I move:—
That in the opinion of Seanad Eireann it is an urgent national necessity that the Government should increase the minimum price for the 1942 wheat crop to 50/- per barrel and should make an immediate announcement to that effect
I am asking for something which is obviously so reasonable and so sensible that I feel the Minister might cut this debate very short by intimating that he proposes to accept the motion. If the Minister is not so disposed now, what I have to say will be said in a manner which, I hope, will indicate that at least I am anxious that this discussion should be conducted in a calm, straightforward and frank manner, and that all the facts should be examined coldly and logically. Food for humanity is something that, I suppose, was taken so much for granted in normal times, that we treated food producers in a rather thoughtless and haphazard way, but food has now become such a vital necessity of the human race, from Vladivostock to the Islands of Aran, and all countries are so disturbed and troubled in the struggle to obtain food for their people, that here in this calm and peaceful island we should be very grateful for the opportunity that was given us to provide ample food for all our people, and should understand that it was only the limitations which were imposed that prevented us from doing so. I have asked that this question should be examined calmly and fairly. At this stage I should say that the problem of food production, particularly in relation to wheat, has not been treated as fairly by the Government as I think it should have been. Any subject that is of vital importance to the life of the nation in times like these should be examined impartially by the Government and by the people concerned.
It seems to me that a certain attitude has been adopted, at least on the part of some members of the Ministry. I am raising the point now so that the Minister for Agriculture may have a chance of disabusing my mind, and the minds of many farmers, of a feeling they have, as to the attitude of the Ministry. I have the feeling that the Ministry are not quite happy about the possibility of getting ample supplies of food provided by farmers under the conditions that exist, and that a sort of subtle campaign is being carried on that is unfriendly to farmers, and that is not helpful from the point of view of the Ministry or the nation as a whole.
I suggest when you have the Minister for Supplies making statements like those that he recently made in our national Press, indicating that "grain difficulties were due to the withholding of grain to an extent beyond anything anticipated," he may have information that I have not got. The Minister for Agriculture may also have it. I should like to be told on what facts that statement was based. I should like to be told on what facts the people who sat at tables in Merrion Street or elsewhere in Government buildings in this city made their calculations as to the quantities of grain which our farmers were to turn into the food pool of the nation this year. I suggest that the farmers are not withholding quantities of grain. I suggest that the calculations which have been made were faulty in themselves. I suggest in addition that the quantities of wheat which it has been asserted are being held by the farmers do not exist and that to urge, as some Ministers are doing, that the farmers are unnecessarily and unreasonably witholding quantities of grain is hardly in accordance with the facts, or at least it is half the truth only.
Side by side with that, there is the other consideration which has been advanced in this House by me and others on this side of the House in various motions since war came to the world. That is the consideration that if you want to get food produced in sufficient quantities you have got to pay the producers a reasonable price. I have put down various motions towards that end. As soon as the first Tillage Order was made, I urged as strongly as I could that you have got to give the farmers a guaranteed minimum price. I am sure the memories of my colleagues on the left side of the House are not so short that they have forgotten that they voted that in their judgment the Government could not do that. Wisdom came to the Ministry later and they discovered that they could fix a minimum guaranteed price. The view of many of us was then, and is to-day, that these prices are too low and, to the extent that any grain which is available for the market is being withheld at the moment, it is due entirely to the fact that the remuneration when the grain is put on the market is not sufficient to justify the farmer putting it there.
What troubles me about the attitude of the Ministry is that while it is permissible for a Minister to say that the farmers are withholding stocks of grain from the market, and to publish that statement in the Press, it is apparently not permissible to say that the farmers are not putting their grain on the market because the farmers think they are not getting the real worth of the grain. In other words, the Press may say that the farmers are not doing justice to the community because they are withholding supplies of grain, but the community are not to be told that the farmers would put the grain on the market, any grain they have as surplus, if they were paid more money. I do not know how much the Minister for Agriculture knows about it, but some of his colleagues know that there is a censorship to-day which is terribly unjustified with regard to any discussion relative to the price of grain. Here is the sort of thing you get from the censor. I suggest that none of us anticipated when the order was made and when we assented to it, that the censor would use his powers in this way. I never believed he would use his powers in regard to matters of internal policy as between what the Government proposed to do and what others desired to have done. That the censor would act in this fashion never occurred to any of us. We subscribed to the proposal to give him these powers in complete ignorance of the fashion in which they were going to be used. Here is a paragraph which was censored. I am aware of the fact that it is but one of a number of instances in which the strong hand of the censor came down to prevent any discussion of prices through the Press. "Belatedly," this man writes, "the price for next season's wheat has been raised to 45/-. Let us hope not too late for winter sowing. Several farmers whom I have met think that at this price not nearly enough will be grown and that we shall have to try to import more at considerably greater cost. Hence there is great force in Mr. Martin Corry's proposal, which practically amounts to this: in addition to the 45/-, guarantee the farmers an added bonus approaching 5/- as the farmers got nearer to producing 100 per cent. of our requirements." I do not know where the mischief is in that, if it is not the reference to the fact that the 45/- offer came too late or the doubt expressed that it is enough to get us to grow wheat up to our requirements. But even if there were mischief in it from that point of view, I think that for the Government to use its powers of censorship to prevent any discussion through the Press of price in regard to the growing of wheat is a grave injustice to the nation and to the people of the nation. The Government's view, as expressed up to the present, is that the price of wheat at 45/- per barrel is sufficient remuneration for the farmer. They are not permitting anybody to tell us that it is not sufficient. They are not permitting anyone to say anything publicly through the Press to the contrary. The facts are, as far as any of us knows— and if I misstate the position I can be contradicted—that there is no evidence whatever that the area put under winter wheat so far is anything approximating to what was put under winter wheat 12 months ago.
The policy pursued by the Ministry has the effect that while in fact the farmers are not putting their land under wheat—and they are not putting their land under wheat because, in the judgment of many of them, the price offered is not sufficient—they are not permitted publicly to say anything as to why they are not doing it. We are all sailing blandly along, the Ministry knowing the facts and the farmers believing that they are justified in pursuing their present policy, but the net result for the nation will be that the supplies of wheat will not be available; food will not be available. Any of us who look to the future consequences of such a policy cannot feel happy with that attitude on the part of the Ministry or that the ruthless hand of the censorship in this matter of price in relation to wheat is sound.
I think the sooner the Minister looks into that question from the point of view of agriculture the better, because it does not make sense. We ought to be in a position to say publicly that we think such and such a price is not enough for the goods we have to sell. This is an internal problem, between ourselves. If we are sellers and other people are buyers, and if we are not selling because we are not getting enough, or if we are not producing a particular commodity because we think it will not bring the cost of production, we ought to be able to say publicly why we are not doing it. We ought not to be put in the position of being misunderstood and misrepresented to the people who want our commodity. They ought to know why it is not available to them. Justice is not being done the nation unless that information is available to all. I suggest that the Minister ought to concern himself very seriously about the attitude of the censor in this matter. I have considerable experience of it, into which I do not want to go at any great length.
I have said already that I think it will not be disputed that the area under wheat up to the present is considerably less than the area under wheat last year. Apparently 290,000 tons of wheat were expected from the home crop. I presume the Minister will give us the correct figures, as far as he has got them, as to what the results have been. It is estimated that we have got somewhere around 200,000 tons. I suggest there were miscalculations. I do not know that any great stocks of wheat are being withheld but I am concerned, as we all must be concerned, about what the future holds for us. I do not accept, and I do not think any other sensible, normal person will accept, that the farmers are refusing to grow wheat out of cussedness or out of laziness or for any of the other slanderous reasons which are repeatedly advanced as to why the farmer is not managing his land in a particular way. From my experience of farmers, I think the farmer would do anything for which he was paid a reasonable price. He would produce any commodity that his land could produce and he would engage in any sort of menial, arduous toil if he could see that there was reasonable remuneration for his efforts.