At the adjournment of this debate on the last occasion I was giving the House examples of the methods in which a number of other countries were endeavouring to secure home supplies of essential bread-stuffs. The countries that I gave examples of ranged over all sorts of climates, and the conditions were almost as varied in those countries as they possibly could be. Objection was made when I mentioned Bolivia, which happened to be pretty near the Equator, and the point of that can easily be met when you realise that amongst the examples I gave was also a country like Norway, which is more northerly situated than our own. So that I think it is fair to say that countries in the most varying conditions have come to the conclusion that it is a wise policy for them to take steps to save their home production against the competition of newly opened areas like, if we think in centuries, the opening up of the great grain belts of the middle States of America in the last forty or fifty years. There are two of these in which we are particularly interested—one was the country I have named, namely, Norway, and the other the example of Switzerland. In Norway, since about 1905, this question of wheat has been under continual examination by committees and commissions. In 1917, a State monopoly was established, and that continued until 1927, when a new arrangement, that has lasted for two years, was arrived at.
Private Deputies' Business. - Proposed Wheat Control Board.
took the Chair.
That arrangement differed slightly from the State monopoly that existed from 1917 to 1927. Since the 1st July this year, Norway has reverted back to the monopoly. As the arrangements in Norway are more or less like those which we suggest, it might be no harm to mention them in detail. The arrangement that was made in 1927 was as follows: The State purchased all suitable home-grown wheat, rye and barley, as well as 15,000 tons of oats. They paid prices of approximately 2/4 per cwt. over the prices of the finest quality of imported grain at Norwegian ports. The State bought the home supplies, but allowed the free import of these same cereals, on the condition, however, that the importers would take from the State a certain proportion of the home-grown supplies which the State had purchased. The price at which the importers had to take that over was the price of first-class imported grain during the same period. That arrangement lasted until this year. It therefore had got a two-years trial. After that trial they reverted, as I have said, this year to the original monopoly.
The State now imports itself instead of allowing free import and compelling importers to take home supplies from the State. It imports all that is required to meet home requirements. The only difference is that, as regards oats, they may limit the amount of home-grown oats which they purchase to, as before, 15,000 tons. Under the new arrangement a premium is no longer fixed. Formerly there was a premium fixed, but now it is not fixed. It is a variable premium, varying according to certain definite rules that have been laid down. This year, about February, on the prices then current, the premium that would be paid would roughly correspond to the premium that was paid formerly, that is, about 2/4 per cwt. That is the position in Norway. As Deputies can see, it amounts to this: that the State purchases the home-grown supplies, it imports what is necessary and arranges for a premium for the home grain in excess of world prices.
In Switzerland, during the war, there was also a monopoly. This year, I think it was, there was a definite referendum there as to whether there should be a State monopoly or not. The results of the referendum were two to one in favour of the monopoly, which was supported, not merely by the lowland people who grow cereals, but also by those in the higher regions who raise stock. So that the whole community, so to speak, are overwhelmingly in favour of this particular arrangement, and the reason is that they believe it is the best scheme at the present time for helping agriculture in general. I have read for Deputies the position in Switzerland that has resulted from this referendum. It came into force on the 1st July, 1929, and by it the State maintains a reserve of the corn it requires—home-grown wheat at a guaranteed price in excess of world prices. It sells that wheat to the millers, pays certain milling premiums, and protects the national milling industry against foreign competition. The right to import flour is reserved to the wheat administration, but imports are permitted, or may be granted, on payment of a compensatory duty of a sum that is equivalent to about 7/8 per cwt. That duty may be waived or reduced in the case of industries which do not use such flour for the manufacture of bread. All importers of bread-making cereals are compelled to register with a surtax equivalent to 7/8 per cwt. in addition to the customs duty in case anybody imports without registration.
That gives Deputies, in detail, the position in two countries, and they can realise how closely they correspond with the proposition that we put forward on behalf of our Party to the Economic Committee. Our proposition, as before, is that the State should purchase from the growers at a price to be fixed from year to year for a period of three years, and that that price should be paid by the millers. Any wheat offered for sale was to be purchased by the millers, the millers to be compelled to pay this fixed price, with the State making good the difference between the fixed price that was paid and the price of the imported grain.
The State is to make good this difference. The question is, what is the amount of subsidy involved? Until the price is fixed that cannot be stated definitely, but we took an average for a number of years, and we considered the price that it was likely would induce the farmers under ruling conditions to grow wheat. Our calculation was that £250,000 is all that would have to be spent to meet the subsidy for all our requirements. We showed also that the increase of wealth for the community that would come from that increase of tillage directly on account of the greater value to the community of an acre of land under wheat to an acre of land under grass was about £1,250,000. Therefore, the proposition is that in order to produce for the community an increase of wealth of £1,250,000 the community should be prepared to spend £250,000. Apart altogether from any other consideration whatever, except narrow economic considerations, we regard that as good national economy. The Minister for Agriculture, in speaking on this asked us why we chose wheat. Our answer is, we chose wheat because there is a big market available for that particular product. There is, as I pointed out, a market in this country, on the average for the last three years, of £6,600,000 for wheat and flour. That is a market which is there for the taking of it.
Will the Minister point out to us what home market to the same extent is available for any other product? If he does he will have to show that the attempt to supply that particular market would interfere with supplying the other, and in so far as we do not meet our own needs with our own agricultural products it cannot be shown that the growing of wheat would interfere with the attempt to meet the other needs. The Minister mentioned potatoes on the last occasion. At the very time that he was mentioning potatoes the growers of potatoes in the Six Counties were crying out and saying that they could not get a market for their supply.
So are the growers in Athlone.
Why is it then the Minister tells us to go in for potatoes instead of wheat? We are at present supplying our own home needs as regards potatoes. Taking the figures, our exports are greater than our imports so far as potatoes are concerned and, therefore, at this particular moment we are supplying our home needs. Where are we to export them to if we grow them for export? Britain also is self-supporting practically, and, therefore, it is nonsense to say if we want to increase tillage go in for potatoes. The point is that the market does not exist.
Yet they grow potatoes and not wheat.
They grow potatoes because there is a market up to a certain limit, and they grow them to meet that limit, and for export in so far as there is an export market, but the fact is that the market is saturated at the moment and there is no outlet. A person is not going to grow when there is no market to sell in, and in any case over-production means a reduction of prices, so that does not work. The Minister asks us: "Why not try oats?" When we make a suggestion that more oats should be grown, that we should use our own oats instead of the maize that is imported, he will have the very same negative attitude with regard to that, so the Minister is not serious about it.
Mr. Hogan
I have never taken a negative attitude on that.
The Minister has on no occasion put forward any programme for increasing the cultivation of any crop. So far as the question as to why we fixed on wheat is concerned, we say that we fixed on wheat for the good reason that between wheat and flour there is a home market to the extent of £6,600,000 odd, and that it is good business to supply that. By not doing it we are giving employment to others whilst our own people are idle, and here we are with a Dublin Relief Bill, and Bills of that sort, coming in to try and meet the obligation that there is to keep our citizens alive when there is an obvious way of doing it by catering for our own needs. The Minister's attitude is, as I said before, a purely negative one. When any scheme is put up he asks, why not try something else? But he has put up no scheme in order to increase the tillage or production he was talking about, or giving the employment which is so badly needed. I would like to take these questions in their order. I have dealt with one of them—why we chose wheat. I have given the reason for it. There are several reasons besides the obvious one of the market. There is no other single measure which would lead so much to the increase of tillage as the growing of wheat.
Mr. Hogan
Is there not a market for more oats?
At 8/3 per barrel?
Mr. Hogan
You can grow oats for other things besides selling it.
Precisely, you can do other things by including the farmer to do them. Here is a definite inducement to do a thing that is for the good of the country.
Mr. Hogan
Why not oats?
Let us have a scheme. We have agreed, in order to induce the farmers to grow foodstuffs here instead of importing them from outside, that the scheme of mixing should be tried. Evidently when that is put up to the Minister he takes a negative attitude in respect to it also. He next speaks about our climate and says that our climatic conditions are unfavourable.
Mr. Hogan
Relatively.
Yes, relatively. It is to meet that relative disadvantage that the subsidy is advisable because certain risks have to be taken, and it is to the advantage of the community that the risk should be taken and, seeing the net value to the community, we think that it is a fair bargain to the community to give one-fifth to the farmers for their services out of the total gain which the community makes. The next point was that the trend of prices for some years back was against wheat. That is quite true. The reason for it is obvious. The opening up of the great grain belts was responsible. It simply meant that the production here was made precarious because of the low price. Consequently we have to stand up against that and protect our own industry against competition from outside. If it was a question of having all our people employed, if there was employment for everybody, and if it was a question of choosing in what direction we were going to get the most profitable employment, there would be some reason in the Minister's argument, but, so long as we have in this country something like 100,000 unemployed, who cannot get any kind of work, there is no sense in his argument. The Minister said that wheat is not as profitable for the farmers as other crops. On the previous occasion I pointed out that Deputy Dr. Ryan quoted figures given to us against that showing that wheat was more profitable, even for the individual farmer, than oats. These, I think, are really the points that the Minister wished to have dealt with. He said that what we really wanted was to increase production. We agree. He stated that to increase tillage was to increase production. We agree. Our proposition was, definitely, to meet that, to get increased production in the best possible way. Let the Minister put up an alternative, but let us not always be put off by saying that there is some other way without indicating definitely in what way it could be done.
To sum up, so far as we are concerned, our arguments are simply these: That to supply our own needs as regards breadstuffs would mean an increase of production to the value of from one and a quarter millions to one and a half millions, at a cost of only a quarter of a million; that it would mean the equivalent of full-time employment of about 27,000 people; that the production of wheat is the key to increased tillage and general better agricultural economy; that in regard to extra roots having to be grown, it is very questionable because our percentage at present is very far under—even if we had all our wheat—the percentage of green crops to grain in Denmark and other countries, and it is very much less than what it was here at one time; that the growing of roots would lead to more stall-feeding and, therefore, to better economy, because it is generally admitted that if you put land under crops to feed cattle it is about twice as valuable as the same land under grass; that there would, in addition, be cheap offals for the farmer, because our scheme also would involve possible restrictions on the export of offals; that it would be a cash crop which would be particularly valuable to the farmer; that land under wheat produces about five times as much, from the point of view of food, as does the same amount of land under grass; that the entire supplies could be grown on something like 7½ per cent. of our agricultural land; and that the total amount under tillage that would result would be far less than that which there was in this country about eighty years ago, so that there is absolutely nothing impossible about this scheme.
The cost of administration cannot, of course, be absolutely determined, but the scheme indicates very clearly that it would not be very high. It is possible that the saving that would result by the combined purchase of such corn as would have to be imported might balance that. We have not been able to see in any one of the arguments put forward by the Minister anything that should deter us from undertaking the scheme. The arguments that he has applied could be applied almost to any crop, and if they were to deter us from adopting this scheme they would certainly deter us from adopting any scheme of inducing the farmer by State action to go in for more cultivation. We hope that Deputies will examine this matter for themselves and will not be influenced by the "I say so" of the Minister. The Minister at all times is quite prepared to make statements categorically and ex cathedra on matters in respect of which subsequent examination proves him to be totally wrong. The time has come when we ought to take some steps to change the present situation, and those who will have to bear the burden of relief schemes will be brought to their senses fairly soon if an attempt is not made to get proper production and remunerative labour. So far as we are concerned, in any case, we regard this as a very important matter; we regard it as a key to the whole question, and that is why we press it, and intend to press it, until we convince others, as we have convinced ourselves, that it is the right road.
The agricultural policy which was expounded in the speech made by Deputy Dr. Ryan, and which was followed by the statement of Deputy de Valera, may seem at the present time not to be of any great urgent or immediate importance, but it is well that the House and the country should recognise that the policy expressed here to-night in regard to wheat is part of the general agricultural policy expounded by the Fianna Fáil Party, and that in the unlikely event of that Party attaining to office——
It is more likely than the Farmers' Party anyhow.
—they will attempt to force the country to accept that policy. It seems to me that this policy, expressed in connection with the agricultural situation in this country by the Opposition Party, is founded on fallacious premises, premises which have never been accepted or recognised and that those premises are indicated and shown by the series of catch-phrases which are made use of by Deputies when speaking of their policy. We hear expressions such as "the necessity of the country being self-contained and self-sufficing." We also heard the expression used by Deputy Dr. Ryan that "it is the primary function of agriculture to provide food for human use." These are very interesting as platitudes, but do they really indicate anything as a basis of policy? We all know that the primary function of agriculture is to provide food for the community, but do we know that the primary function of agriculture is to provide all classes of food which the community may consume? Until that theory is accepted, to my mind, the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party must be regarded as unsound.
Another catch-phrase constantly used here by the Opposition Party is the question of the value of certain forms of production to the community. In the Report of the Committee which sat and reported on this matter, a reference is made in the Minority Report to the value of production to the community, and an attempt is partly made there to distinguish between the value of production to the community as against the value of production to the individual. It is attempted to be shown there, that because wheat is supposed to be of greater value to the community than, say, the production of meat or butter, or the production of other articles of agricultural produce, we should stimulate the production of wheat, but at the same time it is recognised that the profit from wheat to the individual is less than the profit from other crops.
No.
To my mind, the value of the production to the community is the sum of the values of production to the individual. If a crop, to my mind, is not valuable to the individual, it cannot be of value to the community.
Where did you read that?
The tables which are shown in regard to the value of production to the community are, to my mind, misleading and convey, really, practically no information, because they leave out of account certain factors. They only show what is mentioned by Deputy de Valera as value to the community in contradistinction to profit to the community. Certain items such as labour are left out, with the result that certain fictitious figures are produced which nominally show value to the community in regard to crops which may be an actual loss to the individual, and therefore, in my opinion, a loss to the community. This whole argument such as we have heard here to-night and on other occasions is founded on the theory that the increased production of wheat will result in increased tillage. That has been stated, but it has not been proved. Opinions differ and will continue to differ as to whether that would be the effect or not. The question of substitution has never been decided. Deputies on the other side say that there will not be substitution, but that there will be increased production of crops in addition to those already produced. To my mind, and to the minds of everybody associated with the practical side of agricultural production, the effect of an artificial stimulus in the production of wheat will be that wheat will be substituted for other crops and will not be grown in addition to the crops at present grown.
Deputy de Valera states that the increased value or benefit to the community by the substitution of the growing of wheat for grass, will mean approximately £1,286,000. To estimate the real value we must put against these figures the cost. We have had figures given here of the cost of the artificial stimulus which it is proposed to give under the scheme. The cost, estimated by the Deputies speaking on the other side, has been stated roughly to be a quarter of a million pounds for the production of the wheat we require for our own use, and that cost is taken from an accepted set of figures, but accepted on the other side only. We can substitute for these figures anything we like. That cost is taken on the value of imported wheat being approximately something over 31/- per barrel, but take the present price of imported wheat. The present price is roughly about 28/- per barrel, and we do not know what the future price may be. The lower the price the greater the subsidy will be which we will have to give. Taking it at the present price of 28/-, and taking the price at which Deputies on the other side said farmers will grow wheat, namely, 30/-, what is the cost of the subsidy going to be to the community? The cost of the subsidy at that rate, as shown by the report of the Committee, would be £550,000 for the production of half the requirements of the State, or £1,100,000 for the production of the whole requirements of the State. That is, for an increased value to the community, as stated by Deputy de Valera, of £1,286,000, it is going to cost the community, at the present price of imported wheat, and at the rate of subsidy which Deputies on the opposite side say should be granted to farmers, £1,100,000——
The farmers are going to get all that. I wonder you speak against it.
That is the cost. We are going to pay over £1,000,000 to produce wheat value £1,286,000 to the community. Well, now, if that is a good business proposition, if Deputies on the opposite side regard that as a good business proposition, I do not. I doubt if the farmers of this country will regard it as a good business proposition either. That argument is founded on the belief held by Deputies opposite that the farmers will grow wheat in sufficient quantity to come up to the full requirements of this country at a fixed price of 30/- per barrel. That is the question upon which we can get no decision here. We can only find out in practice what will actually happen, but we hold some views based on existing conditions. Deputy de Valera goes down to the country and he talks to a farmer, and that farmer tells him that if he got 26/- per barrel for wheat he would grow it. Now, in actual fact, in the three years 1926-27-28 the average price paid was 30/- per barrel, and in spite of that the farmers of this country did not grow much wheat. Only 30,000 acres were grown.
Speaking as one who has some practical experience of wheat growing in this and in other countries, I do not believe that the farmers in this country will grow wheat at a price of 30/- a barrel. The practical farmer will grow a certain quantity of wheat, and he may sell it at 25/- a barrel and feel satisfied. He does not examine very closely into the question. He grows only a small quantity. He feels satisfied it fits into the economy of his farm to grow a little wheat. But that is quite a different thing to growing wheat by artificial stimulation. That will mean that he will have to substitute wheat for another crop which he has been growing; or that will mean that he will grow wheat in addition to the crops he is growing already. If he is to grow wheat in addition to the crops he is growing, 35/- per barrel would not be sufficient stimulant to farmers to grow it. But what would it cost at 35/- per barrel in the matter of subsidies? It will be double the cost of a subsidy at 30/- per barrel, and will approximately amount to £2,200,000 to the taxpayers of this country.
Give us the figure at 45/- per barrel.
The country will have to stump up £2,200,000 in order to get the farmers of this country to meet the requirements of the country in the matter of wheat. Is that a good business proposition to put before the farmers and before the people of this country? Deputy de Valera, in his statement, entered into a long discussion and a long examination of the prices which are being obtained for Irish agricultural produce in the English market at the present time. On such matters as eggs, butter, and bacon I found that I could not quite follow the trend of his arguments or what he wanted to show. There is one thing which he argued at all events and that is that Irish produce is not able to hold its own in the English market except in the case of one article—
What I proved was that Irish eggs were being sold at one shilling per hundred less than the average price of eggs in England for the year, and I also showed that the price of Irish butter is only 179/-, whereas there was 200/- paid for Danish butter. I showed that the price of Irish butter was lower than the price paid for the butter from any other country.
Mr. Hogan (Minister):
That was nonsense.
Deputy de Valera showed to his own satisfaction that such was the case. I do not accept these figures. His figures in this case cannot be accepted without reference to other things which we have not before us here. But having shown that, where was the Deputy's argument leading to? Apparently that it was dangerous to continue upon our present policy; that we are not holding our own, and that instead of continuing as at present we ought to go in for other forms of production. What would be the effect of going in for other forms of production? Does the Deputy mean that in regard to those markets in which we find it so very difficult to hold our own, and for which we have to work very hard in order to do so, that we are to divert our energy from improving our position in those markets and produce another form of agricultural produce altogether, neglecting the particular line of production which the country has been following and which has been the national line of production, so to speak, in the past.
Cheap beef for John Bull.
Would Deputy Heffernan say in what way would wheat-growing prevent the development of the egg industry?
I am dealing with the statements of Deputy de Valera, and I am trying to get at the conclusion to which he is leading up. The only conclusion that I could arrive at from his argument is that we are not holding our own in the live stock produce market and that we should divert our energies to some other means of production, and turn to other forms of production, and away from those products for which our geographical position best fits us. Deputy de Valera referred to the fact that it was bad policy to produce and export raw material. I have not his exact words before me, but the general tenor of his speech was to that effect. He said that what we are doing to a large extent is producing and exporting raw material.
I will at once accept the argument that it is bad policy to produce and export raw material. But are we doing so? Is that not one of those catch-phrases and fallacies to which we have got accustomed during a long number of years? I refer to the cry that we are producing and exporting raw material. Are we? Is butter a raw material? Is bacon a raw material? Anybody who gives any thought to the amount of labour that is put into the production of butter, bacon or eggs, or even into the production of that much maligned beast known as the bullock, must be aware that none of these products is really raw material. Some of them are highly-finished products. Bacon certainly is a highly-finished product, and so are butter and eggs. There is a great deal of employment in the production of those articles. It is time that we should face up to the facts of the matter. It is time, too that the man who talks about growing wheat and about tillage, regardless of whether wheat and tillage pay or not should not any longer be regarded as a patriot or Nationalist. Surely it is our duty in our own Parliament to investigate in our own way and work out the best agricultural policy that is desirable for this country. None of us is interested in stimulating any particular article because it was the policy of John Bull to have these articles produced here.
In the examination of this subject a great deal of talk and a great deal of capital has been made of the unfavourable trade balance. We have been told that we have an unfavourable trade balance of £19,000,000, or £18,000,000, or £17,000,000. Does anybody know whether there is an unfavourable trade balance or not? Does anybody know that actually? Nobody seems to be quite sure about it.
What makes Deputy Heffernan think that there is not?
If there is, we must be drawing on our capital investments in foreign countries. Perhaps we are and perhaps we are not. If there is an unfavourable balance it will have to come to a stop some day. It will come to a stop even without Deputy Ryan's proposed increased production of wheat.
took the Chair.
Is this method of growing wheat going to correct the unfavourable trade balance? It is if we are going to cause the importation of £6,000,000 worth of wheat to cease and if, at the same time, we are not going to cause exports to decrease. Is there any indication that there will not be a decrease in our exports? If wheat is to be substituted for other forms of production, is it going to diminish production in other directions? This artificial stimulation of wheat may also have the effect of decreasing our exports in one direction and increasing our imports in another. If we induce farmers to grow wheat, or if we force them to grow wheat, we are putting portion of their land out of use from the point of view of producing livestock or livestock feeding products. We may be even obliging farmers to import further feeding stuffs. Therefore, what we gain in one direction we lose in another. There is no easy way out of the difficulties in which we find ourselves. In this proposal there are implications and reactions which will become visible only in the working out of things. The whole question of subsidies forms a large part of the economic policy of the Fianna Fáil Party.
What about the £1,250,000 in connection with beet?
The Deputy mentioned also that creameries and the beet sugar industry have been subsidised. A subsidy under the scheme now proposed would be totally different to either the subsidy in connection with beet or with creameries. The subsidy for beet is purely experimental and it will, it is expected, eventually cease. Any little subsidy that has been given to the very important industry of dairying is also regarded as purely a temporary subsidy or as a loan, which will later on have to be repaid. It has never been argued, nor can it be argued, that the wheat growing subsidy will ever be stopped. The moment that subsidy is stopped, that same moment the growing of wheat ceases.
Will Deputy Heffernan say if the growing of beet will be continued without a subsidy?
Mr. Hogan
Wait until 1933 for an answer to that question.
I will not say whether beet will be grown without a subsidy or not. The subsidy was given on the understanding that the whole thing was purely experimental. It is expected it will gradually diminish and eventually cease, and, to my mind, it is not justifiable unless it does cease. On the question of subsidies. I have always stood against them, except as a temporary stimulant or as an experiment. I am opposed to them for the reason that subsidies to farmers will have to be paid by the farmers themselves. It is a different thing if we start subsidising industries. You can subsidise them at the expense of the community, mainly the farmers, but you can only subsidise farming at the expense of the farmer. In addition to the subsidy you will have the expense and annoyance and inconvenience of administration.
I would like again to refer to the belief of the Fianna Fáil Party that a subsidy of 30/- will induce farmers to grow wheat in quantity. In dealing with this question of agricultural policy the Fianna Fáil Party simply take up the attitude of looking back into history. They find that previous to 1847 there were seven or eight millions of people in the country, and we were growing approximate 800,000 acres of wheat. It is contended that we could revert to those conditions and have a population here again of eight millions. This contention is made regardless of what has happened in the interval. I have knowledge of what happened in connection with the growing of wheat in the old times, and the prices that were then obtained. I happened to be born on a farm which at one time was largely devoted to wheat, at a time when it paid farmers to grow wheat. I was talking to one of the old people about it, and he said to me that it was easy to make money when they were able to sell wheat at 2/6 a stone. Even taking it that it did not always fetch 2/6, it was a common thing to get 2/- a stone or 40/- a barrel for wheat back in 1857 and 1858. At that time, as everyone knows, farmers employed labour at about 8/- a week.
Shame!
Taking into account the depreciation in the value of money, the 2/- a stone for wheat then would be worth 4/- at the present time. Of course, we admit that improved methods are causing increased production at the present time, and we also acknowledge that the introduction of machinery has helped somewhat, particularly in the matter of wheat production. There is no indication, however, that the farmers in 1930 can grow wheat as a paying proposition at 30/- a barrel, when as I have indicated, as far back as 1857 the farmers were getting 2/- a stone.
Deputy de Valera hopes to find employment for 27,000 workers with his scheme. Deputy Ryan and the Deputies who were engaged in the drafting of the Minority Report were not nearly so optimistic. They said: "We do not claim that it would result in a great increase in the number of persons employed in agriculture."
Read on. Do not stop there.
That is an old trick, you know. Go down until you come to the £2,000,000.
Mr. Hogan
Have you read the Report?
The Minister for Agriculture wants to know if you have read the Report.
Mr. Hogan
I am asking you.
It is an extraordinary state of affairs that we, situated as we are, geographically near one of the most valuable markets in the world, where livestock products are in considerable demand, and because we are, on account of our contiguity to the market, in a position to obtain enhanced prices, should be advocating the policy of reverting to the conditions which existed sixty or seventy years ago, before the plains of Canada, the prairies of the middle States of America and the pampas of Argentina had come into the production of wheat. Surely the best policy for us is to confine our attention to as large an extent as possible to a production of the articles in regard to which we have a fixed market, in regard to which we have a specialised market, and in regard to which we are in a better position to compete than are the vast prairie provinces which are producing wheat. We cannot produce wheat in competition with them. Those countries have vast areas of uncultivated land and their natural wealth is untouched; they can cultivate their wheat lands for ten years without manuring. Their costs of transport are reduced now to the minimum, and their overhead charges in regard to rent, rates, and labour are comparatively small. With our high overhead charges, with our climatic conditions, which are not suitable for the growing and the saving of wheat, we are endeavouring to stimulate our people to compete with those vast provinces in the production of wheat, when we should divert their attention to the production of the articles in regard to which we can compete and compete with advantage, because the outstanding fact in connection with live-stock production is that people should get these products fresh. They like to get their eggs and bacon fresh, and we are in a rather fortunate position in that regard. Why should we not endeavour to build up our market and by increasing the quality of our products, to secure the market which is waiting for it?
The idea that because one advocates a live-stock policy one is standing for decreased tillage is quite unsound. A correct live-stock policy for this country must mean increased tillage, and the right kind of increased tillage—increased tillage on a paying basis—because there is no doubt whatsoever that the farms which are producing, the farms which are paying best at the moment are the farms on which the greatest quantity of tillage is carried on. But the tillage is not carried on on those farms for the purpose of selling grain or any other cash crop; it is carried on for the purpose of converting the grain and the other foodstuffs produced on the farm into live-stock and live-stock produce, which is the most profitable side of farming at the present moment. There is no doubt whatever that there are considerable possibilities of extension and growth in that direction, and that if we expand as we ought to, provision will be found for the employment of a greater number of people on the farms. They would be employed on a form of production most suitable to our requirements, and to our climatic and geographical conditions, a form of production which can stand on its own legs and not have to ask for any artificial stimulants in the form of a subsidy or a tax on the community.
I was rather amused at the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and I may say frankly that when I saw the new alignment of positions here after the last General Election, I was rather surprised that the leader of the Farmers' Party was not given some secretarial position connected with agriculture rather than with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. I can fancy the discussion that went on in the Executive Council when it was found that the leader of the Farmers' Party was to be taken into the ranks, and I can see the Minister for Agriculture holding up his hands in holy horror and saying—and I admire him for it: "No, no, he is not to be made Secretary of my Department, thank you." The agricultural policy preached here during. I might say, the lifetime of this and the previous Dáil by the present leader of the Farmers' Party leaves him, in an agricultural community, leading a Farmers' Party of six, and I am not surprised. It is no wonder. I think the changes that have taken place show, at any rate, that the policy of ranching has not the support of the farmers.
What has this got to do with ranching?
You were preaching about 200 acres on the Land Commission Vote some time ago.
The Deputy should address the Chair.
Speaking as a farmer and a wheat grower as well, in my opinion wheat is the best paying crop that a farmer can grow at present.
Then why do they not grow it?
That was a statement made by the Minister for Agriculture the other night. He said it was a pity they did not know that, because if they did there would be the same area under wheat as under barley. When it comes to preaching anything against the policy that is enunciated here the Minister says that the farmers know best themselves, that if it is all right the farmers will do it, and this from a Minister for Agriculture who might be described by his friends in the shorthorn bull-ring as the greatest Minister for Agriculture in Europe, but whom the ordinary, plain farmers in my part of the country call the worst coercionist since Balfour. The Minister has introduced Act after Act to make them wash eggs, to mark butter, to have a special licence for bulls—why, he has introduced so many Coercion Acts for the farmer that we will soon have the farmer, as "Dublin Opinion" put it a few days ago, washing the cows' teeth every morning and evening. That is the Minister for Agriculture who introduced those Acts one after another —Acts compelling the farmer to do something, Acts of compulsion on the farming community—who tells us when a motion is proposed from this side of the House that the farmers know best themselves. If the farmers knew best themselves the Minister need not have introduced a Bill to eliminate scrub bulls. If they knew best themselves he need not have introduced an Eggs Act, the Butter Act, an Act dealing with scrub bulls, and followed them up with one dealing with fresh meat. The Minister for Agriculture unlike the leader of the Farmers' Party can change his tune off and on.
There is no Farmers' Party.
The late Farmers' Party, I apologise to the House. I have said that wheat is the best paying crop that a farmer can grow at the present time.
Why do they not grow it? Explain that.
You turned around at the election time and you told them that the late Farmers' Party directly represented the farmers. You asked them to vote for you. Why did they not do it? I have not depended altogether on my own personal experience of wheat growing. I have communicated with some people who do not see eye to eye with this Party in politics, people in my own constituency who constantly grow wheat. The average amount of wheat per acre produced in my constituency during the last five years came to 19 cwt. The average price was 11/6 per cwt., that is taking the lowest year. That made £10 8s. 6d. per acre. A ton of white oats this year made £5 10s.
What is that?
A ton of white oats would make £5 10s. 0d.
A ton of white oats?
Yes, would you get more for it?
Deputy Corry will have to come to the motion and keep to it.
I cannot help the interruptions.
I advise the Deputy to ignore them.
I agree with the Minister for Agriculture that wheat takes more out of the land than oats. In my farming I allow twenty tons of farmyard manure to the acre. That will, I can assure the House, bring the land back into better heart than it would be in after oats. That would be £3. That leaves £7 8s. 6d. per acre for the wheat.
Mr. Hogan
That is for a good crop.
It is not; it is for an ordinary crop. That is £7 8s. 6d. for wheat, as against £5 10s. an acre for oats, practically £2 an acre of a difference between the two crops. I remember listening to some sneering here at the idea of growing wheat on lea ground. It was stated that wheat could not be grown on that ground.
Mr. Hogan
No one said that.
Pardon me. I have it here, made by you.
Mr. Hogan
Do you grow it on lea?
Yes.
Mr. Hogan
You are a bad farmer.
I am better than you. I would want a bigger salary than I have, to keep my farm going, if I was. I will give figures, which were given to me by a prominent agriculturist in my constituency, who has been growing wheat constantly on lea ground. The average yield was 7½ barrels to the acre.
Might I interrupt the Deputy. He stated that wheat was the most paying crop that the farmer could grow. I asked him to show why the farmer did not grow wheat if it is the most paying crop he could have. The Deputy has made no attempt to do so.
Take your time and I will deal with it. I am not finished with it yet, and I am not finished with you either. As I stated this lady grows wheat and gets 7½ barrels to the acre on lea ground. She found that it pays to grow wheat on lea ground. I noticed some Deputies laughing a few days ago when Deputy de Valera stated that wheat and potatoes go well together. They do, because potatoes are practically the only tillage crop that can be followed with a crop of wheat. The reason why farmers do not grow much wheat is that very few farmers will plough lea land early enough to set wheat on, and very few farmers will have their root crops cleared up in time to set winter wheat. At any rate one of the principal reasons for the failure of wheat in this country is that it is set too late in the year. Farmers wait to set wheat until the middle or the end of November when the ground is not in a fit condition to put in the seed. That is the principal reason for the failure of wheat here. The figures I have given cover a certain number of years. If this matter is approached in a fair-minded spirit by the House, I am certain that there will be a majority in favour of the motion. Some Deputies asked why not subsidise some other crop, why not go in for more butter for instance, more dairy farming, as against the growing of wheat? The leader of the late Farmers' Party said that we would find that it would be generally substituted. When the leader of the Farmers' Party was substituted for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs anything might happen. Even if it was substituted we have been told that farmers will have to pay the subsidy. As far as paying any subsidies is concerned, the general community pays all subsidies. Farmers are included in the general community and I take it they have to pay the biggest part of the subsidies or tariffs that were put on here from time to time—the tariff on boots, the tariff on woollens, the tariff on rosary beads, and the tariff on margarine.
Why do not the farmers grow wheat if it pays?
I think I have given you your answer.
The Deputy must address the Chair and the Deputy must keep to the motion.
I am replying to the interrupters.
If the Deputy is replying to interrupters he must reply through the Chair.
As far as the interruption goes, as to why farmers do not grow wheat, I am absolutely certain that unless there is compulsion——
The gun.
—nothing possible would make the Farmers' Party grow anything except bullocks.
During the past few years here when those different tariffs were introduced we did not hear from the Farmers' Party any demand for a tariff on the agricultural produce imported into the country.
I do not want to hear the Deputy on the Farmers' Party again.
The reason why we advocate a subsidy for wheat is that you have a home market here for your wheat and for your butter and eggs you have to face your foreign competitor. You have to export your butter and eggs and take pot luck in the English market. Judging from the figures given here the other night by Deputy de Valera our pot luck has not been improved by all the Acts that have been passed. Here you have a market at home. There was imported into this country in 1927 over £4,000,000 worth of foreign wheat. That is you have a market at home for £4,000,000 worth of agricultural produce, and there was two or three million pounds' worth of flour as well imported. So you have a market at home for six or seven million pounds' worth of agricultural produce. I, at any rate, believe that we should concentrate on that home market and produce crops which will find a home market which you can save and protect yourselves. It is because of that that I am in favour of a subsidy on wheat. There is another reason. During the last few years here you had a subsidy for beet, costing £829,000; creameries, £365,000.
No subsidy.
Question. When you look at these figures, remember that the wheat-growing areas in Ireland are valued at three times their present valuation. The land was valued as wheat land in the wheat-growing areas, and it is not worth anything like that value at the present time. The grain-growing areas are paying twice as much on valuation in rates as they ought to pay.
Three times as much.
In wheat growing land they are paying twice as much as they should pay in rates on their rateable valuation. If any party of agriculturists in Ireland are entitled to protection it is those farmers in the grain growing areas. They have been carrying the whole community on their backs. I have heard questions in this House asking for a re-valuation which has nothing to do with it. There is land suited for grain growing valued as grain growing land. When wheat went out they turned to barley. Now that barley has been knocked out, it is but natural that these people should be entitled to at least a fair crack of the whip. Those people are entitled in justice to a subsidy or to what protection can be given to them by this House.
Instead of that, we have the dairy farmers fostered. We have a couple of little counties specially fostered because of reasons which I will not go into now. They are too well known. The grain growing counties are entitled to preferential treatment here at any rate. Instead of that, they are the one body of agriculturists who are cried down and given no fair show. It is because I believe that we can capture the home market, because I believe that there is a home market here for seven million pounds' worth of agricultural produce waiting for the crops to be grown that I believe in fostering the wheat industry here, and in hoping by that to retrieve the agricultural position in this country.
I do not think that I have anything further to add. Statements made are in a large number of cases ridiculous. Whenever we put forward a proposal here it is always met with a cry from the opposite benches, "The farmers know best themselves." That statement has been made here by a Minister who has introduced coercion Act after coercion Act to compel farmers to change their methods of farming. I do not think a single session in this Dáil has passed without some new Bill having been introduced to compel the farmers to do something, and that by the very Minister who says that the farmers know best themselves. I hope he will take that lesson to heart, and if he thinks farmers know best themselves, the best thing for him is to introduce one single Bill wiping out all the coercion Acts that have been passed for the last seven years.
After Deputy Corry's contribution, it requires some courage to intervene in this debate. However, I am more concerned with Deputy de Valera's appeal to members on Government Benches as to why they should not, in agricultural questions, be unduly or in any part hypnotised by the Minister for Agriculture. I do not think Deputy de Valera has made a convincing case in support of Deputy Dr. Ryan's motion. He has given figures. Figures are easily quoted, but they do not prove all we might expect from them. At times the question of the impoverishment of land by wheat has been referred to here, and Deputy Corry has made one very true admission that wheat is a soil-exhausting crop. We have three soil-exhausting crops growing in this country at the moment; we have wheat, sugar beet and flax. The practical farmers here will appreciate that very quickly when they let out, say, a six-acre field to grass seeds. On two acres of it seeds are sown with the accompanying crop, wheat; two more acres are put under barley, and two more acres under oats. It is quite easy to see when these grass seeds develop the first year and the second and third year that in the strip in which the wheat has grown the seeds are backward, and not at all to be compared with the seeds grown with the barley or oaten crop.
We are told that the remedy for that is manuring. If you are manuring to the extent of bringing the grass seeds in the wheat plot to the same condition as those in the barley and oaten plots, I think it will exhaust your whole subsidies. It has been said on one side of the House that Ireland is particularly suited for the growing of wheat. Others on this side of the House think differently. I do not believe from climatic and soil conditions that Ireland, on the whole, is a suitable country for the growing of wheat. We have in most counties in Ireland a sub-soil called marl buidhe. I know a little Irish. We all know that sub-soil is particularly retentive of moisture, and that sub-soil does not exist to any extent in countries like Canada, America, and the Argentine, or even in England. We know that England has a chalky sub-soil, and for that reason the soil is much drier than in Ireland. We also know that the climate of Ireland is particularly wet. The remedy offered for that is kiln-drying the Irish-grown wheat. Kiln-drying carried on on an extensive scale, and the extra heat employed to kilndry Irish wheat will certainly injure the nutriment of the wheat. It will simply shrivel it up. Deputy Ryan knows something about vitamins and things like that, and knows when the heat is excessive some of those will be destroyed. I was rather amused to hear Deputy de Valera say that wheat was a catch-crop, as one of the reasons why it should be grown.
I did not say anything of the kind. I said cash crop.
I beg your pardon. I think Deputy Corry said something about catch-crop. We all know that wheat is put into the soil at the end of October or early in November and not reaped until the end of August or early in September. So if Deputy Corry calls it a catch-crop he is very far wrong. If wheat-growing lessens, as it will very likely if it is grown with a subsidy, the acreage in other forms of tillage and even of grass lands, I do not think it is desirable. Grass land has been referred to here as a very poor method of farming. I think that grass land, especially for the purposes of dairy-farming, gives a great deal of employment—far more employment than wheat-growing will give. I know that the saving of one acre of old meadow hay gives far more employment than the sowing and reaping of wheat.
Nonsense.
Quite.
Anybody who knows anything about it knows that if you have not the weather—and the harvest is very dull in this country at times—the amount of money spent in labour in saving an acre of meadow land is very great.
The climate is not suitable for hay!
Then we know that for dairy purposes grass is far more valuable for a dairy cow than any cereals you will grow. There is more nourishment in three inches of grass than in a yard of any corn you could possibly grow, including the head. That is received, I see, with scepticism on the opposite benches, but a clear proof of that is that when dairy cows are fed on concentrates and cereals in the month of April we know the quantity of milk they will give. Put them on nutritious grass in May and June and they will double their milk, not only double the quantity but the milk will be much richer in quality.
I want to ask a question of the Deputy.
The Deputy can make his speech when I am finished. He can contradict me in some way that will be convincing. We here on this side of the House, are taunted with being in favour of ranches and of bullocks. I do not know that we have any greater regard for the bullock here than they have on the opposite side. At any rate, when we adjourn to the restaurant I do not see that the cleavage of opinion is very marked. But the bullock is part of the economic system of Irish farming. The bullock is bred by the small farmer and he must get a market in Ireland for that bullock. It is better that he should get a market in Ireland than elsewhere. He will sell him at any age from six to twelve months and it is well that we have people here to buy him, because one of the uneconomic sides of Irish farming is sending our cattle across channel in an unfinished state. You cannot fatten them in Ireland without grazing them on suitable grass lands and that is simply the complement of Irish dairy farming, the fattening of that bullock at home. On another occasion, I said I did not care how you will multiply the ownership of land in Ireland but that it is absolutely essential to the economic side of Irish farming that you will keep a certain portion of land and use that land, as nature intended it, for fattening.
Another matter that has been referred to here is the price for Irish produce in England and the English market, as compared with Denmark and other countries. We all know the reason why Irish produce is selling at a lower rate in England at the moment, and for some time. It has a bad reputation. If we had the co-operative creameries earlier and if they were producing as good an article as they are doing now, our butter and eggs would be commanding higher prices in England. We all know of the old "lump" market in Ireland, and of the way butter was made at home in small farmers' places—sometimes in the bedroom. It was carted into the local market, then blended, mixed-up and sent across to England and sold as Irish creamery butter. That did more to injure the reputation of Irish butter in England than anything else did. We are paying for that now, and we have to outlive it. The quality of Irish butter at the present moment, especially that made in the creameries under the co-operative system, is second to no butter in the world, but we have, as I said, to outlive the bad reputation and to get the English people to appreciate it.
I am not convinced that the subsidy will encourage wheat-growing in Ireland—it has too many drawbacks. I would be in favour of a tariff on flour as more calculated to encourage wheat-growing, if there is any advantage in it, than a subsidy. I know the objection to a tariff on flour—that it will make bread dearer. I would be very glad to support a tariff on flour if I thought that bread would be sold at the same price as at present. I have not seen any miller or group of millers coming forward to say, as was said by people when a tariff on margarine was being considered, that they would give an undertaking to sell bread at the current price in a non-tariff country like England. When they do that, I believe Deputies on this side will give very favourable consideration to a tariff on flour. I believe that a tariff on flour would effect far more than a subsidy to wheat-growing.
I would wish to support the motion before the House if I could. I have listened with attention to all that has been said by those supporting the motion. Although I am a wheat grower, whose experience I am afraid is not in favour of wheat growing, I was still open to conviction, and I was rather hoping that Deputy Ryan would be able to convince me that there was something in his motion. The speeches made in favour of the motion may have been very intelligent and very illuminating to economic theorists, but to the ordinary farmer, who has been growing wheat, the arguments put forward were neither sensible nor anything else. In any case, when the arguments put forward contained a repetition of the fallacies, that wheat is not an exhausting crop, that it is a good nurse crop for grass, and that it does not dirty the soil, they absolutely spoil the whole of the case.
Who said that?
You did.
Will you quote it?
If the Deputy will allow me I shall read from the Minority Report of the Economic Committee which was signed by Deputy Ryan and Deputy de Valera: "A good crop of wheat is capable of surviving and killing weeds, and it is a better nurse crop for grass and clover than oats."
I did not say it.
You only signed it.
Any argument put forward that would contain a repetition of these fallacies would absolutely spoil any case. Even Deputy Corry admits that it is an exhausting crop. Deputy Corry made a further very candid admission. Though he said it could be grown in lea, he made the very remarkable statement afterwards that potatoes is the only tillage crop which can be followed by wheat. I am entirely with him in that. At least as far as my part of the country is concerned, wheat is never sown except after potatoes, and then only on the choicest bit of ground. I do not propose to try to prove to the House that these statements with regard to the dirtying of the soil, the exhausting of the soil, and as to a nurse crop for grass, are fallacies. If any Deputy is at any time in the vicinity of Roscommon I shall certainly illustrate it to him on my own farm, and I shall guarantee that he shall not come back to the House and make that statement here again—that it is a good nurse crop for grass.
Deputy Ryan said: "Some of these objections are, in my opinion, altogether unfounded, and some of them, I believe, have been suggested by minds prejudiced against the growing of wheat." In making that statement he was referring to the Majority Report of the Economic Committee. The Deputy went on to state: "For instance, the very first objection tells us that `flour manufactured from imported wheat, if sold without restriction, would appeal more strongly to the public taste than flour made wholly or partially from native wheat.' " He goes on for a whole column of the Official Report to show that this is really a fallacy. As a matter of fact, in the Minority Report, which is signed by Deputy Ryan, Deputy de Valera, Deputy Lemass and Deputy Anthony, we find this on page 38: "We have valued the product at an average price depressed by the high cost of handling the small quantity produced for sale at the present time, by the absence of any effective organisation of growers, and by the existence of a decided preference for imported wheat." Now Deputy Ryan comes along and says that the inclusion of this or something similar to this, in the Majority Report is a fallacy. I am not very much surprised at that. The motion before the House includes this: "That the importation of flour be permitted only under licence issued by the Wheat Control Board, and subject to an import duty: provided that there shall be no restrictions on flour imported for biscuit manufacture." The Minority Report states at page 46, paragraph 23: "It would be possible to restrict them"—that is foreign wheats—"by an import duty; but, pending the expansion of home production to meet our requirements, that would place an unjustifiable burden on the poorest of our people." In the same paragraph, further down, we find this remarkable statement: "The scheme also proposes to stabilise the price of wheat to millers in a manner which, we believe, would result in lower average prices to the consumer." The one paragraph contains these two things; that the imposition of an import duty would place an unjustifiable burden on the poorest of our people, and "we believe it would result in lower average prices to the consumer."
It is very hard to follow these quotations. The first thing he referred to was wheat. The Minority Report refers to wheat not flour, which is a different thing.
It is wheat we are discussing.
You started off by discussing the restrictions on imports of flour and now you go on to talk about wheat.
No, I am talking about wheat all the time—wheat products if you like. As a matter of fact, if I wanted to convince the Deputy that I am right I could go back and say, this is what you signed: "To ensure the purchase for milling of wheat produced at home, the restriction of imports is necessary."
Of wheat?
Yes. That precedes the sentence that an import duty would place an unjustifiable burden on the poorest of our people.
Read the whole sentence.
Yes, I will read the whole book if you like. At page 46, paragraph 23, I find: "To ensure the purchase for milling of wheat produced at home the restriction of imports is necessary. It would be possible to restrict them by an import duty——"
Alone.
—"but pending the expansion of home production to meet our requirements that would place an unjustifiable burden on the poorest of our people."
But pending?
I agree, and it is still pending, and if you get this Motion through the House now your suggestion in that paragraph is that an import duty be placed on wheat.
On flour?
I am dealing with the Motion. Is it not wheat, and not flour?
Read it again.
Flour is a wheat product.
You have lost your point now which was a very good point if it was wheat instead of flour.
Read the Minority Report again.
And read the Motion also again.
I shall read something else which I think will be interesting.
If it is as valuable as what you have read.
Deputy Ryan, at page 537 of the Official Reports, said: "There are, however, other proposals for these two crops. I need not go into them now. Another reason why we should consider that the growing of wheat would be a benefit to this country is the fact that it would give employment where employment is badly needed, because there are many people unemployed in the rural districts just as there are in the urban districts, and many people are only partially employed in the rural districts. Even taking the official figures that were supplied by the Department of Agriculture, it is estimated that the amount of manual labour necessary for the cultivation of one acre of wheat came to £2 6s. 6d. per acre. If we were to produce sufficient wheat for our own needs, it was estimated that we would require about 860,000 acres, so that on the figures supplied by the Department there would be a distribution of £1,999,000 in wages." Deputy de Valera goes further, and says that it would give full-time employment to 27,000 people.
On the barley basis?
If it is on the basis of the figures supplied by the Minister for Agriculture, all I have to say is that personally I have no great faith in those figures.
Neither have I.
The Minister has no faith in them, because he said at the Economic Committee they were not worth the paper they were written on. I really think that they are not worth the paper that they are written on, and that they ought not to be published; the Minister for Agriculture should be punished for publishing them, because these figures are a terrible temptation to people who do not know agriculture to base false calculations upon them and to make false assumptions.
Can you prove that that statement is false?
It is absolutely false. The thing is so absurd it does not need proof.
You are not the only agriculturist in the House.
I am glad to hear it, but I am certain that if Deputy de Valera and Deputy Ryan are going to get this wheat subsidy that they expect to get they will get it out of the very small farmers of the country. If the big or little farmers of the country grow this 860,000 acres of wheat does anyone expect that they will have to pay for that two million pounds in wages? Is that what the statement means? Is the small farmer of the country who ordinarily grows an acre or two of wheat to be told that if he grows an extra acre or two he must get somebody in and pay him wages? Or does it mean, as was stated on another occasion at the Economic Committee, that we could keep more people on the land? Does anybody seriously suggest that the small farmer by growing an extra acre of wheat or two will be able to keep a second son at home and get him married and settled down on the farm?
May I explain what was clearly stated, namely, that to grow that much wheat would provide employment equivalent for full time employment for 27,000 people. That is, on the basis necessary for barley and assuming it was the same labour.
Will the Deputy show how 27,000 people works out at £1,999,000?
£74 per year per man.
The thing is preposterous to anybody who has to do with farming. Deputy Ryan in advocating the acceptance of the motion said: "Under this scheme of increased acreage of wheat there would naturally be mills for the grinding of wheat set up more generally throughout the country and the result would be that these mills would have to sell the offals more cheaply than they are sold at present, because the sale of offals depends like everything else on demand and supply." I am afraid I cannot agree with Deputy Ryan in that. I have more faith in the business enterprise of the milling people of this country than that. Whatever few mills there are in the country at the present time they would have business capacity enough to see that the price of offals would not come down. If it did the price of flour would go up. If Deputy Ryan was right what would be the ultimate result? Suppose we had extra mills. Reading the evidence given before the Tariff Commission when the application was made for a tariff on flour was very interesting. It was proved conclusively there that the milling industry in this country was a highly mechanised industry; the milling plant was up-to-date, so much so that it really cut out the human element altogether except to a very small extent. Notwithstanding that, the flour mills of this country were being undersold by the flour mills across the water, though their capacity was very high and equal to that of the other mills across the water. The Merseyside mills were at a certain disadvantage in sending flour over to this country. They are at the disadvantage of freight and insurance, which meant at least 14s. or 15s. per ton. Well if these mills across the water are able to send their flour here and then undersell our best equipped mills here as was alleged by the applicants for a tariff on flour, what would be the position of the smaller mills that Deputy Ryan said would spring up as a result of this motion?
Even if they did spring up, could you expect them to spring up in such a way that they would be as thoroughly equipped and as highly organised as the mills on the other side? As far as I am concerned, I would like to see these mills spring up. There is another thing that I would also like to see—namely, the Irish people fed largely on wheaten meal, and not on flour at all. I do not think, however, that we can ever grow wheat of a quality in this country from which you could make decent flour. Occasionally, of course, you may be able to grow a crop of wheat from which you could mill good flour. If some scheme could be introduced by which the people of this country were made to fall back on the eating of whole meal, I for one would give that my hearty support. I am a firm believer in whole meal, although I must say that there are some years —this year particularly—in which the wheat crop has gone against me absolutely.
This year?
Yes.
Then you must be a bad farmer.
He struck a bad patch.
Exactly. As regards a subsidy on wheat, even if there was one, I do not see how it could be administered. Unless you had the mills which Deputy Ryan believes and hopes will spring up under the operation of a subsidy scattered around the country, you would, in my opinion, have a disparity in the distribution of that subsidy. Take the flour mills that we have at the moment in the country. If we were to grow wheat in our locality it would cost about 2/- a barrel to take it to the nearest flour mill. I imagine the farmer would have to be at the loss of that 2/-; that it would not be made up to him in the subsidy. There is another reason why I think wheat would not be grown in the locality I come from for a small subsidy. It is this: wheat is grown for a dual purpose in my part of the country. It is grown for the corn and for the straw which is used for thatching purposes. I have seen wheaten straw fetch as high a price as 7/- per cwt. in the market. At the moment I believe it is being bought at from 4/6 to 5/- per cwt. If the country were to grow the 860,000 acres of wheat that have been spoken of, the wheaten straw could not bring these prices. From the market point of view the straw would be useless. In my opinion, no subsidy would make up to the farmers in the locality that I come from for the price they are able to get at present for their wheaten straw. I do not think I need say any more on this question. I have not the slightest hope of converting anyone on the benches opposite to my way of thinking on this question, nor do I think they have much hope of converting me to their way of thinking.
In supporting the motion by Deputy Ryan I will not go into statistics as the time at my disposal will not allow me to do so. The Minister for Agriculture stated that the growing of wheat takes a certain amount of nourishment out of the land and dirties the land to a great extent. Is not the land of Ireland as fertile and productive to-day as it was eighty years ago? Is it not better to use the land for a productive crop that would be remunerative to the farmers than to have them searching their empty pockets? Some eighty years ago the population of the country amounted to about 8,000,000. Their daily menu consisted principally of home-made bread, made from home-grown wheat. In those days doctors were few and dentists were unknown. We had a healthy race of people then. They were largely dependent on what they produced from the soil, and we had no consumption. We had no stomach troubles of any kind, and very few cases of appendicitis came under the doctors' notice. I can easily understand the opposition of Deputy Dr. Hennessy to this Bill, for I think he, like a good many Deputies on the opposite benches, is suffering from political constipation.
I ask Deputies to take into serious consideration the advisability of supporting the motion. I hope when they go on their knees in the morning to make their offering they will fervently pray, "Give us this day our daily bread manufactured from home-grown wheat, and forgive those who do not assist in the production of the necessaries of life from our native soil." I have grown wheat to a great extent for the past ten or twelve years, and my practical experience is that it is a most productive cash crop. I have grown it in lea land principally. It was sown in the spring from double stand-up white. I have grown wheat that gave ten barrels to the statute acre. I am satisfied that the farmers would be very well advised if they took into serious consideration the question of growing more wheat. At present the farmers of Ireland are practically down and out, and unless there is some measure of relief for them they are a bankrupt people. It must be remembered that the farmers are the principal contributors to the taxation of the country from the hard earnings of their toiling and moiling from morning to night, and which is thrown into the bottomless pit of Government expenditure. When they are down and out this State is finished, for it will be shattered to its very foundations. I move the adjournment.