expense as regards the scheme, and that any additional cost involved by the growing of wheat should be borne out of taxation. Now, we have to assume that the growing of wheat is a success. When we commenced operations we were growing 3 per cent. of our requirements. This year it is estimated that we are growing 25 per cent. of our requirements. This is the third year of this experiment, and we have gone from 3 per cent. to 25 per cent. of our requirements. Wheat-growing cannot be regarded any longer as experimental. We can definitely say to the miller now: "You must incur the necessary expenditure to provide storage and drying plant for what must be regarded as a permanent scheme." As to whether the cost should be on the consumer or on the taxpayer, if this is to be a permanent scheme, the consumer is absolutely certain to be asked to bear the cost of bread for which the wheat is grown by our own farmers at some stage or other. There is no reason why that step should not be taken now.

I now come to deal with some of the minor matters in the Bill. There is a clause which gives the Minister power to lend money to millers. That clause was put in for the benefit of millers who have no other means of getting money. It is not that the Government are anxious to go into the money-lending business. The clause was put in to meet the argument of the miller who may come along and say he is quite willing to carry out all the provisions of the Bill but he has not got the money. In that case, we would say: "Why do you not go to your bank?" He would say: "I have gone to the bank but I could not get the necessary accommodation." Now, we have power to say: "The Minister for Finance will lend you this money on certain terms." I am afraid the terms will not be as favourable as the terms the miller would get from his own banker but they will not be much less favourable. That is to induce the millers, so far as possible, to get the money from other sources.

Another clause of the Bill deals with the recovery of the price of seed wheat. Two or three years ago, the Department of Agriculture issued a notice publicly with a view to inducing seed merchants to give seed wheat to farmers on an easy payment system. The farmer signed a form authorising the Minister for Agriculture to pay the seed merchant for the seed supplied to him out of the bounty when it would become due to him. In giving out seed last autumn, the seed merchants were naturally under the impression that they would get their money back under that scheme—that the Minister for Agriculture would pay them out of the bounty that would become payable to the grower. Now that we are changing our system, there will be no subsidy or bounty and no means, so far as the Minister is concerned, of paying these seed merchants. We feel that the seed merchant is entitled to some protection as he entered into this contract, not only with the consent of the Minister for Agriculture, but also on the advice of the officers of the Department who are working in the country. We mean to meet that position by taking a lien on the wheat crop concerned and then serving notice on the owner of that particular crop to sell to a particular flour miller or wheat dealer. At the same time, we will serve notice on the flour miller or wheat dealer to pay the Minister the proceeds of the sale. Out of that sum, the merchant who sold the seed will be recouped and the remainder will go to the grower.

A slight change is also made by the Bill in the cereal year. The cereal year lasted from the 1st August to 31st July. It is not of any great importance except technically or administratively, but the flour millers, the wheat dealers, agents, and so on, are desirous of having the commencing date the 1st September. That will give them more time at the end of the old wheat season to make the necessary returns. No appreciable amount of wheat comes on the market before 1st September. There is nothing to prevent the farmer sending his wheat to the flour miller before 1st September for the following cereal year, but the deal will not take place until 1st September. The wheat will not be legally received until that date, but it can be stored by the flour miller before then. With the exception of the usual clauses regarding registration, regulations and so on, those are all the matters with which the Bill deals, and I ask the Seanad to give it a Second Reading.

Mr. Counihan

As a representative of the agricultural industry, my main concern with this Bill is as to its effect on farmers who grow wheat and on the agricultural community as a whole. The Minister has said that there are some provisions in the Bill which are a great improvement on the principal Act. I agree that a few provisions are an improvement on the principal Act. But I have studied the Bill, and I have come to the conclusion that the farmers who grow wheat and the rest of the agricultural community will be in a worse position under this Bill than they were under the principal Act. We are getting no more than, if we are getting as much as, we got for the production of wheat under the principal Act. As the farmers and agricultural labourers constitute the largest percentage of the population of this country, we shall pay much more for the flour of the bread which we consume. Consequently, in these two respects we are much worse off than we were.

The next point is as to price. I contend that 23/6 a barrel is not an economic price for wheat. The Minister spoke of wheat-growing being an experiment and said that it was now a success. There was no need for experiments in wheat-growing in this country. In many parts of the country, wheat has been grown for centuries. I grew it for many years and made a success of it. When the price of wheat came below the cost of production, the farmers went out of wheat. It would be too much to expect any farmer, or a producer of any article, to continue in production when the price he receives is less than the cost of production. That is the reason we went out of wheat in the years prior to the coming into power of Fianna Fáil. The reason wheat has been taken up under the Minister's scheme is that his policy has killed the production of live-stock and wheat, beet and tobacco are the only crops from which there is any return at present. Cattle rearing was the main source of revenue and wealth in this country. That has been killed by the economic war. The farmers had to turn to something in order to obtain money to meet the demands upon them. So they turned to wheat, which is not an economic proposition even at 23/6 a barrel. On the Committee Stage of this Bill, I propose to move an amendment to raise the price to 27/6 a barrel. Even at 27/6, if we got back to normal conditions as regards the production of live-stock, there would be very little wheat grown. The Minister should not force the farmer to grow wheat at a lesser price than 27/6, considering all the risks he has to take and the deterioration which his land suffers. I do not intend to oppose the Bill, and any further remarks I have to make I reserve until my amendment is before the House.

Mr. Foran

The Minister, in introducing the Bill, mentioned an argument which he said he hoped no Senator would use against the Bill. He made a very good argument in favour of that, and I am going to follow on his lines. The Bill proposes to change over from the subsidy and to pass on the increase in price to the consumer of bread. As there is more bread used in the slum areas than in the mansions, the greater cost will be borne by the poorest of the community. I think that it is a mistake on the part of the Government to increase the cost of living to the poorest in the community, and that is what is involved in this change.

When milling was subsidised, the cost was more or less borne proportionately, but the greater cost in this case will be borne by the working classes by the passing on of the increase of bread. As I said before, the bulk of the bread eaten in this country is eaten by the working classes and this is very unjust. It will bring about other reactions. If you increase the cost of living, there is only one way in which that increase can be met and that is by increasing wages all round. It has a very unsettling effect generally if men who have a certain wage for the maintenance of themselves and their families find that the staff of life is going to cost very much more. There is only one way for them to meet that and that is by seeking to have their wages increased to meet the increased cost of living. I think that is a sound reason why there should be no change.

We are in favour of helping the farmers in the best and most effective way in which they can be helped to maintain themselves, but we believe that this is not the right way to do it, because this will have the effect of unsettling conditions generally throughout the country. When you increase the cost of living, you can only meet the increase by increasing wages in proportion. During the War, when changes of this nature came about, wages and conditions were varied from month to month, and I hope the Government are not going to bring about a situation like that in this country. This is certainly a step towards that, in my opinion, and it should be very seriously considered before being put into operation.

That is the position so far as the employed man is concerned. What is going to happen in the case of the unemployed man? You are going to increase the staff of life, the main article which maintains life in working-class people's families. How are they going to procure it? I think that this matter has not got the consideration it ought to get. The well-to-do people, under this new scheme, will not pay their proportion and I think it should be left to the taxpayer to meet this charge on the resources of the country, because, as I say, in the main, the cost will be passed on to the working classes and already they are bearing more than their share of the burden, although we hear Senator Counihan talking about his cattle, and so on. It is very rarely that the working classes put forward a grievance, but we certainly note with alarm this idea of increasing the cost of living, so far as the working classes are concerned, and this change in the Bill certainly means an increase in the cost of living for the workers.

Mr. Wilson

The Minister, in stating the case for the Bill, misled, I think, the Labour Senators in the matter of costs, because he said that the difference between the price of Irish wheat and imported wheat had been about 6/6 a barrel and that that would amount to a halfpenny in the loaf. The 6/6 represents the extra cost of ten barrels of wheat because last year there was only one barrel of Irish wheat used for ten barrels of imported wheat, so that the 6/6 has to be divided by ten in respect of last year, and if, next year, the proportion is 25 per cent., the 6/6 will be divisible by four and the increased cost to the miller under the scheme will be something like 1/6 a barrel. I recollect selling in, I think, 1931, the best Irish wheat against Russian wheat in Dublin. The price of the Russian wheat landed at the North Wall was 13/- a barrel and I managed to get 14/6. I complained to the then Government and I was told to put it before the Tariff Commission. Had there been nothing done with regard to the growing of wheat, it would have stopped because wheat could not be produced at the price.

When that price operated, the price of the loaf was not very much lower than it is at present and I want to ask the Labour Senators what was the cause of that. The price of the loaf was 4d. and the price of wheat 13/- and I saw comments in letters in the newspapers to the effect that the price of bread is not connected with the price of wheat at all. It is the price of the men engaged in the manufacture of the bread and when Senator Foran speaks of the cost of living being increased by this—it is only 1/6 a barrel—let him think of how the cost of living has been raised to the poor by the increased cost of the conversion of flour into bread. I do not say that that is wrong but I would ask the Senator to be fair. If there is to be a fair expression of the case here, let him consider that in pre-war days, when wheat was £1 per barrel, the loaf was 2¾d. and that, after the war, when wheat was 14/-, the loaf was 4d. The difference was the cost of the increased wages to the working men, to which I am not objecting. The Senator, therefore, should not object to the farmer getting something approaching a reasonable price for the growing of his wheat.

Mr. Foran

To a point of order. I did not raise any objection to the price the farmer was getting. I do not want to be misrepresented.

Mr. Wilson

The Senator made his whole case on the fact that this method of giving a chance of growing wheat in this country was going to increase the cost of living to the employed man. I say that it is right to increase the cost of living because he is in receipt of the benefits which enable him to pay that increased cost of living. When beef came down from 10d. to 5d. he got the 5d. and there was not a word about wages. All the other items of agricultural produce are down and the workers have the advantage of all those things and there is not a word about them. I do not object to that, and, therefore, I think it very wrong of Senator Foran to object to the slight increase in the price of bread by this method.

On the facts of the case, however, I believe that the Government should not have taken this charge from the Central Fund, because this particular method of dealing with this bounty to the farmers leaves the public in a position in which they do not know what it is costing. In the case of the Central Fund, the cost to the public would be annually shown definitely and the public would be in a position to see whether the Government which did that was deserving of support or not. From that point of view, I think the Government are sheltering themselves behind this Bill—and I do not blame them—from the criticism which will always arise when elections come around. There is one question I should like to ask in connection with this Bill. I should like to hear from the Minister if there is any provision made to prevent the export of offals from this country, which has the effect of unduly raising the price of offals. Last year, there were occasions when offals were very expensive. At present, they are very cheap, but, whatever be the cause of it, they suddenly rise and it is said that that is due to the fact that they are exported. The damage done in that respect to feeders of cattle and so on is rather considerable and I should like to see a provision in the Bill to regulate the price of these offals, or, at least, to ensure that the millers would not corner the market and raise prices by sending the offals to Britain or other countries.

To the principle of the Bill, by which, I suppose, we mean the idea of helping the farmer to grow wheat, I do not object. In our area, we have always carried on on the basis of following up potato crops with wheat. It suits the economy on the farms because it means that, in November and October, a lot of the work that would have to be done in the Spring is carried on. In that way, the growing of wheat has always been a substantial business in County Dublin. The price of 23/6 is not a very paying price and I hope it will not fall below that. It is not so very long ago since it was 38/- and there was no great rush by people in other parts of the country to grow wheat at all. At that time, we were getting 4/- a cwt. for straw for use as bedding. There are three tons of straw to every acre of wheat so that we were getting £12 an acre for straw. At present, we are getting practically nothing, so that what we gain on the swings we lose on the roundabouts. The horse industry has also been hit——

Mr. Foran

38/- for wheat?

Mr. Wilson

We used to sell straw to the stud farms. The foreigners who came over to see their mares in the stalls liked to see them bedded in white straw, and we used to have very nice orders occasionally from the stud farms for this white straw. The Frenchmen and Americans liked it and were paying us 4/- a cwt. for it, and we were quite delighted. There is too much on the market now with our acreage of wheat, and we are selling straw at 1/3, and out of that has to come commission and a penny a cwt. for weighing and delivering. It is really nearly as well to burn it. That matter, however, is a by-product. I am going to support the measure with the reservations I have made. I am not opposed to the raising of wages, but I am opposed to labour making a mountain out of this small item, when other matters are the causes of the high price of bread.

Mr. Jameson

Senator Foran and Senator Wilson agree on one point, anyhow. They both object to taking the burden of the payment of the bounty on wheat off the community and putting it on to the poor people of the country. That is their one item of agreement. Senator Foran's speech was exactly what I should have expected from a Senator in his position, who knows his labour classes and who knows their needs. It was the speech of a sensible watchdog. The Senator went into the possible consequences of this Bill, and any sensible man who looks seriously into the matter will realise that he was right in what he said. There are some things which rather astonish one. Senator Wilson says that 23/6 a barrel is not enough, and that it is only the bare price necessary to get people to grow wheat. Senator Counihan says the price ought to go to 27/6. Take those two points and take Senator Foran's remark. If 27/6 is going to be paid to the farmer, it is going to be paid by the poorest class of people in the Irish Free State. Senator Counihan seemed to say that he would stand up here and advocate the giving of very high prices to the farmers for the growing of wheat, and charge it to the labouring classes of the country. That is the main issue in the Bill. As regards the various conditions of the Bill, I am quite sure that the Minister is correct. He now recognises the necessities of the situation, because the quantities of wheat that are being grown to-day are very considerable and need very careful handling. The Minister had two very happy seasons for his wheat. People who have been in the habit of dealing in wheat for many years have been through seasons when the handling of such large quantities of wheat would have been extremely dangerous both for the growers and the people who bought the wheat. Wheat is safe enough when you have it in the stack, but once it is threshed, if you put it in a sack for a week you will ruin it. If you put it on the floor you have got to turn it practically every day. That costs a huge amount of money. It is a most difficult and delicate thing to handle. I am certain that the Minister knows what the difficulties are.

There is a lot in this Bill which is quite useful. It is going to compel people to buy quickly. We want to buy it quickly, so that we can handle it while it is in good condition. In a wet season I have seen great difficulty in getting it right. Now that you are dealing with an enormous national crop it will take extreme care to get it in right away. The Minister talked about regulating how it is to be dried. Drying wheat to make bread out of it is a very difficult operation. You have got to be extremely careful. We distillers do not mind so much, because we are going to grind it up and use the mash. The miller who is going to turn it out for bread-making, if he does not take great care, may easily destroy its bread-making qualities. The machinery that is going to be used for this purpose, I think, is an excellent part of the Bill. The Minister is going to be responsible for seeing that the storage of the country is adequate to receive the wheat promptly. He is also going to make arrangements whereby it can be dried. It can only be dried usefully if its storage is adequate, and if arrangements are made in the storehouses to keep the wheat in proper condition before it goes to the drier. We are taking over a very difficult matter both for the millers and the wheat growers. The general run of this Bill I take to be quite correct, and it is as a result of his experience that the Minister knows it is necessary that he should regulate the control of this huge amount of wheat. As far as those parts of the Bill are concerned, I have nothing to say. As a distiller, I might draw attention to one clause, clause 13, which states:—

It shall not be lawful during any month in any sale (wheat) year, for any person, who is the holder of a milling licence, or a registered distiller or a registered wheat dealer, to purchase any home-grown millable wheat of a particular class at a price lower than the minimum price.

If I happened to be a manufacturer who uses wheat as the main product, that clause would put me out of business. If it was applied to barley for instance we might shut up our distilleries. As competitors in the world we would be completely wiped out. Our competitors have no such restriction as that. I am not raising the question at present, but if the price of whiskey has to go up we cannot help it. It is quite another game. I am only adverting to it to point out that if it were applied to barley instead of wheat you would wipe out the product of the Irish distillers. They could not compete with distillers, for instance, in Scotland. It is a small matter but it certainly will increase our cost.

Now we come to what is the central part of the Bill and about which controversy must rage. Apparently from the two speeches we have heard from farmers they do not seem to think that it makes a bit of difference whether the labouring classes and the poor of Ireland pay the whole of the bounty to the farmers or whether the whole of the community pays it. I wondered whether they had thought the thing out seriously when they made a proposition like that. Senator Foran was absolutely right. It is not a fair burden to put on the poor of our community. The whole community decided that there was to be a policy adopted of growing wheat and that the Free State should supply a bounty upon the growth of wheat which would enable this to be done and induce the farmers to grow it. There has not been much fighting about it, it was done and the community paid the expenses of it. That was the end of that. But it is a different thing when the community chucks the whole of that burden on to the class of people who live largely on bread. When I saw this I was greatly troubled and said the Minister for Agriculture cannot want it. Of course he could not. Anybody who has heard him speak in the Dáil or in this House to-day knows that it is not the vital part of the Bill as far as he is concerned. He wants to get hold of the industry and to manage it properly. But he is making a tremendous change in taking the burden off the people and putting it on to a section of the community. I wonder why he did it. Turn from the Minister for Agriculture to the Minister for Finance and then you begin to see something. It costs the Minister for Finance a sum of £300,000 or £400,000 a year. Certainly this year it would cost him that to pay the bounty out of national funds. We have got another Bill before us to-day—the Widows' and Orphans' Bill. The Widows' and Orphans' Bill, I believe, is going to cost £250,000 a year. Therefore, the Minister for Finance, seeing those two Bills in front of him, knew that he would have to find something like £700,000 this year and budget for it. We have not had the Finance Bill before this House, but from what we have read of the debates it is quite clear that ends can only be made to meet by heavy borrowing. You can see the Minister for Finance trying very much indeed to get rid of the borrowing of £700,000 and so he takes from the whole communty a burden of £400,000 and he claps it on to the poor of the country. I hold that it was done to save his Budget and that the individual who was really responsible for this change is not the Minister for Agriculture who was working it before, but the Minister for Finance. He has cut it out of his Budget and he is getting the poor people of this country to pay something like £400,000 to save his Budget and to save him from telling us that he needed such a sum as £700,000. From all one can read of the Widows' and Orphans' Bill it is an excellent thing. It is a measure with which the community will agree. At the same time in order to pay the widows and orphans that £250,000 the Minister for Finance passes it on to the people who support wives and children and compel them at the same time to pay about £400,000. It seems to me to be shocking bad management. I cannot see the farmers or anybody else agreeing to burden the poor with such a tax. To my mind, it is most reprehensible. I read the debates in the Dáil and the prices that were held out to the farmers. There would be better pay and everything of that kind.

Now, for anybody to say that the State could not pay the farmer as promptly as the miller is absolute rubbish. All corn, as far as I know, has always been paid for on the nail. It is weighed as it comes in, and if it is up to sample the farmer gets his cheque for his supply. There is not the slightest doubt that the bounty paid by the Government could have been paid just as promptly as the miller paid for the wheat. It was only a question of Departmental arrangement. To say that our Finance Department could not pay as promptly as the miller or distiller is rubbish. Of course, it could. That could not be held out as another reason why the farmer is going to get better terms under this Bill. Supposing, as Senator Counihan said, 23/6 is not enough, and that the farming community is to get the price raised to 27/6. There are no figures before this House to show what the price of bread is going to be. We are all talking without any knowledge whatever as to what this is going to cost. If you put all the costs on to the millers you are increasing, to a large extent, the cost of your bread. Instead of the community paying something like a third of it the millers will have to pay 23/6 or 27/6 out of their own pockets. When you have the price going suddenly from 17/- to 23/6 you will want something like a third more capital in your business, and in addition you will want to make arrangements for storage of big quantities. One can easily see the cost to the miller going up. If the costs to the miller who first handles the corn are raised he must raise the cost to everybody. Therefore, the price of the flour to the baker and everybody else must also go up. The cost of all these things must, of necessity, go up because the cost of the capital involved and everything else is going up by at least one-third. The change proposed in this Bill will, therefore, increase the price of flour and of bread to the people. So far as the farmer is concerned, he will not worry whether the money he gets comes from the poor or from the State. No matter from what source it comes it will be equally acceptable to him, but it is quite a different matter when you discover that this measure is going to increase working costs so far as the making of bread is concerned. That extra cost will have to be borne by the poor people. They will have to bear that as well as the whole of the extra cost in connection with this measure. It seems to me that Senator Foran was quite right when he said that there are far more implications in this measure than the mere shifting of the burden of the payment of the subsidy to the farmer from the community to the poor.

Mr. Brown

That is only part of the burden.

Mr. Jameson

Under certain arrangements to be sanctioned by Parliament, the Government are going to put the payment of that burden on to certain sections of the people instead of on the community as a whole. That is the question that is being raised in this Bill, and I submit it is an extremely dangerous thing to do. I have been accused of being a free trader. I have always thought that it was cheap food, cheap fuel and cheap clothing under the free trade system that made Great Britain. Under this Bill you are violating one of these vital principles that bring prosperity to a country. You are increasing the cost of an essential article of food for the working classes of the country, and you are doing it for no purpose whatever except to save the Minister for Finance from having to raise from the community about £300,000 or £400,000. The proposal embodied in this Bill is not put forward by the Minister for Agriculture for any other reason than that. There is, of course, in the Bill the temptation to the farming community that they are going to get more prompt payment for their wheat. I do not believe that one of them desires that at the increased cost which this is going to mean to the poor. I am sure that if you were to take the opinion of any farmer in the Seanad or in the Dáil you would find that he does not want to see the poorer classes and the labouring classes of this community burdened with what is going to be paid over to him as a bounty.

It is for the good of the community that wheat is to be grown here. Therefore, I submit the community ought to pay the cost. We should not relieve the Minister for Finance by saying that he can get the money he requires from the poor instead of having to borrow, and that is the point of this whole Bill. If any alteration were made in the Budget to pay the money required out of the Exchequer, instead of the consumers paying it, then, of course, the Minister for Finance would have to borrow, but that is a question that we can leave over for discussion for another day. The only reason that I can see for making the change proposed in this Bill is to suit the convenience of the Minister for Finance: to save him from further borrowing. He does not want to do that, and hence he puts the cost of this on to the poor. I do not know if any Ministry that we have ever had would like to have it said of them that they were shifting the burdens of finance on to the poor people of the country, and that, I submit, is what this Bill is doing. I hope that members of the House will, before we reach the Committee Stage, consider the introduction of amendments that will save the poorer part of the community from having this tax put on them. I do think that our poor people ought not to be made the carriers of what is a national thing. That ought to be done by the nation.

Mr. Quirke

It is amazing the number of people there are, especially in this House, who seem to be out for the blood of the goose that lays the golden eggs, and that in spite of the fact that the people whom some of the Senators speaking here to-day claim to represent, have no hesitation in taking and eating the golden eggs every time they become available. They lose no opportunity of trying, to the best of their ability, to overtax the goose: in fact, they are prepared almost to kill the goose that has been so kind as to keep on laying the golden eggs. I hope I will be excused if I say that I doubt the sincerity of many of the speakers who have criticised this Bill. It was interesting, however, to listen to some of the speeches. We had, for instance, Senator Jameson's sympathy for the workers. He said that he agreed thoroughly with Senator Foran and so on. Senator Jameson has suggested that amendments might be brought in on the Committee Stage to raise the money required by some other means than those proposed in the Bill. The obvious means, I suggest, for him to suggest is an increase in the rate of income tax.

Various descriptions have been applied to this Bill. Some Senators told us that it would be absolutely no good at all to the farmers: that it does not make any difference to them whether they get their money directly the crop is threshed, or whether, as happened heretofore, they are left without their money for a considerable time. The Senators who made those statements were not perhaps sufficiently in touch with the farming community. Certainly they were not as much in touch with them or the people who grow wheat, as I have been during the past 12 months, because if they had been they would not have made such statements. I know that the system in operation heretofore has caused considerable discomfort in many areas during the past 12 months. First of all, there was the delay in payment to the farmer during a period of the year when money was not available from other sources. That situation will be changed by this Bill. Apart from that, there is another difficulty which has come under my notice on many occasions. It is one deserving of consideration. In cases where the registered grower happened to die after the crop had been threshed and delivered to the mill, considerable expense had to be incurred, especially in the case of small farmers, because it meant that in these cases the legal representatives had to take out administration for the holdings in a great hurry. Until that legal requirement had been complied with, it was not possible for them to obtain payment of the bounty. I understand, however, that within the past few weeks an arrangement has been brought about whereby very small holders, on complying with certain regulations, can get paid the bounty for last year's crop. When this Bill becomes law, the delays that took place heretofore will be obviated, so that when the crop is delivered to the miller the farmer will get paid immediately.

Senator Jameson said that he could see no difficulty in the Government paying on the nail for the crop just as any individual purchaser would pay. I am sure the Senator realises the difficulties under which any Government must work. First of all they must be satisfied as to who the legal owner is, who is entitled to payment and so on, and all these inquiries take considerable time. Under this Bill most of these technicalities will be eliminated. On many occasions we have had the Government criticised for having too many officials, too much red tape and so on. Now the Government is being criticised for not having enough red-tape. I feel that behind the criticism of this Bill there is really what amounts to a continuation of the old campaign to embarrass the Government as far as possible. We have people coming along now and saying that wheat can be grown in this country, but if the records of the last twelve months are turned up it will be found that these same people have said that it was impossible to grow wheat in this country. My advice to such people would be that if they really wanted to embarrass the Government within the last year or two the way to have done that was to get their supporters to go in whole-hog for the production of wheat. Senator Counihan complains that the price of wheat at 23/6 a barrel is not sufficient, but a moment or two later he went on to say that it was too much.

Mr. Counihan

No, I did not.

Mr. Quirke

The Senator then suggested that the price should be 27/6. Perhaps he thinks that he can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds: that he can please the miller, please the farmer and please the worker — please all together. I am afraid the Senator will tumble head over heels in the operation. Perhaps if Senator Counihan were appointed Minister for Agriculture—he may be in the next Government—he would find some other way of providing the money required without inflicting any further cost on the consumer. I believe that even if the price of bread is increased, as it is sure to be, the fault for that does not lie with the Minister for Agriculture. There are various people on whom the responsibility for that may be thrown. There are various ways and means by which the price of bread could and ought to be controlled in the future as, I think, it ought to have been in the past. The Prices Commission was set up for the purpose of controlling the price of such things as bread. I think that the Commission should keep a special eye on the price charged for bread, and see that it is not raised out of all proportion to the increase in the price of wheat.

Senator Counihan also said that the Minister for Agriculture should not force farmers to grow wheat unless he could give them a better price for it. There is no necessity, to my mind, to force farmers to grow wheat. Senator Counihan and many of those who sit with him on the opposite side of the House must have experienced considerable difficulty in forcing farmers not to grow wheat, especially when farmers found that their neighbours were growing it at a considerable profit. There is not much use in arguing to-day with the man who says that wheat cannot be grown at a profit. Wheat can be grown at a profit and will continue to be grown at a profit regardless of all the preaching that the Opposition do. I am glad to be able to say that, in my part of the country, many of the people who are prominently supporting the Opposition at their political meetings and so on were the first to engage in the production of wheat last year, and that as a result they are reaping a bountiful harvest this year. The question of the weather conditions for the growing of wheat has been proved to be more or less of a red herring. We have found that during the last few years we have produced, not alone as good wheat but a better wheat than has been produced in practically any other country in the world.

In his opening speech the Minister dealt with that proposition to a great extent. Notwithstanding that we will still be told that the only reason wheat is being grown is because the Government made it impossible for the people to grow anything else at a profit. Even members of the Opposition are pretty tired of dragging the economic war into debates. I do not propose to drag it in. We can grow more wheat per acre than can be grown in any of the wheat-growing countries about which we hear so much talk. Even if we could not grow as good wheat as is grown in other countries, we would be justified in producing wheat, rather than continuing to import a million barrels every year. This measure contains many useful provisions and, notwithstanding what we heard from the alleged representatives of the agricultural industry I believe farmers will very much appreciate the fact that they will be able to get paid for their wheat on delivery. Apart from that, a very useful clause in the Bill provides for the setting up of storage facilities. Within the past few years we have a guaranteed price, but because of certain conditions, and because of a certain campaign in the country, when the wheat was threshed delivery of it was refused. That practice will not be successfully carried on any longer. Machinery is about to be set up to dry the wheat. I understand that experiments are being carried on to see if it is not possible to dry wheat directly it leaves the threshing machine. I should like the Minister to tell the House what progress has been made with that experiment. No matter what kind of season we get, I believe we will be able to thresh wheat, even under unfavourable weather conditions, by that process and have it delivered to the mills in proper condition. When farmers sit down and calmly consider the provisions of this measure I believe they will support it. I have no hesitation about supporting it.

Mr. Blythe

In spite of what Senator Quirke said, the provisions of this Bill, as the Minister indicated, are not the only alternative to having farmers paid a price by the millers and then paid the bounty separately by the Government. In his opening remarks the Minister said that if funds permitted the Government would give the bounty or the subsidy to the flour millers. Apparently his case was that there was a financial difficulty. For many reasons it would be desirable if the Government would take that method of encouraging wheat growing. My belief is that when a certain point has been passed nearly all taxation must fall on the poor. When things go beyond a certain point those who are better off have methods of escape. For instance, the reason that the Government, contrary to Senator Quirke's advice, did not increase the income tax was owing to the circumstances that exist, and because an increased tax would bring less money into the Exchequer. Therefore all increase of taxation when a certain point is reached falls mainly on the poorer people. The transfer of the cost of encouraging wheat growing from wheat to the loaf is exceptionally hard on the poorest people in the community, because the poorer families eat more bread, in proportion to other foods, than the better-off families. Therefore there is a greater burden on the poor through having the wheat subsidy paid by means of the loaf than there would be if it was taken on by the Exchequer and spread over various taxes. That is a considerable objection to the arrangement proposed in this Bill being carried out. The other objection is that the Bill makes the taxation and the Exchequer position. If all outgoings, for whatever purpose, are paid out of the Exchequer, and are raised by means of general taxation, the country knows precisely what Government policy costs. When we have the particular methods that are provided in this Bill, and also in relation to sugar, the country does not know what the various schemes that the Government is carrying on are costing the community as a whole. I know that often it is impossible to give encouragement to industry by methods that will give you the cost. If it is possible—in the case of wheat it is highly desirable — we should know exactly what the country as a whole is paying for any increase in the acreage of wheat. In that way, we would know what value is being got and at what cost.

The policy of encouraging the growth of wheat has this disadvantage that I think it must always mean that, to a considerable extent, the naturally poorer districts will be subsidising districts that are naturally richer. In the main, wheat is going to be grown in areas in which the land is good and where the weather that we get is best. You are not going at any time to have any wheat worth while—at least, at any price that one can imagine being paid — grown in the poorest and most populous areas. In these areas all the people are going to get out of it is the luxury of paying extra for flour, extra for bread and for the other commodities that they use, while farmers in areas that would naturally need less assistance are going to get whatever advantage the wheat policy gives. That being so, it would be desirable that the facts and the cost of the whole experiment should be known. It is desirable that there should be that check of the development of a fairly costly experiment that would be provided by having the money voted in the Dáil year after year. It seems to me that this matter might be pushed very far if circumstances prevented it being thoroughly examined, or if the general situation prevented attention being concentrated upon it. It might be pushed very far and at an altogether disproportionate cost, whereas if the old scheme was adhered to of paying the subsidy to the farmer and not to the flour millers, we would know exactly where we stood year after year. There would then be a sort of stocktaking with regard to this particular question. In spite of everything that has been said by the Minister, the matter is still very much in the experimental stage.

Up to the present we have been dealing relatively with small quantities of wheat. We have had extraordinarily dry seasons. As the quantity increases or if there is a wet season, the difficulties will be very much greater. All the arrangements that have to be made, and which apparently are regarded as good arrangements, are going to cost a good deal of money. They are precautionary arrangements which may be essential in certain years, and at a certain stage of development, but every year the expenditure required is going to mean that there is going to be some increase, great or small, in the cost of the loaf. We do not know yet, after three years, and after such development as has taken place during these years, the real nature and implications of the experiment in which we are involved. By this Bill we are putting ourselves into the position of continuing and extending that experiment, while masking the cost and hiding the facts. It is most undesirable that this particular change should be made at this stage. It would not be outside the bounds of possibility for the Government to raise the money by taxation. It would be easy to suggest taxes that have not yet been imposed. It would be possible for the Government to do that. The real fact of the situation is that the Budget situation is getting steadily more difficult. The Government has been forced, at a time which was very unsuitable for itself, to impose a considerable range of new taxes. They do not want to impose any more than can be avoided by any possible rearrangement of methods. For purely political and financial reasons, and for the purpose merely of avoiding Budget debates, which have been so awkward, we have the Government, at the very beginning of a sort of radical agricultural experiment, making an arrangement that prevents that experiment being carried on on the soundest basis, and being subjected to a searching yearly criticism, which would really be to the advantage of everyone, if it was necessary.

Mr. Baxter

I urge the Minister not to be carried away by the kind of partisan enthusiasm that was displayed by Senator Quirke in this discussion. I urge that in everything connected with this proposition the policy should be: "Go slow." This Bill is only a short measure, but it indicates clearly that the policy of wheat growing, about which the Minister's Party have said so much in the past, is something to which they have pinned their political faith. This measure is going irrevocably to commit the country in a certain direction for a considerable period. The first Cereals Act was a step in a particular direction, and for the first one or two years anything done in the way of wheat growing was only experimental. I agree with Senator Blythe that the policy is still very much in the experimental stage. If we could bring ourselves to the position of being able to discuss a measure like this calmly, and to give it the thoughtful consideration that such a policy demands, I believe the Minister would recognise that in the country's best interest, the policy of going slow in wheat growing would be the best in the end. In Section 7 the Minister takes power to compel millers to provide storage accommodation and drying plant. That is undoubtedly going to involve very considerable capital expenditure. The Minister says that there will have to be storage accommodation provided for 80 per cent. of Irish grown wheat. Does the Minister mean 80 per cent. this year, 80 per cent. next year, or 80 per cent. in most years, or is there visualised the growing of 800,000 acres of wheat here?

Dr. Ryan

Each year.

Mr. Baxter

That will involve very considerable capital expenditure. When you commit yourself to the spending of a great deal of money in a business like this, it is very hard to go back on it. We have erected a number of beet factories. We know what was said about some of the beet factories earlier. We cannot afford any white elephants in this country. We cannot afford to invest £1 of capital in an enterprise of this character unless we have faith and conviction that we are on absolutely sound lines. I am prepared to give wheat growing a fair trial but it will not be given a fair trial unless that trial takes place under normal conditions. Conditions agriculturally are not normal at present. Senator Quirke knows as well as I do that men who have gone in for wheat-growing in his county and other counties have done so for one reason and one reason only — because cattle production was not paying as it did in the past. I am convinced that Senator Quirke is looking to the day — he may not be prepared to admit this openly — when cattle production will pay as it paid in the past. The sooner that day comes the better for the country. It will come some time. Our present difficulties will pass. The country may have to wait longer than it would wish but I am sure the Minister for Agriculture is as optimistic as I am as regards the passing of present difficulties. It is to that other day we should be looking. When discussing the possibilities of wheat production, we should do so against the day when cattle production, pig production and, possibly, butter production will be paying as they were a few years ago. Unless these conditions are restored, wheat growing will not, in my view, get a fair trial. To go beyond the experimental stage at present is running a grave risk. Large structures, involving considerable capital expenditure, may be erected at the mills and these structures may, under other conditions, be neither requisite nor valuable. There are men like Senator Wilson and Senator Counihan, of whom Senator Quirke chose to speak slightingly——

Mr. Quirke

I never passed a single remark about Senator Wilson. I think he is a very sensible man.

Mr. Baxter

Senator Counihan has been growing wheat as long as Senator Wilson——

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Counihan represented himself as the spokesman of the farming class and that was the reason that Senator Quirke referred to him.

Mr. Baxter

Both Senators were growing wheat before this State was established. Their land was suitable for it. Senator Quirke may be able to grow wheat on his own land and many other farmers in South Tipperary may be able to grow wheat. Were they growing wheat in those years? I doubt that they were. I am sure that many of Senator Quirke's neighbours, whom he induced to grow wheat, would go back to cattle if cattle prices were now as good as they were formerly. The Minister for Agriculture will go out of office some time. If, looking back, he found that a policy for which he was responsible, or which he was instrumental in carrying into operation, did not stand the test of time, he might regret that he did not listen to the arguments from the other side. Governments pass away but the country will live and the people responsible in their day should make sure that the country's policy is being conducted on sound lines. That is why we are bold enough to cross swords even with Senator Quirke on a question like this on which he, above all, has said so much.

The Bill proposes to pass on to the consumer the cost involved in the production of wheat. It is calculated that, if the Exchequer had to bear the burden this year, it would amount to about £500,000. I understand that the Minister for Finance says it would be much less. But that is in a period when only 25 per cent. of our requirements are being supplied by ourselves. What about the day when we are to supply our total requirements in wheat — 800,000 acres? It can be argued that that will cost the consumers approximately £2,000,000. That is to be the cost of keeping farmers producing 800,000 acres of wheat. If it were to be 800,000 acres additional tillage, there might be something to be said for the proposition but the evidence we have, so far, does not show that the growing of wheat by our farmers will make any appreciable increase in the area under tillage. What I myself have done is, put in the wheat after the potatoes. Heretofore, I used to put in oats. That is going to be the policy all over the country. There are men who have gone out into their green fields to give you wheat and they are going to do that, without putting manure on the land, so long as the present conditions exist whereby the farmer's prices for his cattle are not as remunerative as they used to be. Wheat growing does not necessarily mean an increase in tillage. Therefore, there is not a great deal to recommend it from the point of view of those who stand purely for increased tillage.

What about the other side of the picture? Look at the conditions in any country where wheat is the staple produce of the farmers and what do you find? A Sunday paper tells us that there was a sensational drop in prices in the Liverpool wheat market and that "a leading Liverpool broker fears that if another good crop comes along there will be so much wheat available that Canada will not know what to do with it; prices have, therefore, tumbled down." Look at the Southern European States, where they have been growing wheat for years and years, and where cattle are of very little value. You get a situation in which they are growing 500 cwt. of wheat to the acre, and a labouring man, after his week's work, goes home with his little pack of wheat on his back. Those are the conditions in the purely wheat-growing areas of the world. The collapse of the banks in Western America was largely brought about because of the millions of bushels of wheat which were grown and could not be marketed. The farmers had been encouraged to grow wheat and, when the product was ready for market, it could not be sold. We are encouraging the farmers to go in for that type of productivity. Under present circumstances, I agree with Senator Quirke that people will go in for wheat growing, but I doubt if they will go in for it as a long-range policy.

In addition, it ought to be remembered that every encouragement given to wheat growing is going, as Senator Foran pointed out, and as Senator Blythe pointed out later, to involve a tax on the very poor for the benefit of some people who may be slightly better off. Looking at the matter merely from the point of view of the farmers, I have no hesitation in saying that the encouragement of wheat growing will be encouragement at the expense of the poor farmers for the benefit of the better off farmers or, at least, the farmers on the better land. Nothing you can do will alter that position. Senator Quirke said something very uncomplimentary about statistics on a previous occasion. In 1851, we had the highest recorded area under tillage. In that year, the area under wheat in Leinster was 303,000 acres, in Munster 180,000 acres, in Connacht 31,000 acres, and in the three counties of Ulster 15,000 acres. If you go in for wheat growing to-day you will have exactly the same picture. If you have 800,000 acres of wheat, you will have two-thirds in Leinster and a good share in Munster, and the rest of us paying for it. I do not think that that is sound national policy or that it is fair and equitable.

Mr. Quirke

I suggest that we will not have the same situation, because the present Government will not tolerate the shipping of wheat out of the country while leaving people starving.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I do not wish to prevent Deputy Baxter from developing his point, but, as this is merely an amending Bill, is the Senator in order in discussing the general policy of the Government in respect of wheat growing?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

As there is a change in the incidence of the cost, it is open to Senators to discuss the whole question.

Mr. Baxter

I do not know how much capital is to be expended on the provision of storage and drying plant at flour mills. But that provision of the Bill will commit us to something. It is like the erection of a beet factory. The factory will stand, and you will have to get the farmers to grow the beet. When you get people to invest capital in a project, it is not wise for the State to change its policy and leave them under altered circumstances with their capital invested. If the State were investing the capital, it would be a different matter, but if individuals are encouraged to put up buildings, the policy which induced them to do so should not be lightly changed. Because of these facts, and because of the existing situation, which is, I hope, a temporary situation and a situation that will pass in a very short time, I think the Minister would be very well advised not to commit the millers to investing a considerable amount of capital in anticipation of the growth of a business which the farmers generally, under changed conditions, may not be prepared to continue to develop.

Senator Wilson has spoken here of the price at which he was selling wheat before the advent of the present Government. Is there any indication as far as we can see that the world price of wheat is going very considerably to increase? The difficulties of organising wheat growers in the various countries seems to be such an insuperable task that it is very likely that wheat growers will be under-selling each other in future years, just as the butter producers are to-day. The difficulties of organising these people to hold up prices seem to be practically insuperable and, because of that fact, because of the fact that, even though we are growing wheat, we are not increasing our tillage area to any extent, and because of the fact that the production of wheat here is going to be a very considerable tax, undoubtedly on the poorest people, both in town and country in this country, as assistance to a limited number of people in the best land, my view is that, although this Bill must go through, to implement the policy which the Minister has set his hand to, the policy of the Minister ought to be to go as slowly as he possibly can.

The Bill makes provision in the Schedule that the price of homegrown wheat shall be so and so, according to the number of lbs. per bushel. There, again, there are inequities. You may grow the 63 Ib. bushel in Wexford, Louth, Dublin, Kildare and Carlow, and you may easily grow the 60 Ib. bushel, but in a county like mine, in Connacht, or in the three Ulster counties, it cannot be grown. If the measure were to be an equitable measure, I submit that the Minister would have to divide the area of the Saorstát into zones and in each of the zones, of which there would possibly be three — first class, middle class, and poor land — he would, if justice were to be done, pay for the wheat grown in the poorer areas on a lower weight per bushel lb., instead of pursuing the policy he is pursuing here of expecting me to produce on my poor land 60 lbs. to the bushel, as Senator Wilson can easily do in County Dublin.

If wheat growing is to go on; if even the carrying on of it is to have fair play, I think it will be clearly understood that along the western seaboard and elsewhere in the country, outside Leinster and a few strips in Munster, we cannot be expected to embark on this policy. We are not getting justice through these operations although, as farmers, we are making our contribution towards their carrying out. The onus and responsibility is on the Minister to see that, as this is a policy which is common to all the country, people everywhere ought to get a fair chance of seeing what they can do under it. Beyond question, it would be much better if the policy in operation had been adhered to, namely, that the Central Fund should have borne the cost of this transaction. Senator Quirke referred to the goose that laid the golden eggs. That is true, but if it costs £500,000 this year to finance the growing of wheat; if it costs £750,000 next year; and if it costs £1,500,000 the following year, we would then get the balanced opinion of the people as to whether the policy of wheat growing, against other types of agricultural development, was the wisest policy to pursue or not.

The Minister, I am quite certain, would desire to leave after him a policy that would be sound and stable on which the country could build and go on, and I believe that would have been the best way to do it. Possibly the Minister has difficulties with the Minister for Finance which make it impossible, and I am very much inclined to think that if it were left to the Minister, he would see that the Central Fund would find the money this year even though the money had to be passed to the miller. I believe it would be a much better way to do it, and there is no doubt whatever that in the long run it would be the most popular. I think that the raising of the cost of the loaf which is inevitable from this policy of wheat production in this country is going to be one of the most unpopular achievements, and, although the Minister for Agriculture may be carrying it out, the Minister for Finance will be responsible for making the Minister for Agriculture pass on this burden to the consumers of this country, possibly very much against the Minister's own judgment.

Whatever the results may be, I urge that this policy is yet only in the experimental stage; that no very considerable capital expenditure ought to be involved; that we have not yet gone far enough; and that we cannot balance the consequences against other types of agricultural productivity, because the times through which we are passing are not normal. The Minister, I believe, sees that just as clearly as any of us and he ought to bring his judgment to bear on the situation, and decide that. while there is a great deal to be said for wheat growing under conditions as they exist at present, he would be very well advised to look one, two or three years ahead and see, under changed conditions, what would be said for it then.

Mr. Honan

I shall be very brief. My natural desire is to support the Bill because I think it is the best instrument that could be put before the House in the general interests of the community. I should like to preface my remarks by saying that the farmers — the agricultural farmers — who are spoken for in this House are, to my mind, the most pampered members of the community in this or any country in Europe. Whatever has befallen the country, they have reaped the benefits in that in the good lands of the country — the midlands and the eastern counties — they have wheat growing, barley growing, tobacco growing and beet growing, each of which is subsidised and paid for by the community as a whole — the working classes, the town dwellers and all the others. They are the people who help to subsidise those crops and to pay those farmers who are fortunate enough to live in the best part of Ireland.

My object in rising was to speak for the class of farmer who lives along the western seaboard. Unfortunately, climatic conditions and their geographical position do not permit them to take advantage of those crops which are subsidised. Their land is not suitable for wheat growing, tobacco growing or beet growing. They have not got the opportunity, along the western seaboard, of marketing those crops, but they are large consumers of bread — because the potato crop is bad in many parts of the western seaboard — and they have to use tobacco, which is their only luxury, and other commodities, and pay a subsidy to the farmers who live in the best parts of the country. That, I think, is a great hardship, and if there is anything that should be done in this Bill, it is to exclude that western seaboard from paying extra for their bread and the other commodities that are subsidised. It is estimated that along the western seaboard where they cannot grow these subsidised crops — they are not near enough to the factories or to transport facilities — they are losing a sum of approximately £2,000,000 a year. They are being bled white to the extent of £2,000,000 a year to subsidise the fortunate farmers who are in a position to grow and to market those crops.

I appeal to the Minister to make some provision, before the Bill is finally passed, whereby the area along the West of Ireland, known as the Gaeltacht and the Breac Gaeltacht, would be exempted from the extra charge that must be put on flour under this Bill. I have no intention of criticising the various remarks of all the speakers. My main object in rising, as I have said, was to speak on behalf of our less fortunate friends along the west coast of Ireland who cannot really speak for themselves and who are isolated, one might say, from the rest of Ireland. Again, I appeal to the Minister to make some provision to relieve them from being bled white and from imminent poverty, to meet taxation which goes to subsidise their more fortunate friends in the midlands.

Mr. Dillon

I did not intend to rise at all in this debate, because I think the Bill has been very fully and clearly debated from all angles, but I found it rather difficult to sit down and listen to the odium thrown on the farmers, and especially the farmers on our benches, with regard to the subsidies we are looking for and expecting from those who have been described as the poorest of the poor, the bread eaters of the slums and the poorest parts of the State. We have not looked for this subsidy at all, and we are not responsible for the policy of the Government with regard to it; we have nothing whatever to do with it. The other side of the House is responsible, and this Bill is theirs, and the subsidy that is being offered to the farmers is theirs.

I want to point out that the position of farming in the State is wholly uneconomic; that every branch and every feature of it is uneconomic; that practically every branch of it is being subsidised and maintained by subsidies; and that there are some branches of it—live stock, for instance — which are not able to bear the cost of transport at present. There are many branches of the live stock industry at present which are not able to bear the cost of transport, and it is rather strange that responsibility should be thrown on the farmers on this side of the House for this Bill. The argument has been put forward, and by the Minister, especially, that farmers cannot carry on without subsidies or bounties. I agree that, under present conditions, we cannot produce and that farmers are possibly on the verge of collapse because they cannot produce economically. The reason for that, in my opinion, is not very far to seek. The reason is the excessive cost of Government, the excessive taxation and the excessive overhead costs being imposed on the primary producer. That is the reason for the subsidies, and that is the reason why the poorest of the poor have to bear this tremendous cost in their bread, sugar, butter and everything else. Until this artificial method of farming is changed, until we allow the natural order of supply and demand to have something to say to our production, until we have secured services that are economic or in some way commensurate with national income, we will have to continue these subsidies. We have nothing to do with this policy of the Government with regard to subsidies. It is their policy. Senator Foran, Senator Jameson and others throw all the blame on the farmers. It is for them to put forward their own policy. We, at all events, have nothing to do with that.

Mr. Johnson

Butter, for instance.

Mr. Dillon

There was never any question raised about the difficulty of cultivating wheat. I have cultivated wheat all my lifetime and I have never found any difficulty about it. What I did find difficult was to grow it as an economic crop, with the intention of paying annuities, rates, and the cost of living. I never grew wheat to pay all those things. Even the price that is guaranteed to-day—23/6 for a 60 lbs. bushel — would not pay these first-hand charges on farming and would not pay the overhead charges that are involved in Government taxation, the cost of public services and semi-public services. All these are disproportionate to what the farmer gets for his output. If the Minister and the Government and all the others who are enthusiastic about the cultivation of wheat think that it can be grown economically in acre and two-acre allotments throughout the country, with a 10 or 15 horsepower engine to come in and thresh it in modern fashion, I think they are very optimistic. It cannot be done. At the same time I do not want to throw cold water on the scheme. Nobody wants to see cultivation of crops as much as I do, but we have got to take into account what is possible and what is not possible. When men talk of farmers looking for subsidies from other people I think they are talking of something they know nothing about. Let them try to grow wheat on acre allotments. Growing it in 10 or 20-acre lots might be fairly remunerative. It cannot be done at the present price, much as the difference is between the competitive price of wheat — 13/- or 14/- a cwt. — and what is now proposed to be paid — 23/6 a cwt. It is a big difference and it is a big responsibility for the Government to impose that cost on the poor of the country through the bread that they eat. It is a question whether the small growers can afford to take over the responsibility as the consumers of bread of paying the subsidy. That is what they will have to consider, whether the price which they will have to pay as consumers will be outweighed by the price which they will get for their wheat, taking into account the wages and everything else they will have to pay. No farmer could listen without protest to the odium that has been thrown on farmers. We are not responsible for this policy. We would much prefer the natural order of supply and demand. We think that we would have more income and that the people would be better off and so would the State.

Mr. Johnson

When Senator Dillon speaks of "we," I do not know whether he is speaking of the Party to which he at present belongs or the Farmers' Party, or for what organisation or association he speaks.

Mr. Dillon

I speak as a general citizen of the State and also as a struggling farmer.

Mr. O'Hanlon

A struggling farmer.

Mr. Johnson

It is as a general citizen that "we" are opposed to this policy of tariffs and subsidies. It is not as a farmer member of the Fine Gael Party. I thought perhaps Senator Dillon was speaking on behalf of the Party that he belongs to, and I could not but wonder whether he was disowning the policy of subsidies to butter-makers and beet-growers. If that were so we would know as a positive fact where we are, that it is the policy of that Party to abandon all schemes which meant regulation or subsidies or tariffs and allow the full play of supply and demand to operate in the case of agriculture and industry. If we had that officially from the spokesman of the Party that I thought he spoke for, then we would know exactly where we are. Senator Dillon was much nearer in his views to those expressed by Senator Jameson than most of the other speakers. Most of the criticism seemed to me to lead positively to a refusal to give a Second Reading to this Bill. I think the logical sequel to the criticism that has been levelled against this Bill would be a vote against the Second Reading. I take it that Senator Jameson is a wholehearted opponent of the policy of which this Bill forms a single part. Senator Jameson is against this method of throwing the cost of the difference between world prices and the cost of production in Ireland on to the consumer. Most of the speakers, including Senator Blythe, took that view. I wonder what is the difference between this policy in regard to wheat and the general economic policy of the Government in regard to the encouragement of home production in agriculture and industry by the artificial stimulus of tariffs, subsidies or bounties. It is all part of the same general policy. Senator Jameson is wholeheartedly, deliberately and of malice aforethought opposed to that policy, but he is the only one in this House, with the possible exception of Senator Dillon, who takes that view.

Mr. Jameson

I would wish that the Senator would stick to what I said, not to what he thinks I said. If he would I would be very much obliged to him.

Mr. Johnson

I always understood that contribution to debate was for the purpose of conveying to the hearers the meaning of the words that the speaker uttered and the meaning of the words that the speaker uttered in the case of Senator Jameson was clearly against the policy of subsidisation and in favour of the point of view expressed by Senator Dillon, to return to the free movement of economic activities and free play of supply and demand. Senator Jameson wants this charge borne by the Central Fund and on that analogy I say that this particular policy is part of the general policy of subsidisation for the purpose of promoting industry and agriculture of a special kind in this country. Tariffs are subsidies to home producers in a veiled form and subsidies are tariffs in a veiled form. Are we to take it then that all the tariffs and all the subsidies should be borne directly out of the Central Fund? That is to say, out of the fund which is raised by taxation. That is the conclusion, I think, we must draw from Senator Jameson's criticism, that subsidies are excessive charges thrown on the consumer and that tariffs should be placed upon the Central Fund, so that, as Senator Blythe argued, we should know exactly what these are costing and that there should be an opportunity of accounting openly before the community what the cost of this agricultural policy is. There is a great deal to be said for that. There have been times in my life when I would have supported Senator Jameson in saying that all these special charges should be borne directly out of the Central Fund and raised by taxation, but as a practical politician I can see at this stage in our history that that is not possible, and that Senator Jameson would be the first to protest against the method of raising the taxes that would be required and against the amount that would have to be raised in taxes.

While maintaining that this Bill is part of the general policy, I think we have to take into account this fact: that quite deliberately the community has approved of the general policy which is based upon the encouragement of productive activity and not dominated, as in the past, by the consumer's point of view. There is a distinct cleavage of two opposing principles, one of which has as the dominant idea, for the time being at any rate, the encouragement of production and this bill is part of that policy. I do not think it would be possible to maintain as a long-term practice the placing of these charges for subsidies and bounties and such like upon the Central Fund. I think they have to be raised out of indirect taxation drawn from the consumer. I want to put to the Minister for Agriculture a point of view that I think is very important at this particular stage. He has brought forward this Bill. Another Minister will bring forward another Bill having a similar effect upon the consumers' prices, and I am yet waiting to see where the co-ordination of policy is. The Executive Council should have regard to the effects of the various measures that are brought forward upon the section of the community which Senator Foran spoke about. I have long advocated, and I think the Party with which I am associated has approved and supported, the policy that agricultural producers are entitled to a living wage and the town consumer is entitled to pay a price that will enable the agriculturist to get a living wage; but, on the other hand, we are entitled to demand that every section of the community shall be put into a position which will enable them to enjoy what a living wage means, that is, commodities that are necessary to give them a decent livelihood. As has been pointed out, one of the effects of the policy behind this Bill is, as the Minister indicated, that it will tend to raise the price of flour to be made into bread at home and bread to be made by the baker. Incidentally, I may say that the case that Senator Wilson made might apply, to some extent, to the flour sold by the baker, but it could not possibly apply to the flour sold, as most flour is sold, for home baking — most flour in the country is used in that way, at least rather more than half.

Now, the effect of this Bill, as Senator Foran has pointed out and as the Minister has admitted, is to raise the price to be got from the consumer and consequently disproportionately from the poor consumer, and even still more disproportionately from the poorest of the poor consumers. While I say that, I am thinking also of the effect of the Government's policy on sugar, tea, and coal, all of which enter very largely into the first calls upon the income of the poorest of the poor. If one takes even the whole of the working classes — the poor, the very poor and the poorest — one finds that somewhere about 20 per cent. of their consumption of food is of this commodity — bread, and that nearly 40 per cent. of their consumption of food is in these four items that I have mentioned, all of which is an incidental consequence of the general policy of which this and the other Bills that are to come forward this year are part. Therefore, the activities of the Government are casting an undue weight upon the very poor, who are unable to bear the strain.

That is one side of the story. I would have no complaint whatever about the incidence of these charges if the income side of these people was being considered and if their position was being improved by the ameliorative activities which the Government are pursuing. To some extent, they have taken these things into account but at no point, so far as I am able to see, have they arrived at the position which says that "there is a certain minimum standard of existence which these people must be enabled to attain and we are going to ensure that that shall be their position before we put upon them any of these burdens"— one of which is incorporated in this Bill. That is what I complain of in the Government's policy: that they have no definite co-ordinating authority which would take into account the economic consequences of the whole of their policy; the spending policy and the buying policy, the producing policy and the consuming policy.

We have a right to speak here of that very big proportion of the community which is not in a position to command a price for the commodity that it has to sell: that is not in a position to command a price for its labour. While that is so we are dealing with a problem which will, as Senator Foran said, in the long run be a very difficult problem because it is going to run outside the bounds of control. If you conduct a policy without a very insistent regard to its effect upon the poorer section of the community, whether town or country, whether Gaeltacht people or poor people in the small towns and cities—the poorest section of the community living on the smell of an oil rag as it used to be said— if you do not take full account of their position, of the repercussions of this production policy on their economic standing, then we are laying up for ourselves a very great problem and very great trouble. It is in the light of the failure of other parts of the Government's policy that I support the criticism of Senator Foran. I think it is a matter of taking the long term view. One cannot assume that there will be a continuance of paying out from the Central Fund a subsidy of this kind any more than you can ask that instead of bounties and tariffs being paid on other things they also should come out of the Central Fund.

There is another item that I want to deal with. I think it was Senator Quirke who mentioned the Prices Commission and the control of the price of flour. I want to say that there should be incorporated in the Government policy some plan which would ensure that, however great the difference between the world price of flour and the economic price here, that the benefit of the low price of imported flour should be secured to the consumer here. That is to say that if the world price of flour falls and if the price of imported wheat falls, that should be taken into account. It should be made certain that it is taken into account when the millers are charging a price for their flour so that the public here would get some advantage of the low world price while helping to maintain the position of the grower of wheat in this country. What I am afraid is happening is that the low world price is not being passed on to the consumer, and that the protection intended originally, no doubt, to have been given to the consumer through the Prices Commission is quite ineffective, unless the Minister for Industry and Commerce takes such action as will ensure that that protection is given.

The main point that I want to make on this is: that the effects of this and of the other Bills on consumers ought to be taken into account, that there should be a clear relationship in the industrial, agricultural and general economic policy of one Bill with another, and of the relative effects of this combination of activities upon producers and consumers. What I am afraid of is that, in this and in some of the other Bills that are being put forward, there is a failure to appreciate the condition of the poorer section of the community. There is no countervailing movement to ensure that this poorer section of the community will be raised to a position of economic contentment, and it is because of the failure there that I see a reason for criticising the Government in this matter.

I do not see how this particular Bill can be amended in the direction that some critics have indicated. It is quite impossible, surely, to do what Senator Honan suggested: to legislate specially for the poor in the Gaeltacht so that they will be exempted from any increase in the price of flour. If it were possible to do that, well, much more could be done in the same direction. Similarly, I think it is not going to be possible to eliminate from this Bill that portion of it which assumes that the subsidy is going to be paid indirectly by the consumer and not directly by the Central Fund. Those who have criticised the Bill from that point of view have no alternative, in my view, except to vote against the Second Reading.

Mr. Brown

I have no intention of inflicting a speech on the House because other Senators have said what I would like to say about the injustice of transferring the burden of the bounty on wheat from the Central Fund to the consumer. I would be glad, however, if the Minister would give us a little more information about the extent of that burden. The Minister mentioned ½d. in the 4-lb. loaf as the amount of the increase in the price of bread to the consumer. That figure, I take it, must be based on some estimate. Does it just express the amount of the bounty for the present year which has been variously put at £300,000 or £400,000? Would the Minister tell us on what figure that increase of ½d in the 4-lb loaf is based? There will, in addition, I take it, be the cost of transferring the burden from the Central Fund to the consumer. The increase of ½d in the 4-lb loaf relates, I take it, only to the actual amount of the bounty. It does not take into account the additional expense that will be involved in passing on the burden to the consumer through the miller. In connection with this Bill, the miller will have to increase his capital enormously in order to provide adequate storage for the immense increase in the quantity of wheat contemplated. In addition, he will have to provide for the cost of storing the wheat and of turning it. The cost of all that will have to be added to the price of the loaf. The shopkeeper will have to add to his profit the cost of the additional capital that he will have to put into his business to pay for the dearer flour, and the same will apply to the baker. Has the Minister taken all these things into account? If he has not, then we must contemplate not only an increase of ½d in the 4-lb loaf but a very substantial increase indeed. That increase is going to be doubled next year. It will continue to soar until it becomes absolutely intolerable.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I do not intend to delay the House unduly on this Bill. I listened with great interest to the speech of Senator Johnson. His contribution was the most pertinent of all that I heard in the course of the debate. He avoided the generalities which other speakers indulged in. Most of the other speakers dealt with the major aspect of wheat growing which is already the law in this country. I trust that the Minister, in replying, will give some attention to the point raised by Senator Foran with respect to the extra burden which it is claimed this Bill will place on the very poor. It is a very difficult thing to assess a burden, and it is a very invidious thing to indulge in propaganda based upon the contents of a single Bill. I put it to Senator Foran that the Government in power has shown, in the general incidence of its legislation, more consideration for the poor than any other Government. Its whole tendency in its legislation has been to raise the standard of the lowly, until there will be a more uniform standard enjoyed by all. I understand Senator Johnson is quite correct in saying that the figures he gave were mentioned by the Minister in the other House, and that about £300,000 would be the net cost to the consumers, to which probably would have to be added some overhead expenses, and to provide for reimbursement of capital on the millers' commitments. There are numbers of empty stores throughout the country which were probably used in the past for storing grain. When re-conditioned they will probably be used for that purpose again. What section of the population does the very poor represent to the volume of bread consumed? Assuming that they consume half the bread produced, and that the cost will be £300,000, plus 33 per cent. for overhead expenditure, you get an extra volume on that of £200,000 per annum? Assuming that the ordinary member of a family consumes one lb. of bread and taking the average family as four, it is hard to assess the basic figure. I imagine that ultimately the figure will represent between 10/- and £1 per family. We have a Government which has passed an Unemployment Assistance Act under which it gives back in the course of one or two weeks the amount of the burden which it is understood will be imposed on the very poor by this Bill.

One would imagine by the debate that the development of the wheat-growing policy of the Government had not conferred certain benefits on the country. If it has not done so on the very poor in one area, it has in another area, because a certain amount of additional employment must have been given in the sowing of wheat. It should be remembered that last year 100,000 tons of beet were transported on the iron roads and that twice that quantity will be transported this year. Will Labour say that there has not been a set-off in the way of the additional money that was paid for such work? The very poor are being looked after by the Government. As a matter of fact, the children of the poor are getting bread free through the medium of the meals provided in the schools. I believe that Senator Foran will vote for the Bill, because he has full confidence in the Government that sponsored it, and in the whole trend of their legislative policy, and that if the standard of the very poor is slightly impaired by one Bill other legislation is designed to raise it.

I hope I will be pardoned for making some comment on the rather extraordinary principle enunciated by Senator Blythe. He would like to see this matter dealt with under the bounty system, just for the purpose of enabling statistics to be kept. I trust that the country is not going to be run by statistical departments. It is very difficult to keep and to segregate statistics. Senator Blythe suggests that the Government could have ascertained from statistics what benefit the country was getting by way of a set-off against the expenditure of £300,000. There are various set-offs. For instance, a certain amount of employment is given and a certain small amount of employment is lost at the ports. How are you to measure the general increase in employment, direct or indirect, or to deal with the claim that extra profits are made by the millers? Is portion of these profits returned to the State in the form of income tax? The whole question is related to the world price of wheat. If the world price of wheat goes back to the figure at which it stood in 1928 and 1929, what would be the use of the statistics that Senator Blythe requires? I make the further point against the principle which the Senator enunciated, that while the State must collect taxation and disburse it in favour of those unable to earn a livelihood, the poor and lowly, the widows and the orphans, I say that the less the State collects for the purpose of paying it out again the better it is for every class of industry, as the less overhead costs there are the better. I feel that we have lost a good deal of the importance of the debate by going into generalities that should have been discussed in the original measure. The only real contribution to the discussion was that of Senator Johnson. I feel confident in the Government's policy, and I am sure that the Minister will reassure the House in respect to this Bill, that it is required by the country. With respect to the invidious campaign that has been carried on suggesting that the policy of the Government, as illustrated by this Bill, is to press unduly on the poor, that is nothing but invidious propaganda.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Minister to conclude.

Dr. Ryan

I think you, Sir, will probably sympathise with me in trying to reply to the debate, because it has been on a very high economic level. In fact, it was on a level far above what the Bill deserved, and I was hardly prepared for many of the arguments on high economics that were put up. Senator Counihan was not very just when he said that the farmers would get nothing under the Bill. They will at least get their money cash down, which is a very big item for farmers. I want to inform Senator Jameson that we could not pay farmers promptly under the previous Bill, because we were bound to find out what was the average price for three months before paying the subsidy. It was necessary to bring in this Bill so that farmers could be paid promptly. I explained on the Second Reading that this Bill does not prevent a Government paying a subsidy, but I stated that this Government had no intention of paying a subsidy. Senator Counihan gave as a reason for wheat being grown that farmers could not grow anything else at present. I am glad the Senator spoke like that, because I had a bet that the Senator would bring the economic war into this debate, and I have won 2/-.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

That was not a fair bet; it was a certainty.

Dr. Ryan

Senator Counihan holds that farmers increased their wheat output because nothing else paid. The Senator should look up the agricultural statistics and he will find that we have increased the output of everything we produce. We have increased enormously the output of dairy products, bacon, eggs, poultry, vegetables, fruit, barley, oats and beet — everything except dry cattle. If Senator Counihan is right, and that farmers went into wheat because it was the one crop that paid, then they went into everything because everything I mentioned paid. I am not optimistic enough to claim that for my agricultural policy, and I do not want to pursue Senator Counihan's arguments any further.

I know that Senator Foran would naturally feel that raising the price of bread was going to hit the poor. I understand that the poor people consume more bread than the rich. I believe that is true. It is very difficult to deal with a question like that as a straightforward proposition and without qualification. For instance, Senator Fitzgerald asked what would happen if we went back to 1929 prices. Senator Kennedy and I were members of a Committee that considered the question of wheat growing in 1929, when the price of imported wheat was 30/- a barrel. The price of wheat then was 12/- a barrel higher than it is now. The effect of this Bill is to raise the price of wheat by 1/6 a barrel. I do not know whether Senator Jameson or other Senators ever drew attention to the sufferings of the poor in 1929 owing to the price of bread. I would almost venture to say that they did not. Senator Jameson, Senator Counihan, Senator Dillon and Senator Baxter talked about the price of bread, but it would appear that a good deal depends on what causes the rise in the price, and on the Government that brings in a proposal to do a thing like this. If there was so much concern for the poor, and as these Senators were in public life at that time, I cannot understand why they did not bring in a motion in 1929, so that cheap bread should be given to the poor, and the extra cost borne by the Exchequer. It was not done. In fact, it never occurred to the Senators to do anything of the kind.

Mr. Counihan

The wages of the agricultural labourers were different then to what they are to-day.

Dr. Ryan

I do not know if these Senators had the agricultural labourers in mind then. At least, they did not say so. Perhaps they had them in mind. It was stated that the price of wheat is not the only thing that influences the price of bread. Senator Wilson dealt with that point, and mentioned the price of wheat pre-war and the price of bread pre-war. What part of the loaf would pay for wheat at 13/- a barrel? About 1d. in the 2-lb. loaf would pay the total cost. We were not getting bread for 1d. a loaf for years before this Bill was ever thought of. Wheat is coming in here at world prices. The baker is getting his flour from the flour miller, and the flour miller is getting his wheat at world prices. The cost of the 2-lb. loaf would really be 1d. The rest represents other expenses, and the "other expenses" must be heavy.

Mr. Johnson

Take home-baked flour as the test.

Dr. Ryan

I suppose home-baked flour would be on the same basis. I agree with Senator Wilson that farmers' prices have gone down very much during the past few years. We all hope they will go up again. Even if they do go up where they were in 1928 or 1929, we will not be doing any injury to the consumer. I assume that the consumers have the same wages and salaries that they had in 1928, and if we can get the farmers' prices back to the figure obtaining then we shall be doing no injury to anybody — unless it is complained that wages were too low at that time.

I want to tell Senator Wilson that wheat offals cannot be exported. No wheat offals were allowed out of the country for about 18 months, with the exception of one consignment of red bran. That consignment amounted to 820 tons and was sent out about this time last year.

Senator Jameson is quite right in saying that the drying and storing of grain is a very technical matter and that a great deal depends on the method of drying and the rapidity with which it is done after the farmer has dealt with the wheat. I appreciate that and that is why I called the millers together about last Christmas and told them that we would have to look to the storing and drying of grain. I told them that if they were not prepared to do that I should have to bring in a measure to provide for State granaries and State drying plants. The millers evidently realised the seriousness of the matter and preferred to do the work themselves. I think it was better that they did so because they know better how to do such work than any Government does.

As to the point raised by Senator Jameson, it is perhaps unfair that distillers must buy this wheat at a price higher than the world price if they are up against competition in the export market. I think they would be entitled to consideration, and I am sure that if the distillers make a case in that regard, it will get sympathetic consideration. As Senators know, there is a provision in the Budget for giving what amounts to a drawback to those exporters who use home-made sugar and certain other commodities made within the country which can only be procured at a price higher than the world price. If the distillers have a grievance on this head, it will certainly get consideration.

Mr. Jameson

I do not think that the distillers propose to raise any question as to the extra cost of the whiskey. That is settled between us and our customers. The Minister will not, I think, be troubled with the question of the world trade. But it is only because wheat is such a small part of our consumption that we are able to deal with the matter in that way. If the Minister had been dealing with barley and had fixed the price of barley as he has fixed the price of wheat, he would have put us out of business. That was the point I made.

Dr. Ryan

We shall have to be prepared to bear the extra cost as consumers. If the Minister for Finance were to bear this extra cost he could not possibly borrow for the purpose. It would have to come out of taxation. Senator Blythe did say that he would suggest a source from which the revenue could be got. Any Senator who suggests that this money should be found out of taxation should, I think, strengthen his argument by giving some idea of how the money might be raised. It is possible that the suggestion made by any Senator might also bear on the poor. That is why I should like an indication of the source from which the revenue might be raised to pay this subsidy. I do not know what we could tax, apart from income tax and that class of tax, that would not hit the poor almost as hard as a tax on bread. Any Senator who feels deeply that this money should come from some other source should, if he is in earnest, give me some idea of the source from which the money could be obtained. If, on the other hand, a Senator is making an Opposition speech for the sake of opposing he is not, of course, bound to put forward any such suggestion. This subsidy would eventually amount to £1,500,000 which, as Senator Jameson said, is an enormous sum. As practical politicians, we must recognise that that charge would have to go on to the consumer. No Minister for Finance would continue to pay that amount. It was I, as Minister for Agriculture, who pressed to have this charge turned over to the consumer rather than to the taxpayer, because I saw quite plainly that, as long as the scheme was subsidised out of taxation, it would be merely an experimental scheme and would meet with the opposition of every Minister for Finance. I saw that, when we got it financed entirely at the expense of the consumer, it would become settled policy and would no longer be open to revision. The proposal that the incidence of cost should be shifted in this way was put up by me more than 12 months ago. I do not say but that it was welcome to the Minister for Finance. Probably it was very welcome. Senator Blythe said that everything of this kind should come out of Government funds. Senator Baxter agreed with that, the idea being to show what the scheme is costing. Why single out this scheme? If we had followed the policy pursued by our predecessors in respect of bacon, we could quite easily have come in and put a tariff of 8/- or 9/- a barrel on wheat, bringing the foreign wheat up to the price that the home wheat should be. We would have got a fine revenue out of that while the Irish wheat was being grown. It was to save the consumer, as far as possible while this policy was being built up that we adopted the other policy of guaranteed price, guaranteed market and letting the foreign wheat come in as cheaply as possible. Suppose we want to find out what the cost of pig production is, why should we not drop the tariffs in that case? Why should we not every week say: "We can import Polish, Canadian or American bacon at such a price. Therefore, our own bacon would be sold at that price if we had no protection. We shall see that our own bacon is sold at a much higher price and, out of taxation, we will give a subsidy to the bacon factories and see what this policy will cost us." That would cost quite a lot. We could do the same with butter, cheese, vegetables, fruit, mutton, lamb, and in fact, cattle, because the Argentine could knock us out in cattle if we allowed their meat in. We would want to keep an account of the whole thing. It would cost quite a lot, but there is as good a case for financing bacon and all these other things out of taxation as there is for doing so in the case of wheat. We could estimate the cost in another way. It should be quite easy to take the average price of wheat on the world market for the year, to get the amount of our consumption here and see what the extra cost was. In the same way we could get the average cost of bacon on the world market — if there is a world market for bacon, and see what the cost is.

I do not think there is much use in talking about Canada or America and of what they are suffering from wheat growing. They are big exporting countries. We do not hope to become an exporting country. So far as I am concerned, I would not like to have this a wheat-exporting country, because I know the difficulties of exporting anything. We shall not meet with these difficulties until we become an exporting country, and we shall try to stop before we reach that point.

I was asked by Senator Baxter what would be the total cost of the provision of stores for the millers. There will be practically no cost this year. With a few exceptions, they have all provided sufficient storage for this year's crop. In the case of the exceptions, I think that, even if we had not told them we were bringing in this Bill, they would have provided storage. They may claim now that they are being compelled to do so, but I do not see how they could have kept in competition otherwise, even if we had not brought in any Bill. This provision of the Bill will be necessary in years to come if our progress continues, and it is necessary at present in regard to the percentage to be taken each month. I think Senator Baxter is departing from his own economic theories when he advocates different prices for wheat in Cavan and Wexford or the West. To fix differential prices for different counties would be going much further from free trade than we mean to go. It is going a long way from the economic theories advocated by Senator Baxter so often.

I was glad to hear Senator Dillon say that he has had no difficulty in growing wheat. If Senator Dillon will read the speeches and reports of his own Party in 1929 and 1930, he will see that they said that wheat could not be grown here. They said that we had a bad climate, bad soil, too many crows, too many weeds, and that we never could grow grass seed with wheat. I think that there were fourteen points made against the growing of wheat. Senator Dillon will see them set out in a report of the period. Now that it has been proved that we can grow wheat, the difficulty with Senator Dillon concerns the economic price. I do not know what the economic price is, and I think it is almost impossible to get costings of a single crop. There are farmers here who know the difficulties as well as I do. If I have a couple of men out stooking wheat, rain may commence at three o'clock and they may have to stop. They must be paid for the day. They may not have much to do for the remainder of the day. They may have to white-wash the cow-house or something like that. Who is going to pay for the white-washing of the cow-house? It is very difficult to cost a single crop in agriculture. It is much easier in industry, where you have men working for a certain number of hours and paid for those hours on a certain process, but, in agriculture, it is almost impossible. The only test we can apply is: are we getting it grown at the price? We are getting a fair amount grown at the price. If it slackens off, if it does not go on increasing at the rate of 100,000 acres a year, we will have to raise the price. If it goes to 800,000 acres — and it looks as if we are going to exceed that, and will have to look for an export market — we will have to lower the price.

Senator Johnson did raise some very important points. He asked if there were a series of Bills like this, where was the co-ordinating influence. I am afraid the only co-ordinating influence we have is the Executive Council itself.

Mr. Johnson

The Minister for Finance.

Dr. Ryan

The Minister for Finance is the first barrier, but the Executive Council is the next. The Minister for Finance can be overruled or upheld by the Executive Council. The Executive Council may say: "This is unfair to the poor, and you are going to benefit the farmer at the expense of the poor, which is not justified," or may say: "The farmer is entitled to it and, even though it does hit the poor, it is justified." In that way the Executive Council, before we come to the Dáil and Seanad, is the only co-ordinating influence we have, so far as the Government is concerned. The trend of these things can be judged fairly well from the cost of living index, from the index of farm prices, the index of agricultural wages and certain other statistics, and we can see whether we are going too far in one direction or not. Senator Johnson also said that this should have been preceded or accompanied by some compensation to the poor. We have, I hold, preceded it by certain benefits to the poor, in the shape of unemployment assistance, increases in old age pensions and other minor reliefs. We are also following it up with the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Bill, which will be of great benefit to a certain class of poor.

The last point was raised by Senator Brown, as to the figure on which the halfpenny on the 4lb. loaf was based. I have not got the figures with me, and I am speaking from memory. So far as I remember, it is held that 3/6 on the sack of flour means ½d. on the 4lb. loaf. I think Senator Brown remembers those figures better than I do. It was on that figure I was working. If we raise the price of one barrel of wheat out of four, as Senator Wilson has pointed out, by 6/6 or 7/-, it will mean ¼d. on the 4lb. loaf, and we will reach 50 per cent. of home-grown wheat before it amounts to ½d. in the 4lb. loaf, so that when we have 50 per cent. of our own wheat, under this scheme, the consumer will pay ½d. on the 4lb. loaf, provided that the world prices of wheat remain as they are. If they improve, the consumer does not suffer at all. I think they are at their lowest, and if they remain at that level, when we have reached 50 per cent. of home-grown wheat, the consumer will suffer to the extent of ½d. on the 4lb. loaf, and when we grow all our own wheat the consumer will pay 1d. on the 4lb. loaf, and that allows something for extra charges as well as the price of wheat itself. The price of wheat itself will not amount to that, but would be something less. I am rather at a loss, like Senator Johnson, to know whether the Senators who spoke against the Bill mean to oppose it or not, but I ask the Seanad to give it a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, July 17th.