The expenditure under this Bill, as far as public funds are concerned, will not amount to more than £15,000 or £16,000 as estimated. The biggest item of expenditure will be the veterinary inspection. In a full year that is estimated to cost about £14,000. The administrative expenditure under this Bill, as far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned, will not be heavy, because most of the work will be done by the boards that are being set up under the Bill. I do not think that the administrative expenses of the Department will be more than £1,500. The total expenditure, therefore, will be between £15,000 and £16,000. In addition to that, of course, there are the two Boards. The administrative expenses of these two Boards are estimated at between £4,000 and £5,000 each. Under the Bill it is provided that these Boards may carry out certain experiments and do certain research work. It is difficult to say what the expenditure may amount to if they do any research work or carry out any experiments. I do not believe, however, that it will be very heavy. Probably it would not amount to more than a few hundred pounds or perhaps £1,000. The big item, however, both of receipts and expenditure of whichever Board may have the administration of it, is this matter that has to be settled on the Committee Stage of what might be regarded as the stabilisation fund.
This Excise duty collected on bacon was for the purpose of increasing the bounties on exports. It did not give the Minister for Finance any additional income so far as the Budget forecast was concerned. He had already allocated all that was estimated for in his Budget for export bounties, and whatever came out of this Excise duty on bacon was also devoted to that purpose over and above what was already allocated. It is not true to say either that the duty realised £300,000. That would be the estimate for a full year. What was actually received in the financial year was a good deal less than that. I do not know what the exact figure was, but I think it was somewhat under a quarter of a million.
If the Bill is passed, and if certain amendments which are being put down are agreed to, it will be possible to have the stabilisation fund and to get rid of this Excise duty altogether. In that case I think the Minister for Finance has no intention whatever of continuing the Excise duty for revenue purposes. I cannot give an estimate of what that levy for stabilisation purposes may amount to, because it will depend entirely on the relative prices of pigs here and in Great Britain, and of bacon here and in Great Britain. It is impossible, of course, to forecast what these prices may be. The levy raised by whichever Board is administering this would not, I believe, amount to more than £300,000, and indeed it may prove to be much less. I do not see that it would have any great effect from the point of view of the producer here, because the idea is to collect a levy at times when the bacon curer can pay more, taking the price of bacon into consideration, and to pay out from that fund at times when the bacon curer is losing on his business. In fact, if you like, it is a regularisation of the position which was there heretofore, where the bacon curer himself lost at certain times of the year and gained at other times. It is transferring that loss and gain over to the Board, to effect, if possible, that the bacon curer would get an ordinary reasonable profit the whole year round, and that the Board would stand this occasional loss and reap this occasional gain which the bacon curer has been getting up to the present. I do not think it affects the consumer to any great extent.
