This motion, asking the House to set up a committee to investigate the incidence of British penal tariffs, was intended to put that case and no other. What we asked for has been hidden in a maze of irrelevancies by the speakers who set out to handle the agricultural policy by giving their opinions on it and so on. Very little attention was given to the request in the motion. Whether the growing of wheat, the growing of beet, and other phases of the Government's agricultural policy is sound or unsound we did not contemplate a discussion on these lines. I do not think that remarks which I consider to be irrelevant, and which clouded the issue, call for a reply. At another time I will give my opinion on the agricultural policy, not now. I made a case of substantial accuracy in my previous remarks. That is all that is required on this motion. I hold that I made a substantially accurate case when I pointed out that agriculture was losing £6,000,000 a year through the operation of these tariffs. I did not ask the Government to accept that case. They did not even put up a speaker with any knowledge to refute it. Perhaps that might be the most eloquent criticism of the Government's action. Our case is made at every cross roads and at every meeting house regardless of the auspices under which these meetings are called. I do not care whether they are held under the auspices of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, or Labour. Nobody dissents from the case we are making. It will be good reading for opponents of the Government, and bad reading for their supporters, if they do not accept this motion, particularly when the Government put up no spokesman to deal with this question in an intelligent way. The case we made was that agriculture is losing about £6,000,000 a year owing to these tariffs and we merely asked that a committee should be set up to investigate that position. That is a very reasonable request. If it is not granted it shows that the Government is afraid of something.
The Government told us many times during the economic war that they were looking around the world for markets. That same Government, when offered a present of a market, turned it down and prevented farmers availing of it. In the last year Yugo-Slavia sent 141,213 live cattle to Italy. First quality fat heifers and bullocks can be purchased in the Dublin cattle market at 21/- and 22/- per cwt. live weight; second quality fat heifers and bullocks can be purchased from 17/- to 18/- per cwt. live weight. Fat bulls and cows which are not, I suppose, fit for Roscrea factory can be purchased from 15/- to 16/- per cwt. live weight. The average weight per beast would be about 11 cwt. live weight, or 550 kilos. The cost of transport per beast to the Port of Naples, including freight, loading and unloading, on the basis of a full boat load of 250 or 300 fat cattle would be £4 per head and allowing £2 for feeding and insurance, the total cost per head would be £6. On the basis that first quality fat heifers and bullocks weigh 550 kilos live weight they would be delivered at an Italian port for about £18. Second quality heifers and bullocks could be delivered at £16 and bulls and cows about £15 per head. These calculations are only estimated, however, in order to show what the probable cost would work out at in the transaction. It would be necessary to allow wastage of 10 per cent., live weight, due to the sea journey, so that 550 kilos would amount on arrival at an Italian port to——
