Dealing with the big self-contained countries like the United States, Germany and Russia, we see the effects of the tariffs in those countries. They may have helped up to a certain point, but what is the result to-day? I think it is well known that from conditions prevailing in the United States and conditions prevailing in the other highly tariffed countries that they are on the verge of starvation. In Australia at the moment, so far as our information goes, the bailiff is at the door. In America, you have millions who do not know where to lay their heads, not to mind getting a bite to eat, as a result of the high tariffs, and how can we hope to succeed with a tariff policy when those self-contained countries are unable to do it? There is no prospect for our country, and up and down the country at the present time we have our people struggling against fearful odds. We have unemployment for which to-day a Vote was given by the Government towards its relief. We have unemployment since those tariffs have been introduced—unemployment daily growing on the increase—not in a small way but by leaps and bounds. Speaking from personal knowledge of my own area, we have a certain flour mill which employs sixty or eighty hands, and at the present time as a result of the tariffs we are knocking men off. Within the past fortnight, in that particular mill, there were at least ten men knocked off. As I can visualise the future from the policy which is being carried out by the Government under their Cereals Bill and other Bills, I can see in that particular mill twenty at least of their hands still further knocked off.
Speaking again for my own area which I know thoroughly well, we have big pig feeders who are feeding some 700 or 800 pigs, and I could instance ten of them who would be feeding at least 3,000 pigs between them, and as a result of the policy which has been carried out not one of them has a pig in their sheds. The farmer is faced with the situation at the moment that, owing to the tariffs put on artificial manures, and also owing to the policy being carried out by the Government, in the near future when he would, under ordinary circumstances, be inclined to purchase artificial manures for top dressing his grass lands, owing to the tariff which is imposed he is not able to purchase anything like the amount he purchased last year or the year before and the direct result is less production. We are up against this in the next spring-time when, with the present policy of the Government, we must increase our tillage. If we are going to sow wheat at the moment we must get the manure, and owing to the policy of the Government we are in the position that we cannot buy the manure. We are not going to get credit from any merchant for it until such time as we would reap the benefit of our crop. I am not going to go in detail into all the tariffs that have been imposed. I believe if I did I would not be finished until this time tomorrow night. But I want to deal with the motion and to bring home to the Government the fallacy of their tariff policy, and the ill-effect it is going to have on the agricultural industry. In my own immediate neighbourhood we have chicken shipments to England and we are paying 9d. to 1/- per head duty on them, and on top of that we have to pay a bounty in order to enter the English market. This was one of the very important industries along with pig feeding we had in my constituency which is killed at the present time. The same applies to turkeys.
We have the maize meal mixed with ten per cent. oats at the present time costing as we know 15/- per ton extra to produce, while our farmers, who know their business quite well, could mix their own food stuffs much better than any Government Department could mix them and with much better results than any Government Department could give. In another month or two, and again I am talking of isolated areas in the extreme South of Cork and the extreme West, where we have good workers, where we need no Government to tell us what to do, and where we produce a certain quantity of barley, oats or wheat as the case may be, when we have the supply that is available disposed of to the millers, we must fall back on the big barley producing areas in Tipperary, Kildare, etc. Besides that we have to pay the cost of transport, which is the killing item on the barley from Kildare down to West Cork, and that is going to add another 30/- per ton to the cost of production on the farmer. Tariffs undoubtedly have raised the cost of production and the Minister knows and everybody in this House knows that at the present moment production in this country so far as the farmer is concerned is almost impossible. When you have more tariffs imposed, and raising the cost of production further, then God help the agricultural industry.
A few moments ago in the motion it was argued to see that fair wages were paid and fair conditions of employment observed in the protected industries. Our industry is not protected. The agricultural industry is not protected. It is at the mercy of the waves. Every other industry is cared for and the agricultural industry has to pay for every tariff that has been imposed. There is no hope that we can meet our demands. How can you expect the farmer when it costs him £2 or £2 5s. to produce a pig and sells that pig for 35/- to keep up production. How can you expect them to pay a decent wage? I do not know a farmer in my area who is not willing to pay a decent wage if it were possible for him to do so, or any farmer trying to cut wages if he can avoid it. But the inevitable has to be faced, and the farmer has to cut them. Labour may say that, no matter what the circumstances are that the farmer is up against, they must get a living wage. If in a position to do so the farmer is willing to pay a living wage, but it has to be remembered that in addition to doing that he has also to bear the cost of home assistance, which is advancing at an alarming rate. He has also to bear the cost of the tariffs that are being imposed. In view of all that it is impossible for the agricultural industry to continue under present conditions.
The policy of the Farmers' Party of which I was a member in this House was to oppose tariffs in any shape or form. Our policy was to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the best market. But as a Party and as the representatives of the biggest industry in the State, we agreed to a certain line of action that tariffs may be helpful and necessary. Following that we agreed that each application for a tariff be considered on its merits by the commission which was set up at the time. The Tariff Commission was given powers to take evidence and go minutely into each application for a tariff. As a Party we agreed to stand by the recommendations of that commission. Personally, I have no fault to find with the Tariff Commission. I do not know whether the tariffs that were imposed, following the reports of that commission, were a great success so far as the relief of unemployment was concerned. So far as the boot and shoe industry is concerned, I am not at all sure that the amount of employment given, following the application of a tariff to that industry, was at all commensurate with the amount that the State had to pay; rather I should say that the farmer had to pay, because eventually the cost of all these things falls back on the farmer. The cost can be pushed on by everyone to him, so that he has to bear the brunt of the whole thing.
The tariff imposed by the present Government on corrugated iron sheeting has been a very serious matter for many farmers. Before the tariff was put on, when normal conditions prevailed, many farmers were glad to avail of the opportunity of erecting hay sheds, cow sheds, poultry sheds and so on. The imposition of this tariff has made it impossible for them to continue improvements of that sort. Take the case of pig feeders, small farmers who kept a number of breeding sows. They reared the young pigs until they were 12 or 14 weeks' old and then sold them to men who had sheds for fattening them. At the moment I know many small farmers who have from 30 to 60 young pigs running around, and because of this tariff it is impossible for them to buy corrugated iron to put them into sheds for fattening. That is one of the results of the foolish policy of the present Government, so that we have a lot of young pigs running around wild at the present moment, like a lot of other people. We have plenty of evidence in the newspapers at the present time that there are many people running around wild as well as the young pigs I have been speaking of.
Take another example, the tariffs imposed by the present Government on agricultural machinery. In the case of the Pierce machine, I have no fault to find with it. In fact, I have worked a Pierce machine and found it to be excellent. But I know many farmers who work other machines. They have to get parts for them, and despite what the Minister stated here, when they require parts they have to pay extra for them. The Minister stated definitely here that there would be no increase on these articles up to a certain price. The increase has taken place, and it is there, whether it is the Minister's fault or not. I wonder whether, as a result of that tariff, there has been any increase in the amount of employment given in the Wexford foundries? I have it from Wexford that the foundries there have been very hard hit owing to the serious financial position in which farmers now find themselves following the heavy duties imposed by the English Government on cattle going into that country. I understand that for a considerable time past very few men have found employment in the three Wexford foundries. I have before me a statement of Miss Ryan, a sister of the Minister for Agriculture. Miss Ryan is a member of the County Wexford Board of Health, and in a report of the board meeting which appeared in the Enniscorthy Echo on 22nd October, she is reported as saying that the foundry men were nearly all idle. I have a distinct recollection of the Minister for Industry and Commerce stating in this House that the immediate effect of this tariff on agricultural machinery would be to put 500 men in employment immediately. I have given the statement of Miss Ryan. If she has been correctly reported, where does the Minister's 500 men come in? The Minister's statement was that 500 men were supposed to be put into employment as a result of the imposition of that tariff, and against that we have Miss Ryan's statement that the foundry men in Wexford are nearly all idle. That is certainly a nice state of affairs. A tariff was imposed on the promise made that 500 men were going to be put into employment, and that at a cost of £600,000 to the farmers of the Free State. Yet we find that at the moment the foundry workers in Wexford are nearly all idle. I move the adjournment of the Debate.
