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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 5 Jun 1924

Vol. 7 No. 20

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE (EGGS) BILL, 1924. SECOND STAGE.

I dealt at some length with this particular Bill on the First Reading. I stated what the problem was, and I do not intend to go into that side of the question now. I just want to touch on one of the general principles that underlie this Bill, and that will underlie a number of Bills that will be introduced in this Session. I stated on the First Reading that this Bill was prepared in consultation with the trade, and that so far as its main principles were concerned it was in general approved by the trade. It is a Bill to regulate the trade, and it seems a little extraordinary in that state of affairs, in view of the fact that the trade itself, both producers and exporters, is in favour of it, that it would be necessary at all to introduce a Bill like this, that gives rather drastic powers to a Government department to regulate the business which these people are more nearly interested in than anybody else. It looks rather like forcing people to make money. Well up to a certain point it is. This particular Bill is, if I might use the expression, a sort of voluntary compulsion, and the point I wish to stress is, number one, that there would be no need for a Bill like this if both sides of the trade, that is, both the producers and exporters, were properly organised for the purposes of their own business.

And the second aspect of it that I want to stress is that in spite of this Bill, in spite of the fact that we are forcing the trade, so to speak, to organise itself, any of the possible good effects of the measure will be negatived unless all concerned realise that they have got to help themselves, that in anything that we can do for them we cannot really improve either the egg trade, or the butter trade, or any side of our agricultural business, unless the people themselves, the people who are really interested, the people whose business it is to look after it—unless they begin to improve it themselves, and unless they realise that they will be competing in the future with other countries that have had for a long time all the possible advantages that they can get out of this Bill, and that are, in addition, more wide-awake, more enterprising than we are unfortunately at the present moment in this country. That is the underlying consideration in connection with this Bill and in connection with a number of Bills of the same sort which are to be introduced in this Dáil, even in this Session. These are the only points that I intend to deal with now, as I have dealt with the Bill at some length on the First Reading. I beg to move for Second Reading.

Since I came into this Dáil no Bill has been introduced by any Minister on the Government Benches that I can so enthusiastictally support as this measure from the Minister for Agriculture. And I have only one regret to express in connection with it, and that is, that it was not introduced more than six months ago, that it was not introduced as soon as possible, or in a very short time after the first interim Report of the Agricultural Commission. I think it is regrettable that it is not the law of the land to-day. It is regrettable that it is not the law, because, as I see things, a very large part of the trade in poultry for this season, at least a pretty fair share of the trade, will have passed over by the time this Bill is the law of the land. I agree with the Minister for Agriculture that it is regrettable that such a measure has to be introduced at all to compel those engaged in the poultry industry in this country to manage that branch of our business as it ought to be managed.

We have been waiting for years, and we must all agree that the conduct or the management of this branch of our industry is not improving. That fact has been so persistently forcing itself on us for some time past that opinion is to-day very strong in favour of this measure. It is to a certain extent revolutionary in character. And that the State should feel it necessary that the State should possess the power that the Minister seeks in this Bill is a farreaching step indeed. But I agree that it is the only course that can be adopted. Our mismanagement of this industry in the past may be attributable to the fact that perhaps we have had too many people engaged in the industry, with the result that the responsibility for mismanagement was distributed over a great number of heads or shoulders, each one inclined to shove the responsibility on to the other, and none of them realising its responsibility to the country's trade or to the good name of its products at all. The Bill gives the Ministry authority to inspect the premises of exporters. How the exporter is to deal with his customer is a matter that is left fairly open. The Minister, I assume, believes that the exporter is capable of dealing with his customers or traders by refusing to deal with them unless they comply with certain regulations. I am partly inclined to the view that it might be necessary to include in the Bill some power for the exporter to be in a position to penalise those who would come to him with an article which might seem to be up to the standard, but which later he might discover was not. It is a matter for debate whether the exporter would feel that he should ask some protection from the law in that way or not. I welcome this step of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture and I believe I am expressing the opinion of the agricultural community generally when I say that they feel such a measure as this is necessary so as to enable all those engaged in this industry to do what is fair by the industry.

I would like to join in commending the Bill. I agree with Deputy Baxter in his regret that the Bill was not brought in six months ago. The report which was called for hurriedly a year ago is dated the 22nd May, 1923, and it was generally expected that action would have been taken upon that report promptly. No doubt the Minister had good reasons and has carefully thought out the position beforehand. Probably it will be charitable to assume that as a result of the delay he has frustrated possible opposition from the trade, and that as a consequence the chances of success in the working out of the Bill may be greater. I am glad Deputy Baxter has given such hearty approval to the Bill on behalf of the agricultural community. I hope he is speaking confidently with regard to the backing that the measures required in this Bill will get from the wives of farmers who are primarily concerned in this matter. I imagine that in the working out of the Bill exporters will find it necessary to impose conditions upon their purchase of eggs which will in turn require from the farmers' wives considerably more care in the handling of their part of the industry. I think that would be all to the good, directly and indirectly. A great portion of our export of eggs is to England, which receives eggs from Denmark and will be receiving them in great quantities, I think from Russia and other countries in Europe. The advantage that we have of being close to that market and enabled thereby to send eggs a day or two fresher than any other country is lost by the fact that we are not sending them in good order and well presented, quite apart from their quality. Inherent quality is one thing, but the attractiveness of the packing is of equal importance. The Bill, I think, will have good results as far as the export trade is concerned. It will also, I think, have good results in respect of the home trade. Some people have thought that the effect of it will be to send all good eggs to England and leave the Irish consumer the choice only of bad eggs. There may be something in that for the first two or three months, but very little. It should be noted, I think, that the Bill does give power to the officers of the Ministry in regard to the inspection of eggs sold for home consumption. The whole procedure will inevitably react in favour of a better and more regular collection of eggs, careful inspection, proper grading, and generally to tune up the productive side of the industry in a way which will be beneficial to the consumers, and I think inevitably very beneficial to the producers. I think, too, with the Minister that one of the results will be to induce by a sort of gentle compulsion, a very much better organisation of the transportation and distribution of eggs. That again will be all to the good. I therefore welcome the Bill very heartily.

Mr. HOGAN

There has been con siderable delay in introducing the Bill, and Deputy Johnson has stated the reason that I had intended to give. As I pointed out, this is a Bill that regulates possibly £6,000,000 worth of trade. To regulate trade by legislation is an extremely difficult thing. It is very easy to do more harm than good. It was absolutely essential to think out the Bill and the possible consequences of it a long way ahead. For that purpose it was necessary to get in touch with all the associations, wherever there were associations—to get in touch with the people who were organised, and also with those who were unorganised, so as to prepare the Bill with all the relevant data in mind. It would be easy enough to produce a simple Bill. Probably nine sections out of ten would be the same as in this Bill, but it is just the tenth that might make all the difference when the Bill was put into operation. The very slight difference between the condition in the North and the conditions her has necessitated a Bill which is radically different. I have been in consultation with people in the North and with people who approved of the Northern Bill for the North and the agreed that it was absolutely necessary to have a different sort of Bill in the North to this Bill. As I pointed out, the main difference is that was register exporters only. We do not attempt to deal with wholesalers, the reason being that there are far more wholesalers in the trade here than in the North, for the size of the trade even.

That brings me to the other point which Deputy Baxter raised. He suggests that it might have been necessary to put some power in the hands of the exporter to deal with the producer of eggs who sells bad eggs. We considered that point very carefully and in fact, as the Bill was first drafted. Section 16 read: "It shall not be lawful for any person to buy, sell, or offer or consign for sale." That would have made the position worse from the point of view of the exporter, but would not have given him any powers as against the retailer. It would have made his position more difficult for this reason. If he bought eggs which were not up to standard it was an offence. If we put in the word "buy" as well as "sell" that would have made his position worse. We realised that, and took out the word "buy," but we could not go any further. We could not put a positive weapon into his hand to deal with the retailer or the producer, and I do not think there is any necessity.

He will, as far as he can, look after himself. If he is buying eggs he must sell them graded, tested and fresh. It is an offence if he does not. He has no alternative, except to penalise a person who comes forward, and tries to sell him dirty eggs, by charging that person for cleaning them. He will take into account, in buying the eggs, that he has to sell them as fresh eggs, properly graded, and will accordingly penalise anyone who comes forward to sell eggs, not up to the standard, by giving them a lower price. He realises the fact that he will have to clean the eggs afterwards, before he can sell them. With regard to the home trade I have pointed out that all the big exporters, in fact, all the exporters, were wholesalers as well. Probably. most of the exporters who deal with the export trade are the people who do most of the wholesale trade at home. That being the case, in view of the fact that there is a section in the Bill that prevents the exporter from even selling eggs internally, unless they are properly graded, tested and packed, the consumer at home has some guarantee that he will get the same terms as the English consumer would get from the exporter under other circumstances. If one of our inspectors walks into an exporter's premises and finds there eggs graded, tested and packed, amongst which, on examination are some stale eggs, or cold storage eggs, when asked to account for them, it will not be enough for the exporter to say that the eggs were meant for home trade. The exporters are registered and whether eggs are meant for home, or for foreign trade, the regulations are the same. I think that covers the particular difficulty, and makes it almost certain that the exporters will be almost as careful in regard to the home trade as to the foreign trade. When Deputies take into account that most of the exporters are the big home wholesalers as well, I think they will agree that the home trade is likely to be benefited by this. As Deputy Johnson pointed out there is likely to be some slight confusion at the start, but matters will right themselves.

MR. JOHNSON

I wonder could the Minister give us an idea of what is meant in regard to the regulations in Section 15 (1). I think it might save time if we knew that.

Mr. HOGAN

I think I had better read the section:—

(1) The Minister may by order make regulations prescribing the marks to be placed on every package of eggs sold on or exported or consigned from any premises registered in the register of exporters for the purpose of indicating all or any of the matters following.

Eggs are graded according to weight, and outside on the package will be numbers, 1, 2, 3 or 4, according to the grade. It will be shown on the outside of each package what grade of eggs it contains. (b) "The premises on which such eggs were packed." Each registered premises will have a number or trade mark. That will also be on the outside of the package. (c) "In the case of preserved eggs, that such eggs are preserved." That speaks for itself. In the case of preserved eggs, if a case contains any such eggs, the word "preserved" must be on the outside of the package. (d) "That such eggs were produced in Saorstát Eireann." We want to get a reputation for our eggs. We want to bring about such a state of affairs that the word "Irish" on a package will be a guarantee of good quality. We start off forcing them, after they grade the eggs, to put "Irish" on the package.

"And any other matter which in the opinion of the Minister should be indicated on such eggs. The Minister may also by order make regulations prescribing the marks to be placed on every egg sold on or consigned by any premises, registered in the Register of Exporters, for the purpose of indicating all or any of the matters mentioned in the foregoing sub-section."

That is, in view of the fact that there is contemplated in the British and other Parliaments legislation which will possibly necessitate some mark indicating the country of origin on each egg that goes into the British market. If that happens we are not going to give up the British market because we have to mark our eggs. We want to be in a position to do it if necessary, without further legislation.

Is the Minister thinking of dating the eggs?

Mr. HOGAN

That was not in contemplation as far as I know. It is not one of the essentials that would be required under the contemplated legislation in England, as far as I know.

I was in hopes that by power to make regulations regarding the marks to be placed on eggs, you had in mind the imposition of the duty on the part of the producer of indicating that the eggs were collected at a certain date.

Mr. HOGAN

It would be open to us to do that. That is rather a contentious question which perhaps I should not go into now. It is a detail and is amply covered by Section 15. I may say that one of the specific things I had in mind in putting in that sub-section was that a Bill might be brought in in the British Parliament next year saying that any eggs coming in must be marked. and we would have had the necessity of coming here to pass a formal Bill in order to do that.

Question put and agreed to.
Bill read a Second Time; Committee Stage ordered for Thursday next.
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