As far as I am concerned I will not detain him very long, but, as I say, I hope that, when winding up the debate, he will make amends to those people. There are other organisations which I hope to refer to before I finish, and I hope that, in their case also, he will make amends to them, and to quite a number of groups of people in his winding up speech.
I do not want to go back on what I said last week about pigs and bacon, or on the various pronouncements that have been made by the Minister on this bacon question, to the changes that he had made in these pronouncements, and to his vacillating from one side to the other. In view of all that, it is very difficult for farmers to know how they stand at the moment. There was admittedly a tendency for increased production of pigs for some time, but it looks now as if production is going back again. It is no wonder because farmers do not know where they stand in regard to the price of feeding or as to what will be paid for pigs, and also because the Minister threatens the curers at one time that he will open new factories or export pigs, while at other times he appeals to them to bring down the price of bacon which, of course, means that the curers must being down the price of pigs.
Now, coming to the question of milk and butter, it is rather a strange thing that there has been very little variation in the number of cows in this country over the last 50 years. The percentage change is not very high. The number goes up at certain times and it comes down at certain times, but there is not that very big variation that we have in the case of pigs and of other animals. The yield from cows may vary. It may vary according to the feeding or according to weather conditions. Of course, weather conditions will affect feeding, too. One has a rather complicated calculation to make, and a complicated number of factors to keep in mind every year when discussing the milk yield of cows. Deputies on all sides of the House will admit, I think, that the dairying industry is the basic industry of agriculture, and that if it were to fail not only would we have less milk and butter, but we would have less cattle and less feeding in the way of skim milk for poultry, pigs and other animals. Therefore, it is really a basic industry, and so we should do everything in our power to see that the dairying industry is maintained, and in fact to do everything in our power to increase the number of cows.
The first act of the Minister, when he came into power, was to withdraw the subsidy on farmers' butter. The Minister will give his own reasons for doing that. I think he was wrong in doing it, because up to that time almost half the cows of the country were owned by farmers who made farmers' butter. The other half, or a bit more than half, of the cows were owned by farmers who supplied milk to the creameries. In doing away with the subsidy on farmers' butter, the Minister was dealing a very severe blow to the dairying industry. When I say that half the cows of the country were owned by farmers who did not deal with the creameries, I am not giving, perhaps, a true picture of the real situation if you take into account the fact that a far bigger number than half the farmers of the country are interested in farmers' butter rather than creamery butter because of the big areas where there are no creameries, and where you have small farmers who are interested only in farmers' butter. In that way, a greater number of farmers of the country were affected by the withdrawal of this subsidy. Not every farmer, of course, who makes farmers' butter is interested in the sale of butter because, in many cases, a small farmer has only enough milk and butter for his own family needs, and he has none for sale.
Therefore, he does not mind what the price of farmers' butter is; but, making allowance for all these considerations, there was at that time a large number of farmers interested in the sale of farmers' butter, and the subsidy was withdrawn. Now, up to that time, whether a farmer made farmers' butter or supplied his milk to the creamery, he got roughly the same return for it, and that was the idea behind the subsidy for farmers' butter. That subsidy was withdrawn. In the first place, I think it was unjust to do that, because it was discriminating against a certain class of farmer. These farmers receive no subsidy any longer for their butter because they make farmers' butter, but, like other taxpayers, they have to contribute to taxation, part of which goes in the subsidy to the creameries. The farmers, therefore, who made farmers' butter were put in a very invidious position. They had to pay taxes, part of which went, not exactly to their neighbours, but to another group of farmers who were creamery farmers while they got no advantage themselves.
As I said here before, on more than one occasion, in my opinion the farmers who made farmers' butter were, on the whole, a more industrious class than those who sent their milk to the creameries. After all, I think it is only common-sense to say that the farmer and his wife who not only milk their cows, but also separate the milk and make butter from the separated cream, are more industrious than the farmer and his wife who milk their cows, put the milk in a can, put the can on a cart and send it to the creamery, or, if not, put the can of milk at the gate where it is collected by a lorry which takes it to the creamery. We were, therefore, in withdrawing this subsidy on farmers' butter hitting an industrious class of farmers, and hitting what we admire as a rule in people, the initiative to go out and try to make a living for themselves.
Now, undoubtedly, the tendency of such a step would be to lessen the number of cows. It is all very fine for any Deputy to say to me, "Why does not the farmer bring his milk to the creamery?" Well, there is no creamery available in a lot of these districts. It may be possible to organise creameries in part of an area which, up to this, was producing farmers' butter, but it will never be possible to organise creameries all over. Therefore, there is no redress for the farmer who makes farmers' butter. I would say that, in most cases, there is no redress, and so if he then finds it is not paying him to carry on, he is tempted to get rid of some of his cows.
At the present time these farmers are bringing their butter to market and receiving from 1/6 to 1/9 per lb. At least, that is what they received during the months of May and June. It is possible that, as the year goes on, they will get more, but they will only get more when they have a lesser quantity of butter to sell. Then the butter will have a scarcity value. Now, while butter is in fairly plentiful supply, they are only getting ? to 1/9. That means that they can expect to get only about 7d. per gallon for their milk, while the other group of farmers supplying milk to the creameries are getting ½ per gallon. I do not say that ½ is too much; I shall deal with that figure later on. It is not fair, in my opinion, as between one group of farmers and another, that one should get 7d. per gallon and the other ½ per gallon. The man who gets 7d. is actually contributing in taxation to ensure that ½ to the creamery supplier because part of his milk is subsidised from taxation.
As far as the creamery suppliers are concerned, more than half the farmers are now sending their milk to the creameries. Since early in 1947 they have been getting ½ per gallon during the summer months and ¼ per gallon during the winter months. When that price was fixed by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1947, there were certain Deputies sitting on the Opposition Benches at that time who were dissatisfied with that price and thought it was not enough. They agitated for an increase in that price. The extraordinary thing is that those same Deputies are now sitting on the Government Benches and appear to be perfectly satisfied with ½. Despite the fact that costs have since gone up, particularly in relation to wages, rates and so on, they now appear to be quite content with the price; in fact, they are fighting what one might describe as a rearguard action in an effort to maintain the present price.
On the 18th March, 1950, the Minister for Agriculture went down to Dungarvan and addressed the county committee of agriculture there and, through the Waterford county committee, the rest of the farmers throughout the country. He told them in his opinion the price could not be maintained and he advised those farmers supplying milk to the creameries to accept 1/- per gallon. He said that he would give them a guarantee to maintain that price for five years if they would accept it. I must say that at that time I found it very difficult to understand how the Minister could possibly expect the farmers to take a lesser price than they were getting in 1947-48 since costs have increased considerably. I still find it difficult to understand that. The Minister for Agriculture has the direction of policy. Evidently it is his opinion that it would be better to have the price brought down to 1/- per gallon. He must have felt very strongly about the matter when he went to address the county committee of agriculture at Dungarvan. In a well-prepared speech, which he subsequently printed and circulated, he put forward this proposal, not to the county committee but to the farmers of Ireland. I take it that at that time he considered this was the proper policy. I do not suppose any Minister for Agriculture would address a meeting of that kind and make a serious proposal of that nature, which, I am quite sure, he realised would not be very popular, unless he believed that it was the best policy for the farmers. If he did believe that, why did he not go on with it? Presumably the Minister, having learned the reactions to his proposal not alone from the farmers but from the members of the Coalition Parties, felt that he must soft-pedal. I think it is a serious matter that we should have a Minister who is convinced that a certain course of action is right, but because some back benchers whose votes are necessary to the maintenance of the Government object, immediately falls back on the beautiful democratic principle of consulting the farmers themselves. Of course that was really laughable. It was absurd to ask the farmers whether they would prefer to have 1/- or 1/2, but the Minister fell back on that democratic principle because, as we all know, the Government was in danger.
It is hardly necessary to point out again all the instances we have had. It will suffice if I mention one. About the same time the Minister thought he would save the Exchequer a certain amount of subsidy if he cut the ration of creamery butter to which the farmer was entitled. There are Deputies on the Government Benches who do not know a great deal about these matters and it is our duty to ensure that we do not leave them in doubt. Since rationing was introduced the supplier of milk to the creamery was entitled to a much bigger ration than the ordinary householder. The ration worked out at 12 ounces for every member of the farmer's household. The Minister apparently thought that was unfair to the Exchequer and he decided to reduce it to eight ounces, thereby saving the subsidy on the four ounces per week to every member of the farmer's household. The farmers objected. Here, the Minister did not adopt the democratic system of putting the matter to a plebiscite of the farmers; he pursued his policy because the members of the Coalition Parties did not object. That is the important point. They did not say that they would vote against the Government on this particular proposition and the Minister was, therefore, able to pursue his particular policy in that respect. It may be pointed out here that the Minister, apparently, can vary his democratic principles from day to day. Sometimes when he has to fall back on the democratic principle he is democratic; and sometimes he is not.
He dropped his proposition with regard to the price of milk to the creameries although I am quite certain he felt it was the proper line to pursue. He was convinced it was the proper line. We shall never get anywhere so long as we have a vacillating and pusillanimous Minister for Agriculture, such as we have at the moment. It would be better for the country that we should have a man of principle—even if we have to sacrifice the present Minister for Agriculture—who is prepared to put his proposition through even though he falls on it. We may be able to get on without him, but we cannot get on so long as we have Ministers who have no principle and do not know their own minds from day to day.
Another matter arises out of the creamery industry. When I commenced speaking here the other night, I quoted three or four different passages in which the Minister told us in 1948 that, on account of the Agreement made between this Government and the British Government in 1948, we had a remunerative market for four years certain and, he hoped, for longer for everything that the land of Ireland could produce. Butter was mentioned on the Minister's list. If we had a remunerative market for butter in Britain, this proposition made to the county committee of agriculture in Waterford would never have been necessary. The reason why this proposition was made was that the Minister foresaw that we might have a surplus of butter and that, when we would come to sell that surplus, we would get only a certain price on the British market, not a remunerative price, not a price that would enable the creameries to pay ½ a gallon for milk. I am sure — as a matter of fact the Minister's plebiscite proves it — that the farmers of this country do not consider anything less than ½ a gallon a remunerative price. I am not sure if they are contented with even ½, but they were not satisfied to take less than ½. That is just the minimum that might be called a remunerative price. If we have a surplus on home consumption, and if we go to look for a market for that surplus, there is no market to be found that will take butter on that basis, therefore we have not a remunerative market for it. The Minister has again been proved wrong when he said we had a remunerative market for all the produce of the land of this country for four years certain, and for perhaps longer. The British market so far as that is concerned is not remunerative.
We could, perhaps, turn our hands to something else. You can get more from milk than butter. You could, for instance, make cream and send it to England but they will not take it. At least up to this they would not take it at all, so there is no remunerative market for cream in Britain. Therefore, what the Minister said in 1948, that there was a remunerative price for all our surplus produce, is again proved wrong. The Minister again suggests that we might turn to cheese. We shall have to wait and see how it gets on but it is a very bad thing to base your farming on a system of trial and error.
I want to go back to the British market for a moment in regard to the question of farmers' butter. There was a surplus of farmers' butter last year. I do not know yet how we stand this year, but last year there was a surplus. We sold that surplus in Britain and the price obtained for it regulated the price our farmers received here at home. I should like any Deputy opposite to go to any farmer who is making farmer's butter in this country and ask him is he getting a remunerative price for his butter on the market. I think I can guess what the answer will be, that he is not satisfied at all that it is a remunerative price, so the British market failed there again so far as farmers' butter is concerned. At any rate, you would imagine that the Minister would do his best in the British market, but at a time when he was negotiating for its sale or selling this butter on the British market on May 24th, 1949, as reported in column 1839, Volume 115, the Minister told us what the farmers' butter was like that he was going to sell outside:—
"Any scheme which, at the end of 12 months, leaves your successor with 2,000 cwts. of butter surrounded by a cordon sanitaire at the port of Dublin and which requires almost the fire brigade in gas masks to get it on board ship for export to a processing factory is scarcely one which can aptly be described as `perhaps not perfect', and not assumed to have reached the stage where Deputy Smith would describe it as having failed. The butter would blow the roof off the cold store.”
Deputy Cowan then put in:—
"Or would have walked off the quays."
To that the Minister said:—
"It very nearly did, but we headed it off before we shipped it."
The Minister, who is supposed to be a responsible man and supposed to do his best for the farmers of this country, is much more interested in making a joke here in this House than in getting a good price for the farmers' butter. I think it was a scandalous thing for any man, whether a Minister or anybody else, if he wants to sell an article and says in public what he thinks about it, to describe it in that way. That is, as I say, the Minister's humour, but it is not humour that is putting a lot of money into the pockets of farmers who produce farmers' butter.
We shall now see what we have to say about eggs. When the Minister was talking about this agreement in 1948, as reported in column 2245, Volume 112, he said, in regard to the egg agreement, that he would give credit where credit was due, that the egg agreement was negotiated by Deputy Smith: "For its merits thank him." That was a noble tribute. The agreement was made by Deputy Smith when he was Minister for Agriculture, round about October, 1947. As a result of that agreement, the producer in this country was getting 3/- a dozen. We have not yet reached the stage in this country where we can rear, or at least hatch out, pullets only. Half of them when they come out are cocks. In order to help out the producers of poultry, cockerels received a very good price during the early months of the year. On the 19th March, 1948, the Government Information Bureau announced that the Minister for Agriculture had sanctioned the maintenance of the then price of 3/- per dozen for eggs. Deputies will remember that a month or two later the Minister went across to Great Britain to discuss the marketing of agricultural produce with the British Minister of Food and he threatened the British that he would drown them with eggs.
In order to trace the Minister's actions from that time I may say that he wrote a foreword to a publication called P.E.P., which circulates amongst poultry producers in this country, in the May issue of 1948, in which he said:—
"It used to be the rule that when egg supplies increased the price went down. That is no longer true. We have made an agreement with the British Ministry of Food that the more eggs we send to the British market the more they will pay for our eggs. It is as a result of this agreement that shippers can afford to pay 3/- per dozen for eggs to the producer."
For that we carried on at 3/- per dozen. I find, however, that the Minister in addressing the Donegal Committee of Agriculture on 14th March, 1949, announced that as a result of his recent discussions with the British Government the new price would be 2/6 per dozen, not 3/-. He went on to try to persuade the members of the committee that 2/6 would be as good to them as the 3/-. On May 19th, he told Deputy Commons in the Dáil that he tried to persuade the British Minister to accept duck eggs, but failed. Again, I should like to remind Deputies opposite that there again we failed to have a remunerative market in Great Britain for everything that the land of Ireland could produce. Duck eggs were now crossed out. As might be expected, with a vacillating policy of that kind the exports of eggs for the first three or four months of this year have been down compared with last year.
Now the Minister has announced that for 1951 the price of eggs will be 2/- per dozen and 3/6 from 1st September, 1951, to 31st January, 1952. The uninitiated might be inclined to say that the mean price between 2/6 and 3/- would appear to be 2/9, but it depends on quantity. As a matter of fact, I looked up the exports for the last 12 months, and I find that during the period when the high price will be payable, namely, from September to January, we export 7 per cent. of our eggs during those five months, and 93 per cent. during the period when we will get 2/- per dozen. That would appear to me to work out on an average at 2/1 per dozen. Just as we thought that it was not the time to reduce the price of milk to the creameries, neither can anybody argue that this is the time to reduce the price of eggs, because the price of feeding stuffs has gone up in the meantime, and that is the big factor in both cases. If the price of feeding stuffs goes up, there should be a corresponding increase in the price of eggs and not a decrease such as we have got.
When Deputy Smith, as Minister for Agriculture, made this agreement with the British Minister of Food and, as a result, was able to offer 3/- per dozen to the producers of eggs all the year round, that is, for the 93 per cent. as well as the 7 per cent., he was also able to announce a very attractive price for cockerels when they would be available for the market. But cockerels are not getting anything like the same price now. In fact, I heard complaints down the country that for three or four weeks up to the beginning of this week it was impossible to sell chickens or fowl at all. Therefore, the promise of the Minister to the producers of eggs which he gave in that foreword to P.E.P. in May, 1948, that "the more you produce the more you will get" does not appear to have materialised. The opposite appears to be the case. The promise that he gave in the Dáil, when he came back in 1948 after the agreement was made with Great Britain, as to a remunerative market for everything the land of Ireland would produce also appears to have miscarried.
At the beginning of my speech the Minister asked me to deal in detail with the various things mentioned. I think I have dealt with everything on the live-stock side. I want to deal now with the tillage side. When we speak about tillage, we usually begin by talking about the fertility of the soil. The Minister is keen on making a witty statement whether it is true or not. As reported in Volume 111, column 2589, of the Official Reports, the Minister on 9th July, 1948, said in the Dáil:—
"... the fertility of the land in this country has reached a degree of degradation lower than has been known for 100 years past and we have endemic in many parts of the country a condition known as aphosphorosis in which live stock consume the herbage of the soil and yet die of starvation because the soil contains no phosphates..."
The Minister evidently thought that he had hit on a fairly good thing there because he enlarged on it later and told his audiences in some parts of the country that he had seen cattle lying down and dying. I suppose that was a rather frightening thing for the farmers who were afraid that they might see their cattle just lie down and die although they were getting plenty to eat. Naturally we expected the Minister to make everything right. He said he would and, I think, as a matter of fact, that he has claimed that he has made everything right. "The fertility of the soil is all right now." We have heard nothing this year about aphosphorosis because the soil is all right owing to the beneficent smile of the Minister for Agriculture. It was the Fianna Fáil régime that brought it and it was the Coalition régime that did away with it by Couéism and nothing else. The cure for aphosphorosis is phosphate and I looked up the consumption of phosphate. It comes into the country as raw phosphate or manufactured phosphate. I found that in 1947 when Fianna Fáil were in power the imports of rock phosphate were 73,000 tons; of basic slag, 12,000 tons, and of superphosphate, 3,000 tons. There was a considerable increase in 1948-49. The further we get away from the war the easier it should be to get phosphates. The imports of rock phosphate were 113,000 tons in 1948 and 128,000 tons in 1949; the imports of basic slag went up to 22,000 tons in 1948 and 27,000 tons in 1949; the imports of superphosphates were 20,000 tons in 1948 and 34,000 tons in 1949.
I do not expect Deputies opposite to have jotted down the figures and made calculations for themselves, but when I sat down to look at those figures I had the time to do so. What interested me was whether the present Minister had conquered aphosphorosis or not. No Deputy will deny that land suffering from aphosphorosis would take at least 4 cwt. to the acre, in fact more. That is a small dressing of phosphate for land suffering from aphosphorosis. You will get pasture which is slightly deficient in phosphate and they tell you to put on 4 cwt. to the acre, but land where the Minister saw cows lying down to die should get more. Even on the basis of 4 cwt., what quantity of land has the Minister succeeded in curing? 270,000 acres in 1948 and 400,000 acres in 1949, that is 670,000 in two years. It will take the Minister, if he lives long enough and if he is Minister long enough, 50 years to do the job, and in the meantime the cows will be lying down to die — and the Minister will be looking at them — although they are getting enough to eat as they did under Fianna Fáil when he saw them lying down to die. He has not done much in two years, but he has gone on to talk about something else. He has forgotten about aphosphorosis and maybe it is just as well, because there was not a lot in it.
