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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 30 Nov 1933

Vol. 50 No. 5

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture.

I move:—

Go ndeontar Bhreise suim ná raghaidh thar £75,089 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1934, chun tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Talmhaíochta agus seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riaradh na hOifige sin, maraon le hIldeontaisí i gCabhair.

That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £75,089 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1934, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, and of certain services administered by that Office, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.

This Estimate is made up of various items. In sub-head A—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—an additional sum of £5,659 is required for additional headquarters staff, necessary for the administration of export bounties and subsidies and the functions under the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Act, 1933, and the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Export) Act, 1933. These two Acts were put through the Oireachtas during the year and additional staffs were found necessary and were required to deal with their administration. Travelling expenses, particularly of officers attending at sales of heifers, were also required, and for inspectors engaged on the work in connection with the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Act. Under sub-head E (3) there is an additional sum of £36 required. The necessity for this provision arises out of the report of the Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Co-operation, 1933, which has been adopted by the Executive Council and approved by Dáil Eireann. Sub-head K (1) is a contribution to the Irish Agricultural Organisation Societies. The original provision was based on the assumption that the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society would have been superseded by the 31st December by the new statutory body contemplated under the proposed Co-operation Bill. We had only provided a grant to the Society for nine months in the hope of the Bill becoming law by the date I have mentioned. The necessity for the postponement of the Bill again arises and we must provide for the last quarter of the financial year by this grant.

Sub-head M (1)—Miscellaneous Work —This sum is required for advertising and publicity expenses in connection with the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Act and the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Export) Act, the heifer loan scheme and the scheme of loans to farmers in County Wicklow for the purchase of Wicklow sheep. M (4)— Loans for Agricultural Purposes—This is an amount advanced to the Credit Corporation for loans to County Wicklow farmers for the purchase of Wicklow sheep. This scheme was considered necessary as a result of representations that were made after the snowstorm which took place early this year. Numbers of farmers in County Wicklow lost a considerable number of sheep. Some of them, I believe, lost up to 50 per cent. of their entire stock. We sanctioned a scheme of loans through the Credit Corporation to farmers who wanted to replenish their stock.

The Minister mentioned K.2?

Dr. Ryan

Yes. I mentioned that when introducing the original Estimate. We only provided for three-quarters of the year for the grant to the Agricultural Organisation Society——

Would the Minister tell us more about what are the functions of that society at present?

Dr. Ryan

——thinking that the Co-Operative Bill would become law by 31st December. As soon as that Bill became law there would be a different body in control there. The present body as such would go out. Seeing that the Co-Operative Bill cannot possibly be through by 31st December we have to provide a grant for the last quarter at the usual rate. The functions, of course, of that society are to supervise the co-operative societies of the country in general. It takes the place of a sort of federation headquarters. Where people in any part of the country think that they should cooperate for any agricultural purpose it is the function of the Agricultural Organisation Society to send down an organiser to advise them on what are the necessary steps to be taken, and also to give them general advice with regard to the particular proposition which they have in mind. They have been particularly useful in the organisation of creameries, and also in the re-organisation of the whole creameries scheme. They have also taken a hand in the organisation of certain other societies, recently tobacco societies, and at other times they organised credit societies and also turf societies.

They have nothing to do with the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society?

Dr. Ryan

No. They are not the same body. Sub-head M (6)—Scheme of Loans for the Purchase of Heifers— £350. This scheme will also be administered by the Credit Corporation. We supply some of the inspection work under the scheme, and also there is a certain guarantee given to the Credit Corporation with regard to interest charges and repayments. There is no payment, however, anticipated in the current year. This is taken as a token Vote. Sub-head M (7)—Grant in respect of additional sugar beet grown in the Cooley district—£350. The Cooley people have been restricted in their operations with regard to the sale of potatoes. As Deputies are aware, it is a black scab area, and they are not allowed to sell potatoes inside the Free State. They must export them. For some two or three years past they have been growing beet as an alternative, in order to give them a chance of not depending altogether on the potato crop. The State had to give the company in Carlow an additional grant in order to take it, because it was an extra acreage. For 250 acres of beet in Carlow, grown this year and being delivered at present, there is an allowance of 4/- per ton.

The next matter is sub-head M (8)— Oats Purchase Scheme. This is also a token Vote, because no payment will fall due during the current year. A guarantee is given to the merchants, if they purchase oats under the scheme, bushelling 40 pounds or over at 9/-, that for such oats remaining on their hands in June next the Minister for Agriculture will take it from them at 10/6 a barrel. It is not anticipated that there will be any loss under this scheme, because under the powers which the Minister for Agriculture has under the Cereals Act, he can compel maize millers to absorb as much oats as will remain on the merchants' hands before that date. The difficulty in this matter arises from the fact that although it was quite easy for us to have all the corn in the country absorbed for feeding stuffs during the 12 months, it was difficult to get somebody to hold the oats—to take the oats from the farmer in the meantime. The farmer, for want of cash and want of storage, was anxious to get rid of his oats. The merchants and maize millers were not inclined to take it until it was required, and the difficulty we had was to try to get the merchants to take the oats from the farmer at a reasonable price. Eventually a scheme was adopted by the merchants—about 120 of them I think—guaranteeing to work this scheme of taking good, white oats bushelling 40 pounds from the farmers at 9/- a barrel, and selling it as best they could to maize millers or for any other purpose, we giving them a guarantee that if the oats are left on their hands we would take them back in June at 10/6 a barrel. It is only a token Vote because, even if the Minister for Finance has to pay up under this scheme it would not become due until the next financial year.

Sub-head M (9)—Butter Purchase Scheme. About the middle of September last we had a meeting of representatives of the butter trade, and gave them warning that under the Stabilisation Act we intended to close down on exports except under licence. We calculated at that time that we would have sufficient butter in the country to supply our own needs in addition to the continental market. Again, we had a slight difficulty there; the creameries were not inclined to hold the butter indefinitely, or rather over a period of four or five months, as they had to pay their suppliers, so we had to give a guarantee to the creameries at that time that the Dairy Disposals Board would be prepared to take the butter from them at the current market price. This is a token Vote to cover any loss that might arise under the scheme. There is no fear of a loss because there would be no surplus of butter in the market before the 31st March.

Sub-head O (9)—Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Act. A sum of £50,000 is provided to pay the bounty on wheat. Five thousand pounds is also provided in order to enable advances to be made to reputable merchants who sell wheat to farmers in accordance with a scheme approved by the Minister for Finance. This scheme we are familiar with. Last year, we brought in a scheme for the supply of seed wheat and manures for those who intended sowing wheat. The purchaser of seed can go to his own merchant and give him a written authorisation to the Minister for Agriculture to pay the bounty to the merchant when it becomes due, up to the amount of credit given to the purchaser. Last year the scheme worked very satisfactorily, and the necessary authorisations were given to the merchants by purchasers of seeds. The Department of Agriculture then, with the approval of the Department of Finance, gave certain advances to the merchants, as soon as the deals were completed. There is £5,000 for that purpose under this sub-head. Of course this is only by way of loan. The amount will be repaid afterwards when the wheat is marketed at the end of the cereal year.

Sub-head O (10) provides £18,443 under the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Exports) Act, 1933 Arising out of quotas, when applying for quotas on bacon to Great Britain we had before us statistics of our exports of live pigs and carcases for conversion into bacon, but we had no statistics going back for eight or ten years. We made a calculation of what would be in the future our surplus for export of bacon, live pigs for conversion into bacon and carcases for conversion into bacon, as the case might be, for each month from the middle of September, and then for October to the end of February. Having made out the surplus, we applied for that quota to the British Minister for Agriculture. He was not prepared to give us a quota on that basis, but gave something like 47,000 cwts. for October, going down to 20,000 cwts. in February. He told us we would have to level it out, as otherwise he could not provide for supplies to the British market. That appeared to us to be reasonable. We tried to work it out by bringing down the amount during the high months, and bringing it up during the slack months of production here. It meant that we have to store a certain amount of bacon from October and November, which is going on the market from January to March, the slack periods in the production of bacon. The factories, while approving of the plan, were, on the other hand, inclined to sell as much bacon as possible on the home market rather than store it, being, in the first place, out of their money during the storage period, and not knowing what way the market might go. Perhaps if prices dropped there might be a serious loss on the bacon by February or March. If they had to proceed to do that by trying to place more bacon on the home market than it could absorb, naturally there would be a cutting of prices and a serious decline in the price of bacon on the market followed by a very serious decline in the price of pigs. In meeting the Consultative Council of the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Export) Act we discussed this matter, and after some negotiation we agreed to give a certain guarantee against loss in storing the bacon. Whether the guarantee will be called upon or not is a question we will not know before the end of the financial year. I am inclined to think that part of the sum, at any rate, will be required; perhaps not the whole of the £17,500. There will certainly be some loss caused by the cost of storage and shrinkage, and in order to cover that there will be an increase of prices on the home market of 14/- or 15/- per cwt. to meet it. There is always an increase in the price of bacon in February and March as compared with November and December. The increase is not likely to be as high as 14/- or 15/- a cwt., and if it is not we are not likely to be called to pay some part of the money.

What about the deterioration in quality?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think that arises now. On sub-head O (11), the Musk Rats Act, there is an item of £2,100 for salaries and wages of a trapper and 20 assistants. Deputy Curran complained of a want of employment in his constituency. We are employing 20 trappers there.

I am very sorry to hear that employment is necessary.

Dr. Ryan

The destruction of this pest is being carried out with vigour. On the last occasion I inquired, about ten days ago, I was told that 200 had been trapped. From experience in the district it is estimated that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 of these rats there. It is a rather slow procedure and, of course, the trappers are only being trained. It is doubtful if we will ever get rid of this pest completely, but, at least, we can check them spreading. There are estimated deficiencies in the Appropriations-in-Aid. In the original Estimate the deficiency was estimated as £9,150, but that is offset by estimated receipts amounting to £700, made up of £300 registration fees under the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Act, and £400 refund by millers and registered wheat dealers of bounty paid to them in respect of millable wheat sold for use as seed. The total additional expenditure provided for in this Supplementary Estimate is £89,639, to which must be added the net estimated deficiency in Appropriations-in-Aid which realised £8,450, making a total of £98,089.

What does the estimated deficiency arise from?

Dr. Ryan

In the Appropriations-in-Aid. Savings on the Vote are estimated at £23,000. The net additional sum required is £75,089.

Where is the £9,000 in Grants-in-Aid gone to?

Dr. Ryan

I will be able to give that information to the Deputy later.

This very large Supplementary Estimate has, to my mind, one peculiarly interesting aspect. It ought to bring home something to the country, and that is that after two years of Fianna Fáil administration every branch of agriculture in this country has become a mendicant depending on Government charity. Two years ago the farming industry was carried on by independent, self-supporting men, who had not to ask anyone to help them along. Times were admittedly hard, and world conditions were pressing heavily upon them, nevertheless, they were able to stand on their own feet and to make their own way. Fianna Fáil came to their rescue and the net result of Fianna Fáil activity is that every single branch of agriculture is now in receipt of outdoor relief in one form or another from the Government. Oats, bacon, cattle, eggs, pork, wheat, every branch of agriculture I could name is being carried on with the assistance of Government doles and grants. There is not a single self-supporting farmer living in the length and breadth of the land. Is not that something that a Minister for Agriculture might be proud of? It is bad enough for the farmers themselves, but the general effect that it is having on the morale of our people must be perfectly appalling. There are men running with their hats in their hands to every Government Department for relief—men who would never have dreamt of looking to a Government Department five or six years ago.

It is becoming a universal practice to expect the Government to keep you. It is common knowledge that nothing is more demoralising to a working man than to be for a protracted period employed on nothing but relief works. Every farmer in this country is in a position analogous to the working man working on relief works. They all know that in order to be able to carry on, they have to get doles or grants from the Government and they all know that if the Government would get out of their way and let them do their work, they would be able to get on without anything at all except the fruits of their own exertions. The Government first comes in and destroys their business and then turns them all into the bond slaves of whoever happens to be in office. That, to my mind, is the most striking element in this Supplementary Estimate. If that fundamental fact is not recognised and remembered, before very long a damage will be done to the fundamental industry of this country that our generation will be unable to repair. We all remember the Minister for Agriculture, on one occasion when I challenged him that his colleague was adding hordes of officials to the pay list of the Civil Service, replying "Yes, and I am doing it every day." He is; he is calling the tune and now he is beginning to ask us to pay the piper. £5,659 for additional personnel to the Civil Service—and that after it was found necessary to introduce legislation to reduce the salaries of civil servants only a few months ago. Having effected a saving on behalf of the State at the expense of existing civil servants, we are now going to spend that saving on new civil servants. As the President himself said, outside Bedlam was there ever greater insanity embarked upon?

Under sub-head E (3) we have an item tactfully described as "Subscriptions to International and other Research Organisations," but if you open the Estimate—and I do not want Deputy Corry to faint away when I read this out to him—you find that the "Other Organisations" are the Imperial Agricultural Bureau. If that is not high treason to the glorious principles of Fianna Fáil, I do not know what is. If that is not fighting England's battle, if it is not playing England's game, I do not know what is. Apparently, it has become fashionable to play England's game since President de Valera got involved in a little scrap up in South Down. He has discovered to his horror that, in the opinion of some of his fellow-countrymen, about whose welfare he is particularly solicitous when he has them locked up in Arbour Hill, he is playing England's game. It only shows you that that is a relative matter but it also only shows that it is a very convenient weapon with which to wallop your political opponent when it is convenient to do so. The weapon broke in the hands of President de Valera and his Party because the people of this country came to realise that it was a gross and dishonest libel, and what broke in his hand has been picked up by the I.R.A. to wallop him. I hope he will like it and I hope that he will rebut the charge levelled against him by the I.R.A. as effectively and as definitely as we rebutted it and destroyed it when it was levelled against us by the Fianna Fáil Party.

Under sub-head M (8) there is a token Vote. We all know what a token Vote means. A token vote usually means "The figure is so monstrous that I do not dare put it down and I am not going to tell anybody about it until I have the money spent and then, when the horse is gone, you can try to lock the stable door as much as you like—I do not care." This is to provide the dole that is made necessary for the tillage farmers of this country by the Fianna Fáil wheat policy. I often remember that Deputy Corry used to get up here and sing "Alleluia; the day of deliverance is at hand and at last, the industrious tillage farmer is going to come into his own. Now he will see the price he will get for barley and for oats." People would be clamouring at his gates to get the grain crop that he would raise, but by the Lord Harry, he discovered that when he had it raised, there was no one to buy it. His colleague, with great gallantry, I must say, took the field and the burden on to his own back and announced that he would fill the breach. But he is afraid to tell us what filling that breach is going to cost and in my opinion we will probably never know what filling that breach is going to cost, because when he comes to realise the situation that his policy is creating for the tillage farmers of this country, he will try to push up the oats content of the maize meal mixture and as he pushes up the oats content of the maize meal mixture and prescribes the use only of dehulled oats, he will push up the price of the maize meal mixture and will leave the price so high that he will reduce the consumption of maize meal still more than he has already reduced it. He will find that the introduction of such a measure of home grown cereals into the maize meal mixture will bring that mixture so near in quality to flour milling offals that the people will go to the flour milling offals and that no matter how high he pushes up the content of the maize meal mixture, he will not get rid of a single additional oat.

It sounds so simple—we cannot sell the oats so we will make them use it— but it is not so simple in practice. It sounds quite simple to blend all the surplus oats of the country into the maize meal mixture and think that they all automatically go into consumption but they do not, and the Minister is finding that to his cost already. Not only will he bring wheat offals into competition with the maize meal mixture by reducing the maize meal content too low, but he will also have to contend with the effect of his own policy on the feeding industry for which maize meal is used. He knows that the fowl industry is practically wiped out; he knows that the egg industry has been reduced by, at least, 25 per cent., if not more, and he knows that the bacon industry is in serious jeopardy. If these three industries vanish, the use of the maize meal mixture will practically stop. What placed the bacon industry of this country in the greatest jeopardy? Was it not the failure of the Minister himself to foresee the quota which this country would require to absorb all the pork and bacon that we could produce?

We have got to remember that so far as pork itself is concerned, which is intended for consumption as pork in Great Britain, the quota does not apply. It only applies to pig carcases sent to Great Britain for conversion into bacon or pigs consigned to Great Britain to be cured as bacon. The Minister said here to-day that he examined the figures in consultation with his experts and he made up his mind that they would fluctuate, I think, between 47,000 cwts. down to 20,000 cwts. The only reply he got to his application for a quota was "All right, we will give you that but level it up and consign it in equal monthly quantities." This, mark you, from the country with which we are engaged in a deadly economic war, a country that is trying to trample us into the ground and destroy everyone of us! That reply to the application for a quota was not what you would expect from a nation that was determined to wipe us out. But they said "All right, you estimate that to be the surplus. Very well, we will take it, but level it out over the months. Keep in cold store what you have in October and what we do not want until February. We will take your surplus." That is the reply from a market in regard to which President de Valera says "Thank God, we have got rid of it.""We will take all your surplus" and, presumably, if the Minister for Agriculture had a little more enterprise and had asked for double the quota, and had not crippled the pig trade of this country, we could have got it too.

We could have kept so many more people in this country at work and in profitable production if the Minister for Agriculture, instead of wasting his time at Ottawa trying to persuade the public there and elsewhere that he was a Republican and that he was not a Republican—that if you turned him up one way he was a Republican, and that if you stood him the other way he was not—had addressed himself to the practical considerations that arose there, not only could we have got twice as much, but we probably could have got more than twice as much of a quota. We could have created an artificial scarcity of bacon, an artificial scarcity of bacon at a price to be fixed by the British Government as remunerative for their farmers, because they were going to fix the quotas for foreign countries at such levels that they would only let in so much bacon as would fill the requirements of the British public at a price that would prove remunerative to the British farmer. Now we have got a quota of 33,000 cwts. per month, and Canada, if you bring their quota into comparison with ours with reference to their previous shipments, has three times as much, because they were looking after their business at Ottawa, preparing the ground and cultivating this valuable market. Is it any wonder that the word "Bedlam" occurs to the mind of President de Valera when he contemplates this country after two years of his administration?

At present the situation in connection with the bacon industry is extremely difficult because as a result of the quota we have got, it has been necessary to restrict sales in this time of abandoned production. But, of course, restrictions can only be enforced where you have got factories of a reasonable size with a reasonable organisation. The result of that is that half the butchers in the country very prudently are each buying four or six pigs, curing them and selling them as bacon. I need hardly say that they are selling them a few shillings cheaper than the price which the curers are in a position to offer. Where that will end or how it will end is difficult to know, but this much is certain, that a very chaotic and difficult situation has been created in the bacon trade. The only reason it is not worse is that the production of pigs was reduced enormously last January by the preposterous prices that were then ruling—about 24/- or 25/- per cwt. and, in some cases, less. The pig population of the country was reduced by about 25 per cent. That has contributed to relieve the present situation, but if the industry were maintaining anything like the same number of people it was maintaining 12 or 18 months ago, real chaos would prevail. God knows, it is bad enough as it is. The Minister said to-day, perfectly solemnly, that bacon cold stored for three, four, five or six months will not deteriorate. Little he knows, but he need not be a bit anxious because the deteriorated bacon will not go to John Bull. John Bull will take damn good care he will not take it. We shall eat the bad bacon. The cold-stored bacon will all be eaten by the simple Irish farmer and the new stuff will go over to John Bull. If we do not want to send it to him, if we fall by more than 5 per cent. of our quota in any fortnight, he will take it off our quota. Denmark is standing hat in hand at his doors begging him to whittle anything off other quotas, and drop it into their hat and they will be grateful and glad to get it. So there will be no standing on our dignity. We will send across the best we have or he will take off the next quota the quantity of deteriorated bacon sent across. When the Minister for Agriculture feels a spasm of Republican enthusiasm passing through his body, he will want to go and shake himself two or three times before he enters into negotiations in regard to the quota and that spasm that passes over him will cost about 1,000 cwts. per month in the bacon quota.

The Minister tossed off to-day as he was passing, the statement that the butter supplies were sufficient for the domestic and foreign markets, the Continental markets. I wonder would the Minister get a little more confidential and tell us what price he is getting on the continental markets? I was looking at the trade returns and I was going down President de Valera's alternative markets to see how they were getting on during the 12 months of the bounty and I found two or three of them—Germany, I think, Belgium and one other—had increased their purchases in the Saorstát. "Well," I said, "this really looks like business. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is on the job." Then I turned back to the kind of detailed information that is contained in the indiscreet interior pages of the estimate. I discovered that in every case in which there was an increase it was in respect of creamery butter. I wonder what price the Minister got for creamery butter in Germany, Belgium and other countries?

Dr. Ryan

I will tell you that.

I am glad. I hope it will be remunerative.

Dr. Ryan

You will be disappointed.

I can tell the Minister that I shall not be disappointed if he will get a price on any continental market that will prevent the necessity of my paying 1/4½ and 1/5 for creamery butter.

Dr. Ryan

I am sure you will be disappointed.

Since the Minister put the extra penny on the lb. of butter a fortnight ago, I long to hear that he has found remunerative markets on the Continent, because I anticipate with alarming dread any other continental markets being found the result of which will be to put another penny in the lb. on butter sold in the Irish Free State. I notice that the Minister said to-day in dealing with the musk rat menace which has manifested itself not very far from the Shannon embankments, that while every possible step was being taken to get it under control, he very much doubted if any measures could exterminate the pest altogether. Am I incorrectly informed when I say that in parts of Canada, where the musk rat was, you might say, an article of commerce, it became exterminated? Might it not be worth considering offering a certain price per head to anybody who is in a position to supply musk rats, say, to the local agricultural instructor for destruction? This system of expert trapping, while it may be necessary, is naturally expensive, but I think there could be a good deal of useful assistance given by casual trapping by young people who have not much else to do, if they were given some material inducement to set about the work.

I am sorry the Minister, under sub-head M (6), did not tell us what success the heifer purchase scheme had last year. He did not say how far he had succeeded. It would be interesting to know, with a view to ascertaining whether it is worth going on with or not. In theory, it looks very attractive and very sound. It would be extremely interesting to know how it is getting on in practice. However, these are details and, while detail is very necessary in normal times, deserving the most earnest consideration of this House in normal times, the bigger issues should concern us now. I invite Fianna Fáil Deputies to consider the patent fact that while farmers, though admittedly suffering adversity two years ago, were still independent, self-supporting men, every single one of them is now a mendicant living on the public funds. It is an achievement to be proud of. In my opinion it is the greatest blow that was ever struck at this nation. It is undermining, and it inevitably will undermine, the morale of our people. It would undermine the morale of any people.

That is what the Deputy is trying to do—to undermine the morale of our people.

Quite the contrary. I should like to see our people standing on their own feet, making their own way as independent men, citizens of an independent State, working for things that are worth while; not working for tinsel and cheap applause. I think it would do the Deputy good, the next time he is making a peculiarly eloquent speech on the streets of a Leitrim town, to ask himself this question: How much of all this do I mean; if it was really hurting myself as much as it is hurting the small farmers in Leitrim, how long would I stick it; would I think it worth while? I very much doubt if he, or any Deputy, will answer yes.

You need not worry about the small farmers. They will stick it.

If the Deputy will adopt that line of action I think he will have employed himself better than he has employed himself for many a long day. I have not the slightest apprehension that he will. However, I invite Deputies to think it over, to ask where this country is going and where its principal industry is going under the patronage of this policy. I think they will come to realise that if they do not change their line of action and change it quickly, this country is heading for straight and inevitable disaster—disaster of a character that we will not be able to remedy in our generation.

Dr. Ryan

We are always heading for disaster.

Yes, it has great resistance, and there are great reserves in the country.

Dr. Ryan

Unexpected reserves.

They are spent with magnificent abandon, and it is still questionable how long they will last. I hope there will be a change before they are all gone. I have not much hope so long as Fianna Fáil is there, but I have a very real hope that Fianna Fáil will not be there much longer.

Dr. Ryan

What a hope.

When they are gone, as I hope they will be soon, then there will be plenty of hard work before the people of the country to try to recover themselves from the disaster brought upon them. It can well be done, but another few months of Fianna Fáil and I would not like to undertake the job.

No matter what good humour we may bring in here, Deputy Dillon's doleful tales will bring tears to our eyes. There is no doubt that when he speaks in that doleful strain of his he would make stones weep. We heard all about the miseries of the farmers from Deputy Dillon again to-day. Deputy Dillon has decided to move out of the House. I was kind enough to wait for Deputy Dillon, but he evidently thinks it is better to run away. However, Deputy Dillon told us about the independent farmer that was there before we came into office. Deputy Dillon was not in this House at the time, but I had a little experience of these independent farmers. I remember when I came in here first I had five or six of them every month coming to me looking for time to pay their annuities. That was in 1927. In 1928 I had from 15 to 20. In 1930 and 1931, whatever time the Dáil adjourned for, I had to come up here every week with a bag full of such applications and go to the Land Commission looking for time for them to pay. There was not one single item of agricultural produce in 1930 or 1931 that could be produced at a profit to the farmer. The gentlemen opposite, when they were on these benches, insisted upon one thing and that was, that no matter whether a farmer was able to produce it or not, farmers' produce in this country should be sold in this country in competition with the produce of farmers or ranchers all over the world. I admit I made a mistake. There was one small change. The late Minister for Grass made a death-bed repentance. Four or five months before he went out of office he put a tariff on foreign bacon. He strove to save the situation and endeavoured to stem the tide. The tide swept him out. Deputy Dillon complains that he has to pay 1/4½ per lb. for butter. When a poor farmer gets into legal difficulties and has the misfortune to fall into the clutches of Deputy Dillon, I am sure he has to pay Deputy Dillon's price for his legal assistance. A price of 1/4½ per lb. for butter would work out at about 5d. per gallon for milk. If you allow a penny per gallon of that for the creameries and for the cost of handling and sale, I am sure the retailer in Dublin would not be satisfied with 3d. per lb. profit. Does Deputy Dillon maintain that the farmers should produce milk at less than 4d. per gallon? If Cumann na nGaedheal were in office, the price of new milk at the creameries would be less than 2d. With a free, open English market, the average price of butter was 70/- per cwt. during the last 12 months. That works out at something less than 2d. per gallon for milk. Would there be a single dairy cow in the country to-day if Cumann na nGaedheal were in office and if the farmers had to produce milk at less than 2d.?

Cumann na nGaedheal voted against giving the farmer 4d. per gallon for his milk. They voted against the Butter (Stabilisation of Prices) Bill. The farmer was too well off then. He was so well off that he could produce milk at less than 2d. per gallon—at least, Cumann na nGaedheal thought so. They went into the Lobby and voted against that proposal. Certain gentlemen came in here, sat for a little while on those benches and said they were going to remain independent of all political parties. Deputy Dillon suggested that Deputy Flynn should ask himself how much of what he states at the cross-roads he himself believes. How much of their speeches did these gentlemen believe when they told the farmers, when seeking election, that they were going to be an independent Farmers' Party?

Were they not?

They sold themselves for a mess of pottage—for two seats on those benches. You left representing the independent farmers of the Free State one Deputy who, I am proud to say, did not follow the carrot held out to him. I am glad that Deputy Kent, a representative of my constituency, did not follow you into the same dunghill—I cannot describe it as anything else. I warned the electors at the last general election what was going to become of them. I told them that within 12 months they would be sold, and they were sold. We have now the spectacle of Deputy MacDermot sitting beside Deputy McGilligan who, in this House a few months ago, described him as a national emergency man.

Will it be in order for me to reply to these observations? They seem to be rather far from the Estimate.

If the Deputy so desires.

I am not prepared to give way to any gentleman who shifts his seat so often as Deputy MacDermot does. What is the policy of the Party opposite? Are they prepared to go out openly and say that the farmer here is entitled to the home market for his produce? If they are, what is the complaint? Deputy Dillon referred to farmers being on home assistance. Why? I will give you an instance. I grew wheat from 1918 to 1926. In 1926, I was compelled by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government to put my wheat on the market against wheat from the Argentine and Canada and other places where they were paying no land annuities to Britain and were paying no tribute to Britain. I got £6 2s. 6d. per ton for that wheat. I challenge any Deputy opposite to quote the figures regarding the tillage areas of the Free State from 1924 to 1931. They say the farmers were upstanding and independent. What was happening? They were going out, one by one, and were being absorbed so that we would have the Free State represented by about three landholders or ranchers. The country would have been turned into a complete grazing ranch for Britain, which was, apparently, the objective of the late Minister for Agriculture. You could carry out his agricultural policy in one lot. You would not want a farm to carry it out. Let all the bullocks out on grass for the summer and drive them in for the winter. Fatten them on the produce of foreign lands. When you have that all done, go over to John Bull and say "For God's sake will you take this beef and give us anything you like for it?" That was the position. John Bull paid us in 1931 £13,000,000 less for our agricultural produce than he paid us in 1926, and he got more of it. The land is now going back to the plough. The unfortunate labourers, who were looking over the fences at the bullocks fattening, are now getting a little employment in ploughing and tilling. We were told the country is not suitable for wheat. I know a neighbour of mine who was not formerly of my way of thinking and who is what we would describe as a Southern Unionist——

Dr. Ryan

Whom did he vote for?

He voted for the Party opposite the last time, but I think he has been converted. He grew 35 cwts. of wheat to the statute acre this year. I refer to Mr. Bird, of Cobh. Any Deputy may test that for himself. The last Minister for Agriculture told us that wheat could not be grown. Are our farmers entitled to the home market for their produce or not? Are we going to have those who do not pay rates or taxes here entering our home market? Are we going to throw the home market open to them as was done during the last nine or ten years? Giving the farmer at least the cost of production was described as putting the farmer on home assistance. Wheat at £9 10/- a ton is about the cost of production, and the farmer is entitled to that.

Deputy Dillon talked about maize meal. I am sure when he is sleeping the Deputy dreams about maize meal, because he talks of nothing else here. Those who feed maize meal are asked to feed a little of what the Irish farmer produces with that maize meal and we hear complaints even about that. Deputy Dillon complained about the admixture scheme and about the price of oats. I know one gentleman who wrote several letters to the Press complaining about the admixture scheme. I, with others, interviewed him in order to get portion of a big store that he uses for fattening pigs. He told us he could not afford to accommodate us. He said he had 800 pigs and he told me that he made £2,000 profit on pigs during the last 12 months. I refer now to Mr. Frank Buckworth of Cork.

You preached here that nobody should have over £500 a year.

We would need to inquire into your bank balance so as to see you are not profiteering. Deputy Dillon had to have a crack at the beet. He said we were going to drive up the price of sugar and the poor were going to be made more miserable. We are going to see that the farmer will get the benefit of the home market because we can protect that. Deputy Dillon complained about butter and wanted to know continental prices. I can assure him that continental prices were better than British prices, and we made money by sending butter to Germany and Belgium.

As regards the £50,000 for a bounty on wheat, I can assure the Minister that next year he will have to find four or five times that amount. In my constituency farmers are sowing five times as much wheat this season as last, and farmers are not fools. They are setting wheat now because they find it will pay them. I think that in a few years we will spend very little on foreign wheat and flour. Every shilling kept in this country is a shilling saved. We heard doleful cries from the opposite benches. Deputy Flynn asked which of them was going to negotiate for the famous settlement.

There is nothing about negotiations in this Estimate.

There is not, but—

There is no but in it; it is not there.

I thought when Deputy Dillon was allowed to touch on the Republic and the rest of it that we might get a little latitude. This Estimate is absolutely justified. It shows our farmers are getting ahead and that the tillage policy is a successful one. As a farmer I say this is the most successful year I have experienced since 1925.

I am glad to hear that someone is satisfied.

I am not going to say that the farmer is able to do much more than pay his way, but so far as I am concerned, I am not losing as much money as I lost from 1926 onwards when we had gentlemen here who were ruling for the foreigner and not for us.

You are an exception and I wish you every success.

Will you advocate a commission to inquire into the position of farmers?

If Deputy O'Leary would be kind enough to give a solemn assurance that he will come before the commission and produce a statement of his gains and losses in the last 12 months, I would advise the Minister to set up such a commission.

I am more interested in the people with five cows.

I already instanced the position of the man with five cows. I proved to the Deputies here in this House some time ago that the man with five cows was better off by £30 a year under Fianna Fáil than he would have been if the people on the opposite benches were still in office.

Utter nonsense.

I do not want these idiotic interruptions. What I want is that Deputies will get up here and, having studied these figures, contradict them if they are able. I gave the figures. They are there in the official reports. As a matter of fact, I gave those figures three times in the House.

The Deputy forgot about the calf.

I gave the figures and I defy any Deputy on the opposite benches to get up here and contradict them and tell us what would be the position of the farmer if Cumann na nGaedheal were still in office with a free open English market about which we hear so much noise. Let them have it out. I am prepared to debate it with any farmer on the opposite benches. I would like to hear Deputy Bennett who voted against his own Party on the mainstay of the whole industry, standing up here and defending the attitude of Deputy Mulcahy, Deputy Cosgrave or Deputy McGilligan in walking into the Lobby here in favour of compelling the farmer to sell his milk at 2d. per gallon. Let us have it out. Why did not Deputy Bennett follow Deputy Cosgrave into the Lobby in favour of compelling the farmer to sell his milk at 2d. per gallon? He would be torn in pieces by those who voted for him if he did so and he knows it. If the farmers were presently under the lash of Cumann na nGaedheal, producing milk at the price of butter in the free open English market, would there be a single cow in Limerick to-day?

There would.

Would you sell milk at 2d. a gallon?

Who ever spoke of 2d. a gallon for milk?

The value of butter in the free, open English market is 70/- per cwt. without any tariff. That is the price of the very best Free State butter in the English market for the last 12 months. That price is equivalent to 2d. a gallon for milk. If the farmers of Limerick were getting 2d. a gallon for milk, we would hear Deputy Bennett moaning and groaning. He would leave the beloved ranks of Cumann na nGaedheal if they insisted on such a price. At least he proved here by his vote that he did not believe that a farmer in the County of Limerick could produce milk for it, nor did Deputy MacDermot believe it. I wonder when the next vote comes along will we have a split in the musical comedy over there at present composed of all mixtures, or will Deputy MacDermot swallow Deputy Mulcahy's proposal and vote for milk at 2d. per gallon or will Deputy Mulcahy swallow Deputy MacDermot's side and say Fianna Fáil are right? Which of the two is to succeed? When we hear this kind of claptrap here day after day and week after week we get about fed up with it. There is a limit to human endurance. If the President took my advice he would shut you all up very quickly. He would take you and clap you into Arbour Hill and you should be there.

That is not on this Vote.

I hope to have the pleasure of moving that proposal soon.

I do not know if Deputy Corry is to be taken very seriously but he made a charge of bad faith against Deputy Dillon and myself and our colleagues of the Centre Party on the ground that we had been inconsistent with our pledges to the Irish farmers. That allegation is absolutely unfounded. I challenge Deputy Corry or anybody else to produce a single pronouncement made by us in the time when the Centre Party existed that is inconsistent with the action which we have taken. I certainly promised over and over again that the independence of the Centre Party was not going to be a sham independence and that as long as I was connected with it, it was not going to become the tail either of the pro-Treaty or the anti-Treaty political Party. I think I can safely say that we carried out that undertaking and that while we did exist as a Party we made ourselves equally unpopular with both Parties.

Does Deputy MacDermot claim that he is the head and that Deputy Mulcahy is the tail or is it the other way round?

I did not catch that. There was nothing at all to stop us as regards any speeches we made or pledges we gave from taking part in the formation of a new Party. I regard the formation of the United Ireland Party as in no way a repudiation of the principles of the Centre Party. On the contrary I regard it as a development and fulfilment of Centre Party ideals and so far from being ashamed of the merger I am proud of it and glad of it. Another answer to Deputy Corry's charge of bad faith is that before the merger took place it was submitted to the most democratic assembly, representative of the Party, that we could collect and by them accepted practically with unanimity. Finally I would like the Deputy or anyone else who makes these charges to indicate a single principle or a single policy which we sacrificed or to which we were false at the time that we engaged in this merger. It was not a situation where, as in the case of the Labour Party, we would have had to swallow a measure like the Public Safety Act that we had denounced root and branch in the past. Nothing of that sort came in. There has been no sacrifice of any political principle and no betrayal of any political promise.

The Party has no principles.

As regards the rest of Deputy Corry's speech, the short answer to his contemptuous talk about the British market is that his own Government are paying millions a year in bounties and subsidies in order to get into that market. That disposes of his argument. As regards what has been accomplished in Germany and Belgium, I am glad that so much has been accomplished there and that the prices realised have been so high, but I ask the Deputy how much prospect there would have been of selling the quantity of butter we sold in those countries if we had not given enormous orders to those countries? I would like to know how the value of the goods they took from us compares with the value of the goods we bought from them. I fancy that the comparison would show we had paid a very big price, and I challenge Deputy Corry or anybody else to say that the Belgian or the German market or any other market in existence can compare with the British market as a market to which to export our agricultural produce.

One observation fell from Deputy Corry which has been so often made here that perhaps it is time that it should be challenged. That is the statement that every shilling that is kept in this country is necessarily a shilling gained to this country. That is absolute nonsense. On that theory no international trade would ever be justified. Sometimes by sending a shilling out of the country you may get something into the country that is worth two shillings or three shillings, so that there is actually a gain to the country from not keeping it here.

I regret that I was not in for the whole of the illuminating address the House heard from Deputy Corry. The little of it that I did hear was instructive when properly interpreted. The Deputy laboured the point that the price of Free State butter in the British market, without the tariff being deducted, is 70/- per cwt., and said that is all we would be getting for it here at present were it not for the bounty. I agree, but is there not another side to that picture, and it is that when the tariff is deducted we are only getting 42/- per cwt. In other words, we are subsidising the British producer to get our butter delivered into England at 42/- per cwt. I cannot say exactly what the Dublin worker is paying for Irish butter now, but I dare say it is 120/- per cwt. I am not sure what the wholesale price is, but the position at any rate is that this country is giving its butter to the British wholesaler at 42/- per cwt., or at about 4d. per lb. That is something for the working classes of this country to consider, the people that we hear so much about from the benches opposite. It is something for my colleague, Deputy Kelly, who represents South City, to consider, the man whose heart bleeds for and who has spent all his life shedding crocodile tears for the workers of Dublin City. That is the outcome of the policy of the present Government: that we are giving our best creamery butter to the English worker for 4d. per lb., while the Dublin worker has to pay over 1/4 a lb. for it.

He is able to buy butter now and not margarine. That is one for you.

I would like to see Deputy Kelly standing at Dolphin's Barn advocating that policy: that you Dublin workers must pay 1/4 a lb. for butter produced at Rathcoole, while we are sending butter of the same quality to the workers in Manchester and giving it to them at 4d. a lb.

Mr. Kelly

I need not go to Dolphin's Barn to do it. I could do it in the City Hall.

Well, it would be your last time to do it if you attempted such a thing.

Mr. Kelly

I was there before you.

Dr. Ryan

And you will be there after him, too.

Of course, Deputy Kelly is like Nelson's Pillar. He stands where he always stood. He has never moved, and time has no effect on him.

Dr. Ryan

It would be a great thing if you could say that you had never moved.

Except in a straight line. The Minister assumes that I did not move in a straight line. I did not follow the winding course of his Party, that swore at Burgh Quay, on the 26th July, 1927, that they would never go into the Free State Parliament, and yet in spite of that, they were running in like whipped curs on the 11th August following.

Dr. Ryan

Did not you swear too?

I never swore that I would not go in.

This Bill has nothing to do with the political history of the Deputy who is on his feet or of any other Deputy.

I agree, but when a remark is interjected by the Minister I claim that I have the right to reply to it.

If provocative interruptions were let go unheeded, as they should be, they would be much fewer.

Mr. Kelly

Hear, hear, or personal remarks.

We will pass on. Deputy Corry gave statistics about wheat growing which I agree with. The return that he mentioned was a good one. It was not an exaggerated return, 35 cwt. to the acre. That works out at about 14 barrels to the statute acre, or between 22 and 23 barrels to the Irish acre. A neighbour of mine grew this year, and marketed, 23 barrels of millable wheat to the Irish acre. That is more than corroborating Deputy Corry on yield. I would like the Minister to consider this, not from the political angle but from the agricultural angle. That wheat was Yeoman No. 2. It was a marvellous yield for that strain of wheat, as I am sure the Minister will admit. I doubt if it has been excelled in any part of the country. While I do not agree with the way the Minister is pursuing his wheat policy, though I do agree with the goal he is making for, I would like to see him giving more attention to the better strains of wheat if we are to be committed to bounties —to give a little more bounty to the better strains of wheat which, as a rule, are not as good yielders as the inferior strains.

Do you agree with Deputy Hogan?

I am making my own speech and not Deputy Corry's nor Deputy Hogan's. The Minister is asking for £75,000 to run his agricultural policy on sound tillage lines. I want to put this to the Minister: Has he yet seen to it that under the Faculty of Agriculture there will be established a lectureship or a professorship in agricultural engineering? He is probably, no doubt, aware that when that statute was passed in 1926, long before the Minister came down from the clouds to think about agriculture, and when he was swearing allegiance to thin air outside, provision was made that at some date in the future there would be established in that faculty a lectureship in agricultural engineering. Of course, if we were to have a policy of grass in this country that lectureship could remain in abeyance, but it is not understandable why it should be left in abeyance while the Minister is going out on a very ambitious tillage policy. I think it was on Wednesday week last he stated in the House that he was looking forward to growing an increased acreage of wheat to the tune of 750,000 acres. I would like the Minister to think of what the growing of 750,000 extra acres of wheat is going to mean. He knows enough about agriculture to understand that you cannot grow wheat after wheat for all time; that to grow wheat in an old country like this, where the land has been tilled for the last 1,000 or 2,000 years, you must adopt a system of rotation. It is not prairie land we are dealing with. In that system of rotation he will probably have to adopt a six years' period, so that the increased area under wheat would be 650,000 acres, which would mean increasing the tillage area in this country by at least 4,000,000 acres. I would invite the Minister to look at the "Census of Industrial Production" publication, 1926 and 1929, which his Government has just published. He will find on page 17 of the Preface, under the heading of Agriculture, the following statement:—

"Gross output (of agriculture) is taken to mean the value of the products of the farms which were (a) sold off farms or (b) consumed by persons in farm households together with (e) increases in stock between the beginning and the end of inquiry. In calculating the value of the gross output of agriculture the quantities of output are valued at farmers' prices.

"The gross output so defined of agriculture in the year 1929 was estimated £64,865,000, distributed in four main classes as follows:—1, Consumed by the agricultural community in Saorstát, £21,026,000; 2, consumed or utilised by others in the Saorstát, £11,795,000, and exported."

Now, friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your ears, for the market has gone for ever and to seek it, to quote the President, is like a baby crying for the moon. In 1929, out of a possible agricultural production of £64,865,000, there was exported to the British market agricultural produce to the value of £31,834,000. That market is gone and the Minister for Agriculture says "good luck to it." It is gone for ever. The President says it is gone, and that any responsible person in this country who seeks to get that market back would be only like a baby crying for the moon.

They regard it as a blessing in disguise.

Here we have the Minister for Agriculture talking of increasing the area under tillage, while he knows the market to the extent of 50 per cent. of our agricultural production has gone for ever. What is he going to do if he increases that production? Leaving out the question of agriculture, let us consider it as a business proposition. Is any man in business who has irretrievably lost 50 per cent. of his business, going to extend his business? Of course, not. Would any man in the world, outside Bedlam, sacrifice 50 per cent. of his business, turn away 50 per cent. of his customers, although at the time he wanted to increase his business? Taking 1931, in the statistical abstract we find that the acreage under wheat was 26,740 acres. The total area under tillage was 1,458,465 acres. The Minister knows, as we all know, that land under tillage will carry more live stock and more human beings than land in grass. Now we are going to increase our tillage; it is the purpose of the Minister's scheme to grow 650,000 acres of wheat more. The implication in that scheme is that we will increase our tillage to 4,000,000 acres, two and a half times what it is at present, and we have sacrificed half our market when we have only one and a half million acres of tillage. If we had another 1½ million acres, it means five millions under tillage when we have only half the market that we had. If we take 650,000 acres of wheat yielding 14 barrels to the acre, we get over 8,000,000 barrels. I think the subsidy the Minister offers for that 8,000,000 barrels of wheat is 6/- per barrel. Where is the Minister to get that money to subsidise that wheat with half our present market gone? What rotation would pay for the labour of growing that crop? For fear there would be any danger of its being laid down in grass, the Minister has agreed to a tax on the import of grass seeds. Not 9 per cent. of the grass seed sown is grown in this country.

Dr. Ryan

Ninety per cent.!

The Minister does not see the decimal before the nine. We have been challenged by Deputy Corry to contradict the statement that the farmer is in a better position now than he was when the previous Government were in office. I do not know whether the Minister agrees with that or not, but he will say, I am sure, that he agrees with it. But the farmer, when the previous Government were in office, had only to pay his annuities and rates once. Now he has to pay both twice to the British Government, and he has to pay half of the annuities to our own Government. No wonder the discussion upon this, before Christmas, was blocked by putting up a ventriloquist speaker last night upon this motion. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, who seems in a lot of things to run in double harness with the Minister for Agriculture, asked a question. His query was a sufficient reply to Deputy Corry when he said that the farmer is better off under Fianna Fáil Government than he was under a Cumann na nGaedheal Government. The query put a couple of weeks ago by the Minister for Industry and Commerce was in effect this: "Where could we get the money to put the farmer in as good a position as he was in under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government?"; in other words: "If we do not reduce the agricultural grant by £450,000, will any Deputy opposite tell us where we could get that?" While the present Government has been making money out of the sacrifices of the farmer, it has denied the farmer the grants that he was entitled to, and that would have placed him in as good a position as the present Government found him in. Now, through Deputy Corry, they had the audacity to challenge us here to prove that the farmer is not in as good a position now as he was two years ago. Will the Minister look up the Trade and Shipping statistics of 1932, and will he convey to the absent Minister for Industry and Commerce where the money could be got to place the farmer in as good a position as they found him? On page 117 of the Trade and Shipping statistics the Minister will see where the money could be got. When their predecessors agreed to give relief to agriculture to the extent of £750,000 in 1931, the Minister and his Leader, then out of office, said that was no good—that the farmer should get £1,000,000.

We have had several hours given to the motion on derating, and the fact that full derating was not given. Surely it is not in order to continue that debate now on this Vote.

I do not intend to.

The Deputy certainly may refer to it.

I just want to make a passing reference to it. A challenge was thrown out. I think you were in the Chair.

Yes, but the Deputy surely does not presume that every challenge thrown out by every speaker is to be answered at length. If they were we would never finish any debate.

I was dealing with the increased production that the Minister visualises and ambitions in his speech. I dealt with the restricted market for them, and I was endeavouring to lead to the point that production would become impossible because of the restricted facilities given to agriculture by the present Government, thereby showing the impossibility of the policy the Minister is pursuing, and also the futility of throwing another £75,000 of public money down the sewer. I just wanted to make a passing reference, if the Ceann Comhairle will bear with me for a moment. If he sees me out-stepping the line, I will come back again. To provide that £75,000 certain taxes were imposed. The Minister will remember the 6d. in the £ on income tax, the ½d. per lb. on sugar and the 4d. per gallon on petrol. He accused us of bad arithmetic the other day. I do not know whether it is perfect or not, but I will give the Minister some figures, and he can bring his arithmetical qualifications to bear on them. The Minister's Government, out of those taxes, gave £1,000,000 last year. I am not now dealing with rates as a rates question. I am dealing with overhead charges on agriculture from a production standpoint. I agree that I am on a very thin line, but I will not break the line if I can help it. I am sure I will be so closely watched that I will not be allowed to stray very far. In 1930, the year during which those taxes were imposed, the import of petrol was 32,000,000 gallons. In 1931 the import of petrol was 45,000,000 gallons, so that the old Government made well out of those taxes, and probably had out of the produce of those taxes about £1,200,000; they probably made half a million pounds over and above what they gave for the relief of rates on agricultural land.

The Minister, whose Government did so well for agriculture last year, had an importation of petrol amounting to nearly 39,000,000 gallons. If he calculates 4d. a gallon on that he will find that petrol brought in to the Exchequer last year, on that 4d. a gallon tax, £650,000. He will find that ½d. per lb. on sugar brought in £373,000. This is a conservative calculation, taking it on the basis of an importation of 80,000 tons. 6d. in the £ on income tax would bring in about another £350,000, so that we have about £1,350,000 brought into the revenue by taxation that was imposed specifically to give agricultural relief in 1931 to the extent of £75,000. The produce of that taxation very nearly doubled the figure anticipated. Now the Minister agrees that the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Local Government should reduce the grant this year by £450,000, and thereby increase the overhead charges on agriculture. The Minister for Industry and Commerce thumped the desk opposite and said: "Will any Deputy opposite tell us where we will get the money?" Yes, out of the taxes that were imposed to raise the money. That is the place to get it. Of course, if those poor, unfortunate, rebellious, mandamussed county councils budget for, say, £1,000 to do a certain job of work, and raise that money, they must use it for that purpose. If not, they must carry it over. The Government imposed taxation to raise £1,000,000. I do not know exactly what the produce of that is, but based on the official quantity returns that I have read it should give about 40 per cent. more than the £1,000,000 required. Yet the Minister for Industry and Commerce had the profound cheek and audacity to come here and say: "Where are we to get the money?" I repeat, out of the produce of the taxes imposed to produce that money. That was the place to get it. Of course, the squandermania Government took £2,000,000 out of the Exchequer without telling anyone what they were going to do with it, scattered and wasted it over the country in hare-brained schemes of so-called public works. That was taken out of the fund that should have been allowed to trickle down through the main industry, to put it into a healthy condition.

Then we have the old paraphernalia, the Department of Agriculture, and committees of agriculture throughout the Twenty-six Counties running schemes for premium boars, premium bulls, premium hens, ducks, geese, premium everything. But there was no premium for a man who works a farm and makes it pay. All your schemes fade into thin air unless the man behind the plough or the man milking a cow is paid for his work. They are not. A sum of £75,000 was devoted to loans for the purchase of heifers. The greatest joke ever perpetrated on the agricultural community was that same heifer scheme. I did not hear the Minister introducing this Vote dealing with loans for agricultural purposes. Are we to take it that when we can get money in the City of Dublin in the open market at 3½ per cent., or £3 11s. per cent., to be accurate—and we got £1,000,000 this week—it is the intention of the Minister to help agriculture, to help his wheat scheme, so as to carry into effect the slogan, "The land for the people and the road for the bullocks," by asking the farmer to pay 3½ per cent. or 3¾ per cent. without any loss to the State, or is it the intention to loan money at 5½ per cent.? If it was borrowed in the open market it could be had for nearly 2 per cent. I notice a solitary £5 note in the Estimate for the oat purchase scheme. Is that what all the conferences the Minister had with merchants has boiled down to?

There are subscriptions to international and other research organisations. I have no doubt the Minister is aware that the key to tillage, and the key to increased agricultural production is research work, plant breeding and seed raising. I challenge the Minister to contradict this, that if the foreigners refused to give us seeds we would not have a turnip, a mangel, a beet, a parsnip, or a carrot. We have to import all these seeds. I do not see anything here for national research organisation. Is the Minister going to continue indefinitely having plant breeding here in the inferior position of a lectureship in the Faculty of Agriculture instead of elevating it to a professorship? I wonder is he aware that when it was decided to have a lectureship instead of a professorship——

Has the Minister anything to do with what professors are appointed to the University?

Yes. He controls the money.

The Minister for Finance controls the money; not the Minister for Agriculture.

On the advice of the Minister for Agriculture.

I take it that the University is an autonomous body and appoints its own professors. It decides what Chairs are to have professors and which are to be lectureships. I take it that the Minister for Agriculture has nothing to do with that.

The Faculty of Agriculture in the University is run by a committee on which there are two or three representatives of technical education, two or three representatives of the Department of Agriculture, and the governing body have some.

We cannot discuss here whether it is a lectureship or a professorship of agriculture should be in the University.

I was only dealing with it because of the necessity for research work here. We have £1,521 as subscriptions to international and other research organisations. I am trying to ascertain why that is not paid for agricultural research work to be done here, so that we can make sure of having supplies of seeds for our farmers and gardeners without depending on foreign supplies. I will pass to the general policy of the Minister in his wheat proposals. I agree with the goal he wishes to reach but I am afraid he will never reach it the way he is travelling. It has been suggested that we are afraid to speak of beet on this side of the House. We are not a bit afraid to do so. We can sit back and wait for the results of the scheme.

It will be sweet.

When the Deputy was filling draught we were growing beet.

That is your calling in life.

I hope when he mulled a pint the sugar we produced sweetened it well for him. He would not mull many pints if he made as little profit out of them as we can make out of growing beet. We are embarking on a scheme that has been heralded with a flourish of trumpets, one that is to produce an extra 80,000 tons of sugar at a cost of £1,600,000 or £1,700,000, while the same quantity of sugar could be bought in Dublin for £800,000. I hope it will be a success, but I, as a pioneer in the introduction of the growing of sugar beet and the manufacture of sugar from beet in this country, have my doubts, and I am not afraid to express them. I hope the Minister will explain how he intends to develop agriculture on the lines on which he is proceeding. Let him not wave his hand and put forward the usual piffle—"This is the sort of mentality we have to deal with; this is the ignorance we are up against." I want the Minister to realise that we are, figuratively speaking, on the spade and on the plough, and we know that it is not paying. Let him not try to juggle with prices. To-day, in the Dublin cattle market, we had one of the worst markets ever held there, and yet an enormous number of stock have gone over to England.

Let the Minister realise that this country is not composed of fools, but that there are some people in it who think. Let him realise that the moment the two-year-old bullock that changed hands in the Dublin cattle market this morning and is now at the lairages or on the boat awaiting shipment to Birkenhead or Glasgow, lands there, £6 has to be paid, and £6 below the ruling price for that beast in the English market. Even if there is no profit at all, even if the bullock is carried over free and all incidental expenses—commission, tolls and everything else—are cut out, the difference between the price in the Dublin market and in Birkenhead is at least £6. That is the minimum difference in price, and the Minister need not be taking out The Farmer and Stock-Breeder and reading it here. It is humiliating for a Minister for Agriculture of this State to be going to a British trade journal, The Farmer and Stock-Breeder, and reading it out here as statistical proof of the contention he is trying to make, which he knows well is not true and cannot be true. If his statement about prices is true, will he explain why Irish farmers bring cattle up to the Dublin market, to-day, for instance, sell them over to British traders, have those cattle shipped over to England and pay £6 apiece on their arrival there? Why do they do that if there is as good a price, without cutting off the £6 here? The thing is unanswerable.

The Minister says: "Oh, but we give a bounty." Yes, but for that £6 that is lopped off the Minister or some other Department gives 35/-, and there is a dead loss to the owner of that beast of £4 5/-. I challenge the Minister to contradict that when he is replying. Leave The Farmer and Stock-Breeder aside. Let him get away from the British connection, and let him talk of the facts we see here and not as handed out by British trade journalists —the facts we are up against and amongst which we are living. Of course, he cannot explain them. Then, with a loss per beast, he is running off to till another 4,000,000 acres, and he is asking, for the purpose of keeping up the machinery of the Department of Agriculture, another £75,000. It would be much better for the Minister, while this so-called economic war is on, to scrap the Department of Agriculture instead of asking for more money, and do as Pitt did 130 years ago. “Roll up that map of Europe,” he said, “it will not be wanted for the next 20 years.” I would advise the Minister to roll up the Department of Agriculture and shut it down, because it will not be wanted until the Minister and his Government are out of office and until sanity once more rules in this country.

Both at the opening and at the end of Deputy Dillon's speech, he referred to the farmer having, since the present Government came into office, become a mendicant and living on public funds. The key-note of his speech was that that was the position of the farmer to-day and he wound up his speech with a burst of despair "Where is the country going to? Where is our principal industry going to?"—apparently because of this position. Mendicancy has a particular meaning, I think, and if it were true that the farmer was becoming a mendicant, if this Estimate showed that he was becoming a mendicant, it would be a very serious thing, but unfortunately, Deputy Dillon's speech did not reveal in what way he is becoming a mendicant and I rather think that Deputy Dillon simply confused mendicancy with State interference. Deputy Dillon objects, as, I think, we all instinctively object, to the State interfering either in agriculture or manufacturing industry unless it is absolutely necessary, but it is another thing to call that interference mendicancy. In the Estimate before us, there is nothing that even suggests the word so far as I can see and I should like to know if Deputy Dillon or any other Deputy thinks that the bounties make the farmer a mendicant. It is asserted, for one thing, by Deputies opposite that the farmer does not get the bounties. It would be a queer thing if he was a mendicant because of a grant he did not get. It was not on his application that the bounties were given. So far as I remember, they were given, not in response to an application at all, but voluntarily by the Government which, of course, is the farmers' own Government, created by the farmers themselves. There is nothing in "Subscriptions to International and other Research Organisations" that would suggest mendicancy; there is nothing in "Agricultural Societies and Shows, including Miscellaneous Grants-in-Aid" to suggest mendicancy; there is nothing in the Vote for the I.A.O.S. and I do not think that there is anything in "Miscellaneous Work,""Loans for Agricultural Purposes" or "Loans for the Purchase of Heifers."

It was a great boast of the former Government at the elections in June, 1927, that they had established the Agricultural Credit Corporation to provide credit specially for farmers. What are the loans for the purchase of heifers but simply an extension, under the guarantee of the State, of that work to meet a particular position that will only prevail temporarily? The Oats Purchase Scheme could be done by any co-operative society of which a farmer would be a member and if it were, I do not think that he would consider himself a mendicant in taking advantage of it. Why should it be wrong for the State to do what a co-operative society might very well do? After all, when Deputy Dillon or anybody else accuses the present Government of taking on too much responsibility for agricultural affairs and interfering too much in the farmers' business, they should remember that so strong an individualist as Deputy Hogan, when he was Minister for Agriculture, began this interference. I think, as a matter of fact, that, during the last six months of his office, he introduced protection for more than one article of agricultural production in this country.

As everyone knows, he was responsible for the creamery scheme which was very definitely, not merely protective, but was absolutely prohibitory in its provisions. If Deputy Dillon were here—I think he was here this afternoon when we were discussing the Estimate for forestry—he might recall that Deputy Hogan, the former Minister for Agriculture—strong individualist as he is, and strongly as he resents State interference, or appears to resent it—introduced a Forestry Bill containing, probably, the most dictatorial and most arbitrary proposals that any Minister could be responsible for. He made it an offence for a farmer to cut a tree on his own land, no matter what the circumstances were, no matter what harm the tree was doing, no matter what he required the tree for. No matter, as I say, what the circumstances were, it was made a serious offence for the farmer to cut such a tree on his own land. I think, even as the Act stands at present, he cannot cut even one tree without the permission of the local sergeant of the Gárdaí. I think Deputy Dillon must have been talking very largely for the sake of making a speech rather than because he felt there was anything sensible in what he was saying. This State interference and State planning is, of course, a feature of government in practically every country at the present time. In my opinion it will be a long while before Ministers here are given the power or take on the responsibilities to farmers that the President of the United States has taken on in recent months. I think they have a good way to go before they are definitely committed to planning for agriculture to the extent that the Minister for Agriculture in Great Britain confessed he was committed in some of his statements last week.

I have here a report of a speech in which he makes these remarks:—

"The difficulties in front of the Ministry of Agriculture are not difficulties of expanding production. The difficulty, as my honourable friend said, is that of planning the trade of this country. Let him not think that no thoughts whatever are being given to this matter in the Department of Agriculture and in other Departments. If we were willing to wash our hands of the problem we could not get rid of it because it knocks at our doors in in the morning and comes home with us at night. Planning of the trade of this country is forced on us by the necessities of the case. We shall have to come frequently to this House, in the months and years immediately in front of us, to ask for sanction for wide and sweeping changes in the economic structure, changes that are forced on us by the necessity of that economic planning which is one of the major necessities of the life of this and other countries of the world."

That seems very definitely to commit the country, in whose agriculture we have most interest, outside that of our own country. It seems very definitely to commit the Government there to State control and State planning for that industry. I think it must appear to every member of the House that, no matter what Government comes into power, it will have to undertake more and more duties to the farmers of the country and more and more duties, as a matter of fact, towards the general population. To tell the truth, I am sorry that there must be so much State interference, but there seems no way to avoid such control in the difficult circumstances that prevail at the present time.

I think there would have been a very serious charge against the Government if, in such a state of things as exists at present, they had ignored the possibilities of action on their part in defence of and for the benefit of farmers. If they did not put the resources of the State in support of the farmers they would have been guilty of a very serious dereliction of duty. After all, it would seem a strange thing if a State, upon the maintenance of which so much is spent, which is so jealously defended, to which everyone, irrespective of party and position, is expected to be loyal, in which everyone is expected to show pride, were not prepared to put its powers and its resources at the disposal of any section of the community who, through no fault of their own, but through circumstances over which they had no control, were in difficulties. That would indeed be a very strange thing, a very anomalous position, and I am glad that it did not happen in this country. Government interference, in my opinion, up to the present, during the past 12 months or two years, has been very largely for the benefit of agriculture. That is recognised by the great bulk of the farmers of the country, in fact by very many farmers who did not vote for the return of the present Government.

I desire to intervene in this debate for a very short time. Deputy Moore who has just sat down, referred to the fact that the Government seemed to be taking great care of the farmers, that the Government was doing everything for the farmers, and that, no doubt, the farmers should be well off and should be well pleased with such Government intervention as has taken place.

I did not say anything about their being well off.

I think everybody is agreed that the farmers of the country were never in a more difficult position than they are at the present time. I shall try to confine myself simply to the Estimate before the House. I do not want to go into statistics or figures. They are not in my line, and I would not, even if I were able. The Minister referred to the Estimate for credit loans for farmers. Why are they necessary? Why are loans necessary for the farming community?

Why were they necessary in 1926?

They are necessary to-day, and I want to tell the Minister that the greatest trouble which I have as a Deputy is making intervention on behalf of farmers who availed of these loans from the Government. I put it to the Minister or to Deputy Moore or to any reasonable person just to take the case of the farmer who borrowed, say, £100 from the Agricultural Credit Corporation two or three years ago. What has he got to meet it at the present time? Take the amount of stock he has. The farmer's money is always represented in livestock. When he got the loan from the Agricultural Credit Corporation he required that loan probably to buy stock in many cases for his farm. What is the value of that stock to-day in comparison with what it was three years ago? It is about 50 per cent. of what it was then. Yet the farmer is expected to pay the principal and interest of that loan. I tell the Minister and the House that it simply cannot be done. With that, I leave that aspect of the matter.

The Minister also referred to the oats purchase scheme and to the fact that he had got, I think, 120 merchants to take up the scheme. I want to tell the Minister that that scheme has been of very little benefit to the people of the country. I saw one man take £1 in cash for four barrels of oats. The Minister talks about 9/- a barrel being guaranteed to farmers for oats that would bushel 40lbs. He knows as well as I do that the oats that is able to bushel 40lbs. is a very small percentage. Perhaps if it were thoroughly cleaned and went through a very good process it would, but a farmer generally markets his oats as it comes from the mill, probably on the second day after it is threshed. I know farmers in my district and other districts who can only get 7/- a barrel for white oats. There is no use in telling these people that the Minister's scheme is of any great benefit to the farming community. References have been made to-night to increased tillage and so on which I think were hardly relevant to the debate. Nevertheless, I should like the Minister to cast his mind back to some years ago when there was a lot more tillage in the country than there is. We all know that oats is a cereal which is adapted to practically every county in the Free State and outside it. In the times I mention, before the war, how many hackney horses were there on the streets of Dublin? How many were there all over the Free State? All the transport of this country was horse-drawn. To-day we have practically all motor transport. You cannot get away from that. In those days all the traffic of the country, with the exception of the railways, was horse-drawn. These horses were fed on oats and hay grown on Irish land. That is not there to-day. It is all motor transport and, therefore, the market is not there for oats anyway, whatever else it may be there for. There is no use in talking about increased tillage, dehulling oats and mixing one way or the other. It can only be fed to livestock and the Minister knows that the livestock industry was never in such a position as it is at present. He knows the reason why just as well as I do and I will not labour the point.

The Minister spoke about the butter scheme and what had been done. On a recent occasion I gave the Minister my views in connection with Government policy as regards butter. No doubt people living in Dublin who have to pay 1/4 a pound for butter think the farmer is getting the advantage of it. I know suppliers to creameries who are getting from 3¾d. to 4d. per gallon for milk. It takes 2½ gallons of milk to make a pound of butter. I shall leave it to Deputy Kelly to make out what the farmer is getting. It may be a revelation to some people to know that a dairy farmer milking 15 cows has a smaller income than a man working for the county council on the roads with a horse or a jennet. That may seem very fantastic or far-fetched but it is true. The farmer is expected then to pay labour and rates and taxes and meet his ordinary expenses out of his dairy. Dairying in itself is not a paying proposition and it scarcely ever was, except during the war period. What the dairy farmer depended upon was the raising of livestock and selling them. He sold the calves he bred as yearlings or two year olds and he had some profit out of them. That was what made dairying profitable and not the dairying itself.

The Minister also referred to the pig industry. I like the note he struck in connection with applying to the British Government for a quota—that they were very reasonable. I should like the Minister to do a little more in connection with agricultural products in this country. He ought to see that the farmers get a square deal which I think they are not getting at present. We have heard a lot about alternative markets. I shall not harp very much on that at present. I was glad, however, to hear the Minister saying that the British were very reasonable, that they gave him the quota he asked for. If he made a mistake in the compilation of the amount of bacon which we produced probably he cannot be blamed. There might be over-production. The pig population is a thing that rises and falls rather quickly. I would appeal to the Minister to take a greater interest in the farmers. It is his duty to see that the farmers are paid for their labour, which they certainly are not at present. As I pointed out, the farmers are supposed to pay back loans, to pay rates and annuities and labour and to keep their household. I tell the Minister and the House that it cannot be done. The money is not there to do it. You cannot get money from the farmers because they have not got it at present and nobody should know that better than the Minister.

Deputy Corry repeated a statement to-night that he made on former occasions here, that the small farmer with five cows is better off now than he was before the present Government came into office. The agricultural industry is the most important industry in the country, and I have already issued a challenge to the Government to set up a commission to inquire into it. The Deputy tried to counter that by saying that he would like me to produce balance sheets. I am in a better position, owing to proximity to Dublin, than the unfortunate farmers down the country. The Deputy also referred to a man who had two acres of wheat. One would imagine from Deputy Corry's statement that every farmer is able to grow wheat. Anybody acquainted with my constituency or the poorer parts of Kerry knows that in some of the farms in these counties there is not an acre that would grow wheat. I challenge the Minister to contradict that statement. Deputy Moore made an attack on Deputy Dilon because he said that the farmers were living on public funds. In proof of that I shall quote a statement made by Deputy Stephen Flynn at the Leitrim County Council as reported in the Cork Examiner to-day. The Council were considering the question of employment on the roads. Mr. A. Mooney said:

"People who were deserving were refused work on minor relief schemes when they applied, although the Order from the Board of Works was that those home help recipients were to get preference. The matter would have to be referred to the county surveyor and if not attended to by him then to the Board of Works.

"The county surveyor was responsible for the carrying out of the minor relief schemes as they gave him their authority to do so. The men who are entitled to the work are not being employed. People with stocked farms and money in the bank are being employed and if that system prevailed the work should be stopped."

This is what Mr. Stephen Flynn said:

"The county surveyor was the sole authority. The Government started the relief schemes to relieve unemployment and home help recipients, but the farmers say that they should get the work, as they are keeping these poor people all the year. If they don't get the work they will start a revolution. They insist on getting the work and say it is for them. They claim, as a matter of fact, that they are entitled to the work and no other one."

I ask the Minister and Deputies on the Government Benches what is driving those small farmers in Leitrim into starting a revolution if they do not get this employment. Is not the reason that their means of livelihood has been taken from them? We have heard a good deal about wheat growing and grain growing. I myself have some experience of farming and, as I said on a previous occasion, grain growing gives little employment if you have a fine season and the grain stands up. I had this season 22 or 23 acres of oats and my son cut the whole lot, unaided, with a reaper, binder and tractor. A farmer with cows has always to keep his employees. In proof of that, compare the figures for Limerick with those for Wexford. We have spoken so often on this question that there is nothing for it now but to wait and see. I venture a prophecy which I want placed on the records of the House—that this country will go headlong into bankruptcy. The Minister admitted here that the more tillage we have the more cattle we ought to have. But what is the good in having tillage when there is no market for the cattle you produce?

The Corporation borrowed £1,000,000 the other day. That does not look like bankruptcy.

Dr. Ryan

I was very glad to hear that speech from Deputy O'Leary as he is one of the most consistent interrupters in the House. I think that it is the first time he made a speech. He made a prophecy—that the country is going to disaster. His colleagues have been making that prophecy for the last 18 months. Bankruptcy was due in 1932. Then it was to come in September, then at Christmas. Last Spring, Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said that we could not go on until the harvest. The harvest is over and we are still going to disaster. Deputy O'Leary makes his first speech and wants his prophecy, that we are going to disaster, placed on record. He has not added very much to what was said on the subject. Neither has anybody else in this discussion. Deputy Belton spoke for quite a long time.

Will you try and answer me?

Dr. Ryan

I answered you over and over again, but every time the Deputy gets up he makes these wild statements. I tried to instruct him on a few occasions, but he is evidently unteachable and uninstructable. In addition to making his old speech, the Deputy tried to work in the speech he had ready for the derating motion. He said that we were producing 5 per cent. of our grass seed. We are producing about 90 per cent. He was just as near the truth in that statement as he was in any statement he ever made. He is about as close to the truth as that, as a rule. When he referred to wheat, he said that what we wanted were hard wheats. I told him the other day that we would want some hundreds of thousands of acres of wheat before we would start in on hard wheat. He did not go back to that statement to-day, so I suppose he is accepting it. Gradually, we shall get him to understand something about agriculture. He takes a lot of teaching. The farmers of County Dublin knew that he knew nothing about agriculture. He had to come into a city constituency to get a seat. Yet, he never speaks here on anything but agriculture. I think it is a shame to allow these city men to talk on agriculture, with the exception, of course, of Deputy Kelly, who knows something of what he is talking about. Deputies like Deputy Belton, who pretend to know something about agriculture but do not, should not be allowed to speak on that subject. The place where he should speak is Gloucester Diamond.

You would be safer in Gloucester Diamond than in Wexford.

Dr. Ryan

I am quite safe in Wexford. I have not to go from one constituency to another, nor do I go from one Party to another. I am quite safe.

You are one of the "Yes-men" who follow the White Chief no matter what he says.

Dr. Ryan

I do not like to follow Deputy Belton in his interruptions because he gets disorderly.

You will join the Hibernians with him now.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon made quite a long speech. He went on with the usual fatuous bombast that he engages in whenever he comes in to speak. He said in the beginning and in the end of his speech that the farmers were not satisfied with what we are doing, and that they are going to throw us out. They went very much nearer to throwing Deputy Dillon out last January, when they got the chance, than they did to throwing us out.

You got in by a short neck the last time.

Dr. Ryan

I got in all right.

It was a narrow squeak. They will know you better next time.

Dr. Ryan

If you are not careful, I will go up to North City and knock you out.

I will give you the chance and contest Wexford if you resign.

Will the Deputy give the Minister a chance to make his speech?

He will not come to the point.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon says that in this Estimate we are looking for money to pay salaries, wages and allowances. He says that, having got the House to agree to the Cuts Bill, we come along and appoint other men and spend the money that was gained by cutting the salaries of existing staffs. Is not that very good policy? It was considered that we could afford to take a little off the existing salaries. We spend it in bringing in other men, giving them employment and getting more work done, because five men will do more work than four. The four civil servants there before were doing their best. They could not do any more. If we take on an extra man and have five men working, we are getting more work done for the same cost, which, I think, is good policy. Deputy Dillon says it is not good policy.

What does Deputy Corish say to that?

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon should speak for himself, especially as he supported us on that Bill. Deputy Corish did not. He was consistent. Deputy Dillon supported us when cutting the salaries.

Not in cutting salaries to spend the money on a horde of other officials.

Dr. Ryan

In spite of Deputy Belton's objection, I shall have to come back to the Farmer and Stock Breeder. Deputy Belton and Deputy Dillon spoke on several occasions about offals being dear here as a result of our legislation, while they were very cheap in England and across the Border. Yesterday, I brought in the Farmer and Stock Breeder and gave quotations for the English markets. Deputy Dillon objects to my quoting from the Farmer and Stock Breeder. It might destroy some of his arguments but, of course, he will use them again. Deputy Dillon said that our cereals plan was a failure, that we had to bolster up the price of oats, barley and other things. If we had followed on the old course and had no tariffs and no bounties, what would we get for our oats and barley at present? How do the prices under our policy of trying to bolster up the market for oats and barley, instead of importing maize and taking what price the farmer could get, compare with the price the farmer would get if there were no tariffs on produce going into England, no bounties, no economic war—just free trade and friendly relations between the two countries? What would the farmer get for his oats and barley going into England in these circumstances? I have here the Mark Lane prices, which are exchange prices and retail prices. What we would get here in sending across to England would be something less.

What about the Wexford price—5/- a barrel?

Dr. Ryan

For imported barley, at Mark Lane the price would be 5/- a cwt. I do not know what we would get here if we were sending it to England instead of finding a market for it in the maize-meal admixture. We would probably get 8/- a barrel instead of the 12/- or 14/- or 15/- that has been got. If we had free trade, we would get 8/- a barrel. Ten shillings is what they are paying in Mark Lane.

Could not you feed it to your live stock?

Dr. Ryan

That is the policy we have adopted.

You have wiped out the live stock business.

Dr. Ryan

We shall wipe you out at the next election. What would we get for oats in this great British market? Ten shillings and threepence to 11/- for 3 cwt.—about 3/5 a cwt. That works out at from 6/- to 6/6 a barrel.

Why not feed it to your live stock?

Dr. Ryan

That is the price landed in England with a free market and no tariffs. That is what is advocated here instead of our cereals plan. Deputy Dillon wants to have the British market open to us instead of the cereals plan we have adopted. I could also quote what the English and Scottish farmers are getting in their markets. In Aberdeen on Friday last they were getting 4/6 a cwt. for the best white oats and 4/4 for second-best. In Perth they were getting 3/4. That is what we would get if we sent our oats and barley across, and yet that is the course advocated by Deputies opposite.

On a point of correction, nobody here advocated the export of barley or oats.

What else would we do if you were in office?

Feed it and export the finished article.

Dr. Ryan

Why was not that done when Cumann na nGaedheal were in office? Why was barley allowed in free of duty? If we were to feed barley to our young stock, is there any reason why feeding barley should not come into this market at 5/- a cwt. as well as into the English market? What would be the good of the market here to our own farmers if barley came in at 5/- a cwt.? That is the sort of free trade policy that Deputy Dillon wants and that Cumann na nGaedheal had in this country.

Deal with actualities and not with hypothetical cases.

Dr. Ryan

When we deal with one argument you generally shift to another one. Deputy Dillon says he does not know what the guaranteed price for oats is going to be. This is a token Estimate and apparently Deputies opposite do not understand what a token Estimate is. We put down this Estimate in order to give the House an opportunity of approving or rejecting the scheme. It is not going to cost anything now. In the 1934 Estimates the estimated cost will be set out. If the House agrees with this Estimate, then it means that the Dáil approves of the plan.

Are you not contracting a liability at this moment?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, but we want the approval of the Dáil for the plan first.

Nobody knows what is the extent of the liability which you are contracting.

Dr. Ryan

It will probably be nothing. That is my opinion, and I am quite sure it is as good as the Deputy's.

Time will tell.

Dr. Ryan

Up to the present it has proved correct in regard to various forecasts. The Deputy says that we have no idea what this will cost. We will know in June, if the Deputy is here then. I hope he will be; I do not wish him any ill. The Deputy said there was a failure on my part to foresee what would happen in the case of pigs. We forecasted what the production of pigs would be, and up-to-date our forecast has been absolutely correct. We also forecasted what the home consumption would be, and that also has been absolutely correct. We forecasted something like 47,000 cwts. of bacon. We were asked to put an even figure all through for the whole five months. That is why the necessity arose to store some bacon in the flush periods so as to have it for the slack periods. Deputy Dillon tries to make out that there was some mistake made. There was no mistake made and, above any other Deputy, Deputy Dillon knows that. He said he knew all about the bacon industry, as he was connected with a bacon factory. If he is minding his business in the bacon factory he knows already all that I am now saying, because it was all told to the bacon factories.

Have you restricted killing?

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy said we have crippled the bacon industry. We have not. The number of pigs has not gone down, but has been increasing this year all through the country. In making our Estimate last July or August we were aware of that and we increased our Estimate to allow for the increase in pigs. At the July meeting the representatives of the bacon factories told us we were asking too high a quota. We said that we knew the number of pigs was going up, and that was why we asked for the high quota.

Were not the exporters told that the quota was filled and they were not to send any more bacon?

Dr. Ryan

They were.

And did not the price of pork go down 8/- a cwt. in a few days?

Dr. Ryan

It did not go down 8/- a cwt. in a few days. Look at the papers and you will see the price is as high as ever it was. Deputy Dillon said that Canada had obtained a larger quota. I do not wish Canada any ill, but I would be surprised that the British would give them a large quota which they cannot hope to fill.

The British market is so good that we cannot supply all their requirements.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon said Denmark is there, waiting at the door. Of course, Denmark is there, because she built her agriculture up in that way, depending entirely on an export market. What position is Denmark in now? Her exports have been cut down drastically in the British and other markets. She has no way of getting rid of her bacon and her cattle. That is the result of building up your hopes on an external market. Denmark has not been able to maintain the external market and now she is paying the price. If we were to do as Deputy Dillon encourages us to do, and tell the farmers that they could get a larger quota and advise them to rear pigs, Britain would soon say: "Now we can supply our own market and you can go out." That is the position that Deputy Dillon would like to see our farmers put into.

The whole world—and England and those two bacon-importing countries in particular—have adopted this quota method and are trying to get as quickly as possible into the position of supplying their own market with their own bacon. It would, therefore, be a foolish thing to rush our farmers now into the production of bacon. We have estimated for an increased production in the quota for which we have applied, but we should not go into it in a foolish way or in the way that Deputy Dillon has advocated, and then come back in a few years time and say "those pigs cannot be marketed." That is the position at present in Denmark.

What is the alternative?

Dr. Ryan

To try to keep them as they are until our own market increases, and it will increase.

And keep the agricultural labourers on the dole.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy is dreaming. Every Deputy who goes into the Cumann na nGaedheal Party gets some softening of the brain, and Deputy Belton has got it too.

Deputy Belton carries ten times more agricultural labourers than all the Government Ministers together——

Dr. Ryan

Yes, at building operations.

No, at agricultural operations, and not at surgical operations.

Dr. Ryan

I do not ask Deputy Dillon to do anything foolish, but I wonder would he get up and say for his particular factory when he comes to take the bacon from the cold stores that he would deliver it at 10/- a cwt. less than the price of the bacon that was not cold-stored. I know he has no intention of doing it. He knows the bacon would come out of cold-storage just as good as any other bacon. The Deputy knows very well that when cold-stored bacon is put on the counter it is sold as bacon, and gets the same price as bacon which is put on the market after ten days. That is what is being done. Deputy Dillon talks as a politician, but he will sell bacon as the owner of a bacon factory——

May I submit that the Minister is quite entitled to set a standard of morality for himself, but that when he sets that standard of morality for me I am quite entitled to protest.

Dr. Ryan

There was only one other matter raised by Deputy Dillon. He is always making shots in the dark. He made another shot to-day about the price of butter just like the shot he made yesterday about the price of the offals of oats and barley. The price of butter in this country is much better than the price in England. If England said to us to-morrow: "We will take your butter in free of duty," the price we are getting for our butter going into England now would be about 50/- per cwt. better than the price we would get under these conditions.

Wonderful.

Dr. Ryan

That is a good note on which to conclude.

Surely the Minister will tell us the price in Germany.

Dr. Ryan

It is 150/- in Germany.

Then why is not all our butter sent to Germany?

Dr. Ryan

That will come too.

Vote put and agreed to.
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