We are anxious, as I indicated, to have an expression of view from the Executive as to what they purpose doing as a result of the Report which they have received form the Tariff Commission. I am not quite certain that I understood the President rightly to-day, but what I understood him to say was that they intended to accept the Report and to act on it. If that is done, it means that an essential industry is threatened. It is not the case of an ordinary industry being threatened. Food is one of the fundamental necessities of life, and as I understood the policy in the old days anyhow it was that we would try to make this nation as self-supporting in all essentials as possible. Here we have a chance, if you protect this industry, of bringing that policy to a definite conclusion on that head. We can make this country self-supporting as far as flour and bread are concerned. That this industry should be preserved goes without saying.
As it is, we are importing into this country flour and wheat to the extent of something like £7,000,000 a year. It was calculated a short time ago that had the general strike in Great Britain gone on we would not have had a food supply, as far as bread and flour were concerned, of more than about 40 days. As long as we are dependent on foreign countries for an essential article such as bread, it means that whenever there is a war, whenever there is any disturbance in the countries from which we get our chief supplies, we will be cut short of that vital article. We have heard very often here talk on the question of insurance. Surely there is no insurance that we ought to be so careful about as insuring for ourselves a full food supply at all times. If this milling industry is lost we are putting ourselves in a helpless position. To start with, are we in danger of losing this essential industry if the Report of the Tariff Commission is to be acted upon? I think that anybody who has carefully read the Report will satisfy himself that we are, and our conclusions in that respect are strengthened by the report which, I think, was published in this day's paper of Boland's Mills. Here we have the Chairman of the Company, Mr. Sexton, saying quite deliberately that under present conditions—that is unless the industry is protected—we are going to lose our milling industry. His actual words are these:—
"I have said that the milling output increased during the year by as much as 15 per cent."
That was in reference to one particular firm.
"I have to add, however, that even so it still fell short by more than 15 per cent. of what the mills are able to produce. This is a fact of deep significance in its bearing upon the general state of the industry. We do not know of any mills that have been worked full time; and as matters stand at present, a mill that does not work full time can make but a very poor return. We know that many mills have closed down at frequent intervals. We know, too, that one-third of all the mills in the State have ceased to work within a very limited period, and that they have ceased to work without any apparent prospect of restarting at any time. This simple fact speaks volumes. If, in a limited time, one-third of all the mills have had to relinquish production, what is to happen to the remaining two-thirds? How are they, many of them, or any of them, to escape? The answer to the question is not obscure. Those who are best acquainted with the situation, who are most competent to judge of the facts and to appraise the conditions, are convinced that the industry, as a whole, is foredoomed to paralysis or, commercially speaking, to extinction."
Now that that condition existed was and is pretty well known to the Deputies before they read this Report at all, and one would imagine in a matter of this kind that the Executive would have a definite national policy. Instead of that, on a case which, to say the least of it, is unconvincing, they purpose to allow us to be for this essential article completely and absolutely dependent on Great Britain. The conditions on the Mersey side, from which we get the greatest part of our flour, are such that the home mills have to compete under conditions which practically amount to dumping on the part of England. It is for all intents and purposes dumping. The consequence of it, of course, is going to be that for the time whilst they are under-cutting there may be a certain advantage in cheaper flour. But so surely as our mills are driven out of existence, so surely, when we are absolutely dependent on that source of supply, will the prices be raised, and therefore I, for one, am convinced that even putting it on the very lowest level, that of general economy, getting things at the cheapest possible price, we are penny wise and pound foolish.
But, as I said, there is a higher plane on which we should regard this question, and that is, that we ought not to put ourselves in a position in which we would be dependent for food on a foreign country. Most countries try to put themselves in a sound position in that respect. They try in every possible way to encourage the production at home of essential articles such as food. I have tried to see what was at the back of the minds of the Tariff Commissioners when they decided to recommend a refusal of this application. As far as I can make out, the basis of their refusal is this: They contend that a tariff of 3/- a sack is going to mean an increase generally in the price of flour by 3/- a sack, which, by the way, is not proved at all. As a matter of fact, there is evidence the there need be no increase in price, and I have no doubt whatever that if the Executive or any other Government in this country were prepared to give protection to the milling industry, we would be able to get flour and bread without any increase in cost. There have been variations of a greater amount already in the prices at which our millers and bakers get flour, and the increase has not been transferred to the customers in Cork. We have an example of this in the case of oatmeal. We have seen the effect of the tariff upon oatmeal, which has not meant an increase in the price. It has meant a better price in fact to the farmers—in fact almost a record price at present to the farmers for their oats, and it has meant no increase in price to the consumers of oatmeal. It has meant that instead of getting in oatmeal from outside, our millers are now in a position to export oatmeal. Is there any ground for believing that it would not be the same in the flour-milling industry? To my mind there is not.
Naturally, when these applicants come looking for a tariff they want to give themselves a margin if they can. It is there the Executive ought to come in and protect. When they are protecting and sheltering this industry they should also protect the public against an increase in cost. The fact that the arguments on which the Tariff Commissioners based their conclusions were not convincing is proved from the attitude of the members themselves. One of their members, whilst agreeing with his colleagues to refuse this application, sees very clearly what is going to be the result of it. He sees very clearly that the inland mills, which are so necessary if we are going to go the whole way and make ourselves self-supporting by encouraging the growing of the wheat at home, these mills which are essential to doing that with profit and properly supplying the countryside, are likely to be crushed out. Again, there is no reason why we should take the conclusion of the Tariff Commission that mills at the port side are more economic than inland mills. There are millers who have experience of both, and they have testified that it is not so, that there are special advantages, cheap water-power advantages, which the inland mills have, and which put them in a position to compete with the port mills. The argument, then, that it will mean an increase in price is not, to my mind, conclusive. I believe that if the Executive Council approached this question from the right attitude they would be able to get an agreement by which there would not be an increase in the price of bread.
At present we have the mills working very much under time. They are not working at much more than halftime in some place—half capacity. It is obvious if we put them working at full capacity that the overhead charges will be lessened, and that the price per unit of the product will be diminished accordingly. Hence there is ground for believing form that point of view that their prices need not go up. The only reason they give that I can see, as to why the price should be increased, is that the price of offals will be diminished, and that what is lost in the case of the offals for the farmers has to be added on to the flour in order to make the necessary balance. It is a question whether, even if it were proved that an increase of price were necessary, it would not be more, in the national economy, taking the nation as a whole—whether it would not be more than offset by the advantage given to the farmers in cheaper feeding stuffs. If you were to take the average small farmer and balance his budget for the year, take his account for the year and take what he gains by the diminished offals and what he would be charged extra for the price of bread, you would not have great difficulty in proving that, on the whole, he would gain.
If at the present time we have—I do not admit we have, as a matter of fact —to give that amount of subsidy, if I might call it, to the farming industry, do you not think that it would repay us? I think it would, if we had to do it, but I am not at all agreeing that it has been proved in this Report that any such increase in the price of flour would necessarily follow.
It was estimated at least a year or two years ago that the price on account of the shortage of offals went up by from £1 to £2 per ton. A plentiful supply of offals would, of course, mean a reduction in the cost, and it would mean that the farming community as a whole would have the feeding stuffs at the cheaper rate, and I believe it can be proved, if you balance the average small farmer's household budget in the year, that he would on the whole gain by that transaction.
I am going to pass away for the moment from the arguments about an increase in price. People put forward the old arguments about increasing the cost of living, quite forgetting that the balance may be made up in other directions. The next reason is that it is not an industry that gives a great amount of employment, and that putting the mills on whole time would not employ a very large number of extra hands; consequently it would not help considerably towards relieving the unemployment difficulty. There again you get a very short-sighted view taken. All you get is that the number of those who are directly employed is 150. You do not take into account all those who would be employed indirectly on account of the extension of the milling industry. It is calculated that £175,000 alone could be kept in this country for bag-making; that something like £175,000 is at the present time going out of the country because the flour comes in in sacks from outside and we do not make these sacks ourselves. The millers are prepared to give a guarantee that they will give preference to Irish manufacture, and I take it that if the Ministry were prepared to give the necessary protection to this industry, it would be in a position to demand that that would be carried out, just as it would also be in a position to see that there would, in fact, be no extra increase in the price of flour.
Now let us take another argument that they give for refusing the application. They say that Jacobs would possibly leave the country and transfer their factory from Dublin to Aintree, and that this country would lose the employment which is given to some 3,000 hands. There, again, the case is a very poor one, because there is no doubt whatever that an arrangement could be made to facilitate Messrs. Jacob which would not at all prevent the giving of the necessary protection to the flour industry. The Minister for Finance was approached on one occasion and he indicated fairly clearly that he thought that was quite possible, but when this matter was mentioned to the Tariff Commission I think the Chairman put it aside with a "Tut-tut; that is impossible."
