I intended to conclude this debate last night, but I was requested by the Opposition to continue to-day. I am glad to comply with the request because it gives me an opportunity to deal somewhat more fully than I did with the question of licences. Licences for cattle are issued in two ways. In the case of fat cattle the licences are being issued now, and for some little time have been issued, to the producers. From the tone of the debate last night, I take it that there is no objection to the practice of issuing those licences to the producers. On the other hand, it does lead to many of the complaints that were made here regarding trafficking in licences. As I mentioned last night, we can only send inspectors to look over these cattle in the stalls every five or six weeks. There may be three issues of licences between the visits of the inspector. Suppose licences had been issued on the 1st February, the inspector having been there at the end of January, and suppose the particular feeder was entitled to two licences on the 1st February, he would automatically get two more in the middle of February and two more on the 1st March before the inspector would be around again. In many cases the owner of the cattle meeting with a favourable opportunity of disposing of the cattle to a butcher or a dealer, the cattle would be gone by the time the last two licences were issued, and he would sell these two licences. That is one way in which licences come on the market. Then, sometimes, a dealer buys cattle with the licences. The dealer meets with a favourable opportunity of disposing of the particular cattle to a victualler or home butcher, and he sells the licences also. Another objection to that—if it is an objection— is that we could not possibly adopt the safeguard suggested by Deputy Belton. Deputy Belton suggested that we should make these licences non-transferable. If we issue the licences to the producer, we know quite well that the producers themselves cannot in all cases export the cattle. In many cases the exporter would have only one licence, and it would be too much even for Deputy Belton to suggest that that farmer should go across to Birkenhead or Glasgow to dispose of one beast. It is obvious that cattle are sold with licences to some dealer or exporter and, in that way, the licences are transferable. The system of issuing these licences to the producers leads, in my opinion, to greater traffic in licences than if they were issued entirely to the people in the exporting business. In the case of stores there is a different system. They are issued to those with records as exporters of cattle. In 1934 they were issued on the basis of the exports for 1933. That is to say, we took all the cattle exported in February, 1933, and the number of licences we got for February, 1934, and we worked out the percentage. Each exporter of 1933 got his proportion of the licences. They were given, of course, to those who drew the export bounty and that, in itself led to certain trouble because we had bitter complaints from people who claimed to be exporters that the person who drew the bounty was not the exporter, but was an agent of the person making the complaint.
We could not set ourselves up as judges in that case, and unless the agent was willing to agree to send us a signed statement that the licences should not be issued to the other persons we could not act. In addition to that class of regular exporters for 1933, there were special areas, which were approved by the Consultative Council which consists practically altogether of exporters. In these special areas, where it was felt that there was more hardship than was necessary, more licences were issued than were actually due to them. These were far away places such as Donegal, most parts of Connaught, Kerry and West Cork and areas like those, away from the main and central markets.
There were, also, special cases such as this. A man may have been exporting regularly for years, and for some reason over which he had no control— usually sickness—no exports were made by him during certain months of 1933. These people were not exporting their usual numbers. I said last night that when all that was concluded there was always an odd number of licences over. For instance I was looking at some figures and found this example. There were 32,000 cattle exported in certain months in 1933. For the same months in 1934 we got 30,000 licences, so we had to work out a percentage and we found that on the figures available it worked out at 46 per cent. The exporters got 46 per cent. of the licences in the first half of the year and 46 per cent. in the next half, making 92 per cent. in all. Having worked that out we found that we had 280 licences over. The number of licences over sometimes is as low as 50 or 100; it is very seldom so high as 280. Now something had to be done with these licences, and it is only in cases like that that I have any discretion in the issue of licences. The lists are prepared for people all over the country and the licences are issued in very small numbers to those people.
Now we know that licences were sold. A case was reported to us that a certain individual was selling licences. The case was investigated and, as a matter of fact, it was found that the charge was true. If no export bounty is applied for within two months by the licensee we know the licences were not used by that person; and every man who is convicted of that offence of selling licences has his name taken off the list and gets no more licences. I do not see what more we can do except to adopt another system which I shall deal with later. In 1935 we issued licences on the basis of the 1934 exports. That is we took the people who drew the export bounty during the months of 1934 and we issued licences to those people. Every person who got a licence in 1934 and who sold it and did not draw the export bounty was automatically ruled out for 1935. In that way I think we are likely to rule out a lot of people referred to here as drovers and so on.
