Public Business. - Finance Bill, 1935—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on amendment No. 12.
We oppose this duty on coal because outstandingly it is taxation that, like tea, sugar and tobacco, leans most heavily on the poor. It leans on them, as it leans on the whole of our people for that matter, at a time when those people are in a very bad economic condition as a result of three years of warfare, and that warfare shows no signs of doing anything but making their condition worse and worse. The very proposal out of which this amendment arises, that is, the proposal to continue a 5/- tax on all the coal coming into the country, which was imposed as the big weapon that was going to bring the people who are supposed to be making an economic war on this country to their knees, emphasises all the more the terrible state of affairs economically in which our people find themselves. Is the economic war going to go on? Are our people being protected? Are they being helped to victory in that war? If they were, and if the people were expected within the next month or two to be in twice as good an economic position as they are to-day, then we could listen to the arguments of the Minister for Finance for entering every home in the country by putting this tax on coal. But there is, apparently, no argument to be put up for this by the Minister for Finance. There is no argument that we could expect him to put up while the condition of the people is such as it is.
This tax of 5/- was put expressly on British coal because, as the Government organ said, the British people had struck at the economic life of the Irish people. That challenge was going to be answered, and nearly three years ago the country rang with the claim of the Government that it was successfully defending our people in a war that was being made on them; and one of the great signs of how successfully they were defending them was that 8,000 miners were going to be put out of work in Great Britain. Deputy Geoghegan painted a picture of the hungry miners in Great Britain turning to try and eat their coal. He painted a picture like that to show our people that while the war was on the economic conditions were going to get better here. Every month that has passed, the economic conditions have been getting worse. The people are now being asked to pay 5/- on every ton of coal they have to use.
This morning's paper gives us some idea as to the condition to which the agricultural labourers in South Tipperary are being reduced. There is no use in the Minister saying that they can use turf. There is no question of turf. This is a question of a necessity that enters into the life of practically every person in this country and for which there is no substitute here. If the Minister wants to face facts he will realise that. If he wants to face fancies he can refer to the Government organ and he will realise from reading that organ that the Research Committee is not quite sure whether they will not want all the turf in the country for the manufacture of silk stockings and whiskey. So that turf need not cross this discussion. We are dealing with a necessity for every household; we are dealing with what every household in the country has to purchase. The people who are agricultural labourers in South Tipperary are paying this tax. What do we find from this morning's paper? We find that four cottage rent collectors threatened with dismissal if they do not collect the rents of the cottages have reported to the Commissioner for South Tipperary that they cannot collect these rents. One gives as a reason that the agricultural labourer's wages in South Tipperary have been reduced to 8/- and to 10/- a week. Another reason is that where the labourers are working some of the farmers are not able to pay them and that some of the farmers are actually six months behind time in paying some agricultural labourers' wages in South Tipperary. Another collector pointed out that some of the occupiers of the cottages were receiving unemployment assistance, and another pointed out that some of the cottage rents that existed did not any longer exist. It is on these people that this tax falls heaviest, as it falls on the people in every street in Dublin where you have unemployment conditions that are just as bad. We have the position, therefore, that the people from whom the Government are setting out to collect this tax are not in a position to pay it. This tax that is now being imposed on the people must make this House realise the conditions under which it is being imposed. It reminds the House that these people are every week becoming less and less able to bear the burden of taxation that the Government is imposing on them.
The Minister can look at his import returns and he can see that the conditions are such that coal imports since his Government came into office have been seriously reduced. If one takes the first four months of this year as compared with the first four months of last year one can see that the imports are still going down and they will go down much more in the remaining seasons of this year by reason of the fact that there is this very serious tax on coal. The Minister's import figures do not show everything but they show that there is very little difference in the price of coal coming across to our ports this year as compared with last year. But the Minister was not waiting to be told here in this House what a great increase there is in the price of coal—that is, coal coming over the State border without even this 5/- tax. Then again, in connection with this tariff we have figures placed before us in reply to a Parliamentary question. The Minister was asked a question as to whether there were some people in this country who were allowed to import household and steam coal and all other kinds of coal. The Minister declined to say why these people were allowed to import this coal without paying the tariff. The Minister has told us that since the beginning of the year up to the other day there were imported under licence 5,331 tons of anthracite coal, 288 tons of gas coal, 1,184 tons of household coal and 1,247 tons of steam coal. That is to say some users of steam coal, anthracite coal and household coal are getting their coal in without paying this tax. The Minister will probably agree that they are only being allowed to get it because it would be a very serious imposition on them if they had to pay the tax. But the Minister has turned down rather ignominiously, many local bodies who are struggling to carry on under the present circumstances. He turned down these bodies when they asked to be allowed to bring in their coal without tax and some of the favoured few to whom the Minister gave a licence to import coal are able——
On a point of order, Sir. Is not this a criticism of the administration which should arise only on the Vote for the Department of the Minister for Finance?
The Chair agrees with the Minister that it is a matter of administration which should be raised on the Minister's Vote.
The first thing that drives the Minister to grant licences to allow this coal in free is the fact that the tax was a burden on certain classes of people in the country. What is a burden to the strong is infinitely more of a burden to the weak. Surely the Minister realises that. Surely the Minister realises that if he had to give licences to certain classes of people in the country to allow them to get their coal in free, there is no class in the country more entitled to consideration in that matter than the poorest classes of the people, the working-classes. Does the Minister suggest to the House that there is any other substitute available in this country to replace coal in the city home or in most of the homes throughout the country—at any rate in the homes in the country towns? Again, this is a war tax. It is a war tax put on in desperation at a time when the Minister sees no improvement coming in the condition of the people anywhere; if his eyes are not entirely blind he must see very considerable deterioration in the people's position.
When the coal tax was imposed the Government organ told the people that Mr. MacDonald's bluff had been called. That organ told the people that a number of both British politicians and editors seems to have been soothing the British people into insanity. One of the usual symptoms of insanity that organ said was perfect blindness to plain facts. If perfect blindness to plain facts is any sign of insanity I do not know anybody in any country of which we can get any picture in the Press or anybody in this country with whom we can get in touch who show themselves more completely steeped in insanity than the Minister for Finance and his colleagues. Because there are no people about whom we read in the Press here or abroad who are so blind to plain facts as the Minister and his colleagues are blind to the fact that in this Budget they are getting after the poorest class in the country and scraping the last halfpenny out of them in a gamble of which they do not know the outcome or the objects. That is why this Party is opposing this tax.
It is quite clear from the Deputy's speech that he does not know what he is talking about. The Deputy was supposed to be talking to an amendment down in his own name and he did not take the trouble to touch on it.
This Finance Bill has reference to the budgetary proposals of the Government and it proposes to continue a very serious tax on our people. That is a tax that was introduced for the purpose of carrying on a war which was supposed to be for the purpose of hitting a certain country. This tax is now being saddled on the people of this country from one end to the other. I am particularly stressing this tax now by reason of the fact that at the present moment there has been a complete reversal of the Minister's attitude on this point of hitting another country. When the President went down to O'Connell Street or College Green to explain to the people why this tax was put on, there were a number of banners at his meeting. Some of those banners carried slogans such as: "Boycott British Goods;""Do not sail in British Ships;""Do not burn English Coal."
That was the beginning of this particular tax. Now, instead of being a tax on the section of our people who were using British coal, it is now spread over the whole of the people whose national life was being preserved by first introducing it and directing it against the British people in whose favour it is now being turned. That bears on the economic condition and well-being of our people in future. It bears upon the purchasing capacity of our people and their ability to pay their way. It means that their ability to pay their way is going to be less in future than in the past, and that this tax is going to be bigger on them in the future than it was in the past. If the Minister is so anxious to explain what he stood up to explain now, would he reply to the statements made from this side, that our people are less able to bear this tax now than they were 12 months ago and will be still less able to bear it in two months' time? It is a tax which is infinitely bigger at the present moment than it was last year.
I presume it would be too much to expect the Minister would in any way endeavour to justify this tax. Perhaps the Minister's melancholy, or rather I should say, his despairing silence, is due to the fact that he regrets that he is not now in opposition. What a glorious time he would have. When we remember the time the Minister occupied these benches and endeavoured to attack the Budgets then introduced, I am sure he must regret that he is not here now when every single article of food and every single item of wearing apparel is being taxed. Not alone that, but we have a tax on wheat which means a tax on bread. Now, under this we are going to continue a war-time tax upon coal for the cooking of these foods. As Deputy Mulcahy pointed out, this was a full-blown war-time measure inaugurated by the present Government to hit England back for the penal tariffs. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, or the Minister for Finance—I do not know when —informed us quite recently that it was expected to get £600,000 from this tax. Perhaps, after all, when we come to consider it, we ought to be thankful that air and water are still free. They are about all that is still free in this country at present.
When we remember the Minister's protestations from this side of the House and the glorious reductions we were promised in our Budgets when Fianna Fáil became the Government, and when we see the inglorious finale to that, it is no wonder that the Minister would feel despairing and melancholy over the business We have been treated during the discussion of these amendments to silence by the Minister and one wonders whether it is sympathy or contempt we ought to have for the Minister. After all, if the Minister feels, as he really ought to feel considering the position he is in, perhaps he is entitled to some sympathy. But does the Minister know where he is going? Has he any idea where we are drifting to? Does he think this country can continue to pay taxes on all foodstuffs and on coal? To my mind, this tax on coal, which we are endeavouring to wipe out by this amendment, is the most iniquitous tax of the whole lot.
There can be no pretence that this is a tax to protect Irish industry. Here we have British coal and British coal only. Twelve months ago it was unpatriotic to burn British coal. Twelve months ago we were called traitors on this side of the House if we attempted to say that, because our kith and kin were, to a great extent, working in England and dependent on English industry, that because the English people were the buyers of our live-stock, they should be supported in any way. To-day, it is the patriotic thing to do. Let us admit it is the patriotic thing to do. But is it a patriotic thing to see that no coal comes in here but British coal and that we have to pay at least 5/- per ton tax to our Government for the privilege of using that coal? As was pointed out by Deputy Morrissey and other speakers last night, this coal is not alone 5/- per ton too dear to the consumers here, but very possibly 10/- per ton, because we made a rough-and-ready bargain, which does not come up for discussion at present, but which, at the same time, contains no safeguard on our side.
And does not come up for discussion now, as the Deputy properly remarked.
I agree. Notwith standing the fact that we do not know what we are getting, that there is no standard price and quality, we have to pay 5/- per ton tax to our own Government for the privilege of using it. That is the position to which the Government has brought us. It is certainly a very inglorious finale. After all the fine things Fianna Fáil were to do for us, and all the deductions we were to have in our Budgets now we have a tax on bread, butter, tea and sugar, and on the coal to cook them. That is the position we find ourselves in, and it is certainly a very inglorious finish.
This is an Irish Parliament and we are discussing a very heavy tax on our people at a time when their general condition was never worse and when their future was never blacker. Fianna Fáil Deputies can snigger, but it would be much more in keeping with their protestations of concern for this country and the well-being of the people in the future if they spoke their minds, even though they did stand for taxing our people up to the hilt to finish this war in some way or other. Our people struggled to get an institution like this for the discussion of their economic and national matters. What we are dealing with now is a tax put upon a certain commodity coming into this country and put upon it with long and elaborate statements made to the people that this was one way of protecting their interests. By a turn of the Government this way of serving their interests has been completely thrown away and the machinery that was being operated, allegedly in their interests, has been turned to put a very heavy burden of taxation on the people.
The Minister sits there as if he was in a dug-out. But the people of the country are in the front trenches and are suffering the effects of his taxation and of his general policy. Is the position this—that we are going to have a front bench in an Irish Parliament used as a dug-out to protect the leaders of the Party opposite, and enable them to sit there in silence while the people of this country have to bear the evil results of their policy?
What has all this to do with the amendment?
It has very much to do with the main subject before us, which is the capacity of our people to bear taxation.
The matter before the House is an amendment proposing a new section, not a question of general policy.
On a point of order, may I submit that it is as the direct result of the Coal-Cattle Pact that this taxation has to be borne. If the Coal-Cattle Pact was not concluded people could obtain coal free of tax from the Continent, but because of the Coal-Cattle Pact they can only obtain it from Britain.
Why did you vote for it then?
Because we had no alternative.
The question why we voted for it does not matter. I am raising a point of order. I submit that but for the Coal-Cattle Pact the people of this country need not now be paying this 5/- per ton on British coal, and that, therefore, this discussion is in order.
The Chair does not accept the Deputy's submission. Apart from that, the Deputy who was in possession was speaking of the general policy of the Government and its effects upon the people, their ability to pay, and so on. If the Deputy's point was that the repercussions of the Coal-Cattle Pact bring that pact into the discussion, were adopted, then we would have a debate more appropriate to another Ministry, in fact, repetition of an earlier debate.
Have I your permission, a Chinn Comhairle, to make a submission?
This specific point, I think, does arise. This tax is imposed upon the people because of the fact that supplies are limited. Prior to this, people could go for their supplies to the continental suppliers whose coal was free of duty. Now they are compelled to get their supplies from Britain. I submit you cannot divorce the discussion of this from the question of the Coal-Cattle Pact.
The Chair has not prevented Deputies from referring to one result of the pact, namely, the fact that people are compelled to import coal from one country only. The Chair did, and will, prevent Deputies from discussing the terms and merits of the Coal-Cattle Pact.
I recognise your difficulty, A Chinn Comhairle, and the difficulty of the House in this matter. When I referred to the general policy of the Government I simply intended it to be a reference to their general attitude with regard to coal, which was the principal weapon they used. If we cannot discuss certain aspects of the matter here, the country is getting into the position that action can be taken, such as putting a penal tariff of 5/- a ton on coal, which is used all over the country, without any possibility of the House discussing the merits of the situation. It is true that the matter was before us in the nature of a Quota Order, but what the country was faced with when this Coal-Cattle Pact came up was this: The unfortunate farmers had stock to get rid of, and it was thought better to get the Order through rather than leave them in the position that they were in at the time. They got some small relief and this House could not refuse that small relief especially when we were told we would have the opportunity on the Finance Bill of discussing this tax on coal.
I shall not keep the House very long. This coal tax was put on under one pretext, though no defence has been made for its imposition. This is a tax, amounting to £600,000, roughly speaking, which is being kept upon the people, though at no time was any defence put forward for its continuance. As now imposed it is something independent of the economic war. No defence was given from the Government Benches. I put it that it is an abuse of the whole idea of Parliamentary institutions that an important tax like this, and other taxes that we have been discussing here for the last few days, should be put forward without one single word of defence being urged by the Minister, who is supposed to be responsible for the finances of this country.
On previous stages of this Bill the Minister prophesied that there would be plenty of opportunities for discussing the various taxes imposed upon the people. So far as he has been able to do so, he has tried to deprive the House of every opportunity of discussing these heavy burdens by continual interference and trying to stop discussion on the one hand, and by an absolute refusal on the other hand to give the slightest justification for the imposition of these taxes. This tax is now put on as a revenue raising tax. The Coal-Cattle Pact was voted for by this Party because of the position to which the Government policy had reduced the farmers. It was an entirely distinct question. The question before the House now is, the keeping on of this tax on coal independent of any connection with the economic war. I hold in such an event it is nothing short of scandalous and complete contempt for the House, and Parliamentary institutions, that the House should be compelled to witness the conduct which it has had to witness on the part of the Minister for Finance and on the part of the Government for the past couple of days.
Not one single attempt has been made to defend the taxes imposed in this Budget. The only contribution from the Minister for Finance, when we tried to find out what justification there was for these taxes, was interruption, and interference with the Chair, and efforts to stifle debate. Coming from a Party that calls itself a majority Party in this House, such an attitude is very ominous for the future Parliamentary institutions in this country.
I submit that this is the first time the House has been asked to give legislative effect to this 5/- tax on coal. The position is that the Government have been collecting this 5/- duty on the imports of coal since the conclusion of the Coal-Cattle Pact, but this is the first time the House got an opportunity of discussing the matter fully on the Finance Bill. Nevertheless the Minister refuses to give any information, or to give any reason as to why the people should be asked to bear this additional tax. He has in no way attempted to justify his position. I think we can only come to one conclusion, and that is that the Minister feels he cannot justify it, and that it would be impossible for him, glib as he is, to justify this tax. I stated last night that I was driven to the conclusion that the real reason for this tax is the present condition of the revenue. I might remind Deputies, when they talk about this tax yielding £600,000 to the revenue, that the quota orders issued by our own Government here are quota orders for £2,800,000 tons of coal at 5/- per ton. That is £700,000. There is then the other matter that arises also, of the half-crown per ton paid to boats of a certain size. It seems to me that the Minister is creating a rather dangerous precedent. This attitude of the Minister on the Finance Bill, the most important Bill which comes before this House in the year, and the Bill, above all others, which affects all sections of the community——
May I call your attention again, Sir, to the matter before the House? It is that the duty of 5/- per ton imposed on coal shall cease to be charged, levied and paid. It is not the conduct of the Minister for Finance in this debate or any other of his functions.
The Chair cannot preclude Deputies from criticising the Minister for not replying. It is not a function of the Chair to direct or request a Minister or Deputy to reply.
It just shows that the Minister is treating the House with the utmost contempt when he gets up on an absurd point like that, which he knows himself is not a point of order. It seems to me that it only goes to show what little feeling the Minister and his colleagues have as to the effects of this tax. My charge against the Minister is that, on this section which we are discussing, he has refused to give any information to the House, and I say again that the Minister is failing in his duty as Minister, and if he persists in his present——
Might I again point out that there is no section under discussion?
There is an amendment to insert a new section.
On the amendment, I want to protest against the Minister's irrelevant interruptions.
Nor is there an amendment to the section before the House.
The Minister is failing in his duty, and if he persists in his present attitude, I say that he is unfit, more unfit than he was, to occupy the position he does occupy. I say that it is the duty of the Minister, or of any Minister, or of any person occupying the position he occupies, to give his views on and his reasons for this. Remember that this is a matter of £700,000, and the idiotic grin of Deputy Smith is not going to make it softer on the people of this country.
The word "idiotic" is not Parliamentary.
If you say so, Sir, I withdraw it. I do not know how to describe it, but shall I say his intelligent grin? It gives an indication as to the rather cool way in which the Party, which talked about £2,000,000 reductions, put £2,000,000 extra on to these three items, tea, sugar and coal, and that without a single explanation from the Minister or an attempt on his part to justify it. That seems to me to be treating the House with the utmost contempt and by treating the House with contempt, he is treating the people of the country with contempt, and is unfit to continue in the position he occupies.
It is only some of them they treat with contempt, and you are one of them.
Deputy Smith's opinion of me does not cost me a thought. I would be sorry if the Deputy had a good opinion of me.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided:—Tá: 36; Níl, 58.
Tá
- Anthony, Richard.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Everett, James.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B
- Burke, Patrick.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Norton, William.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Reidy, James.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Flinn, Hugo. V
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 13 not moved.
I move amendment No. 14:—
Before Section 25 to insert a new section as follows:—
The fee per ton payable in respect of import licences under sub-section (1) of Section 36 of the Cement Act, 1933 (No. 17 of 1933), shall be 1/- per ton, in lieu of the fee of 5/- per ton now payable as on and from the passing of this Act.
This is another instance of the pickpocket tactics of the Government. In July, 1933, the Cement Act was passed and it gave the Government power to impose a licence fee on persons bringing cement into this country. That was all right until the Minister started to deal with his budgetary situation. The night before he revealed to the people the total amount of taxation he was going to impose for the coming year and the amount of money he was going to spend, he apparently had a back-door conversation with the Minister for Industry and Commerce and he said to the Minister for Industry and Commerce: "It would be very useful if I could get about £80,000 a year in some way or another. About £65,000 would do me this year. Is there any way by which you could pick up £65,000 this year to help us balance our Budget? We have screwed every ½d. we could out of the poorest people in the country but we find that we are not able to make ends meet." Then the Minister for Industry and Commerce, either on his own initiative or with the help of the Minister for Finance, found Section 36 of the Cement Act of 1933 and the necessary order was made out imposing 5/- per ton on every ton of cement coming into the country after that night.
The Minister for Finance came into the House next day and expounded his views on the financial position of the country. He told us he was going to get a certain amount of money out of the old sources of revenue and that he was going to impose additional taxation to the amount of £1,085,000. He completely hid from the House the fact that £65,000 was going to come into the Treasury as a result of the arrangement he made the night before in regard to cement. No one knew anything about it until persons applying for a licence to import cement were informed that they would have to pay 5/- per ton on every ton of cement they wanted to import. That is the method that the Minister for Finance and the Fianna Fáil Government adopt when they want to fool this country as to the amount of money they are taking out of people's pockets to run the Government. This tax they estimated will bring in £65,000 this year and in a normal year will bring £80,000, but they walked into the Dáil next day and kept their tongues in their cheeks and said nothing about it. They presented us with a statement of receipts and expenditure totalling £29,386,000 but the £65,000 that is to be received from cement was completely hidden from us.
In the first place, we do not want to tolerate that type of conduct in carrying on the financial business of the country and in levying taxation. In the second place, we consider it scandalous that a tax of 5/- per ton should be imposed on cement. Part of the great Fianna Fáil policy is to provide everybody with their homes. It has been pointed out that an enormous amount of public money has been spent and that we are getting a much smaller return for the money that is being spent now in the number of houses that are being erected than the previous Government got. If the Minister wants to say: "We are spending too much in that way, and we shall have to take £65,000 off that expenditure or we must get £65,000 by this tax in order to put it against the money we are spending on housing, let him say so. But the tax, as it stands, means that having gone into a labourer's cottage in the country and put a tax on the linoleum, on the wallpaper and on the glass, he took a last look at the wall when going out and said: "There must be something in that that we could put a tax on," and here we have a 5/- tax put on every ton of cement. The Minister is so ashamed of his tea tax, his sugar tax and his coal tax that he dare not open his mouth in the Dáil to defend this. He is, apparently, so much ashamed of the other taxes, so much ashamed of digging inside, that into the wall of the labourer's cottage he is now putting a tax. He is putting a tax on the occupants of labourers' cottages and the local authority that is trying to provide the houses that he cannot provide himself. The Minister is so ashamed of that, that not only will he not open his mouth here but that when he came before the House with his budgetary statement and circulated his table explanatory of his expenditure and income for the year, he did not dare to show in that what he had planned to do as part of his budgetary arrangements. He did not dare to say in it that he was going to take £65,000 out of the cement coming into the country. The Minister has shown that very little would make him talk here if he could get the opportunity of talking. He has been butting in every second minute when we endeavour to present a case here. I do wish that the Minister's shame would drive him into making some explanation as to why this tax is being put on, and why it has been put on in the exact way in which it is being put on.
I would like to support this reduction in the duty imposed on cement. I do not know what the Minister calculates it will add to every house that is being put up, but certainly £5 per house is a moderate estimate of the increased cost that will be occasioned.
On a point of order. I do not know whether the Deputy has adverted to the fact that this import licence fee is levied under Section 36 of the Cement Act, 1933, which gives the Minister for Industry and Commerce power to fix, with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance, the licence fee which will be payable on the importation of cement. I cannot see how the remarks of Deputy Dockrell can be made relevant, even if this amendment were in order, on this particular Bill, because I do not see how the amendment could be given effect to unless by amendment of the Act of 1933 and there is no mention of that in the amendment.
Is the Minister lecturing the Chair on order?
The Minister has raised a point of order. The amendment was considered by the Chair to be in order. Consequently Deputy Dcokrell is in order in asking for a reduction of this duty on cement.
What would be the effect of the amendment, if passed, on Section 36 of the Cement Act of 1933?
All that would be required is that the section would not be operated.
There is nothing in the amendment dealing with that.
All that it would be necessary for the Minister to do would be to withdraw the Order imposing his particular licence. It would not be necessary to amend the Act.
If the amendment were an express attempt to amend legislation, the Chair would have a different view on it, but I understand the Minister has power to regulate this charge.
But this is not a request to reduce it. This is an attempt, over the heads of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance, to reduce this licence fee from 5/- to 1/-, the power to fix the fee at 5/- having already been conferred on these Ministers by an Act of the Oireachtas. There is nothing in this amendment which purports to remove that power from them, and, therefore, I cannot see how, if the amendment were carried, it could be given effect to. I am not pressing the point, but I submit that it is z matter that ought to be considered.
That is a matter that can be regulated by a Quota Order, and the issue, either as to the Act or the Minister's discretion, is not affected.
I would like to suggest to the Minister for Finance that the 5/- duty imposed by his colleague is, as we have been endeavouring to point out, adding considerably to the high costs of building in this country. It is quite unnecessary to point out, I submit, that an increase of £5 in the cost of a house must occasion some increase in the rent, and from that point of view this charge will fall on the working classes of the country. The Minister is aware, taking cement under the three main headings— British, Danish and Belgian—that there is a 5/- emergency duty as well levied on the British. If one looks up cement imports for 1933 he will see that the effect of that has been that British imports have fallen by 36,000 tons and that Danish imports have increased by 38,000 tons. I do not suggest that the Minister had any wish to throw the British cement trade into the hands of Denmark, but that has been the effect. I do not wish to enlarge on the fact that cement boats that have come over from Denmark have in certain instances, probably in many, brought back coal from England to Denmark in order to enable Denmark to fulfil the undertaking to increase imports from Great Britain. I suggest to the Minister that one part of the tax ought to be done away with. As regards the second part, namely, that levied on the British, I suggest to him that he ought to try and see if the British, in return for taking that off, would not allow in free some exports from this country that are at present subject to tax. That is all that I have to say on this, and I hope that the Minister will deal with it when replying.
The Minister seems to be going on the assumption that there is no obligation whatever on him to pay any heed to the wishes of this House. He seems to think that when a Bill is passed here conferring certain authority on the Minister for Industry and Commerce and himself to do certain things, and when matters under it, such as this tax, come before the House for review, that there is no obligation on him to pay any heed to the views of Deputies. Is it the Minister's contention that if the House decides, by a majority, to pass this amendment that he is not under any obligation to obey the wishes of the House? If that is the Minister's assumption, it is a very arrogant assumption, indeed. I do not know whether the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Industry and Commerce realises what this provision means. Considering the other taxation imposed, we need not wonder at this tax, but it is certainly going to have the effect of increasing the cost of the erection of houses and of increasing the rents of houses. As Deputy Mulcahy pointed out, there would be some sense in the Government saying that they would reduce their grants for housing. Instead of that, they say they will get the money in another way, by taxing cement. The effect will be the same. I do not know whether the Ministers concerned realise the extent to which cement is used on the farm. Anybody acquainted with the country knows that the use of cement has done more to tidy up small farmers' places than any other article ever manufactured in this or any other country. Cement is still being used extensively by the farmer but, apparently, the Minister cannot keep his hands off anything that will bring money to the Government. It is not a happy state of affairs for any of us that food, clothing, cement and other items of common use should have to be taxed to meet the Government's extravagant requirements.
A very active organisation is agitating in the country districts with a view to bringing before the Government the question of the buying out of labourers' cottages. This tax on cement has only one purpose. That is to help in raising revenue. It is not going to help any cement industry about to be started in the near future. When it is realised that cement is being deliberately taxed to provide money for the running of the Government and that this tax will fall on the future owners of the cottages which are being built in the country, the pit into which the Government have fallen financially will be appreciated.
The duty to which the Deputy refers was imposed by an Act of the Oireachtas and the purpose of the amendment before the Committee is to have that duty reduced. I may also say that the Chair had some doubts as to whether this amendment and, on the same grounds, a Government amendment No. 20, were in order. If one were ruled out, both would have to be disallowed. I allowed both amendments.
I want to make an appeal for the abolition of this tax on behalf of local bodies. Local bodies are endeavouring to lay permanent ways for the convenience of traffic. The most successful way of dealing with heavy traffic is to lay down substantial concrete roadways. The ratepayer and the taxpayer will be mulcted in increased cost by this tax in connection with the laying of these permanent ways. Public bodies, such as the authorities of mental homes and hospitals, as well as private individuals, will have to dig deeper into their finances because of this taxation. Mr. Lloyd George said, after the war: "Search their pockets to the uttermost farthing." That is what the Minister is doing. It is a pity we have not a Kaiser here, because he could say: "Hang the Kaiser" as well.
The Government would be well advised to consider this amendment before rejecting it. This provision puts a tax upon industry and initiative and affects practically every type of institution required in the development of the industry and commerce of the State. A later amendment seeks to deal with a situation which might arise in connection with contracts. If there is one thing more inadvisable than another, it is that contracts should be the subject of dispute between the persons who enter into them. In this case, we have the imposition of a licence duty which amounts to a tax. The Dáil, when it passed the Bill, never thought it would be used in this fashion. In the Minister's opinion, there is, apparently, the possibility of disputes between the contracting parties. To obviate resort to the courts, the Government have introduced amendment No. 20. If this Finance Bill passes without the amendment proposed by Deputy Mulcahy, a further warning will be given to persons who are about to enter into contracts. In the normal course, people can calculate a certain percentage as representing the difference between the estimated, or even accepted, cost under a contract and the ultimate cost. If, by reason of an Act of the Oireachtas, the parties are not able to appraise that percentage but have to fall back upon a speculative amount, you will interfere with the making of contracts, and you will hinder any expansion or improvement in business premises or in factories or other institutions. It so happens that, amongst the requirements of the community, building has, perhaps, advanced more in cost during the last few years than anything else. It may be urged that this particular provision was not intended to increase the cost of building, but, owing to the manner in which this portion of the section is drawn and has been operated, there can be no other result. It is one of those provisions of the Act which might be re-considered.
It is not impossible for the Minister to fix a quota in connection with this amendment. If he wants to secure his object, that can be easily done. He can ensure that there will be no increase in the stocks normally required and, if the aim be to make a market for cement manufactured in this country, it can be done in that fashion. One can draw no other conclusion from the manner in which this licence fee of 5/- per ton is imposed than that it is a customs tax. It is a customs tax which, according to the Minister's speech on the Budget, is not required to balance the Budget. Therefore, it is either a plum or it has been imposed to meet some service or expense of which we have not heard. If such moneys are required they should be got from some other source than taxing such necessaries as housing, the construction of factories or buildings, or the extension of business premises. The Minister would be well advised to reconsider his attitude with regard to the acceptance of this amendment.
Will the Minister say a few words?
No. I do not think this matter should arise here at all.
The Minister objects to this House taking cognisances of the fact that he came in with his Budget statement and withheld the very serious fact that he had put on £65,000 in taxation the night before. He objects to the House discussing the fact that he did that, or discussing the nature of the tax, as he considers that the House is interfering with the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance. The House gave the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance power to do certain things in connection with the putting on of a licence fee on cement. It gave them that power in the open daylight, and neither the Minister for Industry and Commerce nor the Minister for Finance ever gave the slightest intimation that they were going to utilise it in the way it has been utilised.
I do not know if it is worth while raising a point of order again. The Deputy is now criticising the conduct of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance. The Vote for the Minister for Finance will be before the House, and it is usual on that Vote to criticise his conduct as an administrator. The Vote for the Minister for Industry and Commerce has been passed, and I do not think any further opportunity will arise to discuss the conduct of that Minister.
May I submit that I am discussing the effect of their attitude on the people of this country, financially?
The administration of the Department of Industry and Commerce does not arise. The effect of this tax, if considered such, does arise.
I am commenting on the way in which the Minister for Finance is treating this matter.
Precisely. The Deputy is criticising the conduct of the Minister for Finance.
His attitude. The Minister by this tax is raising the cost of housing, raising rents and the cost of road making. He has done that in the dark of night with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and we want power to limit the great stars, Castor and Pollux, so that the tax on cement will not exceed 1/-.
Will the Minister say a few words now? The Minister can be very nice, very polite, very plausible, and very dignified. Surely he can give us a little of that now. He has given very little of it in the last few days. Out of politeness to the House, and for dignity of the House, will he not say something now by way of explanation?
The Minister has burned his boats.
I think it is a great pity that a tax of this kind should be imposed. It was pointed out by Deputy Brennan and by Deputy Minch that that tax will seriously affect the activities of local authorities. At the same time, I think it right to say that it will not affect the cost of housing to the extent Deputy Mulcahy or Deputy Brennan anticipate. The ordinary four-room cottage takes about 10 tons of cement. With a tariff of 5/- per ton that would mean an extra cost of about £2 10s. per house, or, calculated on the basis of what it costs to borrow money for housing from the Local Loans Fund, it would mean that the tenant would be charged one-third of the one-fortieth part of £6 13s. 4d. per year.
What about a scheme of 10,000 houses?
I am going to vote with the Government on this question. That is exactly what the tax will represent.
Does the Deputy consider, after having made a careful calculation, that it would only impose an extra cost of £2 10s. 0d. on four-room houses?
Will it not cost those who occupy the labourers' cottages a shilling a year extra?
About that. I do not think that labourers' cottages would take ten tons of cement. I was speak-of four-room houses in urban areas.
The Deputy admits that it means a shilling a year extra.
Yes. That is what it really comes to.
We are protesting against all these taxes being imposed in this way, having regard to the condition of the people. I do not know if Deputy Corish is a member of the Wexford County Committee of Agriculture. The body with which he is connected is responsible for the setting up of that Committee, and for four months running, in the early part of this year, Wexford County Agricultural Committee appealed to the Government to come to the rescue of agricultural labourers in County Wexford, and to extend to them the benefits of the free meat scheme, on the ground that the average wages paid labourers in Wexford were only 8/- weekly. We are going to put a tax on cement which is going to take 1/- out of the 8/- that they receive weekly.
As I pointed out with regard to coal, the same condition is reported to exist in County Tipperary.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Tá: 30; Níl: 57.
Tá
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Everett, James.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Amendment declared lost.
Question—"That Section 25 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
Sections 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32 put and agreed to.
SECTION 33.
(1) Where a sum of money exceeding £100 is lodged or deposited (whether before or after the passing of this Act) with a banker in the joint names of two or more persons, and one of such persons (in this section referred to as the deceased) dies after the passing of this Act, such banker shall not pay such money or any part thereof to the survivor or all or any of the survivors of such person or to any other person unless or until there is produced to such banker a certificate by the Revenue Commissioners (acting by any of such commissioners or by any of their officers) certifying that there is no outstanding claim for duty in connection with the death of the deceased in respect of such money or any part thereof.
(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (7) of Section 6 of the Finance Act, 1894, duty leviable and payable on the death of the deceased shall be deemed for the purposes of this section to become due on the day of the death of the deceased.
(3) Every banker who shall pay any money in contravention of this section shall be guilty of an offence under this section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to an excise penalty of £500.
(4) Where a banker is charged with an offence under this section, the onus of proving that such certificate as is mentioned in this section was produced to such banker before he made the payment which is alleged to constitute such offence shall lie on such banker.
(5) In this section—
the word "banker" means a person who carries on in Saorstát Eireann the business of banking;
the word "pay" includes transfer in the books of a banker.
I move amendment No. 15:—
In sub-section (1), to delete all words from and including the word "Where", line 15 to and including the word and bracket "Act)" line 17 and substitute the words, "Where, either before or after the passing of this Act, a sum of money exceeding £100 is lodged or deposited (otherwise than on a current account) in Saorstát Eireann."
This amendment is designed to ensure that current accounts will not be caught by the section.
Amendment No. 15 put and agreed to.
I move amendment No. 16:—
In sub-section (1), line 22, to delete the word "produced" and substitute the word "furnished."
The object of this amendment is merely to enable the banker to retain the certificate as a safeguard after the money has been released.
We cannot hear what the Minister said.
I pointed out that the object of this amendment is merely to enable the banker to retain the certificate as a proof that it had been furnished to him and that the money was properly released.
Amendment No. 16 put and agreed to.
I move amendment No. 17:—
In sub-section (4) line 37, to delete the word "produced" and substitute the word "furnished."
Amendment No. 17 put and agreed to.
I move amendment No. 18:—
Before sub-section (5), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
"Where a banker is charged with an offence under this section, it shall be a good defence to such charge to prove that, at the time when such banker made the payment of money which is alleged to constitute such offence, he had reasonable ground for believing that none of the persons in whose joint names such money was lodged or deposited with him was dead."
I think the purpose of this amendment is self-evident.
Amendment No. 18 put and agreed to.
I move amendment No. 19:—
In sub-section (5), after line 43, to add the words—
"the expression ‘current account' means an account which is customarily operated upon by means of cheque or banker's order."
This is merely a drafting amendment consequential upon amendment No. 15.
Can the Minister say whether there is any other legal interpretation of "current account" than that?
I do not know, but I think the Standing Committee of the Banks are satisfied that the proposed amendment will safeguard them sufficiently.
Amendment No. 19 put and agreed to.
Question—"That Section 33, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put and agreed to.
Sections 34 and 35 put and agreed to.
SECTION 36.
I move amendment No. 20:—
Before Section 36 to insert a new section as follows:—
Whenever the importation into Saorstát Eireann of any goods is prohibited by or under an Act of the Oireachtas (whether passed before or after this Act) and provision is made by the same or any other Act for the issue of licences for the importation of such goods notwithstanding such prohibition. Section 10 of the Finance Act, 1901, as amended and extended by Section 7 of the Finance Act, 1902, and by Section 43 of the Finance Act, 1932 (No. 20 of 1932), shall apply and in the case of licences issued under an Act passed before this Act, be deemed always to have applied to any fee which may be chargeable by statute or under statutory authority on the issue of such licences, and to any increase or decrease in the amount of any such fee, and to the repeal of the statute or statutory authority under which any such fee is chargeable, in like manner in all respects and as fully as if such fee were a Customs import duty within the meaning of the said Section 10.
Section 10 of the Finance Act, 1901, provides, among other things, that where a Customs duty is imposed on any commodity delivered under a contract made before the date of the imposition of the duty the amount of the duty paid in respect of such goods may be added to the contract price. This section does not apply to import licence fees. It is proposed here to extend that in order to alleviate any hardship which might be caused to contractors or others by placing import licence fees on the same footing as Customs duties in the matter of contracts.
So that the whole of the Minister's objection to the previous amendment by Deputy Mulcahy falls to the ground?
The Minister was making a case a short time ago that import licences were not taxation, and that in consequence an amendment to reduce the import licences was in his opinion out of order. He went perilously near the domain of disorder when he was challenging the House as to whether it was competent for it to consider the amendment. Now he proceeds to recognise a licence order of exactly the same character as an imposition of Customs duty. A licence order, according to this, is equivalent to a Customs duty. In order to get round that particular matter it is branded now as a Customs duty. The position we are in with regard to cement is that, while in the Minister's mind we were out of order in discussing it a few moments ago as a Customs duty imposition, now we are at liberty to regard it as such as soon as this amendment is passed. This raises the question which I dealt with a few moments ago that contracts are now scarcely worth the paper they are written on. They relate only to a set of circumstances before interference by the legislation, and before the alteration took place with regard to duties, Customs and so on. Deputy Corish said here a short time ago that the cost on a labourer's cottage of the imposition of this cement duty would amount to one-third of the one-fortieth part of £6 13s. 4d. He did not tell us where he got his figures.
I assume for the moment that £2 10/- is the sum which——
The Deputy is reverting to a discussion on an amendment already dealt with.
As far as this particular thing is concerned it has a bearing on it, because it means that the contractor — that is in essence the occupants of labourers' cottages in future—is going to pay this. Until this is passed the liability is on the builder. It will be on the occupant of the labourer's cottage directly this is passed. Am I not entitled in those circumstances to mention that this is a tax on the occupants of labourers' cottages?
To mention the matter, yes, but not to reply to arguments advanced in the debate on a previous amendment.
I always understood it was the first law of natural philosophy, having acquired a knowledge of one's duty, to communicate it to others.
On suitable occasions. This is not one.
The mistake was very nearly passing this House that the interest on £2 10/- would be a shilling a year.
That has little relation to the amendment under consideration.
I am dealing now with the occupant of the labourer's cottage, and he is going to suffer because of an increased cost of £2 10/-, taking it from a source that is not ex-cathedra, I suppose.
The Deputy will have to be content with that. A discussion on cement would not be in order.
This really deals with cement. The obvious intention of this particular amendment of the Government is to ensure that the licence duty is now to be regarded as a Customs duty, and as such it will affect contracts in future to that extent. Before this amendment passes——
On a point of order, may I call your attention to the fact that there is nothing in this section which states that a licence duty is to be regarded as a Customs duty.
So the income from it will not be disclosed in the Budgetary statement every year? Does the Minister mean that?
The terms of this particular amendment are:—
"... Section 10 of the Finance Act, 1901, as amended and extended by Section 7 of the Finance Act, 1902, and by Section 43 of the Finance Act, 1932 (No. 20 of 1932), shall apply and in the case of licences issued under an Act passed before this Act, be deemed always to have applied to any fee which may be chargeable by Statute or under statutory authority on the issue of such licences, and to any increase or decrease in the amount of any such fee, and to the repeal of the Statute or statutory authority under which any such fee is chargeable, in like manner in all respects and as fully as if such fee were a Customs import duty within the meaning of the said Section 10."
But that does not make it a Customs import duty.
It makes it a Customs import duty for the purposes of this Act, which is all we are concerned with, and so far as the licence duty in respect of cement is concerned this is intended to cover it. It is no longer, in so far as this Act is concerned a licence duty but a Customs duty, and must be regarded as such. As such, it transfers the burden from the shoulders of the builder to the shoulders of the occupant of a labourer's cottage, of the man who is extending his premises, or of the man who is building anything to which the cost of cement will enter in. If that point is clear—and it is not easy to make points clear to some people—we can proceed to deal with the matter. It so happens that there is no member of that front bench over there who is building a house, or perhaps who has ever built one.
What has this got to do with it?
A resumption of the discussion on the cement duty is not in order. This is a general resolution with no particular application to cement. Surely the Deputy would not suggest that the fact that a contractor might employ any material that might come under this amendment would justify the Deputy in entering into a detailed discussion on the costs that might be entailed by using such materials in industry.
Could he not illustrate the effect on the cost of cement by one particular example? Surely that is in order.
The Deputy was not prevented from so illustrating his argument. The transfer of the costs from contractor to owner and consequent costs on housebuilding, are matters which should have been raised on another amendment, and were in fact so raised.
Then we will come back to the matter in this fashion, that this amendment is going to resolve any doubt that there was in anybody's mind as to who is going to pay the 5/- tax. This amendment will ensure that it is going to fall upon the shoulders of the poor people in the country. It is going to fall on the occupant of every labourer's cottage which is going to be built from this out, and in respect of which a 5/- licence duty is paid on cement. It is a monstrous state of affairs that that sort of thing should go on. The money is not required, as I said before, in connection with the Budget, or the Minister cannot be relied upon in connection with his Budget speech.
This amendment is in general terms, but what in fact it seeks to do is this: When the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance met to discuss what was wrong with the Budget and to find £65,000 on cement, there were local bodies throughout the country, and private persons, who had entered into building contracts. If we take County Wexford, where they have been building a lot of labourers' cottages, it is quite possible that there are some outstanding contracts between the Board of Health and builders in connection with some of the labourers' cottages that were in process of building then. The amendment here seeks to transfer to the Board of Health, and in fact from them to the labourers, the increased cost over the cost that the Board of Health had arranged to build the cottages for. I consider that to do that is absolutely unjust. With the limited amount of money at the disposal of the Board of Health, and with the limited capacity of the labourers to pay their rents, the increase of £2 10/- per house did raise a question for them which necessitated a review of their general housing position before entering into commitments to go ahead perhaps with more houses. I think there was a previous occasion upon which action of this kind was contemplated by the Minister in connection with the tariff put on steel, where they adopted a different method and where they allowed a certain amount off, where they took off at least the burden of a tariff in certain instances. I think what the Minister should do in connection with housing contracts and road contracts—generally, wherever there are contracts affected by the imposition of a tariff on cement from 14th May—is that instead of upsetting the contracts in this way by putting the cost of cement on top of them, that the cement should be admitted free of the cost of this licence in respect of such contracts as are caught. That is a more reasonable and a fair way of doing it; it would be the fairer way of doing it in respect of any licence of this kind.
Nobody knows now, or at any time, where he stands with regard to any contract. A licence duty, or an emergency tariff, in respect of the various things upon which the Ministry have power to impose a tariff, may catch a contract in any particular stage. It may be the building of a house or the manufacturing of an article, or a set of articles. It means playing ducks and drakes with the small amount of business there is in the country if this want of confidence that is brought about by the insertion of a general clause of this kind is going to operate on the commercial community, or on the section of the community requiring constructive work to be done. I am opposed to this amendment and I think the House should oppose it. There is another and a more reasonable way of dealing with the matter and that is by granting licences for the free import of such things as are involved in the actual contracts.
Is the Deputy opposing the amendment?
I personally will oppose it.
Is his Party opposing it?
I would like to support the attitude taken up by Deputy Mulcahy. The Minister and my friend, Deputy Corish, must realise what difficulties are going to present themselves in relation, for instance, to the building of cottages. Take the estimate given by Deputy Corish to-day that ten tons of cement will build a labourer's cottage.
There was an amendment before the House dealing with cement and it was disposed of. The Deputy should realise that.
I quite agree. The point I want to make is this. What safeguard is there for local authorities in this matter in view of the Minister's amendment? Deputy Corish tells us that it takes ten tons of cement to build a house. Suppose a contractor in Roscommon says "No; it takes 20 tons of cement," the extra charge must go on the local authority. Who is to act as arbitrator?
Has the Deputy never heard of a quantity surveyor?
May I suggest that if the Minister has any remarks to make it might be more conducive to orderly debate if you could induce him to make a speech and not to be interrupting continually? It has occurred here repeatedly and he has never stood up to reply to anyone. I merely make that suggestion.
I am perfectly serious in what I am saying. Apparently, the Minister is not very serious in his remarks. There are various contracts being given all over the country by private persons and local authorities for cement houses, and quite a large amount of cement is being used. Suppose a contractor says he has to use a certain amount, who is to determine whether he has or not? Are we not at the mercy of the contractors? So far as the local authorities are concerned, who is to arbitrate? The Minister asked me had I heard of a quantity surveyor. Of course I have heard of a quantity surveyor. But I am sure the Minister is well aware that quantity surveyors are not always engaged on these jobs. There is no safeguard for the public, so far as this matter is concerned.
The Minister, this year, has already permitted the importation of 108,000 tons of coal without the payment of duty. Why can he not remit the amount of the licence on cement caught by contracts on the 14th May last? What is the difficulty about doing that? Would it not be a great relief for the community generally if that arrangement were adopted? What is the difficulty in doing with regard to cement or any other article that is caught in this way what has been done in respect of 108,000 tons of coal?
Amendment put and agreed to.
New section ordered to stand part of the Bill.
I move amendment No. 21:
Before Section 36 to insert a new section as follows:—
(1) Sub-section (2) of Section 38 of the Finance Act, 1926 (No. 35 of 1926) is hereby amended by the insertion of the word "five" in lieu of the word "three" where it occurs in that sub-section and the said Section 38 shall be construed and have effect subject to the provisions of this section.
(2) This section shall come into force and have effect as on and from the 5th day of August, 1935.
Under the Finance Act of 1926 it is provided that in respect of persons who are in receipt of wages they are exempt from receipt stamp duty if the amount of their wages does not exceed £3 a week. Formerly, the position was that a person whose wages exceeded £2 a week was required to pay from those wages receipt stamp duty measured at the rate of 2d. a week. In 1926 the Dáil amended the relative Act, I think it was the Stamp Act of 1891, in such a way as to provide that the amount of wages necessary to require the fixation of a receipt stamp would be raised from £2 a week to £3. This amendment now seeks to raise the amount of wages for which receipt stamp duty will be required from £3 to £5.
The imposition of a tax upon the wage earners for the mere privilege of drawing wages which he has already earned by his toil is something I have never been able to understand. If the State feels the worker must subscribe his signature for the receipt of wages, it ought to pay the cost of his doing so. If the requirement is in the interest of the employer, the employer ought to be obliged to make a contribution. Under the Stamp Act it is the recipient who is required to make the contribution in respect of the fixation of the stamp. The requirement, in my view, is unfair to weekly wage earners, inasmuch as the more frequently a person is paid wages the more often he is required to make this contribution. Weekly wage earners make it 52 times a year, whereas in the case of a person paid monthly he makes only 12 contributions, and the amount of the contribution is the same. People paid quarterly make only four contributions and, although the sum they receive may be 50 times more than a weekly wage earner receives, the amount of the contribution is just the same.
In Great Britain and Northern Ireland this requirement has long since been discontinued, but in the Saorstát, although we inherited the legislation originally from Britain, we have continued it long after Britain abandoned it. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment. In fixing £5 I have endeavoured to confine the exemption to those properly described as the wage earning classes.
I regret I cannot see my way to accept this amendment. I do not know how general the practice may be of employers requiring employees to give receipts for the weekly wages, or salaries, paid to them, and until I have some further opportunity of looking into the matter I would not be in a position to agree to the principle proposed in this amendment. I will, however, look into the matter further and possibly—I do not want to be told next year that I said probably—we may be able to do something on the lines indicated by the Deputy.
When the Minister speaks about looking into these things does that mean knocking around to look into them and possibly seeing some other thing on to which he could stick a tax and out of which he could squeeze a few more halfpence? There is not a particular class in the community that the Minister has not got in already so far as this Budget is concerned. The main people he is getting after are people who would be saving a couple of pence a week by the proposal which Deputy Norton has put down. The Minister may coo about this proposal. I think it would be a very small concession to give to a class of people from whom he has squeezed so much. But I may say that I feel some apprehension as to what may happen to the class in which Deputy Norton is interested when the Minister looks into this question.
The Minister now pledges himself about this matter, and he says he would require about 12 months to look into it. Apparently that means that it is only after 12 months' cogitation on the matter that the Minister can give a decision. I think I can produce a letter from the Minister, dated 1934, in which he said he would look into this matter, so that he has had already 12 months to do so. The Minister now comes to the House as if he had never written that letter. But the Minister has committed himself in writing already 12 months ago. He promised to do so last year; he will hardly contend that it requires a further 12 months' examination after having made a very specific promise that he would look into it. It is a very small concession, it is definitely measurable, and its cost to the Exchequer will be small. At the same time, it will remove from the wage earners a constant cause of irritation. I hope the Minister will expedite the process of looking into it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 36 put and agreed to.
Section 37 put and agreed to.
FIRST SCHEDULE.
I move amendment No. 22:—
At reference No. 1 in the third column to delete "75 per cent." and to substitute "20 per cent."
In this Schedule we have the beginning of a cycle tax. In his last extremity when going around the house of the worker the Minister's agents saw a bicycle and they saw a pretty light at the back. Then it was that they realised that it was necessary to have rear reflectors on a bicycle. The Minister heard the various suggestions that are being made with regard to a cycle tax and he hit on the magnificent idea of putting a tax on bicycles—a tax that would not be noticed. I searched the latest and the most up-to-date official directory ever published——
That is the first time Deputy Mulcahy has complimented the Minister.
I must say that my remarks there were in inverted commas. The Minister has decided on putting a tariff of 75 per cent. on rear reflectors intended for use on bicycles or tricycles. I say this is nothing but a bicycle tax. If the Minister wants to say that since the issue of his directory a factory for the manufacture of rear reflectors for bicycles and tricycles has been set up I would like to ask him how many people are employed in it and whether he could give us some particulars about it. He should tell us why these reflectors cannot be manufactured in this country and sold at satisfactory prices without this enormous tariff of 75 per cent. being imposed on imports.
Rear reflectors intended for other purposes than for bicycles are at present subject to the same rate of tax as is proposed here. There seems no reason why the same duty should not apply to rear reflectors for cycles. These can be made equally well here. The company that was engaged in the manufacture of these articles ceased operations in consequence of the dumping of rear reflectors from other countries. There is no reason why these articles should not be manufactured here at prices which are very satisfactory. It is necessary to afford protection in order to prevent undue competition from external sources.
I think a tariff of 75 per cent. is an outrageous tariff. I do not know what the Minister means by rear reflectors being made at suitable prices.
I mean prices similar to those at which rear-reflectors are sold.
I do not know what the Minister means by suitable prices, but I take it he means an addition of 75 per cent. to the present price at which they are sold.
The Minister seems to have an extraordinary mind in approaching these matters. His method of reducing prices seems— somewhat like in the case of the cutlery and knives—to decrease the present price by putting on a 75 per cent. tariff. If reflectors are sold at anything like the same price as the present price and if they are to be of the same quality, what is the necessity for this tariff? Why should there be any need? Why should traders introduce large quantities of a dearer and worse article when they can get as suitable made at home? The Minister has made no case for imposing the high tariff of 75 per cent. The Minister's only method of decreasing the cost of an article here seems to be to put on a tariff of 75 per cent.
The Deputy asked why should traders import large quantities of a dearer and worse article. I do not know, but the fact is they do.
One reason why they were imported is that persons dealing with Germany in the matter of accessories generally brought in general accessories in bulk and rear-reflectors were part of that consignment. I remember when that industry was in existence a couple of years ago hearing it discussed. I remember that the man who was running the industry was described as a very enterprising man with a very efficient establishment. At the same time he found it impossible to carry on. He was not in a position to advertise his goods. In order to get a connection with existing wholesale traders he would have had to spend money; he would have had to provide working capital that was not available to him. At the same time, traders who had it in their power to make or mar his industry had established connections and they were importing large quantities of accessories, including rear reflectors, and were getting them, I was told, at extraordinarily cheap prices. But the plea that I heard for protection for this industry was from a man, I may say he was a political supporter of the Opposition, who simply had observed there was an industry that ought to be protected. At the same time, he prophesied that if it did not get substantial protection in the circumstances in which it found itself it would inevitably go out of existence.
I should like to assure Deputy Moore that if any political supporter of this Party came to us and said that there should be a tariff on such-and-such an article we would require to hear a case for putting on a tariff of 75 per cent. We have heard no case either from Deputy Moore or from the Minister.
Even though they were dumping?
The Minister did not make that case.
I said they were being sold at the same price.
I should like to ask Deputy Moore if the position is that cycle accessories are coming in here, part of them being a rear reflector, and if under this proposed tariff, the 75 per cent. is going to operate on the whole part—that the whole part is going to be treated as a reflector?
It is quite obvious that a different case is being made by the Minister and by Deputy Moore. The Minister tried to get out of it by saying that they are being sold cheaper. It is obvious that if wholesalers get them cheaper they can sell cheaper. Therefore, the case is that there is going to be a dearer price charged than need be charged as a result of this. That was not the case put up by the Minister at the start. As usual, they were to be got cheaper. Deputy Moore gets up and blows the foundation from under that by saying that they were dumped. It is the very opposite case to what the Minister put up.
Question put—"That the words proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided:—Tá, 60; Níl, 33.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus. P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Anthony, Richard.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 23:—
In reference No. 3, second column, after the words "and bandaging material" in the last line of the reference to insert the words "and also crepe bandages and bandaging material."
The amendment is unnecessary as the articles mentioned in it are not subject to duty.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move amendment No. 24:—
At reference No. 5, in the 3rd column, to delete "50 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
Reference No. 5 here proposes a tariff of 50 per cent. on felting and felting substitutes and other like substances intended for use as roofing material or as a damp course. There is a very considerable amount of housebuilding going on and much of it is financed by the State. Unlike the financing of housing carried on by the previous Government, a great deal of the finance is carried on to-day on borrowed money. A very considerable amount of debt is being piled up for a comparatively small number of houses. Numbers of houses are still required and need to be built. This is one of a series of taxes tending to raise the cost of small classes of building material, some important, some not so important, by a considerable amount. There does not seem to be the slightest reason at all why a tariff as high as 50 per cent. should be imposed upon felting, or on a variety of substances coming into this country. The Minister can perhaps tell us to what extent these things are being manufactured here, and the amount of employment that is being given. He may be able to give some reason why the cost should be increased so much as in the case of this particular tariff. There is certainly no reason known to us why that should be done. There are many reasons connected with the housing programme in existence that go to show why this tariff should not be raised to more than 20 per cent.
The fact is that Irish made roofing felt is cheaper and generally better than the imported material; that is generally agreed. For some unexplained reason there is still an import of something like £100,000 worth of roofing felt. Roofing felt is manufactured in this country by two firms, one in Dublin and the other in Waterford, and between them they could supply all our requirements. In making the statement that Irish roofing felt is cheaper and better I do so after consultation with those who are competent to express an opinion.
To say that because an Irish article is cheaper and better than the imported article you must put on a 50 or 75 per cent. duty on the imported article is simply absurd. I am quite willing to believe that Irish felt is cheaper and better, but the Minister is not taking an opportunity of advertising that fact. He is telling the country that it is neither cheaper nor better by his conduct in this matter, and he is thereby doing damage to Irish industry rather than otherwise.
In the few remarks that he made I am not clear that the Minister made any case for this 50 per cent. duty. There is one extraordinary aspect of this that perhaps deserves to be mentioned. I think one member of the Government Party, when this Finance Bill was introduced, said that these duties were of course put on for protection purposes and that there was no such case as putting on a duty on raw material, and putting a lower duty on the finished article. I should like to point out that under this heading precisely that state of affairs will be brought about because felting and felting substitutes are subject to a 50 per cent. tariff, but when you print anything on them they come in free as felt base floor coverings. I do not know if anybody has noticed that some enterprising builder is using what some persons might take to be carpets for damp course, which, on investigation, prove to be merely felt base floor covering which had been cut up because it came in free. If that situation is brought about, it would render this section Gilbertian. It seems extraordinary that linoleum and oilcloth should be subject to a duty and that felt base floor covering, which would be felting with a pattern printed on it, should be free. Perhaps the Minister will tell us the reason for that because, from the Minister's remarks, it seems as if there was no necessity for any protection at all and in fact, the stuff can come in with the printing on it free.
Felt and felting substitutes and other like substances, intended for use as roofing material or damp course, are liable to duty whether printed or not. It is possible that people have evaded the duty by false declarations, but that is a matter which could be rectified if specific instances are brought to the notice of the Revenue Commissioners.
Does this include damp coursing?
Is that manufactured here?
In sufficient quantities?
Yes, in adequate quantities by two firms.
Can the Minister give us any reason why it should cost 50 per cent. more?
It does not cost 50 per cent. more, but the duty of 37½ per cent. has not been adequate to stop imports, and we have decided to raise it.
Would the Minister tell the House that there is not a duty of 37½ per cent., in fact, because there is a preferential duty of 25 per cent., and the Minister's proposal in fact is to increase the duty, not from 37½ per cent., but from 25 per cent. to 50 per cent., that is, doubling the tariff on this particular article.
Nevertheless, the Minister tells us that the people here are producing more cheaply and better. Surely the Minister does not take us for a pack of children. We are putting it to the Minister that we will not support the imposition of a tariff on goods that are of importance to the building industry here to the extent of 50 per cent. The Minister has all the machinery at his disposal for persuading us that it is necessary. He has made no attempt to give us any idea of how much of this stuff is manufactured here; how many persons are employed; or to give us anything about costs or any reason why it is necessary to raise the tariff from an effective figure of 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. He wants us simply to swallow his statement that really is not necessary because the stuff that is made here is cheaper and better than the stuff imported, but for some queer reason, connected with atmospherics more than anything else, he wants a 50 per cent. tariff.
The Deputy is speaking in respect of one of two different attitudes. I say that if there are Irish firms, employing Irish workers and producing these goods as cheaply and of equal quality as those produced any where, they are entitled to the Irish market. The Deputy, on the other hand, wants to refuse the protection which enabled that industry to be brought into existence and kept in existence.
The Minister's own statement is quite clear, that this industry can stand on its own legs, but the Minister's conduct shows that he does not believe that. There is a variance between his estimate of the value of his product and his conduct in the House. That is the case we are making. The Minister's only method of keeping down prices in respect of every one of these tariffs is to put on 50 per cent. and 75 per cent. tariffs. He always admits that the article is cheaper and better and still his only method of getting over that fact to the public is to say "the duty is 75 per cent. if you want to buy a competing article." That does not show much belief in the article in question. I am not questioning the value of that article, but I say that the conduct of the Minister is. This is one example of many in this particular schedule. It is an example of which we have had so many in this House in the last couple of days—we had one yesterday—of one Minister going one way and another going another, one Minister trying to encourage housing and the other trying to put every obstacle in the way.
The Deputies are trying to open up the market to the foreign importers.
It is not necessary to quota them.
If we have an article produced at home, which is as good and as cheap as the imported article, what do we want a 50 per cent. tariff for? Is it not overgenerous to give them 20 per cent.? The Minister cannot believe—he could not be so stupid as to believe— that the article can be turned out as cheaply as the foreign article. Otherwise he would be as stupid to offer a 50 per cent. preference. That is the very way to get an inferior article turned out. Make a man fight for it, and if 37½ per cent. is to be the line the Minister mentioned a moment ago, give them 40 per cent. and make them fight for their existence. The Minister says they wanted the protection of 37½ per cent. I do not know what they want, but that was what the Minister said, but he followed that up by saying that the article can be turned out as good and as cheaply here. Then 20 per cent. would be overgenerous. If 37½ per cent. is the fighting line, give them 2½ per cent. and they have ample. I will never get anything any good in this country and no man will produce it, if you put him in a glass house and protect him from any competition. He will grow up a delicate plant and will be unable to stand the rough and tumble of the outside world. If you take him out he will get pneumonia and die, and the Minister's industries will get pneumonia and die if he overprotects them. Give them a fighting chance and no more. There is something wrong if they do not win when they get it. I do not want to say any more on this, but I should like to know if the Minister has taken the comprehensive view of all these matters that is taken here. There is not a thing I know of in connection with the building trade which is not now taxed, and I suppose the next thing will be an excise duty on things we have here, such as gravel, sand and lime. We are making tiles and putting them on houses, but the Minister has shoved 5/- a ton tax on cement. We cannot make tiles without cement.
That is travelling a little from the particular reference we are discussing.
Here the Minister is getting in another blow.
We are discussing an amendment to a particular reference.
We give a 50 per cent. preference to an Irish producer of an article, and, according to the one man in this country who should know—and I do not question his knowledge of the matter—this article can be produced of, at least, equal quality and as cheaply as we can buy the imported article. Deputy Mulcahy, I think, is too generous in offering 20 per cent. While I go the whole of the way to support the Minister in his general policy of protection, I would not go one inch with anybody to give any man more than a fighting chance. In view of the Minister's statement that we can produce this article as cheaply as we can buy it, it is not consistent with good business to offer 50 per cent. on top of that. You are making a present at the community's expense and at the expense of the building trade, which has already been sufficiently handicapped, through shortage of money and various other things, as the Minister and his colleagues know very well. They know of the knocking at their doors for more money for various departments of the building trade, and here is a tariff of 50 per cent. which, according to the Minister's statement, is not warranted. I cannot fathom the Minister's attitude; it is one that requires some explanation.
The Minister said, a few moments ago, that these articles could be produced here and sold more cheaply than the imported article. He probably knew what he was talking about when he said that, but I should like to know how this comparison was based. Did he mean that they are cheaper than the imported article with a 50 per cent. tariff, or cheaper than the imported article at the point of production?
In my opinion, there is nothing whatever inconsistent in the statement that an article is as good and as cheap as an imported article, and that at the same time it requires a high tariff. It is not at all unusual to have goods that are even superior, far superior, to goods imported at a similar price boycotted in this country. Deputies opposite must know that a very small number of people in the wholesale trade hold the key to success for numbers of manufacturers. In the case we were discussing a while ago, I mentioned a particular industry which had practically to go out of existence because it was not able to obtain access to wholesale houses. That is so with a great many industries in this country. Wholesalers have their trade connections; they are a conservative body very often. They do not want to be diverted from the routine they have followed for years, and even though a native manufacturer offers them an article which is as good and as cheap as the imported article, they are not prepared to give him any consideration. If Deputies opposite were in office to-morrow and wanted to industrialise the country, they could not do so without high import tariffs. High tariffs are absolutely essential if we are to proceed with industrialisation. There are many inconsistencies in what Deputies opposite have said. While they themselves talk about inconsistencies between the statements of two Ministers here, there is a very big inconsistency in the assertion of Deputy Mulcahy that Ministers were searching around in every hole and corner to exact a few pounds from the people and in now protesting that the Minister will not accept this chance of getting a little revenue from imported goods. Surely, they cannot have it both ways. Either Ministers are anxious to develop industries by high tariffs or they are merely anxious to collect revenue by means of tariffs.
Deputy Moore seems to be slandering quite a number of groups of people in this country. He is pleased to slander the wholesalers in this country, and I would say that he is also slandering such bodies as the Irish Federation of Industries and the Irish Development Association. The Deputy cannot deny that into these two organisations there has come particularly recently, a very considerable body of persons connected with Irish industry, the distribution of Irish products, and Irish public life generally. It is, I say, simply a slander on these persons as well as on the wholesalers, to state that materials of this kind which are necessary for housing are produced in this country as good and as cheaply as the imported article, and still that they can be squeezed out of circulation by a boycott. Surely, the Deputy would never expect people to swallow a statement like that.
I did not say there was a boycott. I called it conservatism.
Where did we get the word "boycott" in this discussion but from the Deputy? He told us that there was a boycott of these things on behalf of certain wholesalers.
Did I use the word "boycott"?
The Deputy certainly did. It would never have entered my mind if he had not. The Deputy talks about developing industry by a system of high tariffs. He has no doubt that that is the best possible way, that we should put on a 75 per cent. or 100 per cent. tariff when we want to get anything manufactured here, and so shut off everything coming in that we did not want imported here.
Was the Deputy listening to Deputy Cosgrave?
What did Deputy Cosgrave say?
Deputy Cosgrave wanted to know why we did not prohibit these imports altogether.
Exactly. If the Minister tried to shut out certain things that are now coming, he would have to make a case for it, and we would know definitely what the result was, but here the Minister is trying to persuade us that we are getting goods manufactured here at a price that is absolutely rock bottom, but yet the Government want to impose a tariff of 50 per cent. on them. Deputy Moore says that if they were concerned with revenue they would not have these tariffs so high, and that what they are really concerned with is the development of industry. Would the Deputy look at the amount of Customs which his Party has been collecting for the last three years?
Deputy Mulcahy wants to collect still more revenue from these duties.
The Deputy is raising the Customs duty and trying to apply it for revenue purposes.
The Minister's reply to the arguments put forward here on this tariff and on many others is that they are not really necessary. Yet, they are put there for some reason difficult to understand. But practically in the Minister's own words, this is a tariff on felt which is not felt, inasmuch as the people who are paying the tax are not going to feel it. According to the Minister, certain manufacturers in this country were purchasing felt from abroad——
Certain builders who will not buy here.
——and paying the duty on it while they could buy it more cheaply and better at home. I generally find that if you come to analyse a statement of that kind there is a catch in it somewhere. If the Minister gave us the actual details we would possibly find that some of these articles for which people are paying £10,000 are not articles which are made here more cheaply or better or in the form in which the importers desire them. It is inconceivable that there are manufacturers who would expend £10,000 on importing an article which they could get at home more cheaply and better. The House would want further information before swallowing a statement of that kind. I should certainly be glad if the Minister would give us some information as to the particular items on which this £10,000 tariff was paid. Then we would be in a far better position to discuss this tariff. To ask us calmly to accept a statement that a tariff of 50 per cent. is necessary to prevent people buying something which they can buy at home without any tariff, more cheaply and of better quality, is going a bit too far.
I find myself somewhat in the same position as Deputy Belton. I have held the view that a number of our industries in this country would require a certain amount of protection in the same way that a small child, beginning to walk, requires a certain amount of artificial aid. The Minister must know that if we are going to continue spoon-feeding a lot of people in this country, whether they be manufacturers or workers, then we are going to raise one of the flabbiest generations that has ever been raised in any country in the world—flabby industrialists, flabby workers, and flabby capitalists. The flabbiness that the latter will suffer from will be that of increased wealth. The Minister must know that any addition to building costs will produce certain reactions on the building industry. There is a movement gradually growing, not alone in Dublin but in the City of Cork, for the reduction of rents. The people behind that movement say that present rents are altogether too high, but with the cost of building materials increased that must inevitably lead to an increase in rents. We are dealing here with felt which, I admit, is not generally used in house-building, but many of the other articles used in house-building are being increased in cost under this Bill. I assume that the Minister has considered all that, and that having considered it he must have reached certain conclusions. Has the Minister borne in mind the increase in rents that is bound to follow as a result of this proposal? I could understand the Minister's attitude if his case was that he was out to help some struggling industry, but on his own showing this particular article that we are dealing with can be produced of as good a quality and as cheaply in this country as elsewhere. Why, therefore, should it require the large measure of protection that the Minister is proposing to give it?
I appeal to the Party opposite to stop slandering their own industrialists and workers. Irish industrialists and Irish workers are not flabby. Deputy Bennett said that there must be something wrong with the article, and Deputy Belton says it cannot be as good as the imported stuff.
I did not say that, and the Minister is not going to get away with it.
I appeal to the Deputies opposite to stop trying to spoon-feed the foreign importers. There is a duty upon these goods. That duty has led to the creation of an important Irish industry that is now able to supply all our requirements in these goods, and in quality and price they compare favourably with goods of a similar kind produced in other countries. Despite that, Deputy Mulcahy is now moving to reduce the protection which helped to establish that Irish industry, and Deputy Belton and Deputy Anthony are going to support it.
If these goods can be produced as good and as cheaply as elsewhere, why does the industry here want a 50 per cent. artificial aid? Will the Minister answer that?
It does not want any aid.
Why are you giving it this 50 per cent. protection?
To keep the foreign stuff out.
And to destroy initiative at home?
The position in this House is becoming rather amusing. When the Minister for Finance has no argument he keeps silent, and when the Minister for Industry and Commerce has no argument he shouts.
The Minister is not going to get it over that way—with worked-up indignation misrepresenting every statement made. He might get it over with people who had not seen him before, but those who have watched his form in this House know that his worked-up indignation is pure playacting. As I have said, the Minister for Finance, when he has no argument, keeps silent, and now we have a shouting Minister for Industry and Commerce. Deputy Anthony put a very interesting point. He ought to know that the answer to it is quite simple. Referring to a number of articles in this schedule, all of which are going to increase the cost of living, the Deputy asked what will the result of that be as far as building is concerned. The Minister's answer is quite simple. It is that building will be cheaper. That is what we have been listening to for the last three years. When he puts a 75 per cent. tariff on some article and he is asked what is the purpose of it, the answer is that it will produce something cheaper. Deputy Anthony need not be the least bit uneasy. According to the Minister's argument, the more you put up the cost of living the cheaper the building will be. The Minister has demonstrated that month after month and week after week in this House.
We got from Deputy Moore to-day a new conception of protection which was clearly illustrated by the Minister. Protection, according to the new conception, is no longer to help industry to stand on its own feet: to allow an industry, subject to competition from countries where industries are longer established, a chance to get on its feet. That is no longer the purpose of protection. We have passed beyond all that. According to the Minister, this is quite an important industry that we are dealing with here, one that can produce a better and a cheaper article than can be produced elsewhere, and yet the proposal is to give it a 50 per cent. protection. For what? Nobody can answer. If there is any truth in what the Minister says about people being willing and anxious to give 50 per cent. more for a worse article that can be got over by some methods other than by this resolution. Let us see what the effect of this is bound to be. Assume, for the moment, everything that was said by Deputy Belton and Deputy Anthony and others who spoke about flabby industrialists. There was no denial that they were producing a better and a cheaper article. Therefore, the policy of the Minister is to make those who are producing a cheaper and a better article flabby industrialists. His policy can have no other effect. If you put on a 50 per cent. tariff on an industry that is already producing a better and a cheaper article, what must be the result of that? It must either be a gradual approach to that 50 per cent. level or a gradual deterioration in the value of the article. That must be the inevitable result. I submit that the Minister is doing the very worst thing that he could possibly do for the future of industry by this new conception of protection that he is putting before the House.
I remember that many years ago, long before the Minister came into power and before even we had an Irish Government in this country, circumstances gave almost a monopoly in this country to a certain article that I personally do not consume. Those who do consume it told me that about 12 months after the monopoly was given the article deteriorated in quality. People who consumed the article told me so.
And they were well fit to judge it.
That was the unanimous opinion of all of them. That, as I have said, happened many years ago, and I suggest to the Minister that he is playing for the same thing here. He is playing for a worse article. He is doing a real disservice to our policy of protection and of building up industry in this country. What we complain of is not so much that the Minister has three or four policies—the Minister for Agriculture has quite a number, each one pulling against the other—but that he has one policy, and that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health has another, though as Minister for unemployment the Minister for Industry and Commerce has certain interests in building, so far as these figures are concerned. There is no doubt that you are going to interfere with business by taxing a number of articles in this Schedule. You are subsidising, on one hand, and taxing on the other hand. Contradictory conduct of that kind is what we have good reason to expect from the Ministry in connection with the finances of the country.
I take it that Deputy Mulcahy would advise a mother to put her baby out naked in a snowstorm saying: "You will probably die but, if you survive, you will be a hardy infant."
Not a child that can march and run like this child.
I do not feel as competent to give advice to mothers as I do to give advice to Ministers. I advise the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when discussing subjects like this, to tell us the truth. Let him not come in and say that he is raising the tariff from 37½ per cent. to 50 per cent., when the effective tariff at present is 25 per cent., with the preferential rate. What he is doing is raising a 25 per cent. tariff to 50 per cent. He is doing that because we are, according to him, producing here goods that are better than the imported article and that are also cheaper. If he wants to go on that line of argument, he should first tell us the truth. When he speaks of an existing Irish industry which is producing good work and giving good employment, he should, speaking from the vantage point of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, tell the House something about it. He has not told the House anything about it. He has merely put absurd arguments forward as to why we should tolerate on a necessary building material in a country where there is a considerable amount of building and in which a great deal of building will be necessary, an increase in duty of 50 per cent.
Question put: "That the ‘50 per cent.' proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divi ded: Tá, 61; Níl, 35.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Everett, James.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Little and Smith; Níl, Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 25:—
At reference No. 7, in the 3rd column, to delete "40 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent.".
I want to know exactly what this reference is intended to do. There is a tariff of 40 per cent. on metal doors and window frames. I should like to get some idea of the amount of employment given in the industry to which the tariff is to be applied.
I thought the Deputy would give some argument in favour of the amendment. Apparently he could not think of one.
When I hear what the Minister says this is intended to do, I may have some argument against it.
There is a duty of 40 per cent. on metal frames. If they are imported with glass it is not possible for the Revenue Commissioners to charge upon the value of the glass. One of the main purposes of the proposal is to rectify this position, so that the full duty will be charged whether the frames are imported with or without glass. The section is intended to give protection to the stained glass industry. At present when stained glass work is imported duty can only be charged on the metal frames. As the Deputy is aware the stained glass industry is a very old one here, and has been conducted for some time with conspicuous efficiency. A fair proportion of the products of the industry are exported, although there is a duty on such goods sent to Great Britain. Persons interested in the industry are of opinion that without protection of this kind it is in danger of dying out. It is considered desirable from that point of view, that it should be preserved, with the imposition of this duty. There are a number of firms engaged in the manufacture of leaded lights used in houses, and this proposal is extended to such leaded lights, as well as to the frames of such leaded lights as can be manufactured here.
Amendment by leave withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 26:—
At reference No. 9, in the 3rd column, to delete "50 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
This proposes to put a tariff of 50 per cent. on tape to be used instead of twine, and on articles used for tape. I should like to know the necessity for this tariff of 50 per cent.
The existing duty applies to tape which is printed or which is imported for the purpose of being printed. The definition is "tape intended to have lettering printed thereon." The duty has been evaded by people importing unprinted tape, and declaring that it is not intended to have any letters printed thereon. As a matter of fact, the printing and weaving of the tape is being done here at present. This is really an amendment of the duty in order to prevent the type of evasion to which I have referred.
At what price? Is the tape better?
And a tariff of 50 per cent. is necessary.
To get the industry started.
And when sold it is quite as good?
Can the Minister say how much of this material was imported last year?
I am afraid I cannot give very definite information, because separate particulars were not kept by the Revenue Commissioners for previous periods. It was not listed separately in the imports, and therefore separate figures are not available.
It is not so much statistics I want as to know how near we are to producing our requirements.
All our requirements can be produced here.
Has the Minister any idea of the relative quality of what is produced and of the imports? Has he even a vague idea?
Those engaged in this industry prepared this estimate of the size of the market, and knew that their new factory could supply the whole of that market. They started off by importing unprinted tape for printing on while the machinery for weaving was being erected. Then they proceeded to manufacture the tape. Owing to the phraseology of the Resolution which imposed the Customs duty a person could avoid duty in respect of unprinted tape by declaring that it was not intended to have that tape printed on. We are merely removing that method of evasion by this tax.
Is the Minister satisfied that a margin of 50 per cent. is necessary to protect the home market? If not, can he say what is the minimum margin necessary to do so?
50 per cent. is considered necessary to protect the home market. It is felt that with a lower duty imports would continue, and persons supplying the market would cut prices to meet the duty.
Does the Minister anticipate any reduction in the cost of production? If we are in a position to produce all our requirements, then, unless by increased efficiency or by the manufacturers being prepared to do with less profits, or the operatives being prepared to accept less wages, I see no hope of a reduction in the cost of the article to the consumer. Take this 50 per cent. When we have reached the stage of producing all our own requirements, unless we can export that article we cannot increase the volume of our production and thereby reduce the cost. Is it not a very high figure to leave to any producer as a margin of profit over the production cost and margin of profit in other countries?
But we did not leave him that figure.
But if you give 50 per cent., you do.
The Deputy has been affected by Cumann na nGaedheal propaganda.
The Deputy is not affected by Cumann na nGaedheal propaganda. The Deputy learned his economics long before the Minister thought of them.
When did the Deputy forget them?
I did not forget them. I never forgot them, but I am trying to instruct the Minister now, if he can be instructed. For instance, if the Minister gave me a market for potatoes, and gave me 50 per cent. of a protection, does he think I would sell them at any less than the present price plus the 50 per cent?
I can quite appreciate what the Deputy might do, but, of course, the great majority of the people of this country are honest.
Honest? Would not that be an honest transaction? Of course, it would; and if it would be a dishonest transaction, the responsibility would lie with the Minister who gave me the facilities to be dishonest. If we apply that to this printed tape, is not the Minister equally dishonest in giving those people that opportunity to exploit the public to the tune of 50 per cent? A little joke by the Minister will not get away from hard fact. Here we are producing all of this material that we want. We are at full production, and, according to the Minister, we can only keep that market secured here by an addition of 50 per cent. above what, let us say, the British producer is getting for it. That does not make for efficiency, and the sooner the Minister starts breaking down some of the glass-houses he has built around some of these so-called manufacturers, the better it will be for Irish industries.
The Deputy will appreciate, I am sure, that it is sales that determine the price. If the price is too high the article will not be sold.
The Minister appears not to appreciate the fact that people will use this nearly at any price.
Yes, because it is an advertising medium for them. A parcel tied up with twine, which can be got anywhere, has no advertising value, but every parcel tied up with this tape has on it the name and address of the firm where that parcel was bought, and that is an advertising medium for them. For instance, a person may get into a bus, or walk along the road, open up his parcel and throw away the tape. Somebody else gets that tape, and that is an advertisement for the firm.
That is why the industry exists.
Yes, and it contradicts the Minister's assertion that if people have to pay too high a price they will not buy. The only thing that competes with it is plain twine, because there is no indication on it of where the article was purchased, and the Minister has given 50 per cent. to keep out a competitive article. The Minister should realise that the way to build up a substantial industry is to give it that amount of protection which will make it compete with the imported article: sufficient protection to give it a chance to compete on equal terms. That is what I want the Minister to do.
The Minister made the statement, in an interruption while Deputy Belton was speaking, that the price will determine, that if the price is too high the article will not be sold. The Minister does not believe that. Otherwise, why the 50 per cent.? Then, when you ask the Minister the reason for the 50 per cent., he says that it is because there are certain people here who would prefer to pay that high price for a foreign article rather than use an Irish article. That is his case. He has given us no idea, however, as to what proportion of queer people there are in this country who are willing to pay 50 per cent. more for a foreign article than for one produced here. He has given us no indication of the number of such extraordinary people who are willing to pay 50 per cent. more for a foreign article even though that article is produced here and is quite as good as the foreign article. The Minister has given us no idea as to that. Even supposing the margin was only 20 per cent., look at the position into which you are putting your manufacturer here. You are giving him 20 per cent. There are a number of people here who buy Irish manufactured goods, no matter what the price is—even if it is dearer than the imported article—and, as the Minister knows, they have done so for years and years, long before protective tariffs were put on. But the ordinary person who is not stirred by patriotic sentiments of that kind will buy according to the price. Then the manufacturer says: "I can put up the price of the 1/- article to 1/5 and it will still be 1d. cheaper than the foreign article at 1/6." The Minister, evidently, does not rely on the general trend of economics. Deputy Dowdall, his colleague, in repudiating the statement he was supposed to have made, repeated it. He recognised that that was the ordinary trend of economics in any country in the world. That is the inevitable tendency in any country, and it has been the tendency for hundreds of years, certainly for a couple of hundred years. I do not see how you can escape that. The Minister has given two sets of argument, and one set completely cuts the ground from under the other. In this case he has certainly given no justification for his 50 per cent. any more than he has given justification in the other cases. He says that he must do this because there is a threat that the country will be flooded with tape of this kind before this factory gets going. Is the factory going yet?
Then there is no danger of the country being flooded with this tape? He is afraid of under-cutting now. Has there been any evidence of under-cutting? If there is evidence of under-cutting, has he not, at the first sign he sees of it, the quota to help him to deal with a temporary emergency of that kind? If there are these extraordinary people in this country, to whom the Minister refers, who think it better to pay 1/6 for a 1/- article in order to be able to buy it from abroad, why not use the quota until they are weaned from that extraordinary anti-patriotic feeling that they have? Why not use the quota instead of putting up the price to what the Minister admits is an increase of 50 per cent. over what the article is actually worth?
There is another aspect of this matter which the Minister has avoided, and that is the 50 per cent. tariff on articles designed, constructed, and intended for use as holders of such tape, and the licence provision by which the Minister can give a licence to anybody to import these things.
The whole thing is a joke. The position seems to be that there is one person manufacturing these articles. A person, we are told, came to Deputy Moore and asked for a 75 per cent. tariff on such-and-such an article. He was a supported of the Opposition, and astonishment was expressed that the Opposition would oppose the suggested tariff. Apparently, that was a thing that could not be thought of—that when representations were made by a person who was a really live manufacturer, that he had difficulties and wanted a tariff, the Minister would dream of refusing him the tariff. The whole principle of 50 per cent. tariffs, in the absence of a detailed case stated in a White Paper circulated to the House, is, in my opinion, entirely wrong.
What is the purpose of the consultation between the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce? If we are producing all the stuff we want here, why should there be any consultation between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance to import any article other than what can be imported in the ordinary way by paying 50 per cent. extra? Does not that betray the weakness of the whole case, and cast a doubt on the reply of the Minister to my question: "Are we able to produce here all of this article that we require?" He said "Yes." Does not that cast a doubt on his answer?
I explained to the Deputy that this was an old duty which has been re-enacted with a new form of wording to prevent evasion.
Then what is the need for a consultation between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance if we are producing all we require?
I gathered from the Minister that this factory has been set going in the last twelve months. When was this duty put on?
Therefore it is in a different position altogether now. You put it on then in order to start the industry. You now say it is started and is producing cheaply, so there is no longer the same case for the duty.
Question—"That the words proposed to be deleted stand"—put and declared carried.
I move amendment No. 27:—
At reference No. 10, to delete all words and figures in the third column and substitute "20%".
Reference No. 10 on the Schedule proposes to put a tariff at the rate of 50 per cent., or 5d. the article, whichever is the greater, on portable vacuum flasks for containing food or drink, and component parts of such flasks, excluding component parts made wholly or mainly of cork, with a licence provision. This is again, I think, the tale of those fellows who went around to workers' houses to see what things should be taxed in order to scrape in a few final pence to balance the Budget. One of the things they saw, when they had finished looking at the mug on the dresser and the glass on the window, was the vacuum flask which some of the children of the house used to take with their lunch to school, and here we get a 50 per cent. tariff put on it. Will the Minister tell us what on earth is the reason for putting a tariff of 50 per cent. on such articles as that?
The reason is that the articles are being manufactured very efficiently and in adequate quantities in the country, and that it is desirable to turn the demand to the products of the factory established here, so that Irish workers will be employed in producing those goods, rather than that they should be imported from abroad.
How many Irish workers are employed?
The factory at Nenagh, County Tipperary, is quite a large one, and manufactures aluminium goods of all kinds. There is a duty of 50 per cent. on the aluminium covers of vacuum flasks at the present time, and the reason this duty of 50 per cent. is imposed is because it is desirable to keep all the aluminium duties at the same level. The minimum duty is the most important part of this particular proposal, because there are other cheap types of flasks which are imported from certain countries much cheaper than they can be made here, having regard to the standard of living and the rates of wages prevailing, but in the case of flasks that are sold from a shilling upwards, the price of the Irish made flask is no higher than the price of flasks available elsewhere. A shilling is the cheapest priced flask that can be produced here.
The reference number says "portable vacuum flasks." Is the flask aluminium?
I am speaking of the flask.
Portable vacuum flasks are being manufactured here, all except the corks.
Will the Minister confine himself to the flasks? How many workers are engaged in producing them here?
I cannot give the Deputy a separate figure for the number of people engaged in manufacturing flasks. They are made as one product of a factory which is manufacturing a number of articles, and no doubt the workers are changed from the manufacture of one product to another as the demand fluctuates. The industry is an important one, and gives male employment. It is a new industry in this country; there is considerable scope for development, and therefore it deserves every encouragement.
Certain articles are very cheap, and the people are not to be allowed to get them cheaply. I am speaking of the 5d.
We can make them for a shilling.
There are people to whom a shilling is a lot. Those people will not be able to get a cheap flask.
The question is whether it is better to have a few Irishmen employed on this work at Nenagh than a few Japanese in Japan.
And never mind the consumer!
This Japanese argument is a grand argument, but what we are tariffing here are portable vacuum flasks for containing food or drink, and the component parts of such flasks. Now we have it from the Minister that this is aluminium ware. I was under the impression when I saw it that this was an article that was neither tariffed—and I take it that it is not tariffed—nor was it manufactured in this country, and I take it that it is not manufactured in this country.
It is—one thousand dozen a month.
Here we have the latest up-to-date Industrial Directory——
I told the Deputy that that would be out of date before it was printed.
They are going so fast that even the latest news is stale.
According to this directory the aluminium hollow-ware manufactured here consists of cafe tea pots, cafe tea sets, coffee percolators, colanders, cream jugs, cutlet pans, double milk boilers, frypans, hot-water bottles, hot-water jugs, kettles, maslins, milk cans, porringers, pudding bowls, saucepans, stewpans, steamers, sugar basins, and tea pots, but it stops at that and does not go on to vacuum flasks. Will this catch vacuum flasks that are flasks having a vacuum in them? It seems to me that this is a reference which is spreading itself very much wider than the article which the Minister implies it is intended to cover. Some particular type of vacuum flask that is manufactured or that is intended to be manufactured——
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but the aluminium company at Nenagh are making flasks other than aluminium flasks. They are making flasks from other material as well.
They are making glass flasks?
No. The glass portion is being imported.
And, therefore a duty will be put on it?
No. It is imported under licence. That is the necessity for the licence provision.
Did I undestand the Minister to say that we can produce a flask at a shilling as good as the flask that we can buy for a shilling?
I accept the Minister's statement on that, but when we are in a position to do that I certainly question the prudence of the Minister's policy in offering a 50 per cent. inducement for profiteering. It will not help the industry here. Everybody will get flabby if they are getting it too easy. The man who has to fight for his livelihood, for his existence, will always be a better man than the man living in the lap of luxury.
I do not know so much about that.
There is a living example—Deputy Tom Kelly—in the lap of luxury, of course. I think it is not a sound policy.
Question put: "That the words and figures proposed to be deleted, stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 62; Níl, 32.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Everett, James.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 28:—
At reference No. 11, in the third column, to delete "50 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
Reference No. 11 is again one of these references which tend to raise the cost of house-building. It proposes to put a duty of 50 per cent. on ridge tiles, hip tiles, and other roofing tiles made wholly or partly of clay or of Roman cement, Portland cement, or any other hydraulic cement. I think it is my recollection that tiles of this particular kind have been made and made successfully for many years in this country. Here is a proposal to put a tariff of 50 per cent. duty on them, coupled with the usual queer arrangement by which certain people, by licence, may be allowed to import them without paying any of this duty. I want to protest against the height of this tariff as tending to increase the cost of house-building, particularly in the circumstances in which house-building stands to-day.
Since 1932, under the regulations made by the Housing Board, no houses in respect of which a subsidy is given can have any other but Irish-made roofing material—slates or tiles—used on it. Whether the roofing material is slates or tiles or anything else, they must under the regulations be Irish-made. The duty upon these goods made of clay or cement has been in operation since the beginning of 1933. The duty, however, did not apply to tiles which were subjected to a process of glazing. The duty is therefore to some extent being evaded, because by a special process a slight glaze is put upon the clay tiles and they are thus exempted from duty. The real purpose of this duty is to prevent that kind of evasion as well as to see that the full demand for roofing materials will turn to the very many excellent Irish roofing materials now available.
I think in this matter, if the tiles that we get are up to a standard—and I have no reason to say or think that they are not—if they fill the bill as regards quality, we get from the home supply our requirements or very nearly our requirements. Again, I have the same objection to this 50 per cent. tariff as I had to the previous one—that we ought to bring our own producers, by having them on safe ground, to the point of having them compete with somebody else. I have no knowledge of the relative cost of the home and the imported article. Perhaps Deputy Dockrell might. I have no knowledge, as I have used nothing but the home material. But I feel convinced that you will get a better article and get the work better done and put Irish industry on a better foundation when it grows to a certain size by letting it develop as a man develops and not as a hothouse plant develops. The only way to do that is to have it on the border-line of competition with the imported article. It would do an Irish industry no harm if an odd consignment did come in, so as to make the producers of this and every other Irish article, too, buck up. I think it is a terrible mistake to give a 50 per cent. tariff. I say that, subject to this proviso, that I am entirely ignorant of the relative cost of production here compared with the cost in Great Britain or in France. I would like to know from the Minister how are prices, goods for goods and quality for quality, comparing in the case of the home and foreign-made article? If the Minister has any information on that, and if he has similar information about other matters on which tariffs are put, we would like to have it. We would like to know if we get for, say, £5 a certain class of ordinary roofing tile to cover a certain number of square yards of roof, at what price would we get the same surface of British or foreign tiles of similar quality? If the Minister has that information we should have it. If we can produce an article as good and as cheap I would give to the Irish manufacturer a margin of security, but I certainly would not make it as high as 50 per cent. I would like now to know from the Minister if he has any information as to whether we can produce an article as good and as cheap as the imported article? If we can do that, I would be quite willing to give the home article a small margin of security, but certainly not 50 per cent.
A very large number of Irish firms are engaged in the production of tiles. That being so, it is inevitable that competition will be keen. That would keep the price down. As far as slates are concerned, there are a number of people engaged in their production, and in proof of the quality of the slates I might mention that a very substantial export business is being done——
Yes, to the inconvenience of the home users of slates. Is net the Minister aware that if I placed an order for Irish slates in the morning I could not get them? Is not the Minister aware of that?
Now the Deputy cannot have it both ways.
Well, to stick to the tiles —I know that a number of firms are producing here, but does not the Minister see anything in the point I am endeavouring to make? Would it not be well to have Irish firms producing up to the point where they would be competing with the article that is imported?
But the Irish firms are competing with each other.
That is not the sort of competition I mean, because the standard is a local standard. I would like to see an international standard. The only way to do that is to have a margin to save the Irish producer—to give the other fellow, the importer, a chance of coming over the barrier now and again and make the man at home attend to his business. I do not want easy money for the native manufacturers so that they can spend their holidays in the Mediterranean at the cost of the users of these articles. I am sure it is the Minister's idea to develop the industry in a proper way—not only to have all our requirements produced here but to produce a good article here. Local competition will not be sufficient. Local competition will not be certain of producing the proper standard unless we knock up occasionally against other countries in competition. I am opposed to a 50 per cent. tariff. Any information that I have convinces me that a 50 per cent. tariff will exclude all possible competition from foreign countries. We are living here in glass houses, only competing with one another, and perhaps, after a while, we might learn to combine to keep up prices to the neighbourhood of 50 per cent. over international prices.
It does not make things easier for a person who objects to a tariff of the size of 50 per cent. that the Minister will not deal honestly with the House when discussing it. He tells the House that there is a tariff of 50 per cent. on various kinds of unglazed tiles at present. But there is a preferential tariff of 33? per cent., so that the effective tariff at present is 33? per cent. He proposes to put a 50 per cent. tariff on these tiles now. He will not be honest with the House. He attempts to mislead the House by saying that there is a 50 per cent. tariff on already.
There is an effective rate of 33?.
But the preferential rate is the effective rate.
What percentage of tiles have been coming in under the 50 per cent. tariff?
I could not say, but a substantial portion of the imports of clay tiles come from the Continent.
There is a 33? preferential rate and that can be taken as the effective rate as far as the import of these things is concerned and as far as fixing the price here is concerned. So that the Minister leaves us no way out except to oppose a tariff of this kind. There is no doubt that there are plenty of people engaged in this industry in this country who would simply be delighted to get a tariff of 60 or 70 per cent. But there is no person to speak for the ordinary consumer or the business person who requires these things for his trade. There is no person to provide any kind of reasonably full information with regard to the situation for the protection of these people. The Minister is obscurantist in his attitude and, naturally, the people looking for benefit from these tariffs are going to be careful to withhold any information which might be used to look at the facts as they are. As I say, the Minister's whole attitude leaves us no other line to take but to oppose tariffs of this size.
Surely the Deputy will admit that there is considerable internal competition amongst a number of firms who are capable of supplying much more than the requirements of the country. The amount of the tariff does not matter provided it is effective to keep out imports.
Why not prohibit them altogether?
In fact we are doing that. In fact there is prohibition so far as subsidy houses are concerned.
Does the Minister not appreciate the value it would be to industry to have a chance of even remotely competing with the products of outside factories?
Will the Minister tell the House what guarantee the users of these tiles have of their efficiency? If a man builds a house and if these tiles are not satisfactory who will be blamed? Is it the Minister or the maker of the tiles? No, but the man who builds the house. It is his reputation is at stake and he has to give a two years' guarantee that everything will be right.
Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 54; Níl, 29.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Daly, Denis.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Everett, James.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick,
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Little, Fatrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Anthony, Richard.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 29:—
At reference No. 14, in the 3rd column, to delete "40 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
Perhaps the Minister will explain what price this means to the farming community. Why is it 40 per cent.? That is the usual question. Does "binder twine or yarns" include the ordinary binding used on hay? I presume it does, and for binding corn as well, so far as the description goes. Will the Minister say what is the justification for this particular tariff and the amount of it, and what he has in view? I believe he can not, because, up to the present he has no general appreciation of the effect of these tariffs on other industries, except the actual industry on which it is to operate at the moment. What additional cost it will cause in other respects is a matter that never enters his head. Why, also, is fibre tariffed, and why is coir not taxed?
The reason for the 40 per cent. duty is because 40 per cent. is the duty in operation on cordage, ropes and twine, and now on binder twine, which was formerly excluded. The manufacture is being commenced by one of the principal rope and cordage manufacturers in the country. They have given a guarantee that whatever the price here it will not exceed the price fixed by the English manufacturers. We understand that the price is fixed at the beginning of each year.
Will the quality be the same?
Yes, quality for quality.
What guarantee will there be for that?
I am speaking of the price in relation to quality. At any rate, the firm is very up-to-date. It has machinery and processes in operation which are the very latest in the market, and used in very few of the older rope and cordage factories. This year there will not be enough binder twine produced here to satisfy the requirements of the country. Next year we hope the full amount will be available. The duty is also being imposed upon fibres and yarns. We were not able to get a definition of binder twine which does not also include yarns. So far as yarns are concerned they are also produced, but not in sufficient quantities to supply the rope manufacturers. They have been duly notified that at the end of a certain period which is considered to be reasonable, they must spin their own yarns, or procure their supplies from sources within the country. The importation of fibre, of course, will be continued under licence.
Mainly because of the difficulty to which I have referred.
Will there not be the same difficulty as regards licence?
No, because it is possible to exercise supervision and to withdraw the licence from the firm if it is doing anything wrong. The industry is considerable, and a considerable amount of employment will be given. The whole cordage and twine industry is developing. The next stage is the manufacture of binder twine, which, also, involves yarns. The only thing we will have to import is the fibre.
I understand the difficulty of the definition if the two things are identical but if there is an actual difference in substance would it not be easy?
No; binder twine is a form of yarn.
They are the same. Both are used for binding.
Again, there is the question of 40 per cent. Here, at all events, for the first time, there is a guarantee given that the tariffed article is not going to be dearer. In other cases we had nothing of that kind; we had some prophecies.
I told the Deputy what was the fact. This is a new industry.
I am speaking now of the various statements the Minister made this evening.
Which related to established industries.
Yes, but we have heard that so often, and we have found the facts different from those the Minister puts forward here. The ordinary consumer, unfortunately, has not the same experience as the Minister's statistics. That is the difficulty. However, I am dealing now with the fact that, for the first time, we have a regular guarantee. This is the only time we have got it. Again, it is quite obvious that in respect of every industry, there cannot be such a number of people here so wrong-headed as to pay 40 per cent. more for the same article merely because it is foreign. That is the assumption running through all these tariffs.
There is also the assumption that the importers will cut prices to meet the duty.
Again, can the Minister not deal with that when it arises? He has power to do it; but no, he allows the temptation, as we have said already, of producing a worse article at an increased price. That is bound to be irresistible, and you will have deterioration of the article and increase of the price gradually. That is inevitable. He is doing that with his eyes open and, in this case, at all events, without necessity. In a couple of years or in a certain time—it may be a couple of months—he is going to insist that they take the yarns altogether from at home. He will have procured in the meantime that they will be produced here. I took that for granted, but the Minister more or less threw the obligation on the unfortunate manufacturers——
Some yarns are being produced here at the moment, but not sufficient.
They cannot be all taken here unless they are all produced here. I object to this on the ground that there is no justification for it, except the Minister's lack of faith in his policy. I have heard people saying that they expect, as a result of the Minister's policy, to see, after a number of years, a lot of tumbledown houses in which industries had been established, owing to the way he has done it, and it is obvious that the Minister believes that himself.
Like Deputy O'Sullivan, I cannot follow the Minister's reasoning in this, any more than I could in previous cases. He has a guarantee that we will have as good an article and that we will have our requirements, or a considerable portion of them, and that the article will be as cheap. What is the justification for a 40 per cent. tariff? I think I am right in saying that this is only one of the products of the rope works started in Newbridge, I think. If they are sure of turning out as good an article and of turning it out as cheaply as the imported article, why does the Minister say "I will give you 40 per cent. of a present by way of an additional trading profit"? I think the Minister threw in an interjection to the effect that there might be a danger of dumping here below cost. If there is, and if that was what the Minister had in mind—evidence that this stuff was dumped in here below cost or 40 per cent. below a reasonable price and a reasonable profit—I would agree with the 40 per cent. Even if it were dumped in at 35 per cent. of a loss, I would agree with the 40 per cent. in order to protect the industry here from unfair competition. If the Minister said that to build up this industry it is necessary to have 40 per cent. protection for a time, I would still agree with the Minister to give 40 per cent., but he says that he has a guarantee from the makers of this twine to turn it out as good and cheap as the imported article. What on earth then is the justification for giving them a present of 40 per cent.? I think it should be opposed in the interests of genuine industry in this country.
Amendment withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 30:—
At reference No. 15, in the 3rd column, to delete "40 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
In the case of this amendment, and also in the case of the amendment to No. 17, I want the justification of the Minister for these tariffs.
This tariff was really imposed in order to remove an anomaly. The material from which sun-blinds are made has been liable to a duty of 33? per cent. for some time, but sun-blinds and parts of sun-blinds were free of duty, and the situation reacted to the detriment of the sun-blind manufacturers. We are imposing this duty on sun-blinds in order to rectify this position.
That is, the Minister put a tariff on the material, and, therefore, put a tariff on practically against his own manufacturers. That is the way it worked out?
Well, I am not surprised.
Is the material for these blinds made in this country?
Yes, it is being made. I would not say it is being made in adequate quantities yet. The linen and cotton cloths, subject to duty under the general duty on linen and cotton cloths, cover a wide range of varieties. I do not say that all are being made in sufficient quantity, but they are being made, and the quantity has been very considerably increased recently.
An admirable illustration of the care taken in the imposition of tariffs.
Amendment withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 31:—
At reference No. 17, in the 3rd column, to delete "40 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
This duty is imposed in consequence of a definition difficulty which I have already explained to the House. A duty was imposed here on thread, but, when it came to be administered, it was found impossible to distinguish thread from certain classes of yarn, and, in fact, a considerable quantity of thread was imported as yarn. We had many consultations on the matter, and we found that it was impossible to get a satisfactory definition of thread which did not include yarn, so it was decided to include yarn in order to make sure that the duty was effective and to admit the yarn under licence to the persons who used yarn in the course of a process of manufacture, until yarn is produced here. We hope, in due course, to have cotton yarn produced here also, but that will not be for some time.
Could ply yarn be used for other purposes besides being manufactured? Could it be used as thread?
No. The yarns are used in the manufacture of woven cotton cloth.
You are going to admit them free on licence?
To firms engaged in the weaving of cloth.
What I ask is: Can the yarn be utilised otherwise than for that purpose? Can it be used as thread?
What is your trouble then?
The trouble was that when thread was consigned as yarn, it was impossible to say: "That is not yarn; it is thread," because the definition could not be precise enough. We have reason to believe that quite a lot of thread was imported as yarn.
I think that was due to slackness on the part of officials.
It was due to a difficulty in definition.
We are asked to believe that the Revenue Commissioners allowed goods in on the ground that they thought they should be allowed in.
On the ground that the definition of thread, which had been embodied in the Resolution, was not sufficiently definite and was held to include yarn. Now we have to include yarn in the definition.
The same body of men that was capable of declaring a map a piece of furniture, because it had two sticks, one at the top and one below, could not stop thread coming in as yarn.
What have you done? You have increased your licensing system and I have insuperable objections to the licensing system, as the Minister knows——
Not half as many as I have.
——independent altogether of who is administering it. I can tell you that in a very short time you are going to have a desperate condition of affairs in this country as a result of it.
Am I to understand that it is the intention of a group of manufacturers to establish a factory here for the purpose of spinning yarn?
For woollens and worsteds?
Is there any truth in the rumour that a group of persons are about to establish a factory in the near future for the purpose of manufacturing woollen and worsted yarns?
Woollen and worsted yarns are being spun here at the moment.
But not to the extent they should be.
I think that the Minister knows that material represented as Irish material is being made out of foreign yarn in the majority of cases.
I would not say in the majority of cases.
I welcome the statement of the Minister that it is the intention to manufacture these yarns in this country in future.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The following amendment appeared in the name of Deputy Mulcahy:—
At reference No. 20 in the 3rd column, to delete "40 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
This has reference to a new duty imposing a flat rate of 40 per cent. on straps and belts made of leather, or imitation leather. The manufacture of watch straps from imported hides has been undertaken by firms in the Saorstát. These watch straps are being sold at the price recently charged for imported articles.
Yes. There will be no increase because of the change over. I do not mean that they are being sold at exactly the same price as they are sold in England, but at the price charged in England, plus the cost of transport over here.
In addition to watch straps there is an enormous variety of leather straps and belts, the manufacture of which is already established, or can be readily undertaken by firms engaged in the business at the present time. So far as we have been able to discover, there is no substantial difference between the price prevailing here and the price at which these articles have been imported. The duty is being imposed for the purpose of providing protection to firms already established and to encourage the entrance of further firms into the industry, with a consequent increase in the available employment. The rate of duty has been fixed at the rate applicable to all leather goods for the purposes of convenience and in order to secure uniformity in its application. Just as I pointed out before, all aluminium goods are subject to the same rate of duty, all goods made of leather, or imitation leather, will also be subject to the same rate.
Do I understand that an effort is being made to supply all our demands from firms established here?
There will be no difficulty in getting our demands supplied by existing firms.
Why, then, does the Minister want other firms to start in it?
Because we would like to see competition.
That is a departure from the policy pursued up to the present. We were told in the case of other goods that the market is so small that you have to limit the number of firms.
I wonder whether the Minister is not arguing against himself in this case? I suggest he should come across to this side of the House because most of his statements now are an argument against this tariff of 40 per cent.
It would be a considerable improvement to that side of the House.
We should have a convert to this side of the House. Every argument he is using now is an argument against the policy he is defending in the case of this tariff.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The following amendment appeared in the name of Deputy Mulcahy:—
At reference No. 21, in the third column, to delete "40 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent.".
The Government are now putting a tariff, not merely on sculpture——
This has reference to dog collars, leads and muzzles, which are being manufactured here. They are subject to the same duty.
I think the Minister is a humorist.
I should hate to limit the importation of muzzles.
I am not going to talk about dogs. I am going to talk about the words "imitation of leather." I suggest to the Minister that they form a very objectionable phrase, owing to the difficulty of getting a proper interpretation. In anything I say I do not want to be taken as throwing blame on the Revenue Commissioners, but I think we are putting on them an impossible task, in asking them to decide, in a way that will give any general satisfaction, what is meant by "imitation of leather." Anything could be classed as an imitation of leather in this way—the binding of a book, for instance. One person may say it is cloth, but some other individual can say it is cloth got up to look like leather, whether it is put in that category by the Minister's reference or not. Here is a book which illustrates what I have said. Nobody would ever say right off that it was bound in anything but cloth. It is advertised as cloth bound, sold as cloth bound, and priced accordingly. But I assure the Minister that the Revenue Commissioners could say, with a certain amount of justification probably, that it could be held that it was got up as an imitation of leather just as these other articles to which the Minister referred.
I say it is not proper to employ in our legislation a term which is subject to such a width of interpretation as that term "imitation of leather." Anything could be called an imitation of something else if a person wished to take that line. I suggest to the Minister that he should get some better phraseology than the term ‘imitation of leather." I can assure the Minister that there is nothing in the Customs duties which is causing more dissatisfaction than the way in which the Customs authorities charge a tax upon books which are got up in cloth, which is said to be an imitation of leather. I could give the Minister plenty of examples. I suggest to him that between this and the Report Stage he should look for a better way of expressing the idea in his mind than this term "imitation of leather."
I have no idea of what we could substitute for it.
Remember what you are doing. You are asking a shrinking set of people who were too shy to distinguish between thread and yarn to say what is an imitation of leather.
They will err in favour of the Revenue all the time.
I have seen paper bindings which could be easily called an imitation of leather, and I have not the slightest doubt that a tax has been collected on them as imitations of leather.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The following amendment appeared on the Order Paper in the name of Deputy Mulcahy:—
At Reference No. 22, in the 2nd column, to delete the words "(c) unworked marble."
Is there white marble to be had in this country?
There is, but it is not being worked at the present time.
Is there workable white marble of the type that is wanted for high class sculpture?
There is white marble available, but at present it is not being worked. At present licences for pure white marble are being issued.
What is the point then of taxing a thing until you have a proper type of white marble ready? You are putting a tax not merely on the sculptured article but on the blocks of marble coming in: on the white marble that is not to be got here. Why do that unless it is a desire to indulge unnecessarily that apparently potent drink that you are so fond of, namely, licences? What else can be in the mind of the Minister or of the Government in doing this? You are putting a tax on the raw material used by the sculptor, or by the ordinary man doing monumental work. I cannot see why you should do this. Are you afraid that the country will be flooded with white marble, or what is the point?
The point is that we do not think that we would be able to get an extended production of marble in the country unless we were in the position to afford the assistance which this duty provides. At present there are only two or three marble quarries working, which were recently started in the County Galway. One is producing green marble, and another black marble. There are other marble quarries in other parts of the country: red marble, white marble, pink marble and so on. They are all available, and our desire is to get all of them working. In order to do that it is necessary to stop the importation of unworked marble, except where pure white marble is required for certain classes of statuary work. Generally speaking, there are many classes of ornamental work in connection with buildings and so forth, for which white and other marbles are being used and for which Saorstát coloured marbles would be quite suitable. This duty imposes some restriction on the importation of marbles where Saorstát marbles could be substituted for them. It will be some time before we can get white marble produced here which will be as satisfactory for statuary work as the Italian marble, and until that happens we will have to allow white marble in, however reluctantly. I say reluctantly, because the Italian Government has imposed an export duty on unworked marble in order to get the whole process of manufacture confined to Italy. That situation has existed for some time.
As far as this duty is concerned, there is no change under (a). That duty on worked marble has been in operation. The only change, apart from the duty on chippings, is the inclusion of unworked marble, which is being made subject to a duty. That is being done for the purpose of taking the initial steps to encourage people to proceed with the opening of the other marble quarries in the West and South of Ireland for coloured marbles. There is some possibility of getting white marble here. There is one white marble quarry, but it has never been properly explored. It is hoped, by the imposition of this duty, to encourage people to have explorations carried out and trial pits sunk. We have not succeeded yet in doing that, but if people should come along with the necessary resources to work this marble, and that their efforts give promise of success, then we would assist them in the way that we have assisted other projects such as the slate quarries. The feeling, however is that the Italian marble is so strongly entrenched on the market that it would be foolish to proceed with the development of white marble here. We must remember that marble quarrying was a very important industry in this country before Italian white marble attained its present position. Irish marbles—green, black and red—were all in demand and were exported. We hope to have a similar revival in the use of Irish marble and to encourage its use at home whatever prospects there are of securing an export business again. It is in order to do that that we are imposing this duty. At the present time white marble is being licensed, and it will have to continue to be licensed until we can get some production of it at home.
The Minister should have no difficulty in getting a definition. He could make it "marble other than white marble."
We intend to use this power to discourage the use of white marble where Saorstát coloured marble might as well be used.
I submit that is a most arbitrary act on the part of the Government. Marble is not used as a common stone. It is used for the execution of works of beauty. If an artist proposes to make a work of beauty, if he has his conception of it in white marble, it would surely be an arbitrary act on the part of the Minister or one of his officials to come along and tell him—he may be another Leonardo da Vinci—that the work he proposes to execute would look much better in green, pink or black marble. It would surely be an arbitrary act on the part of the Minister to attempt to impose his taste on the country. I think that the situation could be met by the Minister inserting in the Bill the words "marble other than white marble." If someone comes to the Minister and says that he has a quarry, the stone in which appears to have all the qualities of Carrara marble, the Minister can, by order, assist that person by a tariff of 40 or even 100 per cent. But I think it is ridiculous to come and in vacuo propose to assist a potential industry for the development of which the raw material does not exist. The Minister, in what he is proposing, is simply cluttering up his Department with an additional licensing process. The only reason he gives for this is to try and force people who prefer an expensive stone which they have selected carefully because it fulfils the æsthetic requirements of the work, to get that particular work done in black, pink or green marble. I do not think the Minister has made any case for this duty. I think he could easily find a suitable form of words which would exclude white marble.
There is a big commercial market for marble other than marble required for statues or works of art. Marble is now largely used for shop fronts and work of that kind.
As Deputy Fitzgerald has said, all these restrictions have a deleterious effect on trade and on industrial work generally. Let me give an example. On a previous occasion the Minister was good enough to exempt scientific apparatus from duty if it could be shown that the apparatus was required for use, in an educational institution, on scientific work. For a time that concession of his worked more or less with difficulty. The Minister gave exemptions from duty in many cases, but I think that if the Minister, through the Revenue Commissioners, makes inquiries he will find that the applications for such exemptions have got definitely fewer. The matter came under my notice in this way. Those who are responsible for the use of such scientific apparatus found that it took so much time to get this concession through the Customs and through the officials concerned—again I am not blaming the Revenue Commissioners—that the exemption from the duty was not worth all the time lost. While on paper the giving of the concession might appear to meet the argument put up to the Minister, in practice it was found that it was not so at all because of the delays and red-tape that come into play in such things. Here he is saying, in the same way, that he is prepared to give licences generally where applications are put in for importation of unworked white marble. In fact, every such application takes a very considerable time and causes a great deal of trouble to the firm making the application. This adds to the costs of the firm and puts very serious difficulties in its way. I doubt very much if the Minister realises the handicaps under which commercial firms and firms engaged in industrial work generally are suffering from these restrictions. I doubt if he realises that the getting of articles through the Customs takes up such an amount of time and involves as much labour as it does. Quite apart from the duty involved, these restrictions definitely increase the cost of almost every article which the public has to buy. The Minister proposes to operate a licensing system, though there is no sign or sight of the white marble to which it applies being available in an Irish quarry. Surely, it is time enough, as Deputy Fitzgerald says, to put these difficulties in the way of firms when there is some prospect of the material required being available in an Irish quarry. To make this provision so long a period ahead is only causing trouble and difficulty where there is no occasion for it and where no advantage is gained by anybody.
I agree with practically everything that Deputy Thrift has said. A number of us in this House would shrink from the use of a licensing system which, I think, is a bad system. With a certain policy in operation, you cannot avoid that system in certain instances, but I think it should be used as little as possible and avoided as much as possible. A sane Government which had the welfare of the country at heart would shrink from inviting opportunities for using it, but this Government, at first opportunity, plunges into it. I could imagine a situation in which there would be a question of the importation of white marble and in which there would be a contest between two strong, silent men—the Minister for Finance and Signor Mussolini. On application, the Minister for Industry and Commerce might say: "Can you not get this white marble elsewhere than in Italy?" I have heard of people applying for licences and being asked where they were going to get the material. They replied that they were going to get it in Great Britain, and they were then asked: "Can you not get it from Germany?" I understood that there was to be certain freedom——
Different duties apply in some cases.
It was not a question of duties. This was a question of the importation of a certain piece of machinery which could be had from Great Britain or Germany. The duties were the same.
The duties are not the same in all cases.
This was not a question of saying: "You cannot import it." It was a question of putting difficulties in the way of its being imported from a certain country.
I suggest that the reply given by the Department was that the machinery could be imported from sources to which the duty did not apply.
That was not so in the case I have in mind. This was a question of inducing the person concerned to take the machinery from a particular country in preference to another country. That will spring up inevitably, and it is the least of the abuses to which this system is open. I, like Deputy Fitzgerald, was amazed to learn from the Minister that he is going to undertake aesthetic, educational propaganda and to teach the people what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has one view upon this question, but it would be patently absurd to have a Government Department advising on a question of taste. The Department of Industry and Commerce would be, with the possible exception of the Department of Finance, the last Department to which I would resort for a ruling on questions of taste of that type. Apparently, that is what the Minister is going to do.
To-night we had the argument used that a 40 per cent. tariff should be imposed because an industry is existing. Now we have 100 per cent. tariff because an industry is not existing and is not going to exist. The Minister did not explain why 100 per cent. tariff is given in the case of unworked white marble. He spoke of giving assistance. The assistance, I took it, was the tariff. Is the price going to be doubled from these quarries which the Minister hopes to set going as a result of this protection? If not, why the 100 per cent.? Already you have a tariff put on by the Italian Government on the material coming out of Italy. Now, when the Minister gets this æsthetic flair, 100 per cent. is to be imposed, not on the original price, but on the tariffed article. What is the "assistance" meant to be? We have had 40 per cent. tariffs imposed because industries were established and capable of standing on their own feet. Now we have a 100 per cent. tariff because an industry is not even in embryo. What is the justification for the attitude taken up? Why is the Minister introducing a licensing system when he could effect his purpose by definition? Why make the tariff 100 per cent. when there is no immediate prospect of starting the industry?
The tariff is fixed at 100 per cent. because it is intended to be prohibitive.
The Minister spoke of "assistance." What did he mean by that? Does that mean that they can charge up to 100 per cent.?
The fact that there are a number of quarries in competition.
I understood that the Minister's main aim was to get them going.
There are three or four working at the present time.
Can they not keep working?
We want to keep them working.
They cannot keep working without this 100 per cent?
They cannot keep working without a tariff?
Is there any white marble being produced?
There is no white marble being produced.
But it is in the country.
The Minister knows that there are certain things for which white marble is required and that the 100 per cent. tariff will not really be prohibitive.
I have already explained that, for statuary work or other class of monumental work for which white marble is required, the licensing provision will be operated to allow the marble in free of duty.
I suggest that even at this stage, the Minister should consider the withdrawal of this duty until the prospect of getting white marble here is somewhat nearer. He is only putting difficulties, trouble and cost in the way of firms who are trying to carry on industries to the best of their ability.
I do not think that there is any artistic merit in a fish-monger's slab.
I am glad to have the Minister's assurance that he will not refuse licences for unworked white marble but I suggest that he make inquiries in his Department as to whether that practice has been rigidly adhered to.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On behalf of Deputy Mulcahy, I move amendment No. 35:—
To delete reference No. 25, including relevant references in columns 2, 3 and 4.
I suppose this is another industry which produces better and cheaper.
It produces very good stuff.
The Minister does not make the same boast here. We have not the usual boast that it is cheaper and better. As a matter of fact, it is much dearer. Anyone who has to bind books of any type knows what an extraordinary expense it is. I do not question the quality of the binding, but the expense in many cases for a large number of people who have unbound books is really prohibitive. The one thing that emerged from the previous stage on the discussion of this tariff was, first, the unnecessary character of it, and the futility of it. It was typically the Minister's tariff. I think the Tariff Commission estimated that it would give, roughly speaking, one and a half men work. Is not that more or less the indication, as far as Missals are concerned? Like everything else, there has been no advertence to the cost. The Minister never even thinks of the consumer. This is a class of tariff that hits a large number of people who are not by any means the wealthier class, men who have had already to go to considerable expense, very often beyond their means, perhaps, to perfect themselves in a certain calling. I think the Minister was warned, when he was imposing this tax, that it would put a very unfair burden on a number of individuals. Listen to what the President of Maynooth College says on the matter. He speaks from personal experience and, hence, we have not now the airy persiflage of the Minister that it is cheaper and better, because we have an instance where that is not the case. It is what everyone expects from these tariffs when worked out. I have no doubt that in the great majority of tariffs it will be found mutatis mutandis that they are absolutely useless and are only trifling with the matter.
Is that what the President of Maynooth College said?
I have not quoted anything yet.
The Deputy has merely drawn in the President's name here.
Has the Minister broken his vow of silence? If we have two of you maybe we could get on with a lot of business. I believe that this is one of the most absurd tariffs that has been introduced by the Minister. This is what the President of Maynooth College said:—
"Monsignor MacCaffrey referred to the heavy financial burden imposed on ecclesiastical students by the new Customs duty on liturgical books and bibles. With the tax on prayer books he was not going to deal, as he wished to confine himself strictly to that part on which he had a right to speak."
That is where he had personal knowledge. Therefore, the Minister cannot say to him: "This is a matter you know nothing about." In this case 60 books were £74 dearer.
"In regard to liturgical books or quasi-liturgical books or bibles, whether printed in Hebrew, Latin, Greek or English, he pointed out that the Tariff Commission which examined this question recently reported that only a very limited quantity of these were required in the Free State annually, and that owing to various considerations, the printing of these books in the Free State was utterly out of the question. The whole problem then was concerned with the binding of these volumes. On the one hand, even if all such books were imported in sheets and distributed amongst the various bookbinding establishments, he would not say in Ireland, but even in Dublin, they would not give an extra half hour's employment. On the other hand, he doubted if the increased cost to the buyer, when all the factors were taken into consideration would fall far short of the present Customs duty on the bound volume.
"Yet, this new tax, doing little or nothing as he believed to ease the unemployment situation, imposed a heavy financial burden on ecclesiastical students as illustrated by the fact that on a recent consignment of about 60 breviaries the college book store paid over £74, all of which was passed on to the individual student.
"All these books were absolutely essential for the professional training of priests. He did not claim any exceptional privilege or immunity from taxes for clerics, but he objected to unfair discrimination."
He did not say that there should be preference for priests, but that ecclesiastical students should not be taxed unfairly, compared with other students, for any books that their calling required. You will notice here how fully borne out is the contention, that has been raised again and again from these benches, that if you put on a tariff the price of the article will go up by the amount of the tariff. Of course, the Minister, if we are to judge by his statement, would blandly say that we were getting a cheaper missal or breviary than ever before. What has occurred? The cost of the article has gone up by the amount of the Customs duty. The Minister is not suggesting that the only dishonest traders and the only dishonest manufacturers are book-binders. The Minister's idea is that if a man takes advantage of the tariff he is dishonest. That is the argument that he used in this House, notwithstanding the pronouncement of Deputy Dowdall and the experience of practically every business man. It is inevitable that they will do so. Here we have the case proved up to the hilt. It is bound to occur. None of the persiflage of the Minister will get over that fact. Prices have gone up, practically speaking, by the amount of the tariffs. Possibly people do not know that when they are buying. In this case, on 60 books they had to pay £74 extra. Anyone who has any experience of these things will know that that must inevitably occur. At an early stage that was pointed out and the Minister could have remedied it, in view of the fact that the amount of work it would get was negligible, that it meant inconvenience and that the amount of loss that was being inflicted was considerable for the chance of putting 1½ men into employment. But this had to be done irrespective of the consequences. After all, what the Minister expects is clear from his previous statement that the manufacturers come to him and state that unless they are given these tariffs they could not carry on. It was stated there was only an examination into cost. There was no consideration whatever for the consumer or for prices. There was a vague and an absurd belief that prices would not go up. Luckily, we have a case which refutes the Minister, and shows clearly that what everyone expected has occurred. I suggest certainly that this is a tax that the House should oppose.
As far as I remember, when this tax was first put on the Minister tried to dodge stating what it was for. There was the usual trouble about a definition as to whether it referred to books bound in leather or in imitation leather. I have never been able to find out why this tax was imposed. Most of these books are printed for world circulation. Some time ago I spoke to an expert with regard to a book of this nature. I knew the price of it—it was bought here before the tax was put on—and I asked him how much it would cost to produce it here. It was a book of a kind that required 32 processes in its production, and the potential make here named a price that was more than three times what it cost to buy it in a shop here, which price, of course, also included the trader's profit. The futility of trying to produce articles of that kind in this country where they can only be sold at over four times the price at which they could be imported is made abundantly clear by that example.
It looked to me as if this tax were an attempt to force the Irish people to take their spiritual pabulum according to the Minister's dictation in the same way as the Minister would like to dictate to artists the medium in which they should work. It looked to me like an effort to make the people of this country a unit, as if they were part of a machine, and to make them accept the same spiritual pabulum for everyone as if there were no difference between them. I confess that I was charmed to see the statement from the President of Maynooth College because I knew that it would have more effect than anything we could possibly say here. The futility of this tax has been made abundantly clear to everybody by that statement. In Belgium and other countries they turn out these missals and breviaries beautifully printed on excellent paper and perfectly bound, and they produce them, not for one country, but for universal consumption. To attempt, in view of the limited unit of consumption here, to compete with these firms is perfectly ridiculous and most unjust to anybody who has to buy these articles.
I am glad, at any rate, that the Minister is now frank, as he tried not to be a few years ago, and that we do know now that the articles taxed are prayer books, missals, breviaries and hymnals. I should like to know from the Minister whether or not this tax is in relation to binding only or in relation to printing and binding. When these books are made en masse the binding can be done much cheaper than over here. My experience, before this tax was imposed, was that these books were bound ever so much cheaper. Of course, the Minister may say that the binding is superior here. My experience, however, was that they were produced much better as well as cheaper outside the country than in the country. It must be remembered that it is not a big and important industry, nor is it likely to be, because this type of binding is usually what they call stiff covers, and not bound at all. It is a very small market and there is no prospect of relieving unemployment here or of improving the economic condition of the country by getting that work done here. It cannot possibly be put on any parity with what is done abroad unless it is expected to develop it sufficiently so as to provide an export market to other countries.
When this matter was first debated, I think the Minister said that certain printers here had got contracts for printing books for general circulation. As far as I know these contracts have not come in since. I am not saying that that is because the tax was put on. My point is that the Minister put up an argument in favour of this tax, or an analogous tax, which had no reality in it whatever. The case he gave had no bearing in relation to the tax he was putting on. The President of Maynooth College has stated his case in relation to 50 or 60 books. He pointed out that the College had to pay £74 for these books, which had to be passed on to the students. I fail to see how the Minister can justify that. I suggest that in this case the Minister is penalising students only in the interests of the Revenue. Why should the Minister select these articles for a tariff which can only be a revenue tariff? It is not going to be an industry here. Why should he put this very heavy tax—this 30 per cent. as it works out—on things which, with regard to certain people, are absolute necessities? Breviaries and missals have to be bought by every priest; and the Minister, most arbitrarily, has put this tax on these articles, and the only possible good that it does, that he can point to, is that it raises revenue. It has no relation whatever to a possible flourishing industry in the country.
The question of imposing a duty on prayer books was the subject of an inquiry by the Tariff Commission, and the report of that Commission is available to the public. The primary object of the duty is to relieve, as far as it is possible to do it, the unemployment existing in the book-binding trade. Generally speaking, the effect of the tariff should be to afford increased employment to book-binders, although a certain amount of increased employment for printers may also result. For various reasons, it is not always feasible to have all the printing, for the various classes of religious books used in the Saorstát, done at home. Consequently, we are taking power under the Resolution to permit the importation, free of duty, of such printed sheets for binding in this country. I am aware, of course, of the statement made by the President of Maynooth College, but I am also aware of the fact that, since the duty has been imposed, a number of religious communities in the Saorstát have made arrangements to have all their prayer books, breviaries, missals, hymnals and other religious books, which were formerly imported complete, bound in the Saorstát and, so far as I understand, they have not experienced difficulty nor do they anticipate any substantial increase in cost as a result of the new arrangements. Heretofore, prayer books printed in English and bound in leather were liable to 30 per cent., but that is now being removed by this Resolution. In general, the duty is not heavy and it affords a certain amount of protection.
When the Minister says that the duty of 30 per cent. is not heavy, is he referring to this duty we are speaking of?
Yes. It is not heavy if arrangements are made for the binding of these books here, and these arrangements can be made without difficulty and actually have been made by a number of religious communities in the Saorstát.
Take the production of a missal by a certain well-known Belgian firm. The Minister says that he is taking power to allow the printed sheets to be brought in here, free of duty, and bound here. Let us take the case of a missal which could be bought for, say, 15/- here. Does the Minister suggest that, by importing the printed sheets and having them bound here, there is going to be no additional cost?
No. As a matter of fact, I think that Maynooth College can do a lot in this matter because they always placed the largest orders. I understand that they require something like 200 here—that a single order would be for 200. If they were to place an order with any firm here for 200 copies, that firm could make arrangements to import the sheets and bind them here.
Is the Minister suggesting that Maynooth College has not done its business properly because they never made arrangements to bring them in and because they paid this high price which has been referred to by the President of the College.
The consignment to which the President of the College referred was a consignment ordered before the duty was imposed. It would not have been possible to make arrangements to deal with that particular consignment, but arrangements could be made for the future.
Do I understand the Minister to say that the reason they could not deal with this was because the order for this consignment was made before the duty was imposed? I understood that that tariff has been on for three years.
No, the tax was only on prayer books printed in English.
Suppose he paid £10 for one volume coming from abroad, does the Minister suggest that by getting the sheets over and getting them bound here instead of having to pay the tariff to the Minister he would actually have got it at roughly the same price as he bought it ready bound from abroad?
I do not think so. It might be a slight increase in the price of the binding, but it would not be as much as the tariff.
I question it. I had a certain amount of experience.
I should not like to say what would be the position in regard to an individual volume.
I cannot really follow the Minister. First of all, there is one thing which he avoided answering, namely, whether there was any increase at all in the price here if you get the printed sheets in. Again, assuming that he uses his favourite device of a licence, and gets in the printed sheets, he did not indicate what employment the binding of missals was calculated to give. There is no good in saying that the binding of missals and prayer-books goes together. It does not; they are different things. The price of binding varies according to the format of the book. If you get ten books of exactly the same format it is one matter, but if the format varies it is a different thing altogether. The Minister, first of all, was careful to avoid telling us how many extra men the binding of loose sheets of Latin missals would put into employment. My recollection is that it was a man and a half. Let us be generous and say one and two-thirds.
That is the kind of industry the Minister has established. The same thing applies to everything else, except that here we can follow it a little more clearly, that is the difference. He puts one and a half men into employment, or to avoid unnecessary dispute, let us say one and two-thirds, and for that, all this inconvenience is being caused. First of all, there was the Maynooth experience. The only thing I could gather from the Minister's statement was not that there was no truth in Monsignor MacCaffrey's statement but that there was no justification for its coming out. He need only have waited until next year. He need only have gone to one of the leading firms in Dublin; he need only have conducted his business the same as other communities conducted it. I take it for granted, with all respect to the Minister, that a man in that position will not make a statement in an assembly of that kind without very grave reason. The mere fact that it occurred once would not, to my mind, seem an explanation. He knew that he was faced with this particular thing in this year and every year. The Minister made another statement. He said that a number of Religious Orders had determined to have all their missals bound in the Saorstát and they anticipated no increased cost. May I ask on what the Minister bases that statement? Had he evidence of that? How many new missals does he anticipate that a Religious Order will have to get in a year? He spoke of quantities. How many new missals does he calculate they will have to order every year? We are told that the Orders came to the Minister or to the Minister's Department and said they had no difficulty about this. They can get them as good and at the same price. That is the position taken up by the Minister up to now. I suggest that he mend his hand.
I suggest that the Minister should agree to abolish this tax.
I opposed this tax before, and I should now like to support those who spoke against the proposal. I think we are making a huge mistake in regard to this book tax generally. If there is one thing above all others that we should try to do it is to encourage people to read instead of putting every possible difficulty in the way of such reading. The whole tax on books is fundamentally objectionable. It is objectionable in itself because of its effects. It is objectionable and obnoxious to the public generally. The result of it is shown by the facts. Despite all the attempts to make cases about revenue on the one hand, or employment on the other, the effect simply is that people who read have to pay more for what they read. The amount of revenue got hardly compensates for the cost of getting it. The amount of employment certainly does not compensate for the vexation and extra cost in which the book-reading public are involved. The whole tax on books is unworthy of any Government, and I suggest to the Minister that he should seriously consider even at this stage not only cutting out this tax but cutting out the whole tax on books, which has come down to be the mere shadow of what it was when the Minister first introduced it. For all the good it is doing him from any point of view, it is not worth while. It is only causing, throughout the intelligent book-reading public, a general feeling of lack of intelligence and proper motive on the part of the Government.
I do not know whether the attention of the Minister has been called to the fact that the tariff on books is actually interfering with a number of people in earning their living or supplementing their earnings. I know a number of cases of people here who review books for publication in England. I know one case of a literary editor who agreed to send a man books only when he was given to understand that the Government would probably make a special arrangement with regard to them. I know the case of another man—I have this only secondhand—who periodically went over to England to review books on the radio. Owing to the delay caused by this interference on the part of the Customs people it was necessary for him to go to England three days before he need ordinarily go. The books would only reach him here after he should have given his criticism, so he had to go over a few days before in order to read the books. I have been told—although I have no exact figures —that quite a fair amount of money comes into the country in this connection. To my own knowledge in the case of two copies of the same book there was a five days' delay caused by the Customs. One copy came through straight away; the other was marked "opened by Customs" and came five days later, although it was sent on the same day. The Minister should consider all that inconvenience. I am not saying that the revenue which he gets is not more important than the money earned by people here, but I have been told by people who know something about this that quite a considerable number of persons here who add to their incomes in this way have been so handicapped. One editor told me that he could not send books to a certain well-known Irish author because he could not be sure that the man would get them in time. I think that is a matter in connection with which the Minister ought to make some arrangement. It is most unfair that there should be inconvenience which actually means that people lose some part of their living.
I do not know if anybody will agree with the contribution which I am going to make in regard to this particular matter. A number of bookbinders had employment here in Dublin. The number is diminishing. They did very good work. They were craftsmen of a high order. It is rather a pity that they cannot find employment, and they will not find employment by charging £74 on 60 books coming in here. I suggest to the Minister that there was an opportunity of doing something for the bookbinders here. The matter was rendered much easier by reason of the fact that religious communities in such places as Maynooth College could have been communicated with, and asked what were their requirements. There could then have been an arrangement whereby the books would be imported without any covers, and bound here. Nobody would grudge paying whatever the difference would be here by means of a vote, if it were needed. It would be advisable to maintain the bookbinding industry. I presume the Minister has seen quite a number of works produced by bookbinders in this country and in other countries and I think he will agree that it would be a great pity if the industry were lost here. The Minister is not likely to help it to be retained by collecting the type of tax he proposes to collect.
In reference to what Deputy Fitzgerald has said, I know of a case in which a book was sent from America. It was sent purposely to get the opinion of a person on how it was written and bound. It happened to be bound with shark leather. The recipient here got a notification from either the Revenue Commissioners, the post office or somebody else asking for £1 on the book and intimating a fine of 2/6 for not having given notice that the book was coming. That sort of thing is not going to help the bookbinders. If the intention is to help the printing industry, that is not the way to do it. Further, in connection with printing, I wonder if the Minister has examined the results of printing here and the export of books and compared the figures with the inflow of books? If he does so, I think he will find that before this Government took office a large number of books were printed in the country. In fact, one firm specialised in that direction and it was able to beat a number of competitors. If the Minister wants to help the bookbinders he ought to endeavour to do it in some way that will give them real help. He should not try to put himself in the position of saying: "I put on a tariff and I made them pay for not employing people at home." The Minister should be interested in employing the bookbinders, but collecting this type of tax is not going to do it.
I do not think the advantages to be derived from this tariff are going to be so great. So far as we can understand, something equivalent to the present occupation of the Ministerial Bench, 1½ men are going to be absorbed. Where it concerns books connected with church services, a tax is highly objectionable and I think this House should set its face against such a thing in principle. I think the Minister might modify this tariff to meet some of the objections that have been submitted. He might draw some distinction, for instance, between books purely of a liturgical kind, books that will be used by religious orders, communities and clergymen, and books that will be used by the public in connection with religious worship. He might be able to draw a distinction that way. I think the Minister should make an exception in favour of such things as breviaries and missals used by clergymen and ecclesiastical students.
I think the imposition of this duty will cause no inconvenience of the kind suggested if the persons desiring these books place orders through the Irish book-binding firms. If they decide to carry out all the arrangements themselves, that is, the importation of the printed sheets, the application for the licence and the making of a contract with some book-binders here, undoubtedly there will be inconvenience; but if they place an order for so many of these books to be produced here they will be able to get them without inconvenience. There may be, in respect of some classes of books, an increase of price.
They will, but I do not think the increase need be very substantial. Whatever inconvenience they may suffer, it will be confined to that. It is entirely misleading to say that the employment given in this connection will be employment only to one or two book-binders. The Tariff Commission referred to the employment give in connection with missals. We are not imposing a duty on missals only, but upon all classes of religious books which are mentioned in the Resolution. As regards some classes of books, they can not only be bound but also printed here and arrangements are being made by different firms to market prayer books of various descriptions which will be printed and bound in this country. Some excellent examples of prayer books printed and bound here can be purchased at the present time in book shops in the city.
These are ordinary prayer books as distinct from liturgical works.
If the sheets cannot be printed here the arrangement is to facilitate the importation of these sheets free of duty to be bound here, and I have no reason to believe that the book-binding will not be done excellently. Even though I will admit that some increase in cost may result, the increase will be nothing as considerable as the duty. The matter raised by Deputy Fitzgerald was not quite relevant to this, but I would like to take the opportunity of saying that while there may have been some ground for his complaint some time ago, I do not think there is any ground now. Some time ago, definite arrangements were made to enable books to be imported for review with very small delay; certainly the delay would not be more than one day in any case.
Second-hand books, of course, come under this, too —second-hand books of this type?
And leather-bound books come under other tariffs.
The tariff imposed by Section 11 of the 1932 Finance Act will not apply to these books.
Already there is a tariff on leather-bound books.
If a scholar in this country wants to get a copy of the Keltische Zeitschrift and Celtic Review, bound in Halbfrazband, or half-leather, he will pay 30 per cent. on that, and cannot get it otherwise.
The Minister does not seem to appreciate that there was more than a day's delay in the instance I was referring to and there was considerable vexatious difficulty as a result of the delay. I wonder will the Minister consider the operation of this whole book tax and the vexation and trouble it has caused?
I have asked for a report on the working of it.
Let me give one instance. A parcel of books was held by the Customs. A notice was received two or three days later by the person to whom the books were addressed. He was told there was a parcel of books subject to a Customs duty. When he arrived at the offices he found the parcel had been sent back to England and the result was he never got the books at all. I could give the Minister dozens and dozens of instances. I have here a book sold elsewhere by the hundred thousand at a cost of 5/6 to the purchaser. It was sold here in Ireland to hundreds of people who had to pay, in addition to the 5/6, 4/4 duty to the Customs, because, in the first place, it was stated to be imitation leather, which it is not, and in the second place, because it is valued, not at the price at which it is sold but at the price the Customs officials believe a customer would give for it. Who knows what a customer would give for such a book? One man might give £10 for it. I want the Minister to go into the whole question of the operation of the book tax and the difficulties it leads to in practice. He will then, I feel sure, get some idea of the vexation caused to the general public, and it is a vexation of very considerable magnitude.
The book was advertised as being worth a guinea.
And so are Beecham's Pills, as I told the Minister. The Customs officials refused to take one kind of advertisement and they chose another which is obviously an exaggeration, a kind of puff on the part of the seller.
Apparently, the Minister and the Department are going to make up their minds how many sheets of a certain book are going to be printed in this country before they give a licence.
No. Practically speaking, the licence will be given in all cases except for books of which a considerable quantity are likely to be used, such as prayer books.
Most of the ordinary prayer books are already printed in this country?
Question put: "That the reference proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 56; Níl, 35.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Everett, James.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Motion declared carried.
I move amendment No. 36:—
At reference No. 26, in the third column, to delete "75 per cent." and substitute "20 per cent."
This relates to reference No. 26, under which it is proposed to put on a tariff of 75 per cent. on copper tubes, tubing, pipes, and piping of certain dimensions, with a provison that in certain circumstances the Minister may allow them in without any tariff. This is one of the many taxes put on articles that affect the cost of houses, and I should like to hear from the Minister the circumstances that suggest to him that he should put this enormous tax on copper pipes.
The duty on copper tubes is imposed because their manufacture is about to be commenced at Galway and a Saorstát company is being formed for the purpose. The factory is being constructed and will, I understand, come into production during the course of the present month, giving a considerable amount of employment. As regards the price, the arrangement made between the company and the Department resulted in a guarantee being given that the price of tubing would not exceed by more than one penny per lb. the price of corresponding tubing in Great Britain.
What percentage will that be?
It is not a very high percentage. The main reason why the additional penny in the lb. was required is because of the decision come to, on the representations of the Government, to locate the factory in the West of Ireland. It is estimated that about 50 lbs. of copper tubing are used in an average house, so that the additional cost per house will be not more than 4/2. The duty of 75 per cent. is necessary because substantial supplies of inferior grade copper tubing are available from Continental sources, and recently there has been a tendency to import such copper tubing, which is sold at a very cheap rate, and is of a very inferior quality. It was felt that with a lower duty than 75 per cent. it would not be possible to secure the market in the Saorstát for this Galway concern. Having regard to the fact that the arrangement made involves an easily enforceable guarantee in respect of price, the amount of the duty can be fixed at such a height as will ensure that the imports will be restricted. The licence provision, of course, is necessary at present because production has not yet commenced and imports are at present being allowed in under licence, and also because certain classes of copper tubing, such as are used in breweries, distilleries and hospitals, that is tinned or coiled copper tubing, will also have to be allowed in free in future.
The Minister said that there was not to be more than one penny per lb. difference between the price here and the price in Great Britain. How is the price in Great Britain to be measured?
The prevailing price in Great Britain.
The Deputy is possibly aware that associated with this factory in Galway is a firm which is probably the biggest producer of copper tubing in Great Britain.
I am aware of that. But, is it the price fixed in Great Britain?
I do not know what the Minister measures a penny per lb. at. Certainly 75 per cent., when they have been promised that only one penny per lb. will be the difference in price, seems too wide a gap. In other words, I should like to know why 75 per cent. is necessary to protect the industry when it has been promised that there will not be a greater difference than one penny per lb.
Because we feel that a lower duty would not be operative in keeping out certain inferior grades of copper tubing that can be imported from the Continent.
I should like to emphasise the point made by Deputy Dockrell. We have a whole litany of these things that we have been told we can do as well as or better than is being done elsewhere. Yet, we are not satisfied with a small margin. Is the Minister so foolish and so green that he accepts the statement that these people who are going to make the tubing in Galway will turn it out at a penny per lb. above what it can be imported at? It is curious that the Minister should adopt these units, when tubing is not sold by weight. I wonder is he adopting them for confusion. Anyway, I should like to know if he accepts the statement that they are going to turn out good-class tubing at a penny per lb. above what it can be imported at.
A penny per lb. dearer than the price fixed in England for the same article. Then there is the transit over here, and that narrows the gap. I wonder is that right?
The price here is to be not more than one penny higher than the price in England.
And the Minister puts on a tariff of 75 per cent. He says that a lot of inferior piping is coming in from the Continent, and that is why he fixes it at 75 per cent. If he wants to keep out that inferior piping, could he not propose a preferential duty for Great Britain which would bring the effective duty, with a small margin for safety for the Irish manufacturer, above the penny per lb.? I do not know what percentage a penny per lb. represents, but, say it represents 15 per cent.: if the 75 per cent. tariff were allowed to stand, with a preferential rate of 55 per cent. for Great Britain, that would leave an effective duty of 20 per cent.. and a profit duty of 5 per cent. to the Irish manufacturer beyond what the Minister says he can produce the article at. What more does he want?
When the Minister says inferior piping is going to come in here from the Continent, has he taken any steps to have good reasonable drain piping produced here? What internal pressure has he set as a standard? It is a very serious thing for people who have to turn out articles from these materials if the Minister concerned does not take any steps to provide standards. The automatic steps that the industry itself would take to provide these standards, namely, ordinary competition, does not apply here. Of course, I know this is a matter for ridicule in the mind of a man of such high technical qualifications as the Minister for Finance occupies in the building world. He can afford to smile at us poor ignorant people working in the dark down on a lower plane.
The Deputy flatters himself. I am not listening to him.
If the Minister has such superior intelligence and knowledge he has no need to listen. It is not for the Minister's edification that I am speaking, but for ordinary people. He is a man of superior intelligence, and with a poetic strain too. How are people to be satisfied that they are to get any value for their money? Seventy-five per cent. tariff cuts out all possible competition. In the case of tiles, we were told there were so many firms producing them that they are in competition one with another. But here is a firm that is going to start making these copper tubes which are required in every house, and that firm will have nobody to compete with except with a preference of 75 per cent. If they are able to make these tubes at practically the same price as those outside, why this 75 per cent. preference? It does not make for industrial development here, or for efficiency in the turning out of an article which is the raw material for new houses.
This is about the worst of the percentages put into this Schedule. They are all bristling with evidence of the incompetence of the Minister concerned. I cannot understand what is the object. Of course, the Minister for Industry and Commerce will get up and tell us that those who are objecting to this are condemning their own countrymen. He will tell us that we do not want work here for our own people. That is what the Minister tries to get away with. If we want to have efficiency we must have competition. We do not want to give away people's money in the way it is proposed to be given away here. There is to be 75 per cent. preference for a firm that will have a monopoly of making these copper tubes. No engineering standard is provided, no engineering pressure which these pipes should stand is specified. All that has to be done is to make anything in the shape of a tube, dump it on the market under a 75 per cent. tariff, and the man who is to use it has got to take it or else pay 75 per cent. more in the way of tariff.
If the Minister had any experience in these matters he would know something of the trouble that is caused by inferior piping in houses. The piping has to be put in before it is tested. Before the water test is applied the whole house is finished. If the piping opens or bursts, the whole house is wet, the ceiling may come down. Who is to blame? The incompetence of the Minister, I think. But it would be no explanation for me to say that the Minister for Finance was grinning when I was making this protest. He says he was not listening. Of course not; and he will not have to pay the damage. Why does the Minister offer such a protection as 75 per cent.? The whole thing is like a fairy tale. No one has made this piping yet, but a few fellows will come along and say it will only cost 1d. more. There were many things I was anxious to make in my time. I drew great plans on paper, and figured out the money I was to make. But then I began to discover the number of flaws there were in my plans and my eyes were opened. These people will have their eyes opened too, but no matter, we will have a new factory—a new gold mine.
I just want a little information from the Minister. Perhaps I misunderstood what he said. One thing interested me. Did I gather rightly that the Minister's excuse for this high tax was that he was establishing this new factory in a place which was not economically a good position?
I did not say that at all. The sole reason why the tariff is 75 per cent. is to prevent the importation of very inferior copper tubing from the continent.
I said one of the reasons that might operate to raise the cost by 1d. per lb. was the location of the factory in Galway.
Is not that an important principle? If you establish a new factory you should establish it in the most suitable place, regardless of political consideration. I press that point upon the Government. I am interested, and rejoice as much as the Minister that our industries should be successful, but we should keep this before our minds. Liverpool would not be such a great place for the cotton industry if the climate and also its geographical position did not suit. The same applies to any other industry. I think it is a mistake to establish an industry in any place that is not particularly and specially suitable; otherwise you are putting a handicap on the industry.
I do not believe the Minister's argument that the necessity for this 75 per cent. tariff is because there is coming in inferior stuff from the Continent, and because of the utilisation of that inferior stuff in houses. We have had slanders to-day on our wholesale merchants, that they discriminate against Irish products. We had what practically amounts to a slander upon bodies like the Irish Federation of Industries and the Irish Industrial Development Association to the effect that these highly organised bodies, representatives of very wide-flung sections of the commercial and manufacturing community, and persons in public life and the public generally, are ignoring the good they might do, and are not stepping in to try and provide a remedy. Now we have a slander on another class of people in the community, namely, our builders, architects and clerks of works.
In all these matters, there is a standard to which architects and builders work, and, where the houses are being erected under contract for local authorities, you have the fullest examination and the fullest supervision of the type of stuff being put into them by a clerk of works specially selected.
We hear talk about the Japanese and cheap this and cheap that, but I do not believe a single word of it. The Minister is simply adopting the easy way of running away from the facts of the situation, while throwing dust in the eyes of Deputies and in the eyes of the public. The fact is that he is here providing that this copper tubing shall cost 75 per cent. more than it need cost. The manufacture of this tubing cannot be very difficult, and I submit that a 20 per cent. tariff is quite a reasonable tariff. It will be manufactured by people who are engaged in other classes of work, and there is not the slightest reason at all for inducing the abnormal fixing of the cost of these things. The Minister tells us that it is going to cost 1d. per lb. more. The Minister has very carefully refrained from reducing that 1d. per lb. to anything like a percentage of the total cost of the article. What we are asked to do here is to acquiesce in an increase in the cost of these things by 75 per cent. It is only one of the items upon which a tax has been imposed which is adding seriously to the cost of house-building, and I think the House ought to oppose it.
Question put: "That the figures stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 57; Níl, 33.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Everett, James.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 37:—
At reference No. 29, to delete all reference in column 3 and substitute "20%".
I desire to ascertain from the Minister what is the position with regard to the manufacture of pencils and pen-handles here. It is proposed to impose the considerable duty of 33? per cent. with certain minimum charges, on imported pencils, pen-handles and things of that kind. There is also a provision that certain persons may be given a licence to import these articles without a tariff.
A factory for the manufacture of lead pencils has been established at Mullingar, and it is hoped that it will come into production shortly. It is not in production yet. In the meantime imports are being licensed. It is estimated that it will give employment to 60 persons, a considerable proportion of whom will be men. An undertaking has been given that the average selling price of the various grades of pencils will be approximately the same as the prices charged by British manufacturers under like conditions.
Would the Minister say whether licences to import pencils free of duty are being issued to all persons applying for them at the present moment?
I think so. Perhaps I had better not say that definitely, as I am not quite certain. If the Deputy wants information in the matter, he will get it by putting down a Parliamentary question. They are either all being granted or refused.
I shall withdraw the amendment and put it down for Report Stage, to give the Minister an opportunity of supplying the information.
The Deputy can use the machinery of a Parliamentary question to get any information he requires.
The ordinary Parliamentary question is not a very satisfactory way of getting information. It would be more satisfactory if the Minister would take the opportunity on the Report Stage to tell the Dáil what is the position. It is for that purpose that I intend to put down the amendment for the Report Stage.
Mr. Rice
Would the Minister tell the House what the manufacturers meant when they said that the prices would be approximately the same as the British prices? Did he inquire what the difference in price would be?
Is the amendment being withdrawn, or has it been moved?
It was moved, and is before the House at the moment.
By saying that the price would be approximately the same as the British price, I meant that, subject to the conditions being the same, the price would be the same. We may have a higher rate of wages here, or some other circumstances may operate which would not correspond with conditions on the other side.
The only information I want from the Minister is a clearer statement as to whether licences to import these articles are being issued to all persons who apply for permission to import reasonable quantities without the tariff. I want to know whether it is his intention to continue to grant licences for the importation of these articles free of duty until such time as the factory is in production.
I think they are all being granted, but I had better not say definitely without looking into the matter.
I do not press this amendment, but I shall put it down for Report Stage in order to give the Minister an opportunity of stating the exact position. That is the only question I want to ask in reference to it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
First Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill.
SECOND SCHEDULE.
I move amendment No. 38:—
In Part I, to delete reference No. 2, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
It is proposed under Reference No. 2 to impose a duty at the rate of 6d. per square yard on any article, not otherwise liable to duty, which, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, is linoleum. Linoleum is imported into this country and sold at prices ranging from ? per square yard to 10/- per square yard. The ordinary worker purchasing linoleum at the rate of ? or 2/- is going, as a result of this tariff, to pay 2/- or 2/6, as the case may be, whereas the person who can buy linoleum at the higher rate of 9/- or 10/-, is simply going to pay an extra 6d. per square yard. The position at the moment is that the greater quantity of linoleum imported into this country is priced at the cheaper rates. This is one of the many items that is being taxed as a result of the Minister's inquiry to see what exactly could be taxed in the working man's home. It has been pointed out repeatedly here that there is hardly an article required in the working man's home which is not being taxed. A tax of 6d. per square yard is now being imposed on any linoleum that the working man may want to buy in future. It is one of the taxes, taken in conjunction with the tax on butter, bread, tea, sugar and coal which shows the extremity to which the Minister is driven although he will not admit it. It shows the extremes to which he is prepared to go in fleecing the last halfpenny from the poor.
Would I be in order at this stage in asking a question about Reference No. 1?
We had better dispose of the amendment first.
I merely want to know whether this is to be regarded as a purely revenue tax. We are not likely to discover any lake of bitumen or asphalt in this country and this is a tax that will press very heavily on the taxpayers. Asphalt and bitumen are used in many ways. This tax of 3d. per cwt. seems to be a purely revenue tax.
I take it that bitumen would be the raw material for the damp course and there seems to be no sense in putting a tax on the finished product and then on the raw material. The Minister may say that 3d. per cwt. is not a great impost but it all tots up. If you take the 5/- charge for Customs entry, that would be as heavy as the charge on a ton of bitumen. I think that the Minister should try to keep off taxes on small amounts of raw materials, especially where the cost of passing the entry and collecting it will probably amount to much more than the amount of the duty. I should like if the Minister would give us an explanation, from that point of view, as to what rhyme or reason there is for sticking a tax on the raw material of these finished articles.
Already, in reply to Deputy Alton, I have said all there is to be said in regard to this tax. It is a revenue tax.
Does the Minister realise that the mere passing of this revenue tax will amount to what he will collect off a ton of the material? In the light of that, the Minister should consider the incidental expense to the importer which is involved in a number of these small collections.
The Minister has slipped off along the asphalt path——
On a point of order, are we discussing the amendment moved by Deputy Mulcahy or are we discussing something else?
We are discussing amendment No. 38.
Because we are discussing amendment No. 38, I want the Minister to address himself to linoleum and not slip along the asphalt path by telling us that this is a revenue tax. The tax on linoleum is a revenue tax, but the Minister carefully refrained from saying so. It is a revenue tax imposed on the working classes. The greater amount of this tax is going to be raised from the worker. I want to know from the Minister why, in addition to all the other taxes put on the worker, he imposes this linoleum tax.
Question put: "That reference No. 2, proposed to be deleted, stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 55; Níl, 36.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Motion declared carried.
Ordered: "That reference No. 2 stand."
I move amendment No. 39:—
In Part I, to delete reference No. 3, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
The Minister's inquirer who visited the standard worker's house to see what he could tax spotted a bit of oilcloth, and on that oilcloth the worker will have to pay 2d. per square yard in tax. I am moving this amendment to delete that tax. It is one of the long litany of taxes that the Minister has imposed on the poorer classes of the community. It is a revenue tax. It is simply taking 2d. a square yard on any oilcloth that the worker may require for household use and transferring it to the Treasury. The Minister, I suppose, will be as silent about this as he was about the tax on linoleum. He is simply stuck in his dug-out while his agents scour every corner of the workman's home to get an odd penny or an odd twopence to keep going the condition of affairs that he calls a war in this country, a war that can bring about nothing but worse conditions for every worker.
Would the Minister say whether we make oilcloth in this country, and, if so, where?
The Minister is in his dug-out and his ears are stuck.
I have asked the Minister a question. Is he refusing to answer?
The Deputy can put down a Parliamentary question if he wants an answer. This is a revenue tax.
Common courtesy demands that when a question is asked it should be answered. If the Minister is going to adopt such a contemptuous attitude to the House and the country and to be so discourteous—well, that is his funeral and there will be a day of reckoning for him. I asked him if we made oilcloth in this country, and, if so, where? He does not know. He is too stupid to know.
Is not the position this: that if we did make oilcloth in this country, and if the Minister could not get his twopence per square yard on it, then he would select some other item in the worker's home and put a tax on that that would bring him in his twopence?
Or do what the Deputy did, allow people to walk around starving.
Will the tax on oilcloth that we do not make give them many square meals?
Question put: "That reference No. 3 stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 54; Níl, 34.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
Ordered: "That reference No. 3 stand."
I move amendment No. 40:—
In Part I, to delete reference No. 6, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
Various sections of this Bill, and various references in the Schedule contain many brutal tariffs, involving considerable cost, particularly on the poorer classes of the community, but if any of these taxes could be described as mean taxes, this is the meanest in the Bill. The Minister's agent, having surveyed the houses of workers in town and country, and having taxed everything in the place that could be taxed, apparently ran his mind over the taxes on bread, bacon, meat, butter and all the main items in the ordinary food list, and then he thought that in many workers' homes, particularly in the towns, there is a small break in the weekly fare when there is rice pudding for Sunday's dinner, and a tax goes on the rice pudding. The Minister proposes to put a tax of 2/- per cwt. on "rice, rice flour and rice meal, excluding any preparation which, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, is made from rice husk." There are many brutal taxes there, and probably some mean ones, but this tax stands out as the meanest one of the whole lot. It stamps the Minister's whole plan for taxation this year with the stamp of meanness, as well as with the stamp of brutality.
Perhaps the Minister could tell the House where rice is grown in this country. Is this tax of 2/- put on to help the production of native rice? The Minister was quite indignant when the last amendment was being discussed. He said that if I put down a question I would get an answer. I wonder would he make the same promise here, and, if I put down a Parliamentary question, would I get an answer as to where rice is grown in this country and as to how a tax of 2/- per cwt. on rice will help the production of the native crop? What industry is this tax designed to promote? Deputy Moore has attempted many apologias to-day in defence of high tariffs and tried to construe them as giving some pretence for the help of native industry. I think, however, that to find a good case for this tariff will tax the ingenuity of even Deputy Moore. Of course, the Minister for Finance will keep silent. In his silence, he presumes, there is strength. I would give it another name, however— not strength—but I will not mention it. This is purely a revenue tax on the household. As the proposer of the amendment, Deputy Mulcahy, said, if there is one simple pudding that finds favour in the poor man's and the ordinary man's home, it is a rice pudding, and now even that is going to be taxed.
You have killed carrageen.
The Minister for Lands, who is also the Minister for carrageen, tells a different story: that it would take more than rice to help carrageen. In any case, what harm would it be if we had a little more of both carrageen and rice? Would not the mixture be good, and do you not think that the ordinary man should be left some little choice as to taste? But no, he will be charged 2/- a cwt. on rice. I am usually well informed on agricultural matters, and generally arm myself with the necessary statistics, but I am not sufficiently interested in the price of rice, and, therefore, cannot speak very accurately as to the effect of this tax with regard to general world prices. Not being aware that rice was a native product in this country, or that any tax on it would be a help to the native crop, I must confess to ignorance as to the general trend of prices in the rice crop. However, I can say that it is about the worst tax of the lot, because it is a tax on the wee bit of luxury, if you could call it so, that the working man has in his Sunday dinner.
Well, of course, rice pudding may not have spread down to Cork yet, but it is gradually going that way since the Minister has determined to stop his onslaught on corn.
As far as that goes, rice and rhubarb go well together.
In practically every one of these taxes, we had the Minister for Industry and Commerce getting up—he is not here at the moment, but we have the Minister for Finance here—and giving, generally, as a reason for the particular tax concerned, that it was being put on because some article could be produced here cheaper and better than it could be produced anywhere else. Surely, he cannot advance that plea on this particular tariff. I do not know if it is proposed, by some method or another, to grow rice in this country, but I think that Deputy Mulcahy put the proper description on this tax when he described it as, possibly, the meanest tax that could be devised. And it is! Possibly, one explanation for the tariff is that the Minister, in bringing in the extra tariff on sugar and making it so dear, particularly to the poor, thought it as well to do away with rice because rice would not be very tasty without sugar, and that, having done away with the condiment, he might as well do away with the article itself. Unless one is to assume that the Minister is so hard up that he could not get a few pounds extra in revenue in any other way, it is difficult to understand this tax. One finds it hard to defend this tax in any way. It will take away one of the only luxuries that the very poor have in the way of an after-dinner sweet, and most of them have a very meagre dinner. It is a particularly selfish tax. Most of us here can afford some substitutes, but the people who use rice largely will be placed in a tremendously bad position owing to this tariff. I do not think there is any reason for supporting it. I am sure that Deputy Corry himself has partaken of this wholesome dish at times, embroidered with a fair quantity of good sugar. Now that he has a sugar factory in Cork, at Mallow, it ought to be to his interests, if not to the interests of other Deputies, to encourage the increased use of sugar through the use of rice.
That is why. We want more for Deputy Belton's sugar.
Can the Minister say how much he expects to get from this tax?
I cannot give the Deputy the details.
Is there any other reason for this tariff except the revenue to be derived from it? I do not see that there is any reason for this tax at all. It is an article of food consumed by the very poor people and, apart from that, it is used in the manufacture of starch, which is a household commodity. It is used in very many ways, apart from its use as a food. It will affect even the price of bread. Perhaps the Minister is not aware that rice flour is used in bakeries and that this will probably mean an increased cost per sack in the price of flour here. I think that this tax is going to have a very bad effect on the cost of producing bread and other articles into the manufacture of which rice enters, altogether apart from its being another tax on the food of the poor.
The Minister has not a word of explanation or a word of apology to offer to the House for this particularly mean tax. Deputy O'Neill raised another aspect of the matter. There was a time when the President was addressing himself to certain matters in a way which led us to think that we might get a progressive outlook on nutrition fostered by the Executive Council. It was considered by the President that light beer and milk would be a very excellent substitute for tea. While that actual proposal in itself did not mean very much as an intelligent start-off on a nutrition policy, nevertheless, it seemed that something might come of it. Now the Fianna Fáil Deputies laugh at the idea of rice pudding finding itself on the Sunday dinner table in any workman's home.
We did not laugh at anything of the sort, and the Deputy knows it.
I should like to hear Deputy Kelly——
Mr. Kelly
You are not going to hear Deputy Kelly at all.
We cannot hear Deputy Kelly, nor can we hear any other member of the Fianna Fáil Party on this subject. But we are up against this question, that here we have a commodity which has a nutritive value in the food of our people, and which is almost a tradition with the poor classes in many parts of the country, and there is a tax put on this particular commodity, which is used, as I say, at Sunday dinner. If there were any other substitute for it easily available it might be said that it was the orange, but since the Spanish oranges have been forced into the position which they were forced into by the recent agreement with Spain, the orange is cut out, and the people are driven back more to rice than ever they would have been if the orange market were left free. I should like to ask Deputy Kelly will he or any member of his Party address himself to that aspect of this particular tax, if they consider the tax itself too mean to address themselves to the actual taxation side of it.
Question put: "That reference No. 6 stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 54; Nil, 39.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Little and Smith; Níl, Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment 41:—
In Part 1, to delete reference No. 8, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
This is another of the taxes that hit the house-building industry very hard. In reference No. 8 it is proposed to put a tax of 5/- per cwt. on roofing slates and by doing so the Minister imposes £40,000 by way of taxation on one of the necessities for house-building. I would like to hear the Minister, who is a member of an Executive Council that prides itself so much on what it is doing for housing, explain why it is that he proposes to take something like £40,000 out of house-building by putting this tax on slates.
Because we have very good slates here.
Is the Minister satisfied that the Irish slate quarries are able to meet the home demand? I think the Minister ought to be aware that, as regards the principal slate quarry in this country, most of the slates which it produces are exported and that they have a very valuable export market. Is the Minister satisfied that under the present production the slate quarries of this country are producing a sufficient number of slates of the type required by the builders for our housing schemes? There is a certain amount of doubt in that respect and I have been informed by those engaged in the building industry that because of the foreign contracts which the principal slate quarries have entered into they are unable to meet the home demand. If that is so, it seems to me that the Minister will want to consider carefully the imposition of this heavy duty. If the builders have to import slates for houses we are building here and pay the heavy duty, it will mean an increase in the price of the houses. If the Minister can assure us that the Irish quarries are in a position to supply all the slates of the type required for the home market, then there is a case for the proposal in the Bill. But unless he is able to assure us of that, there is no case for what he proposes.
In reference No. 11 we have ridge tiles, hip tiles and other roofing tiles made wholly or partly of clay or of Roman cement, Portland cement or any other hydraulic cement, and the rate of duty there is 50 per cent. The Minister adopts another method here and he places the tariff at 5/- a cwt.
Which is 50 per cent. Indeed, it is something more.
Why does not the Minister help the country to understand what the percentage in his tariff means? Why does he not put it so that it will be more clearly understood? Is he not aware that these things are not sold by weight, they are not accounted for anywhere by weight? Neither is the material referred to in reference No. 10, and yet he puts a duty on the weight. Does he not want to help the building industry? Does he not want to help trade? Does he not want to help merchants who make their living by trading in these articles? He has confused and upset their whole accountancy system by the introduction of what I term pure camouflage. He should have given us some information about his tariff, but he leaves us to guess. These articles are of different values, and a percentage tariff would be far more equitable than a flat duty of 5/- a cwt. I wonder if he intends to get any revenue out of this? Deputy Morrissey referred to slates. I wonder why slates are not given more attention here, where so much roofing material is required, and where we have the natural product, slates, in abundance.
Progress reported.
The Committee to sit again to-morrow. The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 5th July.
