Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 20 Feb 1936

Vol. 60 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Vote No. 52—Agriculture.

Mr. MacEntee

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim Bhreise eile ná raghaidh thar £10 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníochta i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1936, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Talmhaíochta agus seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riaradh na hOifige sin, maraon le hIldeontaisí-i-gChabhair.

That a further Supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1936, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, and of certain services administered by that Office, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

Under sub-head A—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—there is an additional sum of £3,782 required for salaries payable under two Acts—the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act and the Pigs and Bacon Act—which came into operation after the original Estimate was introduced. As to sub-head H—Grants to County Committees of Agriculture—these grants are under two headings. The first heading is: "Special grants to provide lime for agricultural purposes," the amount being £9,500. This is a scheme which has been in operation for two or three years, under which lime is given out by the county committees of agriculture at something less than cost; in other words, a subsidy is provided by the county committees. The second heading is: "Special grants to county committees of agriculture to meet expenses incurred in connection with distribution of cattle export licences," and the amount is £15,000. Last July the distribution of licences for fat cattle, bulls and cows was handed over to the county committees of agriculture. The expenses of the committees in connection with the distribution of these licences will amount to £15,000 for the financial year. The next item is I (1)—Special Agricultural Schemes in Congested Districts. Under that heading there is £2,000 for special livestock schemes. That is for the supply of bulls. Then there is a sum of £500 for a scheme to encourage the use of lime for agricultural purposes. That is a scheme of grants for the building of limekilns.

The next item, K (2), is "Contribution to Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (Grant-in-Aid), £186." In 1933-4 the grant paid to the society, with the approval of the Department of Finance, was £186 in excess of the amount voted. The Comptroller and Auditor-General held that it was not right to pay money voted under another sub-head as part of a grant-in-aid, even though it was a small amount, because under the other subheads money is voted by the Dáil for specific purposes and has to be accounted for. In the case of a grant-in-aid the money is not accounted for. As to item O (8), under the Price Stabilisation Act there is a certain period of the year at which more money is paid out than the fund can provide at the time. In other words, subsidies are paid out earlier in the year than the levies come in. For the last three years we got an advance from the Minister for Finance of £100,000, which was repaid each year by the end of the financial year. This year we asked for £150,000, but that was not sufficient, and we, therefore, want an additional sum of £30,000. That makes a total of £180,000. As to M (8)—Butter Purchase Scheme—that is to meet the net cost of the scheme for the purchase of butter. Item M (10) is: "Grant in respect of additional sugar beet grown in the Cooley district." This is a grant of 2/- per ton to the growers in that area who are supplying beet to the Carlow factory. This special concession is made to that area because an attempt was made some five or six years ago to divert the farmers in that district from potato-growing to beet-growing, as far as possible, as there was a difficulty in the marketing of potatoes owing to black scab.

Mr. Brennan

What is the relationship between sub-head O (8) and M (8)?

Dr. Ryan

Sub-head M (8) provides for the cost of the scheme for purchasing butter for export and also for sale on the home market if necessary. Sub-head O (9) (Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Acts, 1933 to 1935) is an item for £1,000 additional. In the Cereals Act there was a clause under which the Minister for Agriculture took responsibility for paying seed merchants where an agreement had been entered into between the grower and the merchant for the purchase of seed during the season 1934-35. Some of these growers sold their wheat even after notice had been served on them by me, to some merchant other than the one to whom they were asked to sell their seed. I am, however, obliged to make good the cost of the seed to the merchants and I hope to recover this money later from the growers.

Mr. Dillon

Did these fellows get away with the money?

Dr. Ryan

Oh no.

Mr. Dillon

You are to sue them for it?

Dr. Ryan

Yes. Sub-head O (12) is under the Acquisition of Land Allotments (Amendment) Act, 1934. It is for £1,210 and it is an additional sum for seeds and manures under that Act. Sub-head O (13) is under the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Act 1934-35. It is for the purchase of cattle for canning in the Waterford factory. These are cattle purchased for human consumption. The cost of the cattle is £10,000 but the Appropriation-in-Aid amounts to £6,470.

Mr. Dillon

So you lose £3,530 on it?

Dr. Ryan

Yes. There will, I am afraid, inevitably be a loss on that business unless the market for canned meat improves. There is not a very great demand for canned meat in this country and I do not know whether it is advisable to encourage it. At any rate, there is no great demand for canned beef. The extract is all right. We get as good a price for the extract as is got anywhere else. There is also an item for the provision of cattle for export. Against that there are receipts for £217,000. O (15) is a sub-head under the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935. With regard to the item "Export of cattle," in the original Estimate there was a sum of £125,000 for the purchase of cattle for export, and that is to be added to the present sum of £214,000. Against that, there were expected Appropriations-in-Aid in the original Estimate of £147,500. It must be remembered, however, that the previous financial year would have to be taken into account also to get at the true balance sheet of the year's trading because in the previous year there was a loss of something like £25,000, the reason being that we have to pay for the cattle as we buy them and we are generally three or four weeks in arrears in getting paid from Germany for the cattle sent out. In the first year there was a loss and that loss would be made good in this present year. At least we should not lose in the present year. There will always be a slight lagging behind in the trading. I think that covers all the points.

Mr. Dillon

I think I am right in saying that on a previous occasion the Minister told us that on all those cattle referred to in sub-head O (13) and P (22) there was no bounty paid.

Dr. Ryan

That is right.

Mr. Dillon

So that on these sales of approximately £500,000 worth of cattle, the Minister looks forward either to making a profit or to breaking even. Is that correct?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, that would be about right.

Mr. Dillon

I think it ought to be borne in mind that the Minister dealing in terms of £500,000 worth of shipping to Germany is gratified in reporting to this House that he has broken even, and I dare say that the individual farmers in the country who look with anticipation to this market may know that when they are in a position to market £500,000 worth per annum they may expect to get out without loss, but that if they only deal in the modest terms of £50,000 worth of cattle they may expect that the trade will not be very profitable from the point of view of the Irish farmer. The first sub-head on this Vote deals with additional staff for the administration of the Dairy Produce Acts and the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935. I am extremely uneasy about the administration of the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935. I sat on the Committee which considered that Bill. The members of the Opposition on that Committee were very carefully concerned that no analogy would be established between the Pigs and Bacon Board on the one hand, and the Electricity Supply Board on the other. When the Shannon electrification legislation was going through it was so provided that no Minister of this House was responsible for anything the board might do. The board was an entirely autonomous body and, therefore, no question relating to its administration could be raised here by way of question and answer. We recognised that the establishment of a board of a similar character affecting a branch of agriculture in this country, would be disastrous, particularly when in its initial stages it was going to consist of bacon curers and producers whose representatives would be nominated by the Government. We inserted in that Bill a provision giving the Minister power to make inquiries required from the Bacon Marketing Board and the Pigs Marketing Board, whenever he thought it necessary to do so. Having put that proviso in the Bill, we are satisfied that the burden rests upon the Minister of requiring from the Bacon Marketing Board or the Pigs Marketing Board, any information that a Deputy of this House asks from the Minister for Agriculture in the ordinary course of his Parliamentary duties. I think the House will realise how very necessary that is when I direct their attention to the fact that the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board have now announced their intention, quite blandly, of eliminating the pig jobbers from the pig industry altogether. The Chairman of the Pigs Marketing Board quite recently attended a meeting in Cork, and there delivered a speech clearly indicating that he wanted to see the pig jobbers completely wiped out of existence, and all sales of pigs effected by delivery at the factory door. If that were carried through, we would have a situation arising in which the Pigs Marketing Board could alter the whole social organisation of rural Ireland. By destroying the local fairs they would not only injure business enormously in the small towns throughout the country, but they would also remove from the farmers the one open market that the small farmers have got where competition is going to operate to the small farmers' advantage.

Take a pig dealer, an independent man, who when he bought so many wagons of pigs can either rail them to Great Britain or sell them to the curer here in Ireland, whichever bids the best price for them; if you once eliminate that man from the pig trade in this country you hand over the pig producers of this country into the hands of the bacon curers. It is my considered opinion that if you hand the pig producers of this country into the hands of the bacon curers, you will see no dramatic change for about two or three years after that is effected, but, when the public mind is lulled into a sense of security by the fact that no dramatic change has taken place in pig prices, pig prices will be just such prices as the curer is pleased to pay for pigs. No regard will be had, good, bad or indifferent, to the capacity of the farmers of this country to produce pigs at any given price. Any Deputy who has any experience of a similar transaction which took place in the United States of America knows that the pig packers in that country were always concerned to break up the small rural fairs, because they foresaw, and rightly foresaw, that if they could once establish the principle that all live stock must be sold in the packer's yard, the day would come when the packer would rule the price for live stock of all kinds, and that any farmer who did not choose to take the packer's price could be smashed by the packers. If you eliminate the pig jobber from the pig business in this country you are going to hand over the producer into the hands of the curer, and that is a thing that no autonomous body like the pigs Marketing Board or the Bacon Marketing Board should be authorised to do. If the Minister's contention that those are autonomous bodies is once admitted in this House, then that revolution can be effected by a body which does not admit the control of this House at all. It can be effected behind the backs of this House, and no Deputy in the House will have any power whatever to prevent it or to protest against it.

I think the Minister should tell us now what his policy is on the question of fairs and markets, whether he wants to smash them and do away with them, and if so what are his reasons for such a departure. I stand uncompromisingly for the recognition of the useful service that has been discharged by the pig jobbers and pig dealers' association in this country. I am convinced, not only from the point of view of the producer, but also from the point of view of every business man in the country and in the rural towns, that it will be a disaster if the pig fairs are broken up and done away with and that, in the long run, the only body of people who can hope to derive any benefit from such arrangement are the bacon curers of the country. Therefore I ask the Minister to state specifically what his policy is in that regard. I also want to ask the Minister to make an explicit statement to-day as to whether he does intend to adhere to the attitude he has taken up so far of declining to ask the Bacon Marketing Board or the Pigs Marketing Board for information.

Thirdly, I want to put to him another question. After a protracted debate the Minister inserted, at the request of the Opposition, a section in the Pigs and Bacon Bill providing that, when the Pigs Marketing Board came to fix a price for pigs, they must not do so unless and until they had given due consideration to the costs of production as set out in the Pigs and Bacon Act. I allege that the first price which was fixed by the Pigs Marketing Board was fixed without any regard having been taken to the cost of production. I allege that on the strength of a statement made by a member of that board at a meeting over which Deputy Belton presided, in the City of Dublin. I want an assurance from the Minister that he will insist that in future the price of pigs will not be fixed by the board until they have given due consideration to the cost of production, so that the price of pigs will not be fixed below the cost of production, unless the board intends to do so and is prepared to justify to the country such a line of conduct. There has come into my hands recently a document issued from the Bacon Marketing Board, 36 Upper Mount Street, Dublin, which purports to fix the minimum prices at which bacon can be sold in this country. I know of no authority under the Pigs and Bacon Act whereby the Bacon Marketing Board is authorised to fix a minimum price for bacon. Is there any such power? Would the Minister say if he is aware of any power under the Act for that purpose? I do not think he can, because it is certainly not in the Act. I want him to address an inquiry to the Bacon Marketing Board to ask them by what authority they issued a document headed "Schedule. Minimum Prices," and giving thereunder a series of prices for bacon manufactured from pigs of different classes for consumption in Saorstát Eireann. I remember very well that the Minister distinctly said that his policy was to leave the home market an open market, wherein the bacon curers might freely compete, and to distribute the export quota amongst the curers in accordance with an agreed formula. Apparently, the Bacon Marketing Board, imagining that they had a degree of autonomy which they certainly do not enjoy, are prepared to go a step further themselves and fix the minimum price with a view to holding up the bacon consumers of this country, if they are allowed to get away with their initial activities such as I have described.

Before I depart from that question there is one other extraordinary fact which has emerged. Deputies are aware that the bacon industry of this country consists principally of the bacon that is consumed in Saorstát Eireann and the bacon that is exported to Great Britain. The bacon which is exported to Great Britain is exported under quota. That quota is known as the export quota, and is divided, according to formula, by the Ministry of Agriculture between the bacon producers of this country.

The Bacon Marketing Board also have a formula by which they arrive at the "home sales quota," and that quota is also divided up amongst bacon-curers, but there is apparently no provision for the bacon-curer who desires to export bacon to a market other than Great Britain. Now, it so happens that the American market is sometimes prepared to pay what might be described as a fancy price for Irish bacon at certain seasons of the year, but if an Irish bacon-curer now wishes to send a consignment of bacon to America he must do it out of that part of his production which has been scheduled by the Bacon Marketing Board as his "home sales quota." His "home sales quota" is only sufficient to supply his regular customers in the home market, so that if he gets the opportunity of advantageously placing 500 or 1,000 sides of Irish bacon in New York he will not be allowed to take it out of his export quota, or if he does he will lose that quota in the next quota period, but he may take it out of his "home sales quota," and leave his regular customers in Ireland short while he supplies his customer in New York. I submit to the Minister that that position is absurd. Machinery ought to be devised without delay whereby a bacon producer, who is anxious to fill his "home sales quota" and his British quota and, in addition, a third market, should be allowed a special production quota in respect of that third market which will enable him to supply it without trenching on either his "home sales quota" or the quota for the British market.

Lastly, in connection with the bacon business, I put it to the Minister that it is demonstrably necessary that very much closer supervision should be exercised by his Department over the activities of the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board. The most extraordinary things have happened since those boards were set up. One must attribute the incredible messes into which they have got themselves to inexperience and ineptitude; but we do know that there were markets here and there through the country in which a quantity of pork could not be sold because there was no one to buy it. We do know that in other cases the Pigs Marketing Board or the Bacon Marketing Board went around and bought quantities of pork, and, instead of converting it promptly into bacon and cold-storing it, hawked it about until well beyond its prime, and then sold it as pork to bacon-curers for conversion into bacon at a very heavy loss. It has been impossible for this House to ascertain what the measure of that loss was. We also know that the Pigs Marketing Board or the Bacon Marketing Board have in store large quantities of bacon that they were obliged to cure, and that, in short, they made an unholy mess of the job they were given to do in the first three or four months of their existence. Such a mess should not arise again.

I am not satisfied with the prices that have been fixed by the Pigs Marketing Board for pork since they started their operations. The whole object of this Act was to give a long term view of what pig prices were going to be so that producers and feeders would know from time to time what they might expect to get some weeks ahead. Far from that being the case, we have had the Pigs Marketing Board making an order for pig prices which was to remain constant for six weeks, and then revising their prices order half way through the period and raising them. Now, we all know why that was done. It was because the Minister made representations to them that the protests from the country were becoming too violent as a result of his having to increase the cost of his maize meal mixture: that something would have to be done to bring the prices for pigs into somewhat closer relationship with the cost of production, whereupon the Pigs Marketing Board broke in on their own prices order and raised prices all round by 2/- per cwt. The Minister says that he did not approach the Pigs Marketing Board and I, of course, have to accept his word. I think, however, it may be said that the Pigs Marketing Board knew what was in the Minister's mind. My submission is that that kind of thing defeats the whole purpose of the Pigs and Bacon Act. What you want is a long distance notification to producers of what the prices of pigs are going to be in the future, and unless you get that the whole system of regulation under the Act is worthless, and tends only to pile on profits for the procurers.

I make this suggestion to the Minister that he is not providing adequate safeguards for the producers of this country unless he places on the curers an obligation to communicate to him, at the end of each financial year, what the certified profits of their undertakings are. I do not ask him to publish such figures to the Dáil or to the country at large because where private companies are operating it would not be right or reasonable that their private affairs should be dragged before the public at large; but, it would be perfectly legitimate, where the Minister is providing regulation and a considerable measure of protection for curers, that he should require them to furnish him with a certified statement of their accounts by a recognised firm of auditors, so that from time to time he could satisfy himself that undue profits were not being made by any close borough of curers on a strictly regulated market. I imagine if he does that he will agree with me that the most effective check he could have on inflated profits in the curers' business is the constant presence of the pig-jobber who, whenever the market is good, will operate his forces all through the country to push up the price of pigs and to keep the margin between the price of pigs and bacon reasonably close, providing a fair living for everyone and a fair price for the producers of pigs.

I suppose there is really not much use commenting on the glorious inconsistencies in our agricultural schemes. We find that under sub-head I (1)— Special Agricultural Schemes in Agricultural Districts—that the sum of £2,000 is being asked for special live stock schemes to make additional provision for a supply of bulls. Senator Connolly has said that he could tear down in 100 days the live-stock industry which it took 100 years to build up. Yet, the House is being asked to vote £2,000 to provide bulls for the congested areas to produce live stock that Senator Connolly regards as anathema. It does not seem to embarrass the Minister for Agriculture in the least to be kicked around the floor of this House by his colleagues, all of whom have a skelp at him from time to time. Despite it all he comes up smiling in the long run. The Minister has been given an embarrassing task in being asked to introduce a Supplementary Estimate such as this. If I could whisper a word in Senator Connolly's ear I should say to him that if he would stick to furniture and fish it would be very much more helpful to the Minister for Agriculture.

I would like to have some information from the Minister with regard to his profit and loss accounts on his butter transactions. He has been selling butter in Germany and on the continent of Europe as well as in the despised British market which, as Senator Connolly said, had, thank God, gone for ever. I would be very much obliged if the Minister would tell us how much butter he sold in the British market which, thank God, has gone for ever, and how much he sold in the German market, and what profit he made on each transaction, or what loss he sustained on each transaction. The Minister has already been strangely reticent about that. I think it is right, when the Department of Agriculture are engaging in commercial activities of that kind, that they would be scrupulously exact in rendering a clear profit and loss account to this House at the end of each year's operations.

I see from the Estimate that we are going to provide 2/- a ton to the growers of sugar beet in the Cooley area. How many Deputies in the House really know what the beet sugar industry costs this country per acre. Does Deputy Jordan, who lives in the midst of a forest of sugar beet? Can he tell us how much each statute acre of that beet costs the State?

Mr. Jordan

If the Deputy gives me the document he has in his hand I will tell him.

Mr. Dillon

I speak subject to correction, but I have made it out as follows. I think the calculation is a most interesting one when we contemplate adding 2/- a ton to the Cooley product. I make it out that the net price of Tate sugar crystals delivered in Dublin City in bond is about 9/3 per cwt., and the corresponding price for sugar manufactured by Comhlucht Siuicre Eireann is 25/5. That means that in bounties of one kind or another the State contributes 16/2 per cwt. on sugar. That amounts to £16 3s. 4d. per ton on sugar. Now, I am informed by a friend who is in touch with the Tuam beet factory and with other sugar areas in general, that they fix a figure of 7.25 tons of beet as the average amount required to produce a ton of sugar. I am depending on this friend, who is familiar with the procedure of the beet-sugar factories, as to whether that figure is correct or not. I am informed by the Minister for Agriculture that the average yield of beet is 10.5 tons per statute acre. If 7.25 tons of beet produce one ton of sugar, then 10.5 tons will produce a ton and a half of sugar, and the bounty being £16 3s. 4d. per ton, that means that producers receive a bounty of £24 5s. per acre. Now we are going to add 2/- a ton to the farmers in Cooley. Does it ever occur to Deputy Jordan what his neighbours in his part of the country receive for delivering the beet to the factory? Let us take 4/- a ton for delivery, and that leaves 32/6, free on rail, to the factory, which means that the farmer who gets a yield of 10.5 tons per statute acre—a very high yield for this country and far higher than most countries, with the exception perhaps of Czecho-Slovakia and Holland—receives £17 11s. 3d. So that, we have this extraordinary figure presented, that in order to produce sugar beet in this country the Government goes out through the country and buys the crop, delivers it carriage paid to the factory, and, with the produce of every acre, they hand the factory £7 cash, and then tell the factory: "Well, now, boys, you can sell the sugar at the world's price." Is not that astonishing? And this is one of the great economic boons and blessings that have been conferred on this country by the Fianna Fáil Government.

It must be remembered that it was a herculean struggle to start the great sugar beet campaign—one of the great new industrial enterprises of the Fianna Fáil Government—one of the great triumphs of the new dispensation —but when you boil it down, it means that for every acre of roots these men grow, the Government buy the roots, deliver them to the factory, and then tell the factory that they can go out and sell the sugar at the world price. That is an achievement, is it not? That is surely something to be proud of! I must say that the poor old farmer, who is driven by want and distress into growing a crop of that kind, must find it hard, when there is a bounty of £24 5s. floating around, to realise that all he is allowed is £17. He is the man that does the hard work, the sowing, the cultivation of the crop and so on, while the gentlemen in the factories not only get the crop for nothing but get £7 per acre for taking it in through the door, and for the right to sell it at the world price of sugar after they have been paid for taking a present of the crop. I think that comment on that economic brain-wave is unnecessary. Well did the Minister for Finance on a certain occasion describe it as a white elephant —and what a white elephant!

Mr. Jordan

What about the young ones?

Mr. Dillon

Oh, God forbid we should have any more. I see here also a reference to canning beef. That, apparently, has not turned out to be a very profitable enterprise, although I suppose we are selling some of our products to the meat packers at an economic price. I forget whether that was one of the alternative markets that Fianna Fáil was to provide for us. I am not sure, but I think it was one of alternative outlets that was to compensate us for the loss of the British market. Up to date, however, we are losing money on it as well as on everything else. I do not know whether it has anything to do with the strike that has taken place in a meat factory—one of the other factories set up by the Fianna Fáil Government—of which I notice, according to to-day's paper, that Deputy Briscoe is a director.

An Ceann Comhairle

Surely the Deputy is not going into that strike?

Mr. Dillon

I did not think it necessary, Sir, except that I thought that Deputy Corish would be able to give us some help with regard to the technique of the new Fianna Fáil-Labour combination in connection with strikes. In the old days, you had a strike and it dragged out a certain length; then certain concessions were made and the men came back to work and forgot all about the strike and that was the end of it. There is now, however, a new technique in regard to strikes. Since the new Fianna Fáil-Labour alliance has come about——

An Ceann Comhairle

What has the technique of settling strikes to do with this Vote?

Mr. Dillon

Surely, Sir, I am entitled to enquire whether we are to understand that all the factories set up under the Fianna Fáil Government are going to lay down the same rules in regard to strikes?

An Ceann Comhairle

Factories under this Bill?

Mr. Dillon

Well, Sir, there are thousands of pounds involved in this.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair knows not whether that strike has ended or not.

Mr. Dillon

Oh, it has, Sir. But Deputy Briscoe says that not a man will come back to that factory until he apologises to Deputy Briscoe for having gone on strike.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is Deputy Briscoe responsible to the House in this connection?

Mr. Dillon

It is this meat-canning business I am referring to.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Briscoe has no responsibility in that matter.

Mr. Dillon

Well, then, Sir, who has?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair is quite sure that Deputy Briscoe has not.

Mr. Dillon

Well, we are providing money for the purchase of cows or live stock of one kind or another to be consigned to this factory, and I really think we ought to know what is the policy.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must hold the Minister responsible in so far as he has responsibility, not Deputy Briscoe.

Mr. Dillon

Very well, Sir. I should like to know if, in fact, the Minister is trading, whether even he lays down the principle that if the men employed there go on strike, they must severally and collectively apologise to the directors of that firm who happen to be members of the Fianna Fáil Party. That has never been the practice heretofore. No managements of firms or factories heretofore have asked for apologies at the conclusion of a trade dispute. I do not think it is desirable.

An Ceann Comhairle

It seems to be a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and is not relevant now. The manner in which a particular strike has been settled does not arise. The Deputy must cease discussing it.

Mr. Dillon

I assume the Minister has not made any stipulation in that regard and that it is not intended——

Dr. Ryan

I think the Deputy should not interfere when there is a strike in progress.

Mr. Dillon

I am happy to inform you that the men presented themselves for work to-day and are working as usual.

Dr. Ryan

I would advise the Deputy not to believe everything he reads in the Evening Herald.

Mr. Dillon

This is not the Evening Herald. It is the Evening Mail.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy can have it both ways.

Mr. Dillon

I am happy to inform the Minister what he should know himself——

An Ceann Comhairle

Let the discussion on that matter end now with the announcement of the settlement of the strike.

Mr. Dillon

In deference to the Chair, I shall not pursue my inquiries on that matter any further. Deputy Corish will, doubtless, take the matter in hand. A good many matters might well be mentioned on this Supplementary Estimate, but they can more properly be dealt with on the general discussion on the Minister's Estimate. Therefore, I do not propose to delay the House further, but I do emphasise the matter that I have referred to in connection with the Pigs Marketing Board, and I do ask specifically for the accounts of the butter marketing and the cattle transactions that have taken place in respect to which large sums have been raised. I look forward on next Wednesday to making suggestions to the Government which would make the continual appearance of a very large number of sub-heads in this Supplementary Estimate unnecessary in any future Estimates they may bring before the House.

Mr. McGovern

I desire to say a few words in regard to the Pigs Marketing Board which tries to dictate not only the price of pigs but the manner in which they are to be put on the market. Deputy Dillon has referred to interference with pig-jobbers. I am not concerned with pig-jobbers, but we are concerned in County Cavan with the system of marketing pigs that has obtained there from time immemorial. Farmers were in the habit of killing their pigs at home and selling them afterwards on the market. I think there can be no real objection to the continuation of that practice. Every county, every district, has its own method of carrying on business and it is not easy to get away from established methods, especially when farmers, by killing their pigs and selling them dead weight, know what they are getting for every pound of their pigs. There is no very sound reason why that system should be departed from at the dictation of the Bacon Marketing Board or the Pigs Marketing Board or whoever is responsible. I think the Minister is responsible to a certain extent for both of these boards.

Another matter is that they not only dictate the manner of selling pigs but also the breed of pigs that the farmers should keep and the class of bacon that the consumer should use. I think that is altogether uncalled for. I think consumers have a perfect right to choose any class of bacon they want. Complaints are general all through the County Cavan that people cannot get fat bacon to buy in the shops, and it is fat bacon they want to buy. Poor people want to get fat bacon because they find it more beneficial. They much prefer it to lean bacon. The shopkeepers say they cannot get it from the curers and the curers say that they cannot buy fat pigs, that is, pigs of the Ulster breed. The curers' objection to them is that they are too fat. The people want to buy fat bacon, but it will not be sold to them. I do not think it was ever intended by the Minister or anybody else to give the Bacon Marketing Board the right to dictate to consumers what sort of bacon they ought to eat or to dictate to producers what sort of pigs they ought to feed.

If the people or a certain section of them are prepared to feed the Ulster pig, the fat pig, I do not think the board ought to object, and if there is a large class of consumers looking for that class of bacon I think these parties should be catered for. I am satisfied that there is a demand for fat bacon and that the bacon curers should be entitled to supply this demand. If they supply this demand to the full, they can continue to buy Ulster pigs. I hope the Minister will get in touch with the Bacon Marketing Board on this question, and I am quite sure that the Bacon Marketing Board will find that there is a demand for more fat bacon, if they are able to supply it. At least, that is my information. As I say, the complaint is pretty general all through Cavan and the neighbouring counties that people cannot get fat bacon from the retailers, and the excuse of the retailers is that they cannot get it from the curers.

I think also that the wholesale price for sides of bacon is abnormally high and that it constitutes an infliction by the bacon-curers. I saw according to the paper a few days ago that the wholesale price was 103/-. I think that that price is not justified by the price of pigs, or, alternatively, if it is, the price of pigs should be increased for the producer, to justify the price of bacon. When you compare the price of pigs in Northern Ireland with the price in the Free State, and the price of bacon on both sides of the Border, I think it is plain that profiteering is being carried on both at the expense of the producer and the consumer in the Free State. If the Bacon Marketing Board have got a monopoly, they should not abuse that monopoly, and I am afraid that it is only too apparent that they are abusing it. If they are entitled to a monopoly of the bacon trade, they ought to be obliged to deal fairly between the producer and the consumer. That is not being done. I think that the Minister has a responsibility to see that the Bacon Marketing Board should not abuse the monopoly they have received from the country.

The production of pigs, having regard to the price of feeding stuffs, is not a paying proposition. That is another matter which I want to bring before the Minister. Some time ago, when we were dealing with a certain motion in this House, and when we discussed the price of cattle, the Minister admitted that the production of cattle was not a paying proposition. Cattle production, he said then, must be discontinued, and he added: "You can pull up on the pigs and the hens." If the cost of production for pigs is not given to the producer, how are producers going to pull up on pigs? How can producers continue to produce pigs at less than the cost of production? I think anyone who has tried to produce pigs the whole year round, taking the good and the bad part of the year together, will agree that pig production at the present price is not a paying proposition. If pig production is not paying producers, how are they going to pull up for their losses on other classes of stock by producing more pigs?

The position is that the cost of feeding stuffs is too high. Oats are being sold from 7/- to 9/- per barrel. The meal produced from these oats, mixed with the maize meal, works out at three times the price of the oats, so here again there is profiteering. The producers have to bear all this profiteering, whether on the part of the miller, the bacon-curer or every other class that comes in between the producer and the consumer. Because of the maize meal mixture, it is not open to the farmers to produce their own feeding stuffs. If they were allowed, they could buy a certain quantity of meal and mix their own feeding stuffs, but as conditions exist they have to dispose of their own grain and buy it back mixed with maize meal at three times the price. Across the Border the best Indian meal can be bought at 11/- a bag. The maize meal mixture is costing 16/6 on our side of the Border. It is plain to anybody that it is impossible for the producers on the Free State side to compete with people on the other side of the Border when they have to pay 40 per cent. more for feeding stuffs for the pigs. When it comes to selling the pig they have to sell at the average price. It is plain that if pig production is barely paying in the North it cannot be carried on in the Free State unless at a loss.

The Minister has a responsibility in this connection too, because with the maize meal mixture scheme he gives the farmer no opportunity of buying maize at its ordinary price, crushing his oats at home and mixing the feeding stuff in his own way. If the farmer were allowed to do that he could do it much more economically than if he were to buy the mixture made up by the miller. In my opinion the scheme for the mixture of meal and the methods of marketing pork are tending to drive producers out of the production of pigs and it means imposing a very heavy burden on the consumers. Everybody knows that the poor cannot afford to pay the extraordinary price demanded for bacon. The prices producers receive bear no relation to the prices they have to pay when they are buying bacon.

A great many poor people cannot afford to kill their own pigs and cure them. They have to sell them and then they purchase bacon at extraordinarily high prices, far out of proportion to what they receive for the pigs. I hope the Minister will see that the monopoly he has given the bacon-curers and the millers will not be abused. I hope he will take note of the matters I have brought to his attention and see that the people whom he has protected, and in whose interests he has passed legislation, will not abuse the monopoly they have obtained and that they will not attempt to dictate as to what the consumers are to use. The people who use bacon have a perfect right to get any sort of bacon they require. If there is a demand for a certain quality, it should be supplied so long as there are producers prepared to supply it. It is not for the curers to dictate to the producers or the consumers.

Mr. Moore

I suspect that Deputy Brennan is going to speak on this Estimate, and my only reason for intervening is to ask him to be kind enough to explain what is the Fine Gael official attitude on the question of the Bacon Marketing Board; that is, as to the extent of Government interference which is desirable in connection with the Bacon Marketing Board and the Pigs Marketing Board. To my mind the only thing that has arisen in this debate so far—the net effect of the speeches delivered—is the creation of bewilderment as to what should be the Government attitude with regard to these two boards. When the Bill creating these boards was going through there was no opposition from the Party opposite. There was agreement that it was a useful Bill, that this was the proper way to regulate the pig and bacon industry, to have boards that would make it their sole business to look after these matters, and to have boards that would be to a large extent independent of interference by this House. But now not only Deputy Dillon, but Deputy McGovern, suggests that there should be not merely interference, but that there should be constant control by the Government.

It is a very important question for some of us here who like to see what are the developments in policy that are taking place, as evidenced by the speeches. I certainly would like to know are the Fine Gael Party already sorry that they allowed that Bill to go through or have they changed their attitude with regard to it? Deputy Dillon took a very big part in the discussions on that Bill when it was in private Committee, and a very useful part, I am glad to say; but he never once suggested that he was opposed to the principle of the Bill. In the discussions that took place he never once suggested that these boards should be under the control of the Government. Not only that, but in general the attitude of Deputy Dillon with regard to the interference of civil servants is that he is altogether opposed to it. Is there any man who has been more eloquent in condemnation of the interference of civil servants in matters where they have no direct authority than Deputy Dillon? Is there a day that passes that he does not protest against such a proceeding? Is not the danger of bureaucracy one of the most common phrases in his mouth? Yet this evening he warns the Minister that he must keep constant control over these two boards. What is one to make of a position like that?

I think it is due to the House that Deputy Brennan or some other leader of the Opposition should make it clear whether these speeches represent the official attitude of Fine Gael on this matter. We must remember these boards do not stand alone. A number of them has been created during the last ten years, and the possibility is that other problems will be dealt with by the creation of similar autonomous boards. It is important to know whether they are to be created on the lines adopted up to the present, or whether there should be a new approach, and if the approach is to be that the Government should keep the constant control that Deputy Dillon desires, what is the use, what good will there be in creating such bodies? What good would a board be that would be subject to day to day interference by civil servants? Why would men agree to act on such boards? What functions would they serve? If they are to be rung up and told "You must do so and so," where does their advice come in or what will their duties be, at all?

I have a strong suspicion, of course, that Deputy Dillon merely made that speech because he had nothing to say on the Estimate. Deputy Dillon's general attitude is that when he has nothing to say on a subject he makes a very long speech on the subject. The impression I got from his speech this evening was that he really had nothing to say against the Department of Agriculture, and that for that reason he was going to make a fairly long speech against it. His constant repetition of the same criticism with regard to an item of production which is now one of the fundamental things in our agricultural economy, indicates that. He knows very well that he is tilting at windmills when he talks against the production of beet and beet sugar. He knows that these are as much a part of our agriculture now as the production of bacon or the production of butter, and yet he keeps on repeating the same criticism, knowing all the time that he has no support within his own Party, and knowing well that if to-morrow he attempted to put his criticism in the form of a motion he would not get the support of 3 per cent. of his own Party. It looks to me as if the Department of Agriculture must be doing its work very well when on the occasion of an Estimate like this containing a number of different items, the only speeches we have are speeches criticising boards for which the Government has no direct responsibility, and regarding which the Government has, in effect, undertaken not to interfere, and has given that undertaking with the full consent of the Party opposite. If that be the position, I think it is due to the House that it should be made clear that these speeches were not really seriously intended; that they were only made for the purpose of filling up time; and because, perhaps, the Estimate being one in which there were several different items relating to the chief business of the country, agriculture, it was necessary to say something. I am sure, however, the House would be the better for a candid admission that there is no real intention that the Government should interfere with these two boards or that the boards should not be allowed to have the full responsibility for the business for which they have been created.

Mr. McGovern

The Deputy suggested that the Opposition agreed to this Bill. Did they agree to the constitution of the Pigs Marketing Board? Did they agree that the Minister should have control of the board and consequently of the fixing of prices? Does the Deputy deny that that is the power of the Minister?

Mr. Moore

There never was a suggestion that the Minister should do anything of the kind. On the other hand, the purpose of establishing these two boards was to take such work out of the Minister's hands.

Mr. McGovern

The Minister controls the board and is responsible.

Mr. O'Leary

Deputy Moore has asked what is our policy with regard to this question of the marketing of pigs. Our policy, firstly, is to restore to the people of this country the open market which they had when the Government came into office.

Mr. Moore

That is not the question I asked at all.

Mr. O'Leary

I think I can reply to the Deputy's question in that way. Last fair day, in my own village, a poor man from Kilgarvan, County Kerry, travelled 15 miles with a sow which was bought from him for £4 10s. 0d. I said to the dealer who bought the sow: "What would that sow be worth if we had an open market?" and he said "About £6 10s." I put the question to him and several other dealers: "Is there a market in England for all we are able to produce in this country?" and the reply was that there was. One of them went so far as to say, not only that, but that he could pay 10/- more for every pig he bought in the market that morning if he had an open market.

Dr. Ryan

He was telling lies.

Mr. O'Leary

If he was, the Minister has a very easy way of finding out. There are a good many commissions at work. Why not set up a commission now to examine the people who spoke at a meeting of the Pig Dealers' Association held in Dublin on the 12th of this month? The report of the meeting says:

"Mr. J. Sullivan, Tralee, seconding, said that last year, under a limited open market, the top price of pigs was 64/- a cwt., as against 59/- to-day, leaving pigs on an average worth 6/6 per head more in 1935 than at present. Bacon quotations in Liverpool on 12th February last year were from 80/- to 85/-, and at present range from 81/- to 86/-.

"He contended on the allocation of 62,000 pigs for February pig producers would receive £20,000 less than under an open market. In some cases the English bacon curer paid 33/- more for certain pigs than the Irish curer, although he had to sell his bacon in the same market. It might be said that the association was depriving the country of a certain amount of industry by the export of live pigs, but were the Free State producers to get no consideration and was this labour to be kept at home solely at their expense?"

I suggest to the Minister that he should have an investigation to ascertain whether that statement is correct or not. The report continues:

"The pig producers' representatives on the marketing board seemed to have callously agreed to deprive the owners on an average of 7/- per head. As demonstrating the attitude of the board towards producers, Mr. Sullivan said that in January, when members of the association were asked to send some pigs to one or two curers who were short of their quotas, they were told to get the extra expense incurred off the farmer.

"Mr. M. Murphy, Cork, said that 360,000 pigs unsuitable for the Irish trade in 1931 were shipped to England and made a better average price per cwt. than first-grade pigs killed at home. When they now had a chance of regaining that market it was taken away in one swipe from them. He computed that on 6,000 pigs shipped during the last week of January producers received £2,400 more than they would have under the ruling marketing board prices."

I contend that we should have open competition. If you take up the prices issued by the different curers in the country from day to day, you will find that the price for a pig between 1¼ cwts. and 1¼ cwts. 14 lbs. is 60/-. That means that if a pig is 1¼ cwts. and 15 lbs. the producer gets a smaller price. Did anybody ever hear such nonsense? Surely there could not be any difference in the quality of the two pigs? There is nothing for it but open competition. I put it to the Minister: Does he stand over the policy of destroying the fairs of this country? The Minister and every Deputy knows very well that they were a great source of revenue to the business people in towns and villages, and I say that it is most unfair for the Government to adopt a policy which is going to deprive those people of their means of living.

I will quote the statement of the chairman of the Pigs Marketing Board made in the Lecture Theatre of University College, Cork, on Monday. He said:

"It appears that in the interests of our country's trade, of the producer, and of the curer the marketing of pigs is best done by selling pigs as factory-purchased pigs. If you doubt the factory classification we will safeguard you through our system of inspection. Every factory is visited by the board's inspectors and at unexpected times, and only in one case have they discovered an error in grading, and this was a case of grading the animal higher than it deserved. The point has been raised that the system tends to abolish fairs. Is not a collecting station for pigs as beneficial to a town as a fair? Will not the money paid by cheque within a few days of the collection be as wisely spent by the producer as the money which he receives at the fair? Will it not find its way back to the trader as surely as the money got on fair days? Will the interested buyers be affected? Pigs must still be got under the system I have outlined. Pigs must still be bought for shipping alive. Possibly it will not be necessary to ask producers to pay 11 buyers to purchase 70 pigs, as has happened from time to time at fairs through the country, but buyers there will be who will continue to give the country their services and the benefits of their expert knowledge and advice."

I should like to know if this policy is carried on where will the buyers be. They will be driven out of existence. I say these buyers were a fine, decent body of men, and the Government should do nothing to deprive them of their livelihood. There are plenty of people on the dole, and we should do nothing that would put more people on the dole. With regard to the statement made by Deputy McGovern on feeding-stuffs, Deputy Moore wants to get some idea of our policy. Our policy is: give the people feeding-stuffs at a proper price. Give it to the people at the price at which it is sold to farmers in the North of Ireland and in Great Britain so that we would be in a position to compete with them. Otherwise there is no hope of such competition.

The Minister for Agriculture told us last Thursday that there was more feed being consumed in this country to-day than four years ago. He gave the figures as 7,800,000 cwts. But let us look at the facts. Four years ago there was more barley and oats grown in this country than last year, because last year many people substituted wheat for barley and oats. That oats and barley four years ago was used by the people themselves, or sold to other feeders in the country. But last year —and I challenge the Minister to contradict this statement—between 33? and 50 per cent. was included in the 7,800,000 cwts. which he says was milled, so that if you take off that 33? to 50 per cent. it would mean 2,600,000 cwts. short of what was grown four years ago. Four years ago people fed their cattle and pigs themselves or sold them to people who fed them. Deputy Moore challenged us as to why Fine Gael allowed this Bill to go through. Fine Gael could not prevent the Bill going through. Our policy is to try and amend any Bill that the Government brings in, but we have no hope of preventing it going through. Therefore, we have to try and prevent the Government making a hash of things. We have given them good advice but they would not take it. At last, however, the people are beginning to see that the policy of the Government is simply driving the whole country into bankruptcy, which I am afraid will come sooner than many people expect.

Dr. Ryan

It did not come four years ago as we were told it would.

Mr. Holohan

There are some items in this Estimate that I should like to get more particulars about. There is a sum of £15,000 for the distribution of licences in different counties. I should like to know from the Minister, when he comes to reply, how this £15,000 is to be spent. It seems a very large item. I imagine the work in connection with the distribution of licences is not so big as that figure represents. I should like to know the number of inspectors that are engaged, and any other information that the Minister can give us.

The second matter I should like to refer to is the number of cattle that are being canned to which the Minister referred in his opening speech. I should like to know what number of cattle was purchased for the canning factory in Waterford, the price, and the cost delivered to that factory. I should like to know, also, the amount of money the Minister received from the factory for these cattle. Another matter upon which I would like more information is in connection with the Pigs Marketing Board and the price fixed for pigs. This marketing board was set up more or less for the purpose of securing a better price for the producer than he received in the past. I do not think the board is fulfilling its obligations in that direction. I think that the price fixed for pigs in the last three or four months was as high as could be paid in the circumstances. But I am given to understand that some of the bacon-curers and the factories were under the impression that a better price could be paid and that resolutions were sent to the Minister for Agriculture asking him to use his influence to have a better price paid. It was their opinion that more money could be paid for pigs.

The price paid for pigs in the past three or four months is less than the cost of production. Pigs are fattened and sold at a loss and there is the danger that the industry will disappear altogether if there is not some improvement in the price. We know that the special duty that has to be paid on our produce going over to England has a very serious effect. While these duties are on it will be very hard for us to get a fair or reasonable price for our produce.

Another matter to which I would like to refer is the amount of money paid in bounties for the skins of calves. I think that owing to the arrangement made by the Minister for the killing of a number of calves for this year and the year before cattle-numbers will be reduced in the future. I think it would be advisable to put an end to the killing of these calves for the future. Now, owing to the new quotas, a larger number of cattle will be taken over to Great Britain. Although the price is bad, and very bad, still an outlet is provided and the farmers are hoping that, if our cattle trade is not to be wiped out, some kind of settlement of this economic dispute will come. I, as a farmer, ask the Minister for Agriculture, who is supposed to look after our interests, to use his influence with the Executive Council so as to settle this dispute as soon as possible. There is also a big difference in the price for pigs in Northern Ireland and the price obtainable here. Deputy McGovern dealt with that matter. There should not be such a difference, but it is very hard for the Minister for Agriculture or any other Minister, under the present circumstances, to arrange prices that will give us a fair return for what we produce. I am speaking as a farmer and not as a politician, and I ask the Minister to use his influence with the President and the other members of the Executive Council to settle the economic dispute. Otherwise, things will be very bad for the farmers.

Mr. Corry

Deputy O'Leary and Deputy McGovern made a number of comparisons between the price of pigs in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and here. They also complained about the Pigs Marketing Board. We had a gentleman down in Cork County who started off in this business the moment the economic war started. His name was Mr. Dring, of Glanmire, and he feeds and fattens 400 or 500 pigs at a time. He was threatening what he would do when the economic war was on. He said: "I will go over to where I can fatten my pigs on what mixture I like and get English prices for them." Lo and behold, he departed from amongst us and went across to England. He stayed 12 long months in England fattening pigs at the price which Deputy O'Leary mentioned. He had not to use any admixture and he got the English prices. But he came back to Glanmire a sadder and a wiser man. He is now working the admixture scheme because he found it paid him better to fatten the pigs here than to go to England and fatten them under the conditions that obtained there. I am not now dealing with hearsay. I am giving the man's name and Deputies can see him any day of the week.

As regards the Pigs Marketing Board, we have seen, from time to time, long statements in the papers from a gentleman named Buckworth. He used to write columns in the Press about the admixture scheme and how he was being robbed fattening pigs under that scheme. Mr. Buckworth now comes along and admits that he made £2,000 in 12 months fattening pigs. I hope the Press will publish that and let Mr. Buckworth deny it if he wishes. At a meeting of the Dairy Science Society in Cork, where Mr. O'Brien, the Chairman of the Pigs Marketing Board, delivered a lecture, Mr. Buckworth came along and said: "I made money on marketing pigs until the Pigs Marketing Board came along." He has now another bee in his bonnet, and he tells of the terrible things the Government are doing to him. It is the Pigs Marketing Board which is troubling him now.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should not attack individuals here unless he has their consent. These gentlemen have no redress in respect of statements made under cover of the privileges of the House.

Mr. Corry

These statements I am making appeared in the public Press on Tuesday last.

An Ceann Comhairle

I was not aware of that.

Mr. Corry

They were in the Cork Examiner for everybody to read them. This gentleman said he made money until the Pigs Marketing Board came along. He made money on fattening pigs, notwithstanding the admixture scheme and the tariffs. Mr. Cussen, Secretary of the Cork Farmers' Union, made the statement that the Pigs Marketing Board had increased the price of pigs by 10/- per cwt. That is an answer to both Deputy O'Leary and Deputy McGovern.

Mr. Holohan

Do you believe that?

Mr. Corry

He is the high priest of the Farmers' Union in Cork and in every word he speaks he is infallible.

Mr. Donnelly

He will be Pontius Pilate after this.

Mr. Corry

These are statements made on these matters by three men in Cork, none of whom holds the same views in politics that members of this Party hold. They are directly opposed to us. I am giving the results of their experiences as a full reply to the statements made by Deputy McGovern and Deputy O'Leary. Deputy O'Leary wants to get feeding-stuffs at the prices which obtain in Great Britain and the North of Ireland. He knows, and I am sure Deputy Holohan knows, the difficulty there was in selling barley and oats at any period during 1931, 1932, or even 1929. In these three years, you could hardly get a market for oats or barley. There was a very limited market in the breweries, and this scheme was introduced to provide an extra market for Irish farmers' grain. It was designed to replace maize meal, for which we had to pay the foreigner, with grain grown at home, for which the Irish farmer would be paid. Then we have representatives of the farmers like Deputy McGovern and Deputy O'Leary getting up and complaining.

The one objection I have in connection with this Vote is in relation to the grants made to the committees of agriculture. I wonder if the Minister for Agriculture has any control over the manner in which this money is spent by the committees. I wonder if he is aware of the way in which this money is being spent by the committee of agriculture in Cork County. Is he aware that the committee has endeavoured to use the money for political purposes—to victimise political opponents, and enforce a boycott of shows? As a matter of fact, they went so far as to refuse grants to show committees which held shows, while they gave grants to show committees which did not hold shows. If you did not hold a show, you got a grant in aid of the show, but, if you did hold a show, you did not get a grant. I suggest to the Minister that he should exercise some control over these committees and the manner in which this money is spent. This public money, subscribed by the taxpayer. All the money spent by these committees of agriculture is subscribed either by the taxpayer or the ratepayer. The Minister should, therefore, see that the money is spent at least fairly and that there is no political victimisation as a result of its expenditure.

Mr. Brennan

Might I draw attention to the fact that in this Estimate the amounts being allocated to county committees of agriculture are for the purpose of grants for lime and in respect of cattle export licences. The money being voted has nothing whatever to do with shows.

Mr. Corry

I knew I would get somebody on the raw. I knew I was hitting home, and I am glad Deputy Brennan has called my attention to that particular aspect. Is the Minister aware of the manner in which these gentlemen, for whom he is now looking for money, were appointed?

Mr. Brennan

Hear, hear! I second that.

Mr. Corry

I should like to ask if the Minister is aware of the manner in which they were appointed. Is he aware that in the first instance a certain number was proposed, and when it was found the Blueshirt organisation had too many candidates, it was agreed to double the number of inspectors and to divide the cash at a lower rate per week?

Mr. Donnelly

Trying to solve the unemployment problem!

Mr. Corry

Was the Minister aware that one inspector who was appointed——

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not know to what extent the Minister has control of the Committee. If the Minister has not control, I fail to see the relevancy.

Mr. Corry

I suggest that the Minister has control of inspectors who were appointed by the Committee of Agriculture, for whom it is now proposed to vote money. One of the inspectors was a gentleman who had just returned from Arbour Hill after serving six months for cutting trees, for which the ratepayers must pay. I suggest that that is relevant, and that such an appointment was illegal.

Mr. Belton

Why did the Minister approve of it?

Mr. Corry

I suggest that the Minister has no power, and that the Committee has no power, to pay that particular individual. I wished to call attention to it, and I am very glad Deputy Brennan reminded me. I might have forgotten it. When we know that every position, large or small, has to be sanctioned by the Minister, I wonder what particular sanction was required for the position for which money is now being voted. Did the Minister have any inquiries made as to whether this gentleman was eligible owing to a conviction for work of the description mentioned? I suggest that the Minister should look up that particular matter. I did not intend to intervene in this debate, but when I heard statements being made about the Pigs Marketing Board, and about the admixture scheme, I thought it better to call in three witnesses who are high priests in their organisation.

Mr. J. Flynn

It is difficult to understand the attitude that has been adopted by Deputies opposite towards the Pigs Marketing Board, especially when it is realised that the farmers asked for the abolition of the "rings" that were formed by pig buyers, especially in rural areas. I believe that the new system will work out well, and that, as time goes on, the people will be satisfied with it. I could not believe that Deputy Dillon, who poses as the champion of the poorer classes, could be so sarcastic regarding live-stock schemes in congested areas. The Deputy seemed to scoff at the idea of having live-stock schemes in the poorer districts. It is certainly the height of hypocrisy for people like Deputy Dillon, who pose as champions of the Gaeltacht areas, to scout the idea of having such schemes there. I am sorry that the Minister is not providing a much larger sum for these schemes. In regard to the £9,500 allocated to county committees of agriculture, I appeal to the Minister, if it is at all possible, to increase that amount. That money is mainly for the purpose of providing lime subsidies in congested and poorer districts. Deputies who live in these areas realise the usefulness, as well as the great necessity of lime schemes. That is especially the case in Kerry, where we feel very grateful for the assistance that has been given in that direction. We have been advised that further grants will be required for that purpose, and I hope a larger amount will be made available.

In regard to the purchase of cattle for canning purposes, that scheme has been a great help in Kerry, in addition to the scheme for sending uneconomic cows to the Roscrea factory. The trouble about that scheme was that in some cases the inspectors in charge did not purchase directly from the producers. As is well known, when these schemes were in course of inauguration, certain parties tried to take advantage of them and to make them inoperative. Small dealers tried to defeat the object of these very effective schemes. While the inspectors and the Department did their utmost on behalf of the people, still there were certain causes of complaint. Despite that, I appeal on behalf of the people of South and West Kerry, to have that scheme reintroduced in these areas so that further consignments of cattle might be shipped to the Waterford factory. It may be said that there is no surplus of cattle. There is a surplus, and a scheme such as that, worked in the way it was worked, was a God-send to the farmers on the mountain sides of South Kerry. We realise that the Minister and the Department of Agriculture are doing everything possible to meet the farmers. At the same time it is up to us, as representatives of the people to point out any defects as we find them, not by way of criticism but by way of assistance. Sometimes Deputies criticise the Department and its officials. They do that in good faith on the understanding that errors may be rectified and that the people will benefit. There is only one other matter which I wish to refer to, and that is in connection with creameries. About a year ago Deputy Belton was very sarcastic in his comments on travelling creameries. He scoffed at the idea of travelling creameries, and ridiculed the Minister when a Bill was introduced to make these available in certain parts of the country.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy indicate what item in the Estimate refers to creameries, travelling or stationary?

Mr. Flynn

I am trying to show that through the success of these creameries in the Dingle district——

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy indicate where creameries are mentioned in the Estimate?

Mr. Flynn

There is an item with reference to dairy produce.

An Ceann Comhairle

That has reference to the Price Stabilisation Act.

Mr. Flynn

I was trying to make the point that the Minister should give us——

An Ceann Comhairle

The point is not relevant.

Mr. Brennan

Deputy Flynn has supplied the phrase which was omitted from Deputy Dillon's speech in referring to the assistance given to live stock schemes in congested districts. Deputy Flynn said it was the height of hypocrisy to make this sarcastic reference. As a matter of fact, Deputy Dillon's point was that it was the height of hypocrisy on the part of the Government to be endeavouring to have cattle schemes anywhere in view of the fact that they were out for slaughtering calves and that the whole purpose of the Executive Council, as expressed by Senator Connolly and other people, is to kill the cattle industry. That was Deputy Dillon's point, but Deputy Flynn just supplied the exact phrase that Deputy Dillon ought to have used, that it was the height of hypocrisy on the part of the Government to be doing that and killing calves at the same time. As to one thing that Deputy Flynn said, I am glad to see that somebody has a good word to say for the canning industry. I presume that is the scheme that Deputy Flynn said was a God-send to certain parts of Kerry. There are a good many God-sends in this country at present, but they are at the expense of the State, and so is this at the expense of the State.

Mr. Donnelly

What are they?

Mr. Brennan

Let us continue to trade upon our capital in every respect. That does not appear to be the opinion of the Minister for Industry and Commerce when he goes down the country to open a factory and tells the people that the whole success of that factory depends on the prosperity of agriculture. Yet, if we take up any Estimate, we find that anything that is paying at present is paying at the expense of the State, and not on its own merits. We have in this Estimate what, indeed, was anticipated by any person who considered the matter sanely, and that is that in establishing a canning industry in a country which was one of the greatest producers of fresh meat in the world, in order to get rid of our surplus cattle, it was evident that there was going to be a loss. It is a loss, a dead loss. It may have been a God-send to some people, just as the dole is a God-send to some people.

This Estimate really shows us the type of wibbly-wobbly, forlorn agricultural policy which the Government have. In the main Estimate last year we had an increase in salaries and wages of £23,081. In this Estimate we have a further increase in salaries and wages. What have we got for that increase?

Mr. Belton

The warble fly.

Mr. Brennan

Have we got greater prosperity in agriculture? The Fianna Fáil Party told the farmers in one of their election leaflets of the prosperity that was to come to agriculture under a Fianna Fáil Government. As far as administrative expenses are concerned, there is evidence of any amount of prosperity in the Department, but not down the country. Anything that represents a profit has to be subsidised by the State. That is the position we find ourselves in after all this expenditure. We have increases in various items in this Estimate. In addition to an increase in salaries and wages of £23,000 at the beginning of the year we have a further increase in this Estimate. If we could see that that would give us a profit on something we would welcome it, because it is badly needed. But for a Government that came in to reduce expenditure and to make agriculture pay for the first time it is an extraordinary position to find themselves in. We have also evidence here—I am afraid it is not gratifying for the farmers—of the Minister's own attempts at cattle dealing. He told us that he wants £214,000 for the purchase of additional cattle for export, and that he expects at least to make ends meet. That is about all he can hope for. I wonder where these cattle are to be exported to?

Mr. Belton

Ultimately to Italy.

Mr. Brennan

It does not matter where these are exported to, let it be-Italy, Ethiopia, Czecho-Slovakia, Germany, or any other place, if they are to be purchased at the price which is made from British buyers here and which carries the annuities, then we are paying the annuities to these other countries also. In the frantic efforts of the Government to right the situation and to do something with it we have all these Bills, all this extra administration, and all this control, a control which I am afraid is working out very badly. We had complaints made about the Pigs and Bacon Boards, and Deputy Moore, whom I always regard as an honest man, wanted to know what is the policy of the Opposition with regard to the Pigs Marketing Board. Why should it be criticised? I would like to ask Deputy Moore in return and I would like to ask the Minister are they perfectly satisfied with those boards?

Deputy Dillon's complaint was that these boards were exceeding their jurisdiction. If the Minister thinks that is so, then it is the Minister's job, if he has not the power, to get the power. If those people are going to interfere with the pig trade against the interests of the people of the country —and that is the net result of their interference—then the matter falls to be dealt with immediately. I do not think, as a matter of fact, that the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board are giving satisfaction to anybody. That is my own opinion—I do not think they are. Certainly if their interference means the wiping out of what is known all over the country as the ordinary pig-jobbers, it will be bad for the pig trade and very bad for the country. If the Minister feels in that respect that something is going to happen which will not be beneficial to the pig-feeders of this country, then it is his business to interfere. Surely, when we are spending such huge sums on salaries and administration, we ought to get some value for the expenditure? Are we getting value for it? That is what the Minister ought to ask himself. If he gets a satisfactory answer to it, well and good. If he does not, then it is his job to set the matter right.

An extraordinary thing was pointed out by Deputy Dillon in relation to the extra special subsidy to beet growing in Cooley. It does seem to be an extraordinary thing if Deputy Dillon's calculation is correct—and I believe it is—that an acre of beet is costing the State £24 5s. 0d. There is no use in putting it up to the people of this country that it is a good proposition to grow beet if the State has to foot the bill. After all, the State is in the same position as an individual. If the State is in business it must show a profit. If it does not show a profit it goes down, and that's that. We have the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when he goes down the country to open a factory, no matter what it is, always making the speech that somebody in my Party has already made in this House. That is, that agriculture is the chief industry, and that it must be made to pay before we can hope to make a success of any other industry. Then the Minister comes into the House and says: "We have nothing to offer you but subsidised items, as far as agriculture is concerned." We have got to get away from that.

Certainly, if I were a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, I would be very sorry and I would feel very much ashamed after all the promises made to the country with regard to the reductions in taxation to come before this House with an Estimate like that we have seen this evening, showing in one item an increase of £200,000, and in another a huge extra amount. Is that sort of thing going to give us prosperity? I think if the effect of introducing this Estimate to-night would be to induce the Minister for Agriculture to take stock of the whole situation that exists in this country, the result might be of some use. But if the Minister for Agriculture thinks that Government control of the main industry of this country, as illustrated by those Estimates, and as illustrated by huge increases in administration, salaries, wages and allowances, is going to bring prosperity to agriculture, he is making the biggest mistake he ever made in his life. Government control of industry is bound to have bad effects. It is bound to kill initiative and individual effort. The probabilities are that our successors will be inheritors to the administering of a State the people of which will look to the Government for guidance in everything. That sort of thing is bad and definitely bad.

The last item about which I would like to question the Minister is this matter of the appointment of inspectors under the county committees of agriculture. Like Deputy Corry, I am deeply interested in these inspectors. I do not know exactly what the Minister's control is. I am afraid his control is nil. However, he has control of the funds. Like Deputy Corry, I would like to know what inquiries were made by his Department as to the qualifications of those inspectors?

Mr. Corry

Hear, hear!

Mr. Brennan

If Deputy Corry has one instance about appointments to these posts in Cork, I will give him dozens of other instances against that. I will give him instances where it was not the qualifications of the candidates but their politics that got them the job. That is absolutely so.

Mr. Corry

In Cork they had to parade before the committee in blue shirts. That is what they had to do in my county.

Mr. Brennan

Well, it was a different sort of committee in my county, so that one balances the other.

A Deputy

There was no shirt at all in your county.

Mr. Brennan

In the matter of the Appropriations-in-Aid I was rather disappointed. I suppose it would be expecting too much to get the information I expected although it might have come in under one of the sub-heads. I was anxious to see what Appropriations-in-Aid the Minister expected under the head of the cattle and sheep levies. That information has not come to us although we are providing money under that particular Act. I am afraid for to-night at least we are denied the opportunity of looking into those things. In view of the expectations raised on the main Estimate, I would be very anxious to see how they are carried out and how they have been fulfilled.

The serious side of this Vote is that our expenditure in administration is going up and control by officials is going up. I am afraid that the House has no control whatever over the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board. It is the Minister's duty, if he feels that the administration of these boards is not beneficial to the country, to see that he gets that information or, at all events, that somebody gets it. The proof of the advantage of having these boards or not having them will rest entirely on the question of the production of pigs in this country. Are we producing more pigs? Are we going to produce more pigs in the future? We will produce more pigs in this country on the one basis only and that is if we get paying prices for them. There is no use in anybody thinking anything else. That is what will make us produce more pigs. Will the operations of the Pigs Marketing Board have that effect? I am sure they will not. If the Minister requires legislation for the purpose of amending any of those Acts, I say it is his job to see that that legislation is put through. As far as we are concerned we will give him every assistance possible, but personally I am not at all satisfied that it has been working satisfactorily. I am not at all satisfied that the producers are getting what they ought to get. The price of pigs and the price of the finished article, bacon, are not equated, and it is the Minister's business to inquire into the matter so that it will be put right in some way.

Seán O Goílín

Deineadh gearán ar thaoibh eile de'n Tighe mar gheall ar sceal na feirmeóirí ach tá fhíos ag gach duine againn go bhfuil cúis gearáin ag feirmeóirí mar gheall ar an scéal sin ar fúd an domhain. Ní 'sa tír seo amháin atá feirmeóireacht go h-olc. Níl tír 'sa domhain indiu—Sasana, Aimeiricá, nó tíre na h-Eoróipe—nach bhfuil gearán á dhéanamh mar gheall ar an droch-scéal san. Bhí an scéal chó h-olc san i ngach tír gur cuireadh iachall ar na Rialtais congnamh do thabhairt dós na fúirmeóirí.

Cuirim suim speisialta 'sa Ghealtacht agus ar son na ceanntracha san, ba mhaith liom cúpla focal do rá. Tá tairisginti san Meastachain seo chun mhaithis do dhéanamh dí agus gidh gur aduighim gur deineadh a lán ar a son, ceapaim gur ceart a lán níos mó do dhéanamh. Cur í gcás an scéim atá ar siúl fé láthair chun aoil do thabhairt do mhuinntir na Gaeltachta. Tá an scéim sin go maith, ach tá a lán daoine ann ná fuil i ndon úsáid do bhainnt as an scéim sin toisc go bhfuil na h-áiteanna in a bhfuil an aol le fáil ró-fhada uatha agus tá sé ró-chostasach ar fad an aol do thabhairt ó n-a h-áiteanna seo. 'Sé mo mholadh do'n Aire ná na sean teinidh-aol atá in aice le ceanntrachaibh sliabhthacha d'oscailt agus do cur ag obair arís. Tabharfadh plean mar sin caoi do mhuinntir na Gaeltachta an aol atá chó-riachtannach dóibh d'fháil, agus, dá gcuirfeá i bhfeim é, ba maith an scéal é.

Mr. Belton

Looking at those figures and looking at the original Estimate, I wonder what return we are getting for all this expenditure?

Mr. Donnelly

That is what Deputy Brennan asked a couple of minutes ago.

Mr. Belton

That is what every man and woman in this country is asking, and that is the question to which every man and woman in this country is waiting for an answer.

Mr. Donnelly

They will get it on Wednesday.

Mr. Belton

The Deputy will not give it either to-day or on Wednesday, neither will any Minister. I would give way to the Deputy now if he would make even an attempt at it. I think he will find it even more difficult to put a face or a skin on an answer to that inquiry than he found it in regard to a matter with which the Minister for Finance was dealing here a short time ago. It is interesting to look at some of the items on this Estimate. We find: "Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Acts. Purchase of cattle for canning, £10,000." I think it was Deputy Brennan referred to a canning industry being started here. I think the origin of the canning industry was in areas where there was a large surplus of meat or fruit or something else. Canning also had its origin in the fact that there are particular times of the year when certain commodities are in season, and that it is desirable to preserve them for other times of the year when they are out of season. But here in Ireland fresh meat is always in season. We always have a market, and we are in close proximity to markets. Therefore, from the point of view of distance for an exchange of goods, we should not require to can. From the point of view of carrying meat from one season of the year to another, there is no need to can it, because at all seasons of the year we can have fresh meat in this country. Fresh meat is the best kind of meat to have, and gives the best return to the producers. Anything else you do with it has a two-fold injurious effect. It puts up the cost of production, and it puts down the grade of the meat. In ordinary commerce, therefore, no meat should be canned in this country, from any point of view. It is only an outcome, a blister that has risen on the soul created in the body economic in this country by Government policy, by Government folly, by the Government trailing their coat and challenging a fight. For principle? Every principle for which this fight was supposed to be fought has been abandoned. With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I would develop that statement only that there are days near at hand when it can be well developed.

Mr. Brennan

You can "can" it.

Mr. Belton

I am giving it to the Deputy to "can" it until Wednesday. In the Estimate we have additional provision for the purchase of cattle for export—£214,000. Who is doing the buying, and who is passing the resolutions for the Government and saying that this country is prosperous? It is the people who are being paid for buying the cattle in the Dublin market. Will any Deputy on the Government Benches get up and deny that these are sounding horns for the Government, members of which have been telling the country and all whom it may concern of the agricultural and economic prosperity that we have here.

I wonder whether the Minister or the Government took cognisance of the fact that, subsequent to our declaration of war on Italy a few months ago whereby we refused to send cattle to that country—I am sure Mussolini got a heart attack when he heard of it— the export of cattle from this country to Germany increased. I wonder where did they find their ultimate destination? I think if they were followed they would be found crossing the Alps, so that the position we find ourselves in is this: that while we are subsidising the sale of cattle to Germany the people there are able to double the prices they pay us for them by sending them into Italy.

Mr. Brennan

That is good business, and we are also paying the annuities.

Mr. Belton

No, we will never pay them, although we signed a pact the other day to pay them. That is a queer one.

Mr. Donnelly

On a point of order, there is nothing about annuities in this Estimate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not think Deputy Belton has developed his argument yet.

Mr. Belton

I never saw Deputy Donnelly so scared before. He is afraid of his life that anything will be mentioned about the annuities. He can manoeuvre well, but his manoeuvring this evening did not do him justice. Deputy Brennan said that if the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board were not a success, and that if the Minister has no power to interfere with them, he should seek power to do so. But, did not everyone who studied the Act under which these boards were set up realise at the time that the measure was going through the Oireachtas that it could not be a success for anybody except the bacon-curers? The Bacon Marketing Board was constituted of five or seven members, all nominees of the bacon-curers, with the Minister appointing the chairman. If these nominees were unanimous on any point, the chairman had no power to interfere. The Pigs Marketing Board was constituted of six members, with a chairman nominated by the Minister. Three of the members of that board were nominated by the Bacon Marketing Board.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is not all that set out in the Act?

Mr. Belton

It is, and I am only making a passing reference to it because of the statement made that the board has not been a success from the bacon producers' point of view. I am simply saying that, from its very constitution, it could never be a success, because the pig producers were not represented on it, while on the Bacon Board the bacon-curers had full control, with half control on the Pigs Marketing Board. The three alleged representatives of the bacon producers were nominees of the Minister.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is now discussing an Act that has already been passed by the Oireachtas. He is pointing out defects in it. He should know that he can only discuss the administration of the Act.

Mr. Belton

The only further comment I will make is that that Act could not prove to be a success from the pig producers' point of view. Deputy Brennan was right when he said that the test of the success of that Act is the amount of extra bacon that we will produce, and my submission is that that will be contingent on, and only on, the price that we receive for pigs. The cost of agricultural administration and of experimental work is rising in an alarming way. The position is, that a decadent industry has to bear all the increases that are being imposed on it every day that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is presented with a new key at the opening of some new industrial undertaking and poses before the camera. When a new industry is set up it gets a guaranteed market and is protected by a high tariff which, in effect, means so much more of a tax on the general agricultural industry, not one single branch of which is paying its way to-day.

When the Cereals Act fixing prices was going through the Dáil, it was pointed out to the Minister that no matter what artificial prices were fixed, the ultimate price that the cereals would be worth would be their value as feeding stuffs. That price is fixed by the home market and externally. Recently, the Minister in consultation with the Department of Agriculture in Great Britain imposed a further tax on our own agricultural industry. More inspectors are to be appointed, and the cost of them is, I understand, to be borne locally. The Minister discovered the presence of a warble fly. The result is that cattle have to be dressed and inspectors appointed. The dressing of the cattle will involve a certain amount of expense, not a great lot, but it is something. New machinery is to be set up to deal with this pest. The cost of all that has to be borne by an industry in respect of which the Minister has done nothing to raise the general level of wholesale prices, while the general level of wholesale and retail prices of commodities which that industry has to buy have gone up considerably. In most of the lines of general agriculture to-day the price is considerably below pre-war—some of them are half pre-war—while the goods that agriculturists have to buy are double pre-war and often more.

These are matters that the Minister for Agriculture should consider and he should consider that his job is a little more responsible than merely carrying out automatically the administration of his Department, the administration of schemes throughout the country that are being carried out by the committees of agriculture, and the periodical visits of inspectors to agricultural meetings and to inspect agricultural schemes carried out in the country. He should consider that his job goes a little further—both his job and that of his understudy, the Minister for Defence —than in attending an odd ploughing match now and again and cocking his eye to see whether the furrow is straight or not. Ploughing matches are very good things in their way, but what counts, and the only thing that counts, is the remuneration coming to the produce of the plough, and the Minister has failed to increase the remuneration of the plough. Not a single item in agriculture has gone up in price since the Minister came into office. Generally, they have gone down. Of course, I shall be met with the price of butter. It is easy to put up the price of an article if you tax it first in order to inflate the price, and that is the position with regard to butter. The area that gave the Minister worry, evidently, was Kerry. I am sorry that there are no Kerry Deputies here at the moment. Kerry shouts for a republic but will not bear the cost and expense of looking for it. The black cattle in Kerry could not get a market. Well, why should some platform men claim that Kerry is 100 per cent. republican? Why is it not 100 per cent. ready to bear the sacrifices that their votes helped to impose on other counties? Somebody must have squealed in Kerry when the Minister thought it well to set up a canning factory to absorb the old long-horn cattle in Kerry that would not bear the British tariff on export. They would not have been even worth it. All that could have been done with them was to shoot them where they stood. But no, a canning factory was set up for them in Roscrea and a guaranteed price fixed for them.

Not only that, but Deputy Flynn a moment ago started criticising the attitude I took up with regard to travelling creameries. He wanted to prove their utility and success and referred to the benefit the canning factory had been to Kerry. Of course, his attitude and the attitude of the Government made it impossible to get a price for those black cattle in Kerry — those cattle that had a remunerative market up in the midlands every year. None of them come to the midlands now, however, because the midlands cannot afford to buy them, or, if they can buy them, they cannot sell them. In addition to that, however, a further assistance to the Kerry cattle area was that the 4d. per pound tax to be levied on home-made butter would be levied on all of the Free State area except the Kerry cattle area. In that area they can produce butter in their homes without paying that tax, and they have the whole of the Free State for a market. I should like to hear some Kerry Deputy here put before this House what claim, in equity, Kerry has to that special treatment. The Minister never made an attempt to defend it. Evidently, there was a political fly in the ointment there and this is the method the Minister adopted to get it out of the ointment.

I made reference to what appears, in the opinion of the Minister, to be the beginning and ending of his responsibility. I am not aware of the Minister for Agriculture raising his voice at any time in protest against any imposition that Government policy made, and that ultimately would fall on agriculture. He seems to have no further vision than the formulation of schemes and getting county committees of agriculture to carry them out. He seems never to have any regard to the ultimate income that will come to agriculture either from those schemes or from the general routine of the old schemes for agriculture. He does not seem to bother, and he has not left agriculture as well off as he found it. Neither is he making any genuine attempt to improve its position. In a few days, we will have an opportunity of going over the ground in more detail, and I hope that the Minister for Agriculture will be present when that debate comes, because he, as a Minister, will be more concerned in that debate, as he should be more concerned, than any other Minister of the Government. As I see Ministers here, however, they just come in whenever they have something connected with their own Department, and they never interest themselves in anything else, just as if a Department of the State is an isolated cell that can work and function of its own without having any bearing on all the other Departments of State. There is not a measure, or a Vote, or anything of any importance, that comes before this House, that is not of vital importance to agriculture, for agriculture is the foundation of the whole structure of the State, and that has been undermined and there seems to be no thought given to its preservation.

We had before the House within the last couple of days Bills involving large sums of money. In connection with housing, the difficulties and the financial straits to which the Dublin Corporation were reduced to get money were pointed out. The amount of unemployment was laboured by Deputy Kelly here. Of course, Deputy Kelly, like his colleagues over there generally, never look so far as to see or appreciate that the economic condition of the City of Dublin and the borrowing capacity of the corporation, are both reflected by the economic condition of the country, and particularly the condition of agriculture. The Deputy knows some large businesses in Dublin which depend entirely on a country trade and which were not able to spend a "bob" on their premises when their lease under the Dublin Corporation ran out.

Mr. T. Kelly

The Dublin Corporation got a million in an hour the other day.

Mr. Belton

I have a much more intimate knowledge of that than the Deputy because I had much more to do with it than he had. There is no need to remind me of that.

Mr. Kelly

I am not reminding you. You know too much about high finance.

Mr. Belton

The Deputy ought to know that a big business house in the City of Dublin which held a lease under the corporation——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What has this got to do with the Estimate on Agriculture?

Mr. Belton

It has this much to do, I submit, with the condition of agriculture, that when a business house depends for 80 per cent. of its business on orders from the country——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy realises that on the basis of that reasoning we could discuss everything in the country.

Mr. Belton

I submit that, on an Estimate for agriculture, in an agricultural country, it is very difficult to see what you can not discuss.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair must endeavour to find that out. The Deputy should confine himself to the headings here on the paper.

Mr. Belton

I submit that in the Parliament of a country, where at least 80 per cent. of the productive capacity of the country is agriculture, when one is discussing an agricultural Estimate, it is very difficult to see what can be left out. The City of Dublin depends for its existence on the prosperity of the country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has to rule that the Deputy cannot discuss business houses or leases in Dublin on this Estimate.

Mr. Belton

Can we discuss its effect on business houses in Dublin which do a large part of their business with the country?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

No.

Mr. Belton

We cannot relate the buying power of agriculture to an Estimate for agriculture?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There are such items here on this White Paper as can be discussed.

Mr. Belton

Well, there will be other opportunities.

Mr. T. Kelly

You have been at it for an hour.

Mr. Belton

I hope I have been more intelligent than the Deputy when he was on his feet yesterday.

Mr. Kelly

Indeed, you have.

Mr. Belton

Deputy Corry severely criticised the appointment of inspectors in Cork by the Committee of Agriculture for the county. He had a great grievance because, as he said, they were appointed because of politics. Certainly it is not my experience on Committees of Agriculture that politics interfere with their business at all. Even in connection with the distribution of licences, though I had very little to do with that in the County of Dublin, I had letters from Fianna Fáil farmers in the county, thanking me for the equitable treatment which they got from the county committee which is 80 to 90 per cent. non-Fianna Fáil. I hope when the adjournment comes this evening the same treatment will be meted out to the young fellow about whom I raised a question to-day. He is being sacked from a position under the Dublin County Council, simply because he was not a supporter of the Government, and for no other reason.

Dr. Ryan

I was absent from the House for part of Deputy Belton's speech, but that does not prevent me from knowing what he said, because he always makes the same speech.

Mr. Belton

And I presume the Minister will give the same answer.

Dr. Ryan

I am not going to answer the Deputy's speech on this occasion.

Mr. Belton

We shall be glad to hear something original from the Minister.

Dr. Ryan

I replied so often to the Deputy's speeches that I shall not take up the time of the House in doing so this evening. These high economic principles which Deputy Belton put forward, have been long ago exploded, not alone here but everywhere. Deputy Belton says that if we give a good price for beet or wheat there is a subsidy in it.

Mr. Belton

There is, certainly.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Belton says that we could get a good price for agricultural produce without tariffs or subsidies, in other words in a free market. I wonder can he tell me whether, if we removed tariffs, there is any single item in agriculture or in anything else that we could make pay at present? Does Deputy Belton not know that the Argentine could knock us out of beef production, that Australia could knock us out of mutton production, that Australia and New Zealand could knock us out of butter production, and that Holland could knock us out of rhubarb production?

Mr. Belton

I could knock them out of rhubarb production at any price.

Dr. Ryan

Then why did you retire from rhubarb production?

Mr. Belton

I did not go out of it.

Dr. Ryan

If we remove tariffs on agricultural produce, we could not produce anything that would pay in this country.

Mr. Brennan

Do you mean the British penal tariffs?

Dr. Ryan

Our own tariffs against imports. Deputy Belton knows that very well and so does Deputy Brennan, but they go on with all this camouflage for political purposes. If we remove these duties we could make nothing pay.

Mr. Belton

Did not Argentine meat go more than similar Irish meat in the British market a short time ago?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Belton

How would that meat knock us out of that British market then?

Dr. Ryan

They are able to send it over here and sell it at 2½d. per lb.

The Deputy found fault with the fact that Ministers only come here to speak in connection with their own Departments. In other words, Ministers are sufficiently discreet not to talk too often. If some Deputies would exercise a little of the same discretion, and if they talked only when they know what they are talking about we would get on much better. However, I hope to be here next Wednesday.

Mr. Belton

In your health?

Dr. Ryan

I think I shall make as good a case as Deputy Belton. I would be ashamed of myself if I did not.

Mr. Belton

That is why you look so well.

Dr. Ryan

I promise that I shall not introduce all these high economic theories into my speech, but just deal with practical facts. I shall not go to any of these book theories. What is wrong in going to a ploughing match? Deputy Belton seems to find fault with us for going there. What is wrong in doing so?

Mr. Belton

Nothing, but there is a little more than that expected from a Minister.

Dr. Ryan

The big principle raised by Deputy Dillon was that the Pigs and Bacon Board had too much control in this country. Deputy Moore asked Deputy Brennan to state the Fine Gael policy on that particular principle—whether they agreed that these boards should get full autonomy, or whether the Government should interfere. I think Deputy Brennan said the Government should interfere if the boards were not doing their business properly. Any unscrupulous Minister, it might be suggested, could say they are not doing their business properly and, therefore, he should interfere. I would like to know if that is the considered policy of Fine Gael, because naturally when we are framing Bills we like to know beforehand what the opposition is going to be and, although we may not have a very high regard for the Opposition in some respects, we know that the votes count, and therefore we have to consider their policy in regard to various matters.

When we regulate an industry like the pig industry and when we say to the producers and the factories: "Take over that industry and regulate it for yourselves and you will have no interference from the Minister or civil servants," is it to be the policy of Fine Gael to reply: "No; always keep the control in the Minister's hands, so that if they do anything wrong he will be able to make it right"? As Deputy Moore says, we then go looking for a board, and when I get a board I say to the members of it: "As long as you do right, I will not say anything; but if you go wrong, I will interfere." What sort of a board will you get in these circumstances? Certainly not a self-respecting one. You might get a board prepared to act for what they are paid, but for no other reason. Such a board would be very particular not to offend the Minister and, therefore, they will always do what the Minister wants them to do. So the Fine Gael policy is that when we regulate an industry like that you will let the Minister have full control and his wishes are to be carried out in all things. Perhaps Fine Gael are right. If you have a sensible Minister, that is a good policy. But I do not think Fine Gael would agree with that if I had put it into the Bacon Bill. Deputy Dillon may have put his foot in it, and Deputy Moore may have asked a rather awkward question. Possibly Deputy Brennan did not want to let Deputy Dillon down and he had to take up a definite attitude.

I have been told the pig-buyers will be put out of business. I believe the Chairman of the Pigs and Bacon Board made a speech saying that the boards were considering the proposal to buy pigs themselves for the factories. I do not know whether they have power to do that. If they have not, we may have to come here for it. If they have power and it is considered wrong that they should use it, we can stop them here. Either way, the Dáil can deal with the matter. I will say exactly what I said to the pig-buyers themselves. They asked me my attitude and I said that if the board convinced me that the farmers will get more under that method than at present, then I would agree with the board. Naturally, we will give the pig-buyers another chance of stating their position before we take that final step. I think everybody here will agree that if the farmers get a better price under a scheme of that kind than they are getting from the pig-buyers, by all means they should be allowed to get the better price. I am sure all Deputies here will agree on that point, because Deputies seem always to be on the side of the farmers.

If we think we can give the farmer 1/- or 2/- more for his pigs, we will give it to them whatever the scheme may be. Of course we will have complaints from the traders in the towns about markets being stopped. I think Mr. O'Brien in his Cork speech made a good case when he said what does it matter to the traders in the towns; would they not be better off if the farmers have more money? Why should the traders object to the farmers getting a better price for their pigs if they spend the money with them? We are told that the farmers spend all the money they have, so that eventually all the money goes to the shopkeepers in the towns, and they will be better off if the farmers get a better price at the factories as compared with sending their stock to the fairs. If it is a good scheme and if it will give the farmers a better price, we will be with them; if it is not a good scheme and if it does not give them a better price, we will not favour it.

Deputy Dillon wants to know if I intend to decline to answer questions here for the two boards. I do not intend to answer certain questions for the boards. The boards have full control in certain ways. I have power to ask them for returns. They have full control with regard to price for pigs. Either board is entirely responsible and they have no obligation to me in regard to the price of pigs as long as they fulfil the provisions of the Act. I do not see how I can defend them here and it is only a loss of time to put questions in regard to those matters. It is possibly true the first price the boards fixed did not allow for the cost of production, but I am sure they now have given due consideration to the cost of production. There are three men on the Pigs Board who represent the producers, and, naturally, any argument they can use like that in regard to the cost of production they do use it. I am quite sure they have used the argument that the cost of production is high and that they are not getting it. As the Act is framed, I think it is quite plain that the board are bound to give due consideration to that point and fix the price. I would say that if the board were to fix the price so as to give the farmer a fair return the whole year round, they would be carrying out their duties in a fair way.

Deputy Dillon has blamed the board for altering prices so very often. I would not blame the Pigs Board for altering the price, because, in the first place, they are acting for the first year; they are, as it were, feeling their way, and they hope eventually to have about two or three periods for the whole year with prices running over a long period. This year naturally they will have to alter fairly frequently. There is another difficulty that they are up against. I am afraid the Act will have to be amended. Deputy Dillon was very insistent on having an amendment introduced in the Bill that they must give notice of a change of price. I argued against that fairly strongly, but, being somewhat impressed by the arguments used by Deputy Dillon, as I always am, I eventually gave in; but I find it was a great mistake, because if they have to give four or five days' notice of a change of price—suppose they are putting the price up—there will be no pigs sold to the factory until the four or five days are over, and the farmer gets the increased price. If they put the price down, there will be a rush of pigs into the factory. The only way they can get over that difficulty is to adopt the method they have adopted of altering prices before the period is over.

I was asked whether the Bacon Marketing Board has power to fix minimum prices for bacon. I am not sure, but I think it would be a very good thing if they can do it, because I think that any Deputy who considers the matter will see that, if there was a fixed price, there would be much less profiteering by the factory, the wholesaler and the retailer. I ask Deputies to consider the example of butter. We have absolutely fixed prices in respect of the creamery, the wholesaler and the retailer, and, as a result of these fixed prices, there is less profiteering in the butter business than in any other business I know. In the same way, if the Bacon Board are able to get fixed prices, ex factory, and if consumers get an idea of what these fixed prices are —or even if they do not—the retailers who are getting bacon at the same price, would have to cut prices against one another to the bare minimum at which they can sell, and I think there would be very much less profiteering if fixed prices could be introduced.

There is something in what Deputy Dillon said about our having a formula in the Department for export quotas. We took a standard year, as it were, 1933, and, on that year, we allotted export quotas to the different factories. Afterwards, it was altered because certain factories did not carry out their quota in the first year and other factories were willing to take more than they were allotted in the first year. Now it has come to a point at which there has been, I believe, no alteration for months and months. Each factory knows it gets a certain percentage of what is available each month and it has come to be a sort of standard arrangement. In the same way, the Bacon Marketing Board has an allocation of production, and they go on a standard year, the year 1934. Deputy Dillon is right in saying that the factory gets a certain amount of production. They can export a certain amount to Great Britain and have the rest for home sales. If that factory finds a new market like the United States, they must take their supply out of their home sales. I think that is a defect in the Bill, or in the regulations made by the Board, and if any amendment of the legislation were necessary, that is one of the things that should be dealt with.

Deputy Dillon asked for closer supervision by me of the activities of these boards. As I say, I do not agree with that. I believe that when we regulate industry and set up a board which is representative of the various interests in the industry, we should give them the fullest possible powers and I should not have any power over them. There are certain things, of course, which we must supervise—veterinary inspection and matters of that kind — but in such matters as the allocation of killings to the various factories, the fixing of the prices of bacon and the fixing of the prices of pigs, and other matters perhaps which are entirely a matter for the industry itself, the Minister should not have any power to interfere.

Deputy Dillon, I think, made an unfair attack on these boards. He said there was a mess due to inexperience and ineptitude in their first few months of activity. I think that if any Deputy wishes to be fair to these boards and to give them fair play, he must realise that they were up against a desperate position when they were created. We had undoubtedly a very big surplus of pigs. We were limited in our exports by quotas and we were naturally limited in our home consumption, and there were more pigs available than could be used. They had to deal with that situation with that large surplus on top of them, when they came into operation. If these boards had been created, say, last June, and if they had had three or four months to prepare for the position, I would agree with Deputy Dillon that they should have done things better, but, as it is, I think they made a very good hand of the whole position. As a matter of fact, leaving out the Northern Counties, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan, they had cleared up the mess almost completely in the rest of the Free State inside of about three weeks. There were very severe complaints, and justifiable complaints, from the farmers' point of view, during the first week or two because the farmers were not able to sell their pigs at the fixed price, but that state of affairs was very quickly cleared up and I think the boards did their business very well.

Deputy Dillon also says that as a result of their messing of the whole position, they now have a large quantity of bacon on their hands. Now, that is not true. They have been very successful in getting rid of a great deal of the bacon they purchased at that time, and I think they will have no great difficulty in getting rid of the amount of bacon they have on hands, and what bacon they have is in quite good order. Deputy Dillon also made some allusion to my dealings in cattle, and he wanted to know how much I paid for butter and how much I was paid for butter in the trading I did in that commodity. I did not deal in butter at all. The Newmarket Dairy Company sold all the butter that was sold to Germany and Belgium. Their balance sheet will be published in due course and the value of that particular trade will be seen in it. I could say at this stage, however, that even if we had had a free market in Great Britain last year, we would still have reaped some benefit from our sales of butter in Germany.

Mr. Belton

Would it be as good a market?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, better than Britain.

Mr. Belton

Would it be as good a market except for the fact that Germany is on the gold standard and we are not?

Dr. Ryan

Oh, my goodness; do not talk about gold standards. I should want to study the subject up before I could deal with the Deputy.

Mr. Belton

Surely the Minister ought to know if he is a Minister.

Dr. Ryan

I do not waste my time on those things.

Mr. Belton

I hope that will be framed in the Press to-morrow.

Dr. Ryan

And particularly I do not waste my time on the Deputy.

Mr. Belton

Being on or off the gold standard does not matter to the Minister. No wonder Denmark is beating us when we have a Minister for Agriculture who sets no value on the gold standard or currencies.

Dr. Ryan

I set no value on the Deputy's opinion with regard to gold standards, which is a different matter.

Mr. Belton

The Minister is aware that Denmark has a 25 per cent. advantage over us?

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon also talked about the subsidy on sugar, and all I can say is that the Deputy was wrong somewhere or other. I do not know whether he commenced wrongly, or went wrong in the middle of his speech but, at any rate, he ended wrongly. As soon as the official report is issued, he might look through it, and I am sure he will find his mistake, because beet is not costing anything like that by way of subsidies. I know what he means. He means that if we had not grown beet, we could import cane sugar at a certain price. The Deputy talked of the price of cane sugar landed in Dublin, and he wants to know the price of Carlow sugar in comparison. I say it is not costing anything like what Deputy Dillon made it out to be.

Deputy McGovern supported Deputy Dillon in advising me to attack the policy of the Pigs Marketing Board. He also deprecated the powers I have of dictating to the various county committees the breed of pigs they should have. I am glad to say my predecessor, Deputy Hogan, got that power for me when he was in office and I am sure, if he was here, he would agree that that power should be retained by the Minister for Agriculture to see that the best possible breed of pigs is kept in the country, taking into account the home market and the foreign market, and the prices which pigs should realise.

With regard to the distribution of licences, the Department of Agriculture recoups the county committees for any expense they incur under that scheme. As far as inspectors are concerned they are temporary men. Deputy Belton knows what that means. You can continue a man for six months; the county committees have the appointments and the Minister does not interfere in any way. I am not sure that he has the power.

Mr. Belton

Not in regard to a temporary appointment—he can only approve.

Dr. Ryan

He cannot disapprove except for stated reasons. I have not the figures of the number of cattle sold for canning in the Waterford factory, but I could get them if necessary. Deputy O'Leary told us of a man who bought a sow and paid £4 10s. 0d. He said if we had a free market he could pay £2 more. If the Deputy worked out the matter for himself he would find that the difference between the tariff and the bounty on every sow going into Great Britain would be 15/-, so that the man who said he paid £2 for the bounty had no great regard for the truth. That is the sort of argument we hear used in this House very often when people are talking about markets. Deputy O'Leary concluded his speech, as usual, by saying the country is going into bankruptcy. Almost four years ago that kind of speech was first made in this House. At intervals of about three months the same speech was made. We were always told the country was going into bankruptcy and cannot last much longer.

Mr. Belton

Look at the other side of the picture.

Mr. O'Leary

Deputy Corkery would agree with what I said.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy John Flynn advocated an increase in the amount of the lime subsidy. This Estimate is for this year, and, as far as lime is concerned, the scheme is complete. What Deputy Flynn has in mind is an increased amount for the year 1936-37, and, when the main Estimate comes up, that will be discussed.

As regards cattle for canning, there cannot be any more cattle taken for canning until about July, because cattle suitable for canning will not be in condition until they get more grass. The reason these cattle were selected is because they are the best in the world for that purpose. You must have lean cattle well matured. You have cattle on the Kerry hills which are very suitable for that purpose.

Mr. Belton

It is strange that we never went in for canning before.

Dr. Ryan

No, because no one had the sense to do it.

Mr. Belton

Does the Minister suggest it is better to can them than to sell them as before?

Dr. Ryan

We have the best cattle in the world for canning.

Mr. O'Leary

It would be better for farmers to sell them and get £4 more per head for them.

Mr. Belton

What profit is made on canning?

Dr. Ryan

If the Deputy read the Estimate he would know that. Deputy Belton also wants to know about the reduced bounty on butter.

Mr. Belton

As to the exemption. What exemption was made in the case of Kerry cattle in connection with the Butter Bill?

Dr. Ryan

I took power in that Bill to make exemption.

Mr. Belton

Does the Minister not levy any tax in the case of the Kerry cattle or butter?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Brennan

I would ask one question as to the possible desirability of the Bacon Board taking over buying powers. Does the Minister think that one representative of the board in a fair buying for the Marketing Board is going to have as good an effect on prices as 20 jobbers?

Dr. Ryan

Is it not the same as if you had various numbers? You may, for instance, in the case of 20 creameries, have 20.

Mr. O'Leary

What is the fixed price? Is it not the export price?

Dr. Ryan

No, we got away from that principle long ago.

Mr. O'Leary

You cannot get away from it.

Question put and agreed to.