If there was no lamb, mutton was produced. I believe there was lamb last April. At any rate, it came in when Irish lamb was coming on the market. Senators will agree that there need be no argument on this point, that there is not a single thing we produce but could be imported at a lower cost. As to whether we should allow in wheat free of cost, it is a question of degree where we should or should not stop. I am only anticipating that that argument might be used. Perhaps I am wrong in suggesting that Senators would use an argument with so little behind it.
The second point the Bill deals with is, that it requires millers to take a certain percentage of home grown wheat, not only for the year, but each month of the year. As the law stands, we fixed by Order the National percentage of home grown wheat which millers must use. Last year we fixed it at 10 per cent. A few months after the harvest we found that a good many farmers were complaining that they could not get rid of their wheat. On the other hand, we found that a number of millers had bought some of the National percentage, but not all. They pointed out, quite rightly, that there was nothing to compel them to buy the whole lot at once; that they had 12 months to buy the 10 per cent. This legislation is for the purpose of encouraging the growing of wheat. We cannot do that unless we help farmers as far as is reasonable. If wheat is to be left on farmers' hands for two or three months, if they cannot find buyers, or if the crop deteriorates, as it may when farmers have not proper storage, it discourages them from sowing the crop again.
We feel that it is necessary to have the wheat taken off farmers' hands as soon as it is available. If this Bill is passed, the National percentage will be fixed in future before the end of December for the following year. Then, after that, before September 1, an order will be made requiring millers to take so much of the National percentage during each month of the cereal year, from September on. For instance, in the coming year we might require millers to take 25 per cent. in September, 45 per cent. in October, or from 65 per cent. say to 80 per cent. in December. The figure would be accumulating. That order can be varied if we find, as some millers appear to fear, that farmers and dealers are holding off the market in a particular month in the hope that millers will pay more than the fixed price in order to fill the percentage fixed. In the Bill we have power to lower the percentage so as not to put the millers in that particular case at the mercy of the farmers or dealers. It is necessary to have an order of that kind. Now that our acreage is getting rather substantial, I am convinced, that if millers were to say at any time there was no necessity to take any wheat before Christmas, or that it was quite time enough to take it in April or May, the whole policy would become unworkable and farmers would suffer a severe loss in trying to hold wheat until the millers chose to take it from them.
In this Bill we have also provision for the storage and drying of the grain. We have been warned for the last three years that we are gambling on fine weather. I think the experts have not the slightest doubt about the growing of wheat as far as our climate is concerned. If Senators will look back over the yields during 10 years, wet years with dry years, they will find that there was very little difference in the yield per acre. In the very wet years, the wheat crop was as good as in the very dry years. The danger is the growing acreage with perhaps a wet harvest. If there was a wet season and if the wheat was cut and harvested in a wet condition, I am told by flour millers that they have no great fear of that wheat, if they get it quickly, as they can deal with it and can make it good millable wheat. The real danger I am assured by the flour millers is that it should be left on farmers' hands for three or four weeks after threshing and become mouldy. It then gets into such a condition that it cannot be made right. To meet that danger the millers will be required to provide storage for a certain quantity of wheat, which will probably amount to about 80 per cent. of the quantity of Irish grown wheat that they are required to deal with for the year. In future the order will be served on flour millers as soon as possible after January 1st in each year, and they will have about eight months to prepare for the coming harvest as regards storage. This year the Bill, not being law, no such order has been served on millers, but they were called together in conference last January and I told them that I intended to seek the sanction of the Oireachtas for this measure, and that they would be very well advised to have storage ready for the crop that we expected would be grown this year. Even this year, I think the millers will not be taken at a disadvantage, because they have been warned.
We are also taking power to supervise drying facilities. If the wheat comes in in a rather damp condition, owing to bad weather, if it is dried and stored properly, it will come all right. We want to see that every miller provides drying facilities to deal with the amount of wheat that he will be required to take for the year. It is calculated roughly that if a miller had facilities to dry all the wheat he would receive in about 50 days, that the capacity for drying it ought to be sufficient to deal with his requirements for the year. That is assuming that, during the month of October, there will be a bigger rush of wheat than there would be for any other month of the year. To cover that abnormal rush during that particular month, so far as I have seen it worked out, a plant that would deal with the whole supply in 50 days would be sufficient. These are matters that will be dealt with by order and, after a year or two years' working, the orders can be altered, after consultation with the millers and dealers. We may be wrong in our calculations and, if it is pointed out by the millers that we are wrong, the order can be amended so as to bring the amount of storage required and the capacity of the drying plant required into conformity with the facts. These are the three big matters dealt with in the Bill. It is felt that these are matters that necessarily arise at this stage. The Bill brought forward about three years ago dealt with the growing of wheat on a more or less experimental basis. It was held very strongly by one Party that the growing of wheat could be made a success. It was held equally strongly by another Party that it would never be a success. In these circumstances, it was but right that we should disturb things as little as possible with the growing of wheat. It was only right that no miller should be asked to incur any great expense as regards the scheme, and that any additional cost involved by the growing of wheat should be borne out of taxation. Now, we have to assume that the growing of wheat is a success. When we commenced operations we were growing 3 per cent. of our requirements. This year it is estimated that we are growing 25 per cent. of our requirements. This is the third year of this experiment, and we have gone from 3 per cent. to 25 per cent. of our requirements. Wheat-growing cannot be regarded any longer as experimental. We can definitely say to the miller now: "You must incur the necessary expenditure to provide storage and drying plant for what must be regarded as a permanent scheme." As to whether the cost should be on the consumer or on the taxpayer, if this is to be a permanent scheme, the consumer is absolutely certain to be asked to bear the cost of bread for which the wheat is grown by our own farmers at some stage or other. There is no reason why that step should not be taken now.
I now come to deal with some of the minor matters in the Bill. There is a clause which gives the Minister power to lend money to millers. That clause was put in for the benefit of millers who have no other means of getting money. It is not that the Government are anxious to go into the money-lending business. The clause was put in to meet the argument of the miller who may come along and say he is quite willing to carry out all the provisions of the Bill but he has not got the money. In that case, we would say: "Why do you not go to your bank?" He would say: "I have gone to the bank but I could not get the necessary accommodation." Now, we have power to say: "The Minister for Finance will lend you this money on certain terms." I am afraid the terms will not be as favourable as the terms the miller would get from his own banker but they will not be much less favourable. That is to induce the millers, so far as possible, to get the money from other sources.
Another clause of the Bill deals with the recovery of the price of seed wheat. Two or three years ago, the Department of Agriculture issued a notice publicly with a view to inducing seed merchants to give seed wheat to farmers on an easy payment system. The farmer signed a form authorising the Minister for Agriculture to pay the seed merchant for the seed supplied to him out of the bounty when it would become due to him. In giving out seed last autumn, the seed merchants were naturally under the impression that they would get their money back under that scheme—that the Minister for Agriculture would pay them out of the bounty that would become payable to the grower. Now that we are changing our system, there will be no subsidy or bounty and no means, so far as the Minister is concerned, of paying these seed merchants. We feel that the seed merchant is entitled to some protection as he entered into this contract, not only with the consent of the Minister for Agriculture, but also on the advice of the officers of the Department who are working in the country. We mean to meet that position by taking a lien on the wheat crop concerned and then serving notice on the owner of that particular crop to sell to a particular flour miller or wheat dealer. At the same time, we will serve notice on the flour miller or wheat dealer to pay the Minister the proceeds of the sale. Out of that sum, the merchant who sold the seed will be recouped and the remainder will go to the grower.
A slight change is also made by the Bill in the cereal year. The cereal year lasted from the 1st August to 31st July. It is not of any great importance except technically or administratively, but the flour millers, the wheat dealers, agents, and so on, are desirous of having the commencing date the 1st September. That will give them more time at the end of the old wheat season to make the necessary returns. No appreciable amount of wheat comes on the market before 1st September. There is nothing to prevent the farmer sending his wheat to the flour miller before 1st September for the following cereal year, but the deal will not take place until 1st September. The wheat will not be legally received until that date, but it can be stored by the flour miller before then. With the exception of the usual clauses regarding registration, regulations and so on, those are all the matters with which the Bill deals, and I ask the Seanad to give it a Second Reading.