We are turning it down for the time, on the basis stated by the Minister, that when you offset the amount of employment given to two hundred people, and the extra cost to the community of cement made here, in the words of Deputy Morrissey, you have to consider that it is an uneconomic proposition. I remember the Minister saying here on one of these dumping duties about spades and shovels that if you took as a test the price at which you could buy the articles imported we should stop manufacturing everything. That was the test the Minister applied with regard to the turning down of cement manufacture. The Minister says that these things have all to be related to the capital involved. Whose capital would be involved in any proposals put to the Minister for establishing the cement industry? Was there any capital from this country? There were firms quite prepared to put up all the capital. Why need we bother about that capital except and only in relation to this, the selling price of the commodity, which would have to be sufficient to enable whoever put up the capital to get back their money? If there were people prepared to risk as much as £750,000 to establish the cement industry I would like to find out, before we go further, what would that entail in the way of extra cost on the community, and what would it entail in the way of extra employment over the two hundred persons spoken of as likely to be occupied through the grinding mills? I do not know how the labour is divided. I think Deputy Morrissey exaggerated the point a bit. It seems to require explanation that if you simply import clinkers to grind in a mill that you are going to get the same employment as by raising the material. Surely there is more in raising the material and transferring it to the site of a factory. We have to add that to the employment given at the factory. At any rate the point arises that with clinker brought in here, and with Irish material, the employment is the same in both cases. If the clinker is imported there is a certain amount of dock labour that is to set against the employment given in raising the material. Again I suggest that the materials are not merely here in abundance but are here in abundance in many areas. I welcome that as far as it shows a glimmer of sense at last with regard to certain economics—even elementary economics— that you have to consider the price, so far as it affects us in two directions, the building of houses and the making of roads.
I want to get another item considered. Supposing cement was to go up by from 3/- to 5/- a ton, has any calculation been made as to what will be the extra cost per house in the different categories of houses under some Housing Acts, in comparison with what would be the cost if they were houses now building with imported cement? That is the only test I think that should be applied in these cases. How much per house, in the different types of houses we have to consider, and for which subsidies have been given, would be the increase by using Irish manufactured cement in comparison with houses built with imported cement? That is one side of the thing, and, in so far we see at last some appreciation of the fact that the final cost to the consumer has to be taken into consideration, it is pointing to an improvement in the mental process of the Minister, that education has some effect, and that experience is telling some little bit. All that is very welcome. But I think there is a serious objection to this Bill from another angle. I do not suppose there was ever a proposition of this type put before any Parliament. Look at the terms of this: "When the Minister for Industry and Commerce is satisfied that a company has, whether before or after or partly before and partly after the passing of this Act, erected" certain machinery, that Minister may "at his discretion, by writing sealed with his official seal, undertake with such company that no duty of customs" shall be imposed for an eleven year period or downwards. There has been a heap of talk about secret documents recently. What is the Minister asking us to do now? He asks that, at his sole discretion and whenever he thinks fit, he should be allowed to tie the hands of this House as far as he can do it for eleven years. Has ever such a proposition of that type been put before any House? In what are known as trade treaties there is a denouncing clause, but the trade treaty is ratified and the House has it in its control to say that the period over which the treaty is to last is too long and that the period in which it may be denounced ought to be shortened. We are giving control here over one important item of customs to a Minister who may be replaced in six months.
We give him power to tie this House on a financial item for eleven years. There was a considerable amount of constitutional learning poured out in the Parliament of England to make the Ottawa duties operate over a period of five years—a limited period—a period somewhere near the lifetime of the House over here. This, however, is for a period to extend, as the Minister said, over the ordinary normal lifetime of the Government here; and it is to be done without the House getting any idea as to what the proposal is in respect of which he is likely to certify. This clearly demands much more than what is contained in this skeleton Bill. On a proposal like that contained in this Bill I would certainly give notice that, as far as I am concerned, I would not consider myself tied by any guarantee that the Minister gave under these conditions. If any firm takes up business under a Bill of that type, it is asking for trouble. If the Minister wants stable conditions for firms coming in here he has got to give more than is contained in this Bill. He has got to come here with proposals. He has got to give the relative prices per ton of the various cements and inform us what amount of capital is going to be put into it and who is going to give the capital and, in contradistinction to that what is the best kind of cement and what is the extra employment which will accrue out of these enterprises. He has got to tell us where the material is to be raised and if it is to be raised in different areas, where these areas are. He has got to let us know in these schemes where the capital was to come from, what capital was proposed, and in the end what was going to be the price at the factory itself and the price at which the material was going to be sold through the country. If all parties decide, after getting these details, to agree to this, then the firm has some reasonable guarantee; but if any firm takes up position under the Bill as it stands now, then they are asking for a very definite rebuff from any Government that comes into power which is able to change that guarantee. It must be emphasised that nothing that this Parliament does can tie the hands of the next Parliament.
I thought, as I said, when I saw this amazing proposal to give the Minister power to tie the hands of the House in a matter of finance over a period of eleven years, that the Minister's speech in seconding this was going to set forth all the things that I have alluded to. I thought that we would know the details; but I doubt if anybody, after listening to him, has any knowledge as to what price cement is going to be sold at for twelve months after the three grinding mills have been established. What profit do the people, who will establish these mills, look to get for this? They are going to amortise their capital in ten years, we are told. I do not know why a period of ten years was chosen. Does the machinery that grinds clinkers ordinarily require to be replaced in ten years? If it does not, why is that period chosen? Is it to avoid the instability that accrues from two Parliaments having to recognise this guarantee?
Of course, if the thing is to go through, and all the details are given to the House and proper consideration given to it, then it would be far better to extend the period to whatever would be the ordinary life of the replaceable machinery. The Minister tells us—and this again I want to have further explained— that if we give this guarantee for eleven years or some period not longer than eleven years, that we can later on go on to the full scheme of development of cement works without harm to any other industry. That leaves me a little bit puzzled. At the moment, we are turning down a scheme for raising the raw materials for cement manufacture from where they are in this country and we are doing that because the Minister said it would raise the price of cement. But later on, he said, we will be able to do that. Why? Why later on instead of now? What circumstances later on will enable us to raise the material? We adopt a scheme now whereby we import raw material and grind it here, but later on we will be able to go on to a scheme in which we will raise our own cement material and manufacture it here. If that is so, there is some explanation required as to why it is not being done now and as to why it cannot be done now. We are going to erect, I understand, three mills. Are there three firms in question before the Minister's mind at the moment, or only one? If there is only one, why the diversion into three mills? Is it part of the decentralisation of industry that has been so affecting the Minister for so long? If there is only one firm, has that one firm, on its own, suggested three grinding mills, or has there been any consideration given to the possibility of getting a decrease in the cost of the manufacture of cement if all this grinding was to be done at one mill instead of in three mills. If there is only one mill, what is the employment to be given at that one mill? Are we, in other words, looking to get three grinding mills in order to sweeten three constituencies for the Minister and to get some little amount of employment, which is wasteful employment, rather than have the whole thing done at one mill, which might mean possibly less employment but getting in the end a reduced price to the consumer?
In connection with that, we also require some information from the Minister as to whether or not, when proposals were put up for cement factories in the country there were also proposals for a single factory; whether, of their own, these people decided that they had better have one, two or three factories; or whether it was the Minister's pressure with regard to decentralisation that insisted on this being done. I should like to get definitely put before the House, before we go a step further with the Bill, a statement as to the best proposals under monopoly conditions, with regulations as to prices, for a single cement works to manufacture cement for the whole of the country; the best price which that monopolistic group could guarantee for the distribution of cement through the country; to the areas where generally cement is used; and, as a contrast to that, a statement from the Minister as to the price that will be paid finally under this. Then we can take our decision on it, knowing that this scheme, at any rate, wipes out what the Minister has so often lectured us about, the use of certain raw materials which are here in abundance for a certain manufacturing process. We will have to find out why. I am not saying there is not a good reason, but it has not been explained.
The thing has to be subject to certain variations. I should like to have some statement as to the more or less exact price at which, over, say, a six months' period, cement will be sold here after these grinding mills have been established; because if there is a definite guarantee that we can have a substantial reduction, quality being the same, on the price at which Belgian cement is being imported, then something has been promised to the Minister which was never promised before. If there is a promise I want to know if is subject to any variation; variation, say, in the rate of wages to be paid; variation in the price to be paid for coal; variation with regard to, say, the use of electric power, if electric power is to be used in the factory. If all these things enter into consideration, let us have, at any rate, a statement as to the items which enter into the scheme; at what wage rate, at what price of coal, and what price of electric current, is a guaranteed price going to be made to us for a six or twelve months' period?
I suggest seriously that it is something that amounts to an insult to the House that they should be asked to pass this. It is a complete scorning of Parliamentary procedure. For eleven years, the Minister is going to be given the power to tie up this House, and another House so far as he can, with regard to the imposition of customs duties on a particular item, when he is satisfied, not when the House is satisfied, but when he is satisfied that certain machinery has been erected, or is going to be erected, and that from the clinker imported cement is going to be turned out at some price which the House does not know. That is an amazing proposal, a proposal which I think the House should reject. If there is to be a scheme of development, and if the Minister wants to be in a position to ensure that firm or firms some stability with regard to conditions, he has got to do all I have said: to give this House the material upon which they can come to a proper conclusion; such a conclusion as would enable them to say that it is right and proper to tie this House and the succeeding House in so far as they can.