Is it the intention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to attend during the discussion on this Bill?
Control of Imports Orders—Motions of Approval. - Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Orders) (No. 2) Bill, 1937—Report.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be received for final consideration."
He just left the House a few moments ago. This is the Report Stage of the Bill.
This is the Bill which imposes a duty on worsteds and yarns from which woollen cloths are woven. On the Committee Stage, I directed attention to the scandalous situation that has arisen in connection with the introduction of the firm, Messrs. Pepper Lee.
Would the Deputy reserve what he has to say in that connection for the Fifth Stage? The Deputy would be discussing what is finally in the Bill on the Fifth Stage.
If I may say so, with great respect, the Chair has given the Minister his cue, because now the Chair has provided the Minister with the opportunity of having the last word.
The Chair does not accept that. The Chair provides no Minister or Deputy with a cue.
I would have drawn the Minister on the Report Stage, and then, on the Fifth Stage, I would have an opportunity of replying to what he said.
The Chair is the custodian of proper procedure and order in this House and, as such, endeavours to discharge the duty imposed upon it. The Chair does not endeavour to give a cue to either Minister or Deputy and never has. The Chair has a tradition for impartiality and we are endeavouring to continue that impartiality.
Have I not a right to speak on the Report Stage?
The Deputy has a right to speak on the Report Stage.
I say that inadvertently the Chair——
I endeavoured to indicate to the Deputy that the most appropriate stage to speak would be the Fifth Stage, when he could discuss fully what is in the Bill.
I direct the attention of the Chair to the fact that inadvertently he has advised the Minister not to reply on the Report Stage. I have a perfect right to express my view of what the consequences of such a statement from the Chair may be. I have no desire to suggest that the Chair is imbued by any feeling except the strictest sense of impartiality. I accept that without reserve, but I had intended to speak on the Report Stage and to get a reply from the Minister on this stage. I would then reserve my right to comment on what he said on the Fifth Stage. That is why I intervened on the Report Stage.
If the Deputy will bear with me for a moment I should like to correct a misapprehension under which he apparently labours at the moment. When the Deputy had finished speaking I was going to point out that this matter had already been discussed on the Committee Stage, that no amendment was down on the Report Stage, and that therefore any discussion which there might be on the matter would more properly arise on the Fifth Stage.
It would be the Minister's duty to move in the House that the Bill be read for the last time on the Fifth Stage, and doubtless observing the ordinary rules of Parliamentary procedure, he would comment on whatever observations I thought fit to make on the Fifth Stage. That is a matter for the Minister and not for me. I want to direct attention to a development in the situation since the Committee Stage was taken. On that stage I directed the attention of this House to the scandalous situation precipitated by the introduction of the firm of Pepper Lee into this country for the purpose of competing with established Irish industries, and of requiring those established Irish industries to buy their yarns from Pepper Lee and Company. No such grotesque arrangement has ever been sponsored by a Minister for Trade in any country in the world. Following that, apparently, we are now confronted with an order under which all imports of cloth over a certain weight are to be prohibited as from 1st December, and all the cloths over that weight are to be manufactured in this country out of yarns purchased from Pepper Lee and Company. Now, in that connection I think the time has come to speak out quite clearly. I hear a lot of captious and unreasonable criticism of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in regard to this matter. I hear a lot of people who are shouting at every street corner in favour of the policy of national self-sufficiency; who are exhorting the Minister for Industry and Commerce to push forward with a vigorous tariff and restrictive policy in order to benefit what they are pleased to call Irish industry, and I hear those very same people, the moment that policy touches their interest, loudly lamenting and deploring the awful tragedy that the implementation of the policy which they advocated for everybody else is going to bring upon themselves.
Now, the sooner the people of this country face those issues squarely, the better it will be for everybody. If they want a policy of national self-sufficiency, Seán Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is going the best way about it, and all the extravagances of which he has been guilty in the past are nothing to the extravagances of which he will have to be guilty in the future if the policy of national self-sufficiency is to be brought to a logical conclusion, and the people ought to face that. There is no use in going on deputations to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, asking him to do this and not to do that, and then shouting from the house-tops that it is his duty as a patriot and a loyal servant of the State to push forward with the policy of national self-sufficiency. If we are going to have national self-sufficiency, then the people of this country are going to have a lower standard of living, and if they do not like it they will have to lump it. There is no escape from that. A policy of national self-sufficiency means that the wages which the people earn are going to go a shorter distance; they are going to buy less. There are some people in this country so foolish as to imagine that by raising wages indefinitely in an attempt to catch up on the rise in the cost of living they will preserve the standard of living which the working people in this country have been in the habit of enjoying in the past. That is a complete illusion, because, if the costs of production are sufficiently raised in industry in this country to get out of all relation with the fundamental industry of agriculture in this country, the inevitable consequence is that we will be pushed off the sterling standard, and we will have a fierce period of inflation in Ireland, and the Minister for Finance knows that. The result of that will be misery and suffering for all sections of the community.
The scheme of which this duty on woollen yarns is a part is going to raise the cost of clothing to everybody in this country substantially. The scheme of which this duty is a part is going to restrict immensely the variety of clothes which the women in this country will be able to wear. Now there may be patriots in this House who take the view that they ought to be glad to wear Irish tweed and proud to turn out in it. Nevertheless, if they were going to a dance with any of those young ladies, and she arrived in a pair of brogue shoes and a tweed dress, they would send her home again and tell her to go and get a good dress. Why should our people be constrained to wear clothes that they do not like? Is it not part of a decent standard of living that the people should be able to buy for their earnings the things they enjoy having? Is it necessary to be an ascetic in order to be a good citizen?
Does living in this country in the future mean that anyone who stays here must hope for nothing better than a standard of living equal to that of the poorest peasant in middle Europe? If there are men so lost in folly as to think that a policy of that kind can be pursued, they are going to get a dreadful disillusionment, because what is going to happen in this country is that the people will not stand for it, and they will fly out of the country as they are flying at the present time. Why do you think girls are going to Manchester? Why do you think girls are going to domestic service in London? Why do you think girls are flying out of rural Ireland into the industrial cities of England every day? It is because with the money they earn in Ireland they cannot get the things they want to have, and with the money they earn in England they can get them and do get them. How are you going to keep the people in this country if you are going to require them to accept in Ireland a lower standard of living than they can have for the asking in Great Britain? It cannot be done.
If you are going to reduce the population of this country indefinitely, are not the very firms that you are seeking to help with this duty going to be destroyed, because by your policy of raising costs to those firms, by your policy of raising the price of the raw materials of those industrialists, you are making it impossible for them ever to dream of exporting any of their produce? You are taking from them any chance of getting an external market. You are ordering them for all time to depend on the home market. You are saying to them: "No matter how high we force your primary costs we will put up a tariff or prohibition on imports which will enable you to get from the Irish people an economic price for your product." But suppose the Irish people fly out of the country? Suppose the domestic market contracts and dwindles? There is not going to be room here for the old industrialists, never mind Pepper Lee. When that time comes, do you think it is Pepper Lee who are going to clear out? Not on your life. Pepper Lee have machinery that was manufactured within the course of the last 12 months. Pepper Lee have a guarantee of permanent protection and patronage from the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Pepper Lee have a Minister for Industry and Commerce who says in this House that certain of the old industries may have to go. What we are really doing is this: We are bringing an English firm into Ireland and we are inviting that firm to charge our people 50 per cent. more for an article inferior to what they are producing in England, and we are patting ourselves on the back and declaring that we are the greatest economists and patriots that ever emerged in this country.
Pepper Lee and Co. are at this moment engaged in the manufacture of textiles in Great Britain and they are manufacturing in Great Britain every cloth that they are going to manufacture in Ireland. They manufacture ten times as many cloths in England as they will ever manufacture in Ireland and if they had to sell us the cloths they make in England they would have to take 2/- to 3/- a yard less for what they produce there than for what they produce here. They are going to give our people a dearer article and a smaller selection and in the course of the next ten years they are going to destroy a considerable number of well-established Irish mills. Some people will say that if the Irish mills cannot meet the demand, let them go. That is not what we were told was the industrial policy of Fianna Fáil. This country was never led to understand that the industrial policy of the present Government was to bring in foreign firms to wipe out the Irish firms.
These old Irish woollen textile mills had a good export trade. In 1929 we exported to the open markets of the world, in competition with the Scotch, the English and the American mills. We exported, and profitably sold, 1,000,000 square yards of woollen textiles. The wages for making these textiles were paid to Irish workmen and the profits derived from the sale of the 1,000,000 square yards went into Irish products. We have now reduced our exports to 450,000 square yards, and when this instrument passes into law you will wipe out the old-established mills completely. You are going to bring in Pepper Lee to strangle the established Irish mills and, in an endeavour to obscure the imminence of disaster consequent upon that, the Minister makes an order prohibiting the import of all cloths over 7ozs. in weight which cost 3/9 per square yard. How far is this Government prepared to go in beating down the people's standard of living?
I want to reiterate my impatience with the captious critics of the Government who are continually asking them to impose tariffs and howling when they put them on. Our position is entirely different. We have taken up the position all along that the tariff instrument, as used by the Government, is doing infinite harm to this country. We have believed, and still believe, that in the existing state of the world a moderate use of tariffs can be defended on empirical grounds. Theoretically—and I emphasise the word theoretically—the ideal to aim at is universal free trade. But that is a theoretical ideal and, in the existing state of the world, it is an ideal the realisation of which one cannot contemplate in the immediate future. Nevertheless, it is an ideal towards which every sane country should be working. In the imperfect state of the world a country like our country, of which it may be said that it is industrially backward——
Is this relevant?
It is relevant. If the Minister wants to raise a point of order, let him raise it. Do not quack; get up and make your point of order if you want to; otherwise keep quiet. As I was saying, in a country which may be described as industrially backward, you can defend the use of a modest tariff in order to provide our own industrialists with a stimulus to achieve so high a degree of efficiency in that particular line of business that not only can they cater for the home trade, but develop an export trade as well. We are satisfied that an informal use of the tariff instrument can achieve that end, and can achieve that end without placing upon the backs of the consuming public an undue burden. But it must be an informal use. It must be a use made of the tariff instrument after appropriate consultation with interested parties and after expert estimates of the burden which it may be expected to impose on the consuming public. Unless use of that kind is made, you are going to have the ridiculous situation which we have had in this country for the last five years, in which a tariff put on on Monday is completely negatived by another tariff put on on the following Friday. You are going to have a situation in which one industry is stimulated to-day by a tariff and slaughtered later by another tariff with which the Minister hopes to stimulate another industry.
It does seem to the Chair that the Deputy is travelling a bit. This Bill is for the Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Orders) and relates to certain matters which are set out in the Schedule. The Deputy seems to the Chair to be discussing tariffs, the fixing of tariffs in general.
Yes, Sir.
If the Deputy will relate his remarks to the items on the Schedule, the Chair will be quite satisfied.
It is perfectly true to say that I was discussing the effect of high tariffs as opposed to low tariffs, and I think that these tariffs are virtually designed to be prohibitive tariffs.
The matters treated in the Schedule include cordage, yarns, laminated glass and dolls.
You will notice that most of the tariffs are so high as to operate almost as a prohibition, and this is now associated with a declaration by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he proposes to prohibit absolutely the importation of textiles made from yarns and rovings referred to in reference No. 2.
If the Deputy will relate his remarks to the items in the Schedule, the Chair will be satisfied.
Will the Deputy he good enough to give the reference of the Minister's alleged statement in that regard?
In what regard? Surely the Minister for Finance knows what his own colleague is doing, or has such pandemonium broken out in the Executive Council that you do not know what Orders you are signing?
The Deputy does not know what he is talking about.
I know only too well. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has announced his intention to prohibit the importation of woollen textiles over 7 ozs. in weight which cost 3/9 per square yard. These are the textiles manufactured from certain yarns and rovings referred to in the reference to the Emergency Imposition of Duties (No. 125) Order in No. 132 of 1937——
There is no use in being accessory to Deputy Dillon's slanders. But let him go on.
When the Minister interrupted I was just distinguishing between the captious critics of the Minister for Industry and Commerce who clamoured for tariffs and then criticised the Minister when he put them on, and our position. We believe, and always did believe, and indicated our beliefs in moderate tariffs. If one surveys the horizon of Irish industry to-day one finds that every decent industry, every industry that is producing goods at a reasonable price, paying good wages and making a solid contribution to the national welfare is an industry founded under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. Standing on that, we are prepared to consider moderate tariffs. The imposition of tariffs of the class covered in this Bill can lead to nothing but economic ruin for this country. I hope at a later stage or on another occasion to direct the attention of the Dáil to the steady disappearance of our people's resources and their inability to buy anything much less commodities the price of which has been raised to unreasonable heights by a tariff policy of this kind. In the meantime, taking the view, as I take it very strongly, that the reference 2 in this Bill combined with the forecasted order which the Minister for Industry and Commerce intends to make, will destroy the woollen industry of Ireland, I shall certainly oppose this Bill at every stage, and I sincerely hope that even at the eleventh hour the Dáil will decide to reject it.
I do not wish to say anything in reply to what Deputy Dillon has just said. The House is in a tolerant mood this afternoon. The Deputy has been, for the Deputy, comparatively silent to-day. It is customary for him to unburden himself at great length once every day. This is the time when the House can see through the Deputy's very lengthy efforts. But as the Deputy has admitted in his concluding efforts that he would oppose this Bill even now at the eleventh hour I take it he felt he had been speaking on the Fifth Stage of the Bill, but this is merely the Report Stage. It is not the eleventh hour. The eleventh hour will come in due course on another day, and I suppose we shall hear Deputy Dillon at great length repeating over and over again the erroneous statements to which the House has listened this afternoon. No doubt they will be contradicted, but again at the twelfth hour Deputy Dillon will come up smiling and repeat them.
The Minister cannot contradict them.
Question put: Tá, 67; Níl, 42.
Tá
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Aiken, Frank.Allen, Denis.Bartley, Gerald.Beegan, Patrick.Boland, Gerald.Brady, Brian.Brady, Seán.Breslin, Cormac.Briscoe, Robert.Carty, Frank.Colbert, Michael.Corish, Richard.Corry, Martin J.Crowley, Fred Hugh.Davis, Matt.Derrig, Thomas.De Valera, Eamon.Dowdall, Thomas P.Flinn, Hugo V.Flynn, John.Flynn, Stephen.Fogarty, Andrew.Fogarty, Patrick J.Friel, John.Fuller, Stephen.Gorry, Patrick J.Harris, Thomas.Heron, Archie.Humphreys, Francis.Kelly, James P.Kelly, Thomas.Kennedy, Michael J.Keyes, Michael.Killilea, Mark. |
Kissane, Eamon.Lemass, Seán F.Little, Patrick J.McEllistrim, Thomas.MacEntee, Seán.McGowan, Gerrard L.Maguire, Ben.Meaney, Cornelius.Moane, Edward.Moore, Séamus.Morrissey, Michael.Moylan, Seán.Munnelly, John.Murphy, Timothy J.O'Brian, Donnchadh.O'Brien, William.O Ceallaigh, Seán T.O'Grady, Seán.O'Reilly, Matthew.O'Rourke, Daniel.O'Sullivan, Ted.Pattison, James P.Ryan, James.Ryan, Martin.Ryan, Robert.Sheridan, Michael.Smith, Patrick.Traynor, Oscar.Tubridy, Seán.Victory, James.Walsh, Laurence J.Walsh, Richard.Ward, Conn. |
Níl
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Anthony, Richard S.Bennett, George C.Benson, Ernest E.Bourke, Séamus.Brennan, Michael.Brodrick, Seán.Coburn, James.Cole, John J.Cosgrave, William T.Costello, John A.Daly, Patrick.Dillon, James M.Dockrell, Henry M.Doyle, Peadar S.Esmonde, John L.Fagan, Charles.Finlay, John.Giles, Patrick.Gorey, Denis J.Keating, John.Keogh, Myles. |
Linehan, Timothy.Lynch, Finian.MacEoin, Seán.McFadden, Michael OgMcGilligan, Patrick.McGovern, Patrick.Minch, Sydney B.Mongan, Joseph W.Morrissey, Daniel.O'Donovan, Timothy J.O'Higgins, Thomas F.O'Leary, Daniel.O'Neill, Eamon.O'Shaughnessy, John J.O'Sullivan, John M.Redmond, Bridget M.Reynolds, Mary.Roddy, Martin.Rogers, Patrick J.Ryan, Jeremiah.Wall, Nicholas. |
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
Fifth Stage fixed for Wednesday, 17th November.