Deputy Lemass dealt with this proposal almost in a jocular manner. It is not suggested that the payment of an allowance to members of the Commission will increase their ability, or make the work less onerous, but if these officials are asked to do, and to continue to do for a period of years, work which deprives them of practically all, if not all, their leisure, it is only reasonable that some extra payment should be made to them, something beyond the remuneration that they would receive if they were not called upon to take up and continue this extra work. With regard to Deputy Murphy's question, perhaps the logic of the position is with him, but we have not, at any rate so far, come to the conclusion that we should give an allowance to an official that would increase his remuneration beyond what has been the upper limit. These officials are not relieved of their ordinary duties. They are relieved of some portion of them because it would be impossible for them to undertake tariff work if they were not given some extra assistance in their offices. But they cannot be relieved of as much of the work in their offices as is thrown on them by the work of the Tariff Commission. Every one of them has to work harder, and to give more of his time to the public duties that are cast on him than he would have if the Tariff Commission were not in existence.
Some Deputies have suggested that these officials, or other officials, or some other people should be put entirely on Tariff Commission work. Although Tariff Commission work is very heavy, we do not think it is a whole-time job. There would be considerable periods when members of the Tariff Commission, if they had no other work, would not be occupied at all. When a certain application had been disposed of, and before they had fully entered on the consideration of another, before evidence had been put up to them, there would be, perhaps, days, and often weeks, when there would be practically nothing for them to do. There would be periods when they would be waiting for the answer of the opponents of an application to be put in to the case made by the applicants, or when they would be waiting for additional evidence to be submitted by the applicants, as a result of weaknesses that might have been shown at the hearing. The result is that although the work, taking it over the year, these officials have to do, is very heavy, and although there are intervals when the members could quite well give all their time to Tariff Commission work, there are other periods when, if they had no other duties, they would be decidedly slack. The fact that they are occupied at other duties has caused some delay, but except in one or two cases it has not been very serious. There is delay caused at the moment, I admit, because of the fact that members of the Tariff Commission are engaged on the Grain Enquiry. There are two or three applications for tariffs which they would be making progress with, and perhaps, by this time have come to a conclusion on, if they had not the extra work of the Grain Enquiry thrown on to them. But if we leave out the delay caused by this very special enquiry, the avoidable delays that have taken place on applications for tariffs have not been very great.
Anything that I have seen about Tariff Commissions elsewhere indicates that it is normally a year or two after the application is put in before a conclusion is reached. There may be similar tribunals which decide quickly in a month or two, but those about which I have particulars have all occupied a good deal of time dealing with every application. As a matter of fact, there is value in not dealing with them too rapidly. In various ways information comes in that is of great account in coming to a conclusion, and it might not be available at all if one could sit down and dispose of the case, as it were, summarily. I do not think that eighteen months can be regarded as too long for the proper consideration of any application of importance for a tariff. In the case of smaller applications perhaps, somewhat less time would do, but, even in the smallest applications, there are delays and intervals which are necessary. First, there is the submission of the case and the giving to it of some consideration, the hearing and giving notices for public sittings, and that sort of thing. An interval must elapse to allow those who would oppose the tariff to put in their case and, perhaps, for further evidence to be given by the applicants.
We feel that this Tariff Commission is doing extremely good work. We are most anxious, because of the very thorough, sound and capable manner in which the Tribunal had done its work, to retain it without making any change, at any rate for the present. When all these major applications that have come in have been disposed of, it might be possible to make some change in the personnel, but at present we think that the best results will be obtained by retaining the present members. We are satisfied that the work is being done almost as quickly as it would be done if we had whole-time members of the Tariff Commission, and that it is being done much more cheaply than with whole-time members, because they would be, as I have already said, busy at some periods, and altogether, or almost altogether, without work at other periods, and then you might easily find a position where you reached a point when there would be no applications at all before the body, or no applications of any importance, perhaps only trivial applications, and you would have to decide whether you would dissolve the Commission or not——
