Milk (Regulation of Supply and Price) (Amendment) Bill, 1939—Second Stage.

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

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

This also is an amending Bill and contains a number of amendments more or less of a drafting kind. Some of the amendments perhaps will be considered rather more serious than drafting. Some of the provisions inserted, for which I am responsible, are designed to meet difficulties which may arise if through a combination among suppliers, distributors or carriers an attempt was made to hold up supplies. Some of the other provisions are put in at the request of the milk boards, where all interests in the milk business are represented. Perhaps I should just say a word first about the working of the Milk Act which was passed in 1936 for the supply of milk to the cities.

I think on the whole it has worked satisfactorily; that is, it has fulfilled the purpose for which it was brought in, to give the producers as much as possible of the amount that is paid by the consumer. It has also secured the producer against exploitation of any kind by the distributors and has introduced a degree of regularisation in the milk business both to the producer, the trader and the public.

It has been represented to me that during the period of peak production the producers do not get the prescribed price. That is one of the things we have found impossible to deal with by legislation, at least by legislation within the framework of a milk board and so on. One can, I suppose, consider legislation which would make that right, but it would be of a very much more comprehensive type. I think the Seanad should not have any great sympathy with the producers in that regard. The law is there and they can insist, legally, on the price laid down, and if they do not get that price it is due to the fact that they have voluntarily agreed to give a hand-back. They have actually, as a matter of fact, committed an illegality in not taking the prescribed price. I do not want to say it is an easy matter for the producer to co-operate in this way. I know it is a very big thing for the producers all to come together and co-operate and see that exploitation does not take place, but I think they should be able to co-operate at least to the extent of seeing that they would not get less than the prescribed price. This Bill is mainly designed to improve the machinery of the Principal Act. It makes provision for the winding up of a milk board. It makes provision for limitation of sale, and it makes provision for yearly contracts. These are the three big points.

With regard to the winding up of a board, I propose to take power to wind up a board if it should be necessary. There are various reasons why it might be necessary. In the first place, if the dairy interests on the board came to me now and said they wanted it wound up and that they thought it was no longer necessary to have it there, there is no legal way of winding it up. There has always, of course, been the possibility of the producers or some people interested combining to deprive the people of the city of milk and it might be necessary temporarily to suspend a board while this stoppage takes place. I think that Senators will agree that where we bring in legislation to protect an interest like the interest of the producers in five named counties it is not fair that they should use that position to withhold supplies knowing that legally no other supplies can come in. It is provided that any surplus funds will be devoted to some agricultural purpose or rural industry.

The second point with regard to the creameries is that during the milk stoppage here in 1939 I had to appeal to certain creameries to send milk to Dublin to get supplies, and I gave a guarantee to them that if they sent this milk they would be permitted to continue the business of sending milk to Dublin provided they fulfilled certain conditions. One was, of course, that they would register under the Milk and Dairies Act—that is an Act administered by the Minister for Local Government—and they have to conform to that Act, and to satisfy the Department of Public Health that the milk is fit for human consumption. The position arising out of this is that about seven creameries have decided to continue in the business. There were several more creameries supplying milk, but only seven have decided to continue, and the amount of milk that will be sent in by these creameries will not make a very substantial difference to the suppliers. As a matter of fact the suppliers, that is, the farmers in these five counties, are not able to meet the requirements of this city. In the winter especially, Dublin would be seriously short of milk were it not for the supply that comes in from the creameries. Provision is also made in this Bill to control the quantity of milk that may be sent in. There are a certain number of creameries registered under the Principal Act. There was nothing in the Principal Act to limit the amount of milk that might be sent in. There is a certain fear that if these six or seven creameries combine together they could probably, over a period, make it very uncomfortable for farmers within the area, and perhaps even drive some of them out of business and in that way secure for themselves a great part of the Dublin market here. Power has been taken to limit them to the amount they had been supplying over the last three years.

The third principal point is that power is taken to prescribe yearly contracts. I think myself that is a very important provision and I think it is a provision that should remove the number of complaints made here by the suppliers in the area. A complaint has been made in regard to the country suppliers. We make a distinction between what are known as the country suppliers and the cowkeepers. The cowkeepers are the men around the city who supply direct. They are retailers. The country suppliers live a distance outside and send in milk to be distributed by the wholesalers and retailers. These country suppliers allege, sometimes with truth, that the wholesalers and retailers take less milk during the flush period, the reason being that the cowkeepers try to extend their market during these two months of May and June and deprive the country supplier in that way of part of his market. That is very unfair to the country supplier, because he has gone to the expense of keeping the supply during the winter and then, when he has the supplies during May and June, he is cut down. The yearly contract may, I hope, remove that. Probably there will be ways found to get around it, but if the suppliers interested insist on these yearly contracts, it may at least remove one of their biggest grievances. If there is a combination amongst producers to withhold supplies this restriction would be an obstacle to getting supplies into the area. To overcome that difficulty I am taking power to issue licences to acquire milk from persons who are not registered for the sale of milk in that district.

The only other point is that it has been suggested, and it may be suggested here, that I should have gone further and should make provision for the establishment of a central marketing agency in the Milk Board area. The proposal was put to me by country producers, but when the matter came up for discussion amongst other interests concerned it was opposed. If all the producers had agreed it might be possible to do something, but there was a conflict between the country producers and the cow-keepers. It was very hard to do anything for, roughly, half of the producers as against the interests of the others. I do recognise, however, that the present scheme is not by any means entirely satisfactory. It is probably more satisfactory than before the board was set up, but it is not entirely satisfactory. I am quite prepared to consider any scheme put up, preferably if it has the support of a substantial section of the industry. If I thought the scheme was feasible and good, I would have no hesitation in coming before both Houses again with the necessary legislation. I should like to repeat that, without any legislation, although I am not saying it is a small matter, it is possible for the producers to have greater co-operation amongst themselves. I think every Senator will agree that if producers could arrange for greater co-operation it would be the ideal method. If that co-operation grew and developed it would be much better for the producers themselves and eventually would mean that consumers in the city would get better and cheaper milk when the organisation was properly established.

Professor Johnston

Perhaps in connection with this Bill, which raises important questions of public policy and public health, I might be allowed to make some general remarks with reference to the problem with which the Bill attempts to deal. It is, I think, a fact that is not generally realised, that the consumption of milk in our towns and cities is very much less than, for reasons of health, it should be. It is also very much less than it is amongst our country population if we may believe official statistics. According to the Report on Agricultural Output for 1926-27, the total output of milk in the Twenty-Six County area was 589,000,000 gallons. Of that total, 1,800,000 people who lived in the country at that time consumed 69,000,000 gallons of whole milk, which is equivalent to a consumption of .84 of a pint per person per day.

On the other hand, when we consider the 1,156,000 people who at that time were living in the towns and cities, their estimated consumption of whole milk worked out at only 20,000,000 gallons which is equivalent to only .38 of a pint per person per day. In other words, there was a difference in the consumption of milk per person per day, amounting to nearly half a pint, according to whether a person lived in a town or village or whether he lived among the people who 14 years ago were living in the country. Since then there has been a considerable influx of country people into Dublin and the probabilities are, taking them on the average, that these people, who in the country were consuming an average of nearly a pint per person per day, are now, when they are living in the towns and cities, consuming only .38 or about one-third of a pint per person per day. Therefore, one effect of the influx of 100,000 people into urban areas in the last 14 years is that probably the consumption of whole milk by our people as a whole has diminished by something which I work out at 2,300,000 gallons a year. That is a thing that is certainly going to be injurious to our people as a whole and something which it should be public policy to remedy in connection with this problem of improving the trade in whole milk from the point of view of both consumer and producer.

I should like to make a few comprehensive suggestions with reference to the Bill. First of all, I would say that the Bill shows far too much consideration for existing vested interests. There is a jungle of vested interests connected with this whole milk business and the matter will never be put right until the Minister, or some person in his position, enters that jungle and hacks his way through it, opening it up to daylight, and treating every vested interest, whether that of farmer or dairyman, absolutely ruthlessly so long as he is sure that he is furthering a policy which is beneficial to the public health and is in accordance with public welfare. Not that I am suggesting that any positive injustice should be inflicted on these people. The people who suffer will be entitled, of course, to reasonable compensation, but there should be no hesitation about what the object of the policy is, to try to improve the quality of milk distributed, while at the same time cheapening its cost to the consumer and giving an adequate price to the producer.

The anomalies in regard to the price of milk in the city are simply terrific. Down in the country, in the milk producing areas, the farmers are, I will not say glad, to accept, but at all events they acquiesce in accepting, rather less than 1d. per pint for milk they send to the creameries, that is 1d. per pint or 8d. per gallon, if you allow 2d. as the value of the skim milk which is returned to them. A penny per pint is 8d. per gallon or 2d. a quart. The price of milk per quart in the city varies at present from somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6d. to somewhere in the region of 9d. I am not saying that there is not some justification for a difference in price because I know it costs a good deal more to produce and sell milk in the urban areas than to produce and sell milk to a rural creamery. Nevertheless, the disparity between 1d. a pint in Tipperary and 9d. a quart paid by consumers for the best quality of milk in Dublin, is much too wide.

I think I am right in saying that the source of Dublin's milk supply might be divided under four main headings. Apparently there survive the prehistoric Dublin cow-keepers who keep cows in back yards somewhere in the city. I thought they were as dead as the dodo, but apparently they still exist and they still distribute an important portion of the city's milk supply. The first part of public policy should be to wipe out the keeping of cows under such insanitary and uneconomic conditions as the keeping of cows in the back yards of Dublin necessarily implies. The proper place to keep them is in the open country. There again you must give reasonable compensation, but for the sake of the public health, these particular sources of supply should be wiped out and wiped out as quickly as possible.

Another aspect of the matter is that in recent months these yards appear to have been a hot-bed of foot-and-mouth disease. Since some of the cows are kept in quarters which never see sunshine, it becomes nearly impossible to eradicate the disease once it has found its way into these yards.

Another important source of Dublin's milk supply is the large wholesale retailers who have creameries in Dublin and who collect milk by lorry over the so-called Dublin production area, mainly in Counties Wicklow, Dublin, Kildare and Meath. These represent a much more efficient contribution to the problem of supplying Dublin, though I am not suggesting that their relations with the farmers who produce and sell milk to them are necessarily everything that they should be. Nevertheless, the organisation which they do represent is something which I think ought to be retained in some form or other, though not necessarily under its present auspices. Another important source of milk is the producer-retailer who has a farm, often in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and who retails his milk as well as produces it. This section of the supply doubtless represents many different grades of quality, but nevertheless does contain some of the very best producers of the highest class milk available for sale in Dublin, and the best members of this class should receive every encouragement to go on producing high-class tuberculin-tested milk, and should get a preferential price which would reward them for their trouble and expense in producing that high class milk. Whatever reorganisation of milk distribution takes place— and I am going to recommend a drastic reorganisation of it—nothing should be done which would obliterate the identity of those valuable producer-retailers or prevent them enjoying the goodwill they built up by their efforts over recent years or cut them off from their connection with customers who have a consumers' preference for the milk they have been known to supply.

The fourth section of supply is these creameries outside the Dublin production area which entered the trade at a time when there was a certain amount of heart-burning among what I might call the organised farmers' section of County Dublin. At all events, there was a strike threatened or called, and these creameries were brought in at that time, and a certain amount of feeling seems to have prevailed. I think nothing that happened then should influence our attitude to those creameries now as a possible source of supply to Dublin. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Bill, in so far as it limits the amount of milk which these co-operative creameries down in the country may send to Dublin, is to that extent a bad Bill, and no limit should be put on the expansion of these creameries as a source of supply for whole milk for consumption in Dublin —or, at all events, no rigid limitation. The only drawback I see about a too great expansion from that source is that it is a distant source, and it is desirable, especially in time of emergency, such as the present, that much of the supply in the City of Dublin should come from within a radius of 20 to 30 miles. I want to see, however, these co-operative creameries continue to be a source of supply, and I want to see that trade enjoying a reasonable possibility of expansion. The milk which these creameries sell in Dublin is, I assume, pasteurised milk.

Dr. Ryan

It is all pasteurised.

Professor Johnston

And I believe the milk which is produced in the Dublin production area, and treated by wholesale creameries which have their premises in Dublin, is also pasteurised milk. But there is a difference between the pasteurised milk which is pasteurised within a few hours of milking and pasteurised milk collected over a radius of 20 or 30 miles and brought to Dublin and then pasteurised several hours afterwards. In the interval, considerable damage can happen to milk by infection by germs, and the same result is not likely in the case where milk is pasteurised soon after milking, which is the kind of milk these co-operative creameries are in a position to send. Therefore, from the point of view of pasteurisation, I think it probable that the creamery produces a better article than the other institutions near Dublin, although I have in mind that the institutions in Dublin do their best, and that the article they produce is a good article. It should be public policy that, in general, the milk allowed to be sold for human consumption should be properly pasteurised milk produced in institutions properly supervised under Government officials, and that the only new milk, not pasteurised, allowed to be sold, should be milk produced under hygienic conditions from tuberculin-tested herds.

The chief reason why there is such a wide disparity between the prices ultimately paid by the consumer even of poor milk, in Dublin, and the price received by the original producer of it, is that the cost of distribution is inordinately high, and the reason for that is because so many competitive organisations are tumbling over one another to distribute milk in the same district. There is hardly a street in Dublin in which you will not see half a dozen or more milk carts delivering milk about the same time. The obvious solution for that waste of effort is to put the distribution of milk under a single organised control. The obvious body which should have the control of the distribution of whole milk is, of course, the Dublin Corporation. I see no reason why it should not be one of the activities of the Dublin Corporation to distribute the milk supply of the people of Dublin in the same kind of way—not necessarily by the same technique—as they distribute the water supply. In that case the corporation would make its contracts with the creameries down in Tipperary, and would take over after paying compensation, the existing creameries in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and make contracts with the people now supplying the private wholesale firms, and would require the pasteurisation of all milk, and provide for the distribution of all milk; and if they did, I think they would be able to cut the price down to something not far above 2d. per pint if they achieved all the economies which, in theory, ought to be achievable by such a unitary form of organisation.

There remains the question of private producer-retailers producing high-class tuberculin-tested milk which ought not to be pasteurised, and in which the goodwill of the people producing it ought to be preserved. There is no doubt that a large part of their expense of production is due to the fact that they have their own private system of distribution, and I do not see that they should not be able to make arrangements with the municipal authority to distribute their milk in bottles bearing their name, to such customers as wanted to buy their milk and pay their price for it, while they themselves were content to produce the milk and bring it to a single depot or municipal distributing agency. In that kind of way even the private producer-retailer should be able to make a substantial economy in the cost, and the consumer ready to pay a higher price for tuberculin-tested milk, would probably find that article obtainable at a cheaper price than it is now under an inefficient system of distribution. I would be glad if the Minister would express his attitude to some of these rather drastic and comprehensive suggestions.

Sir John Keane

I am very happy to be in a position to endorse almost everything that the last speaker has said. It is very refreshing to have from him a practical speech on questions of agriculture, he so very often brought us into the realms of theory where a few of us were in a position to understand him. I would like to stress, if I may, the approach to this problem, and I think we have to treat milk in a very different light from almost any other foods. Milk is a germ-carrier. It is a perishable and essential food. There is a very good case for treating milk totally differently from the way you would treat other agricultural produce—potatoes, barley and so forth. The approach should be more from the consumer's end. It should start with the necessity for giving the consumer pure milk at the lowest possible price. When one talks about pure milk, one must differentiate between different classes of milk none of which carries infection. Senator Johnston spoke on that point. We have the tuberculin-tested herd, which provides very high-grade milk, but we must recognise that people with means will be the chief market for that kind of milk. There ought to be no offence against public health in giving everybody germ-proof milk—that is, pasteurised milk. I know that there is some theory that, by pasteurisation, you lose certain essential vitamins. Doctors do not agree about that and, for the present, I think you must be satisfied with giving everybody milk free from noxious germs, even if some of the medical experts or bacteriological experts say you have destroyed certain essential vitamins, because, after all, vitamins do not exist solely in milk. You can get them in other forms of food.

There is a certain belief that the regulations under the Dairy and Cowsheds Order contribute effectively to the security of milk against disease. I do not believe for a moment that they do. I see their operation in practice and I think they are very largely superficial. You put down a concrete floor. You make the milkers go through the form of washing their hands. In fact, that means dipping their hands in a bucket of dirty water. You make certain regulations about aprons, but does anybody suggest that any of these precautions really kill germs? I do not believe for a moment that the experts believe they kill germs. Incidentally, could the Minister persuade one of the research schools to make an examination of the respective freedom from germs of ordinary samples of creamery milk, taken at random, and samples of milk produced on farms that comply with the Dairies and Cowsheds Order? From the point of view of bacteria content, I do not think you would find one different from the other. That is a piece of practical research which, I think, should be undertaken.

With regard to the area of production, I can see certain convenience and certain—but very slender—justification in giving a closed market to producers within certain counties. Why should there not be a free market in milk in Dublin and Cork as there is in all other centres in the country? The Government rather drifted into giving a closed market to Dublin on account of the strikes and certain difficulties of supply that should have been settled in another way. Approaching the question primarily from the point of view of the interests of the consumer, I do not think that any restriction should be placed on the sources from which milk is drawn. The farmers are in a position to organise themselves and I think that should be a fair defence. The State should not step in to protect them.

With regard to the distributors, I agree, in broad principle, with what Senator Johnston has said. It may be argued that the present methods are efficient, but it would take a lot to persuade me that there is efficiency when you see lorries, horse-carts, bicycle-carriers, dog-carts and other forms of conveyance serving the same area with milk. It is incredible that, if distribution were brought under a central organisation and the whole of one street served by one distributor, the cost could not be enormously reduced. I feel in this matter a socialist —an unusual frame of mind for me. Cheap milk free from disease is essential for our poor people. That should be the aim of the Government and vested interests should give way ruthlessly to that aim. I do not say that there should not be compensation. I believe that there would be ample finance within an efficient system to provide compensation for any persons put out of business. I also feel that some body—not necessarily the corporation, because there is too much politics in a body like that, but a public utility society on the lines of the Electricity Supply Board—should be set up to carry out the distribution of milk within our large cities. It seems exceedingly unfair that, in the country, you should have to retail milk for 1/3 or 1/4 a gallon while here in the city the price is double that.

I hope the Minister is not going to let the thing drift merely on the lines of the present legislation. I do not like commissions but if he were to set up a body with clearly-defined terms of reference to examine and report on the most efficient method of milk distribution in our cities, it would probably be a sound angle from which to approach the problem. He ought to keep all vested interests out of it. I do not think that there is anything exceedingly technical in the problem. Business people without any interest in the trade would be the best people to examine and report on a problem of that kind. As regards compensation, you have given certain vested rights to producers within five counties. I should be very sorry to see a position develop whereby, because producers in these five counties have a closed market, they should at any time be entitled to compensation. I think they have no claim for compensation over any other milk producer in the country. Therefore, I ask the Minister, when considering the development of our milk supply, to look upon it primarily from the viewpoint of the interests of the consumer. He should aim at a noxious-free supply of milk. That is the condition that should govern this policy.

Mr. Baxter

In a Bill like this where, in principle, we are all agreed, I suppose it is inevitable that we would wander a lot in the course of the debate. In the discussion of a question like milk, in which so many diverse opinions are held by both medical men and plain people like myself, there is scope for many and varying opinions. This amending Bill has been made necessary from the experience of the Act already in operation. The Minister took things as he found them when he introduced the Act which has been operating for some years past. As far as we know the Minister's mind, as expressed in the other House or here to-day, it is as radical as that of Senator Johnston or as that of somebody who has become suddenly socialist like Senator Sir John Keane. There is very little to be said on this question of milk, as we are all nearly of the one mind.

It is unfortunate that the real value of milk as a food is not realised. The whole problem of the milk supply in the City of Dublin will only be tackled properly when someone has made a census of the milk consumption of the citizens and has discovered the minimum necessary to maintain them in a reasonable state of health. Apparently, nobody has thought of attempting anything like that so far. The main purpose of this Bill is to provide milk for the citizens of Dublin. It is providing some milk, but not anything like an adequate supply, and I wonder when that adequate supply will be provided.

On some of the other Bills we have discussed to-day on their Second Stages, I might have said that the milk production of the country has dropped steadily year by year. That is a rather disturbing situation, but it is a fact.

We should first take a census of the quantity of milk necessary to give to Dublin a reasonable amount of this most essential food of all. Next to that, there should be a closer study of our food values. If we had anything like that being done in the country, the consumption of milk—not alone in the City of Dublin, but in the rural districts where milk is produced—would be much larger, and the race as a whole would benefit considerably. It would astonish many people to learn the amount consumed in the farmers' houses, from which great quantities are sent away. The Minister should also do something to determine, in a positive and concrete way, the cost of producing a gallon of milk. I think I have said to the Minister in another place that years ago he had the point of view that it cost over 6d. a gallon. Investigations which have been carried out elsewhere in the country by one who can be regarded as an authority by all of us—Professor Murphy of Cork —have established the fact that it takes approximately 7d. to produce a gallon of milk.

Sir John Keane

All the year round?

Mr. Baxter

Taking it on a Limerick farm as produced in winter and summer. I do not say that that is the most efficient production. I do not say that the cows which yield this milk costing 7d. a gallon were the heaviest yielders. I do not say that it cannot be produced more cheaply than that. However, all that is part of the problem. There were members of the Dublin Milk Producers' Association protesting against the price fixed by the Minister. There were strikes some time ago, and milk was brought in from some creameries to save the situation, and a certain position is now being set up in regard to those creameries. In the settlement of a strike, what could one do but settle it in an arbitrary fashion and allow a minimum to the farmers for the milk? I am not suggesting that the farmers are not very much better off than they were before the legislation was enacted. What we really need—not for the sake of supplying the City of Dublin alone, but for the sake of the country as a whole—is, under the Minister's authority, definite figures showing what milk production costs over a period. In all this question of milk production, the whole future of our people is much more intimately linked up than a great many of us realise. We have all sorts of figures being given in the arguments farmers make. We know how the people complain of the price of butter at 1/6 per lb. When you tell these people that the farmer is only getting 6d. a gallon for milk at the creamery, they stand aghast and say they are paying 2/- in Dublin. In order to clear the jungle, as Senator Johnston said, that is one of the first questions to be dealt with, not only from the point of view of cheap milk for cities and towns, but also from the point of view of the production of milk for our creameries in the country generally.

We then come to the position with regard to the production of milk throughout the 12 months. The Minister is making provision for yearly contracts, and I am in favour of that. If an attempt is being made in legislation like this to give producers a reasonable price and at the same time to feed people, let me say that it is very important to give people food at the time they want the food. The greatest difficulty is to find milk for the people in winter time—and that is the time when there is really a demand for this food. For the next two or three months of the summer, they would probably carry-on on 50 per cent.— certainly on two-thirds—of the supply which is essential to them in winter. In fact, they would probably be in better health on 50 per cent. of the milk consumption for the next few months than they would by doubling the consumption through the months of the winter.

The difficulty with regard to winter production is that you must pay the price. You must aim at production all the year round for the people supplying the City of Dublin, and it should be aimed at also in regard to the country generally. That can only be achieved by paying the price. It is very fine to urge cheap milk, but we must ensure wider consumption also.

You will not get enough milk if you will not pay the people who are producing it something above the cost of production. The great difficulty in this country in producing milk in winter is that it is very costly to produce. We are denying our own people and the children of this country milk in winter, when they want it most, because the cost of production is relatively much higher than it is in summer. There is a problem there and we do not solve it in a Bill like this. I think we have to approach it from an entirely different angle. It ought to be a matter of policy. In my view, as far as the City of Dublin is concerned, the Minister, through his board, ought to cut down the price to producers in summer and raise it correspondingly in winter in order to get an adequate supply of milk during the winter months.

My view in regard to milk and also in regard to other agricultural products is that there ought to be no possibility of any group of people getting into a position where they can carry out a policy of exploitation. I think it would be a bad policy for the farmers to attempt to pursue. With regard to the production of highest grade milk, while it ought to be the aim, and while it is very commendable on the part of those who have achieved that high standard already, even when we get the highest standard which it is possible for us to reach in the production of milk, there ought to be no possibility of exploiting that position. It is something which, from the producers' point of view, ought to be avoided and, from the State's point of view, should be prevented.

There is a great deal of talk with regard to the question of clean milk and pasteurisation. I am always at a loss to know how much of the ill-health of the country is due to impure milk and how much to lack of sufficient milk. I do not know whether we have statistics of any great value in helping us to a conclusion in this respect. Instead of going to all the cost of pasteurisation which, in my view anyhow, if it destroys the bad, destroys some of the good in the milk—and I think some medical men hold the same view— I would prefer to begin at the beginning. I would prefer, whatever Senator Sir John Keane's view may be about it, to go down to the cowhouses in the country and try to make them clean and healthy, and make the stock therein clean and healthy, and make the men who milk the cows do their job. In that way, I think we would go far to eliminate the incidence of disease about which we hear so much to-day. When I see the number of hospitals we are building throughout the country it makes me feel that we do not expect to have a vigorous, healthy people in the years to come, that we believe two-thirds of the population will have to pass through the hospitals in future. I would prefer that we should aim at a policy of building up a healthy race, who would not want hospitals and who would want fewer doctors.

With regard to the production of clean, healthy milk, I think it would be sounder, from the State's point of view, to tackle this on the farms, in the cowhouses and stock, carrying out the conditions there which are essential to the production of clean milk, and develop from that on, doing our best to keep it clean all the way down to the consumer. I think eventually we will come to that. In the meantime we may spend a great deal of money and energy and years, but in the end we will go back down to where the impure milk probably has its origin.

There is no need to go into the many questions raised and debated in the other House. I think the Minister's attitude on the whole with regard to this measure, and his attitude towards the farmers, as far as I can judge it, is considerate. I find fault, however, with the farmers who are engaged in this business that they have not before to-day come together and formed a co-operative organisation for the distribution and sale of milk. Rather than setting up public utility corporations or anything like that, I think if the farmers, who are the producers of the bulk of the milk which comes into the City of Dublin for sale, did the right thing by themselves and were looking to the future and to a branch of their industry from which they could derive a reasonable income, the foundation on which they would build is the co-operative idea. They would come in and make provision for yearly contracts. They would set up their own depots in the City of Dublin. If for a month, or two, or three during the summer there was a surplus over what it was possible to have distributed and consumed in the city they would find another way of dealing with it. If they had an organisation such as that we would not have any of the complaints we hear to-day that the proprietary concerns leave the farmers' milk on the roadside, that they will not take it, that it is not sold, that it is lost, and not used.

It is a deplorable condition of things that in a country like this anyone should stand up and say that milk is left on the roadside and is wasted. I think the Minister should determine to discover the cost of production of milk not only from the point of view of those who are engaged in the trade in Dublin, but in order that if difficulties arise in future, with regard to costs, he will be able to put the figures before those who are to arbitrate on such a question. He would be able to say: "There are the costs, as determined under ordinary conditions, and there is no need to have strikes or to have quarrels about this." In addition, I think he ought to aim at co-operative organisation and give all possible assistance through his Milk Board and through his officials to establishing such organisation amongst the farmers. I think if that were done a great many of the middlemen who are in this business would be eliminated. Some of these middlemen are probably getting more out of it than the people who are producing the milk. By that means you would definitely have cheaper milk and, I believe, healthier, cleaner milk. But much more than the Minister has attempted yet has to be done before the ideal which I think every member of this House and, I am sure, the Minister, sets before him is achieved.

Donnchadh O hEaluighthe

Tá sé chó déannach, níl mé chun morán a rádh. Ba mhaith liom cupla focal a rádh. We had a long discussion here ranging over wide fields, but my object is to speak on behalf of the poor of the city who are paying a big price for milk, whoever is responsible. In the poorest retail shops in this city, poor people are paying at the rate of 1/8 per gallon for milk. These poor people, the poorest of the poor, who are living on outdoor relief and unemployment assistance, have to pay 1/8 per gallon as the lowest price at which they can get milk. In comparison with that, the price that is being paid to the farmers down the country is, I think, something less than 7d. per gallon. We naturally ask ourselves the question: How is this allowed to go on? The man who is responsible for all the hardship and trouble and expense of milk-producing gets something less than 7d. a gallon, I think, in the creameries and the poor people are paying at the rate of 1/8 a gallon. I am sure the Minister will have a very fine answer to make, but it is a fact, at all events, which requires consideration and looking into.

We heard Senator Johnston ranging over a wide area here. Everything seems to be going wrong according to him, and the Senator says that the cow-keepers' yards of Dublin are insanitary. There are two members of the Dublin Corporation on my left and they know, as I know, that the cow-keepers are probably the hardest worked sections of the citizens of this city. I think I may say they are the hardest worked section of the citizens. They have heavy rates to pay and they have to pay the standard rate of wages to the men they employ. The milk is produced under certain restrictions and conditions, and the public health authorities have their inspection of the article, and the veterinary surgeons are inspecting their cow-houses. Now, I cannot see how it is that dairymen cannot produce milk as cleanly in a dairy yard in Dublin as they can produce it on a farm down the country. When I was a boy going to school I milked cows, and I know all about the milking of cows, just as much as some of the arm-chair dairymen we have here. Senator Sir John Keane seemed to cast a slight upon the manner in which milk is produced in Dublin. He referred to the need for washing hands and the clothing which the workers have to get here in this city. How much more carefully is milking carried on down through the counties where the lorries pick it up on the side of the road? There are common-sense people here, and they know how much more carefully it is done where milk is left on the side of the road. I know what I am talking about.

There is one thing the Minister might pay a little attention to, and I presume possibly he has done so. In this city the majority of the big dairy houses are wiped out through foot-and-mouth disease. Nearly all the big dairy producing yards are wiped out. I do not know whether these people will be able to get their yards stocked again before next July, August and September. If they are not able to get them stocked I am afraid there will be a very serious crisis in this city in these months, when milk is beginning to get scarce and the weather is beginning to get hot, and the milk is beginning to get sour in long train or lorry journeys. In my opinion there will arise a very serious situation in the months of August or September, when the milk will be getting scarce and brought into the city in long train or lorry journeys. Senator Johnston referred to the fact that the Dublin Corporation should engage in trading in milk as is done in Waterford. Although he is a professor in Dublin, Senator Johnston has very little knowledge of things as they exist in Dublin. Senator Sir John Keane, although he first approved of the Senator's remark, afterwards disagreed with him because he said there was too much politics in the Dublin Corporation. Well, I would like to know if Senator Sir John Keane ever paid any attention to politics. I think it was Bobby Burns who wrote: "Oh, would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us". It is a pity that these people who criticise do not at first examine themselves and examine their own consciences to see whether they can speak about it.

Well, Sir, what I stood up here to do was to ask the Minister to look into the question whether poor Dublin citizens cannot get milk at a cheaper price, considering the price at which it is sold in the creameries, and furthermore, as there are milk producers here, why is it that our farmers do not make some provision for winter dairying? Surely our climate is much milder than the climate of Denmark, and if Denmark can make a success of winter dairying or butter producing during the winter, why cannot we do it with our milder climate and richer soil? I also wanted to ask the Minister if he cannot give, and I presume he will be able to give, some reason for the difference between 7d. a gallon that the farmers get and the 1/8 per gallon that is the cheapest price here.

Mr. Byrne

I suppose that, as everybody has talked about everything but the Bill, I will be allowed to ramble a bit?

Mr. M. Hayes

And you thought, Sir, you were coming to the Bill at last.

Cathaoirleach

The Senator should not inspire the Chair with ideas.

Mr. Byrne

I welcome the Bill and I entirely agree with the Minister in saying that the 1936 Act has given general satisfaction. I think there is nobody in the trade, and I do not remember a time when my people were not sending in to Dublin—there is nobody in the trade who would go back to the conditions previous to the 1936 Act—I am sorry if I have to agree that if the Act has not been as effective as it should have been it is, to an extent, our own people's fault. It is rather humiliating to have to admit this, but the fact remains that the hand-back, or the giving of luck as we call it in the country, has done a tremendous amount of harm to the effective working of the Act, especially where there are two prices, as when the wholesaler has to depend on the retailers to sell the milk. A great many of them went on strike to get the higher price than by giving the hand-back—it has disorganised the market and created chaos in the trade. The Minister has put in penalties, at least on paper, but until we have co-operation and until the people whom this Act was brought in to benefit avail of that benefit I do not see any great hope of doing away with this evil. As far as the creameries are concerned, I do not see that anyone has any quarrel. The creameries have fulfilled the Milk and Dairies Act or the Clean Milk Act in coming into Dublin, and I am sure they will have to fulfil it the same as anybody else.

The Minister has already pointed out the big difficulty, namely surplus of milk in May and June. That is due to two causes. He mentioned one of them, the local producer, the man in whom my friend Senator Healy is interested who feeds extensively during the winter. His cows, as one Senator mentioned, do not see the sun at all during the winter months. Then he takes grass on the 11-months' system, and when his cows, which have been so very well fed during the winter, are sent out on this grass they milk very heavily. He finds himself with a large surplus of milk and sells it at any old price. Unfortunately there are also a number of people down the country who will not carry on winter dairying. The main body of suppliers to the city who live in the adjacent counties do carry on winter dairying but it imposes heavy costs upon them. It is, however, very beneficial to the country because it involves more tillage and means more employment. This is the type of dairying that should be carried on by people who have a market, as we have, in the city. There are unfortunately some people who send practically no milk to the city in winter time and then they come along with large supplies in summer; they add more confusion to that already existing. I think a solution for this chaos would be provided if the suggestion of Senator Baxter, that an all-round price for the whole year should be fixed, were adopted. I have often put that to the Minister myself.

I think one of the big difficulties in ensuring regularity of supplies is the fact that the price of milk is reduced at the beginning of May. Then it is raised again in August and once more in October. Naturally consumers are puzzled by these frequent price changes. I think the whole trouble could be obviated if an arrangement were made that only the same people who supplied milk to the city during the winter were allowed to supply it during the summer. By the adoption of what is now provided for in this Bill, yearly contracts, that could be got over. If a man makes a yearly contract, he knows the price he is going to get and he can make his arrangements accordingly. I believe that system would result in an increase in winter dairying and would mean more tillage and more employment. I should like to convert the Minister and his Department to that point of view, that we should get the Milk Board to fix a price for the whole year round.

Senator Johnston and some other Senators dealt with the whole country in their remarks. A fact that strikes me very forcibly is that frequently we hear a lot in this House about the woes of the farmer, but the very moment the farmer comes to look for a decent price for something which he has to sell, a price which it is in our power to ensure for him, it will not be given him. We are told that it is going to cost too much. Other people are allowed decent wages and salaries, but if the farmer says "I want an economic price for my produce; I want something for myself and I want to be able to pay a decent wage to those whom I employ", he is told that it would cost too much. I quite agree that farmers are supplying milk to creameries at a much lower price, but that is not our fault.

It must be remembered that a very large percentage of this milk is supplied by farmers who engage in dairying only during the summer months. If a man is to engage in dairying for the whole year round, he cannot produce milk at the same rate. I have been sending out milk since I came into possession of the place I hold at present and I can assure you I am not getting 100 per cent. more than I was receiving 28 or 29 years ago. On the other hand all my outgoings, with the exception of rent, have increased by considerably more than 100 per cent. Carriage for instance has increased by 150 per cent. Wages have also increased by more than 100 per cent. and the cost of feeding and everything else has risen accordingly. At no time, taking the whole year round, have I got more than 100 per cent. or hardly even 100 per cent. more than the prices which obtained when I first started in the business. There are no fortunes to be made in the industry at all.

I am sorry that Senator Baxter has left the House. I remember an occasion when another member of the same commission said that milk could be produced at 6d.—that was during the summer months. Under present conditions you may produce it at about 7d. but last winter it could not be produced at anything like that figure. Senator Baxter has great faith in the co-operative movement. I agree with him in that but we must remember that when a co-operative store was started in the city the result was disastrous. It was, of course, started at a bad time, during the Civil War, but the people who had anything to do with it are since very nervous about touching a similar project. I made an effort six or seven years ago to get one going but we could get nobody to take on the job.

Probably the Minister may see his way sometime in the future to arrange to have a depot in Dublin controlled by the Dublin Milk Board or some other semi-Government body into which all milk would be sent and to which distributors would have to go for their supply. In that way, we could deal with people who send an irregular supply and who sell at a low price. I know the difficulty is that the Dublin cowkeepers might object to that but I think that it should present no difficulty to them. I think they could continue trading as they always did. They bring the milk round from door to door and they do not directly interfere with our trade. We send the milk to wholesalers and retailers.

The charge has been also made that a monopoly has been set up but we must remember that, in the five counties specified, anybody has a right to send milk to Dublin provided they fulfil the conditions laid down in the Milk and Dairies Act. Furthermore, nobody who was sending milk to Dublin from any part of Ireland at the time the Act was passed is debarred from sending milk now. On the whole I welcome this Bill. I should like if it had gone much further but we cannot travel too quickly as I have already said. Probably in another year or two, the Minister will find it possible to extend these measures. I am sure that he is quite willing to adopt any scheme that is calculated to promote the interests of all concerned. I was more or less the originator of the scheme which he has already accepted and I hope to give him another scheme before the year is out.

We heard a good deal during the debate to the effect that the price of milk should be controlled by the law of supply and demand. I say that that is nonsense. Any man engaged in dairying must make a living out of it. If we were to apply the law of supply and demand to wages, it would react unfairly on labour. Similarly, if we were to apply it to other agricultural products, there would be no such thing as a fixed price for beet and wheat. When milk has to be produced under the conditions prescribed under the Milk and Dairies Act, the people who are producing that milk are entitled at least to get the cost of production out of it, and something over and above that to enable them to live on fairly reasonable standards. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the two questions that I have put up to him—the possibility of trying to get all milk sent to the one place, and above all, when fixing the next price, to fix it for the whole of the year.

Mr. O'Callaghan

I would like to say at the outset that the speeches that have been made by the Opposition are the most practical and reasonable speeches that I have heard since I came into this House. I would think that Senator Healy was perhaps a little bit rash in some statements he made, and did not properly understand the matter he was talking about.

Mr. Healy

What matter?

Mr. O'Callaghan

There are two systems in this country; one is where the farmer's wife produces milk and sends it to the creamery, and the other is where she produces milk for human consumption. Senator Healy referred to the fact that they were sending milk to the creamery at 7d. per gallon while they were getting one and a half times that in Dublin.

Mr. Healy

I made the statement, which I stand over, that the disparity in the price of milk between what the farmer gets and what the poor of Dublin are paying is the difference between 7d. and 20d.

Mr. O'Callaghan

I have been engaged for some time in producing milk and sending it to the creamery, and I have also sent it to Dublin and have got the Dublin price, and I say that the man who is sending it to the creamery and getting 8d. per gallon is just as well off as the man who sends it to Dublin. I may be wrong, but I am open to correction. That is my candid opinion.

Mr. Healy

My point is this, that the poor are paying the difference in this city.

Mr. O'Callaghan

There is nobody more anxious that the poor would get cheap milk than I am. I am with Senator Healy in that, but how to do it is the question. Whether any statement made in this House would lead to cheaper milk for the people of Dublin or not remains to be seen. Production, consumption and distribution of milk in this country are lamentably bad.

We are aiming at producing cows that yield about 400 gallons per annum. On the Continent they have produced a type of cow that yields 600. The explanation is that we specialise in store cattle, good for breeding purposes, and we more or less neglect the milking qualities. I am wondering whether it would not be more or less legitimate to put a tax on the production of our store cattle and subsidise the dairying side of the industry. It is a very delicate and difficult matter, but it has occurred to me as a possible solution. While we have to deal with low-grade milking cows, which are definitely good for beef purposes, the cost of milk production in this country is bound to be high. In London 80 per cent. of the distribution of milk is carried out by one firm—the United Dairies. In the City of Dublin I do not know how many are engaged in it, but at any rate it is quite clear that the distribution is very costly and cumbersome, and if the Minister could do anything about arranging for a central depot on the lines on which the London milk supply is arranged, he would be doing a very great day's work. He has the medical qualifications, and he has the agricultural qualifications, and if he combines both, and during his term of office did something to meet the milk situation in Dublin he would be doing something which generations yet unborn would thank him for.

There is need in Dublin for a central depot; an arrangement with the producers themselves, with a public company, or with the State. When we arrive at that stage the distribution of milk will be more healthy, wholesome and economic. As far as I know, cow-yards are peculiar to Dublin. I do not know that they exist in any other place to the same extent. I doubt if there are any in Cork. You might find one or two cow-yards in some of the big English cities, but they are all over the place in Dublin, and during this epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease the cow-yards must have suffered considerably, and it would be, I think, an opportune time to eliminate them, because it does not appear to be sanitary or healthy, and it is peculiar to Dublin.

Mr. Healy

Why is it not sanitary?

Mr. O'Callaghan

Senator Healy and I differ, but I will have my own opinion. I have said that it was insanitary and I will leave it there.

Mr. Healy

It is a rash statement without realising what injury it may cause to a legitimate trade in the city.

Mr. O'Callaghan

The consumption of milk in this country is very low indeed, and everybody recognises that milk is the best human food available; and if anything that would be said here this evening would lead to a higher consumption of milk it would be very desirable.

Mr. O'Dwyer

Senator O'Callaghan has made a statement which, if correct, will have a very important bearing on this subject. He states that he was a dairy farmer supplying a creamery, and that he also supplied the city, and he said that the dairy farmer producing for the creamery was as well off as the farmer producing for the city. If that is so, it shows that the extra price in the city is not due to the producers, and we must seek elsewhere for the reason for the great discrepancy between the price in the city and that obtained by the producer. Like some other speakers, I have been surprised at the extraordinary price of milk in the city, and I have sought in vain for an explanation for it. I think it could be reasonably said that the price of milk, taken all the year round, to the ordinary customer in the city, would not be less than 1/10 per gallon. We export normally about 400,000 cwts. of butter every year, and the equivalent in gallons of milk would be roughly about 100,000,000. Taking the price last year at 126/- and allowing for the cost of transit and the value of the milk retained, I think that I could place the value, the net price received for that milk, from the export market, at about 6½d. per gallon. There were 100,000,000 sold at 6½d., and at the same time it was not sold at less than 1/10 in Dublin. There is a terrible difference between the two, and I cannot understand why it should be.

I should like to deal with some of the objections raised to allowing the population of the cities to take milk from the outside districts. It is said that the milk produced under country conditions and sent to the creameries is not fit for human consumption, that it is likely to be tainted, or infected with germs, and that it is not clean. Looking fairly at the matter, the first factor that will confront any expert who examines the situation is that the farmers, the farmers' wives, their children and their labourers have been drinking that milk for years, and that if it were infected with tuberculosis, or if it were dirty, they would not be the healthy individuals they are. This whole question regarding tuberculosis has been exaggerated. There cannot be any serious danger from tubercular germs in the milk produced in the country, because very few cases of tuberculosis amongst people in the country could be traced to infection from milk. Many years ago, a German professor stated that tuberculosis was not transferable from animals to human beings. That has been contested since, but experience in the country would go to show that that was the case. There may be cases of infection amongst children but they are very few and they excite observation because of their tragic nature. These cases, however, are not comparable with the number of deaths that take place from malnutrition. That is a fact which we have to face.

Working people in the towns and cities and people out of employment say that they are scarcely able to buy any new milk for their children and the result is that they are undernourished. The difference between 1/2 per gallon and 1/10 per gallon would be responsible for the loss of hundreds of lives of children in our cities. That must be so because these children do not get a sufficiency of milk, and the result is that they are underfed and undernourished and subject to disease. People in the cities are not getting enough milk and we ought all to endeavour to see how that want can be met. The milk supplied by tuberculin-tested herds is, undoubtedly, a very good milk and I am sure it cannot be produced at a much lesser figure than that at which it is being sold. Producers of milk are not getting any exceptional price and, under the conditions governing the production of milk, there is very little profit in it. The milk which is so plentiful in the country should be made available for the masses of the people in the cities. Those who are well off are able to purchase the tuberculin-tested milk and it is worth the price. But, for ordinary people who cannot afford that, the milk supply of the country should, by some means, be made available. The milk produced all over the country, particularly in the creameries, is as good as is being produced for consumption in the cities. The butter-content of creamery milk all the year round would be 3.50 starting, in the month of April at 3.20, while in the month of November it would be 4.50.

The point was made that the milk supply of the country was purely a summer supply. That is not exactly true. There is an ample supply to the creameries from the month of March until nearly the end of December. There would be sufficient milk to supply a great portion of the city's wants for nine months of the year, and it would go very far towards supplying those wants during another month or two. I see no reason why, if there were proper organisation as regards transport and distribution, the counties should not be able to supply the city at a reasonable rate. I am not an expert on this matter, but I think that the cost of distribution and the overlapping of interests in the city must be responsible for the exceptionally high costs. I rather like the idea of a central marketing organisation which has been urged. That has been the solution of some difficulties as regards the butter trade. It has enabled the consumer to receive his butter at one price for several years, whether there was a slump or a glut. The same thing could, possibly, be done for the milk supply.

Another reason for the high price is the wastage of milk. With existing prices, there is not enough consumption and, at times, a surplus is left on the hands of the producers. One producer said some time ago that he had to spill out his milk. That milk should be turned into butter and not allowed to go waste. The main point is that, by some means or other, a sufficient supply of cheap milk should be provided for the masses of the people in the city. If we produce milk at about 6½d., allowing for everything, I feel quite sure that, if proper distribution were arranged, that milk could be sold in Dublin at 1/2, or at most 1/4, all the year round. I see no reason why it should not be. I should prefer milk to be produced in the neighbouring counties to avoid transit charges. I should not like to see very much milk coming from the south because it would disorganise the economy of the dairying districts. The separated milk is retained after the making of the butter and is used for feeding pigs and live stock. That milk would be lost for this purpose if the supplies went to the cities. It would be quite easy to get over the objections raised to having milk supplied to the cities from outside counties. As regards cleanliness, the restrictions imposed are exaggerated. They have been responsible, indeed, for a great deal of the cost. I feel strongly that these bacteriological experts or medical experts have run amok in that direction and piled on the costs by making unnecessary restrictions. All that is required is that the milk should be produced under clean conditions and it is quite easy to do that. It would be quite easy to enforce that all over the country. If farmers were guaranteed a little extra per gallon they would produce milk in reasonably clean condition. Too many regulations and conditions have been imposed and these have entailed great expenditure. I will show how this works out. A creamery supplied some years ago to the boards of health at 8d. per gallon in summer and 10d. in the winter, so a little money went a long way. That was, perhaps, the best scheme that was administered, as a relieving officer did the work and the people who needed the milk got it. Then the dairy regulations came into force and the sale of milk by creameries or private suppliers was suspended. Conditions were introduced for the supply of milk and no provision was made for cases like this. I would like to support the suggestion made by Senator Johnston that some means should be considered by which the surplus milk should be made available for the people in the cities.

Mr. Cummins

One point which I would like to bring to the Minister's attention is that, in the Golden Vale, where we have an abundance of milk, it would appear that it is very difficult to purchase milk in small quantities. In rural areas children have to travel a mile or two to purchase a pint of milk, although a neighbour produces thousands of gallons. Either he would appear to be unwilling to sell or is prohibited by the creameries from doing so. I understand he must have a certain licence to enable him to sell; but it seems preposterous that a rural would-be purchaser has to pass a farm place where thousands of gallons are produced in the week and cannot purchase a pint of milk there, even though he is prepared to pay a much higher price than the farmer would get at the creamery. If it is the case that creamery managers have power to prohibit purchase, it is wrong; and, if it is not, the matter should be set right. Undoubtedly, there is a scarcity of milk for purchasers in rural districts.

I was very much surprised at the figures given by Professor Johnston in regard to the quantities consumed in the rural areas. It is my experience that the last drop is supplied to the creameries and the minimum kept in the farmhouse. They depend on skim milk for household purposes. I think that is a tragedy. One of the finest foods is being sold at 3½d. a gallon in the South of Ireland. It is surely worth much more than that as a food, even though it is pasteurised. I agree with Senators who say that there are too many restrictions with regard to the quality of milk. I am in favour of pure milk production, but in farmers' houses, where milk is produced in large quantities, the incidence of tuberculosis is rare. Tuberculosis exists to a much greater extent amongst the families of the poor people, who consume no milk as a food in itself, but use it in tea in very small quantities. The incidence of tubercular disease is greater there than amongst the children of farmers who consume milk and take butter.

I often wonder whether the creameries are not an unmixed blessing. The farmers individually spend half the day delivering a few gallons of milk to a creamery, and come home with a few shillings in their pockets. Except in cases where the milk is produced in very large quantities, the system is not advantageous in an agricultural country. It would be better for the farmer who has a few cows to make his own butter under proper conditions than to send the milk four or five miles to the creamery.

I agree with the Senator who stated that the fundamental point is the dairy, the home and the environment in which the milk is produced and that these should be properly looked after. If a better standard of milk producing cow were insisted on, there would not be the scarcity of milk and the exorbitant prices in cities and towns. I understand that the milk, to the purchaser here, costs almost four times as much as the producer gets from the creameries in the South of Ireland. I think that can be verified in the City of Dublin. More encouragement should be given to the small farmers with three or four cows to produce their own butter and sell it as they did in former years. A butter market could be established in suitable centres, and they could go there once a week, instead of trotting to the creamery every day with the pony and trap and wasting the better portion of the day.

Nobody should be allowed to continue producing milk of inferior quality. It costs as much to keep a cow which is a bad producer of milk as it does to keep any other. There are many farms where you can see the attenuated half-starved cows. The production of home butter in small quantities should be considered. This should become less of a seasonal occupation and less dependent on nature and grass. Cows are being kept in back gardens and backyards which should be out in the country and it is cruelty to animals to keep them in that way for the greater portion of their lives—feeding them very often on foreign feeding stuffs.

The Minister might enlighten us in regard to the scarcity of milk for sale in rural areas, and the consequent small consumption. Transport is a terrible problem. We find milk coming to large centres of production from districts 20 and 30 miles away. Possibly, milk is brought into the City of Dublin and sent back to supply large consumers of milk in the country. These transport anomalies could be remedied. While they continue, we will have high milk prices. Senator Campbell says that the farmers are getting high prices, but I do not believe that is so. We should be glad to see them get better prices to enable them to increase their stock and replace old and useless stock by better-class animals. Whoever is getting the high price, I would say the producer is not getting it. I believe he has the least slice out of the profits, if any, that come from the production of milk.

Mr. MacCabe

It is a surprise to me to hear it suggested, and I do not agree, that there should be a reserve market in Dublin for a few counties and a few creameries to send milk here. I do not believe there should be a reserve market in any of the cities in this country. I think there should be a free market and that anyone who has surplus milk down the country who desires to send it here should be allowed to do so. Then you would have, to my mind, cheaper milk for the poor of the cities. There is something wrong in the system when the price of milk is double what the producer gets before it reaches the consumer in the city. There are, I believe, a few creameries licensed to sell milk here if they wish, but there are other creameries who would not be granted a licence. I think that is not fair. What my friend said about the shortage of milk in rural areas is not true. The farmers who produce milk in rural areas are prepared at any time to sell milk to the poor of the area, and they would get much more for it than they would get by sending it to the creamery. I want to refer to the price that the creameries are receiving at the moment, and received last year for their milk. It is quite correct to say, as some Senators said here, that it would be on an average about 6d. a gallon. That is small, and I want to say that the farmers in the coming season would not be able to produce milk at that low figure for the year. If they receive 1/10 or 2/- a gallon in the City of Dublin, surely the farmer down the country is entitled to at least 10d. a gallon. Anything less than 10d. a gallon for the farmer selling his milk to the creamery certainly would not pay him or would not cover the cost of production. That is being discussed throughout the country, and the creamery proprietors, creamery suppliers and the shareholders of the creameries have all agreed that they could not continue to produce milk at that low price.

Another question was raised about the condition of the milk in rural areas, and the condition of the dairies and the manner in which milk is distributed to creameries. The House must be aware that under the 1924 Dairy Produce Act milk must be delivered to the creameries in a clean condition and in clean vessels, and if an inspector of the Department finds that the milk is not clean or the cans that it was delivered in are not clean, there is a prosecution immediately. As a man who knows a good deal about that part of it—and I welcomed that Act very much—I say it has improved the condition of the milk delivered at the creameries. The creameries have to keep their plant in perfect order and in a clean condition. In view of the cost of all that, I would be inclined to give a kindly hint to the Minister that he should seriously consider increasing the price to farmers down the country for their milk for this season.

Mrs. Concannon

This has been a very interesting debate and I am sure the Minister found it useful. It took cognisance of the fact that the Minister's problem, or rather the problem of the Dublin people, is to reconcile two points: One is to produce large quantities of good milk at a low price so that the people who need it most, the poor with large families, may have it in sufficient quantities, and the other is to be able to pay such a price to the producer that it would be worth his while to produce all through the year. To make these two coincide is very difficult and it would require all the best brains the Minister has at his disposal to solve the problem thus presented, but it is a problem that has to be solved. The production of milk at this particular time is of more than usual importance owing to the difficulty about tea. The best fluid our people could substitute for tea is, of course, milk and I join with the other Senators who have spoken of the difficulties that have been laid on the producers by insistence on too rigid conditions. This has been the case in Northern Ireland where many people produced good milk in good quantities, but a fanciful system of classification of dairies and producers left the ordinary people out of production altogether and then the price of milk became so high that poor people were not able to buy it. In this part of the country, and in Dublin especially, a great deal has been done by the Government in its grant for free milk. And here I would like to pay tribute to the grand work done by such societies as the Infant Aid Society. In giving money for the supply of milk to the children of the poorest of the poor a high standard of milk was insisted on and so it is that these children get the best milk that can be produced in Ireland. Money cannot buy better milk. That is all brought to the doors of the poor in the purest and best condition. It took organising to do this and the Minister, I am sure, is conscious of the good work that was done by the women who are in charge of that particular scheme.

With regard to the country people, I think if farmers were taught and if they had a proper class of wife—I always have to come back to that again—they would keep their dairy clean, as their mothers did, as all our mothers did. They would be proud of their dairies and proud of their good butter and the good farmer's wife, with her standard of cleanliness, would ensure that the conditions were good enough for everybody.

I agree, of course, with the Senator who spoke about milking strains. That is a thing to which we should give great attention. There is probably going to be a great change in our economy after the war. Our relations with other countries will probably be very much modified and we will be producing, perhaps, more for ourselves, in consideration of our own needs rather than the needs of outsiders. All these things will be present in the Minister's mind when he is addressing himself to the milk problem. However, I think he has got most useful help from this debate.

Two things struck me as of very great importance. That was the suggestion of a sort of central milk depot here in Dublin, and the other thing was that we should aim at the development of co-operation among the farmers. This problem of milk production is perhaps the most insistent and imperative that we have at the present moment. I do not know whether the Agricultural Commission reported on it but it is a portion of our whole agricultural problem and you cannot segregate it from the whole agricultural position. The question that we are dealing with is to find its place in the whole agricultural scheme, but for the moment the problem that the Minister has is to see that this country produces sufficient milk of good quality and at a price that is not beyond the reach of those who need it most.

Dr. Ryan

I think that Senator Mrs. Concannon has summarised what everybody wants, that is, to get a sufficient quantity of pure and good milk at a remunerative price to the producer sold at a cheap cost to the consumer. Well, it is not an easy thing to do. Most of our difficulties, I suppose, arise from the fact that it is very hard to please both the producer and the consumer in any of the articles of agricultural production that we have to deal with. I quite agree with what some of the Senators said here, and the last Senator who spoke, that milk is a very important and a very essential item of diet and that we should even depart from the ordinary procedure that we adopt in other things to see that the poor and consumers in general get milk in good condition at a reasonable price. Well now, I must say that I feel very much encouraged to have men like Senator Johnston and Senator Sir John Keane finding fault with me, because I am not radical enough and because I am not socialist enough in my views on this question, because I believe that myself. I would like very much to go further in this thing and I would like very much to take over some of the vested interests and deal with them rather drastically, as suggested by these Senators, and see if the thing could not be rationalised, if the whole question of distribution of milk in the city could not be rationalised, so as to see the people get a good supply at a reasonable price.

Various schemes have been thought of. The first one that would naturally occur to anybody is the scheme mentioned by some Senators, that is, co-operation amongst the producers themselves. But Senator Byrne told you that that was tried and failed. Even so, we should not take that as ruling the project out as hopeless, but I am afraid there are big obstacles in the way of getting this done on a co-operative basis. There was the other suggestion made; one that gave a partial solution of the problem was made by Senator Byrne, and that is, a milk depôt, to which all milk would be brought and given out through the present channel of distribution. That would only solve the problem of the producer. It would ensure that the producer would get his price, but it would not go further, and it would not, I think, lessen in any way the price of milk to the consumers; so to that extent it is only a partial solution, but it might give a step towards a final solution of both ends of the scheme, that is, the producers and the consumers together. Another suggestion that was made here by some of the Senators was that it should be done as a municipal enterprise. I believe myself that that is the proper solution. It is a scheme we have at present under consideration. It is being considered, and I hope that the corporation may take the same view as some of the Senators here, because I think it is a matter that should be done by the municipality. It is not a matter for the State as, for instance, the central marketing of butter is probably a matter for the State because all butter is dealt with in the same way throughout the country, whether it is exported or used for home consumption. But in this matter we are dealing with Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, and so on, and in that way it is a matter for each municipality to deal with for itself.

The big consuming centre, of course, is Dublin, and I do hope the Dublin Corporation will take the view that this matter should be dealt with municipally, and I agree with what one Senator says, that if the Dublin Corporation were to take over this matter, they could have the present fixed price, and have the interest of those who are unnecessarily in the business compensated, and provide adequate compensation, and in providing that they could deliver milk cheaper to the consumers of this city. I am quite sure they could do that, and at the same time ensure a supply of milk of the best quality. The same applies to Cork. That is the big question that came up for discussion. There are a few other points that arose. Senator Johnston spoke of the small amount of milk that is consumed. The Senator says that in the census that was taken in 1926 it was estimated that 20,000,000 gallons were consumed by our urban population or non-agricultural population, I should put it. Well, that non-agricultural population is somewhat over 1,000,000. It is between 1,100,000 and 1,200,000. Whether that figure is correct or not, I do not know. They did not seem to have the same opportunity of giving an exact estimate as we have. The Milk Board here in Dublin is collecting a levy on the milk consumed, and they get returns on that, and every Senator will know that when a dairyman makes a return on which he pays a levy, he does not make it higher than it is.

According to the returns made the consumption here in the city, which includes Dun Laoghaire, is 40,000 gallons, that is, for 500,000, and that would work out at more than half-a-pint a head. It is .6 per person and not .38 as Senator Johnston's figure would show. Going further, it works out at 14,500,000 gallons in the City of Dublin, and the number of people in this area form considerably less than half the non-agricultural population, so that the consumption, therefore, at the present time amongst the non-agricultural population must be about 30,000,000 gallons and not 20,000,000 as mentioned by Senator Johnston. Now there was a lot of talk here about the farmer selling the milk at 7d. or 6d. a gallon and the consumer pays 9d. a quart. It is always possible to get figures of that kind. It is just like the figure mentioned of the farmer selling his pig at 80/- per cwt., which is 8d. per lb., and the consumer paying 2/4, but the farmer has sold the pig live weight and the consumer bought a particular pound off that pig, the back rasher. Here again you have farmers selling milk at 6d. a gallon to the creameries, but it must be remembered that they are supplying the creameries and are getting skimmed milk back. Senator Johnston says that is value for 2d. per gallon, and I think he is right. The fact must also be remembered that the farmer is practically a seasonal producer. He supplies very big quantities during the summer and he only supplies a small quantity during the winter. In any case he is not the supplier to the city.

The supplier to the city must maintain his herd to produce a certain quantity of milk the whole year round. That means he must purchase cows when they are dear coming on to the winter and get rid of them when they are no use at a very low price.

He must purchase concentrated feeding stuff at a very high price to keep his herd milking at full capacity during the winter and he must pay higher wages than his neighbours who are not in the milk business. If you have two farmers living side by side say in County Wicklow, one engaged in mixed farming and the other in producing milk for the Dublin market, the farmer who is sending milk to Dublin must get his men in at four or five or perhaps six o'clock in the morning. The farmer who is engaged in mixed farming need not have his men in until eight o'clock to do their nine-hour day. Naturally no one will argue that it is as easy to go into work at four o'clock in the morning as it is at eight o'clock. The result is that the dairy farmer who supplies milk to the city must pay higher wages. He has quite a lot of costs of that kind to contend with. The average price for his milk for the whole year round is about 1/1 a gallon. It is necessary to make that correction. It is not correct to say that the milk sent to Dublin is produced at 6d. a gallon, nor is it correct to say that people in Dublin have to pay 8d. or 9d. a quart for that milk. Some people may be paying that price but it is possible for poor people in some parts of Dublin to buy milk over the counter at 2d. a pint.

Mr. Fitzgerald

How is it that it is only the poor who can purchase at that price?

Dr. Ryan

A rich person can get it if he is prepared to pocket his pride and go for it with a jug. It is possible for any person to buy milk over the counter in certain parts of Dublin at that price. People, however, who get milk delivered to their homes have to pay for the luxury of having that milk brought to their doors. I believe that milk is delivered at present at a price as low as 2½d. per pint though some people may be paying 3½d. or 4d.

Peadar MacFhionnlaoich

Dhá phingin.

Dr. Ryan

I did not know that the price was as low as that, but I know that in some cases it is delivered at a price as low as 2½d. per pint. I know the price varies very much. Many people are paying for getting the milk in a certain condition and in a certain receptacle such as a bottle or a carton container. They are prepared to pay an extra price for that. It is very hard to make any estimate of the cost of distribution because it varies very much. I do not know what a fair cost of distribution would be. We have not carried out any investigation here, but I have read of investigations which were carried out in England. A Royal Commission considered the matter there recently, and I think they thought that milk could be distributed in London at about 9d. a gallon. There was also an investigation carried out in Cambridge by the agricultural section of the Cambridge University. They put the cost of distribution as high as 1/- or 1/2 a gallon. Opinions differ there, as here. It is very difficult, indeed it is impossible, to get any sort of firm figure on the matter.

Mr. Fitzgerald

The Minister is talking about mere distribution.

Dr. Ryan

Yes, from the time it arrives at the station until it is delivered to the house.

Mr. Fitzgerald

That recalls to my mind the fact that on a former occasion, when we were discussing the question of the price of bread sold over the counter as compared with the price of bread delivered, what struck me was that the man who made the delivery was getting a greater return for the delivery than the farmer who was producing the wheat.

Dr. Ryan

There is no doubt that the cost of delivery is very high in Dublin; it was pointed out here that there are cars coming into every street and that a very big saving could be made by rationalisation. That, however, would mean putting certain people out of business who would have to be compensated. It might be possible to provide for that and still have milk cheaper than it is at present.

A point was also raised about keeping cows in yards in the city. There seems to be a difference of opinion on that question. I have never had any view upon it but, luckily for myself, I need not have any view. It is a matter for the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. If the Minister or his officers think that these premises are not sanitary, these people will not be allowed to carry on business. No investigation has been carried out as to the quality of milk produced in creameries or the wholesomeness of that milk. Senator Sir John Keane asked a question about that. I do not know whether it would be possible to get that done or not. The point was made by three or four Senators whether it would not be better to have enough milk and to take some risk as to the quality. That again is a very difficult question to decide. I think that probably Senators who raised the question are right when they suggest that there is more ill-health, or at least lack of health, amongst those who do not get enough milk than there is amongst those who get enough milk. I think it is probably true that those who take the risk, without all the various examinations, tubercular tests, etc., and who drink enough milk, are, on the average, much more healthy than the poor people who do not get enough milk. I do not say that any moral or lesson should be drawn from that, but I think it is a fact.

The question was raised by Senator Sir John Keane whether pasteurisation injured milk in any way. I do not know, but I know that medical officers in charge of some of the great cities of England will not permit pasteurised milk into their cities, while others in charge of other cities will not permit anything except pasteurised milk to be sold. We cannot get any unanimity on that point. I did read an article written by some person who carried out experiments and he did not place very much reliance on this argument about vitamins. He described an experiment he carried out in which he fed a certain number of rats on tubercule-free milk, a certain number on pasteurised milk, a third lot on milk taken straight from the cow, a fourth on dried milk powder and a fifth on condensed milk. He tried all the different varieties and he said the result of his experiment after three months' feeding showed that there was not the slightest difference between one rat and another. Senator Sir John Keane observed, and other Senators have agreed, that it is a wrong principle to limit the market for Dublin to a certain number of farmers. I admit the principle is wrong, but still it was necessary in all the circumstances. We have not done any injury to any farmer, because when the Act was first brought in in 1936, we allowed any farmer who was sending milk to Dublin at that time to continue in business. He has a special licence and he can continue for all time to supply milk here.

Senator Healy raised a matter about the Dublin dairies where herds have been wiped out by foot-and-mouth disease, and he thinks that a serious position may arise if these people are unable to restock their dairies before the autumn. There again, it is not a matter really for me. As far as my Department is concerned, we are practically finished now with these particular premises where foot-and-mouth disease occurred in Dublin, and it is now a matter for the Minister for Public Health or the public health authorities in the City of Dublin to allow those dairies to come along again. I do not know, of course, whether they will or not, or whether the owners are prepared again to go into business. In any case, I do not think that that will be serious. I think we will always be able to get enough milk from the creamery supply to make up for any deficiency in the city. Since Senator Byrne raised the question of a level price the whole year round, I think that would be an ideal solution if this business was being done by the municipality or alternatively if we had a milk depôt as outlined by Senator Byrne. It would be possible then, I think, to have the level price the whole year round. I am sure it would be much better and much more convenient for consumers, that if they had to pay 2d. a pint in the summer, going up to 4d. per pint in the winter, to have it at 3d. per pint all the year round. The price to the producer could be adjusted and it would be better for the consumer. But first we would have to have a depôt, and somebody, such as the municipality, doing the whole job.

The only other point raised was that by Senator Cummins—that it is difficult to get milk even in such a very large producing area as the Golden Vale. That is true, I believe. It is due to the Milk and Dairies Act. The farmers who supply milk to the creameries are not registered under the Act and, therefore, are not permitted to sell milk for human consumption. There is a certain proviso attaching to it that they can sell milk to their own employees up to about a gallon a day, I think, but they are not permitted to sell outside. So that it is quite possible that people in the country, living in the midst of the dairying district, may not be able to get milk for human consumption because it would not pay the farmers to register unless they did a fair business. We are investigating it and are trying to get some solution during the present crisis, even though it may be only a temporary one. These were the only points that were raised, as far as I can recall, and I do agree with some of the Senators who spoke here, that the discussion was very helpful and certainly very wide.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 27th May.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 21 May 1941

Milk (Regulation of Supply and Price) (Amendment) Bill, 1939—Second Stage.

Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 21 May 1941