When the public business was last adjourned we were discussing Estimate No. 52, and I asked the Minister to make a comprehensive statement in connection with the terms upon which the beet growers in the Cooley area were going to be asked to grow beet and to explain to the House why, when the Government stipulated, as I think they ought to have stipulated, for a living wage for the operatives in the factory, they did not insist on a price for beet which would make it possible for the producers thereof to pay the agricultural labourers a living wage as well, and why it is that the Minister for Agriculture is prepared to say in that connection that 24/- a week for a 54-hour week is a fair wage for an agricultural labourer when he is prepared to sustain the thesis that 42/- a week, or even more, is not in any sense excessive for a 44-hour week in the case of a factory operative. I do not think that the terms of employment enjoyed by the factory hands in the beet-sugar factories are in any way too generous, but I think that they throw into very striking relief the standard of living which the Minister for Agriculture sets up for that section of the community for which he is primarily responsible.
I think the Minister should also take the opportunity on sub-head O9 to give us some further information about the future that he sees for his wheat scheme. He knows, and most of my colleagues know, that I regard the wheat policy of the Government as a pure fraud, calculated to get our people nowhere. It is at present being heavily subsidised by the State; I believe it is being materially subsidised by the consumer and it is being partially subsidised by the ratepayers through the county committees of agriculture. I think the responsibility devolves upon the Minister to tell the House and the country what advice he has to offer to the farmer who planted wheat in 1934 as to what he should plant on the same land in 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938 and, having advised him in that regard, I think the responsibility also rests upon him of telling farmers generally how they are to dispose of the crops that will be growing in the four years to which I have referred.
It is interesting and striking how the present Administration are beginning to learn sense. I remember the time when I was told that to suggest that we should cultivate an agricultural surplus for the purpose of exporting it and selling it on the markets of the world with a view to purchasing the requirements we wanted, was high treason, playing England's game. Now I discover that the doctrine of an agricultural surplus is not so heretical as it at first seemed. I see the Minister for Industry and Commerce broke out on Monday night and declared that under any circumstances we must have foreign trade and, in fact, during our reconstruction period, our purchases abroad of raw material and of industrial equipment must tend to increase rather than to diminish. Nevertheless, he added, our aim has been to use our powers as a purchaser of manufactured goods to insist that we be allowed to pay for our imports in whole or in part in agricultural exports. Then he goes on to describe how the exports of this country must be for a very considerable time our agricultural surplus.
I invite the Minister for Agriculture to tell the people what steps he is taking, or proposes to take, in order to secure for them a market wherein to dispose of that agricultural surplus which his colleague considers is indispensable and which he, by the instructions he is giving to the farmers, is compelling them to produce. Does he stand over the statement made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking at the National Agricultural and Industrial Development Association that, having made trade agreements with Germany, Belgium and Spain, we are now in a position in which we can consider confining our trade relations to countries with which such arrangements have been made? Does that mean that the Government intend to inform the people that the extent of the alternative markets which they have been able to secure comprises the German, Belgian and Spanish markets, and does it mean that our only alternative markets in the future to the British market are those three, and if it does mean that, are the Government going far enough along the road of common sense to realise that if the country is to survive at all the British market must be recovered for our people and that the commodities which the Minister for Agriculture is compelling our people to produce must be disposed of in that market and, if they are not so disposed of, not only is agriculture but industry and every other branch of the body politic going to crash to the ground?
If he has realised those things, when is he going to bring pressure to bear on his colleagues to make them do something?
I see with reference to sub-head O13 that the Minister for Agriculture has come in for encomiums from a member of the British Research Society who says that he has led in the way of distributing the surplus of a particular agricultural produce amongst the poor of the country. I did not notice that the expert went on to congratulate him and his colleagues on having increased the ranks of the poor to such magnificent proportions that there would be provided in this country a consuming power for free beef adequate to consume the surplus we are producing. I consider that the situation created in consequence of the distribution of free beef is extremely undesirable. I have already pointed out in this House that it calls to mind one of the most unattractive elements of a period in the history of this country which had better be forgotten. It is demoralising and shocking to the sensibilities of our people to be reduced to a condition in which they have to return to the soup kitchen that obtained 70 or 80 years ago and it is creating in the country a general impression that the Government are acting in a grossly irresponsible way.
I was recently informed of one household which, under the terms of the various enactments made by this House, has become entitled to 21 lbs. of beef per week, and two members of the household have to be sent into town every week to carry home the free beef. Such an administration of any scheme is calculated to bring, not only the Government, but this House into gross disrepute. It is perfectly manifest that a scheme which results in nearly two stone of meat being carried home to a country house every week is not meeting the real necessities of the situation. It is a most slipshod, unsatisfactory and wasteful method of administering relief and is probably resulting in deserving people being unable to get all they are entitled to, while those who do not want it and should not get public relief are having it thrust upon them.
Under sub-head O14, we have money appropriated for travelling expenses, incidental expenses and fees to valuers under the Tobacco Act, 1934. I want to know what value we are getting for this tobacco legislation. The last time this matter came before the House, I drew the attention of the Minister to the fact that the original policy of the Government in connection with tobacco was that there was to be no interference of any kind with the Revenue authorities. In fact, President de Valera, who is so fond of talking of mandates, got a mandate to introduce legislation which would put an end to all supervision of the tobacco business by the Revenue Commissioners. When I quoted this in the House the Minister for Agriculture interrupted and said: "I do not believe that. I do not believe President de Valera ever said any such thing." Deputy McGilligan's reply was: "Why does the Minister for Agriculture deny that President de Valera said something which is quoted, when he does not even know where the quotation comes from?""I would not believe it", said the Minister for Agriculture, "because it is too foolish". Let me assure the Minister that folly is no criterion whereby to judge past dicta of Fianna Fáil Ministers or of the President of the Fianna Fáil Government.
I am in a position now to quote the words used by President de Valera in an interview published in the Evening Herald of June 19, 1929, and those words are as follows:—
"I believe that the growing of tobacco here should be altogether free from duty, and there should be no Governmental interference or supervision. The removal of officials now on the inspection and assessment work associated with Excise regulations will, of course, obviate anything in the nature of administrative cost to the Government. That is one advantage over any scheme of direct subsidy..."
Now, Deputy O'Reilly may get ready to bow, because President de Valera invoked him. The President went on:
"If the present duty is removed in accordance with the terms of the motion submitted by Mr. O'Reilly, a member of our Party, there need not be permanently any great loss to the revenue. If there is any loss in the first years it will be due to the fact that a valuable Irish industry is being resuscitated."
Now we are faced with a Supplementary Estimate to finance the operations of an extremely complicated Tobacco Act which strictly restricts the growing of tobacco by Irish nationals in Ireland and there are no motions being set down in the name of Deputy Matthew O'Reilly from the County Meath, nor is the President on the floor of the House to explain to us that regulation of this kind is folly and that the proper way to encourage the tobacco industry is to withdraw all Government or Revenue Commissioners' interference with the industry altogether.
The Minister for Agriculture, having undergone a period of three years' education at the hands of the Opposition, has come to the conclusion that such language is incredibly silly. I quite agree with him. But the misfortune for this country is that it takes three years to teach the Minister for Agriculture that such things are incredibly silly, and after three years more the Minister for Agriculture will be telling us that the economic war was incredibly silly. But really his education is becoming monstrously expensive. It is running, not only into six figures, but into seven figures and may run into eight figures, before we make him conscious of the follies that he and his colleagues have been guilty of, both before they came into office and since. But Deputy O'Reilly is giving no assistance to educate the Minister for Agriculture. He must be unrepentant. He will not charge me with any discourtesy when I say that the Minister's language suggests that he was probably the clown at the circus six years ago. I suggest that Deputy O'Reilly ought to tell the Minister for Agriculture that he is wrong and that Deputy O'Reilly is right and was right; or else Deputy O'Reilly ought to say to the Minister for Agriculture: "I realise I made an ass of myself six years ago and I made President de Valera make an ass of himself, which is worse. Ought we not both mend our hands now and try and make some compensation to the people for the folly and the fraud we perpetrated on them when looking for their votes?"
I do not wish, Sir, to go back over the matters which arose when I first opened on the Estimate but I do request the Minister to give us full particulars with reference to sub-head M 8, which deals with the butter purchasing scheme, and M 9, which deals with the purchase and export of eggs. I feel that whatever benefits may be accruing as a result of trade agreements for the disposal of eggs, they are not being distributed evenly throughout the country. My experience is, in regard to the German market in any case, that the trade seems to be centred in the hands of a few shippers here in Dublin. Being under that impression, I may be labouring under a misapprehension, but at least I think I can justifiably charge the Minister with not having communicated to the registered egg traders of the country full particulars of the means whereunder they can share in whatever quota we have secured in the German and Spanish markets. I should like also to draw his attention to the fact that the German market is at the present time apparently demanding that nothing but the equivalent of extra selected and selected eggs should be sent there, and are rejecting the "mediums" and the lower grades. Now, for good or ill, our principal egg market is going to be the British market, and it is highly undesirable that this trade agreement with Germany or with Spain should be allowed to create a situation under which all the best eggs of our production should go to Germany and the Continent and the leavings—the "mediums," the "trades" and the pullets eggs, if there still are pullets eggs—should be going to England.
I do not know whether the Minister made any stipulation in the trade agreement which he concluded with Germany, that they should take eggs according to the grades we ship and should take a fair proportion of each grade we had to offer. If we did not, I think the time has come to make representations to the German Government pointing out that if the trade agreement provides for eggs it is not open to the German Government, in pursuit of that agreement, to exclude certain classes of eggs and to constrain us to ship them nothing but the top grade at the expense of our other customers. There is a wide field to be covered in answering on this Estimate and I trust the Minister will take the fullest advantage of the occasion and inform the House and the country as to what his intentions are in regard to the matters which fall under the sub-heads contained in the Estimate.