Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 29 Jan 1947

Vol. 104 No. 4

World Grain Situation—Adjournment Debate.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move:

That the Dáil do now adjourn until Tuesday, 11th February.

I am sure that many Deputies and many members of the general public have had difficulty in getting a clear picture of the world grain situation, in view of the undoubted scarcity in many European countries, which has necessitated the rationing of flour and bread, and the occasional Press reports of large export surpluses in most exporting countries. In the circumstances, I welcome the opportunity of making a statement but I must say that I do not hope to be able to clarify the position completely because there are aspects of it which are somewhat obscure. I will, of course, be able to give precise information concerning existing supplies but, as to the future, I can deal only with the position as revealed by official statements of national and international authorities and as communicated to us by those authorities.

During the past 12 months the getting of sufficient wheat to maintain bread and flour distribution, even on a reduced scale, has been, for all countries with insufficient internal production, a problem of first importance. We may count ourselves as being exceptionally fortunate in that it has been possible for us to defer until now the formal rationing of flour and bread, which all other European countries were compelled to adopt very much earlier. Our present position must be considered against the background of developments over that period if it is to be fully understood and regarded in its proper perspective.

During the war years the principal difficulty in getting wheat supplies was the shortage of shipping. The wheat was available abroad for purchase in the quantities in which it was possible for us to transport it. With the end of the war, in the summer of 1945, and the immediate improvement in the shipping position which resulted, it was expected that there would be no further difficulties and, in fact, in the following months imports were so satisfactory that it was decided to reduce the extraction rate of flour from wheat to 80 per cent.

Later, there were shipping problems of another kind, and some difficulty in getting satisfactory results through an organisation called the United Maritime Authority, which had been set up to control shipping and, because of this, imports fell off towards the end of 1945 but, it was not then considered likely that shipping difficulties would prevent the importation of the quantity of wheat necessary to maintain full deliveries of flour and bread and the reduced extraction rate. Then, early in 1946, came the first warning of a new problem, a shortage of total supplies in relation to the world's minimum needs, but the full seriousness of this problem did not become apparent until shortly before the European Cereals Conference, which was called in April, 1946.

It is not necessary, I think, to detail here the circumstances which led to the unexpected development of a world grain crisis. The main factors were: first, the under estimation of the requirements of the liberated countries, secondly, the failure of the rice crop in the Far East, and thirdly, some over-estimation of the available world supply.

This news of an impending world wheat shortage was a cause of special perturbation here, first, because the previously assumed favourable world supply position, coupled with the curtailment of shipments towards the end of 1945, for the reason which I have stated, had reduced our landed stocks; and secondly, because bread has a relatively greater importance in the diet of our people than in the diets of many countries of comparable living standards in normal times.

That its importance for us has increased in recent years is evidenced by the considerable expansion in the demand for flour. In the pre-war years the flour millers' distribution of flour averaged about 53,000 sacks per week and, while that figure was reduced during the periods of acute shortage in 1941-42 to less than 50,000 sacks, from the end of 1942, when the 1940 level of distribution was restored, the quantity gradually increased, first to 60,000 sacks, then to 62,000 sacks and, from the summer of 1944, to an authorised figure of about 65,000 sacks per week, which was maintained up to the recent introduction of rationing. The increased demand for flour is to be attributed to the scarcity and rising prices of alternative foodstuffs, flour and bread prices having been held down by subsidy, and to the difficulties of cooking in town and country due to gas and electricity restrictions and the shortage of fuel generally. As evidence of the effect of fuel difficulties, flour for commercial baking, which pre-war was about 40 per cent. of total sales, advanced in recent years to more than 50 per cent. of the increased supply of flour recently being distributed.

By March of 1946 the full seriousness of the world cereal supply position was disclosed and the Emergency Economic Committee of Europe decided to call a conference of European countries in London to consider the position. This country was represented at that conference by a delegation which included two Ministers. The estimated European deficit in bread grains for the year 1945-46 was then put at from 3,000,000 tons to 4,000,000 tons. Various resolutions were adopted by that London Conference in an effort to find means to bridge the gap, and this country complied faithfully with all the recommendations agreed to.

The Combined Food Board, which which was then the United Nations Organisation, dealing with the allocation of essential commodities in short supply, was represented at that London Conference and the view put forward on its behalf was that all grains, bread grains and coarse grains, should be reserved for human consumption. That view was not, however, accepted by the conference and the resolution upon live stock feeding policy which was adopted went no further than a statement that there was no justification for feeding bread grains to live stock and advising efforts to reduce grain consumption by animals by propaganda directed to producers.

On behalf of this country an offer was made at the meeting of that conference in London to postpone, until the following July, any claim which we might have to a share of the current export surplus of wheat and, by raising the flour extraction rate to 90 per cent., to reduce our demand in July by 25 per cent., the reduced requirement being stated at 30,000 tons of wheat. Shortly afterwards, in implementation of that undertaking, we again raised our extraction rate to 90 per cent. and took steps to regulate total flour deliveries.

Mention of the use of coarse grain for animal feeding brings me to our purchases of maize in the Argentine. In the later months of 1945 and early in 1946 our central importing company, Grain Importers, Limited, bought in the open market over 120,000 tons of Plate maize, part of it being of the 1944-45 crop. That was welcome news to our live-stock industry, which had so keenly felt the loss of that important animal feeding-stuff during the war years. However, owing to shipping and other difficulties, the arrival of the grain was delayed and a substantial part of our purchases had still to be lifted at the time that the question of the use of coarse grain for direct human food was first raised.

In view of the suggestion made by the Combined Food Board representatives at the London Conference, we made it clear that the maize we had purchased would be made available by us to the countries needing it for human consumption, and our willingness to do so has been restated more than once since then. In fact, in August, 1946, when our wheat difficulties were especially pressing, the suggestion was made by United States officials that part of the outstanding balance of the maize should be released to other countries for human consumption and the United States undertook to make available a compensating quantity of wheat from allocations made to such countries. We were quite willing to act upon that suggestion, but the only country which took up the suggestion changed its mind before arrangements for the switch were completed.

Following the London Cereals Conference, we made an application, supported by a full statement of our wheat position, to the Combined Food Board for our reduced and postponed requirement of 30,000 tons of wheat for the balance of the 1945-46 cereal year; that is the period between July of 1946 and the arrival at the mills of the produce of our own harvest.

The Combined Food Board was composed of representatives of Canada Great Britain and the United States and dealt, as I have said, with the allocation of all essential materials in short supply throughout the world. Our application did not fall to be met until July and in the meantime the position was altered as a result of a Food and Agriculture Organisation Conference held in Washington towards the end of May. That conference was called by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and it was summoned to deal with the cereals position for the following cereal year; that is to say, the 1946-47 cereal year.

We were not then members of the Food and Agriculture Organisation but, through our association with the Food and Agriculture sub-Committee of the Emergency Economic Committee for Europe which, as I have mentioned, called the London Cereals Conference, it was possible for us to be represented in the capacity of advisers to the Emergency Economic Committee for Europe, a delegation of which attended the Food and Agriculture Organisation meeting. That Food and Agriculture Organisation Conference at Washington followed much the same lines as-the London Cereals Conference, which had dealt with the position up to the end of the 1945-46 cereal year and adopted a number of resolutions for the conservation of grain on similar lines to those adopted by the London conference.

At the time of the Food and Agriculture Organisation Conference in Washington in May, it was anticipated there would be a deficiency in bread grain in relation to world supplies during the 1946-47 cereal year of about 10,000,000 tons. The principal resolutions adopted at the Food and Agriculture Organisation Conference were a recommendation for a minimum extraction rate of 85 per cent. for the 1946-47 cereal year; the maintenance of the use of grain for industrial purposes at the existing low levels, or less, if possible; that wheat flour should be diluted to the extent of 5 per cent. by the use of other grains, potatoes, etc.; that bread grains should not be fed to live-stock; that the maximum use should be made of pasture, hay and straw; that dairy cows and draught animals should receive priority for coarse grains; that second priority should be given to the maintenance of a nucleus of breeding stock; that the feeding of grain to other stock, especially pigs and poultry, should be reduced to a minimum and that producers should be encouraged by publicity to follow out these recommendations of the conference.

Owing to the dissatisfaction of many countries with the decisions of the Combined Food Board and the reluctance of the three countries forming the board to carry on their difficult task, it was decided at that meeting to set up in its place a new organisation called the International Emergency Food Council, now known, like all these international organisations, by its initials, I.E.F.C., which, through subcommittees dealing with the principal commodities requiring regulation, would aim at securing the equitable distribution of the available surpluses.

Mr. Dillon

When was that set up?

Mr. Lemass

At the Washington Conference last year. By Resolution of the Conference, membership of the International Emergency Food Council was automatically conferred on those countries which already were members of the Commodity Committees which acted in an advisory capacity to the Combined Food Board but provision was made to enable all countries which had a substantial interest in the trade in any particular commodity to apply for membership. In the course of time, most members of Food and Agriculture Organisation became members of International Emergency Food Council or one or other of its Commodity Committees. As this country was not a member of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, we did not at that time apply for membership of the International Food Council. In fact, to the extent that it was possible for us to have our views impressed on the conference, we were opposed to the setting up of such a body, feeling that the work of allocation could be more effectively and expeditiously dealt with by a smaller organisation.

The procedure followed by International Emergency Food Council was subsequently outlined in August in an official letter received by us from the secretary of that body. The commodities regulated by that council are divided into two lists. The items on List I, including for example, oils and fats, are directly allocated by the council. The council does not allocate the commodities on List II and grain (other than rice) and flour, are on the second list. I shall quote an extract from the communication dealing with the commodities placed on the second list. The following is the extract:

"Those commodities under close observation by the council but for which the International Emergency Food Council does not at present recommend international allocations are set forth in List II. Claimants are expected to notify the council of their proposed requirements and purchase programmes for these commodities but, in so far as the council is concerned, may proceed with procurement arrangements unless notified by the council within ten days following receipt of such programmes, that an allocation recommendation is to be considered by the council. The absence of notification should not be interpreted as an indication that supplies are available or that other conditions are such that the proposed purchases could be made."

The Combined Food Board, shortly before it went out of existence, notified all countries to submit a detailed statement of cereal requirements for 1946-47. We submitted our statement in July, by which time the work of the Combined Food Board was being dealt with by this new body, the International Emergency Food Council. Our wheat import requirements, which were based on an optimistic view of acreage and production from the home crop, were put at 235,000 tons. Our requirements of maize were given at 255,000 tons for the cereal year. No formal objection was raised by the International Emergency Food Council to the proposals outlined in the statement either within the ten days stipulated by the prescribed procedure or since. By this time the question of obtaining 30,000 tons applied for to the Combined Food Board in respect of the 1945-46 cereal year, the wheat which was necessary to supplement our supply for the period July to September of last year, was becoming urgent. We made strong representations to the International Emergency Food Council, to the Government of the United States and to the Government of Canada, and the upshot of these representations was that the United States allocated 8,000 tons of wheat in July of last year and 8,000 tons of flour in August. Canada could supply nothing owing to the fact that her wheat stocks had been almost completely exhausted and her principal customer for wheat, Great Britain, had, even though bread rationing had, by then, been introduced in that country, a pressing need for such shipments as could be made.

Mr. D. Morrissey

Would the Minister say if we got delivery of the 8,000 tons?

Mr. Lemass

I am going to deal with that now. The International Emergency Food Council, with whom our representatives in Washington had been in constant contact in efforts to get the 30,000 tons of wheat, had raised many difficulties. They drew a comparison of our over-all availability of food with that of other importing countries and referred to the absence of bread rationing here. They pointed to the critical stock position of supplying countries and the very urgent needs of a number of importing countries which had to be provided for as a matter of urgency. In any event, all efforts to secure more than the 8,000 tons of wheat and the 8,000 tons of flour allocated by the Government of the United States, to which I have referred, proved unsuccessful.

An approach was also made to the Argentine Government with the approval of the International Emergency Food Council but, owing to existing Argentine commitments, it was not possible to secure supplies. Efforts to lift the United States flour allocation were frustrated by shipping difficulties and, in fact, it was not until the month of November that the bulk of the allocation arrived here. With the onset of the very wet weather, the native harvest looked like being abnormally delayed and a complete break-down in flour and bread distribution during last September became very nearly a reality. Urgent representations were made to the Canadian Government for the release of a cargo of wheat but they were unable to provide it because of the difficulties with which I have already dealt. Subsequently a cargo of something less than 3,000 tons of wheat and 500 tons of flour arrived from Canada which covered, but only barely, our needs for the critical days of September last before the inflow of the new crop of native wheat became adequate to meet current needs. These supplies were obtained on loan from the British Ministry of Food. We were very grateful to them for their willingness to help us over a period of temporary, but very acute, difficulty.

Early in September a further conference of the Food and Agriculture Organisation was held in Copenhagen. This country was admitted to membership of the organisation. The world supply position for 1946-47 was again reviewed and an estimated bread grains deficit of 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 tons was disclosed. The International Emergency Food Council representatives present suggested as a means of closing the gap that the surplus of new crop coarse grains, expected to be about 6,000,000 tons, should be reserved for direct human consumption. That suggestion did not find acceptance at the conference.

There was no disposition there to go further than to reaffirm the resolutions passed at the Washington Conference and a resolution was in fact adopted along those lines. It was admitted by the representatives of some exporting countries that through force of circumstances it had not been possible to discontinue the feeding of wheat to animals in those countries. The near disaster to our own harvest, due to weather conditions during the harvesting season, increased our dependence on foreign wheat, and made the speedy importation of supplies a matter of greater urgency. The bad harvest also completely upset our estimate of the total yield and increased the quantity that we needed to import. There were no reserve stocks available as in previous years. It had been hoped that Canada, our principal supplier of strong wheat, would provide this year the bulk of such wheat which is necessary for a mixture with our own grain in the production of flour of good baking quality. At first the Canadian authorities did not consider that there would be any difficulty in meeting our requirements, but owing to the exhaustion of the Canadian carry-over stocks and the slow movement of new crop wheat and the need to meet to some extent the urgent calls from many countries, our allotments of wheat from Canada were limited to 17,000 tons in each of the months of September and October.

The next most serious development in Canada was the discovery that earlier crop estimates had proved over optimistic, and that the yield would be less than had been assumed by more than 500,000 tons. To add a further complication, transport difficulties, to which I will refer again later, reduced the supplies available at the shipping points. In these circumstances the Canadian authorities felt obliged to concentrate their efforts upon meeting their commitments to Great Britain, and they were unable to promise further supplies of wheat to this country before July of this year unless deliveries by Canadian growers improved in the months of April and May next. During the last quarter of 1946 our representatives in Washington and at Ottawa kept the International Emergency Food Council, and the United States Government and the Canadian Government fully informed of our position. They were unremitting in their efforts to secure the wheat we need, and I would repudiate any suggestion that our present position is due to any inadequacy of their efforts. In November a revised statement of our grain import proposals, based upon the anticipated reduced production from the native crop, was submitted to the International Emergency Food Council. The estimate of our requirements of imported wheat was raised to 300,000 tons for the cereal year ending on the 31st August next, and in addition to some 20,000 tons of oats for oatmeal production it was indicated that it was proposed to import 253,000 tons of maize and quantities of other grain for animal feeding. No objection was raised by the International Emergency Food Council within the stipulated 10 days.

Mr. D. Morrissey

Do I understand that the estimate was raised from 235,000 tons to 300,000 tons?

Mr. Lemass

Yes, following the evident reduction of the produce of our own harvest.

Mr. Norton

What did they vary around?

Mr. Lemass

270,000 tons. Every effort was made to get further supplies of wheat or flour from the United States, particularly in view of Canadian difficulties and the fact that the United States is the only other source of supply for the strong wheat needed for bakers' flour. A combination of unforeseeable circumstances and difficulties prevented our meeting with any success. The United States had, it is true, a bumper harvest and had available for export enormous quantities of grain. Even so, the demand on the United States far outstrips the supply, and so many countries are working on precarious stock levels that any interruption of the flow of wheat involves the risk of a complete breakdown in distribution.

Unfortunately, the prolonged maritime strike tied up United States shipping for over two months with the result that wheat piled up at the shipping points and the countries to which it had been allocated had no means of lifting it. Following the strike came the soft coal strike which affected railway transport already inadequate to meet the demands on it for the movement of grain for export. In fact, from the long-term point of view the inadequacy of the United States inland transport or more specifically box-cars for the transport of grain is the most serious shortcoming from the standpoint of the grain-importing countries looking to the United States for supplies.

The reason for this is that the production of suitable railway equipment has lagged very far behind what would be needed to move expeditiously the enormously expanding grain surplus. By a recent Presidential decree priority on the railways has been given to food and particularly to grain for export. It has been stated that, as a result, grain exports from the United States will reach a total of 550,000,000 bushels, or about 14,500,000 tons for the year ending 30th June next. The United States transport difficulties reacted on Canada's position also. Considerable quantities of Canadian wheat are shipped through the United States and when the St. Lawrence is closed by ice these east coast United States ports are the only outlets for Canadian wheat apart from Halifax and St. John's. Normally Canadian transport brings the grain to assembly points at Buffalo and United States rail transport moves it from there to the ports. With the unavoidable withdrawal of United States freight trains from this task, Canadian transport had to be substituted with consequent slowing down of the movements of Canadian wheat to the ports. I mention these facts so that Deputies can understand the background against which we made our representations to the authorities there and to the international authorities located there. The United States reply to our representations to secure wheat or flour was that it would not be possible to make provision for us before the heavy arrears in the shipment of existing allocations had been cleared off and that this would take until the new year to accomplish. In fact there have been no imports of wheat into this country since the end of November. As had been expected the new crop of native wheat was of exceptionally high moisture content necessitating double drying and was of very poor quality generally.

A more serious feature, however, was the very extensive sprouting which occurred while the crop was awaiting harvesting, and subsequently due to heating caused by the high moisture content. This led to the partial break-down of the starch into sugars, with very serious effects on the baking quality of the flour produced from the wheat. The loaves have been soggy and the bakers are unable to do anything to offset the effects of this high maltose condition. There was a heavy increase in wastage as a result, and a general outcry amongst the public against the bad quality of the flour. Certificates were obtained in November from two prominent British cereal chemists, Dr. D.W. Kent Jones and Mr. Horace Ward, who regularly examine samples sent to them by the Irish mills. These reports indicated clearly that it would be impossible to produce satisfactory flour from the native wheat available, unless a high proportion of good quality wheat, and particularly strong wheat, were mixed with it. Copies of these reports were sent to the International Emergency Food Council, the Governments of the United States, Canada and Australia. It was not possible to use anything like the quantity of good quality wheat recommended by the chemists in admixture with the native wheat, because of the shortage of supplies, and there was a further complication in November, that owing to the hold up in the shipment of the allocations given by Canada in September and October supplies of foreign wheat in that month reached near the point of complete exhaustion.

Once again, the British Ministry of Food helped us over a difficulty by a loan of 2,000 tons of hard wheat. From that point on the importance of getting supplies of strong wheat to enable us to make economical use of the native wheat was stressed in all representations to the United States and Canada, as well as to the International Emergency Food Council. The United States and Canada, for the reasons I have already given, were, however, unable to make any supplies of wheat available to us, but it was indicated that we could, with the assent of the Canadian authorities, obtain supplies of flour in Canada if the Canadian flour mills were prepared to offer it. So far, however, despite all efforts, only 650 tons of Canadian flour have been purchased.

I come now to the most recent developments in the situation. Shortly before Christmas, officials of the International Emergency Food Council discussed our cereals position with our representative in Washington. They referred specifically to our shipments of maize—the outstanding balance of our year-old purchases was still in process of shipment—and suggested that we should make this maize available to countries which would use it for human consumption. They were informed that recent arrivals of maize had been discoloured, heated and smelly, and unfit for human consumption, and they were reminded of previous offers made in connection with this grain, which had failed to produce any result. They indicated that if satisfactory evidence could be produced as to the quality of the maize it could be released for animal feeding without prejudice to our claims for wheat. The difficulty of getting evidence, particularly about maize already consumed many months previously, will be appreciated, but such information as it has been possible to obtain is being submitted to the International Emergency Food Council.

The officials of the International Emergency Food Council went on to analyse our bread grain requirements and said that, having regard to the supplies likely to be available up to the 30th June, the International Emergency Food Council was suggesting to all countries modifications of their import proposals, with the object of bringing demands more closely into line with available supplies. After outlining the suggested adjustment of our import programme, which has fallen very far short of realisation so far this year, they went on to say that in the International Emergency Food Council's view all grain, including coarse grain, such as maize imported since 1st July, 1946, should be counted against the total grain allocation to this country, unless it could be shown that the maize was unfit for human consumption, or that an acceptable case could be made to the Feeds Sub-Committee of the International Emergency Food Council for the use of this maize for animal feeding, having regard to our live stock numbers, supplies of indigenous grain, feeding practices and so on.

Reports I got show that all the maize was unfit for human consumption, with the possible exception of a cargo now being unloaded. Evidence to this effect is being submitted to the council. And, as regards the present cargo, the International Emergency Food Council are being told that it is available for any country needing it for human consumption and prepared to accept it.

On the general proposition, I must say that I am puzzled as to how a proposal of the kind, carrying the possibility of serious consequences for us, through its retrospective effect, could reasonably be justified. At the same time, it was indicated on behalf of the United States that in view of the pressing demands being made upon them by many countries, whose position was very serious, they were at present unable to allocate wheat or flour to any country importing coarse grain for animal feed. This objection, it was pointed out, would not hold if the grain was unfit for human consumption.

Turning from import difficulties to the consideration of the present supply position, the situation is one which, with the operation of the rationing scheme, need cause no exceptional alarm. Our existing stocks of native wheat, if we could assume that it could be used without admixture of imported wheat, are sufficient for our needs on the present ration up to the beginning of June. It is, of course, impracticable to plan on the basis of working down to bare boards and our requirements up to the date of arrival at our flour mills of the new season's native wheat, towards the end of September next, should be met by the importation in the interval of about 150,000 tons of foreign wheat. These estimates, of course, are subject to some modification when we have had more experience of the results of rationing.

A point of difficulty about the position and one reason why it is impossible to estimate our probable imports subsequent to the 30th June, and before our next harvest becomes available, is that the North American countries and the International Emergency Food Council work on the basis of a crop year ending June 30th, and can make no provision at this stage for any subsequent period. Due to our later harvest we must budget for a year ending at a much later date, somewhere between the middle and the end of September. This conflict of cereal years is a source of complica- tion. In view of this it is understandable that we cannot be informed what quantities we may expect to obtain from July 1st, but it may safely be assumed that some supplies will be forthcoming. I cannot say, however, that definite arrangements have yet been made to meet, quantitatively, our needs on the basis of the present ration for the month of June. Our most immediate problem is one of quality rather than of quantity. Of imported wheat, we have to-day in the country only about 6,000 tons. We have that imported wheat because we have been spreading out the small stocks which arrived to the utmost. The percentage now used—it is all used in bakers' flour—is far below the minimum which gives the best results, by which I mean satisfactory bread, with a minimum of wastage.

Mr. Norton

What is the percentage at present?

Mr. Lemass

About 25 per cent.——

Mr. Norton

25 per cent. to 75 per cent.?

Mr. Lemass

Of bakers' flour.

Mr. D. Morrissey

I take it that household flour is made entirely of native wheat?

Mr. Lemass

Yes. We have not confined our efforts to get wheat or flour from Canada or the United States. In November last, our Minister in Canberra approached the Australian Government for an allocation of wheat or flour from the new crop, then approaching the harvesting stage. Unfortunately, however, the outlook for the crop looked none too promising owing to the serious effects of drought. Nevertheless, the Australian Government have recently informed our Minister that they are prepared to make available to us for March-April-May shipment 30,000 tons of flour, subject to the approval of the International Emergency Food Council. The approval of the International Emergency Food Council has been sought but has been withheld pending the submission of information about our maize shipments. That information is being submitted. I should like to express our thanks to Australia for their generous offer, made notwithstanding the lower yield from their wheat crop in this year. The Government of Argentina, too, has also shown its sympathy with our wheat difficulties by promising priority consideration in our case for the supply of new-crop wheat. I may add that, arrangements are being made for an official commission, headed by Mr. L. H. Kerney, until recently Irish Minister in Spain, to visit Argentina. Representatives of Grain Importers, Ltd., are at present on the way to Canada to discuss the present position and future prospects with millers and shippers in those countries and secure, if possible, increased shipments of flour from the Canadian mills.

Mr. Dillon

It is late in the day they started.

Mr. Lemass

We were put upon the export list for flour from Canada only last month. There would not have been much point in starting before then. While I know that Deputies would like definite information as to the total supplies available or in sight, I cannot give it to them. It will be clear from what I have said that the grain situation is a fluid one, subject to a constant succession of unpredictable developments. It is not impossible that the situation may improve before the summer. The indications at present are that, later in the year, there should be some general easement in the position, granted reasonably good harvests in North America and Europe in the coming summer and autumn, and I hope that, before the end of the year, it may be possible for us to dispense with rationing. However, it would be rash to prophesy and dangerous to plan even upon what may seem to be reasonable expectations.

General Mulcahy

Is the Minister now referring to the cereal year?

Mr. Lemass

No, to the calendar year.

General Mulcahy

1947?

Mr. Lemass

Yes. It would, I think, be necessary for us to have reasonable stocks available in the country and in course of processing in the mills before we could take that step.

Mr. Dillon

Three cheers for self sufficiency.

Mr. Lemass

Elementary prudence dictates that we make the fullest use of our resources and grow this season the maximum proportion of our wheat requirements. It was with great reluctance the Government faced the necessity to introduce a scheme for the rationing of flour and bread. It took that decision only when it was clear, beyond all doubt, that, in order to conserve supplies of available wheat, it was absolutely necessary to restrict deliveries of flour from the mills. It will be appreciated that rationing of a commodity such as flour or bread in an agricultural country such as ours presents many practical difficulties—difficulties which were accentuated by administrative problems arising in the adaptation of our rationing system for the purpose. It was decided to endeavour to devise the simplest possible method of rationing and to get it working smoothly before introducing complications. Accordingly, it was decided to base the scheme on an all-round, flat ration. The allowance of 6 lb. of bread per week under the rationing scheme may, in some cases, prove too little and in other cases somewhat more than might be regarded as essential. Speaking generally, however, the ration which has been fixed should prove reasonably adequate and many people who at first feared it would be insufficient will have found from experience that it can be made do. There are exceptions, of course, which will have to be considered—particularly in the case of those workers engaged in heavy manual work who are forced by the nature of their employment to take a midday meal away from their homes. The claim of those workers for special allowances over and above the existing ration is admitted and it has been decided to meet them. It will take a little time before the printing of the necessary documents will be completed and the final arrangements made but an announcement of the details of the scheme and of the classes to which it will apply will be made shortly.

Mr. Norton

Is the Minister in a position to give any indication of what would be regarded as workers in heavy industries?

Mr. Lemass

I am not referring to all workers in heavy industries. I am referring to workers engaged in manual work the circumstances of whose employment make it impossible for them to return home for a midday meal.

Mr. Norton

You put in a special category the worker whose work is such that he has got to take his midday meal away from home?

Mr. Lemass

Yes. It is not possible yet to give precise information as to the saving of wheat which will be actually effected under the rationing scheme but all the evidence points to a fairly substantial saving, which is all to the good. The maintenance of the existing ration will depend on the extent of supplies of imported wheat coming forward during the remainder of the season. We can expect very little more from the native crop and any additional supplies needed to keep us going until next harvest will have to be imported. In general, the rationing scheme can be said to be working very smoothly. That is in no small measure due to the co-operation which has been forthcoming from the trade and the public. Officials of my Department are constantly in touch with the various trade interests— millers, bakers and traders —and minor difficulties in the working of the scheme which have cropped up during the past week have been ironed out, where practicable.

We are also in close touch with the confectionery trade which have special difficulties of their own. I think it is true that the confectionery trade has been hit by the scheme somewhat harder than I anticipated and I am giving consideration to various suggestions which have been put forward for a modification of the scheme to meet the special circumstances of that trade, other than the exclusion of flour confectionery from rationing. A difficulty also arose in the case of persons obliged to be absent a few days from their homes on business and who ordinarily would not be catered for by hotels and restaurants. A special arrangement has been made to provide those persons with vouchers to enable them to buy bread during their absences from their headquarters. It may take a little time also before all the problems raised by the catering trades will have been solved. I have endeavoured to make this statement as complete as possible but I have no doubt that many points will arise on which Deputies will require information.

Mr. D. Morrissey

Would the Minister clear up one point before he concludes? Did we receive the whole or any part of the 8,000 tons of wheat and 8,000 tons of flour allocated to us by the American Government as far back as August?

Mr. Lemass

That wheat was allocated against our requirements in the period July to September, 1946. We needed it urgently then. Even if the whole of the 30,000 tons we were seeking at that time had been obtained, we would not have had a carry-over stock at the end of the cereal year of as large as international conferences had decided to be necessary in the case of every country. In that period, 8,000 tons of wheat were imported and consumed.

Mr. D. Morrissey

I only want to know if we got it.

Mr. Lemass

The 8,000 tons of flour, however, were not imported because of shipping difficulties, and did not reach here until October and November— the bulk of it came in November. That left us in the very critical situation at the beginning of September, to which I have referred, and which was overcome by the loan of a small quantity of wheat and flour from the British Ministry of Food.

Mr. Dillon

And which we agreed to pay back out of the foreign flour and wheat which came?

Mr. Lemass

I do not know if the rules of procedure will permit me to speak again in the course of this discussion to explain any points which may not be clear. If that cannot be arranged, Deputies will no doubt find other ways and opportunities of bringing such points up for examination and clarification. The Dáil will be in almost continuous session until the summer and Deputies will have opportunities of raising any queries and making suggestions for modifications of the rationing scheme to ensure its smooth working.

General Mulcahy

I am sure no question of order will be allowed to stand in the way of the Minister's replying to questions.

Mr. Dillon

Have we not agreed that the Minister will be allowed to reply to any questions that might arise?

Mr. Lemass

That would be the most satisfactory arrangement.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It might easily be arranged that the Minister would intervene before the conclusion of the debate. The Chair could call on the Minister at about 10 o'clock, as the debate can go on until 10.30.

General Mulcahy

The Minister will see what questions may arise.

Mr. Hughes

I think I can express our appreciation of the vast amount of information given to the House by the Minister. We have heard a long and detailed history of this whole problem, not only for this country but for all the European countries. He told us that the problem was comparatively simple up to the beginning of last year, that it was not a problem of supplies—which were available, particularly in the new world—but of shipping. He said that a critical situation was reached in the spring of 1946 and a conference was convened in London—the Emergency Conference on European Cereal Supplies—to which we were invited and at which we were represented by the Minister and by the Minister for Agriculture. Various resolutions were passed there in an effort to bridge the gap in regard to supplies of bread grains for Europe. There was a deficiency of between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 tons. He told us there was an under-estimation at that time of the needs of the liberated countries, of the failure of the rice crop in the East and an over-estimation of supplies of wheat.

The Minister made a contribution to the discussion at that conference and the Report of its deliberations, with the resolutions passed and the speech made by the Minister, was circulated to members of the House. I cannot rid my mind of the feeling that the Minister's attitude there had a profound effect on the future import of supplies. He informed the conference that we were an exporting country. He detailed the contribution we had made to the alleviation of hunger in Europe, giving the figures for the various commodities we sent through the International Red Cross. Those figures are set out in the Report circulated to Deputies. The Minister for Industry and Commerce went on to say, in his speech at that conference, that we imported pre-war 700,000 tons of grain and that, because of the policy of the Government, there was a substantial increase by compulsory measures in the amount of land under wheat here and that our annual requirements at the present time would be 200,000 tons. He said that, so far as the year 1946 was concerned, we had considerably increased the home production of wheat by compulsory measures and a further increase in the acreage was anticipated.

Now, the Minister's anticipation was wrong. The acreage fell from 662,498 acres in 1945 to 642, 595 in 1946, a drop of 20,000 acres. There was also a substantial drop in yield and, furthermore, a drop in the quality of the grain produced. The Minister, speaking as a city man, although Minister for Industry and Commerce, did not appreciate the uncertainty of an Irish harvest and the danger that our climate might cause a very substantial drop.

In reply to a question addressed to him by me on Thursday, 23rd January last, I was informed that the amount of native wheat delivered for milling up to the 11th January, 1947, was the equivalent of 260,000 tons of dried wheat and the corresponding figure for last year was 322,000 tons. I take it from the answer the Minister gave to a question put to him a few minutes ago that the estimate for this year is another 10,000 tons on to the 260,000, making 270,000 for this year. One may take it that the amount of wheat delivered to the store at the present time is the aggregate amount that is going to be available for milling purposes. There may be some reserves for farmers' use that will be milled by country mills. The discrepancy there in our home production is 200,000 tons. That considerably accentuates the problem. Therefore, in the picture represented to the emergency conference in London in April last, the Minister anticipated an improvement on last year, whereas experience has shown us that the position has disimproved by approximately 62,000 tons.

I feel that the information available to the United Nations Organisation, to the Combined Food Board and the body now dealing with this problem of allocating supplies to the various countries, the International Emergency Food Council, must be influenced by the statements made by the Minister at that conference in London.

In reply to a question addressed by me to the Minister to-day, I got the monthly arrivals of wheat since August, 1945. They presented the picture, which the Minister has filled in in detail in his speech, that we had substantial imports of wheat up to last April. Last August 12 months, we imported 30,000 tons; in September, 26,000 tons; in October, 33,000 tons; in November, 6,700 tons; in December, 6,600 tons; in January, 1946, 4,960 tons; in February, 1,496 tons; and in March, 13,000 tons. The position then deteriorated for the next four or five months. The conference in London took place in April, and in that month we imported 1,156 tons. In May, we imported none and in June none. In July, we im-imported the 8,000 tons to which the Minister referred. In August, we imported none and in September, 12,053 tons. The Minister has described to the House that the position was very acute in September and that when native wheat came on the market, it was a matter of more or less working from day to day on the supplies arriving at the mills. I suppose the House must be satisfied with the work done and the representations made by our representatives abroad, but it does seem an extraordinary situation that, so far, we have been unable to secure anything which would make us feel comfortable as to our supplies between now and the next harvest.

The Minister for Local Government, speaking at Mullingar on Sunday last, said it was true to say that the enemies of Ireland were tired of the Taoiseach in 1916, 1922 and 1932 and the same could be said of them at the beginning of the war and at the end of the war. I suppose the Taoiseach would claim the United States as a friend and not an enemy. It seems extraordinary that a member of the Government should measure the success of the Government here by counting the number of enemies we have and not the number of friends.

Mr. Norton

Make allowances for the speaker, at the same time.

Mr. Hughes

If the foreign policy of the Taoiseach amounts to this, that we are to be told by the United States that our people are to exist on yellow meal, and that it is good enough for us, from now until next harvest, we certainly cannot compliment the Taoiseach on his foreign policy, and neither can we compliment the Minister for Local Government on his approach to this problem of securing these essential supplies between now and the next harvest. I offer this advice to the Minister for Local Government, that our policy ought to be to cultivate friendship rather than to count the number of countries who are our enemies.

So far as the native wheat crop is concerned, the Minister has referred to the difficulties which existed—the very bad harvest, the amount of sprouting which occurred and its effect on the glutin content and how that sprouting had the effect of turning the starch content into sugar and producing baking difficulties. This Party made representations to the Minister for Agriculture in September last, appreciating the difficulty which was inevitable due to weather conditions. At that time, we saw resolutions being passed all over the country suggesting that the moisture content of wheat should be ignored and that the guaranteed price should be paid, regardless of moisture content. We felt that, if that were done, wheat would be delivered in a shocking condition and that our drying capacity would not be ample to deal with wheat arriving in that condition. We felt that not only should the scale with regard to moisture content and bushel weight be adhered to, but, in a season such as the last harvest, we should encourage the farmer, above all, to do as much natural drying as possible, and we recommended that the price should be increased by 5/-, particularly for best quality wheat, and suggested that it would pay the country very well to do that.

We also recommended that it might be wise to consider the question of rationing and of reducing the extraction from 90 to 80 per cent. because we knew that a very considerable amount of wastage was taking place. The Minister listened very carefully but our recommendations were not accepted, with the result that a good many people were disappointed. I do not think the difficulties the agricultural community had to face and tackle in trying to produce and to deliver wheat in any reasonable condition were appreciated. Much of the wheat arrived in very shocking condition, in sprouting condition, and, in some cases, it was so bad that it was not able to travel through the artificial driers, and some of it was lost. We feel that, in that respect, the best course was not followed and that, in the very bad conditions which existed, the home wheat crop could have been better handled.

So far as the wheat scheme generally is concerned, I do not think the Minister or the Government can be complimented on what has been achieved. They have boasted about their wheat policy for a number of years and one would expect that a Party which believed so much in native production would have achieved better results. It appears to me that when, after encouraging native production for a long number of years, we were only able, in the year 1946, to produce less than 50 per cent. of our requirements, the Government could not be complimented, even by their own supporters, on the results secured by that policy. It is true they had a policy but, so far as expanding production during the emergency was concerned, there was no national effort and no organised plan of production. It was left to the individual effort of farmers. We applied a compulsory Order. We sent inspectors around and merely insisted that the farmer should do his job regardless of what equipment or manures were available. As a matter of fact, only very small quantities of artificial manures were available.

We have got no potash for years and it seems a very strange situation that, even in this present year, the sugar company, by their initiative, could secure ample supplies of potash for this year's crop of sugar beet, and yet the Department has been unable to secure a supply of potash for any other purpose. I cannot understand how it is that a company like the sugar company, on their own initiative, by sending their manager or whoever they sent abroad, can secure a very substantial supply of potash.

Mr. Lemass

Potash is also subject to allocation.

Mr. Hughes

If the sugar company had not taken action on their own initiative would we have got no supplies at all this year? How is it that the Minister's Department has not secured a supply?

Mr. Lemass

The total quantity we can import is fixed by international authority, a committee of the International Emergency Food Council.

Mr. Hughes

And did we get no allocation last year?

Mr. Lemass

We had got an allocation of what the Russians sold to Germany.

Mr. Hughes

It must have been an almost negligible supply we got. The sugar company sent their representative to Spain and secured a substantial supply of potash for their particular purposes and the Minister's Department has not succeeded in getting any supplies at any time since the emergency started and the supplies of potash for any purpose other than the production of sugar beet here are negligible. I feel that sufficient efforts were not made by the Minister's Department during the emergency to secure essential supplies of artificial manure. The result of failure to get them is, not only lower acreage, but lower yields. Lower yield has resulted in lower acreage. It became uneconomic for the farmers to produce and they reduced the acreage under wheat to the minimum that they were bound by compulsory Order to cultivate.

The Minister ought to appreciate that so far as statistics here are concerned, they are almost useless, that they are certainly not reliable and that on an important matter such as we are considering here, we cannot anticipate what is available or what we are going to get. I am satisfied that in every year the estimate of yields is too high and that it is never accurate. The Minister has always found, of course, where deliveries are substantially below the estimate, that the difference can be accounted for by the amount retained for consumption on the farm.

The Minister suggested to the House that he was pursuing a wise course in delaying rationing up to a week ago. I do not think he can be complimented in that respect. In view of the very dangerous and difficult situation that existed last September and October, in view of the diminishing imports for some months prior to that, the Minister at that time should have considered seriously the introduction of rationing because, undoubtedly, wastage occurred, not merely because of the bad quality of the loaf, but because bread was being used for animal feeding, and for animals of a particular type. Rationing was bound to obviate that wastage. The Minister showed us clearly what the position is so far as native supplies are concerned, that we had enough up to June but that there was a difficulty about the end of the cereal year, which ended much earlier in most other countries than here, but that we may assume that some further supplies will be forthcoming and that we will require about 150,000 tons of foreign wheat to bridge the gap. That is a very substantial margin, which we are just hoping may arrive. The Minister may have more confidence in the future than many of us. He is in a better position to judge than we are but, if the situation is in any way dangerous, I wonder whether the question of reserving some supplies of barley and maize for admixture purposes has been considered. It will be too late to consider that aspect of the matter in another month or two. There must be substantial supplies of barley in the country at the moment and possibly, although the oat crop was bad and of poor quality, there may be some oats that might be used for admixture purposes. Certainly there must be some barley, which is useful for that purpose and which is preferable to maize, in my opinion.

The House will be pleased to hear from the Minister that he intends to review the rationing scheme and to make provision for an increased allocation for certain types of workers, especially for men who have to bring their rations with them when they go to work and have to rely to a great extent on a sandwich meal away from home. The Minister might also consider workers generally who have to expend a great deal of energy and who are working in the open air and thus develop very keen appetites. He might also consider the case of large families, with small incomes, that exist to a very large extent on bread. The Minister should not overlook these categories.

In giving details of arrivals of wheat for the various months, the Minister told us that none arrived since November. I could not understand that because, in a reply to a question of mine to-day, he gave a figure of 5,900 tons that arrived in the month of December but during the course of his speech he informed us that no wheat arrived since November.

Mr. Lemass

December of what year?

Mr. Hughes

1946—5,900 tons. I believe that if the recommendations that we made to the Minister for Agriculture had been carried out, our home crop could have arrived in better condition in the mills. There was no inducement to the farmers to make use of whatever natural drying was available. There was no short-cut so far as the saving of the crop was concerned. We pointed out that the harvesting would be long and tedious and it would require an infinite amount of care, attention and patience. We suggested that the Government should pursue a policy which would encourage the agricultural community to expend that care and patience on the crop and that it would pay good dividends in the long run. We were not listened to. Much of the crop was put together and threshed under shocking conditions. Millers were instructed not to be so strict on bushel weights and moisture contents. We felt it was a year when you would need to ensure that the quality, above all, was paid for, and that the producer would be satisfied, if he did his job well, that he would be well paid for it.

All that was neglected and a very substantial part of the crop was allowed to deteriorate and sprout and become almost unfit for human consumption. It would have been unfit for human consumption but for the fact that the situation was so serious. I feel the Government are not free from blame there. I feel, too, that the Minister was unfortunate in being so optimistic last April at the London conference. I believe the statement made by the Minister at the London conference has influenced the Combined Food Board or the International Emergency Food Council conference as to our allocations. They were given the impression that we were almost self-sufficient, that we were in a position to export substantial quantities of food to the Continent and to Britain, and that our problem was not a serious one.

I offer this bit of advice to the Minister, that unless he is satisfied there is a definite hope that adequate supplies will arrive to bridge the gap of three months—and three months is a long period—until the native wheat arrives at the mill, now is the time to consider the need of earmarking whatever supplies of good barley are in store, and possibly some supplies of oats for admixture purposes. It will be disastrous if we find later in the year that allocations are made that cannot be readjusted, that countries having got allocations and building on supplies arriving cannot allow their allocations to be reduced. The Minister said that Canada is not prepared to make an allocation beyond June, and we have July, August and half the month of September to provide for before we can bank on native supplies.

I am glad the Minister is prepared to reconsider the question of rationing. He has told us that, so far, it has been successful, but we must recognise this fact, that we must wait for at least three or four weeks before we are down to the real rationing, because there may be a surplus of flour on the bakers' hands that is helping the situation for the first three weeks and it must be down to bedrock by the end of that time.

Reference has been made in the daily papers to the possibility of increasing the price of bread and it is suggested there may be an increase of 2d. on the 4lb. loaf. If it is necessary to increase the price of bread—and it may be, with the reduction in extraction, that the cost may increase to some extent—I suggest that under the conditions here and the high cost of living—and these matters have been discussed very exhaustively within the past couple of days—the Minister ought not allow the price of bread to be raised on the consumer. If an increase has to be made, it must be met by subsidy. I think all sides of the House will agree that if there is to be an increase in price it must be met in the present circumstances by subsidy.

Mr. Norton

The Minister's statement is not the kind of statement that calls for any extensive comment. He has reviewed the position very fully, and I think the House is grateful to him for having given so much information on this very important subject. He laid bare all the difficulties that confront us in securing wheat and flour supplies. I think it is quite clear to anybody, listening to the Minister dwelling on the factors which enter into the distribution of wheat and the interplay of forces engaged in its distribution, that there is very little that this small country can do to guarantee itself supplies of wheat in a world circumstanced as this world is just now.

I think the Minister and his Department are to be congratulated on the sustained efforts which they have made to augment the native wheat supply, and I think it is to the credit of the Department that during the past six years we have been able to avoid bread rationing, that we have been able to get the quantities of bread required by our people, and that our greatest difficulty was the unpalatable experience of having to eat bread which was not of as good quality as in pre-emergency years. It is only now that the real bread difficulty is upon us.

From the Minister's statement I am not without hope that even the worst aspects of what threatens to be a serious problem may yet be avoided by a partial rehabilitation in Europe, by an easement of the crop difficulties of the Far East and by a general intensification of wheat production in the wheat-producing countries. The Minister's statement indicated that native wheat supplies are sufficient to provide our bread requirements up to the end of June and that from then until this year's harvest is available a problem has to be faced; but against that problem there is a promise of 30,000 tons of flour from Australia, some assurance from the Argentine that we will be placed in a high priority on their exporting list if the world committee controlling the distribution of wheat and flour will permit them to export, and still some hope that we may get supplies from Canada and the U.S.

If these prospects materialise, even to a fairly substantial extent, then, with the rationing which has been imposed, it may be possible for us to go through this cereal year without any great difficulties. If the world is ever to get back to a reasonable stability, we ought to be able, and the world ought to be able, in a large measure, to bid good-bye to cereal difficulties in the year 1948.

The question as to the wisdom of growing wheat in this country has often been the subject of debate in this House, at times the subject of acrimonious debate. I do not want to draw that issue into the arena now or to make it a subject of lively contention this evening, but I think, reflecting on the position during the last six or seven years and on the statement which we have heard from the Minister, it has been a good job for this country that we did endeavour to grow wheat and that, were it not for native supplies, this country might have had to face a much bleaker period than that which we have gone through or which confronts us now.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy I hope will be satisfied with that, on the subject of wheat growing.

Mr. D. Morrissey

Otherwise we shall want two days.

Mr. Norton

I do not want to open up the subject at all.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is running a risk.

Mr. Norton

I shall leave the subject, tinging my remarks only with this regret that, in a country which has 12,000,000 acres of arable land, we have less than 500,000 acres under wheat.

Mr. M.E. Dockrell

It is a poor compliment to the policy of the Government.

Mr. Norton

I agree. We should like to see that policy implemented more fully but we have got to realise that it is impossible, even with the best policy in the world, to carry it out if you have not the necessary tools and implements. Where you try to get wheat grown in areas in which there is no tillage tradition, where there is not sufficient agricultural machinery or where you try to grow wheat on land that is not best suited for that purpose, without fertilisers, you invariably experience difficulties.

I want to pass from that to the bread situation. I am very glad to learn that the Minister proposes to make additional supplies of bread available for workers engaged in heavy industries and for those who find it necessary to have their main mid-day meal away from home. While it can be contended that our bread supply under the present rationing system for all classes of citizens is equivalent to what the British give their workers in heavy industries, one could quite easily get a misleading impression by reference to these facts. The British people do not eat bread as extensively per head of the population as we do. In Irish homes, particularly in rural areas, and particularly in the houses of poor people, bread in the morning is a substitute for bacon and eggs Bread is a substitute at lunch time for meat and at tea time for what, in other houses, can be a variable tea. There is, at bed time, the traditional cup of tea and slice of bread in the kitchens of country homes. The result is that our people, particularly people in the strata which I have indicated, consume inordinately more bread than the British people.

Bread, therefore, enters into the diet of our people much more extensively than into the diet of British working-class people. It is because of that fact that it is necessary to make some special provision for workers who have to take their midday meal away from home, particularly in cases where workers have not large families and cannot eat into the surplus which might be available by reason of the fact that young children may not consume the present ration, which in their case is very generous. I hope that the Minister will see his way, in particular, to see that workers who are engaged in turf production, especially those who will be engaged in turf camps, performing very arduous work on bogs and under conditions that inevitably develop a most voracious appetite, will not be stinted as far as bread supplies are concerned. Already I have had complaints from turf workers that the present allowance of bread is not sufficient for them, and having regard to the fact that it is desirable to do everything possible to stimulate production of turf and that enthusiasm for its production should not be stunted by any complaints in respect to the availability of bread, I hope the Minister will be able to see his way to make special allowances for that class of worker.

There is one matter in this connection that I should like to mention to the Minister. I am not sure whether he is aware of it but his colleague the Minister for Agriculture should be. My experience travelling through the country is that, so far, there has been less winter wheat sown this year than for the last six or seven years. The impression borne in on me looking at the fields is that there has been a slowing down in the cultivation of winter wheat. That is probably explainable by the appallingly bad weather we had since last September and because of the difficulty of ploughing rain-sodden lands. If the sowing of winter wheat has been neglected, it only emphasises the necessity for making sure that the leeway is made up by the sowing of spring wheat. Here again, a continuance of the present weather is not calculated to induce people to sow spring wheat, certainly not in the proportions necessary to make up for the deficit in the sowing of winter wheat. I suggest, therefore, to the Minister that if we are going to get the best possible crop of wheat this year, it is essential to ensure that the maximum area of spring wheat is sown. If that is to be done, I think the Government, assisted by all Parties, must lose no time in pointing out to potential sowers of spring wheat, the urgent necessity of taking in hand at the earliest possible moment, as soon as the weather becomes propitious, the sowing of the maximum amount of spring wheat. Unless that situation is tackled early and vigorously, I am afraid that when we come to calculate the yield of our wheat crop next harvest, we shall find it will not be up to expectations, certainly not up to the levels reached in other years.

I have noticed in the Press that the Minister for Agriculture proposes holding food conferences. It seems to me that something more than deadand-alive conferences of representatives of county committees of agriculture, will be necessary to get our full requirements in spring wheat sown and that the task must be tackled in a much more vigorous way than by a repetition of these conferences, some of which I have attended in the past, and which, I am afraid, did not produce any great enthusiasm for the growing of wheat. The situation this year is far more serious by reason of the fact that we shall have no wheat to carry over to next harvest. We can ensure adequate supplies next year, not merely by searching the world's markets for wheat, but by doing what is an easier job, one that is within our competence, namely, urging in every possible way our own people to utilise their land for the purpose of growing wheat here to meet our requirements.

Mr. D. Morrissey

I would like to say at the outset that I think it is not possible to exaggerate the importance of the statement which the Minister has made. Personally, I welcome it because it is a statement giving the House and the country the facts of a serious situation. It was a statement which disclosed, notwithstanding the Minister's hopes—and they were only hopes which he expressed—for the remainder of this year a far more serious situation than we have found ourselves faced with at any period during the six or seven years of war. This discussion is not a Party discussion, and there is no desire, I am sure, on any side of the House to make Party capital out of it. I think it is no harm that some of the nonsense that has been punched into the heads of the people over a long number of years is now being de-bunked.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Nonsense

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy says nonsense before he knows what I am going to say. He does not know what I am going to say.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

I have an idea.

Mr. Morrissey

There are just two things that I am going to say. The Minister has stated that it is not possible to produce good flour from homegrown wheat in a wet year. That is the Minister's statement, and I am emphasising it not for the purpose of scoring any points but merely to ensure that that fact should be registered home in the minds of our people. My second point is this, and it, perhaps, may hurt the Deputy a little. For years and years the people of this country have been filled up with the nonsense that we could not only overfeed ourselves in every capacity but that we were in the happy position of being able to starve John Bull whenever we liked. That was said, and I have not a shadow of doubt that the Deputy said it. It is the sort of statement that he would make. I do not want to go on with that.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

You had better not.

Mr. Morrissey

We will have another occasion for that.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

We will have it out.

Mr. Morrissey

Do you deny that you ever said that?

Donnchadh Ó Briain

I did not. I would not be such a fool.

Mr. Morrissey

I am glad that you have more common sense than I thought you had.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Your opinion of me does not matter to me.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order! The Deputy must be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. Morrissey

All that I am going to say on the matter is this, that, as the Minister has already said, we have every reason to be, and I am sure we are, thankful to our neighbours who came to our assistance when we needed it. I will leave it at that. Deputy Norton referred to the wisdom of wheat growing. I am not going to deal with that.

Mr. Norton

I was not let go too far with it.

Mr. Morrissey

I think you were allowed to go far enough.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

That is a sore point.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy were allowed to make his speech without interruptions, more progress would be made.

Mr. Morrissey

All that I want to say on that particular matter is not that the Government went too far in connection with the growing of native wheat but that the Government did not go far enough; that their efforts were completely one-sided. We are now for about 14 years trying to grow, if possible, our full requirements of wheat here at home. All our efforts have been towards producing that wheat, but no effort was made to see that, when the wheat was produced, it could be saved. No effort worth talking about was made to see that when the wheat was produced, and particularly when it was produced in a bad harvest, that there would be anything like adequate or suitable drying facilities available. What is the use in our talking about aiming to produce 500,000, 600,000 or 800,000 acres of wheat in this country when our drying facilities are not equal to dealing with a quarter of that amount, not in a really bad harvest year like last year, but in a fairly bad year which is a sort of normal thing with us?

Are Deputies aware that this year wheat was so wet that the artificial dryers were unable to deal with it? Surely, in our 14 years' experience of wet and fine harvests in producing wheat we ought to have learned that the only really satisfactory way of drying wheat is on flat kilns. The artificial dryers are effective only in years when the wheat is produced in a fairly good condition—in a fairly dry condition. Are Deputies aware that even in some of the best wheat-producing counties there is not one farmer in every 25 who can store his threshed grain even for a week? He has not the storage suitable for it—not one in 25 as I have said. Are Deputies aware that it is a common thing in most of the wheat-growing counties that when the wheat is threshed into sacks in the yard, the haggard or the field a few forkfuls of straw are spread around and the sacks of wheat are left there? The wheat may be left in that condition for any period of time from two days to two weeks until the lorry arrives to remove it. That is not hearsay with me. I have personal knowledge of it. I have seen that happen on dozens and dozens of farms. I have raised the matter here on more than one occasion, and I have made representations on it on more than one occasion to the Department of Agriculture. Even in our mills in this country there are not adequate storage facilities.

I think the biggest mistake that was made in the late harvest was that the Department of Agriculture did not take the advice that was given to it, namely, to encourage farmers to go to extra expense and extra labour in getting as much natural drying as possible for the wheat. We warned the Department that if they did not do that the wheat would be sent into the mills in such a condition that it could not possibly be saved in the mills. I know that some thousands of barrels of wheat were completely lost this year: that it was unfit for human or animal consumption, and that there were tens of thousands of barrels of home-grown wheat that could not be dried because it would not go through the artificial dryers. When the Government are measuring the cost of what it might have taken to give the farmers that additional sum that would compensate them for the extra labour and extra cost of drying the wheat, I think they ought to put the losses which the nation has suffered against it.

A number of associations throughout the country and a number of public bodies, some of which ought to have known better, have passed resolutions to the effect that the Government, or the Department of Agriculture, should fix a flat rate for wheat, irrespective of quality. I am glad the Department did not do that. If you fix a flat rate, irrespective of quality, then you are going to get one quality, and that will not be the best. Our idea was that there should be a decent basic price, and that the man who would go to the trouble of producing and delivering his wheat in the best possible condition would be rewarded proportionately above that basic price.

That was not listened to, either. I want to make that point because quite a number of people throughout the country, some of whom should have known better, have questioned me as to why some of us opposed a flat price for wheat, irrespective of quality. The answer is fairly obvious. If this policy of wheat growing is to be pursued— and it will, probably, have to be for a number of years—I suggest that the Government's attention should not be devoted to one side of the problem only. There is very little use in producing wheat if you do not at the same time make sure that it will find its way into the mills in the best possible condition. We know that there are problems—very grave problems—in connection with wheat other than the production of it. The Minister himself referred to problems which arose in North America and other countries. They produced large quantities of wheat and other things intervened to prevent that wheat getting from where it was produced to where it was required.

I should like to learn from the Minister what our average annual consumption of flour is. It seems to vary very often and very radically, so that it is difficult to follow. I am told that our consumption of flour amounts to 3,000,000 sacks. The number of sacks or tons of wheat that would require would depend on the extraction. I understood that our consumption of wheat, as distinct from flour, was between 500,000 and 550,000 tons—if it was as high as that. I learned from the Minister's revised figures this afternoon that he estimates that our requirements for this year in wheat will be 575,000 tons. I should like if he would explain that.

There is one other matter, affecting these estimates, to which I should like to refer—the statistics. Some time or another I hope we shall have a discussion which may be useful on the general question of agricultural statistics and how they are collected and calculated. For the moment I have to confine myself to statistics which deal with wheat. We were told, certainly on one occasion, and I think on more than one occasion, that we had 700,000 statute acres under wheat. We were told that the average yield per statute acre in the same year was a ton. Therefore, if the statistics were right, we should have 700,000 tons of wheat. In the same year we were told that only 300,000 tons of that crop reached the mills. There is no necessity for anybody to tell me that a certain amount of the total production is kept by the farmer for his own use and that a certain amount—diminishing every year, I am glad to say—is kept by certain farmers for their own seed. Those farmers think they are wise, but they are really foolish. I know that the amount kept by the farmer for his own use and the use of his household and the amount kept by the farmer for seed does not reach 60 per cent. of the crop. The position is obvious. The millers got only 300,000 tons, because we never had 700,000 acres or 700,000 tons. Anybody who has any knowledge whatever of how agricultural statistics are collected, particularly wheat statistics—because there is a penalty where wheat is concerned—knows quite well that it is sheer waste of time. Not only is it a waste of time but it is highly misleading. Until such time as the Minister and the Government change the whole method of collecting and tabulating statistics in relation to agriculture, particularly in relation to wheat, we shall never know where we stand.

I do not want to take up much more of the time of the House. The time is limited and other Deputies desire to speak but I felt impelled to make these few points. We are not giving the wheat we produce a fair chance so long as we fail to make provision for having it saved in the best possible way and sent to the mills in the best condition. I should like to pay a tribute to the magnificent response made last year to the call for volunteers in this city and in the country. Making full allowance for the rapidity with which the whole thing had to be done, without preexisting machinery for making the best use of volunteers, I must say that, unintentionally, the Government and they were responsible for certain panic measures which led to wheat being cut, stooked and threshed in a completely unfit condition. A lorry of volunteers was sent out and dumped at the gate of the first farmer who put up his finger. Farmers being human, like the rest of us, do not like to see ten or 20 hefty volunteers passing their gate. Many farmers, perhaps against their better judgment, were tempted to tackle the wheat with these volunteers when, in other circumstances, they might have left it for a few days more. That is a comparatively small point in this big problem and is not intended to take in any way from the really magnificent service given by a large number of citizens. On the question of the increase of 2d. in the price of the leaf, my colleague, Deputy Hughes, seemed to accept that as inevitable and to think that there were good reasons for it. I have still to be convinced of that, apart from the question whether the increase is to be paid by the consummer or met by subsidy. It will take some argument to convince me that there are reasonable grounds for such an increase even in existing conditions.

Mr. Dillon

I make no apology at all for saying that we behold to-night the Fianna Fáil policy of economic self-sufficiency blowing up in their face, and it is that policy that has us where we are—blather about it at the international conference attended by our Ministers and by the propaganda merchants paid out of public funds to go round and proclaim Taoiseach de Valera as the greatest Solomon that ever came to judgment, who, by making this country self-sufficient and independent of all outside sources of supply, maintained it as an island of neutrality during a great war.

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think——

Mr. Dillon

It has happened.

An Ceann Comhairle

I know, but the Deputy might try to deal with the problem of the production of wheat and for a moment leave the Taoiseach out of some one debate as the villain of the piece.

Mr. Dillon

This happened when our people went to get these allocations of wheat from this body. We were told: "Have you not been blathering about self-sufficiency for the past five years? Have you not got all the wheat you want? Have you not been employing the March of Time to show the vast acres of wheat you are growing? Have you not ensured that your publicity is designed to prove that you are independent of external sources of supply? Go home and eat your wheat now.” It was only then, when our people were constrained to eat the stuff that has been called wheat, that it suddenly began to dawn on them that what I said over ten years ago is true. I said it was all cod, that we never had Irish wheat, that we never had to eat it and that a revolution would occur if we were compelled to eat it for very long. That is the plain fact.

Deputy Norton says the remedy for our present ills is to grow more wheat. Grow my foot! If we grew it, the people would not eat it, but we cannot grow it because the law of diminishing returns is already beginning to operate. As Deputy Morrissey points out, if the acreage we are producing is what it is alleged to produce, 20 cwt. to the acre, we would have an immense exportable surplus. It never did produce that and it is now going steadily down every year. It is common knowledge that every acre of arable land is deficient in potash and phosphates— potash, particularly. Is there any intelligent agriculturist on this side of the House or on the other side who will pretend that, when the land is virtually denuded of potash and profoundly deficient in phosphates, we could continue to grow wheat for very long? We were told to grow more wheat in order to protect ourselves from exploitation by designing Powers. Feed our own people! Here is the problem in a nutshell. In the years that lie ahead, we can get wheat from two sources: we can get good eatable wheat from Canada, the United States of America and Australia; and we can get dough, uneatable black dough which is called wheat, from this country. We are invited to eat that stuff to insure ourselves against the danger of being unable to get supplies in time of war. Now, the empty benches of Fianna Fáil have discovered that throughout the whole of the world war we were bringing in nearly half the entire quantity of wheat we consumed in each year.

Looking into the future, we have the experience that, when we get a wet year in this country, we cannot eat the stuff that is called wheat grown in our own land. We want to protect our bread supply for the future. Which is the greater danger—wet weather in this country or a world war? Did you ever know a year in which we had not wet weather? We get one good harvest in about every five and surely even the Fianna Fáil Deputies do not expect a world war in four years out of five? Why is Mr. Halliden being sent out now to look for flour? Do you mean to tell me that, if the flour millers of this country did not get their profits guaranteed for wheat out of the public purse, when they were informed there was going to be no wheat for them to grind in a month's time—and they knew it about Christmas that they would be sitting on their sashes here at home until the 1st of February, before they went out to look for it? If their profits were dependent upon getting wheat, they would have been out in New York on Christmas Eve, rallying all their relatives and acquaintances from the 48 States of the Union, to pull every wire, to make every contact, to approach everybody to get a bit of wheat, so that the poor miller would not have to cut his dividend at the end of the financial year. And they would have got it.

As sure as we are on this floor, I would undertake to go out to-morrow to the United States of America, with one technician with me, and I would get sufficient wheat in a fortnight to supply this country with at least two-thirds of its requirements from now to the 31st July. And I have no hesitation in making that statement, because I know the circumstances that obtain. We have plenty of friends in America, powerful friends, who would resent the suggestion that our people should ever be told from the U.S. that they could eat yellow meal. It is something new, something different from what we are accustomed to, to hear that kind of rejoinder from the U.S. Government. The sort of diplomacy that has created a situation in which our people can be told by the U.S. Government to go and eat yellow meal, while the British Government is sending us flour and wheat, is the kind of diplomacy that has made our country a byword in the world and has left us so that we can grow eloquent about the enemies of Ireland who are tired of Mr. de Valera, but we have to be silent about our friends, because we have not got any.

The plain truth is that there is a surplus of wheat in the world at the present moment. It is perfectly true that if you gave every child in India and every Hindu a full diet, the total world supply could not be provided. But even if we wanted to do that, we would not be able, as the transport is not there to carry it to them. But I assert, and it is demonstrably provable, that at this moment there is an absolute surplus of wheat in the world. We are just after two of the greatest wheat harvests that North America has ever known in all her history. Yet we are informed that it is impossible to get wheat, and one of the reasons, we are told, why we failed to bring in such wheat and flour as was available was that we had not the transport. But we had transport to bring in treacle from Cuba to manufacture into industrial alcohol in Ballycroy. Therefore, I am surprised when I hear some of my decent colleagues in this House saying how grateful they are to the Minister for Industry and Commerce for the noble allocution given to them and the industrial zeal he has displayed. He made a hames of it, and he has come in now to give us all the particulars and say that it is everybody's fault but his. Who is supposed to get us wheat? If he said six months ago he could not get it, some of the rest of us could have got it. I know of a man—and I hope we will hear more of him—who asked leave to go and get it and was told by the Minister's Department that he would not be let, that the only people entitled to get flour in the United States of America were Cereals, Limited, or the importing firm.

I do not believe that there is any necessity to get hot under the collar about the present situation at all. There is plenty wheat in the world— lashings and leavings of it—and as soon as the St. Lawrence River breaks up and the ice goes, there will be all the wheat we want, if we have the common sense to go out and look for it in the right way. But if some of the tulips we have are going to wrap themselves in the green, white and yellow and go out and cock snooks at the President of the United States of America and the Governor-General of Canada and tell them that we are going to get wheat, whether they like it or not, they will get what they are getting now— yellow meal—and they might as well make up their minds to that. If they go about their search in the right way, however, see the right people and make their claim upon the United States of America and Canada as a request to friends, there will be all the wheat we want after the month of April.

Make up your mind to this: you will either get wheat from Canada and the United States of America, or you will eat potatoes, and all the expeditions, with Mr. Kerney going out to the Argentine and Mr. Somebody-else going to Australia, are all my eye and Betty Martin. It is just blather, to pull the wool over the eyes of the poor innocents sitting on the Fianna Fáil benches, so that they can go down the country and say: "We are going to put the United States and Canada sitting on their sash now. We are going to bring in wheat from the Argentine and Australia and then we will soon see." That is cod, pure, sheer cod, and if that "codology" is gone on with, our people will pay for it, because remember that there are certain categories of persons in this country, other than labourers doing heavy work, whose health is being put in jeopardy by the scarcity of bread and the quality of bread with which we have contend at present.

There are hundreds of adolescent boys and girls in residential colleges throughout this country, and, if the present ration of bread on which they have to subsist is long maintained, there will be a rise of 40 per cent. in the incidence of tuberculosis in these schools. They are not getting enough. I know it. I am a baker and I was supplying a boys' college. The average daily takings were 100 loaves. The ration permits them to draw 60 and you cannot cut down growing boys' rations by 40 per cent. of the staple food they use and expect them to withstand the rigours of our climate and the standing menace of tuberculosis amongst adolescent persons in this country.

To me, the idea of having got ourselves into this disgusting mess through the contemptible incompetence of this crew who masquerade as a Government is exasperating, but to us who are middle-aged, it means but little more than an inconvenience—we can get along—but when I think of young creatures in school perhaps having their whole lives wrecked because these incompetents have preferred their dishonest, fraudulent flagwagging publicity to honestly doing the duty they are paid to do, it is extremely difficult for me to keep my temper. I make no apology for speaking as frankly and bluntly as I do now. I have not the least hope that calm argument or reasoning with these men would have the slightest effect. They will flounder on just as they have been going.

But this matter is one of urgency. There is no doubt that the agricultural community will be constrained by law to sow another crop of the stuff we are eating now—I will dignify it with the name of wheat. That cannot be done if there is no seed. The result of the crop will be inferior, no matter what sort of seed they get, but at least the poor creatures who sow it will be paid for it, but if we inflict upon them seed that will not germinate, as is happening over wide areas of the country, where land is ploughed, harrowed and sown, and no crop comes up at all, the position will be much worse. In addition to our other difficulties, we must watch closely the situation with regard to seed wheat, and this is peculiarly relevant for this reason, that if the imbecile policy of pretending that we can get on without imported wheat is persisted in, these men may, for stage effect, endeavour to maintain a reserve out of our existing stocks against the contingency of no wheat or flour reaching us before next September. In that event, there will be so small a quantity of wheat available for utilisation as food and seed between now and 1st April that those buying seed wheat will get dirt, and, once that seed is sown, the man's sweat, labour and investment is committed. It does not matter how much wheat comes into us then in May, June, July, August and September—the money and time of the poor devil who sowed the rubbish is gone.

At least have the competence at this eleventh hour to think of that. I hope and pray that these men who have gone out now may know how to get what our people require in time to avert serious damage. I have not the slightest doubt that it is possible to get it and I venture to say this, that if Deputy Cogan is afforded an opportunity of speaking here to-night, he will make revelations that will stagger this House and throw a very lurid light upon what some of the Deputies have chosen to describe as the diligence, brilliance and exhaustive ability displayed by our Tánaiste, the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Mr. Cosgrave

Every statement we have heard recently from the Government Benches has painted a more and more gloomy and pessimistic picture for the country. Everyone recognises from past experience of other wars that the aftermath for millions of people is often worse that the actual war years, and, so far as I can see, the situation here is that the aftermath of war is going to be far more severe and will inflict far more hardship on the people than the years we have just passed through. For that reason, I should like to impress on the Minister and the Government that the duty of getting whatever wheat may be allocated to this country by the International Emergency Food Council devolves on the Government, and that the Minister or some other responsible Minister should himself go and endeavour to secure supplies. Without casting any reflection on the diplomatic officials or other people who have gone abroad in an effort to secure supplies of wheat for this country, I say the responsibility of securing supplies and of making provision for the country is on the Government and that the Minister should take immediate steps to make the position fully known to the Governments of the United States and Canada and any other wheat-producing countries that are prepared to supply us or that we consider might be in a position to supply us with some quantities in order to bridge the gap between now and the next harvest.

Whether through propaganda or through over-estimation of our own supplies or by a combination of these two causes, the impression abroad has been that there would be available here sufficient home-produced wheat and that we would be free from the necessity of seeking foreign wheat to supplement our home-grown wheat. The House will agree that responsibility devolves on the Government, and the House and the country would be glad to feel that a determined effort was being made to obtain supplies. No matter how authoritative or how representative a commission or an individual representing a large grain concern such as Grain Importers may be, nobody can represent a country abroad with the same authority as a Minister. From that point of view, the effect of a Minister going abroad to seek supplies, between now and next harvest, would be that sufficient supplies would be made available by other countries.

The Minister and the Government will have to realise that, serious as has been the last harvest, the present bad weather, which has resulted in negligible quantities of winter wheat being sown and the prospect, if the bad weather continues, of no winter wheat being sown, will mean inevitably a considerable reduction in the quantity of home-produced wheat this year. Furthermore, many farmers have found considerable difficulty in securing adequate supplies of seed and adequate supplies of proper germination-tested seed. Unless supplies of tested seed are made available, the situation may become worse. Other Deputies have dwelt on that aspect.

I know that many farmers in my constituency have found difficulty, and a number are still finding difficulty, in securing machinery. Owing to intensive cultivation during the war, machinery has become worn out and supplies have not been adequate. The Government should make urgent representations to whatever countries it is possible, in order to secure supplies of fertilisers. When Deputies refer to more intensive wheat growing, they fail to realise that, with few exceptions, every farm in the country is showing a diminishing return from wheat or any other crop. The Government must face up to the realities of the situation and to the fact of world conditions. While there was a bumper harvest last year in America and Canada and while supplies of wheat there were in excess of normal annual supplies, because of the intervention of strikes and other factors, there may be a shortage during the coming spring and early summer. Therefore, we must endeavour to supplement supplies by maintaining and as far as possible increasing, production on each farm. At the same time, the Government must face the responsibility of seeking supplies of wheat abroad by direct Ministerial intervention. If that is not done, the country will feel that the Government has failed them in a most serious situation and, unless these steps are taken immediately, the position in the immediate future will be worse than the period through which we have passed.

Mr. Cogan

The Minister in a lengthy and comprehensive statement outlined the position which developed in regard to our wheat and bread supplies. He has shown us how the situation began to deteriorate at the end of 1945 and continued to grow worse during 1946, becoming grave in March and steadily deteriorating until, by September, we were in the position of being absolutely dependent upon Great Britain for a loan of a small supply to tide us over a few weeks. While that position prevailed in regard to imported wheat, there was an alarming situation developing in regard to home production in 1946. We were faced in September with a harvest which threatened to be disastrous and which was only partially saved by the continued efforts of farmers and of all sections of the people who were willing to co-operate with them. While that situation was developing and had reached a very critical stage, early in September of last year, a constituent of mine, through personal contacts in the United States, received an offer of any quantity of wheaten flour which he would be able to dispose of. This man was engaged in a wholesale and importing business and he immediately took steps to ascertain how much of this flour he would be able to distribute. He found that he would be able to dispose quickly of 50,000 tons and he immediately forwarded his offer for that amount to the American firm and was informed of the price. Incidentally, I think the price was about 7½ dollars per 100 lb. He brought the matter to my notice and I got in touch with the Department of Industry and Commerce to ascertain if they would be interested in the importation of this flour and if they could provide facilities for its importation. As a result of a letter which I wrote to the Minister, I was advised to call at the Department, where I would be interviewed by one of the higher officials. I was no interviewed, in company with Mr. Byrne, who was the importer concerned, and another. I was informed that the Department of Industry and Commerce was not interested in this offer of 50,000 tons of flour, of 72 per cent. extraction.

We were told that the Department of Industry and Commerce preferred to import grain, and not flour, that they preferred to import grain from Canada, and not from the United States. We were told that the situation was in no way serious. We called the attention of the official to the speech which had been made by the Taoiseach a few days before, revealing a very dangerous situation. We were reassured, however, and told that we could safely leave the whole matter in the hands of the Department and that if at any time later they required this flour they could obtain it simply by cabling to the United States. The deputation, knowing the conditions in the country at that time, and knowing the danger of a poor harvest, asked the officials of the Department would they not endeavour to import this flour as an insurance against a possible shortage at a later date. We were just told to leave the matter with the Department; we were not even asked the name of the firm that offered to supply the wheat and flour.

The Department, apparently, was in no way worried at that time about the situation, and it was surprising to hear the Minister stating to-day how worried he was all during the summer months with regard to flour and wheat. It was difficult to find any trace of that worry or anxiety percolating down to his Department. I think that situation requires some explanation. If the Department's officials were out merely to hoodwink a Deputy, or the deputation that waited on them, I should like to know what useful purpose is served by seeking to deceive people in that way. If the situation was really serious, it was the duty of the officials to impress on everyone with whom they came in contact that the situation was so grave.

In connection with our home production, there is an aspect which strikes one very forcibly, and that is that the total production from the 642,000 acres of wheat sown last year was estimated at 270,000 tons. I would like some more details as to whether that means the quantity already delivered to the mills, or whether it means the amount which it is estimated will be delivered to the millers, and also whether it includes wheat reserved for seed. At any rate, it indicates that the output of such a very large acreage of wheat is exceedingly low, less than four barrels per acre. Four barrels at 55/- per barrel represents £11 per acre, which means a dead loss, or a very substantial loss, for every grower in the past year.

It is futile to make frantic appeals to farmers to increase their acreage over what is made compulsory by law when you impose upon them such a substantial financial loss. The farmer should be given at least a price which would cover the cost of production. It is all right to say that the farmer should make a sacrifice. If the farmer produces commodities and gets barely the cost of production, he is making a sufficient sacrifice in the national interest. There is evidence of that if farmers are growing a crop to the extent of 642,000 acres and are reaping no profit from doing so.

The Minister should definitely review the price of wheat for the coming year and, if necessary, provide money from the Exchequer to make good the cost without raising the price to the consumer. Within the last couple of days we have been voting millions for various questionable purposes and I suggest it would be wise to vote some money so as to ensure that the maximum amount of wheat may be grown.

There has been a good deal of consideration given in this debate to the effects of wheat-growing in this country. I believe there have been serious mistakes with regard to the growing of wheat here. There has not been sufficient attention paid to the growing of the varieties best suited to particular types of land. There is no country in the world that has so many varieties of soil as this country of ours, and there is no country which requires so many varieties of wheat and oats. In these circumstances it is desirable that the right variety should be sown in each area. Every effort should be made to secure the maximum amount of artificials, because without them no satisfactory crop can be grown.

I wish to support the appeal to provide a supplementary allowance for some very deserving cases. I refer to workers who have to provide a meal for themselves when working a long way from home. They are one outstanding example, but another case in which there is very grave need is the case of residential schools and colleges. That aspect has been stressed by Deputy Dillon and it has been brought to my notice by the principal of a large residential college. I believe there is an urgent need to increase the allowance for such institutions.

Mr. McCarthy

I rise merely to ask the Minister if he could, in his reconsideration of exceptional cases, give some consideration to caterers in towns and villages who supply meals to farmers and traders attending monthly fairs. I have had several applications in that regard from people in the constituency I represent, and I think it very desirable that some concession should be made to them. Confectioners also are very worried by the new regulations, and I was very glad to hear the Minister state that he would reconsider the position in their regard. It has been represented to me that if they got 80 per cent of the former quota—I understand that they are allocated flour on the basis of their sugar allowance—they could manage to keep their workers in employment and supply the needs of the community. I think it is a matter for congratulation that we have got along so well with the policy that has been pursued during the emergency years and I think that everybody should be grateful to the Minister.

Mr. Byrne

Many appeals have been made to the Minister for additional allowances for various types of workers, but while sitting here I did not hear anybody suggest an additional supply for dockers, who are out day and night, waiting and watching for boats. When leaving their homes they cut up half a loaf or a quarter of a loaf, and remain away from home for the best part of the night or the early portion of the day, with a few sandwiches to sustain them. I hold that if there is to be any priority for any section of the community, our dockers, who are working very hard to land food supplies, should not be neglected. I was glad to hear Deputy Dillon call attention to the case of schools and colleges, where there are so many boarders. Schools and colleges would include orphanages in which there are a number of growing boys and girls. I hope that the needs of these institutions will not be forgotten and that the Minister will bear in mind the statement of a very famous medical man that malnutrition is one of the greatest causes of disease. Shortage of bread supplies may lead to the spread of diseases which we are spending millions of money trying to eradicate.

I cannot understand the attitude of the Government when anybody makes a suggestion to them because they generally show no inclination to adopt these suggestions. That has been the experience of Deputy Cogan. He complains that he went in there with a very fine offer of flour from another authority and he found that the atmosphere in the Department was not very helpful. The atmosphere to the ordinary T.D. who is doing his best to help in this difficult situation is: "Hands off, you fellows. Do not be bothering us. Do you not know that we are doing our work? We do not want any interference from Deputy Cogan or Deputy Alfie Byrne in the way of questions or suggestions in regard to imports of flour and wheat or what we are doing about them." Deputy Cogan went in with a very valuable suggestion, a very commendable action for a member of the Dáil, and to bring to the notice of the Minister and his officials the fact that there was flour available elsewhere whilst our people were eating a very poor quality of bread. I am not going to blame anybody for the inferior quality of the bread. The wheat was wet and because of its moisture content the bread could not be baked properly. One result of that was that many people suffered from ill-health here in Dublin. Yet when Deputy Cogan or other Deputies go into the Department to point out that flour is available in other countries, his suggestion is turned down simply because it was not made by the Minister or some of the members of his Party.

I have met with the same atmosphere myself in this House. I have asked questions week after week as a result of paragraphs which I have seen published in some trade papers. I have read paragraphs to the effect that flour and wheat were being allocated in the grain-growing countries to various other countries and I have put reminders to the Government that we should be up and doing. It has been suggested that members of the Front Bench should take their courage in their hands and that the Minister himself, with his undoubted ability, should go to some of these wheat-producing countries as Minister with the full authority of the Government behind him and not leave the matter to officials. The Minister should meet the heads of other States and tell them what he wanted. By personal contact of that kind, he would probably succeed in getting us the flour and wheat which we so badly need.

Some suggestions have been made that because of inflation and of the increased cost of living and this trouble about the scarcity of flour, bread may be more costly. I hope it will not become more costly, because any increase in price will cause the greatest indignation amongst people who are forced to live on small wages. I go further and say that the Taoiseach himself, if necessary, should take a trip to these wheat-producing countries, meet the heads of these countries and explain to them the difficulties of our people here. I should like to remind the Minister that this is 1947, and that 100 years ago, in 1847, our people were afflicted by famine. In a building not far from here there are records relating to 1847, showing the contributions, not alone in cash but in food supplies, from various nations which came to the rescue of our people 100 years ago. We are now in the position that we need not beg anything from them. All we ask is that they should treat us fairly and give us the supplies that we would give them if it were in our power to do so. In our desire to help the distressed countries of Europe, we have left ourselves, I shall not say short, but with a rather inadequate supply of commodities such as butter and sugar. We have sent butter, sugar and eggs to the Continent. I think it was very proper action on the part of the Government to help nations in distress. Happily we are not yet in real distress, but when the Minister saw what was coming three months ago, that was the time to inform the House of the seriousness of the situation and not when the crisis is actually upon us.

I earnestly hope that it is not now too late to consult Deputies and that the Minister will accept the suggestions and the advice offered him from all parts of the House. In particular he should pay more attention to offers of help such as that made by Deputy Cogan by which it would have been possible to get 50,000 tons of flour. Only to-day I put down a question asking the Minister the quantity of flour which had arrived since the 21st November. He told me that 14,000 tons had arrived. I do not know what proportion of our normal requirements 14,000 tons in two months would represent but judging by what the Minister states, it is very far short of our total requirements. I hope he will accept the suggestion of members of this House that he himself should visit some wheat-growing countries, if he cannot induce the Taoiseach to do so, so as to ensure that our people will have ample supplies of flour and bread.

Mr. Keyes

I do not wish to detain the House further than to express my appreciation of the Minister's decision to provide an additional ration for certain classes of workers. I recognise that the Minister did not like to provide this ration. He did not think it necessary, but then he had not the supplies. I think I can congratulate him on having given what we can call a generous ration, but then I would say there are many exceptions to that general ration and that a case can be made for additional supplies for certain classes of workers. A number of them have been mentioned by Deputies. You have men on the lightships, night workers and the class that I am particularly interested in, railwaymen. These men are away from their homes for a long period. It is impossible for them to get an ordinary meal at home or to have at their meal any vegetables. They have, so to speak, to live on the basket, and are obliged to eat bread at every meal. I think that, in the case of these workers, a good case can be made for an additional ration of bread for them. I suppose one would have to agree with the Minister that if the needs of the various classes were to be fully met that there would not be much left to justify the ration at all. I believe that the Minister did not make his ration lightly.

We are told by Deputy Cogan that the Minister or his officials declined an offer of 50,000 tons of flour. If that be true, I think the Minister and his officials ought to have known better than Deputy Cogan how things were jumping. If Deputy Cogan was in a position to go to the Department of Industry and Commerce and was not permitted to go the distance of meeting the Minister, then there must be something wrong—that is if somebody could come along and say that he had an offer of 50,000 tons of flour which could be delivered in this country. I think that the Minister and his officials should be able to look sufficiently far ahead if an offer of that kind was made six months ago. I relate that offer to the classes of people for whom I am asking an extension of the rationing system. I am interested principally in the railway men, and in the dockers like Deputy Byrne. I hope the Minister will tell us why he turned down that offer of 50,000 tons of flour. Naturally, if we will get wheat we will mill it, but if we cannot get it we should be glad to get flour. I am not so sure about the answer that was given to Deputy Byrne that no flour arrived in Ireland since November. We had a strike in Limerick in connection with the discharge of 2,000 tons of flour. I am not going to enter into the merits of that, but I feel that we would not worry very much whether it was flour or wheat we were offered if we could get it, and not have it tied up for a period.

I think all Deputies agree that a wonderful response was made to the appeals for the growing of wheat and that our agriculturists are to be congratulated on their achievement. I am aware, of course, that our various classes of soil require a different type of seed wheat. They must get the most suitable varieties for maximum production. During the emergency the farmers did, I think, the best they could. The last harvest season was a particularly bad one. Nobody is to blame for that but it made the position very difficult. I think that one is entitled to ask whether the Department was sufficiently alive as to what was happening and whether they refused this offer of 50,000 tons of flour. I think that if we had it I would be justified in asking the Minister for an increased ration of bread for the deserving sections of the community to which I have referred. If Deputy Cogan's story is a fairy tale we ought to be told so. If not, the Minister ought to get after that offer so that he may be enabled to increase the ration now provided.

Mr. Lemass

I take it that the reference to the offer of 50,000 tons of flour mentioned by a constituent to Deputy Cogan was the story which Deputy Dillon assured us would shake the Dáil. I have no doubt that such an offer was made, but, having heard Deputy Cogan and Deputy Dillon on it, as well as Deputy Byrne and Deputy Keyes, I have come to the conclusion that the speech I made here this evening from 7 to 8 o'clock explaining the international grain and flour situation was so much waste of breath. I told the Dáil about the international authorities which have been established to control the international trade in flour and wheat. I told Deputies about the attitude of the Government of the United States concerning the exportation of flour and wheat to this country. There are hundreds of people in this country who can get offers of flour from firms in the United States, but what good are these offers unless the United States Government is prepared to allow the wheat or flour to be exported? The simplicity and naiveté with which Deputies interpreted Deputy Cogan's story convince me that it is almost impossible to get them to understand the problem that we are dealing with. There is wheat in the United States and 14,500,000 tons of wheat are going to be exported from the United States before the end of June. One hundred thousand tons would do us. There is plenty of flour in the United States. There is wheat in Canada and flour in Canada, but there is the other circumstance which I set out in detail that the international authorities, on whose recommendations the Governments of these countries are acting, have not yet allocated wheat or flour to be exported to us in that period, and the Governments of these countries have not agreed to allow the exportation of wheat or flour to us in that period. Is that clear? If the Government of the United States agrees to allow the export of wheat or flour to us from the United States there will be no difficulty in buying it. It will be bought through the non-profit making organisation which we have set up for that purpose and not by private traders buying it to resell for their own profit. To the extent that flour or wheat is allocated to us, Grain Importers Limited will bring it to us, and it will be sold by them at the price directed by us, a price which enables flour and bread to be sold here below its economic cost.

Mr. Keyes

Then this offer of 50,000 tons of flour was a bogus offer?

Mr. Lemass

I did not say it was a bogus offer. I say that there are firms in the United States which are prepared to offer flour and wheat and are doing so regularly, but these offers are of no importance unless they are accompanied by an export licence from the United States Government. There are hundreds of these offers knocking around, not merely for flour and wheat, but for other commodities. It will be a good thing if the ventilation of this story in the Dáil will prevent people wasting their time, and the time of Government officers, concerning offers of that kind in relation to commodities that are subject to export control. These offers are of no importance whatsoever unless governmental authority for the shipment of the goods is forthcoming.

So much for that. I may perhaps have misled the Dáil in one respect. The Government of Canada has agreed to permit the export of flour to this country. We are on the list of countries to which flour can be shipped, provided we can get an offer from a Canadian mill, and if Deputy Cogan's constituent, or anybody else, can get an offer of flour from a Canadian mill we will be particularly interested. As I told the Dáil, the efforts made so far to get such an offer have realised only 540 tons of flour. Perhaps the representatives of Grain Importers, Limited, who are on their way there now, may be able to improve on that figure.

I do not think we need spend any time debating the origins of the wheatgrowing policy or trying to decide to whom the credit for the policy should be given. It is a good thing we are all agreed, with one unimportant exception, that it is desirable we should grow here all the wheat we can. Have no doubt about it, we can grow good wheat here—wheat that will produce flour of as good quality as flour produced anywhere else, with one qualification. Wheat for the production of flour for use in commercial bakeries must contain a proportion of strong wheats. More than 50 per cent. of our total consumption of flour is shop flour. Irish wheat, provided we have enough of it to enable a proper rate of extraction to be maintained, will produce flour as good as the shop flour sold anywhere. The flour used in Irish bakeries is improved by the addition of strong wheats, which cannot be grown in our climate. We should not stop growing wheat on that account. Such wheat cannot be grown in the Argentine or in Australia and those countries not only grow wheat but are great exporters of wheat, although they suffer the same handicap as we do. Of course, they never heard of Deputy Dillon. Further, we may suffer from a bad harvest once in a while. We may suffer from excessive rain but I do not think that we should abandon wheat-growing on that account. I mentioned this evening that the Australian harvest had been seriously affected by lack of rain. I am sure that the Australians will not stop growing wheat on that account. We can grow wheat here of good quality. We can grow far more wheat than we have grown in any year up to the present and use it to provide our own people with good flour.

No matter what the circumstances in the rest of the world may prove to be during the coming summer and autumn, the only wise policy for us to follow this year is to grow the maximum quantity of wheat. There are, of course, difficulties in doing that. It is true that the acreage of winter wheat sown was, probably, small on account of the protracted bad weather since last October. That situation does not necessarily mean that the total acreage this year need be down on that of last year, if we can get into the minds of the farmers the understanding that it is desirable in the national interest, as we think it is in their own interest, to grow the maximum quantity of wheat. As the House knows, all that is grown will be purchased at the guaranteed price, already announced. If there is a bumper wheat crop around the world, and if the international restrictions upon trade in wheat are withdrawn, so that we can buy freely, we still have to make good the normal reserves which would be carried by the wheat importers, wheat millers and others traders in grain in this country.

We came into the 1945-46 cereal year with 90,000 tons of wheat in stock. Although that was the year in which the war ended, we, nevertheless, came from one season into the other with a carry-over of 90,000 tons of wheat. If we had those 90,000 tons at the beginning of this cereal year, our problem would be greatly minimised. For reasons which I have explained and, particularly, because of the anxiety of the Government here not to appear to be endeavouring to procure wheat in excess of our national needs when there was starvation in other countries, we began this cereal year with no stock whatever. Not merely was there no stock but, by reason of the non-delivery of the last quantity of flour allocated to us by the Government of the United States of America and the unexpected delay in harvesting our own crop, there was a period in which we had insufficient supplies to meet the immediate requirements of our people —a deficiency which was made good by the loan of a small quantity of wheat and flour by the British Government. So that, it will be clear that we could increase the acreage of wheat grown last year, import a substantial quantity and still not have too much, because, even on the basis of 85 per cent. extraction, we shall need a very substantial quantity of wheat to meet the requirements of our people while, over and above that, we should have reserve stocks representing not less than ten weeks' supply. Even the international conferences which have been trying to reduce the purchases of wheat by the importing countries will not deny that there are, in present circumstances, good grounds for calculating upon the basis of a normal ten weeks' reserve stock in every country.

I do not think that Deputy Hughes is justified in his assertion that anything I might have said at the London Cereals Conference could have affected the supply of imported cereals here. Certainly, he did not quote anything I said to justify his statement. In so far as he purported to quote from the report of my speech, he quoted only half a sentence. It is true that I said: "Ireland is a food exporting country." The Deputy did not quote the remainder of the sentence: "but at present the only foodstuffs exported commercially in substantial quantities are live cattle and eggs, which go entirely to Great Britain". I explained, in addition, that we were a grain-importing country, that our grain imports averaged 700,000 tons a year, that although we have increased our acreage under wheat—we have, in fact, increased our acreage under wheat proportionately more than any other country in the world—we were still far short of our needs and that our capacity to produce more wheat was affected by the impoverishment of the land through scarcity of fertilisers. On that occasion and on other occasions, we have urged on the international commodity-controlling authorities that not merely have we need for grain— wheat for human food and maize for animal feeding—but we have also a very special need for an increased allocation of fertilisers. In the last week, phosphate rock was released from international control but potash and sulphate of ammonia still cannot be procured freely, no matter how great our need is.

Deputy Hughes asked why we did not ration wheat earlier. It is true that we foresaw the development of this situation long before Christmas, and I expected that that question would be asked. I thought, however, that Deputy Hughes would know the answer. We are depending upon the yield of the native wheat crop for the bulk of our supplies—at any rate, for the period until the end of June. That crop is produced by a very large number of individual farmers, and the experience of other countries suggested that the introduction of rationing, or the announcement of the intention to ration, might impede the inflow of grain to the mills or cause in the minds of farmers apprehensions in regard to their individual supplies which would discourage them from marketing their crop fully and expeditiously. Deliberately, we decided to postpone the introduction of rationing until the bulk of the crop had reached the mills.

Mr. D. Morrissey

It would be a very good year to introduce it, because farmers retained less wheat this year than they ever did.

Mr. Lemass

I think that is true. I do not think that we can meet our situation here to any extent by the admixture of barley or oats with wheat. The admixture of barley with wheat is practicable: we did it at one stage during the war. Our supplies of barley, as the Dáil knows, are less than usual and the total quantity that would be available would make no very appreciable difference in our flour supply. Oats cannot be admixed with wheat in the manufacture of flour unless it is pre-cooked, because the baking time for oaten flour is much longer than the baking time for wheaten flour and, unless the oaten flour in the mixture is pre-cooked, a most unpalatable and unattractive loaf will result. At any rate, there is a scarcity of oats. We are trying to get sanction from the international authorities to import oats from America, as it is quite clear that there will be a deficiency to the extent of 20,000 tons of oats in our requirements for the manufacture of oatmeal.

Mr. Morrissey

Did the Minister get any permission to import seed oats?

Mr. Lemass

Seed is considered and dealt with separately. I could not say what the prospects are there, but I think there is likely to be less difficulty in the importation of our requirements of seed, either of wheat or oats, than there would be in the case of grain for immediate consumption.

I do not think it is true to say that our statistics are inaccurate. It is far more true to say that our statistics are much more accurate than those of other countries. In fact, I am not at all convinced that we have not lost in our international dealings by reason of the greater accuracy of our statistics. Nor do I agree with Deputy Morrissey that our statistics show that we grew in any year 700,000 acres of wheat, or that the average yield was one ton per acre.

Mr. Morrissey

It was stated in this House from the bench opposite, by the Minister himself amongst others.

Mr. Lemass

That was years before the war and not during the war years. The average yield per acre during the war, as shown by the published statistics, was about 17 cwt. to the acre, and not all of it could be regarded as millable wheat.

Mr. Morrissey

I did not get my statistics from the book but from the Minister—and perhaps I was incorrect in that.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister's source of information is the book. The consumption of flour in this country is not static. I have explained already that the production of flour has gone up rapidly and considerably during the war. That may be one of the reasons why Deputy Morrissey had difficulty in reconciling the statistics of one period with those given in another. Our pre-war consumption of flour was roughly 53,000 sacks per week. The consumption for the two years before the commencement of rationing averaged about 65,000 sacks per week. That increase was understandable. First of all, bread is a subsidised food and, secondly, it is a pre-cooked food and, in a period of fuel scarcity, it is almost certain to have preference over many other foods.

Mr. Morrissey

And, of course, the increase in the cost of living had a substantial influence in the purchase of alternative foods.

Mr. Lemass

The fact that other foods increased in price, while bread prices were maintained by subsidy, was also clearly an influence.

We are getting accustomed to speeches from Deputy Dillon such as we had to-night and most Deputies have got out of the habit of paying any attention to them. However, in case they may have been misled by one of his remarks, to think that the Government of the United States has suggested that our people should eat maize meal, I want to remind the House of what I said as to the attitude of the United States Government, in my earlier speech. The United States Government are, I think, quite entitled to take the point of view that a country such as this should decide at the beginning of a cereal year the total quantity of grain that it requires and make up its mind that, if it imports maize in respect of any part of that quantity, it should be prepared to accept a reduction in its wheat deliveries. It is understandable that we might decide, in various circumstances, that our situation was such as to make it more desirable for us to import maize for animal food than wheat for human food. I think it is unreasonable for the United States Government or the International Emergency Food Council to decide to count our maize imports against our wheat needs, retrospectively. There was no intimation given to us or to anyone else that maize would count against our wheat requirements until a few weeks ago, and at that stage it was intimated that maize already imported and already consumed by animals last year would still be taken into account in determining our wheat allocation for this year. That, I think, was an unreasonable suggestion, as if we had known that the maize would count against wheat it would not have been imported. In any event, there was no possibility of diverting that maize for human consumption anywhere. In fact, most of the maize that we imported was definitely in a condition unfit for human use. As I mentioned already, the bulk of the imports was maize of the 1944-45 crop, which had become stale and weevily by the time it reached here.

Mr. Morrissey

Where and by whom and for what purpose was this maize purchased?

Mr. Lemass

It was purchased by Grain Importers in the Argentine for animal feeding here.

Mr. Morrissey

With the knowledge of its condition and that it was unfit for human use?

Mr. Lemass

I explained to the House that while the maize was purchased at that time, difficulties arose which prevented its shipment, and, in fact, it could not be shipped until long after we had intended to bring it in.

Mr. Morrissey

I do not want the position to be misrepresented in any way. I take it that when the maize was purchased it was in good condition?

Mr. Lemass

Certainly.

Mr. Morrissey

And it was only owing to difficulties which arose after its purchase that the delay took place?

Mr. Lemass

It was the delay in shipment which was the cause of its condition. It is quite clear that the American Government's intimation was that we or other countries would have to choose between maize for animal food and wheat for human food. They were not giving us the option of maize for human food or nothing, as Deputy Dillon appeared to convey. I have no doubt that, when the circumstances are fully explained to the authorities concerned—both the authorities of the United States Government and of the International Emergency Food Council —and the documents showing the condition of the maize on arrival here reach them, their decision will be based on those facts.

It was natural enough to expect that Deputies would suggest that I or some other Minister should go to Canada and the United States. I can say that we have been in constant touch, almost daily touch, with our representatives in Washington and at Ottawa and if at any time it appeared possible that the presence of a member of the Government in either country would improve our prospect of getting additional supplies, our representatives on the spot would have so advised. In fact, they have advised that such is not the case, and we know that precise statements affecting our position and showing our needs have been delivered to all the authorities concerned. We know from contacts with the people who have the decision on these matters that our circumstances are well understood and there is no reason to believe that the presence of a Minister in these countries would alter the position in the least.

Mr. Byrne

They would like to see you.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Byrne does not have to guess that, if there was any reason to suppose we could do good by travelling we would do so and would not ask his advice or observation about it.

Mr. Morrissey

The Minister was very successful at Ottawa on a former occasion.

Mr. Lemass

That is going a long way back—15 years.

Mr. Morrissey

I am saying that the Minister was very successful.

Mr. Lemass

I think so.

Mr. Morrissey

And so do I, if only we could see the fruits of his success.

Mr. Lemass

There are none so blind as they who will not see.

Mr. Morrissey

That remark should be directed to the Minister's immediate right hand seat.

Mr. Lemass

I do not want to deal with any of the matters of detail concerning the rationing scheme. The arrangements for supplementary rations will be announced in the very near future and the other problems, such as those of the confectioners, are receiving urgent attention at the moment.

Mr. Byrne

In the meantime think of going over.

Motion: That the Dáil do now adjourn, by leave, withdrawn.