I move:—
That the Dáil agree with the Committee in Resolution No. 3.
Financial Resolutions—Report Stage. - Resolution No. 3—Customs.
I wish to raise one point, in the hope that it may be considered between this and the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill. On page 10, reference No. 21, the question of the imposition of the duty on gramophone records and other similar articles designed and constructed for the reproduction of sound by means of a gramophone or other similar instrument is dealt with. In an explanatory memorandum which has since been published by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, it is stated that the duty in this respect is formally discharged as it previously existed, and is reimposed in this Resolution, but I think that what we are asked to do now is something different from the position which previously existed. The previous position was that gramophone records designed and constructed for the reproduction of music were subject to duty. Now, although we are told that there is, in effect, no difference in what is proposed, we find that under this Resolution gramophone records designed and constructed for the reproduction of sound are liable to duty. Although some members of the House might not believe it, there is a considerable difference between music and sound.
This matter was raised on a previous occasion and the Minister for Finance, speaking on behalf of the Government, then indicated that it was not intended to charge with duty gramophone records which were made, for instance, for the purpose of disseminating a knowledge of languages. Under this Resolution, every record coming into the country and used for the purpose of assisting dissemination of a knowledge of languages will be subject to a duty of 9d. per record, so that those records which are made in Irish to assist the spread of a knowledge of Irish will be made liable to a duty of 9d. each. It may be that the Minister contemplates that it is possible to produce language records in this country. I have made inquiries into the matter and I have been informed that, while there is a company here manufacturing records, they produce in records only three languages—I think, French, German and Spanish; but there is another institution here which engages exclusively in the manufacture and sale of gramophone records extending over, I think, 28 languages. If we are going to charge duty on language records coming in, simply because one firm is making records in three languages here and none of those is yet in Irish, many people who desire to obtain a knowledge of languages other than the three mentioned will find themselves charged with a duty of 9d. per record, and that might run out at a duty of from 12/- to 15/- for the complete set of records for a single language.
I think a tax of that kind is really a tax on knowledge, a tax on education, and I think it is a very shortsighted policy for the Minister to impose a tax on records of that kind, if these records are not going to be made here, and I very much doubt whether it is intended to make these records here. The company which is making certain records here is the H.M.V. Company. They are purely a gramophone company, whereas the other institution is more a language institution and the records are made for the purpose of spreading a knowledge of languages. It may be, of course, that what I am saying will not be justified by the course which the Ministry intends to pursue in the matter, but under the Resolution, as drawn, the language record is liable to duty. That seems to me, at first sight, at all events, to be a mistaken policy on the part of the Minister.
Further, I should like to call the Minister's attention to this fact. The Irish Press recently adopted the course of endeavouring to sell sets of Irish records, and I understand that they sold quite a considerable number. The sale terms provided that if one of the records became broken, it was possible for the owner of the set to renew it with the company from whom the records were bought in the first instance but now, if a record becomes broken, it cannot be renewed unless it is imported and the particular duty paid on it. It is not a record for musical purposes but for language purposes. It may be that the Minister is not in a position to deal to-day with the matter I have raised, but I should like him to look into it between now and the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill.
Would that not be the company's funeral? The purchaser has a contract.
They agreed to supply them at a particular price, but that price will be altered. It is a service and not a contract.
I should like to reinforce Deputy Norton's remarks. I just caught them for the last few minutes and I am very strongly of the opinion that the Minister is doing a disservice to the country, and to education in general, by putting this tax on records. I do not know whether Deputy Norton mentioned it, but I would also include musical records. Classical music can be taught in the most scientific way from very fine records and these cannot always be made in this country. You can get on these records the greatest artists and the finest performances right into your house to educate our own musicians. I strongly urge the Minister to give full consideration to the arguments of Deputy Norton. I have something to do with languages myself. These arguments are, to my mind, so convincing that I cannot conceive of a person like the Minister, who is particularly shrewd, ignoring them. I think he would do a great service to linguistics in general by taking off this rather absurd tax on knowledge.
I do not think the situation is quite as bad as Deputy Professor Alton foresees, because it is not proposed to levy this tax on all records. Some warrior started making records down in Waterford and he will bring in the dies, and I suppose will impart to us "The Ring,""The Valkyrie" and the rest of classical music. He might even give us the "Six Symphonies." This gentleman, however, apparently does not intend to press the records to which Deputy Norton refers, and in so far as he fails to make these records, they will have to pay the duty, but it is merely that we are engaged in the pious purpose of creating another monopoly. The Deputy will hear his "Six Symphonies" and he will hear "The Ring," but he may have to pay a little more for the pleasure. He will do it in the sacred cause of Irish industry and he can study the names of the board of directors to find out how many of them were born in Ballydehob.
Or Ballaghaderreen.
Or Ballaghaderreen. Under the same Resolution, it is proposed to put a duty on elastic stockings, socks and bandages in reference No. 5. Yesterday the Minister for Agriculture referred to a proposal whereunder he desired to stimulate the manufacture of milk powder, and he said he was first tempted to ask his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to invite the Minister for Finance, to put a prohibitive import duty on it. Then he thought, no doubt with Deputy Mrs. Concannon in his mind, that if he ventured to make an assault of that kind on the mothers of Ireland, led by that redoubtable champion, the mothers would invade his sanctum and tear him to pieces, so that, instead of putting on a prohibitive duty, he provided a bounty. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is, of his very nature, a "chancer."
In what sense is that expression used?
It would be difficult to define it.
Is it a technical or professional term or is it a term of opprobrium?
His panacea for all ills is to slap on tariffs without much regard to the reactions which those tariffs may have on the individual who comes within their scope. Elastic stockings are largely worn by persons who suffer from a very painful condition. A necessary element in the satisfactory use of these stockings is that they should be skilfully made and that they should fit with surgical accuracy. It is well known that you can get cheap elastic stockings which frequently do more harm than good. It is well known that there are firms in this city who, on merit alone, were able to provide elastic stockings long before the Minister was born or heard of, and who will continue to provide that kind of accommodation long after the Minister has been forgotten, no matter whether he puts on a tariff or not. But there will be a very small number of persons suffering from a very painful condition who will find that, in the peculiar circumstances of their illness, they cannot get the exact type of stocking they require here and must get it from London or New York or some other such centre. If they are rich people, it does not matter a hoot whether the tariff is 40 per cent. or 140 per cent. If they want that thing as badly as they will want it if they are suffering from trouble which makes it necessary, they will pay the money. But take the case of a poor person who, on leaving hospital, has to be fitted out at the expense of charitable funds with elastic stockings, or articles which would come within this sub-head. The average hospital which has to pay for these things out of charitable funds will say that that person must do with what can be got here, that they cannot afford to pay 40 per cent. on an expensive article brought in from New York, London or Vienna. The net result is that it is the indigent person who is suffering from a painful complaint who has to do with the second best. The comfortably off person will not do with the second best; he will pay the price. That does not occur to the Minister's mind. He will get up here and jeer and sneer at that and say it is a matter of no significance whatever. That does not alter the fact that this is a tariff which is going to confer no substantial benefit on anybody but which is going to cause intense suffering to a very, very few people. Those, however, will be people who are the least able to endure the kind of annoyance that a levy of that kind is calculated to produce.
Under sub-head 15, it is proposed to impose a tariff of 50 per cent. on tables, including medical instrument tables and medical dressing tables, chairs, stools, seats, couches, cupboards, food wagons, lockers and draught or bed screens, the framework whereof is made fully or mainly of steel, iron or a combination of steel and iron. I do not know whether that will cover operating tables or not. If it does, it seems to me to be a very undesirable type of resolution. Hospital equipment should be left free of tariffs in so far as it is humanly possible. Here, again, the question arises of getting the very best for the relief of sickness or distress. No inducement should be offered to the controllers of any public institution to make the poor do with less than the rich can command for the relief of suffering. If you levy a heavy tariff on the hospital equipment which would ordinarily be bought for the County Home in Roscommon, the Board of Health in Roscommon will buy what can be got here, without regard to quality, in order to save the money. If I go to a nursing home in Dublin and the equipment is not what I think it ought to be, I will leave the nursing home and go into another, because I can afford to do so. I see no reason why we should impose disabilities on the occupants of the poorer houses in Roscommon in times of sickness or discomfort that we would not impose upon ourselves. It is simply self-deception for any member of this House to imagine that if he were really sick and uncomfortable and wanting support or assistance from the appliances referred to in this Schedule, he would not insist on getting the best appliance calculated to relieve his distress. No matter what side of the House we sit on, our determination to get the most effective means of relieving our distress would be limited, in these circumstances, only by our capacity to pay. This resolution is not going to stop any Deputy from getting the best but it will quite likely seriously interfere with the amenities available to those in hospitals and public institutions all over the country.
I desire Deputies to bear in mind that, in saying what I have just said, I include in my observations paragraph A5 of reference No. 15, which refers to surgical bed cradles, surgical walking frames, leg rests, back rests, hospital wheeled stretchers and wheeled biers. I feel it extremely difficult to speak with moderation on this matter. This reference to surgical bed cradles, walking frames, leg rests and back rests, will catch all the surgical appliances being used in the orthopædic hospitals at the present time. Every child with a tubercular spine or a tubercular hip, every child whose very survival depends on proper surgical frames, particular surgical walking frames, bed cradles and leg rests, is going to have the choice of the appropriate fitting gravely influenced by the tariff of 50 per cent. which we propose to put on here. If, as a result of this resolution, the surgical walking frame of one child in this country should have to be altered, I consider that that alone is quite sufficient to damn this tariff. The idea of any rational man coming to this House and asking to promote Irish industry, if you please, but putting a tax on the surgical walking frames required to save the lives of small children, seems to me to be so extravagantly absurd as to surpass belief. Does any Deputy seriously mean to say that if a surgeon told him that his child ought to have a particular frame, and that the surgeon was prepared to go to the trouble of ordering that frame from London or abroad, he would say to the surgeon, "You can get one 40 per cent. cheaper in Dublin, and, therefore, buy it"? Of course not. He would not be deterred for a moment by that duty from buying the frame somewhere else. The only person who may be deterred is the person who has no choice in the purchase—the child in a public institution. At present, no surgeon in this city who can get a surgical walking frame satisfactorily made here to fit the peculiar circumstances of the case he has in mind is going to get it from London or New York. He will ordinarily get it here in Dublin from the surgical instrument makers and frame manufacturers who are in Dublin now, and who have been there for the last 100 years. The only case that this duty can touch is where a surgeon makes up his mind that he cannot get the best surgical instrument here, and when he has made up his mind that he can get such an instrument abroad. The children of Deputies, perhaps, can get such an instrument abroad, but the poor of the city and country and the people who go to the institutions will have to do with what they can get here in Dublin City. To me, the whole idea is rotten, and is sufficient to damn the tariff of 50 per cent. which the Minister proposes to impose.
I do not know what the Minister had in mind in reference No. 24:—
"Prepared material which is, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, designed and suitable for use in the kindling of fires."
That description can be deemed to cover all newspapers, for 90 per cent. of the people of this country light their fires with newspapers. I do not suppose that we are putting a tariff on paraffin sticks which are manufactured in the Labour Yard, in the South Dublin Union and in the Morning Star Hostel, because I have not heard of any foreign competition with that industry yet.
Reference No. 25 deals with another kind of tariff which, I think, is inequitable. We are going to put a tariff on such things as "wigs, transformations, toupets, scalps, switches, chignons, plaits, curls, beards, moustaches," and so on,
"but excluding any such article which is shown to the satisfaction of the Revenue Commissioners to be imported solely for theatrical or fancy dress use."
For the purpose of fancy dress I would not have the slightest hesitation in going down and fighting out with the customs officials that I was entitled to get this free of duty. But take the case of a woman who has to buy a wig.
It is free of duty if there is a man or woman stuck to it.
Here is why exactly on the same grounds I object to a tariff of this kind. Take a woman who is wearing a wig. It is, of course, a source of great mental distress to her to wear that at all. The necessity of wearing it is a cause of mental distress. The wealthy person will go to London or Paris or wherever the best hairdressers are to be found. She will go where the most acceptable thing of this kind can be procured. To such a person the mental distress caused by wearing a wig is small. But, take a poor woman who has to earn her living. And if a poor woman has to earn her living she will have to wear something of this kind for the sake of her appearance, and to make it possible for her to get and keep her job. That woman may, because of this tariff, be forced to buy something that is perhaps not ideally suited to her position. But she has got to buy it and to wear it because whoever she gets it from will not give her anything else. I know that in speaking on this matter it is extremely difficult to get the House to give these things proper consideration. But when you follow those things down into individual cases and when you witness the intense mental misery that is caused you will understand the position better. People may be irrational for feeling that way, but people are sensitive and their embarrassments are dragged out when they come up against a problem of that kind. I say that to cause mental distress by the imposition of this tax is a very evil and callous act. This is all the more true especially when no valid case can be shown for it. Nobody would suggest that because of the manufacture of these things here there will be any great outcry for emigrants to come back from America to make wigs here. Nobody can pretend that this thing is going to confer any substantial employment or benefit on anybody except the few interested individuals engaged in this trade. Those people will be able to knock more out of it than in the past. Everybody knows that this part of hairdressing business has been carried on in this city for years and will continue to be carried on there whether a tariff is imposed or not. Interested parties come to the Minister, who likes to bear the reputation as being the man who would put a tariff on the import of a yellow god. They put up this proposition to him and he gives them the tariff they ask. I object in particular to this tax, because I think it is most unfair and unjust.
One does not expect Deputy Dillon to make any elaborate inquiries as a preliminary to speaking on matters here. But it is not unreasonable to ask the Deputy to avail of the information that is supplied to him officially and have some regard to that before addressing the House. If the Deputy had done so he would talk more sensibly in the matter of gramophone records. I think Deputy Norton and other Deputies are considerably misinformed about the company to which reference has been made as engaged in the manufacture of these gramophone records. The manufacturers turn out these from imported matrices and they will be able to supply them at the same price from the factory established by this company in Waterford as the price at which they are turned out in their factory in Great Britain. The company will, of course, supply the language records which they had been hitherto supplying from Great Britain. In so far as any particular set of records may not be manufactured here because of the scarcity of demand for them, then the licences will be issued to admit them free of tax. Deputy Dillon, of course, made some disparaging references to the company engaged in the manufacture of those goods. That company is a subsidiary to a British company. It is probably the largest firm in the world engaged in the manufacture of gramophone records. It manufactures all the well-known records which are sold under its name at present; it will supply these now from the factory in Waterford, and at the same price as that at which they are now supplied. The only change made is that some 100 Irish people at present employed there would not be employed if the importation of these articles continued as before. I can assure Deputy Norton there will be no difficulty about supplying the language records. If they cannot be produced at Waterford they will be admitted on licence, free of duty. Deputy Dillon in relation to reference No. 5 said something which, of course, indicates his attitude of mind on all matters associated with the establishment of industries in this country. He said that those who can afford to pay the duty will still continue to get these goods imported, from abroad.
I did not.
I think he did, and he added that those who cannot afford to pay the duty will have to put up with the second best. Every Deputy who listened to Deputy Dillon will know whether I am quoting him correctly or not.
Yes, they do—only too well they know.
In so far as elastic corsets and stockings and knee boots are concerned, they can be manufactured here without difficulty. The same machines which manufacture them in other countries will manufacture them here.
The best of them are not made on machines.
The very best of them are made on machines.
They are not.
In any event, there will be no difficulty in securing adequate supplies of all varieties manufactured here, from materials manufactured here, and at prices which will be no higher than those at present charged. Those who want the best will buy the Irish-made goods, I am sure. Deputy Dillon went into a long tirade on the subject of the duty upon steel furniture, and he dealt particularly with the operation of that duty on certain hospital equipment. It is in relation to that and other remarks that I referred him to the information given him officially. If he had referred to that information, he would have found that this duty has been in operation for a considerable time. It is not a new duty. Under one of the references of another Resolution the existing duty is being repealed, and under this reference it is being re-enacted, but restricted to certain classes of tubular steel furniture which have been manufactured successfully here and which, as a result of our experience, can be made economically here.
There is, therefore, no new impost being effected by this duty and, in so far as it has been in operation for some time and hospital authorities, doctors and others have had full experience of the effect of it and the ability of the Irish firms adequately to supply their requirements in these goods, it is rather surprising that not a single complaint has been received as to either its suitability or the price, or the ability of the Irish firms to supply the goods. If the Deputy had made inquiries amongst hospital authorities or doctors or persons who can speak with authority on the matter he would have had more information on the subject than he revealed to-day. Reference No. 24 does not impose a duty on newspapers or sticks. It imposes a duty on certain kinds of manufactured firelighters which are becoming fairly popular. It is a small industry as yet in this country and it is located in Wexford, but I understand that it gives not inconsiderable employment.
What are the firelighters made of?
Sticks wrapped in shavings.
Yes, with a certain amount of pitch added. A certain amount of pitch is mixed through them and they are bound with wire. They are sold rather cheaply and I understand their popularity is increasing considerably. It is an industry that is capable of establishment in a rural area, with somewhat beneficial results for that area. Of course it is not of very great importance.
It may probably knock out those engaged at a somewhat similar occupation in the Dublin Union and the Morning Star.
The Deputy more or less represented that there was a very serious aspect to the tax on wigs and similar classes of goods. If he referred to the information supplied officially, he would have found that the duty is not being imposed on these articles for the first time. Hitherto these articles have been dutiable as wearing apparel, but we consider it undesirable to have them so classified, and we have decided to take them out of that category and make them a special item.
Was the scalp included as wearing apparel?
Most of the articles set out in that reference have been dutiable for some considerable time as wearing apparel.
There is one point to which I wish to direct attention. Records issued for the purpose of teaching languages form a very valuable medium of assistance in the promotion of a knowledge of languages. I should like to know if reference No. 21 is being deliberately put in to catch records imported for the reproduction of language lessons. If it is not, I would ask the Minister to reconsider this matter.
It is intended to catch such records.
I think the Minister ought to look at the matter again from the standpoint of endeavouring to ensure that the imposition of a duty of this kind will not have the effect of reducing the utilisation of gramophone records for this particular purpose.
I was trying to explain that the process of manufacture consists of the production of the record from a matrix which is prepared elsewhere. Any number of records can be produced if the necessary matrix is supplied. Any record can be manufactured here and this company has associated with it a number of processes which do the actual recording and the production of the matrix. It will not do the recording here, only the manufacture of the records which are offered to the public for sale.
That is not quite answering the point. The overriding consideration here is to get the right type of record for the purpose of imparting a knowledge of the language.
The records available at present will still be available.
The company in Waterford are making only three types of records.
The effective duty which is being imposed by this Resolution is only going on now.
If they are making only three types of records, and I think that is the position in respect of the parent factory, obviously they are not specialists in the production of other records, and I think it is questionable wisdom whether we should pursue this desire to assist a local industry to such an extreme and possibly to reduce the public interest in the utilisation of records for language courses. If the industry needs to be assisted, by all means it ought to be, but there is a point at which possibly the community pays too high a price.
Hear, hear! It took you a long time to learn that.
I am sorry, Sir, I produced that record. I will ask the Minister to look into that question further, with a view to blending the industrial side with the educational side in such a way that the interests of both will be served.
If there is any difficulty in securing supplies of any particular records, the licensing facilities may be availed of.
One can quite understand a duty in the case of records with an ordinary music hall ditty recorded on them, but it is questionable if you want such a duty on any record which serves to instruct people in languages, because after all that is a tax on education.
There need be no duty, because of the facilities for the issue of a licence, if such a course is considered desirable, or alternatively the article will be available from the Waterford factory at the same price as that at which it can be purchased elsewhere.
It raises the question of one particular type as against another, and I think the Minister ought to consult some educational authorities on that aspect.
Question agreed to.