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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 6 Mar 1935

Vol. 55 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote No. 70—Export Bounties and Subsidies.

I move:—

Go ndcontar suim Bhreise eile ná raghaidh thar £130,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1935, chun Deolchairí, Conganta Airgid, etc., alos Easportála.

That a further Supplementary sum not exceeding £130,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1935, for Export Bounties and Subsidies, etc.

This is the second Supplementary Estimate in this financial year for export bounties and subsidies. The original sum provided for export bounties and subsidies on agricultural products in 1934-35 was £2,130,000. A Supplementary Estimate was taken in December last for £763,000, which included £738,000 for bounties and subsidies on agricultural products. The aggregate provision at present available is £2,868,000, but a further sum of £130,000 is now required, as it is anticipated that the total expenditure from the Vote on export of agricultural produce will by the 31st March next have reached practically £3,000,000—to be exact £2,997,000. The increased provision is due to increases on foot of dairy produce, dead poultry, cattle and calf skins. Deputies may claim that a second Supplementary Estimate would not be necessary if there had been good estimation at the beginning. It should be appreciated that it is very difficult to estimate for export bounties, because exports vary during the year, not so much now under quotas, but it is sometimes necessary to make changes to meet a certain situation. At the time the first Supplementary Estimate was prepared a number of changes in the rate had just been made, but it was at least four or five weeks before these changes became operative, and certain claims had to be dealt with. Claims are sometimes a month in arrear. In fact we may take it that on the average payments are a month in arrear before the different requirements are fulfilled which entitle persons to claim. It is anticipated that the expenditure will coincide with the Estimate, so that the total for the export bounties will be £3,000,000. This Supplementary Estimate is for a sum of £130,000.

I am afraid the Minister has not given us very much information regarding this matter. There are many things we would like to know about these export bounties and subsidies. The Minister was unusually brief in telling us as to how he is going to administer them. We have had complaints all over the country about the payment of them. We have had complaints and allegations with regard to the licences under this system. I do not know what the Minister thinks about the position with regard to these licences, or what he knows about it. If he knows as much as the people who attend the cattle market, then he ought to do something to remedy the state of affairs that exists.

It is well known that export licences have been offered for sale in the cattle market as if they were gilt-edged securities. Indeed, some people are amazed that they have not appeared in the stock exchange quotations. I think the Minister and his Department ought to see that only those entitled to get licences will get them. I really do not like saying much about them, because to my mind this is about the grossest piece of work that ever was perpetrated in the country—the grossest injustice. It is bad enough to be getting a bad price for our cattle, to have lost our market, and to be paying a penal tariff of from £4 to £6 to Britain, but what are we to think when we have people going about offering export licences for sale —blood suckers and parasites cadging them about the cattle market, and remember that it is the producer who is losing all the time. In my opinion there is something very loose about the administration. When some cases came into court the references made to these bounties were not very complimentary to the Department.

I hope an effort will be made by the Minister and his colleagues in the Executive Council to end the state of affairs that makes this Vote necessary. We have those export bounties, and apparently they have been carried on the backs of live stock exported to countries where there are no tariffs against us at all. There has been a good deal of gossip—some rather shady things spoken of—about cattle that went to Germany, the sums that were paid for them, and the way the bounties were paid. I think the Minister will agree that the sooner he endeavours to end the situation that makes the payment of bounties and subsidies necessary the better, because fundamentally the thing is wrong. I agree that in any country in which an effort is being made to control a situation such as we have here, there may be a necessity from time to time to have in operation a scheme for the payment of bounties and subsidies, but what I want to emphasise is that no country can possibly continue to subsidise its main industry. It simply cannot be done. The main industry represents the greater part, and it cannot be subsidised out of the lesser. I think it is time for the Minister to realise that the country is demanding some legislation or some settlement that will put our main industry in such a position that it will be able to pay its way. It cannot pay its way if bounties and subsidies are to be a general feature of it.

Is not the position that it is only the export portion that is being subsidised?

Unfortunately that is so, but the remainder is being sold at home at an even greater loss. If we have to go on subsidising the main industry of the country then Deputy Moore and others who may be connected with business as well as every other class in the community will have to come down to the level of what agriculture can afford. All will have to come down—the labourer, the workman and the manufacturer. The purchasing power of all is bound to find its level through the main industry and it is going to stick there. As Deputy Moore has pointed out, it is only the export portion of our main industry on which the bounties are payable, but as I have said the remainder is sold at home at a greater loss to the producer. If there is any Minister who ought to be anxious to see an end to the present situation it is the Minister for Agriculture because he is supposed to be the watch-dog of the farmers. At least he ought to be. It is his job. If agriculture goes down, it does not matter how he may endeavour to place the responsibility for that on other people's heads; he will not be able to do it. It is his job. What is he doing about it? Even if the Minister were able to purify the system in operation in connection with bounties and subsidies, the situation still would not be right. The whole system is a hateful one.

The Government has failed to recognise the fundamentals of our main industry. I am sure there are many Deputies on the Government Benches who see as well as I do that there is no use in endeavouring to carry on a short-sighted policy of the kind we have in operation. Deputies must take the long view. Any man can enjoy a period of high living for a short time if he realises all his available assets. He can live and enjoy himself well while the money lasts. That is what we are doing. We are shelling out money on export bounties and subsidies, on doles and free beef, but where is it all coming from? It is all coming out of the main industry of the country. We are drawing upon our resources, we are realising our assets and we are going down. The sooner we realise that the better. I hate to talk about this in a party spirit. The position is too serious for that. If the Minister thinks that he can subsidise the main industry of the country out of itself, then I tell him it cannot be done. The sooner the Minister endeavours to end the present situation the better for himself and the country.

I think that there is some slight confusion in Deputy Brennan's argument. Deputy Brennan said that the situation is fundamentally wrong, that agriculture, being the main industry, cannot be subsidised out of the other and smaller industries. That statement induced me to interrupt and inquire whether it was not exportagriculture only that was being subsidised. Deputy Brennan agreed that that was so but, nevertheless, he continued his argument on the line on which he had started—that agriculture as a whole was being subsidised.

No. Agricultural produce as a whole is being sold at a loss.

In my opinion, the two things should be treated separately. If the people of Ireland are getting agricultural produce below the cost of production or below the point at which there is a reasonable profit to the producer, that is one problem—an entirely separate problem from the problem of export. No Minister and no Government can regulate the prices for exported goods. Deputy Brennan is not facing the issue, because if he and his Party were to come back to power to-morrow they would find that a great deal of the agricultural produce of the country would still have to be exported. In practically all cases, unless world conditions changed, the price obtainable for that exported produce would be less than the cost of production. If the giving of bounties and subsidies be fundamentally wrong, then Deputy Brennan and his Party, if they were in power, would have to find a substitute for that system. The Deputy has not suggested a substitute.

I have, indeed.

Not in his last speech.

Yes—settle the dispute and stop all this row.

That is ignoring what I have just said. I am assuming— I think that it is a very safe assumption—that if Deputy Brennan and his Party were in power to-morrow, they would still be faced with a situation in which butter, for instance, would have to be sold on the foreign markets at a price that would not pay the Irish producer.

Agreed. Pass on to the other things.

If Deputy Brennan holds that subsidies and bounties are fundamentally wrong, he would have to find a substitute for them in, at least, the case of butter. He has not suggested what that substitute would be. I do not like the licensing arrangement which is an adjunct of the bounty and subsidy system. Nobody likes it. It is quite likely that the Department of Agriculture will have to find some means, other than the licensing scheme, of paying bounties and subsidies. How ever, no better system than the bounty system has been suggested, and it has enabled the export of agricultural produce to continue. It is a pity that we must export produce at prices that do not pay us, but many countries are in the same position. The situation is one for which we are not responsible. It is a situation which may not be remedied in our time. There is no sign of any remedy. There is every sign that competition in those things that we have for sale will be intensified. Until a better system than the system in force is suggested, we must support that system. It has been a great encouragement to the people to have those subsidies and bounties, and it has enabled us to tide over the very serious position that prevailed with regard to agricultural production without a serious crisis. It is admitted, I think, that the situation is not satisfactory to farmers or even to the community, but, failing an improvement in world conditions and failing a suggestion as to a better system, we shall have to give our support to the existing system.

I do not think that any of us will envy the Minister in having to face up to his share of the responsibilities of the so-called economic war. Never before in this House have the figures been put so clearly by the Minister. He has given us figures amounting to £3,000,000, being the sum required to pay subsidies and bounties. That is rather a sacred figure, seeing that it is the figure on which so much of the dispute depends. I think that we would not gain anything by taking Deputy Moore's view—that we should examine this matter in a broad way instead of bringing it down to the point at which the Minister had it when he started out to provide bounties and subsidies for present needs. The bounties and subsidies are voted by this House to meet the tariffs. The proper angle from which to regard the matter is as to how far they are effective in meeting the need.

Some Deputies have stated in this House that the bounties are no use whatsoever. I do not think that anybody who is familiar with the situation, anybody who is exporting, would, in his calmer moments, agree with that. But the question is whether the people who have to shoulder the burden of these tariffs are getting the full benefit of the bounties. Part of the Minister's explanation in introducing this Vote was that there was an increase in respect of dairy products, eggs and dead poultry. That is an end of the agricultural economy which must be provided for. But, to most of us, the big end is the cattle end so far as these bounties and subsidies are concerned. The Minister did not tell us that previous to this year he had three rates of bounty on cattle. The top rate was 35/- and that was payable where the tariff was £6. Then, there was a £1 rate as against the £4 tariff and a 15/- rate as against the 50/- tariff. The Minister has done away with those rates as from the 1st of January of this year. The only bounty being paid on cattle at present is £1 on maximum-tariffed cattle. That is to say, £1 as against the tariff of £6. Looking at the matter from the farmer's point of view, how are these bounties meeting the tariff? Perhaps I shall be pardoned for relating a personal experience. I do not stand up to say that I have been badly treated in this matter. I suppose I have got as many licences as I was entitled to for the cattle I exported, according to the Minister's system. I am not making any point about that. I had two licences a month ago and I exported two fat beasts. On them I paid £6 per head, which was £12. As the Minister says, it takes about a month to examine the returns and pay the bounty. On last Saturday I got an order for £2. I paid £12 in tariff and, to meet that, I received £2. On those figures, I do not think it will be suggested that we are getting a fair share of the bounties in respect of the cattle. It is absurd to say that we are being helped to the fullest extent when we are getting only one-sixth of what we have to pay in tariffs. There is another point which has been emphasised in many quarters, by many county councils, many public bodies, and many farmers' associations, and that is the whole system of licensing. It seems absurd in many cases that those bounties go to help the man who does not produce the stuff. In reality, the system is not helping either the person who produces, or the person who exports. The middleman, somehow or other, gets the benefit in a way that no one seems able to explain. A good many strange things go on. Let me give an illustration. Some time ago there were three men in the vicinity of Dublin market. One man had a bullock, another had a licence, and the third man had some money. The man with the money gave £5 to the man for the licence and gave £7 to the other man for the bullock and then proceeded to export it. That may be an exceptional case.

Not at all.

The price may be exceptional. It is not always that £5 can be got for a licence but, all the same, it is gilt-edged. I knew one man who came into our market after having paid £100 for fifty licences. How could he afford to pay the maximum price to the producers? He would have to buy so much cheaper. These things ought not to be. If we are going to fight in this matter surely the sinews of war ought to be given to the men in the front-line trenches. Somehow or other the licences find their way to men who neither produce beasts nor export them. I do not know how that system works, but that is how it is administered. It is only natural, as Deputy Moore pointed out, quite candidly, that when these animals are being sold at less than the cost of production the people who do the work should kick against such a system. The Minister should see how far he can put the licences into the hands of the people who produce the animals and who should at least get the full benefit of those export bounties.

There is another point. I suggest to the Minister that it would be far more honest to deal with licences in a systematic way so that they should not get indiscriminately into the hands of persons who cannot use them, and who just merely turn them into cash. There is another way to meet the administration of the bounty in respect to beef cattle—paying a subsidy on the weight of the animal. In that connection, instead of paying a round figure on a beast, whether 6 cwt. or 15 cwt., to pay, for example, 2/6 a cwt. as bounty on the animal would seem a more equitable way to meet that situation. Deputy Moore says that a great many countries are like ourselves, exporting at a loss. Still, I do not think there is any country acting as we are. We all may have, at times, to sell at a loss in order to get clear: but there is no country, within the ambit of our knowledge, that first of all raised a barrier against itself in a quarrel of about £3,000,000, and then raised from its legislation £3,000,000 to meet that, and only allowed one-sixth of it to go to the benefit of the sufferers.

The next point that calls for consideration is the cost of production. At the present moment, those who look to the soil, like the tillage farmer, raise their crops and feed their stock. In this country the only economic course to follow is that what we produce must be fed to live stock. But the whole course of things at present is tending to raise the cost of production at one end and to reduce the actual price at the other. As I say, I have the greatest sympathy with the Minister in the position he finds himself but, so far as the granting of licences and the putting on of those export bounties and subsidies are concerned, the system calls for reform and that immediately.

What strikes one about these bounties is that though the amount provided for bounties this year is greater than last year, or the year before, yet, as far as one can see, there is not the same bounty paid. Last year we had bounties paid against a high tariff and two lesser tariffs. The highest bounty was 35/-, and then we had the £1 and 15/- bounty. Now we have only £1 on cattle as against 35/- last year. The amount in bounty last year was only slightly over £2,000,000. Now it is about £3,000,000 this year. Where has the extra £1,000,000 gone to, seeing that the bounty on exported cattle has diminished? There is one thing that we are beginning to see. The Government argued for two or three years against a certain principle which they now have to serve, and the Minister is driven to service of it in this mode. Deputy Moore talked in an irrelevant manner about the depreciation of agriculture, and said that we were all in the same boat. That kind of talk is good enough for a political platform, but when we come to talk business in a parliamentary chamber there is no use in putting forward statements of that kind. We know that there has been depression in the world for the last ten years due to financial and economic causes.

But whatever general depression there is in the world there is on top of that, and the Minister has had to admit it by the efforts which he is making to alleviate or ameliorate the position by these bounties, the special depression produced here by the economic war. I asked a question here of the Minister on the 18th December. In effect, I asked—I have not the question, but the Minister will remember it from a summarised description— whether he was not aware that the farmers were bearing the cost of the economic war, and whether he would not consider the setting up of a tribunal to inquire into that position. He said he did not agree that the farmers were bearing any more than their share of the economic war, and that, consequently, there was no need for the tribunal asked for; but he is recognising it now. He will not attempt to deny the figures given by the British Chancellor, and I will go so far as to say that he is not able to deny them. He is not able to accept or reject the figures of the British Chancellor.

I am quite satisfied that there is no bookkeeping in this country—and it should not be very difficult—which accounts for what the British deduct in special tariffs on our goods sent over there, and I will go so far as to say that if the British said they collected only £1,000,000 in tariffs, we are not in a position to contradict them. The British have said that they collected £4,500,000 or a little more, last year. I presume that the same will be collected this year. That is the depression—that sum of £4,500,000 which is not a tariff in the ordinary way but which is a levy on our produce after that produce is sold in a world market. It is a levy on the general price of our goods. The Minister puts against that £3,000,000 this year. I presume the same will be collected by the British by way of the levy in the current year and the Minister is putting £3,000,000 against that. On his own showing, that sum of £3,000,000 is to relieve a certain situation. The same situation existed last year and the Minister gave only £2,000,000. A similar situation existed the year before for nine months and the Minister gave only £622,000.

It is nearly three years ago—July, 1932—since the British declared that they would collect these moneys from our produce, which meant from agriculture, from the farmers. At a farmers' meeting, I put it to them that as the British were going to collect that debt from the farmers, that should be the end of the debt and it should be considered paid then. The Government at that time were in what approximated to agreement with that view. I regret very much that at that period people who claimed to speak for the farmers opposed that view. They have changed their minds recently and I heard of that change of mind in this House last week. They have now come to the view—two and a half years late—that when the British collected their special duties, the farmer's debt was liquidated and the Government is coming near that position also.

Presumably, the British will collect £4,500,000 this year. As a set-off against that, assuming that the principle of giving the money by way of bounties is the best way—and we will come to that later—the Minister is parting with £3,000,000. The people have to pay the £4,500,000 to meet a certain charge which is not theirs, and which, no matter whether the British view or the Irish view is correct, is not directly and immediately a farmer's charge or liability. If the British view is right, it is a charge on our Government; if the British view is wrong and the Irish view right, it is not a charge on the Irish Government or on any Irish citizens. But no matter who is right or wrong, the farmers have to pay £4,500,000 odd. As a set-off against that, the Minister is giving only £3,000,000 and because people say that they have paid the full annuities, they are imprisoned.

There is there a discrepancy of £1,500,000 which, on that direct transaction, the farmers lose, and that is £1,500,000 by which the wholesale prices are depressed. The wholesale prices are depressed by another £1,500,000 on the home market. That is another £3,000,000. Let us assume for the moment that this system of bounties is a good way of recouping agriculture for the British special duties. Has not agriculture a perfect claim to be recouped pound for pound the amount levied on it by the special duties? I put it to the Minister that it should be his aim, and not only his aim, but, as Minister for Agriculture, his duty, to secure that amount of money. We will be asked where it will come from. The total amount will be about £4,500,000. Our Government is collecting half the annuities, that is £2,000,000. Our Government is also getting between £600,000 and £1,000,000 local loans paid into the Exchequer every year both by the local authorities and by individuals. The Government is also levying taxes that would make up, together with the local loans and the annuities the balance of the claim the British Government are making. Now all that money is going into Revenue and none of it is paid out. That would amount to a sum that would liquidate the local loans and the pensions—a sum of £2,000,000. And you had in addition £2,000,000 for the annuities. There are £4,000,000 which the Government has in hand to pay out £4,500,000 in bounties.

In 1931-32 when the present Government came into power, the income from Customs was a little over £7,700,000. Now it is £10,500,000, or at least it was that much last year. That is a further imposition on agriculture. In these last figures you have an increase of £2,500,000 and most of it comes out of the agricultural industry. Even if you take only 60 per cent. of it as coming out of the agricultural industry you have £1,500,000. All taken together that would give you £5,500,000. Then there is the £4,500,000 which the British are collecting.

If the Government were to meet the farmers fairly they would meet every grievance that is reasonably felt by agriculture. The only thing then that would remain as far as agriculture was concerned would be the settlement of the economic war. But the economic war is a big national issue and I admit that it has been decided by a general election. I must admit that the electorate as a whole gave the Government a mandate for that economic war. Having got that mandate the people must abide by the consequences. Even though our Party was beaten we must bear with it, for if people are not prepared to work in that way they must be prepared for anarchy and chaos. But I say this, that whenever any one section of the people is suffering loss, their losses should be recouped to them by the people as a whole seeing that it is not any one section but the people as a whole who are responsible for the economic war.

If we were to accept the bounties as the best way to meet the situation, if our Government gave £ for £, agriculture would not have any particular grievance. But are bounties the best way? I doubt if bounties get right down to the producers. I know there was a time when the bounties were really harmful. That was when the British purchasers manipulated the market in Birkenhead and took counter-steps to every step taken here in the way of an advance in the bounties. I was speaking recently to a number of exporters and they said that money given in bounties was lost money part of the time, especially in the beginning. Even now they would not say whether it would be any loss to the farmers if the bounties were reduced. Personally I do not know enough about the trade to say whether the system of bounties is the best way of disbursing the money. A very thorny point has been raised by previous speakers. That is the matter of licences. It is certainly a disgrace —in saying this I am not making any personal references—but it is a disgrace to the Minister to see the way the licences have been handled. People with cattle for sale cannot get a licence. But people with cattle for sale can buy licences off a drover in the Dublin cattle market. I am sure the Minister knows all about that.

Every Bill introduced in the last couple of years in connection with agriculture bristled with pains and penalties. The Bacon and Pigs Bill which would keep this House occupied until Christmas, is coming up next week and all over it there is running pains, penalties and fines. Why does not the Minister bring in a Bill here dealing with the handling of the export quotas, and dealing with the manner of handing out export licences? Why does he not provide pains and penalties for people trafficking in those licences? Why not, if necessary, make it a criminal offence to negotiate any of those licences? It is quite easy by a mark or number on the licences to trace the licence to the user. At all events the user of the licence could be made to endorse it. If he is not the man to whom the licence has been issued then the licence can be withdrawn or cancelled. Why should school teachers, shopkeepers, drovers, and every kind of people except the people who are producing the animals get licences? Why not give the licences to the people who are producing the live stock and not to people like these? The Minister should not have tolerated that system for one week. To-day Deputy Haslett gave instances of what is going on in the whole country in this respect. I know traders who go down the country to fairs, but they will not go unless they are able to buy a score or two of licences before they start. Why should they be able to buy a score or two of licences when, as I understand it, the system now is to give the licences to the producer? The producer alone should be given the licences. It is he who should have been given the licences from the very beginning and I believe, in theory, that is the system now. It is due to this House and to the country if this House wants the country to have any respect for it and it is due to the Ministry of Agriculture themselves if they want any respect to be felt for them in the country, that the Minister should explain in detail the system by which he allocates these licences.

Hear, hear.

Under previous Acts which have been passed in this House and in the Bacon and Pigs Bill which is now coming before us, public registers must be kept of the business carried on and anybody can, on paying a fee, come in and inspect these registers. The Minister was asked here why should he not provide a public register in his Department in which would be registered every person who gets a licence for the export of cattle, and then anybody who feels aggrieved can consult that register on the payment of a fee of 1/- or 2/-. What is the objection to that? See what it would be worth in restoring some kind of public confidence in the administration.

It is quite true, as Deputy Haslett pointed out, that a man going to a fair in the Deputy's town may buy 50 licences at £2 each. He does not lose that £100. He buys 50 cattle and on each of them he pulls back £2. Where does he pull it from? It comes from the pocket of the producer, the man from whom he buys the cattle, the man who was responsible for the rearing of that calf until it had reached a more mature stage. Who is responsible for taking that £2 out of the farmers' pockets? The Minister for Agriculture, because he has not formulated a proper system for the administration of those licences. I hope the Minister will deal exhaustively with the question of those licences and their administration. I hope he will be able to submit convincing arguments that his system is a good one. If he considers it a good system, will he explain how licences can get freely into the hands of people who have no cattle to sell, who never had any, and who are merely trafficking in those licences? I would like him to deal with the suggestion that no licence is transferred. He should make that a condition on issuing a licence. If a man wants a licence, let him get it by all means, but if he does not want to use it, it should be like a crossed cheque, no good to anybody else; let him send it back to the Minister and have it cancelled. So far as I can see there is hardly any other way in which you will prevent trafficking in licences.

I would like the Minister to state what objections, if any, he has to keeping a public register of licensees. It may be urged that that would be exposing people's business. It would be very easy to camouflage that if necessary. On the other hand, it would be no greater exposure of a man's private affairs than the Minister proposes to make in the Pigs and Bacon Bill. I think if the Minister gives us an assurance on those points he will cover most of the grievances existing amongst the agricultural community to-day. I am pretty well acquainted with the grievances in the cattle trade. Has the Minister considered any alternative method of recouping the agricultural community other than by the bounties? Of course the bounty system is a camouflaged method of paying another debt. I am not going into that. I recognise that the Government have authority for doing it in this way, but I would like to know if the Minister has considered any other method of meeting the situation as distinct from bounties. If he considers the bounty system the best, then I would like to ask him why he does not make that bounty equal to the product of the British tariff. He can have no objection from the point of view of finance, because the Minister for Finance is making more than the £4,500,000 that the British are collecting out of this dispute and out of consequences and conditions arising from that dispute. I would like to hear the Minister's plans.

Deputy Belton, speaking to-day, said that the Government had unquestionably secured a mandate to carry on the economic war. Does Deputy Belton remember a speech that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs made in Strokestown during the election campaign of 1933 when he said:

"Bear this in mind, voters of County Roscommon, that the question of whether the economic war is going to be settled or not depends on your votes. Give President de Valera a clear majority and the British will settle with him within a week of his getting in."

Does the Deputy remember that?

No, but I remember that we were licked last June in the local elections and I admit a licking when I get it. If I won I would shout just the same.

Has the Deputy borne this in mind, that during the campaign for the last local elections the people of this country were told that, according to the head of the Government, the British market was worth nothing; that other ways and means were going to be devised of disposing of the agricultural surplus of this country; that the cattle trade was worth nothing and ought to be wiped out, and that the small farmers and agricultural labourers of this country could be maintained without any support or assistance from the cattle trade?

Do you not know that Deputy Belton does not believe that?

I know he does not, but a lot of the people believe it. President de Valera, with all the prestige of his position, went to Ennis or some portion of County Clare and publicly thanked God the British market was gone. Senator Connolly went to the midlands and said he rejoiced to think that it was given to him to tear down in a hundred days what it had taken this country one hundred years to build up—to wit, the cattle trade. And he did not say that in a moment of excitement, because he went from there to Strokestown and repeated that declaration.

We licked you all the same.

Then the Minister for Agriculture gets up to-day in the City of Dublin and says: "I admit Great Britain is and always will remain our best customer." If you said that during the local elections or either of the general elections you would have been told by Deputy Smith, or some other of the sea-green incorruptibles on the Fianna Fáil Benches, that you were playing England's game, that you were sponsoring the cause of John Bull, and stabbing the chosen leader of the people in the back. The Minister for Agriculture gets up to-day to tell us what we have been telling him for the past two years; to tell us the very thing that he and his colleagues have been denying off every platform in this country. The same Minister, who is now looking for £130,000 for additional subsidies, got up in this House last week and said he considered 22/- per cwt. for the best fat cattle in the Dublin market to be so good a price that it was unnecessary to pay any bounty.

Dr. Ryan

I am sure you, sir, would not allow me to say what that really is. At any rate, it is not true.

I asked the Minister what he paid in the Dublin market for cattle exported to Germany and the Minister replied, "I paid 22/-." I asked did he pay a bounty on these cattle, to which the Minister replied: "The price I was getting was too good to make it necessary to pay the bounty." Whatever price the Minister got, he paid the people who sold him the cattle 22/- per cwt. He gave an undertaking in this House that every penny of the bounty should pass through the cattle dealer to the producer of the cattle. Here he himself was going out as a cattle dealer to set the example of the way in which the bounty should be used. It was his duty in that capacity to pay the farmer an economic price for his cattle as compared with the price he was going to get for the cattle in Germany, and to that economic price to add the bounty that we had provided in the Budget and Supplementary Estimates since. The Minister for Agriculture confesses that the standard he has set for the cattle trade in this country is 22/- per cwt. He thinks that is so good a price that it would be a shame to contribute one single penny of bounty to increase it. How on earth can any representations in regard to the fundamental facts of agriculture make any impression on a mind like that? If a man is so absolutely dead to the elementary needs of the simplest farmers in this country, so absolutely ignorant of the fundamentals of the economics of cattle-raising in this country, how is it possible to illuminate him into a state even of mediocre competency for the position he professes to occupy?

A lot of people would be glad to get the Minister's price.

Deputy Belton spoke of licences. I remember the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce becoming apoplectic when I dealt with the licences on previous occasions. Deputy Belton has pointed out, and he has not been contradicted, that producers of cattle come to the Dublin market unable to get licences for their own cattle and can buy the licences from the drovers at the stalls.

I saw them bought.

Can the Minister render an account of that? Where do the licences come from? Who got them? Will the Minister tell the House how many licences have been issued to members of this House?

Dr. Ryan

I will if I am asked. I should like very much if you would ask me, and to what Parties they were given.

Will you issue a list of licences given to the members of this House?

Dr. Ryan

I will tell you how many were given to that Party and this Party.

Will the Minister give a list of the licences issued?

Dr. Ryan

Will you ask the question I put to you?

How may licences have been given to members of this House and to persons not concerned with the production of cattle at all? How many licences have been given to persons who traffic in them and never use them for the purpose of exporting cattle?

Dr. Ryan

Go on and throw more dirt. I will answer that question.

I am throwing no dirt. I am asking the Minister to publish the facts. He has heard the allegation made that these licences are being sold in the public market place by persons who had no intention of using them for the purpose of exporting cattle. That charge he has not repudiated or dissented from. That gives rise to a situation which demands the fullest publicity. I am perfectly entitled to ask the Minister to place the full facts before the House and the country. In making that request, I am conscious of the fact that the difficulties of checking statistics of that kind are almost boundless. It is extremely difficult to track down transactions of that kind. Will the Minister suggest that he will place any information at our disposal which will inform us where these gentlemen to whom Deputy Belton referred got the licences which they were able to traffic in in the Dublin market? Were these licences issued direct to the drovers, or where did they get them? Can the Minister make any suggestion? I am informed that not only are drovers selling licences in the Dublin market but that men are selling licences in the Dublin market who never shipped a beast out of this country in their lives. Where are those men getting the licences and through whom are they getting them? Are they walking into the Department of Agriculture and asking the permanent official in charge of that Department to give them licences? If they are, does any reasonable Deputy imagine that somebody who is in no way connected with the cattle trade can go into the Department and get licences for the asking? If they are not getting them in that way, who is introducing them to the Department of Agriculture? I want to say this: If any member of this Party has brought a man into the Department of Agriculture who is in no sense legitimately connected with the cattle trade and secured for him licences for the purpose of selling them for profit I will be glad to have his name published, because I do not want him as a colleague. I am glad to think that there are men in this Party who have been in the cattle trade and contributed to its prosperity for a long period and who are entitled to licences.

Dr. Ryan

Ask for the numbers they got that they were not entitled to.

Have you given licences to any member of this Party, who is in no way connected with the cattle trade, knowing that he intended to barter them?

Dr. Ryan

Who was not entitled to them.

Have any licences been given to any member of this Party for the purpose of bartering them or for any other purpose than for legitimate trading in cattle?

Dr. Ryan

No.

I would be glad to know if there were, and that the name of that person should be published. I have asked for a licence in a case where a particular hardship was being inflicted on a hard-working farmer in East Donegal, and I must say that my application, when I put the facts before the Department, was fairly and reasonably considered. I like to give credit where credit is due. I know that that man, who did not happen to be a political supporter of mine, got a licence which, according to the letter of the law, he was not entitled to because his was a case of peculiar hardship. The Minister is faced with the fact that there is indisputable testimony that licences are being bartered on the Dublin market by men who never shipped a beast in their lives. Where are they coming from? How are they getting into their hands? Is it reasonable to allow a situation like that to continue when Deputies are being approached by bona fide farmers who cannot pay their rates and land annuities because they cannot sell their cattle and they cannot sell their cattle because they cannot get a licence to ship them? That is certainly creating an atmosphere of distrust and it is something which the Minister should put an end to without further delay.

I have pointed out to you, as Deputy Belton has pointed out to you, that there is a simple way of settling it: get your licences for store cattle and your licences for fat cattle in numbered series in a book and when you issue licences Nos. 1 to 10 to a citizen of the State, put his name down in a register as Patrick Clarke, or whatever the name may be, as having received licences Nos. 1 to 10. Then you can put down "John Brown" if he happens to be the next applicant, and let him appear as getting licences Nos. 11 to 20. Unless that is done, scandals, such as have been mentioned in this House to-day, will continue and public distrust will continue. It is not relevant to go into the general question of licences and I must confine myself to the licences under the administration of the Department of Agriculture, but all that we have said in regard to the registration of Department of Agriculture licences applies with equal force to licences issued by every other Department of the Government.

This Estimate provides for bounties on agricultural and industrial commodities. That includes eggs. At the present time the price obtaining for eggs is lower than has ever been remembered before in the egg trade. At the same time the bounty has been reduced by nearly 50 per cent. If that continues—and mind you we are at a period of the year when the tendency for egg prices is to fall—the egg industry will be wiped out of existence in this country in a very short time. I do not know why it is but the Department of Agriculture always seem to wait until disaster is upon them before they take any steps whatever to protect an industry of that character. Somebody must have directed the attention of the Minister to the fact that the price for eggs at present is 5s. to 5s. 6d. per long hundred and that the shipping price is down to 4s. for "mediums" and less for "trade." Unless the bounty is restored at least to the figure which obtained 12 months ago, people will simply go out of egg production. If they do in any considerable numbers, it will be no small job to recover what is one of the most valuable industries in this country.

The fact that we are asked to appropriate money for export bounties is in itself evidence that this Government believes that if the economic fabric of the State is to be held together, we have got to retain our foreign markets. In the words of the Minister for Agriculture himself—and this is a quotation which I would specially commend to Deputy Smith—

"I admit that Great Britain is and always will remain, our best customer."

That is Dr. J. Ryan, Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture.

Dr. Ryan

Is there anything wrong about that?

Nothing. It is one of the wisest things you have said since you were born but it has taken you a terrible long time to reach that degree of wisdom. I am proud to think that I have played no small part in flogging you into it.

Your argument is——

Deputy Victory has enough responsibility to occupy him for some time.

I am as big a farmer as ever you have been anyhow.

They have reached the conclusion that we must have an export trade, that Britain is, and will forever remain, our best customer and we are asked to vote here a total sum of £3,143,000 for bounties, including the original Estimates.

£130,000 in this Estimate.

The total Estimate, taking the original Estimate and the two supplementaries, of which this is one, amounts to the figure I have stated. We pay that money in order to get into a market which is, and will forever remain, our best market. Deputies will remember that we signed a Coal-Cattle Pact at the end of last year. One of the most formidable Senators of the Fianna Fáil Party emerged in the Western People on the following week with the magnificent advertisement: “Let us bury the hatchet. Best Wigan to be had at MacEllin Brothers, Balla.” I suggest that spirit should spread further through the Fianna Fáil Party, that they should take example by Senator MacEllin.

I do not think that the business affairs of a named Senator should be introduced as a subject of debate in this House. It is, however, a matter of taste on which the Deputy must decide for himself.

I wish to say that it was not Senator MacEllin issued that advertisement. He has nothing to do with the business.

I regret if I have accused the Senator wrongly but I felt that the occasion was epoch-making when we were exhorted over such a name to "bury the hatchet." I felt it marked a period in the history of this country and I thought that the Fianna Fáil Party might take an example by that.

The Deputy makes a statement——

The Deputy is quite free to make his own speech when I have finished.

He makes a statement——

This is not a point of order.

He makes a statement that is not true.

My suggestion to the Deputy is that he should take this example.

You are stating a deliberate falsehood and you know it.

The Deputy must not accuse another Deputy of telling a deliberate falsehood.

I take it when the Minister for Agriculture, who is responsible in these matters, has definitely told his supporters that this is, and will forever be, their best market, the time has come to consider whether the hatchet should not be buried in respect of other things as well as coal. If it was possible to make a Coal-Cattle Pact, if it was considered worth while to give Britain the monopoly of our coal trade in consideration of an extension of our cattle trade with her, if that was considered on its merits to be a good bargain by the Fianna Fáil Government, surely it will be possible for them, with the support we are quite prepared to give, to do a little better in future. The lines along which I suggest they should travel is to enter into negotiations for a wider and larger quota for our cattle in Britain. We have succeeded on foot of that agreement in getting a quota which approximates almost exactly to the entire number of store cattle we exported heretofore. However, there still remains a very substantial reduction—37 per cent, I think—on our quota of fat cattle.

I suggest to the Minister for Agriculture that he and the Minister for Industry and Commerce ought to bring pressure to bear on the snag, whatever it may be, with a view to removing it from the path of further negotiation and further settlement along these lines in order to recover for our people the entire quota at least of the 1931 shipments. If he can get that—and it is purely, a question of trade negotiation—a very large part of the sum mentioned in this Estimate will become unnecessary because cattle dealers, and such men as the Minister, will not be free to go in and pay the minimum price in the Dublin cattle market. The Minister will find when he goes back dealing in the cattle market that he will not be able to buy at 22/- per cwt. because the increased demand for our cattle will raise the price to something closer to the price obtaining in Northern Ireland and Great Britain than at present obtains here.

We are told that this Estimate is partially for the financing of trial consignments, but we are never given any details of these trial consignments. I asked for details some time ago as to trial consignments, in the shape of butter, to Germany. The Minister for Defence got very angry when I asked him about these details.

Dr. Ryan

I spent at least ten minutes talking about those to-day. The Deputy was not here.

About the consignments of butter in respect of which the Minister for Defence refused to give me any information?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

So that, according to that, your policy has changed again. No information would be given at that time, and I understood that the Minister said it would be against the public interest to give that information.

Dr. Ryan

At the time, yes.

So the danger to the public interest has now been removed? Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to say whether or not there was a substantial enough profit on these transactions?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, there was.

I am glad to hear it, but does it not seem a little odd that the Minister is unable to account for transactions of that character until about 18 months after they take place? Does the Minister consider it reasonable treatment of this House that we should be asked to vote money for trial consignments, for an accounting of which we may have to wait 18 months or so and, possibly, until after the Minister has gone out of office?

Dr. Ryan

There is no part of this Estimate for trial consignments.

Does the Minister say that advisedly?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

The Vote is headed, "Export Bounties and Subsidies," and the details of the Vote are given as:

"Provision for bounties and subsidies on agricultural and industrial commodities exported from Saorstát Eireann and for expenditure connected with trial consignments of such commodities to external markets."

Is not that right?

Dr. Ryan

That is the original Estimate.

That is what?

Dr. Ryan

That is how the original Estimate runs.

Will the Minister look at the heading? It says "Details of the foregoing," and these are the details of the expenditure of £130,000, and not of the original Estimate.

Dr. Ryan

At any rate, there is none of it for trial consignments.

Well, of course, I think it will be admitted that it is a little bewildering, when an Estimate is presented in printed form, for the Minister to be free to say at any juncture: "Well, part of the printed Estimate simply is not true." It is like the kind of riddle where you are asked some such thing as: "What is it that has four legs, barks, and has feathers on it?" You are told that the answer to the riddle is that it is a dog, but when you reply that a dog has no feathers, you are told that that was only put in to make it more interesting. The Minister cannot blame us for failing to understand him if he cannot be more cogent with this House. I take it that the Minister is using some of this money to finance the transactions of the Newmarket Dairy Company. The Minister referred to certain transactions in respect of eggs which are being shipped to Germany, which transactions are confined to the Newmarket Dairy Company. I cannot remember his having given the House any particulars of this transaction either.

Dr. Ryan

I gave particulars as to that matter to-day also.

Particulars as to that?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

I was not aware of that and I am very glad and grateful to the Minister for giving that information to the House.

Dr. Ryan

Why does not the Deputy wait to hear the reply?

It is not always possible to do so.

The Deputy can have a look over the Official Report next week and he will see it there.

I can assure Deputy Smith that I will have a look at the Minister's speech and that I will not wait until next week. I expect to have a look at it much earlier. I expect to see it reported in the morning's newspapers. I can assure the Deputy that I will read the Minister's speech with great interest. I always listen with great interest to his speeches.

Dr. Ryan

I fear that the Deputy only listens to his own speeches.

I always listen with great interest to the Minister's speeches, as I say, but I must confess, however, that I find it very difficult to follow the Minister's ratiocinations from day to day and from week to week. Unfortunately, however, the Minister's activities affect the welfare of every individual in this State. The only consolation is that there is still hope that some day a complete reversal of his activities may result in a change in the fortunes of us all. Deputy Belton spoke of a method whereby the Minister could devise a scheme to ensure that those export bounties would find their way back to the producer. There is only one way whereby the surplus value of these cattle can find its way back to the producer, and that is to secure a market for them. If there is a demand for cattle, the farmer will get the full price. If there is not a demand for cattle, it does not matter what expedients you resort to the farmer will not get the full price for them. Let us not lay the soothing unction to our souls that at the present time the farmer is getting 22/- or 25/- a cwt. from butchers for his beef. The fact is that I seriously doubt whether any butcher in the City of Dublin to-day, with the exception of two or three limited liability companies, is paying 25/- a cwt. for all the cattle he buys, and I positively deny that butchers are paying 25/- a cwt., or anything like it, to the persons from whom they purchase cattle in the country. Despite all the inspectors— and I do not know how many there are—that the Minister has careering around the country at the present time, there is no means by which they can compel the butcher to pay that price, and there is no means to enable the farmer to hold out for that price unless and until they can secure a market in which the farmers can dispose of their cattle freely.

The average price being paid for beef in rural Ireland to-day does not exceed, I believe, 15/- a cwt. Put it at its best, and I would say that it is between 15/- and 16/- a cwt. I do not believe that the average price being paid for beef in the Dublin market to-day exceeds 18/- or 19/- a cwt. The impression that the Fianna Fáil Government would desire to create throughout the country is that they are not only securing a minimum of 22/- a cwt., and 25/- a cwt. for domestic consumption, but also providing on top of that a bounty which goes back to the producer of the live stock. It is astonishing what effective propaganda can put over. It is amazing the extent to which people can be bewildered and deceived. I freely confess that in the history of the country, so long as I have been able to study it, no such successful campaign of fraud and deception has ever been carried out on this country before as that which the Fianna Fáil Party has carried out. I freely confess that you have managed to masquerade as Republicans.

The Vote before the House is one for export bounties and subsidies and proposes that a supplementary sum not exceeding £130,000 be granted "to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment for export bounties and subsidies." On a Supplementary Estimate it is most unusual to attempt to cover the whole field suggested by the original Vote. The Deputy, it seems to me, has done so. It certainly is out of order to discuss the republicanism or otherwise of the Fianna Fáil Party on this Vote.

I thought it was quite usual for the Deputy to do so.

Does the Deputy wish to raise a point of order?

Of course, Sir, I would prefer you to decide whether it is or not.

If it is a point of order the Deputy may raise it, but if it is not a point of order, Deputy Dillon is in possession.

I quite agree that the facts are as put by you, Sir, and demonstrate that I have strayed somewhat from the immediate relevance of this Supplementary Estimate, and I hasten to correct the error. Certain specific queries have been put to the Minister in regard to his administration, and in regard to the bounties and licences involved therein: The Minister will remember that by his own declaration, and by the declaration of the permanent head of his Department, he has inextricably associated the question of bounties and licences.

Dr. Ryan

I do not see how licences come under this Vote.

The Minister will remember his declaration that if bounties were not used in a certain way by cattle shippers he would see that they did not get them. The Minister might well make the case that parts of the bounties were not used in a certain way, and were handed to others, but some explanation should be made with regard to the licensing situation; the general attitude towards the bounties question, and what the Minister intends to do in respect of the rate of bounties at present paid on eggs, so that people may have some idea of what the future holds for them. In regard to bacon, I take it that it would be better to defer the question until we are considering the Bacon and Pork Bill. When replying the Minister might say whether he intends any part of this money for varying the existing bounties on these commodities.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon is best at throwing suggestions of corruption across the House. He has done it over and over again. It reminds me of one of Bacon's essays in which he says that the person who has an evil mind, unless he can attribute corruption to someone else, must go back and feed on his own.

He is a lad of the right school.

Dr. Ryan

Yes. I have explained over and over again how licences are issued. There is no use explaining to Deputy Dillon, who makes some scurrilous speeches and then goes away to the restaurant or perhaps to write letters. He does not wait for any reply. The Deputy likes to hear himself talk. He does not want to hear anyone else, as long as he can hear himself talk the raimeis that we have to listen to. A man who talks so much and who knows so little is bound to make mistakes. I explained over and over again that licences are issued under the basis of the exports for 1933. An exporter who drew bounties on cattle in 1933 got a certain number of licences in 1934. A Consultative Council was set up and they agreed that certain areas in Connaught, Kerry, Donegal and a few other places should get special consideration. They got more than they were entitled to. That was done with the consent of the Consultative Council, and also with the consent of the council, certain men, who, owing to illness or other reasons were not able to export during certain months in 1933, were given licences in 1934, as if they exported right through. The Consultative Council saw the lists showing how the licences were issued. If there were 40,000 licences, and if you deal with 45, 44 or 43 per cent. for half of a month, inevitably some licences must be left over, perhaps 200, 100 or 50. These are the only licences over which the Department had any discretion. These licences are issued from a list which is put up to me of individuals considered to be the most deserving, amongst them being members of this House. I do not mean that they were given for constituents but sometimes for themselves and for those considered to be deserving of them. That is why I should like to put to Deputy Dillon this question: How many members of his Party got licences for themselves and not for constituents—and perhaps of this Party?

Publish all the names and the licences.

Would not that be evidence of corruption?

Corruption to take licences.

Dr. Ryan

What I want is that people in the country shall see that members of the Party opposite were more concerned about themselves than about the people.

What about your own Party?

Dr. Ryan

I am prepared to give those in my own Party, too.

Publish all.

Dr. Ryan

This year, licences were issued to those who drew licences in 1934. No one is getting a licence who did not ship cattle. They cannot get licences if they did not draw bounties. That should cut out people who drew licences and sold them. The licences are not numbered. Where numbers were sent to us, in which there was traffic, we looked them up and in every single case the particular person concerned will never get licences again. They were taken off the list and will not get them again.

Is that corruption?

Dr. Ryan

No. This year we gave licences to feeders, and by the time some of the licences reached them the cattle had been sold. They then sold the licences. That was responsible for some of the selling of licences, and is responsible for some of it at present. Deputy Dillon says that unless a person who gets a licence exports, it should be made a penal offence.

No, mark the licences not transferable.

Dr. Ryan

How could every feeder export? It could not be done. If we send licences to feeders we know that they are going to sell the cattle and the licences to the exporters. What is advocated here by men of high morals? Then we cannot give licences to the feeders at all.

I did not advocate that. Deputy Belton did.

Sure he is in your Party still.

Dr. Ryan

I have been told, and I have no reason to doubt it, that licences are being sold. It is really difficult to stop that. There are farmers entitled to get licences, who have been visited by inspectors, and perhaps there are three issues of licences before their reports come back. If a man is to get two licences on the 1st February, two in the middle of February, and two on the 1st of March, perhaps in the meantime be clears the cattle, and when he gets the licence there is no greater temptation, instead of sending them back to the Department, than to sell them for 10/- or 15/-. He thinks they are his property and he keeps them.

If the Minister thinks differently, what is the use of the farmer thinking it?

Dr. Ryan

The farmer does not care what I think, and he does not care what Deputy Belton thinks.

Render the licences useless, except with the beasts, and that will pass the stage of thinking.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Belton stated that the amount of export bounties is going up and the rate going down. That is true, because exports are increasing in quantity.

Are the British tariffs decreasing?

Dr. Ryan

No. Deputy Dillon says that unless we increase the bounties on eggs the trade will go down. I am afraid we will have to do something to discourage the production of eggs. It is increasing rapidly. We have only a certain number of quotas, and if we get more eggs than are required what are we to do?

Is there a quota on eggs the British market?

Dr. Ryan

There is. I explained that to-day, and I am not going to go over it a second time for Deputy Dillon's advantage. Deputy Belton says that the farmers are more than paying for the economic war. He admits that they were given £4,500,000 in bounties to pay the tariffs, so that they are losing nothing. We want to be fair to farmers. Supposing we give them £3,000,000 out of the £4,500,000, they are losing only £1,500,000, and against that we gave them the land annuities.

They are losing also on the home market.

Dr. Ryan

On the home market what do we give them on milk and butter production? I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again to-morrow.
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