Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 28 Nov 1929

Vol. 13 No. 4

Motion to Establish a Tribunal. - Mixture of Maize Meal and Maize Products with Home-Grown Cereals.

Mr. O'Hanlon

I move:—

"That it is expedient that a Tribunal be established for inquiring into a definite matter of urgent public importance, that is to say—

(1) To ascertain and report whether, having due regard to the interests of

(a) producers of cereals in Saorstát Eireann; and

(b) consumers of maize meal and maize products in Saorstát Eireann,

it would be in the national interest to enact that all maize meal and maize products before being offered for sale in Saor-stát Eireann shall be mixed with some one or more of the following home-grown cereals,

namely, wheat, barley, oats, or rye, so that the resultant mixture shall contain a definite percentage of such cereals; and, if so, what that percentage should be.

(2) To consider and report upon the effect, if any, which such enactment would be likely to have upon tillage and the production of cereals in Saor-stát Eireann.

(3) To consider and report upon the administrative machinery necessary to make such enactment operative."

I make this motion under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921. Under that Act a tribunal may be set up to inquire into any matter of urgent public importance, and that tribunal will have the powers of a High Court both in respect of the attendance of witnesses and the taking of evidence on oath. A tribunal has been set up to inquire into this matter. It consists of Mr. McElligott, Professor Whelehan and Dr. Hinchcliffe. I might say that a preliminary meeting of this tribunal has been held, and it is considered that a very useful purpose would be served if powers were conferred on them to hear evidence on oath. Further, all Parties in the Dáil are agreed on the terms of reference specified in the motion. Representatives of those associated with the propaganda for the mixing of maize meal and maize products with home-grown cereals have no objection to the course taken. Some of them have expressed themselves anxious in that respect. I might say that we have almost absolute unanimity upon the matter, so that there would be no delay in connection with it. A similar motion has been submitted to the Dáil. If the motion is passed by both Houses the tribunal can take the powers specified. A preliminary meeting of the tribunal has been held; the work is under way, plans have been prepared for investigation, and future meetings have been arranged. I hope the House will pass the motion so that the unanimous desire of the parties concerned may be carried into effect.

Sir Thomas Esmonde

I second the motion.

Cathaoirleach

There is an amendment standing in the name of Senator Linehan. I did not see it until yesterday morning. I have given it a good deal of consideration, and I have come to the conclusion that under Standing Order 27 it is not relevant to the motion, for the reason that the motion deals with a mixture for cattle foods, and the amendment deals with the manufacture of flour for human consumption. I do not think that the amendment is relevant, and I rule it out of order.

Mr. Robinson

I do not say we approve of the motion. What I do say is that the motion approves of us. Our people have been protagonists of the policy of dealing with maize and home-grown cereals in the manner mentioned in the motion, and we would be well pleased if the motion was carried. I fear the Greeks when they come with gifts. Imitation may be a subtle way of giving a gift. We know it is a sincere form of flattery, but when the imitation is a close copy, and does not acknowledge the original, it may be regarded as plagiarism. However, we are not opposed to the motion the Senator has brought forward, and we hope it will be accepted. I think there is one possible fly in the amber. There is a danger that this tribunal would simply keep the thing hanging fire, and there would be no report for a long time. In the meantime a discussion of this and similar matters would be tabooed. I would like that if possible a time limit should be put as regards making a report, or at least that there should be an interim report. If the tribunal reported every three months we could see how things are going and have a discussion.

Sir Walter Nugent

I think we all welcome the motion. I think we ought to realise that a great deal more might be made out of the food product in Ireland. Most of the grain raised here is disposed of very cheaply, and an enormous amount of maize is brought in. Much as I sympathise with the motion, and much as I hope that something will come of it, nevertheless, I feel doubtful as to the possibility of doing what the Senator wants. I am sorry that Senator Linehan's amendment was ruled out of order, as I agree with it altogether. I think it opens up what is a very big question. My own idea is that if milling could be revived in Ireland the question raised in the motion would solve itself, for I think if milling were revived, and the minor and subsidiary products of milling were available, such as bran, they would be used as a substitute for maize. I realise that if the amendment were carried——

Cathaoirleach

The amendment is not before the House.

Sir Walter Nugent

I am entirely in favour of the motion. The amendment might be enlarged. I would like to widen the scope of inquiry. I think if the inquiry were enlarged it would be exceedingly useful. It touches a subject which concerns us all. Nothing, in my opinion, is so vital to the prosperity of the country as the points raised in the motion, but, as I have said, I think it ought to be enlarged as regards its scope.

Mr. Counihan

This motion is the result of the agitation of the Barley Growers' Association. They have been agitating for a considerable time to get the Government to take action to compel other farmers to use portion of their produce at a big price. Personally, I think it is a sheer waste of time to set up the proposed tribunal. If the tribunal recommended what is mentioned in the motion such an agitation would be raised by farmers in the Free State that no Government could stand against it. Barley is not a crop that is grown extensively in many parts of Ireland. It is confined to five counties, and the farmers in those counties who grow it expect the rest of the farmers of Ireland to subsidise them for growing barley. I believe that 75 per cent. or 80 per cent. of the farmers of this country would be sternly opposed to the proposal into which a tribunal is being set up to inquire. The proposal to mix home-grown corn with maize is not new, but the proposal to have legislation to compel farmers who are buying Indian meal to mix the commodities is quite new, and it is one the country would not stand for at present. The proposal would mean that farmers who grow corn for sale are the people who should be most looked after. Every farmer who buys maize is a tillage farmer. He grows corn, and it is not ten per cent. or twelve per cent. of the home-grown corn he mixes with maize but sometimes as much as 75 per cent. The farmer who grows corn for sale is not as desirable as the tillage farmer who feeds his corn to stock and walks it off the land. For that reason, I say that the farmer who grows corn and feeds it and buys maize is a man who should have more consideration from the Government than the man who simply grows corn for sale. I grow a good deal of corn and I buy corn. I also buy maize, and in most cases I mix it with from 50 to 80 per cent. of home-grown corn. What is suggested in the motion has been promised by the Government owing to the agitation by the Barley Growers' Association, and I am prepared to support the motion.

Mr. Wilson

As I understand it, the Government have already set up a tribunal and this motion merely gives the Committee powers which the High Court has, to examine witnesses on oath. So far as that goes I am quite in agreement with Senator O'Hanlon that the Committee should have these powers. If the question before the House was whether it was right to set up such a tribunal or not, I would say that it was quite wrong to do so. The question is merely to give the tribunal which has been set up power to examine witnesses on oath. I do not know that I would be in order in discussing the question that is to go before the tribunal. If I were in order, I could give certain facts and figures which, in my opinion, would give the Government information that would make the tribunal unnecessary and which would show them that farmers know their duty better than anyone else about the use of corn and grain and that they do not want any more advice on the subject.

Mr. Comyn

I am in favour of the motion for reasons other than those already stated. My main reason is that it refers to the matter now before the House as "one of urgent public importance." I would be glad with Senator Sir Walter Nugent if the scope of the motion could be extended, but as it has been passed in the other House it cannot be altered here. The matter is so urgent that I imagine it is better to let the inquiry go on. We all know the object of the inquiry—to encourage tillage and employment in this country. I am not in favour of using compulsion. I do not think the farmers of Ireland can be compelled to do anything if they do not desire to do it themselves, but they can be enabled to do something. I think the result of the inquiry will be that they will be enabled, by steady prices and perhaps by increased prices for their products, to bring more land into cultivation. We have only one main industry, and I make this protest, that the main industry of agriculture is not properly attended to or considered in either House.

Senator Counihan has stated that this motion is the result of the agitation by the Barley Growers' Association. Well, if it is the result of the agitation by the Barley Growers' Association what I say is, more power to their elbow. It is not merely a question of barley growing. It is a question of wheat growing, of the growing of oats and the growing of rye. It is really a question of agriculture in this country. It is the first time we are really devoting attention to the main purpose, as I submit, for which Governments are intended, the development of industry, in our case the development of agriculture and the prevention of land going into grass. I am in favour of this motion. I hope it will be expedited, and that the result of the inquiry will be satisfactory from my point of view, and above all I hope that Senators and T.D.'s will do as the French are doing: where statesmen on both sides do not make this a party question at all, and concentrate on agriculture and its development.

Mr. Johnson

I would like to draw attention to the terms of the motion and to utter a cautionary not. The form of the motion is I think based on an Act passed to deal with immediately urgent matters. The phrase was used on two or three occasions when similar motions were passed with the object of enabling tribunals to have power to call witnesses, but it seems to me to be a stretching of the meaning of words when we say that this is a definite matter of urgent public importance, in the light of the statement made by the Minister for Agriculture, that there could be no expectation of a report before January or February at least, and one of the supporters of the motion saying that there may be a report every three months. In the light of that one cannot think in terms of urgency, and this term "urgent public importance" has become established in Parliamentary proceedings, and has been held hitherto to mean something that cannot wait. While I think that this question ought to be discussed quickly and some decision taken early, it hardly comes within the category of a matter of urgent public importance in the sense that was intended when the Act was passed.

I would like to have an opportunity of saying on the main purpose of this agitation which is undoubtedly to encourage the growing of cereals in this country that I was examining the Northern Ireland Census returns recently and I found that a very interesting lesson could be drawn from them. We are apt to compare the situation of agriculture in this country with that of Denmark and Holland, but if we compare it with Northern Ireland, I find that if the crops and pastoral land of the Free State were made to give as good a return as the land in Northern Ireland, the net output of agriculture in the Free State would be added to by £22,000,000. That is a very considerable item, and when one considers the fact, that methods of farming, cultivation, tenure and calculation in Northern Ireland and in the Free State are almost identical, the comparison is very striking, indeed, especially when one bears in mind that four-fifths of the output of agriculture in Northern Ireland, as Senator Counihan declared, consists of live stock and live stock products. The fact is a very important one, and indicates how desirable it is to encourage by one means or another increased output of agricultural commodities from the soil of the Free State.

Mr. Kenny

This proposal has to do mainly with stock-feeding. Of course, for human purposes Indian corn or maize is not now in use as much as it was in the old days. Some people still like to use Indian meal as human food in porridge mixed with some proportion of oatenmeal, but that is a negligible quantity. At present the principal use of maize meal is for feeding pigs and poultry. Senator Wilson, speaking, I think, on behalf of the farmers, said that there was no necessity for this tribunal, and that the farmers know their own business. Every intelligent farmer does, but we all know that there are certain farmers who are wedded to old systems, and who find it very hard to get out of them. It is very hard to enlighten them. The Department of Agriculture was set up here over a quarter of a century ago, and if the farmers had followed closely the work it undertook, and the result of that work, I think they would have been very much better able to carry on economically the work of their farms. Senators who are familiar with the work of the Department, particularly in regard to the displacing of the imported maize meal by our own products, by cereals which farmers are capable of growing, and who are familiar with leaflets sent out by the Department setting out the formulæ and the relative quantities of these meals, mixed together in certain proportions for the feeding of stock, particularly pigs, will know that it has been the whole trend of the Department's programme during all these years to displace the importation of Indian meal. On more than one occasion I have seen the practical results that followed the recommendations of the Department with regard to the formulæ they have set out in their leaflets, showing that Indian meal is not a necessity in this country, that far better results can be achieved by an admixture of our own cereals.

I have seen in Glasnevin a litter of bonhams from which two lots of sixes were taken, one being fed upon a mixture of our own home-grown cereals and the other fed, as they are ordinarily fed by farmers, almost exclusively on Indian meal. I noticed from month to month the difference in the conditions of these two lots. They were brought up and attended to in the same way, and it was most surprising—it would certainly be an eye-opener to any ordinary farmer who was wedded to Indian meal for the fattening of his pigs—to see the difference at the end of the fattening period between the two lots. In as far as this tribunal, if and when it does bring its report in, will emphasise, as I hope it will, the percentage which I hope it will advocate, and a very large percentage too, of home grown cereals that should be mixed with Indian meal, it will be doing great good. I am sure, if they get evidence from the Department and from practical and progressive farmers who have followed out the teachings of the Department in this respect, the tribunal will emphasise those very practical and useful results that the Department has achieved in the feeding of the cereals. The Department is not a theoretical Department, as many farmers would seem to view it; its work is very practical. It does not set out in theory from food values what results ought to be achieved, but, having made sure of the results, it applies its theories of food values and admixtures to the actual feeding process in the matter of stock, and it shows the definite, tangible results that have been achieved in its farms at Glasnevin and elsewhere. If, as I say, the tribunal emphasises what farmers could usefully do for themselves and what economy and profit would result to them from doing it, then I say it will be doing very good work, and I will heartily approve of it.

Mr. O'Hanlon

I am not going to follow Senator Kenny in his observations because, I respectfully submit, the matter under consideration is not that of the value of this tribunal or the relative fattening values of the various feeding stuffs —maize or maize meal with home-grown cereals. That is not the point.

Mr. Kenny

That is what the motion says—the percentage.

Mr. O'Hanlon

That is not my motion. My motion specifies that there is a situation existing where a Commission has been set up to inquire into a matter of urgent public importance, that is, the admixture of maize-meal and maize products with home-grown cereals. That Commission has been set up and is functioning. It already has had one sitting. That Commission and certain other people think that they should have greater powers than they have at present. At the moment they can hear evidence, arrive at their decision, and issue their report. They have power to do that, but they have not power to hear evidence on oath and compel witnesses to attend. My motion asks that they be given those powers. That is all it contains. I ask by my motion that they be given those powers, and particularly as there is demand for them by the tribunal itself which thinks that a useful public service will be rendered. I do not want to discuss the merits of the case. I wish to assure Senator Robinson in regard to the credit for the initiation of the propaganda which brought this tribunal into existence and with regard to the credit for this protagonism, as he has called it, for mixing grains with home-grown cereals, I am not going to claim credit for that. As a matter of fact, I am opposed to it myself, so that there is no question of my sharing the credit. There is no question of diving into the hive for honey at all. If this motion were extended and if we were to discuss this question of the admixture of imported flour with home-grown wheat—sufficient for the day is the evil thereof—by all manner of means let whoever chooses put down a motion and we can discuss it on another day.

Motion put and declared carried.

The Seanad adjourned at 5.10 until Wednesday, December 4.