Proceeding to another sub-head—N. 2—there is a sum of £6,500 this year as compared with £5,500 last year under the Bovine Tuberculosis Order, 1926, etc. I am aware that the question of clean milk does not come within the province of the Minister for Agriculture, but if the Minister could change the policy somewhat under the existing regulations with regard to this Bovine Tuberculosis Order, not only could something be done for the health of the people, but we could also reap certain economic advantages. Last year, in speaking on this Vote, I referred to this question, and pointed out that a certain scheme had been put into operation in Canada which eventually had for its object the complete stamping out of tuberculosis amongst cattle. That has been done in Canada and it could be done here. I am advocating it here for two reasons: (1) for the sake of the health of the people; (2) for the economic advantages which might be derived. As this is not the time to stress the point with regard to the improvement of the health of our people, we may pass it over by saying that we at least agree it would be a very desirable object to achieve. Taking this subject from the point of view of agriculture, I think that we can even make a good case for the stamping out of tuberculosis in cattle from the agricultural point of view alone. We export a very considerable number of cattle from this country every year. As a matter of fact, it is the one item in agriculture, or in any other branch of industry in this country, where the exports considerably exceed the home consumption. If we have a very large export of cattle it would be a great advantage to the industry if we could guarantee that the cattle exported were completely free from tuberculosis.
In addition to that, milk is used in the rearing of stock and if we had a clean supply of new milk from tuberculin-free cows we could rear our young cattle free from tuberculosis, and that would be a big economic advantage. A bigger advantage still would be if we could have clean skim milk for the feeding of pigs. The Minister has at his disposal figures to show that the prevalence of tuberculosis amongst pigs is much higher in the creamery districts than in other districts. There could be no better proof that tuberculosis in pigs is always due to the milk fed to those pigs. The bacon industry is a very important one and considerable loss is suffered by the rejection of pigs either wholly or in part on account of tuberculosis. If we could eradicate the disease in pigs, we would achieve something very substantial for Irish agriculture.
Under the present orders there is a certain amount of inspection of meat for export and a certain amount of inspection beyond that. At times people are compelled to get rid of cattle because they have been pronounced to have tuberculosis by some veterinary surgeon. I believe that under the existing regulations the owners of these animals are paid about half their value. I think that that is not a sensible procedure, because if people believe that they are only to get half the value of the animals destroyed they are certainly not going to help the authorities by pointing out that some of their cattle are affected. If we want really to stamp out tuberculosis in cattle it would be better for the Department to offer a higher compensation than that. If they were to give 75 per cent. of the value of the animals destroyed I am sure they would get more help from the owners of stock. A Commission was set up on this subject some years ago and they went to a great deal of trouble to draw up a report. It is a very valuable report for anybody interested in this subject. There are Deputies in the House who sat on that Commission and I am sure that they have not changed the opinions they held when the report was written.
Any scheme that we may adopt to eradicate tuberculosis from our cattle would take many years to achieve its object. I believe, if we want to avoid very big State expenditure, that we will have to take such a scheme in stages. It will, perhaps, take 20 or 30 years before we eradicate tuberculosis completely. As it is going to take so long, that is if we do not want to spend a great deal of money immediately in stamping it out, I think that the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Local Government, and the Executive Council ought to consider doing something about this in the near future. I mentioned here last year the scheme adopted in Canada and it seems to me a scheme that could be adopted here in this country without any great expense to the State, and still with the hope of success within a period of from fifteen to twenty years. That is about the most we can hope for. The only expense the State undertook in Canada in the beginning was that they supplied free veterinary inspection, free vaccine and any stock-owner who wished to avail of these facilities had only to notify the proper authority whoever it might be. He then had a visit from the veterinary inspector and had his herd inspected and he knew where he was. That was the first step and a very important step. I know from my own personal experience, and from what I heard from others, that it is an expensive item in this country even to get one's cows tested as to whether they were tubercular or not. I believe there are many farmers who would like to know, if nothing else, which cows were free from tuberculosis so that they might keep them and breed from them and get rid of the others. They went a step further in Canada and prepared regulations under which certain municipalities adopted a tuberculin-free milk scheme. When these municipalities adopted the scheme they compelled the milk suppliers around the particular town or city to have their herds tested for tuberculosis. That meant that a certain number of cows in these herds were rejected and had to be replaced by tuberculin-free cows which meant in turn that the stock-owners of the country who had tuberculin-free cattle met with a ready sale and so certain municipalities were able to adopt this scheme without any great disturbance to the milk supply or to the general economy of the country.
They went further than that in Canada, and made an order that in any district where two-thirds of the stock in the district were tuberculin-free, and certified by the Government veterinary surgeon as being free, then the other one-third were compelled to adopt the scheme also. So that they got districts in Canada entirely free from tuberculosis. These districts began to merge into larger districts and zones, and after some years' working Canada found that it had large districts completely free from tuberculosis in cattle. I merely mentioned the outlines of that scheme as a scheme that could be adopted in this country without any great expense to the State. It will involve some expense certainly, but it is a scheme that would fit into our economic conditions here, and under which we could hope, in the course of fifteen or twenty years, to have achieved the object of having herds completely free from tuberculosis, and the milk supply in our towns and cities completely free from tuberculosis.
But for the present I want to repeat what I said in the beginning, that if we want to make this scheme in any way a success, and to get rid of tuberculosis in our cattle, we should see that the owners of stock are paid a higher amount of compensation than at present. I do not believe you can get co-operation from the owners of stock if they only get 50 per cent. of the value. They should at least get 75 per cent. before we could expect proper co-operation from them.
Taking the exports of cattle for the first three months of this year and comparing them with the first three months of last year, Deputies will remember that in the beginning of last year there was a very large export of cattle from this country. It was pointed out by the optimists that that was a sign that we had at last turned the corner in our economic life. But there was a danger evidenced in the export of cattle last year, and that was that the number of cows and calves exported showed that it was a thing that could not continue indefinitely, because if we were to deplete the stock of cows we had in the country, or send young calves out of the country, we could not expect to keep up the number of cattle we had in previous years. When it came to the census of June, 1930, that view was proved to be correct. The number of cattle in the country in June, 1930, was found to be less than in June, 1929. As a further proof that the view was correct, that we were exporting cattle on a wrong basis last year, and that it was not a sign of prosperity in the country that cattle were going out at that rate, it was found that people wanted money and that that was the reason that they were selling their cattle.
If we take the first three months of 1931 as compared with 1930 we find that the number of cattle going out has gone down by 6,000, so that we have not as many cattle for export this year as we had last year. The number of store cattle going out has gone down by 12,000 in the same three months. We have not the stock in the country this year that we had last year for export. The number of milch cows exported has, however, gone up by 2,000 which is a very serious thing. The causes for that may be many. The slump in the price of butter, the poor prospects in the milk and butter industry and in the creamery districts in particular may account for the fact that stock owners are prepared to sell off a certain number of their cows and have them exported. That may account for the fact that 14,000 cows were exported in the first three months of this year as compared with 12,000 in the first three months of last year. Extreme necessity may also have obliged people to sell their milch cows. People may have been compelled to sell off whatever cattle they had that were saleable in order to pay their rates and taxes and meet other expenses. That may be the reason why they had to sell off a number of their cows.
We have also an increase in the number of calves exported. The number this year is greater than last year though last year showed an increase over the previous year. In the first three months of this year we exported 14,000 calves as against 12,000 in the first three months of last year. I believe that is a very bad sign because anybody travelling through this country, even people travelling in a motor car, can see that we have plenty of grass for cattle. We could do very well with those calves if we could afford to keep them at home. If our farmers and graziers had the money to buy calves they would have kept them here on the land. The position must be that our farmers are not able to buy those calves, and hence they are exported.
In connection with our exports I would like to refer to the position with regard to eggs. In the first three months of this year there was an increase of 156,000 great hundreds as compared with last year. I refer to this because it is an industry that was stressed in the report of the De-rating Commission. Deputies will remember that in the report of the De-rating Commission 13 points were given as to how farming could be made pay. One of the points was that the people of this country should go more into the egg trade. Whether they had anticipated the report of the De-rating Commission or not, or whatever the reason, the farmers of this country had already done that. The position at any rate is that we have an increase in exports for the first three months of the year as compared with the first three months of last year. But if we had an increase in our exports we had the usual experience in the case of eggs as in that of all our exports. The price received this year was lower than the price paid last year. It was lower by 1/1½d. a great hundred. That represents a very big difference to the people producing eggs here. It means a difference of 1/6d. per hen per year when examined in the light of the statistics that are supplied to us. It represents a very important difference when one remembers that people trying to make a living out of the egg industry consider that they have a fair profit if they can make between 2/- and 3/- per hen per year. If the profit these people were making last year is to be cut by 1/6d., then what they are going to get this year will be very thin indeed. It is questionable whether poultry breeders will be able to remain in business much longer.
I have dealt with the exports of butter, bacon, cattle and eggs. I find in regard to the exports of live-stock and live-stock products that for 1930, as compared with 1929, they have been reduced by £2,000,000 the comparative figures being: 1929, £34,000,000 and 1930, £32,000,000. A reduction of that magnitude shows the necessity there is that something should be done to relieve the depression that exists in the agricultural industry. The position created certainly requires serious consideration from the Minister, the Government and the Dáil.
The Estimate for this Department, according to the figures given by the Minister, works out at something like £480,000. If anyone goes through the Estimates they will be struck by the importance given to live stock as compared with tillage. The greater portion of the Vote is spent on live stock, if one divides up the various sub-heads as between live-stock and tillage. A small amount is given for investigation and research in certain crops. Under sub-head E.4, for instance, there is a salary of £500, with bonus, making a total of £684 for an expert in tobacco and sugar beet. I often heard it said that there is no such thing as an expert. I think that is true, because no matter how much a person may know about a subject there is surely a little more to be known, and expert denotes the superlative. To be told in the Estimate that a man can be an expert in tobacco growing and sugar beet is rather extraordinary. Even if the man is an expert in both these subjects why should the House be asked to vote this sum of £684 for him? Half of it, I suppose, will go to the sugar beet and the other half to tobacco growing. Why should this House agree to vote £342 for his expert knowledge of tobacco when we consider the views held by the Minister and his Party on the growing of tobacco?
We have been told here and it has been proved by votes in the House that, as far as the Minister and his Party are concerned, there is going to be no place given to tobacco growing in this country. Yet the Minister has an expert in tobacco growing and proposes to pay him £342 a year. As regards the other half of it for beet growing, I suppose I had better reserve what I intend to say on that until the sugar beet Estimate comes before the House. It might have been better for the country if an expert on the drawing up of agreements with the sugar company had been employed and paid this £342 rather than in paying an expert to teach people how to grow beet when they cannot get a price for it. Under sub-head G.1—Improvement of flax growing—there is provision made for the expenditure of £1,174. I would like to know what is the return for that money. Where is the flax being grown? What use is being made of it, and are the Government seriously considering going in earnest into this matter of flax growing, trying to produce the flax that we require for our own requirements in the Free State so that we may be saved the cost of importing linen from other countries?
If that is the intention of the Government, if they have a hope of getting flax grown here extensively, and if we can meet the requirements of our own market, then I think, as far as this Party is concerned, it would agree to money being spent on the proposition. The Vote for the Department of Agriculture is strongly biased in favour of the development of live-stock. I would like the House to realise the total requirements of the home market and the foreign market, as far as farmers are concerned, in live-stock products as opposed to crops. We were told in The Agricultural Output of Saorstát Eireann for 1926, a publication issued by the Statistics Branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce, that the output of live-stock and live-stock products was £50,000,000. In the same publication we find that the value of the total amount of crops produced during the same year amounted to £45,000,000, which is not a very big difference. For live-stock and live-stock products the figures were £50,000,000 as against £45,000,000 for crops, not including grass. In the same year there were exports of live-stock and live-stock products amounting to £25,000,000.