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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 12 Feb 1936

Vol. 60 No. 4

Finance (Special Drawback) Bill, 1936—Second Stage.

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

This Bill is consequential on the decision, as on the 20th January of this year, to abolish the duty of 5/- per ton on coal. The Bill, in Section 2, provides for the repayment of the duty shown to have been paid on all stocks of coal held by registered importers thereof on the midnight of the 24th January. Sub-section (2) of Section 2 is designed to provide for the repayment of the duty paid on coal dust used in the manufacture of briquettes made by the importer of the coal dust and held in stock by him at midnight on the appointed day. This provision is necessary as the legal position in regard to such briquettes would otherwise be uncertain. Section 3 of the Bill has been so worded as to bring claims for repayment, and declarations relating thereto, whenever made, within the ambit of the ordinary Customs law. The Commissioners, however, will rely on the careful scrutiny of the claims for the safeguarding of the Revenue. That is all I have to say, Sir.

This is an astounding piece of justice to a very remarkable class of people. There are quite a number of people who require justice to be done to them in the matter of the results of the 5/- tax on coal. I quite admit that one of these classes of people is the coal importers. There are two other classes who retail coal: the coal merchants throughout the country who take their stocks from the coal importers and do the very necessary and important business of retailing coal throughout the country—the class of retailers we have been dealing with in some respects up to the present, such as the bell-men and the factors in the City of Dublin—and there are the coal consumers, some consuming coal for manufacturing and industrial purposes and others consuming coal for their household purposes. There is not a single one of these classes that is not to-day suffering very serious injustices as a result of the policy that put 5/- tax on practically all coal imported into this country for the last 12 months; but the one class that is singled out to have this particular type of justice done to it—that is, to receive back 5/- per ton in respect of every ton of coal they held in stock on the 24th of January—is the one class which was able to surmount all the injustices of the last 12 months and which to-day, in my opinion, is reaping a very remarkable profit, all as a result of the Minister putting on 5/- tax and agreeing with the importers that 5/- was enough to take off the price of coal when he removed the 5/- tax. The Minister has given us no idea at all——

There is nothing about a Ministerial agreement with anybody in this Bill.

The Minister is going to hear about it and the Minister is going to explain about it and to tell us why, when he is remitting the amount of tax paid on coal to, at any rate, people who held coal stocks in their hands in the country, he is remitting the 5/- tax only off the coal importers. I have had a number of cases brought to my mind with regard to coal merchants throughout the country. Take the case of a man in Limerick who had 260 tons of coal in stock on the 24th January this year. He is not going to get the 5/- tax back, but a coal importer, who, say, imports his coal through the port of Cork, and who has subsidiary stores in Limerick, is going to get the 5/- back, not only in respect of his remaining stocks in Cork, but in respect of the coal in his subsidiary stores in Cork and in Limerick.

Now, this has to be borne in mind: that, when the Minister refunds this money—whatever amount it is—this money has to be found from the backs of other people. Therefore, if people are providing money to do some justice in this coal business, we want to know to whom that justice is being done and why exactly it is being done to this particular class of people. The coal importers who paid 5/- on every ton of coal that they had in stock on the 24th January are entitled to get that 5/- a ton back, but other people are more entitled to get it back, I hold. These are some of the points I want to put before the Minister so that he may have an opportunity of dealing with them before the Committee Stage, unless it is the Government's attitude that they are going to prevent any other people from dealing effectively with them.

I consider that the Bill should be amended by the Government so that those people, who are coal merchants throughout the country and who are an essential and necessary part of the distributive machinery for distributing coal throughout the country, should get the same consideration in this matter of refund as the coal importers are getting. I also raise the question as to why the coal importers are getting this remission of taxation at the expense of the general taxpayer when the coal importers themselves are, in my opinion, reaping an enormous extra profit arising out of the prices they are charging for coal at the present time—a position that would not have existed if the policy of the Government had not been to quota and to license the importation of coal into the country and to put on a 5/- tax.

Now, let us deal first with the people who retail coal. I have a statement here, signed by four coal retailers in the town of Castleblayney, and, on Friday, 24th January, they say that they have received and signed the Government's circular presented to them by the manager of the Labour Exchange there to reduce all coals by 5/- a ton, which they say they complied with in the belief that it was compulsory. The manager of the labour exchange in Castleblayney approached four of the merchants there and presented them with a document about which we have no information and about which we should like to get some information, and got them to sign some kind of a document about which we have no information except that it was an agreement to reduce the price of coal by 5/-. When, however, having done that, they assessed their stocks on 24th January and sent a statement to the Minister for Industry and Commerce asking for the refund, the Minister for Industry and Commerce replied that he was only dealing with importers and that the persons who had coal for retail purposes throughout the country were not going to be refunded their money in any way. I do not know how much coal they had in stock, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce knows. I have had communications from other parts of the country—one where a person had bought 50 tons of coal two days before the remission of tax and who was left, on the 24th January, with 64 tons of coal on hand. He paid his 5/- duty on that to the importer. He is now informed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he is not going to get any refund.

There is another case of a man in County Limerick who has probably a number of stores throughout the country, who had 210 tons of coal. He paid his 5/- duty on that but he is told by the Minister that he is not going to get any refund in respect of the 5/- duty which he paid through the importers. The importers have subsidiary stores in that town and other towns throughout the counties of Limerick and Cork, as they have in other parts of the country, in competition with the ordinary coal merchants in retailing coal. The person who is an importer-retailer is going to get his money back. I submit to the Minister that the other classes of retailers must be catered for. They are quite as essential throughout the country as the importer and they are put in the position by the policy unnecessarily pursued by the Government that they cannot be importers of coal. That brings me to the statement made in some of the letters, that there is in Cork and Limerick a ring which is artificially keeping up the price of coal. At present it is 6/- more than it was 12 months ago although the prices 12 months ago included the 5/- tax. Therefore they are retailing it at a net increase of 11/- on the price at which it should be sold, though nothing in the nature of quotas or licences has arisen during the last 12 months. The retail merchants see that a refund of 5/- is being paid to other merchants who, they complain, are making an unnecessary profit of 11/- per ton to-day. These retail merchants, as I say, cannot import coal.

That brings us to a remarkable feature of the present situation that we are driven to contemplate by the circumstances that now exist. Before the coal-cattle pact was agreed to—I am not going to put you in an awkward position, a Chinn Comhairle —in the beginning of last year there was a tax of 5/- on all British coal coming into this country, but there was free trade in coal generally for anybody who wanted to engage in the importation business. The Government then decided upon the policy that during the six months beginning the 1st February last, they would allow in only 1,000 tons of non-British coal. But instead of allowing freedom of trade to persons in this country in British coal and putting quota restrictions and licences only in operation in regard to 1,000 tons of foreign coal, the Government took the whole of the coal trade in hands and, through the machinery of licences and quotas, they formed a definite and solid ring of coal importers in the country. There is not a single person to-day—I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce will bear me out or will correct me if I am wrong —who is not a registered coal importer who can embark in the coal importing business during the next 12 months.

Anybody can become a registered importer.

Anybody can have the pleasure of registering himself on the register but no person who has not applied to the Minister for Industry and Commerce 14 days before the quota comes into operation can be given a licence to import coal. If a person wanted to get into the position of being a registered importer, he would have to pay a fee of some amount or other but he could not get into the line of having any chance of importing coal until he reached a point 14 days before the 1st February, 1937, when he could apply for permission to import a certain amount of coal and the Minister for Industry and Commerce has already told us that he issues licences in proportion to the amount of coal people have imported in the past. Therefore the question of anybody entering into the business of importing coal is almost impossible at the present time. The Minister may explain that there are some loop-holes in that but he cannot explain why there should be any necessity for preventing freedom of trade in British coal between anybody in this country and anybody in Britain. He cannot say there is any necessity for putting his quota and licence machinery into operation in regard to British coal to-day. He has created a ring of coal importers in this country of such a kind that the people who are the actual retailers and who hold stocks of coal in several places in the country, can with reason complain and say: "Not only am I being denied the justice given to the importers but I am being denied it while the people to whom that justice is being done are charging me to-day, because of the circumstances in which they have been placed by the Minister and his unnecessary licensing system, 11/- per ton more than I should be charged."

This complaint, which reaches me from the country from the actual retailers, fits in completely with the complaint I have already made to the Minister here, that the class of people to whom the concession is made in this Bill, are at the present time charging bellmen and other factors retailing coal in the city 8/2 per ton more than the import price for last year and the import price for this year would show that they are entitled to charge. They are people who charge manufacturers in this country 33/6 for coal which can be delivered at the quayside in Dublin at 24/- per ton, including costs of insurance and freight. If the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Industry and Commerce thinks, as we think, that it is just that persons who imported coal a couple of weeks ago and paid a tax of 5/- on it, and who now have to sell it in circumstances in which at least that 5/- has to come off, should get the benefit of this Bill, we want to hear from the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Finance why it is that nothing is being done to give justice to the retailers who have complained of the excessively high prices I speak about. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce feels the necessity of extending justice to coal importers of the type I have described, then I think he should do something to get for Irish manufacturers a fairer deal from those importers in the matter of the prices they are charging. We want to hear why this ring should be kept in existence now, when the Minister can fully see what has been the result of making that ring; we want to hear why it should be kept in existence now by continuing the quota system, which is not necessary for the exchange of coal between Great Britain and this country.

With all their bitter traditional war spirit against this country, the British coal people are prepared to sell us all the coal we want, and I do not know why any Government should step in front of the people of this country and tell them how much coal they want. If the policy is that we can get British coal, the people of this country should be their own guides as to how much coal they want, and it is all nonsense and bunkum to have the Minister thinking of a number and writing 3,114,000 tons of coal as the amount of coal that will be allowed into this country this year from Great Britain. If the people want more he will issue an additional quota. As a number it means nothing, but the fact that he thinks of a number and sticks it in an Order means that he creates a ring of people whom he registers and quotas, and out of that ring he keeps everybody else. The result is there is no chance of anybody starting to become a coal importer in order to break down the present high prices to manufacturers and the consuming public. Amongst other things we want to know what is the necessity for the quota system which is restricting the freedom of trade in coal between the people of this country and Great Britain.

The manner in which this Bill is drawn appears to be on the basis of giving to those who have most the benefits that will be provided by the measure. It seems to be based on a desire to give only to the registered coal importers the remission of the duty which was charged upon the coal which they imported. A similar measure of justice is going to be denied to persons just as necessary for the distribution of coal under the present system as the registered coal importer. If this Bill has any real meaning, or if it is intended that it should enshrine any particular philosophy, then it is that in respect of coal which was held in stock on the 24th January, and on which a duty of 5/- a ton was collected by the Executive Council, there would be a refund of that duty. In applying the provisions of this Bill to a situation of that kind, the Executive Council propose to grant the remission of tax to the wealthy, large-scale coal importers and the small men in the provincial towns who are not registered coal importers will have to sell their coal at 5/- a ton less than the registered coal importer in the same town will be able to sell it.

Let me cite a case which, I think, will light up the very obvious injustice of this Bill. In the town of Naas there is a man trading as a coal merchant. He buys his coal from a registered coal importer in Dublin. The registered importer will secure a remission of 5/- on every ton of coal he had on the 24th of January. The Dublin coal importer has also a depot in Naas. He will also secure the remission on every ton of coal he had in his Naas depot. The other trader in Naas, who buys from the Dublin importer and who takes delivery from Dublin, will have to forgo any claim to a rebate of 5/- a ton, while the man from whom he bought it and with whom he is trading in competition, is going to be allowed 5/- a ton rebate. We have the position in that town that the man who is an ordinary, unregistered coal on the importer had 166 tons of coal on the 24th January. The fact that it was in his coal store has been sworn to before a Peace Commissioner. In the same town the registered Dublin importer has a depot, and he will get a remission of 5/- a ton on every ton in his Naas store on the 24th January. The trader will have to dispose of his coal in competition with the registered importer, who is enabled by the provisions of this Bill to secure the remission on the coal he held on the 24th January. I think that is a very obvious injustice.

Instead of giving the remission generally to all persons in the coal trade who had quantities of coal on hand on the 24th January, on which they paid 5/- a ton tax to the Government, the Minister proposes to give it only to the registered coal importers, and they include many of the wealthiest people in the coal trade. The wealthiest people in the trade will derive the benefit and the small man is not going to get any remission at all, yet he is to be required to sell his coal in competition with the wealthy importers. It seems to be a case of the more you have the more you get. The more difficult it is for persons to bear a burden the more difficult it will be made by the Executive Council, if one is to judge by the philosophy in this Bill. I think it is an outrageously unjust Bill. If the ordinary coal merchant, who is not a registered importer, had bought coal in large quantities and allowed it to remain in the stores of the registered coal importer, then the Government would have to grant a remission of 5/- a ton in respect of it; but because it was moved from the yard of the registered importer to the store of the small trader who is not registered, no remission of tax will be allowed. That is the obvious injustice of the Bill, and it should be amended in such a manner as to extend to all persons in the trade the remission which is granted now only to the registered importer. I think the Minister ought to agree to amend the Bill in Committee so as to ensure that the benefits it provides will be evenly distributed and not distributed in the illogical and unfair way now contemplated.

I was hoping I would hear the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Donnelly, Deputy Moore and some other members of the Fianna Fáil Party endeavouring to justify this measure as it stands. I should like to support what has been said by Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Norton. I think it is a very unjust measure, unjust to the coal merchants throughout the country and unjust particularly in view of the fact that it must be known to the Minister that many of these coal merchants had larger supplies in stock than they would ordinarily have, because many coal merchants in the country bought larger stocks than usual, fearing the strike that was threatened at the time. I know coal merchants who were carrying practically double the quantity of coal that they ordinarily would have in their stores, and that makes the injustice all the harder to bear.

It must be admitted that the ordinary coal merchant does not get the same profit, nor does he get it as easily, out of the coal as does the registered importer. It must be admitted further that there are certain coal merchants who contracted for supplies of coal early in the season but who were not able to take advantage, not only of this remission but of the increases which were put on at a time prior to and due to the threatened coal strike. I give a typical case in an ordinary country town where there are four coal distributors. One distributing centre is a branch of a well-known southern coal importing firm. That firm has distributing branches all over the South of Ireland. That particular firm gets full remission for all the coal held in stock at midnight on the 24th of January—not only all the coal at their headquarters but remission also in respect of every branch which they have throughout the South of Ireland. They have a branch in the town of which I speak and they got a remission of 5/- for every ton held on Friday night, the 24th January. On Saturday morning they were able to sell their coal at a reduction of 5/- a ton to the customers. In the case of the other three merchants they find they must follow suit though they get no remission. Let this be said to the credit of the coal merchants in the country, that notwithstanding the fact that they knew, from the Order issued by the Government, that they were not to get a refund, they immediately reduced the price of coal by 5/- a ton.

It seems to me that this Bill is unfair and unjust. I think the Minister will find it hard to make a case for it. He will find it very hard to convince this House that the only case he could attempt to make would be the difficulty of ascertaining the quantities of coal held in stock by the merchants throughout the country. That same objection can be made to obtaining particulars of the stock held by direct coal importers. I have already mentioned that one coal importing firm has branches nearly in every town in the South of Ireland, and this firm has to get allowances in respect of all the coal they had in stock in all their different branches. You have the position that in one town one merchant had 100 tons, another 62 tons, a third 25 tons, and a fourth 15 tons. Now that merchant who had 15 tons might find that the 5/- per ton might be a much more important matter to him than 5/- on 500 tons to another merchant. The man with 15 or 20 tons is doing his best to make ends meet. In most cases the profit he gets is much smaller and it is more difficult for him to work his business. I do not want to go into the matters that have been referred to by Deputy Mulcahy regarding the necessity for quota licences for registered importers at the moment. I would certainly like to hear the Minister make a case for that. The Minister might tell us why the quota is 200,000 tons more this year than last year. Is there any necessity for it? Could the Minister give us any information as to whether the coal merchants in this country import anything like that?

Is not that an answer to Deputy Mulcahy's question?

In what way?

If the Deputy cannot see it he should.

That is not an answer to my question as to whether it is necessary to have licences and control and quotas.

The Minister will tell us, perhaps, what is actuating him and the Government in providing for 200,000 tons extra this year?

Because this year the quota period is for 12 months.

Is the Minister satisfied that we are to import over 3,000,000 tons from Great Britain this year?

What had the Minister in his mind when putting down that figure?

To allow the free number that Deputy Mulcahy wants.

What is the necessity for the figure at all? The Minister will not answer that.

I propose to answer it.

Perhaps the Minister would be wiser to take that line with regard to a great number of his cases, particularly when dealing with other matters such as unemployment.

And the number who are going to come home from America.

When Deputy Dillon goes there—as an exchange.

I suggest that there is an injustice in this Bill and it is clear unless we can convince the Minister of an injustice that we cannot do anything because no member of the Opposition or of the back-benchers in the Government Party can put down an amendment on this particular matter —to include the coal merchants. I should like to hear from the Minister if he is going to explain this measure of justice to all the people who are at a loss. It must be remembered that the coal merchants paid 5/- a ton for the coal in stock on the night of the 24th January and they are now losing that amount.

It seems to me an indefensible proposition to ask the House to accept a measure like this which proposes to give privileges to one particular section of traders and deny similar privileges and rights to others in the coal business. I have cases sent to me similar to the cases mentioned by Deputies Mulcahy, Norton and others clearly defining the injustice that would be meted out to certain people in the coal trade if the Minister does not amend the Bill in the way suggested. As far as I can see, this Bill proposes to recoup persons who have incurred no loss. Importers, even if they have branches in the country, have incurred no loss whatever, whether the Minister remits the tax or not, but traders and coal merchants who are not importers did incur losses in very many cases.

Is the Deputy able to prove that?

Yes. I know of one particular merchant who had over £200 worth of coal in stock on the 24th of January, and who did sell it to his customers with the reduction of 5/- per ton, although he had paid the importer in advance before the fall in price. He gets recoupment from no source. He is at a loss of £60 or more on that particular transaction, while the man in a similar trade on the other side of the street—the importer, who has already, perhaps, privileges which that particular trader has not—will, when this measure is passed, be recouped to the extent of 5/- per ton on the quantity of coal he had in stock in that town on the 24th January.

Did this merchant sell the coal at an actual net loss? Is that the Deputy's contention?

At a loss of 5/- per ton.

At a loss of 5/- per ton as compared with his competitor across the street. This measure is obviously giving preference to one trader against another—the preference being given perhaps to the person who could better afford to sustain a loss than the man who does not get it. I do not think that that proposal can be defended by the Minister. It is putting a complete injustice on a certain section of the people. There is another point which has not been raised. This might possibly have led to the consumers not getting the benefit of the 5/- reduction which the Minister and which we all hoped they would get on the 25th January. I know of no instance of the kind of case to which I am going to refer, but it might have occurred that a trader who is not an importer might have had a store in some country village, with no opposition, and it might have been open to him to continue to charge the 5/- extra. The inducement was held out to him. The Minister makes the proposition to him to charge the 5/-; he will not get it otherwise. The inducement is there for any merchant in a town where he has no opposition, and he has possibly charged it because he has already paid it.

And he should now get back the 5/- which he has already charged?

To their credit, I know of no such instance. In all the cases I know, I must say that the traders have sold coal at the 5/- less immediately the notice appeared in the Press that the price was to be reduced, but there was an inducement given to traders—if they had no opposition—to continue to charge the original price, and prevent this loss which the Minister is imposing. I do think that on the next stage of this Bill the Minister ought to bring in an amendment to include traders who are not importers, so that they will have the benefit of the drawback as well as the importing coal merchant. It was obviously the intention of the Minister—at least I hope it was his obvious intention; perhaps it was not —that persons who had stocks of coal on hands on the 24th January last, on which it could be proved that the tax was paid, would get the privilege of this recoupment. I say I hope that was the Minister's intention. That hope, I admit, is a bit dashed by this particular Bill, which makes it clear that the Minister is not going to fulfil that intention. I do hope he will reconsider the matter, and ensure that the Bill will at least give justice to every section of the people engaged in the coal trade.

I should like to say a few words in connection with this Bill, as it affects certain retailers of coal in the small towns adjoining the county which I represent. I must say that as far as Louth is concerned we have very little interest in the matter. The importers in the various seaport towns, I presume, will automatically get a refund of the 5/- tax, but the Minister may not be aware that in several towns, especially in the adjoining county of Monaghan, the custom is that the coal is brought into the port of Dundalk, taken out of the ships there by means of the cranes, and emptied right into the the railway wagons. The railway line runs along the harbour. This coal never sees the yards of the importers. It is railed right on to Castleblayney, Ballybay, and all those little towns right over to the north east. Some of those men had fairly large stocks of coal when the notice of the remission of the 5/- tax appeared in the Press. I can quite understand that there is a certain amount of difficulty in dealing with those people. There would also be a certain amount of suspicion on the part of the Revenue Commissioners as to whether those people had those stocks of coal which they say they had, but I know that many of them have testified before a Peace Commissioner that on that date they had certain stocks of coal. I should also like to point out, in addition to what has been stated here by other Deputies in proof of their contention, that in the cases to which I refer those retailers of coal in those towns received, I believe, a Government circular, ordering them to reduce the price of coal by 5/- a ton. Those retailers of coal immediately did so on the advice in that Government circular. I think in this case they have a special claim, if I may make the remark, to the remission of this 5/-.

The Minister may argue that it is, say, agreed to pay the 5/- on all the coal imported by the coal importers and possibly he might put up the argument that those coal importers should remit the 5/- on whatever number of tons they themselves sent to those towns—the quantity of coal from each cargo which did not go into their yards. Of course, I do not think they would do that. I think it would be up to the Minister himself to take the word of those retailers of coal in those towns, and pay them the 5/-, because there is no doubt about it some of those retailers carried very large stocks of coal on which they have paid the old price, including the 5/- levy. I think in justice to those retailers the Minister should take steps immediately to see that they get back that 5/-. I do not think there is any necessity for argument about it. Common sense alone should convince the Minister now that the right thing for him to do is to admit the justice of their claims and pay this money. I am not going to go into the question of quotas or licences at all. I have expressed the view long ago that, since we are committed to take British coal now, in my humble opinion there is no necessity for either quotas or licences. Let us have free trade again in so far as British coal is concerned, and let there be the same competition as existed prior to the economic war coming into force. However, that is a matter for the future. The present matter before the House is one which should commend itself to the serious consideration of the Minister. I hope he will agree to give this 5/- per ton to those retailers of coal in the small towns who, owing to the fact that they had not been on the register of coal importers, are being disallowed this 5/- which they themselves have paid and which they have allowed to the customers on the advice of the Government.

The Minister to reply.

Is the Minister for Industry and Commerce not going to intervene?

Not necessarily.

You undertook to do so.

I am under no obligation.

He is apparently going to run away. He was always a cowardly man.

The word "cowardly" should not be used.

It was purely jocular. I had not the slightest intention of offering any genuine offence to the Minister.

This Bill is only justice, as far as it goes, but it is open to doubt whether justice has been carried as far as it should be carried. This justice has been referred to by Deputy Bennett as a privilege to certain classes. I do not think there is any privilege in it. It is only what is due to the coal importers. It is equally due to merchants who carry stocks of coal. I should like to know if, when the duty was imposed some years ago, the Minister took any steps to make coal importers and coal merchants sell their existing stocks without adding on the tax, or if they had the benefit of the tax immediately it was imposed on the stocks they had imported before it had been imposed, or did he take any steps to levy tax on these stocks. It would be wrong if importers or merchants had to lose at that period the advantage of the rise in coal and to lose now when the tax is taken off. It would be equally an injustice to the public if the public had to pay a tax a few years ago which did not find its way to the revenue and to pay extra now for coal after the tax has been removed.

The cases made by Deputy Bennett and Deputy Coburn are natural ones which have arisen. The difficulty is to check them. Personally I think the Minister and the Government generally have not handled this position properly. They should have fixed a date on which they could satisfy themselves what stocks were carried by importers and merchants, and allow a drawback as from that date on these stocks. Theoretically, the merchant is as well entitled to this as the importer, but it may be difficult to check now. We know that no section of the public are all angels or saints, and that when they get a chance of making ready money they make it. It would be necessary to check the returns now if the Minister decided, and I think he should decide in principle and in the interests of justice, that merchants should get the drawback as well as the importers. It is for him to devise ways and means of ascertaining what stocks they carried on that particular date. If he can do that satisfactorily he should do it.

Certainly the principle should be embodied in the Bill that where it can be shown to the satisfaction of the Revenue Commissioners or the Minister or some competent authority that bona fide merchants carried stocks of coal on a particular date, for which, of course, they had to pay the duty, they should be allowed the drawback. They might not directly have to pay it, but the importer from whom they bought the coal had to pay it, and he charged it to them. They had to pay it in the inclusive price. When the tax was taken off, I presume they had to sell the coal as from that date without adding the duty. That is the theory of the trade anyhow. I cannot check it. I am afraid Deputy Bennett did not help the case when he suggested that in isolated places, where, in effect, the people were not well up enough, the merchants were able to get away with it at the big price. There has been so much talk about this tax that I do not think many merchants could get away with it. While nobody can vote against the principle of the Bill, as far as it goes, I hope the Minister will give an assurance to the House that where satisfactory cases can be definitely put up by merchants they should be included in this as well as the importers.

I do not know if it would be relevant to ask the Minister if he can give us any information about the coal-cattle pact, on which this arises, and if the report spread about is wrong, that it is all off—that it has fallen through. I should like if the Minister would reassure us. I do not know whether reassurance would be any good or not. I do not mean that for the Minister. I do not know whether the pact is much use or not. Personally, I shall vote against it every time it comes up, because I think it is a fraud. The rumour is strongly current that negotiations have broken down. I wonder if the Minister could say anything as to that. I should also like him to tell us, as I suppose he is the accountant-in-chief of the nation, how much has England surcharged us last year by her penal tariffs on foot of this coal-cattle pact. We sent 150,000 more cattle last year than the year before. The year before England got all she wanted. Surely she must have got a terrible lot more last year than she wanted. Can the Minister check up on that? The British Chancellor of the Exchequer is not responsible to us for book-keeping.

The Deputy can raise that on his motion in Private Members' time.

Surely the Minister is not afraid to deal with it during public business?

We will deal with it on the motion.

This Bill is a first cousin to what I am talking about; in fact, it is nearer than a first cousin, it is a half-brother. The Minister does not like to have it raised now. It would be very useful information to give anyway —a lot more useful than we hear from the Minister on political platforms. It is necessary for the nation to know if anyone is doing the book-keeping.

Would not the Lord Mayor tell you something about his negotiations?

The Lord Mayor may have a lot of information, but we are not paying him. I am asking the man whom we are paying to provide this information, to give it to us. I do not want to make the matter troublesome for the Acting Chairman, but I am afraid I have made it very difficult for the two Ministers. I appeal to the Minister to consider that point. He sees the equity of it; we all see the equity of it. I am sure that he is as anxious—why should he not be?—to deal with the matter on an equitable basis as anybody else, and if it is right to give a drawback—and I hold it is right, everybody holds it is right—to coal importers who have paid that 5/- duty, it is equally right to give it to coal merchants who bought from those coal importers and bought at a price inclusive of that 5/-. However, I know that I need not labour the point. I am sure that the Minister sees it himself. I appreciate that the Minister may find some difficulty now, in the absence of any particular data, in checking the stocks held on January 20, but I appeal to him to give to the House an assurance that he will introduce an appropriate amendment at the right time to cover that point.

Arising out of Deputy Belton's remarks I am curious to know how this question of dutiable fuel is to be settled, or are the declarations of the coal importers, as to the amount of dutiable fuel in stock on the date mentioned, to be taken without check? With a few honourable exceptions, I have not a very high opinion of coal importers, and I would say it is almost certain that the coal importers generally will return all the coal they had in stock on the date mentioned in this Bill as dutiable coal, and it is almost equally certain that such coal was not all "dutiable." It must be remembered that this duty on coal is only a very short time in existence, and everybody knows that some of the coal importers carry very large stocks. Deputy Belton referred to coal that was in stock when the duty came into force. Well, it is almost certain that a good deal of that coal is still there. Coal importers do not clear out their yards periodically. They keep renewing their supplies and if I had any responsibility in this matter I would not be at all satisfied with a mere declaration that the coal in stock was all, or nearly all, dutiable coal. I remember that in 1920, for instance, one of the biggest coal importers in Dublin had a quantity of a particular kind of coal in hands for something like eight or ten years. It had been bought at about 6/- or 7/- a ton and he could get nobody to buy it from him. On account of the scarcity in 1920, it was sold as anthracite peas at £6 10s. a ton, though it was no more anthracite peas than the clay which is being ploughed to-day at Tullamore.

That was probably some of Deputy McGilligan's coal. He bought some.

I do not think there is any commodity in connection with which there is more need for national control than this commodity, coal, and I think that the experience of this year justifies what I suggested on a former occasion: that steps should be taken to promote the municipalisation of coal. However, I shall not go into that matter now.

That is something for Private Members' time.

Yes, for Private Members' time. However, the figures given by Deputy Mulcahy seem to indicate that very much profiteering is going on in connection with this commodity and I think that, if the Minister were to check up the history of coal prices, he would be amazed at the margin that the coal merchants provide for themselves to-day as compared with what it was in 1914. In 1914, one of the biggest—if not the biggest—coal merchants in Dublin was working at a net profit of 3d. per ton. While that might be altogether too small to-day, considering the great changes that have taken place in the cost of labour and other things, it suggests that at all events the margin that coal merchants are providing for themselves at present is greatly in excess of what is required. Not merely that, but the quality of the coal, particularly of the coal sold to the poor people in the larger towns, is altogether shocking and constitutes an injustice that should be remedied.

Monopoly again!

I do not see that this has anything to do whatever with the coal-cattle pact or with the decision to take coal from England, because at all times the great bulk of our coal was taken from England. The situation, however, calls for much more than is contained in this Bill. The situation calls for some action to secure that coal will be sold at reasonable prices to the consumer and to ensure that the quality of the coal will be uniform for all consumers. At present it is anything but uniform, and those to whom a fire is of more importance than anything else in the world are not able to get a decent quality of coal and have to pay what can only be regarded as exorbitant prices. On Christmas eve in Charlemont Street, for instance, coal was being sold at 5d. per stone. To my mind, that is a thing that should call for the attention of the House.

Deputies Belton and Coburn, alone of those who addressed themselves to this question of granting a remission to coal importers, appeared to recognise that there were certain difficulties in connection with the possible extension of that arrangement. Deputy Norton, of course, attributed it to the desire of the Government to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, and Deputy Mulcahy and his colleagues merely attributed the provisions of the Bill to the general cussedness of the Government. I am sure, however, that they all recognise—only they will not admit it—that there are obvious difficulties in the position and that the Government, if it could, would like to ensure that the remission would be granted fairly to all those entitled to it. We have got to recognise, however, that a line must be drawn somewhere—either at the coal importers or the coal retailers or the sub-retailers or the consumers. If you are going to grant a remission of the duty paid, what appears to be injustice will be caused somewhere. Some persons will get the remission and some persons will not get it, unless we are to go down to every merchant and retailer in the country and to every private person in the country and weigh their coal and try to assess the quantities on hands. This idea that is being conveyed to the effect that the registered coal importers are merely a small number of wealthy firms is ridiculous. There are something like 700 registered importers of coal. As a matter of fact, anybody can become a registered importer. There is no restriction against anybody becoming a registered importer, nor is there any power in the Minister for Industry and Commerce to refuse registration. Neither is it the fact that the position is as described by Deputy Mulcahy: that only those who are registered at the beginning of the quota period can get a licence to import during that period. That position could only arise in the event of the total quota being allocated at the very beginning of the quota period, and that has not been the position and could not be the position, apart altogether from the fact that 25 per cent. of the total quota is distributed at the discretion of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and he has been given that discretion in order to ensure that hardships will not arise or injustice be done in consequence of the fact that the allocation of the global quota takes place at the beginning of the period. Not merely are the registered importers by far the largest number of the persons who retail coal in this country, but they are, of course, by far the most important. Coal retailers who are not importers are few in number, and the actual quantity of coal which any one of them is likely to hold in store is very small.

Is the Minister referring to actual importers?

I say that the retailers who are not importers are comparatively few in number and that the quantity of coal they are likely to have in store at any time is insignificant in relation to the total quantity of coal imported into this country.

By actual importers?

By retailers who are not importers.

As opposed to the actual importers.

As opposed to the retailers who are importers.

Some of them may have considerable stocks.

It is extremely improbable but, in any event, you have got to realise the practical difficulties involved. Here is one class, by far the largest class numerically and by far the most important class in relation to the quantity of coal they sell. In respect to these we know the quantity of coal they imported. They are the people who paid the duty. We know what they paid. It is possible to assess with reasonable accuracy the amount of the refund to which they are entitled. It is possible to check up the declarations they made as to the quantity in store on the critical night, but the coal that has been sold by them to others cannot be followed up in the same way. That coal may have been purchased by a person for his own use. It may have been purchased for resale or for the purposes of a workshop or factory. You cannot follow it right through the country in order to ascertain what part of it was purchased from the importer for resale, in order to give a rebate of the duty for that part of the coal. There has been no proposal made that the rebate should be given in respect to coal bought for consumption by the person who purchased it. That is the practical difficulty which has arisen and which always will arise when a duty is remitted.

There are two ways of dealing with difficulties connected with the removal of a duty. One is to give long notice of the intention to remove it so as to give merchants a sufficient opportunity to dispose of existing stocks. The other is to provide in some form for the repayment of the duty paid on goods in stock. In this case we desired the reduction in price to operate quickly, and therefore the device of repaying the duty to those who had paid duty on the quantity of coal they had in stock on the critical night was adopted. We recognised in doing that that quantities of coal which had passed out of the stores of importers to those who purchased it from them might well be in existence, unconsumed, in some areas around the country, but we recognised also that it would not be possible to follow it in order to give a remission of the duty paid in all cases.

You followed the importers' branches down the country.

That is the sole reason why this device was adopted. The practical difficulties of adopting any other device are so considerable that the extension of the area of the remission could not be considered. A number of other matters, in fact all the other matters raised in the course of the discussion, in my opinion were irrelevant to the Bill. They may have some indirect relationship to it, as Deputy Belton suggested, but they can more properly be dealt with on some other occasion.

On any occasion the Deputy wants to have a discussion on the matter.

Will the Minister give us an opportunity of discussing some of the urgent points I raised, in Government time?

As the Deputy has discussed them already, I propose to deal with them now. He asked why we should have a coal quota at all. First of all, because of the coal-cattle arrangement under which we pledged ourselves to take all our coal requirements for 11 months from Britain. The only machinery we had was the Control of Imports Act, which necessitated the making of a quota and the operation of the machinery provided by the Act, but to ensure that there would not be any scarcity of coal, or any inducement to coal importers to form a ring amongst themselves to force up prices, a quota was devised considerably in excess of what the known requirements of the country were and, in fact, as Deputy Morrissey pointed out, that excess existed. It will be even greater this year, because a further increase in the quota has been made. In Dublin, as far as I know—in Dublin that particular allegation has been made very frequently—there is no coal ring. There was a ring when the Deputies opposite were in office, which operated in conjunction with the colliery owners in Britain, and which went so far as to arrange that these colliery owners would not supply any merchants who were outside the ring. The Deputies opposite had that matter called to their attention, but they took no action. That ring is now broken. It was broken when we commenced to import German coal. At the present time, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there is intense rivalry between the different coal merchants in Dublin. In certain parts of the country it may happen that the supply of coal is confined to one or two people, but in Dublin, so far as I am aware, there is nothing to suggest the existence of a ring.

There is a federation which fixes the prices, and if the Minister does not know that, he knows nothing about the coal trade.

So far as I have been able to discover, there is no ring. The coal merchants claim they require a profit of 1/6 per ton, and in certain cases I know they have not realised that profit.

How does the Minister explain that manufacturers are charged 33/6 per ton for coal which is delivered at the quayside at 24/-?

Does the Deputy think that 9/- per ton is an altogether unreasonable margin to allow for the unloading of coal at the quayside, the carting of it to the merchant's yard and the carriage of it from the merchant's yard to the point of consumption plus the merchant's profit on the transaction?

Does the Minister accept 9/6 as a fair margin?

I am not accepting it, but it seems to me at first sight a reasonable figure to pay for the services I have indicated—the unloading of the coal, the carting of it from the quay to the merchant's yard and the delivery of it to the consumer, plus the profit of the retailer.

Has the Minister examined the figure of 12 months ago and compared it with the figure now, and is he satisfied that any part of the increased charge is due to an increase in the cost of the services which he has mentioned?

Machinery has been set up by the State to enable the prices of fuel to be examined on complaint from any person who feels aggrieved.

Why has the Minister not asked them to inquire into it?

Why have not any of the patriots opposite who have been so concerned about the interests of the coal consumers availed of that machinery?

Because the people who have information are lying under the threat of the Minister's Department if they dare to make any complaint.

I am quite sure the Deputy is not lying under the intimidation of my Department and the machinery is open to him.

Does the Minister say to me "I have no responsibility; I wash my hands altogether of it; go to the Controller of Prices and lay your complaint before him"?

My position is this. I have no brief for the coal merchants but I have no reason to believe they are profiteering. I have had no evidence submitted to me, or there is nothing in the situation which I can see which indicates to me that profiteering is taking place. It is for those who are making the allegations to and who presumably have some ground for making the allegations to put the grounds before us for examination.

Does the Minister not think that 9/6 per ton margin is too much?

I do not know whether it is or not.

It is the Minister's business to know.

So far as I have been able to judge it is a reasonable figure. From the examination of prices which has been carried out by the commission's inspector, if I had been asked from the information laid before me what would have been a reasonable margin, I would have put a somewhat higher figure than 9/6.

That is enough for the Prices Commission.

Does the Deputy allege that it is a high figure?

It is alleged by a manufacturer in Dublin that it is a high figure.

That manufacturer in Dublin has machinery available to him, which he can use.

Not after that statement.

As I said, I have no brief for the coal importers.

If the Minister had——

So far as I know, the great majority of them always figured on the subscription lists of Cumann na nGaedheal.

They figured on both lists.

If they are profiteering, I want to see that prevented. I want those who allege that this profiteering is taking place, and that the prices that are now being charged are unreasonable, to give to the officers set up by this State to carry out that investigation, the reasons for their allegations. If they do not do that, then they have no right to continue their complaints. There is not a manufacturer in Dublin who is intimidated from securing his rights in any matter by the fact that he is in contact with my Department. That is the bugbear of the Deputies opposite. It exists in their minds only. If the Deputies had any information concerning the relationship between the Department of Industry and Commerce and the manufacturers of this State, they would realise how ridiculous any such suggestion is. The body of manufacturers and others who have contact with the Department have a good laugh on any occasion they read the allegations made by Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Dillon.

The Minister has developed the Nelsonian blind eye.

The machinery of the Prices Commission is open to the Deputy and to his friends and, if he likes, I will give him an assurance in writing that I will not intimidate anybody. So far as I am concerned the coal importers should be made to justify their prices, if this allegation that they are overcharging is put forward seriously. I am not there to prevent them being put upon the mat by the Prices Commission and having their prices examined in detail.

The Minister made the statement that 9/6 is hardly enough for them to charge for the cost of discharging and delivering coal. Will he inform the Controller of Prices that when he said 9/6 was hardly enough to pay for the cost of discharging and delivering coal, that he made the statement without any knowledge of the facts?

I did not make that statement. I said it does not seem to me as an uninformed person that 9/6 is unreasonable.

That is enough. The Minister says he is ignorant of the whole matter.

My information on the matter is considerably more than that of all the Deputies opposite put together. It occurs to me that 9/6, for the services I have mentioned, does not appear to be an unreasonable figure. I am quite certain, in any event, that Deputy Mulcahy has got himself into a bit of a black knot. The general allegation he made last week was that the merchants were making a profit of 11/- per ton too much.

I said——

If the Deputy is entitled to misrepresent me I am entitled to misrepresent him. If the Deputy says he did not say that, I will take his word for it; but I understood him to say that 11/- per ton excess profit was made.

I would like the Minister to be clear as to what I did say. I can put the Minister right in two sentences.

I doubt it, but I will give the Deputy an opportunity.

First, bell-men are paying to-day 12/- more than they paid in 1935, which means that they are paying 8/2 of an unexplained rise. That is the first sentence. The second sentence is, that coal that was sold at 30/- to a manufacturer in February, 1935—taking off the 5/- left it at 25/—is now being charged at the rate of 33/6, an unexplained difference of 8/6.

My answer to the Deputy's first sentence is that it is not correct. His figures are entirely wrong. I never denied that the price of coal has gone up. It has gone up. I pointed out that it has gone up everywhere, in Belfast more than here. The average level of coal prices in Belfast is higher than in Dublin. The prices have gone up in Great Britain and, indeed, everywhere, and we were not exempt from that rise. But the Deputy has changed his position so often that it is hard to know where he is. He started off his price campaign on this basis, that the coal merchants are not to blame, the coal exporters and coal importers are in no way open to criticism; the rise in prices was due altogether to the Government's coal-cattle pact. That campaign was nullified by the mere publication of the figures in relation to coal imports and prices. Then the Deputy changed his position completely round. He made a speech here in which he said that the coal-cattle pact was not really to blame, it had nothing to do with the rise in prices; he was not attributing the rise in prices to anything that the Government had done; in his opinion the rise in prices was due to the profiteering of the coal merchants.

He was inclined to get away from that half an hour ago and he was trying to attribute the rise in prices to the operation of the coal quota, the necessity for having to register all importers and the issuing of licences. Is the Deputy's position now that the coal merchants are in the wrong and that they are deliberately profiteering to the extent of about 8/- per ton? The coal merchants tell me they are not getting a profit of 1/6 per ton. Yet, according to Deputy Mulcahy, they are getting 8/- a ton over and above what would pay them. But the Deputy does not prove that. He tells the House that he is in contact with manufacturers who gave him these figures. I want these people to come before the Controller of Prices and make a complaint. If they do it, if they give the barest minimum of information in their possession as to the prices that have been charged for coal, an investigation will follow. But these manufacturers have not done it. They have carefully avoided doing it.

They are well advised after the Minister's statement.

Can Deputy Cosgrave prove that there is profiteering? I am prepared to give Deputy Cosgrave two sentences to prove that.

The Minister's statement regarding profiteering?

I have no brief for the coal merchants. The majority of the coal merchants are, I am certain, political opponents of my Party.

They will be political friends after the Minister's statement to-day.

There is an odd Nationalist amongst them, a very odd one.

All the Nationalists are over there on the Government side.

Further, they have no reason to anticipate that I am here to protect them. If they are losing money they will presumably get out of business. They are there not for the public good but to make a profit on their transactions. We must see that they make only a reasonable profit. To Deputy Cosgrave and his friends, whether they are manufacturers or politicians or anything else, I give this assurance: that they need have no fear whatever that I am going to intervene on behalf of the coal merchants. I have no desire to do it. It would be entirely contrary to the policy of the Government of which I am a member to interfere in that way. It was we who set up the Prices Commission. It was we who introduced the Act giving the Controller of Prices the powers he has. The Opposition Party opposed that Act, and the fact that it has not been more effective is due to their friends in the Seanad. We will have a new Bill this year and we are now in the position in which we can take out of the Act the amendments which the Cumann na nGaedheal Party in the Seanad put into it to lessen its effectiveness. Even at present the Act is effective to control prices and to carry out investigations. The result of the investigations can be acted upon. All that is required is that some citizen would come forward with the complaint. When the city bellmen went to the Controller of Prices he acted on their complaints and he got the merchants to reduce the price. There is no reason why Deputy Mulcahy or Deputy Cosgrave's manufacturing friends could not come forward with a case for the Controller of Prices. The fact that they have not done so is significant in the light of the complaints that Deputy Mulcahy has been making recently.

These matters have very little relation to this Bill, which provides for a reduction of 5/- a ton on coal in respect of which duty was paid—coal which was in the yards of the coal merchants on the 24th January last. The only question raised in relation to the Bill was the possible extension of the remission of the duty on coal in the case of coal in the hands of persons other than the coal importers. The sole reason why it is impossible to put that into the Bill is that, on the one hand, it might lead to considerable fraud and, on the other hand, it would involve sending out hosts of inspectors to every part of the country to which the imported coal can be traced. It is impossible to do that, and that is the reason why it is not being done. In any event I am quite certain that coal merchants who are not importers were not slow to raise the price of coal by the amount of duty if they had coal in stock when the tax was imposed. These things have happened. We cannot remove the duty and, accordingly, we are not inserting that provision in this Bill.

Has the Minister anything to say about the point raised by Deputy Moore?

Deputy Moore referred to the question of coal prices.

For which he will be dealt with at the Party meeting.

The Deputy can be sure that adequate precautions will be taken by the Revenue Commissioners. There is a considerable amount of information with which to check the statements given by people who have licences to import coal in the first instance and who paid the duty in the second instance. Information can be got by an examination of their books, and their statements can be adequately checked. I do not think that the experience of persons having dealings with the Revenue Commissioners is such that they can get money easily in that quarter.

Has the Minister not a register of coal merchants?

Only a register of the actual importers.

For the purpose of the remission of this tax and levelling down the prices, could the Minister not have a census of the coal from the merchants taken on this particular night of the 24th January? I know it is difficult to do it now. I think the Minister failed in his duty in not dealing with the matter at the time.

I will give Deputy Belton an example. A coal importer imported 600 tons of coal. He sold 100 tons to Brown and 500 tons to Smith. Smith had a foundry and he put that coal into stock for the purpose of the foundry. Brown decided to re-sell his coal. The Deputy's point is that Brown should get back his money but that Smith should not?

Yes, the one man had to sell it at a loss. Smith was using it in his foundry.

Deputy Belton is making half-a-dozen speeches.

The Minister speaks in one breath to-day of being misinformed. In the next moment he protests that from the information received from his own officials he is satisfied that 9/6 is not an excessive profit. When challenged on that he hastens to add that he speaks entirely as an uninformed man with no views at all. In the next breath he says he is satisfied that he has more information on this subject than the whole Opposition put together. Well, "you pays your money and you takes your choice." The Minister contradicts himself bluntly and plainly in four consecutive sentences. No matter what happens in the hereafter, one of these statements is bound to be true. The Minister sailed on and said that he is perfectly satisfied that there were infinitely more coal importers in this country than dealers in coal who are not importers. When the Minister can get up and make an extravagantly absurd statement of that kind and challenge contradiction it is really beyond the beyonds. There is no shadow of a foundation for that and there is no truth in the suggestion. Of course the coal dealers are in the vast majority. The Minister said it was administratively impossible to check the stocks of coal in the hands of retailers in this country. Has he forgotten that it is only 12 months since twice in rapid succession the Revenue Commissioners undertook to check, and did check, in the case of the tea retailers all their stocks on a certain date? If my recollection serves me right, they did it twice, and there was no difficulty about it. The Minister turns round on Deputy Mulcahy and charges him with inconsistency that he has not adhered to the original allegations he made. He says that coal prices are going up in Belfast and everywhere. Surely the Minister is mistaken or else it cannot be true that the Minister desires to deceive. Are not the facts these: That the price of coal is going up in the domestic market in Great Britain, and since we made the coal-cattle pact we have been elevated to the dignity of being part of Great Britain—the domestic market?

The Deputy does not know what he is talking about.

The lights nearly went out at the Minister's statement.

It was at the Deputy's statement.

Is it not true that there is an understanding between the British Board of Trade and the Coal Owners' Federation and while they cannot hope to get a certain price for coal abroad they can hope to get it in Great Britain or in any other market like the Saorstát where they enjoy exclusive control? They enjoy exclusive control in Great Britain inasmuch as freight is to their advantage. They enjoy exclusive control in this country inasmuch as we have the coal-cattle pact. They can push up the price of coal in this country indefinitely. In fact, they can push the price of coal here up to the artificial price obtaining for British coal in Great Britain. That, undoubtedly, has partially contributed to the rise in the cost of coal. I want to put one simple fact before the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Industry and Commerce would get apoplexy if it were put before him.

The average price for coal, according to the Department of Industry and Commerce returns for the month of December, is 25/- per ton. That is the average price for household coal, c.i.f. all over Ireland. The price of household coal f.o.r. in six to 50 tons lots in the City of Sligo to-day is 40/-. Let us assume that Sligo is one of the dear ports, and we will make the price for Sligo 2/- above the average price in order to make allowance for ports such as Waterford, Dublin and Dundalk. Let us say that the c.i.f. price in Sligo on the Department's figures ought to be 27/-. Does the Minister think that 40/- represents a fair difference between the c.i.f. price for household coal and the f.o.r. price for household coal in Sligo?

Would it not be more to the point for the Deputy to tell us what was the actual c.i.f. price in Sligo?

I do not know.

If the Deputy intended to make that point he might have found out before making his speech.

Those things are not quite so easy to find out.

As it is, he is merely guessing.

The only source of information for a person who is not in the importing trade is the trade statistics supplied by the Department of Industry and Commerce. Those statistics show that the average price for coal over Saorstát Eireann, c.i.f., is 25/-.

The Deputy has commercial relations with Sligo.

We may reasonably assume that there is a difference of 2/- either way. Some ports are cheaper; others are dearer. There cannot be more than 2/- difference in the matter of freight between one port and another on the Irish coast. Let us assume that Sligo is the dearest port, and that they pay 2/- over the average price for all the other ports in Ireland. That brings them to 27/-, and that is c.i.f. You have got to remember that the price of 40/- is f.o.r., which does entail some harbour dues and cost of transport from the boat into the railway waggon. Is that a fair margin? It does not appear to me to be a fair margin. The Minister for Industry and Commerce says: "Let some citizen bring this matter before the Controller of Prices." What are we paying the Minister for Industry and Commerce for? He has £1,000 a year free of tax; he has a free motor-car; he has perquisites. The purpose for which he is there is to look after the industrial and commercial interests of the community in this country. A reasonable line must be drawn between the personal affairs of individual citizens, and matters which affect the whole community and should, therefore, come within the purview of a Minister of State. Nobody reasonably imagines that the Minister should concern himself about the complaint of a resident in Rathmines that she was charged too much for a pound of plums, or that figs are too dear in Findlater's. I have no reason to believe that figs are too dear in Findlater's. I am merely giving that as an illustrative example of what I mean. Nobody imagines that the Minister should concern himself with a case of that kind. One would expect that the citizen should make representations to the Prices Controller, who would then look into the matter.

But when a case is so strongly made here that a great evil obtains; when the Executive Council decide to take off the 5/- tax, in order to make their contribution to the mitigation of what they deem to be a great evil; when they have determined to mulct the revenue in a very large annual sum, the least the Minister for Industry and Commerce could do would be, under the Control of Prices Act, to institute an inquiry into the price of coal just as he did into the price of building materials. The Minister did, in fact, institute an inquiry into the price of building material, and I say that at no time was there ever a stronger case made against the purveyors of building materials in this country than has been made against the distributors of coal. Deputies in this House are inclined to get it into their heads that it is quite a simple thing for citizens to refer a matter of this kind to the Controller of Prices. It is not. If you have had long business relations with a firm, and if they get into some kind of ring and are charging you, in common with their other customers, excessive prices, it is not a very pleasant thing to be the individual who drags that firm before the Prices Controller and puts him to the trouble of a price investigation. Men in business do not care about that kind of thing, unless there is a very grave public duty devolving upon them to do so.

Or unless they are really suffering some serious loss. The public duty devolves on the Minister.

Must not the Minister have admitted that there was some serious situation in existence when he recommended the Executive Council to discard the 5/- tax? Is not that in itself evidence that the Minister knew grave hardships existed? Surely if he was prepared to do that, he ought to be prepared to make a reference to the Prices Commission to investigate the price of coal generally?

Complaints would have to be made to him.

Complaints? Is not every public representative in the country making complaints? We are all making complaints. Deputy Moore is making complaints. Deputy Belton is making complaints. The Labour Party is making complaints. Surely the Minister has reached the stage when he has ample justification for referring the whole matter for public investigation by the Prices Commission. If he does that, there is an end to the whole business. When the matter is investigated by the Prices Commission it is up to those who are suffering from hardship to come forward and give evidence. If no case can be made, well may the Minister come back and say "I have exhausted all the resources at my disposal to find out what this evil is and I can do nothing more for you." There is one other matter to which I want to direct the attention of the Minister, and it is a very grave matter. Reference was made here a moment ago to rings, and a suggestion was made that there might be a coal ring in existence. If there is a coal ring in existence it is not the only ring that is operating in this country at the present time. I warn the Minister that this business of quotas is giving rise to rings, and it is absolutely impossible for any individual to prove conclusively that there is a coal ring or any other kind of ring. He cannot do it, because all kinds of specious justifications arise. There is a ring of pharmaceutical chemists of the most vigorous character, which is aimed to destroy the business of hundreds of legitimate merchants in this country. Is it held out as a ring? Not at all. They are combined together for a most pious purpose—to protect the public. They are most solicitous lest anybody except a pharmaceutical chemist should sell cod liver oil or dangerous things like Scott's Emulsion. The fact of it is that it is a ring of pharmaceutical chemists designed to prevent shopkeepers from stocking stuff of which the chemists want to have the monopoly. It is very difficult to prove that.

I think there is a similar system in the case of medical men and barristers.

That may very well be, but at least it is true that that very kind of reply which the Minister has now made is the strength of the ring. They conceal it under a purpose which they allege is identical with that.

And Deputy Cosgrave's Government brought in a Bill to set up another similar ring in the dental profession.

They seek to identify their ring with the restrictions placed on persons practising medicine or law without authority. They delude innocent people like the Minister for Finance, and foolish people like the Minister for Industry and Commerce, into supposing it is this kind of ring. We who know the trade know perfectly well that the reason why they want to exclude legitimate merchants from the sale of proprietary goods is that there is a large profit on proprietary goods, and that pharmaceutical chemists want to get that profit. They want to make some kind of a case which will justify them in forming a ring and keeping all that profit within that ring and denying the right to any other citizen to get it.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
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