I know they are, but the numbers are still relatively strong. In relation to population, we might be described, in a certain sense, as one of the most "cowed" populations in Europe. I hope nobody will misinterpret that phrase; I mean we are one of the populations in Europe which has the greatest number of cows in proportion to the total number of people. We have something over 1,000,000 cows. If I remember rightly, the number of cows in Great Britain is about 3,000,000. That number, in relation to a population of 46,000,000 people, is a very much smaller proportion of cows to people than 1,000,000 or more cows in relation to 3,000,000 people.
Relatively to population, therefore, we are pretty well provided with cows. Those cows we use, of course, to supply our own people with whole milk and butter when we can get adequate feeding supplies for the cows, and, of course, the dry stock— the surplus male progeny and the surplus store heifers which result from those cows—are normally exported to the extent that they are not consumed at home. If we want to build up a reserve of breeding stock for our own benefit; but primarily I think for the benefit of our neighbours in Europe when the war is over, what we will have to do now is to limit the export, as dry stock, of anything that can be turned into any sort of a decent heifer or cow. At present I am told that heifers are being sold out of the country as dry stock, and will possibly be turned into beef on the other side, although in many cases those animals are quite suitable for breeding purposes. It should be made the interest of the people owning those cattle in our country to turn them into cows, even though it means temporarily increasing the number of cows and in-calf heifers over and above what we would regard as comfortable and convenient in a normal period, because the time will come, in the course of a year or two, when we will be able to make a Christian use of those breeding heifers and cows by exporting them for the use of our neighbours, and we are not going to lose anything by it, either. It is one of those cases where practice of the Christian virtue will also be a source of commercial profit.
Now, how are we to give our farmers an interest in increasing the number of their cows and heifers? At present, the whole economic tendency points to the desirability of selling the surplus for the best price they can get, and as a rule many of the best of those cows and heifers are exported. This problem is inextricably mixed up with the whole situation of our dairying industry. The dairying industry is passing through a difficult time. As consumers, we are quite aware that the price of butter is more than it was a few years ago. The consumers regard 2/- a lb. as a high price for butter, but, in comparison with the way in which other food prices have risen, 2/- a lb. for butter is a relatively cheap price. In fact, it is extremely doubtful whether selling milk on a basis of a price of 2/- a lb. for butter is a profitable proposition for the great majority of dairy farmers. Anyhow, what any farmer or any businessman will do is to try and use his resources in such a way as to produce the maximum profit for himself. Those owners of cows and heifers in Limerick and elsewhere are not fools. They are quite aware of the fact that store cattle, dry stock, bullocks and dry heifers have risen in price relatively much more than the prices of milk and butter have risen. Consequently, under present economic conditions they have a direct economic interest in increasing the number of their dry stock, and in giving up cows and in-calf heifers in favour of dry heifers and store bullocks. They are getting into the store bullock business, so to speak, and getting out of the dairy business. That may be all very well as a solution of their problem for the time being, but that process, pursued too far, would completely undermine the foundation of our whole live-stock industry throughout the country, and incidentally destroy one of the principal foundations of our whole agricultural economy.
One of the reasons why it is more profitable now for dairy farmers to sell their surplus cows and heifers, rather than build up their stocks of those animals and intensify the production of milk and butter, is that Britain recently inaugurated a price policy for whole milk which has the effect of guaranteeing to any person in Britain or Northern Ireland who produces any kind of tolerable milk at all a minimum price, which is over 2/- in the winter time and well up to 2/- in the summer time. Consequently, it has become worth the while of those people to pay fancy prices for any cows we choose to sell them, in order that they may develop this very profitable business for themselves. In that way, a tendency exists for all our best cows and heifers to be lured out of the country, leaving us with nothing but the refuse. That is a very good example of the way in which, when a big country adopts a certain economic policy, thinking primarily of its own interests, that policy has certain reactions on the situation in other countries, especially in a small country with which she has close commercial ties. Britain, no doubt, had very good reasons for adopting that policy, but this kind of thing should not be done by any country, either big or small, without consultation and co-operation with the other countries immediately concerned. In a really Christian world, where international relations were dominated by the Christian virtues, I think that, in a matter of this kind, there would be that co-operation and consultation.
I am not saying that there was anything sinister or positively intended to injure us in this business of raising the price of milk in Britain and Northern Ireland. There were very good reasons why they should do it, because the people there are very short of protein, and they must maintain and increase milk production at nearly all costs.
I think, however, that when such a situation exists it creates a set of facts which we have to take into account in endeavouring to frame a policy of our own which, incidentally, will safeguard our national interests for the time being and, at the same time, render us better able to play a useful part in furthering the welfare of the world when the war is over. Accordingly, I think that this tendency towards an excessive price for whole milk in Northern Ireland is calculated to lure away all of our best surplus cows and heifers, that the result will be bad for our own national economy, but that it will also mean that we will be less able to contribute to the welfare of Europe when the war is over, and I think we ought to be able to contribute something on our own part towards the general welfare of Europe when the war is over, as well as seeing after our own economy.
Now, a long-term solution of our dairy problem will, of course, include an effort at better feeding all the year round, so as to bring up the average milk production of our cows from about 400 gallons, as it is at present, to about 600 gallons, and also an effort as a result of more scientific breeding, to extend the average milk yield from 600 gallons to 800 gallons. On that basis, the production of butter could be greatly cheapened, and even prices that, perhaps, might not be very much different from the present prices, would be sufficient to keep our present dairying industry going indefinitely. A long-term policy of that kind, however, will take years and, perhaps, decades of years, to work out, and we have to face the fact that the average yield from our cows at the moment is only about 400 gallons, which means that butter production on that basis is relatively expensive. Consequently, if we want to encourage the dairying industry, and if, incidentally, we want to encourage the owners of dairy cows to maintain or even to increase their breeding stocks, we will have to do something drastic so as to maintain or stimulate the production of dairy products. There, of course, we are up against the difficulty that, if you simply allow the price of butter to rise to the price to which it would rise in a free market, you increase the burden that is placed on the consumer. The consumer finds it hard enough at the moment to pay 2/- a lb. for butter, and if we had to pay 2/6 or 3/- a lb., it would be practically impossible although, actually, in the black market, some people are paying 3/-, 4/- and even 5/- a lb., for butter.
When you have that kind of a situation, where one set of considerations requires that you give the producer a higher price for his product in order to stimulate its production, and another set of considerations requires that that higher price should not be passed on to the consumer, the only solution is to subsidise the production of that commodity at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer. That policy of subsidy in regard to butter is being practised by other countries under present circumstances, and for precisely the same reasons, and I think that in a time of war or national emergency there is no reason why such a policy, however objectionable it might be under normal conditions, should not be consciously and deliberately pursued. I think, moreover, that the policy of subsidising milk and butter production, even at the expense of the consumer or the taxpayer, is the only way of stopping this tendency towards the excessive exportation of our cows and heifers. Apart from the need for retaining such stock for our own national economy, I think it would be a very good thing to keep up those stocks so that they can be exported to a needy Europe at the end of the war, and if that is the only way in which that result can be achieved, then I think that no expenditure payable out of the public revenue would be too high a price to pay for such a desirable result.
Actually, to put a figure on this, according to my calculations, if we were to subsidise the price of creamery butter to the extent of 1/- a lb., giving a return of 3/- a lb. to the producer, while leaving the consumer to pay 2/- a lb., it would cost the public revenue about £3,000,000, unless my calculations are wrong. Equally so, if the price of butter were only raised to 2/6 a lb., instead of 3/-, the cost to the public revenue would be about £1,500,000. I think that for general reasons we might go further in the direction of subsidising articles of primary necessity for the masses of the population, and certainly further than we have already gone in that direction. In that way, we might be able to keep control of the cost of living, which is one of the most serious phenomena in our present circumstances.
My principal interest in raising this matter is that this is one way whereby the number of cows and heifers can be maintained in this country, and even increased, and if we can succeed in maintaining or increasing the stocks of cows and heifers in the country, then, not only will we be able to preserve our own national economy, but we may have something valuable to offer to meet the needs of a post-war starving Europe. That is the only possible contribution, that I can think of, that we could make to Europe in the post-war era. In that connection, I might say that pigs and breeding sows would come under the same category, and that our public policy should be aimed at maintaining and increasing such stocks. Even though the total pig population at the moment may be somewhat small, still I think it would be well to maintain our breeding sows, and I believe that if we have a sufficiency of breeding sows in this country, as well as cows and heifers, when the war is over, we will have very little difficulty in finding a market for them. I feel sure that not only would such a policy be a source of profit for ourselves, but it would enable us to set an example of neighbourly behaviour in the new world that is to be.