I move that the Bill be received for final consideration.
Public Business. - Cement (Amendment) Bill, 1938—Report Stage.
I desire——
Perhaps the Deputy——
I am asking leave to put a question because the information I want may be necessary for the House. The Minister will remember that we promised to give him the remaining stages to-day and I understood from him that he would be in a position to communicate to the House the terms of the specification that he laid down for Cement Limited in connection with the quality of cement to be manufactured and the price that was fixed by Cement Limited for the various regions in which they proposed to deliver cement in Ireland from the date on which they commence production. I did not get these particulars and I wonder if the Minister has them before him now and, if so, whether he could give them to us.
I want to ask the Minister just two questions on the Bill. The Minister stated that cements that did not come under the definition of this Bill would be cements which were non-hydraulic or in other words that the cement affected by this Bill was hydraulic cement. I think if the Minister could, it would be advisable that he would satisfy us what he understands by hydraulic cement. There is another question. I think the Minister stated that from a particular time, Cement, Ltd. were going to take over control of all supplies of cement coming into this country. I should like the Minister to fix the date. What I meant by that is that I want the date announced because there may be questions as to whether particular consignments belonged to, or were to be handled by, Cement, Ltd. or not. It would be desirable if the Minister would announce to the House, if not to-day then shortly, that, as and from a particular date and a particular hour Cement, Ltd., had assumed control. In other words, that what had passed through without Cement, Ltd., having control they would take control of. From the way supplies of cement are arriving it would be very desirable if a definite point was fixed at which one would be one thing, and the other another thing.
On the question of standard, the Act provides that the Order prescribing the standard of cement manufactured by Cement, Ltd., will be submitted to the Dáil. The Order has been prepared on the advice of a Committee which I formed for that purpose. I understand it is ready to be made, and will be made in the very near future. When it is made it will be formally submitted to the Dáil as the Act requires. I cannot give the Deputy any more information on the position as to the price of cement, but a price list has been published by the company and has, I understand, been circulated to potential customers. It is a very formidable document, in so far as it provides for different prices under different conditions of sale, and according to the quantities purchased.
The Deputy was informed during the discussion that took place on the last day the Bill was before the House, that if he applied at the office of my Department he could probably make a copy of the Order, or that it would be made available for him, or if the Deputy communicates with my office I would have it sent to him. It is possible, no doubt, to provide a complete list of all kinds of cement which would come under the definition of "hydraulic cement." It would involve referring to some of them by what are properly known as trade names, perhaps even by the names of firms that manufacture them. The term "hydraulic cement" in its application under the Act is fully understood by interested parties, because the Act has been in force for about five years, and applies only to hydraulic cements such as Roman cement, Portland cement and other hydraulic cements. Any form of cement for which an importation licence was required heretofore would be in the same position in future. As regards an announcement, what the Deputy suggests is the practical course to take. He understands that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will not automatically provide that there will not be still licences. New licences will continue to be issued until the arrangement is completed. The completion of the arrangement will take some little time, although it is obviously desirable that it should be effective before quantities of Irish manufactured cement become available. Even when the arrangement has been made and brought into operation it will apply only in respect of new licences. Any person engaged in the cement business will continue to be facilitated until the new arrangement is working completely.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, I am afraid I do not quite understand the way he put the matter. If I understood him, what the Minister now suggests is that all licences that have been issued will be allowed to run off.
Yes. Of course the licensee has the option of surrendering the licence and getting a refund. Some may be prepared to take that course.
Where a fee has been paid, the position is that the cement is the licensee's property, but that no fresh licences will be issued after a certain date.
That is right.
The rough and ready test is this, that if you get a licence the cement is yours, but if you have not got one Cement, Ltd., will have to arrange to take over the cement.
Yes.
Question put and agreed to.
I move that the Bill do now pass.
On the Fifth Stage, which we have undertaken to facilitate to-day, one or two points arise. The House will remember that originally the determining factor of price mainly concerned this country. Therefore the merits of that question fall for discussion now. This Bill goes a further step, and in order effectively to carry out the purpose of the Principal Act it has become necessary to confer an absolute monopoly on Cement, Ltd. All this is being done in the sacred name of economic self-sufficiency. I notice what must be the greatest miracle since Moses struck the rock, that the Labour Party has become converted. Having for the last six years given stalwart support to the Minister for Industry and Commerce in promoting the cause of economic self-sufficiency, they have now announced that that was all wrong.
They are not in this Bill.
There is nothing concrete about their ideas, anyway.
I am going to submit with respect that this Bill is an instrument made necessary by the policy of economic self-sufficiency.
On the Second Stage of a Bill, discussion may be pretty wide. It is much more restricted on the Fifth Stage, being confined to what is actually in the measure. I suggest to the Deputy that the discovery of an apt illustration does not justify the writing of a book.
No, but the necessity here increases the price of cement by 21/- a ton, and it seems to me to be a very relevant point to make on the Fifth Stage.
Quite, but not on the general policy of self-sufficiency.
It is towards that I am approaching. I want to make this case, with your leave, that it is unreasonable to criticise the Minister for Industry and Commerce adversely for these increasing charges if at the same time you are going to urge him to pursue a policy of economic self-sufficiency. My respectful submission is—and I am going to make the case now—that we are responsible, through this legislation, for further increasing the price of cement for the building of labourers' cottages by 21/- a ton. I do not deny that if the Minister is to follow a policy of economic self-sufficiency, and if he is instructed by the Executive Council to carry out that policy, then I cannot blame him, as I think he has a complete answer if he says: "In pursuance of the policy of economic self-sufficiency, I have got to raise the price of cement by 21/- a ton, as there is no other way of achieving economic self-sufficiency." I agree with him. I think he is right there. The point I want to make is that the extra cost of cement, as a result of this legislation, is the price of economic self-sufficiency. Deputy Corish took me to task recently, I think under a misapprehension, when he stated that the increase in the price of cement was a trivial matter in the building of a house.
No, I did not. I said that the increased cost of 5/- would be infinitesimal on the rent.
I am glad the Deputy corrected what was the popular impression. The effect of the increased price of cement is not 5/- per ton but 21/- per ton. In October, 1936, cement was being delivered in this country at 30/- a ton c.i.f., and for larger quantities, 29/6 c.i.f., at Irish ports. The Minister, then, for purposes which are completed by the passage of this Bill, announced his intention of levying a licence fee of 5/- a ton.
When did I announce it?
Subsequent to the date I mentioned.
1936?
About then you imposed a fee.
As a matter of fact, it was imposed in 1933, five years ago.
I think it was in 1936 that the Minister announced his plans as being completed for the creation of the cement industry.
1933.
The Minister's plans for the establishment of the industry were not then completed.
The plans were completed in 1933.
Let us not bicker over details, but at that stage it became apparent that the Minister was going to cut off all imports of cement as soon as he could, and that in the process of doing that he proposed steadily to raise the price of cement. Mark this, because this is immensely important, he fixed the public with notice that there was no use, as the price of cement went up, in their looking to other sources of supply, because he said, "At the end of a couple of years, or as soon as I can get the cement plant built, I am going to cut off all imports of cement." Faced with that notice, the cement cartel took counsel with themselves. They said that the Minister for Industry and Commerce in Ireland is going to raise the price of cement no matter what we charge for it, c.i.f., at an Irish port, and if the price is going to be raised by the Minister we might as well raise it ourselves, because if we now raise the price of cement there is no danger of anybody in Ireland buying Spanish or Polish cement, as they were tempted to do before themselves when we tried to raise the price. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has warned them that if they establish business relations with Poland for cheap cement he will break up those business relations as soon as he has established Cement, Ltd., with the result that the price of cement began to rise. The cement that was costing 30/-, c.i.f., at an Irish port in 1936 was costing 39/6, c.i.f., in December, 1937, and to-day is costing 41/6, c.i.f., at an Irish port.
Now, when cement was costing 30/-, c.i.f., it was being sold to the contractors who had to build houses at prices varying between 34/6 and 36/6 per ton delivered on site. I think it might be fair to say that the average price was 36/6 delivered on site, and that for some very small quantities 1/- more might have been charged, but the average was 36/6. Now, the price is about 57/6 delivered on site—that is £1 per ton more than it was two years ago. It takes about six tons of cement, I understand, to build a small labourer's cottage if the cottages are built in pairs.
Nonsense.
I asked a contractor and he told me that it took about six tons if the cottages were built in pairs— that is six tons to build a small labourer's cottage.
A lot depends on what the cottage is built of.
I have many vocations in life, but there is one thing that I have never put up to be, and that is a builder.
That is astonishing.
It takes about 12 tons of cement to build a labourer's cottage if the cottage is built of concrete.
That only strengthens my case.
We are trying to keep the Deputy right.
I was merely going to submit to the House that, on the information I have from builders, it took six tons of cement to build a small labourer's cottage if you are building the cottages in pairs. That represents an additional cost of £6 on the house, and my point is that if you had that £6 you could add many a little convenience to that house which you cannot now add owing to the increased cost of cement. Deputy Corish, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of matters of this kind because of his experience of local administration, states that in the County Wexford it may mean a difference of £12 in the cost of building a small labourer's cottage. That merely strengthens my case.
We thought that we might as well try and keep the Deputy right.
I am very glad to get any information the Deputy can give me because what he has said makes it all the clearer that the cost of economic self-sufficiency in cement is going to be largely borne by the labourer's wife who must now do without the conveniences that she otherwise might enjoy in the cottage that is being built for her. I have always, and my colleagues in this Party have always, warned Deputies of this House and the country that economic self-sufficiency was not only impossible of achievement in its entirety, but that the pursuit of it involved great losses to the community, and particularly acute suffering to the poor. Up till recently the Labour Party seemed to have taken the opposite view. We are now informed that they have changed their minds.
Now !
I am going to ask them this categorical question.
I suspect, unofficially, what the Deputy desires to ask the Labour Party. As the Deputy has already been informed, this is a Bill dealing with cement. On the Estimate for the Minister's Department he will have an opportunity of discussing the Minister's policy. If the Deputy were allowed to do so now, and the Chair were to prohibit further discussion of Government policy on the Estimate for the Minister's Department, other Deputies might find themselves aggrieved. The Deputy cannot have it both ways: he cannot now anticipate discussion relevant to Estimates.
It is right at any rate that the House should realise a few things. The first is that this Bill is in conformity with the Government's policy of economic self-sufficiency. The other is that this Cement Bill is going to impose a very heavy burden on the people, and the third, and most important lesson for the Labour Party to learn, is this: that this is the only way that you can get self-sufficiency. You cannot blame the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he demands in this Cement Bill immense sacrifices from the community at large. He must, if he is to carry that policy through. There is no other way of doing it, and it is because I am of opinion that it is wholly unjustifiable to place this burden on the community, and that we are getting no adequate return for the suffering that the community must endure as a result of these burdens, that I and my colleagues believe that the policy of national self-sufficiency on which this Bill is founded cannot be justified, and that departures of this character cannot be justified. However, I accept your ruling that the place to challenge—I am not trying to circumnavigate your ruling—I accept your ruling that the place to challenge the fundamental philosophy of national self-sufficiency is on the Estimate for the Minister's Department and not on this Bill.
We are now in agreement.
I agree with that and I hope that, hereafter, I shall not be told that, having made a strong speech, I did not challenge a division on this matter. I accept your ruling that the proper place to raise the principle involved in this Bill is on the Estimate and I shall so raise it unless the Labour Party get in ahead of me. I propose to put down a motion that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. Seeing that the Labour Party are now putting down that motion for every Estimate on the Order Paper, they may get it down before me in respect of this Estimate.
Not every Estimate.
As many as they know anything about or as many as they can get up and talk about. If they do not put down that motion, I propose to put it down and to join issue with the Minister on that fundamental question which is not relevant to our momentary debate. The Labour Party must do either of two things—challenge the Minister's fundamental philosophy or help him in piling on the burden that is falling on the working people of this country. They cannot have it both ways.
Neither can the Deputy.
Tell that to the Labour members of the Seanad.
They have not manifested themselves as yet. I propose to tell it to the Labour members of Dáil Eireann and to the members of the Labour organisations, as a whole, and the sooner we come to a realisation of these facts, the better it will be for us all. I should be glad if the Minister would give us his opinion as to whether my view upon that aspect of the situation does not correspond materially with his own—that you cannot have certain policies without paying for them and that there is no use in clamouring for the policy if you are not prepared to pay the price.
I had not intended to speak on this Bill at this stage but Deputy Dillon has made certain statements that might lead people to believe that the Labour Party were supporting the Minister for Industry and Commerce in something that was going appreciably to increase the rent of labourers' cottages. As I indicated —and I have ascertained I was correct —during the course of Deputy Dillon's speech, on an average it takes about 12 tons of cement to construct a labourer's cottage. What we are chiefly concerned with, I submit, in so far as Government policy is concerned, is the matter of the 5/- licence—that is what I think it is called—which is imposed by the Government. We, certainly, have supported the Ministry hitherto on this tax or licence. If it takes 12 tons of cement to build a labourer's cottage—I have ascertained this from people who are in a position to tell me —that means that the extra cost will be £3. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health pays 66 and two-thirds of that and the increase in the rent of a labourer's cottage would be a little less than three farthings a week. That is the imposition.
Surely the Deputy realises that the Minister's Bill proposes to increase the price of cement by 21/-a ton. The price of cement has got to go up to 21/-. The bottom, therefore, falls out of the Deputy's argument.
I trust that the Minister will see that the price of cement will not be unnecessarily high—higher than the price prevailing in other countries. It is all right for people to say, "So long as it is made in the country, we can charge what we like." I disagree with Deputy Corish in his deductions with regard to the rent of labourers' cottages. But you cannot confine yourself to the rent of labourers' cottages. You have got to consider the other tens of thousands of workers in this country. There seems to be a sort of general "singsong" on the part of members of the Labour Party and of the Government Party about the unfortunate men in labourers' cottages. What about the other workers? What about the man who wants to construct a house under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act? What about the man who has a sense of dignity, who wants to provide a house for his family instead of staying in an old tumble-down "shack" and who does not want the State to subscribe 66 and two-thirds of the cost? There should be a little practice of Sinn Féin—the thing you were so fond of preaching years ago. May I ask Deputy Corish what will be the effect of the £12 extra which he quoted. Every £12 extra means a tenth——
On a point of order, I do not think that I referred to £12 extra.
I should like to go into a round-table conference with Deputy Corish on this question.
I am prepared to meet the Deputy anywhere. I never mentioned the question of £12. I was dealing with the question of the 5/-licence, and I said that it took 12 tons of cement to build a labourer's cottage. I was answering the argument of Deputy Dillon. The Minister pays 66? of the increase of rent and that would mean a little less than three farthings.
The Deputy may think that he was answering my argument, but that was not what he answered. The £12 is in question.
I should like to deal with that question at a round-table conference or, possibly, on a public platform and to point out the different views I hold as a workmen's representative. It matters not whether the State pays or not; this money is coming out of the people's pockets. I hold that the decent worker of this country who is out to build a house for himself should not be fleeced in regard to the charges made for the materials he uses in the building of his house. With all respect to Deputy Corish, I maintain that every £10 increase put on the building of a house does make a difference in the rent. Assuming that the rate is £6 13s. 4d. —I think that is the inclusive rate charged by the public authorities to people who apply for loans to build houses under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act—that is one-tenth of 100, and that means one-tenth of £6 13s. 4d. which is much more than three farthings, on the average, to the working man.
I was only answering in regard to the labourer's cottage.
The aggregate of all these little additions means a very big thing.
Hear, hear!
It is just the same as an addition of 1d. to the rate. In the aggregate, it means a very big thing. A great many people gibe at things because they do not understand them and they are surprised that anybody else should understand them. When certain Deputies do not understand things in this House, they start to laugh, but they will not spend ten minutes in trying to understand them. They talk about the "unfortunate, poor workman" and they ask the Minister to put on the money, no matter where it comes from. In dealing with this very important question of housing, I would never get up and ask the Minister to do everything. I want the people themselves, including the workers who are engaged in erecting houses, to help the Minister as well. I do not agree with the Labour Party's view and that is the reason that, instead of asking the Minister to put up all the money, I ask the Minister to keep a close eye on the cost of cement in so far as it will be manufactured in this country because it all means money.
Another question which I was going to ask the Minister is in connection with these factories. I do not know whether it would be in order on this stage. Great dissatisfaction exists in this little country of ours because certain people will not get work in these factories. I should like to have the ear of the Labour Party in connection with this matter of the factories. If a man lives a half a mile away——
If the Minister is responsible, that point would be more appropriate on the Estimate.
It would not be appropriate at all because the Minister has no responsibility.
I thought it was brought up on the Second Stage of the Bill.
If the Minister has no responsibility, the matter cannot be raised.
I have nothing whatever to do with it.
Query! On a point of order, the Minister has power under one section to make regulations in regard to the erection of these factories and other matters affecting them, and it might well be argued that, under that section, he has power to deal with the matter raised by Deputy Coburn.
I have no doubt the Deputy would argue that.
In any case it was not a point of order.
I intend to raise the matter on the Estimate of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I would not interfere in this debate were it not for the mistaken idea that exists that £10 or £12 extra does not matter. It matters a lot to the working classes of this country other than those who are living in houses to which the Minister contributes 66? per cent.
Trying to follow Deputy Dillon is as futile as chasing a revolving roundabout. He gets so far away from any known facts that it is impossible to relate his contentions to the circumstances which others know to exist. I followed him as carefully as I could, but I could not identify anything he said with any fact of which I am aware. I do not know, consequently, that his remarks are worth while dealing with, but I will continue this unprofitable process of trying to educate him. There is going to be no increase in the price of cement. The establishment of these factories is not going to impose any burden on anybody. On the contrary, the price of cement is going to be decreased by an average of from 3/- to 4/- per ton over the whole country.
It was boosted 21/- per ton.
Who boosted it 21/-a ton? This imported foreign cement which the Deputy is talking about has increased in price. That is true. Everybody knows what happened. Deputy Dockrell knows quite well what happened. In 1933, when the original Cement Bill was introduced, foreign cement was being sold here at an extremely low price because this was the only free market in Europe to which cement could be imported. You could buy Belgian cement here at half the price it was sold in Belgium. You could buy Danish cement here at half the price it was sold in Denmark. In fact, there are people still in Dublin who made money by buying British cement delivered in Dublin and reexporting it to England, because the prevailing price here was 10/-, 12/- or 15/- per ton lower than the price even in England. That is the situation. Undoubtedly that conferred an immediate advantage on the consumer here, but nobody expected that it was going to continue. It was an entirely abnormal and, obviously, only a temporary situation. It stopped when these exporters made an arrangement amongst themselves to stop cutting their throats in this market and the price of cement began to go up. Of course it went up.
To what.
The price of cement went up. I am not in a position, nor is anybody else in a position, to say to what extent the increase in the price of cement is attributable to that, because there were other reasons operating. The demand for cement arising out of rearmament undertakings and other causes also increased to such an extent that there was a scarcity of cement. Does Deputy Dillon know that in 1936, the year to which he referred, we made an agreement with the British Government to purchase 200,000 tons of cement from Great Britain in consideration of their buying a corresponding quantity of bacon from us, and that the British exporters could not supply the cement? The arrangement had to be terminated because the cement could not be made available. Deputy Dillon does not know that. He referred to the year 1936 because he thought it had some significance in relation to his argument. It had no significance whatever. Nothing happened in 1936 except this: that we reduced the duty on cement from 20 per cent. to 10 per cent.—that is the duty on British cement. Obviously that did not increase the price. I told Deputy Dillon a few days ago that he could make his fortune writing threepenny novelettes for servant girls. He has a most fertile imagination. This picture he painted to-day of the cartels sitting down in secret session to decide how they were going to take advantage of some statement of mine in order to exploit the consumer here was all bunkum.
It is precisely what happened.
It was for a similar reason that the price of cement went up in Great Britain and in every other country.
It did not.
It is all nonsense. The price was bound to go up here when it went up elsewhere, because the costs of producing it were increased. It was bound to go up as soon as this cut-throat war in which they were engaged ended. Now we are going to produce our own cement and we are going to produce it cheaper than foreign cement is now sold here. There is going to be a reduction in the price of cement. This is no burden on anybody. It is an advantage conferred upon this country of considerable magnitude because that cement is going to be not merely superior in quality to cement conforming to the British standard specification, but cheaper in price and produced in this country by Irish workers entirely from Irish materials, except for coal.
Of which it takes one ton to manufacture two tons of cement.
That may be a development towards national self-sufficiency, but I did not promote this for any other reason except that I thought it good business to do it. Deputy Dillon can, of course, sneer at this idea of national self-sufficiency. He could have a talk with Deputy Cosgrave about that at some time. He was very flattering in attributing the enunciation of this policy to me. I do not make that claim for myself. Whatever I know about national economics I learned from the writings of Arthur Griffith and those who advocated his teachings many years ago. Deputy Cosgrave is one of them. Is he now one of those "who deny and deem it mad, the faith their nobler boyhood had?" Perhaps if Deputy Cosgrave goes back over 20 years and considers the attitude he took in that matter, he may be in a position to give Deputy Dillon a few rudimentary principles on which to base his speech.
I expressed the opinion here before, and I repeat it, that the imposition of the licence fee caused no increase in the price of cement in itself. It did, of course, during the period when the price war to which I referred was in progress, but once that war ended, the only thing that determined the price at which cement would be sold here was the effect of that price upon its saleability. The licence fee had nothing to do with it. In fact, agents in this country who handled imported cement themselves increased their fees substantially more than the licence fee charged by the State.
In any event, the licence fee in future is going to have nothing whatever to do with the price of cement, because imported cement, the cement to which the Bill relates, will be sold without profit at precisely the same price as that at which Irish cement will be available and the price of Irish cement, as I told the Dáil, is definitely fixed in relation to the cost of manufacture. It will vary only if the price of coal or the cost of labour or the price of electricity alters. If these charges do not alter, the price will remain the same. If these charges go up, the price of cement will go up; if these charges go down, the price of cement will go down. Imported cement will be sold at that price no matter what fee, if any, we decide to have on the licences issued to those bringing it in. Therefore, all this talk about the burden on the people, about increasing the cost of labourers' cottages, and calling the nation to make sacrifices for the policy of national self-sufficiency is so much hot air.
Might I ask the Minister this question? Does he seriously tell the House, assuming that the new price for cement is going to be in the order of 46/-, that cement, if it were being imported freely, would cost 46/-; or is it not true to say that, if we were importing cement freely, we could buy it at the present moment for about 34/- per cwt. c.i.f. at an Irish port?
I expressed a serious opinion. I am not in a position to say precisely what would happen in purely hypothetical circumstances. I expressed an opinion which is certainly seriously meant and which, I think, is a correct one. The fact, however, is that the price at which cement is now available will be reduced when Irish-made cement is available.
The question I asked was: Is the Minister, with the information in his Department at his disposal, of opinion that the price charged by Cement, Ltd., will be as low or lower than the price which would obtain if we were free to import cement from the large number of sources of supply available? To that the Minister makes no reply.
It is a purely hypothetical question and not worth an answer.
It is a vital question.
It is of no significance to anybody.
The difference between these two prices is the cost of this enterprise. I say it is 21/- per ton.
Question put and agreed to.