This Bill provides for the repeal of the Act relating to the Tariff Commission mentioned in the text of the measure and as the immediate consequence of its passing into law it would bring to an end the work of the Tariff Commission. The House is aware that in the Control of Prices Act, 1937, provision has been made for the reconstitution of the Prices Commission on a basis which provides for dealing with the question of tariffs in relation to prices and which, in effect, will constitute it both a tariff and prices commission. Accordingly, it is felt that there is no need for the commission which was set up under the earlier Act, now proposed to be repealed, and that commission will be brought to an end.
Tariff Commission (Repeal) Bill, 1939—Second Stage.
I feel absolutely astonished at the inadequate comment of the Minister on the Bill now before the House. The work previously done by the Tariff Commission is now to be handed over to the Prices Commission, and everything in relation to these matters is now supposed to be related to prices of one kind or another. I would not mind if the Minister for Finance had shown that he thought the new machinery was something that would replace the old, and if he had not documentary evidence before him since the Anglo-Irish Agreement was made that the Prices Tribunal cannot satisfactorily deal with matters it was asked to deal with. The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us recently that he had applications for something like 100 reviews of prices that had been submitted either by the Government of Great Britain or by manufacturers in Great Britain to the Government here, and that the Prices Commission was going to deal with them. It is obvious to anyone looking at the way in which the Department of Industry and Commerce has faced the question of industrial development that it has done so in a most haphazard way.
The Minister for Finance could purr over the matter, because he saw his revenue swelling year after year, as a result of customs duties imposed at the behest of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in order, allegedly, to develop Irish industry. The Minister for Finance did not particularly mind, because that solved some of his difficulties, and brought money his way that he would not care to have to come and claim in a more outspoken way. On the side of the Department of Industry and Commerce the industrial expansion that has taken place has been most haphazard, and even to-day we are liable to see increased industrial expansion, not as a result of any kind of carefully thought-out plan, but of political pressure brought to bear on the Minister by some persons, who think if they get an industry started that some kind of propaganda can be made out of the idea that they were starting another Irish industry here. Industrial development is to be influenced either by pressure of that particular kind, internally, or by the chance landing on our shores of some refugee from some disturbed part of the Continent of Europe, saying that he has experience in a particular line and that he has a certain amount of money and, perhaps, a certain amount of machinery.
As far as we can see, superficially at any rate, we are dependent on chances like that to develop our Irish industry here. On the other hand, such review of Irish industry as there is going to be is now going to be a piecemeal review by the Prices Commission at the request, perhaps, of some outside manufacturer, more likely at the request of some outside manufacturer, who wants to argue that he can supply better stuff here than the Irish manufacturers are supplying.
As I say, I would understand the Minister dealing so inadequately with the present matter if he had not documentary evidence that what the Prices Commission are engaged on at the moment and what the Department of Industry and Commerce, as a Department, are supposed to be engaged on at the moment is not a practicable thing. The agreement was signed in the early part of last year. In the middle of the year, July, 1938, representatives of Australia and of Great Britain sat down to discuss why, over a period of six years, no success had been achieved as between Great Britain and Australia in dealing with the matters that the Minister for Finance now suggests are going to be dealt with satisfactorily here as between Great Britain and ourselves by the Prices Commission and by his Department. The document that arose out of these discussions, which was signed by representatives of the British Government and of the Australian Government, shows that it was quite impracticable to arrange satisfactory agreement on the trading relations between the two countries on the basis of the ideas enshrined in paragraphs, I think it was, 9 to 13 of the agreement signed in Ottawa in 1932 between Great Britain and Australia. What has been enshrined as governing the Prices Commission's work in the agreement signed with Great Britain by ourselves, in the early part of last year, are practically the things that were signed in the 1932 agreement between Australia and Great Britain. In paragraph 7 of the agreement signed on the 20th July last, it was indicated that the articles in the 1932 agreement between Australia and Great Britain had not been satisfactorily worked and that the British and the Australians could not agree about them.
It has got nothing to do with it.
It has quite a lot to do with it.
The Deputy may think he is living in Australia; I do not.
I am asking the Minister to direct his attention to the conditions that were existing in Australia, to the things that the Australian Government and the British Government tried mutually to do, and to the fact that representatives of Great Britain and Australia wrote down in an official document, on the 20th July, 1938, that they could not do them. They signed an agreement in 1932 that they would do it or try to do it and, as a result of six years' attempting to carry out the agreement, representatives of the two Governments had to sign a statement which, paraphrased, runs like this: that the articles could not be worked; that two ways presented themselves to the Ministers of trying to get some other way to govern trading agreements between the two Governments. One was to endeavour to revise the articles so as to satisfy the requirements of both countries. They decided that this has so far proved impracticable. After trying to work agreements somewhat like our own, which were signed in 1932, they had to admit, six years afterwards, that to revise them in such a way as would satisfy the requirements of both countries had so far proved impracticable. They left it at that, and they decided that they were going to make no further attempt to revise these articles so as to provide a satisfactory means of carrying on their mutual trade.
The other plan that was considered was to abolish the articles altogether and to substitute for them a schedule of maximum rates of duty which would operate during the currency of a new agreement. It was suggested that that was a way of doing things that had become rather common in a certain number of modern international agreements, but it was pointed out that, because of the fact that Australia was a young and developing country and that it had wage-fixing tribunals and consequent fluctuations in industrial costs, it was not likely that an agreement based on fixed rates of duties would serve any useful purpose.
If Australia is a young and developing country surely, as far as the normal developing of our industrial life here is concerned, we are fairly young too and all the hurry and all the bustle that there has been for the last six years is because of the fact that, due to past historical causes, our industrial development lagged behind what it ought to be in a country with our possibilities and with our population. Therefore, we can claim that, in respect of the necessity for further industrial development here, we are a young country and that we require further development.
Again, we can also claim that, to some extent, we are a country that has a machinery for wage-fixing but we certainly can claim that, in recent years at any rate, we are a country in which there have been very considerable fluctuations in industrial costs. So that we can claim everything here that would make it impossible to work satisfactorily a trade agreement with Great Britain either on the principles that have been enshrined in the agreement made in the early part of last year or in any attempt to review or to remodel these in any way or under a scheme of fixed rates of duties.
The Australians agreed that they attempted to investigate the possibility of adopting a system of fixed rates of duties but that, as everybody signed in the document, they realise that it cannot be adopted without determining what lines of development of secondary industry will be followed by Australia during the next few years. Both parties to the document that was signed in July last indicated that they believed that, if inquiries were put in hand for the purpose of determining the lines of general plans of industrial development in Australia, much good would result; that, as far as the position of United Kingdom exporters was concerned, they would be protected to that extent and the necessity for the articles which at present invoke criticism would disappear.
We could claim that, if there is to be any stability or any satisfactory outlook on the part of people who are putting either capital or energy into the development of Irish industry here, or if there is to be any kind of stable outlook on the part of workers who are going to find employment in future in industry, nothing is more necessary for them, that is, nothing is more necessary or more important internally here at the present time, and particularly because of some of the disturbing effects of what is said, implied, or feared about the Anglo-Irish Agreement, than that there would be some kind of stable outlook established on the lines upon which we would definitely direct our energies in the developing of Irish industry during, say, the next five years.
The Department of Industry and Commerce is not going to do it. The Prices Commission, bombarded from all directions by something like 100 odd demands, in view of the offer which the Minister for Industry and Commerce has already received from Great Britain for the review of tariffs, cannot see the thing as a whole. The Department of Industry and Commerce, with all the detailed work that it has to do at the present time, all the pressure that has been brought to bear on it, such as the pressure and protests that have been in such great volume brought on it during the last six years, which have been responsible for some of the type of industrial development we had, is not either organised or, as a result of its experience for the last six years, the proper kind of body to review things as a whole. The Prices Commission, in these new circumstances, is the last body in the world to which we could look to inspire us with confidence that it was going to review the matters which came before it as if it were a body whose members had a clear outlook on the lines upon which more stable industrial development should be continued and carried on here during the next five years. The whole approach to the question of tariffs, as directed to the development of Irish industry, which the Tariff Commission was set up to have, and had, while it was working, is the type of approach that we want to have made to the general review of the main lines of a possible industrial expansion here during the next five years. It not only involves looking at new developments, but looking at the whole of our present industrial situation, and seeing what are the main foundations of our present industry which have to be sedulously and carefully guarded and developed from any chance injury as a result of some of the work done before the establishment of the Prices Commission.
I think that, instead of abolishing the Tariff Commission, it should be retained, and should be given increased functions, or a different function, for the purpose of doing what was definitely recognised by representatives of Great Britain and Australia when they held their discussions before July last as being necessary for a sound appreciation of the industrial requirements of Australia in the future, and, in the light of that clear appreciation, for the possibility of carrying on satisfactory trading relations between the two countries in a way which would be devoid of friction of any kind. For that reason I oppose the abolition of the Tariff Commission. I oppose it for the reason that I consider it should be retained, and should be put in the position of doing what is clearly stated here after a full examination of a situation comparable with our own, of doing what is absolutely necessary, even if it were only to stabilise us and make business like and practical sound trading relations between ourselves and Great Britain. In my opinion, it is required for an even more important reason—the stabilising of our own outlook as to our industrial foundations here, the protection of such of our industrial foundations as may be injured, or are likely to be injured, by the piecemeal discussions that are going on and, generally, to put us in the position, now that we are getting a certain amount of sanity in the conduct of our general economic activities, of knowing where our industrial foundation is going to be.
An examination of the discussions which went on between Australia and Great Britain would show that they were carried on in the light of the fact that an increased population was necessary in Australia. Here we are in a country whose population is declining, and declining unnecessarily, and as a result of some of our economic and political operations of the last five years. It was definitely set down in those discussions that, on national grounds and on economic grounds, primary production in Australia is to be maintained and improved, that its secondary industries have to have a continued development, that its defence needs have to be looked after and that they may have to treat with other countries. Everything that should enter into a consideration of how we are going to do our internal economic business here, or carry on our relations with other people, came up for discussion and review as between people circumstanced as ourselves and Great Britain a couple of months ago, and three months after we had signed our agreement with Great Britain.
Everything arising out of these discussions drives home to us the fact that the Department of Industry and Commerce is not dealing with the really essential thing which requires to be dealt with at the moment, and that the Prices Commission cannot. The Tariff Commission, remodelled and given other powers related to the very important situation here, could do a very necessary work. The Tariff Commission was set up to help in the getting of a sound, secure and developing Irish industry firmly established here, and not to get increased revenue. Every matter to which the Minister for Finance addresses himself emphasises more and more that what he is concerned about is to have his Treasury full. On these grounds, I oppose the Bill and I urge the Minister to turn his thoughts, and the thoughts of his colleagues, to the matters I have emphasised. I should also like to know, now that a proposal has come from the Government to abolish the Tariff Commission, when they will do the Tariff Commission the honour of publishing their last report on fish barrels? Why is that report withheld and are there any other reports which have been withheld? If there are, I should like to know why, and when it is intended to publish them, so that we may have a complete record of the work of the Tariff Commission.
The Minister made no attempt whatever to make a case for the repeal of the original Act. If he wanted to make a case, the Minister is the one man who could stand up and talk for two minutes, or two hours, as the case might be, and make a case in favour of anything he was asking the House to pass. Is it to be taken for granted that, because the Minister has a machine-like majority behind him, although he had only seven or eight Deputies to listen to his speech, he does not feel obliged to make a case to the House for a measure of this kind, and consequently does not give a curse about what other sections of the House may think of a proposal of this or any other kind? I had hoped that he would give justifiable reasons as to why he was burying the Tariff Commission in the memory of the past, and, what is much more important from my point of view, that he would be able to make a convincing case that the Prices Commission, which is going to do the work of the Tariff Commission in future, would be able to do that work expeditiously and efficiently.
I am not concerned about the individuals who constituted the Tariff Commission, nor am I concerned about the personnel of the Prices Commission, so long as the Prices Commission, which, from my point of view is a very important body, does the work which the Minister, the House and the country expects them to do. Answering a question of mine last week, and in a further reply to-day, the Minister for Industry and Commerce indicated that there were over 100 applications awaiting hearing before the Prices Commission, arising out of the settlement made last year with Great Britain. I want to know from the Minister whether it is to be understood, as was stated in the House some time ago by a back-bencher, that the Prices Commission must give the whole of their time to this work until it is completed, and that, while there is a case, or cases, awaiting hearing as a result of the settlement of the economic war, they cannot deal with cases that have a particular interest for the population of this State as a whole. In other words, am I to understand from the Minister for Finance, that, if the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or his Department, is asked to deal with a case of alleged profiteering in connection with some particular internal industry, the hearing of that application must wait over until all the cases from British or other outside people are heard? I want to know about that matter particularly, because I am not sure as to what is the procedure of the Prices Commission in that regard.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce—to the surprise, I am sure, of those who were listening to him last week—said that he would be quite satisfied if all the applications submitted by British industrialists which are now awaiting hearing were concluded within the three-year period. Is not that a convincing case for the establishment of a full-time body to deal with this matter if the work of the Prices Commission is to be properly done in as short a time as possible? This whole matter must be regarded from the point of view of the people who are affected by the activities of this commission. I submit to the Minister for Finance that, in the case of any Irish industry, the future of such an industry, from the point of view of those who have invested their money in the industry and of the employees of that industry, will be in very grave doubt while this sort of thing continues, and that, to that extent, the future progress of the industry will be affected. From time to time, for instance, I have come into touch with people who have invested their money in Irish industries, and they have repeatedly said, whether they believed in it or not— and I am sure that other Deputies in the House have had the same experience, and perhaps the Minister himself has had the experience—that while the hearing of their cases are pending, the Irish industries in which they have invested their money are in jeopardy. My contention is that the Prices Commission should be constituted as a permanent body with full-time officials.
The administration of the Prices Commission does not arise here, nor does the question of the Prices Commission being set up as a permanent body arise here. The question here concerned is whether a certain commission set up formerly— that is, the Tariff Commission—should be abolished. In referring to the matter of the Prices Commission, Deputy Davin is going into the bailiwick of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is not here and who is not responsible for the matter now before the House. In connection with the matter of the Prices Commission and its personnel, I suggest that the Deputy will have ample opportunity when that particular matter comes up in the next week or so to deal with it.
Yes, Sir, I agree; but I am sure that you, Sir, are aware that the Minister for Finance is responsible for the payment of the salaries of the members of the Prices Commission and that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, under his present powers, has authority from this House, under an Act passed last year, to set up a tribunal dealing with this matter— either to set up a permanent tribunal, or, if necessary, to increase the personnel of the existing body. I hope, therefore, Sir, that you are not suggesting that, in making that submission, I am advocating the passing of new legislation.
This is a specific proposal for dealing with the abolition of a commission that was set up years ago. The Deputy is suggesting the setting up of some other body on the lines of the Prices Commission.
Might I suggest, Sir, that the idea behind this Bill, which is specifically for the purpose of abolishing the old Tariff Commission, was to effectively transfer the functions of the former Tariff Commission to the Prices Commission? Since, in addition to the functions of the former Tariff Commission, other functions or activities are to be added on, surely we can argue that the present Prices Commission has too much to do and that some permanent body should be set up to deal with these matters?
There is something in the Deputy's submission, but that is not the line pursued by Deputy Davin.
I was endeavouring, Sir, to make the case—not having had any information or knowledge from the Minister as to his real reasons for wiping out the body formerly known as the Tariff Commission—that, if the Tariff Commission is being abolished and its former functions are being transferred to the Prices Commission, including the new functions that have accrued as a result of the international agreement of last year, he should put the Prices Commission in such a position that it could do its work expeditiously and efficiently.
So far as I know, there is no reason to think that the Prices Commission is not doing its work expeditiously and efficiently.
That may be so, but if the Minister thinks that the commission is only expected to do its work, in connection with the international agreement, inside of three years, I do not know what the Minister means when he uses the word "expeditiously."
I did not tell the Deputy that.
I am not criticising the members of that body. I know that these people have the ability and energy to do their work properly. What I am asking for is that the Minister should give these people the necessary encouragement, and the only encouragement for people in that job— which, I admit, is a job for supermen— is to make the job a full-time job, with full-time officials, so that the whole business could be finished in one year instead of three years.
Is not the Prices Commission a permanent body?
Well, probably, the Deputy knows more about that body and its personnel than I do, and if his knowledge of the powers of these individuals has any bearing in comparison with the time the Deputy himself takes up in this House, he certainly knows more than I do. All I want is to get information from the Minister with regard to this matter—information, which, I suspect, Deputy Dillon already has in his possession. I hold that the Minister should not be allowed to dismiss this matter of the abolition of the former Tariff Commission with just a few words. The House should be afforded some information as to the work of the Prices Commission. After all, the Minister for Finance is responsible for the payment of the salaries of these people, and there is the question of the time that might be necessary for these people to do their work. As I have said already, we have had the statement from the Minister for Industry and Commerce that it would take three years for these people to do their work in connection with matters concerned with the international agreement, which is apart from the ordinary work of the commission. The Chairman of the Prices Commission, who is a civil servant, is employed full-time in connection with that work, but the other two members, as, I am sure, is known to Deputy Dillon, are only part-time members and are also members of other commissions set up by this Government.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, when speaking on this matter in, I think, the early part of last year, gave expression to the suspicion that the then Prices Commission would not be able to do its work within a reasonable time and suggested that it might be necessary to increase the personnel of that commission and to duplicate the commission in other ways, if that were necessary. That was before the Trade Agreement, but now the Minister for Industry and Commerce says that he will be quite satisfied if the commission is able to do the work, which has now been delegated to that commission as a result of the international agreement, within three years —apart altogether from their ordinary functions.
I am not responsible to this House in regard to questions relating to the Prices Commission or its personnel, and the Deputy knows that as well as I do.
I do not.
The Deputy is here long enough to know it.
Is it not correct to say that the Minister for Finance, in conjunction with the Minister for Industry and Commerce who deals with the setting up of these commissions, is responsible for the payment of the salaries?
I do not answer for the Vote for Industry and Commerce.
I suggest that the Minister does not want to give the required information to the House and that he is treating the House with contempt in refusing to do so.
I submit, Sir, that Deputy Davin should not ask why the House should be required to abolish the Tariff Commission, as the reason is quite simple and apparent. The Tariff Commission, in the past, when any particularly outrageous fraud was sought to be put over on any of the people in this country by one of the potential plunderers whom we are now sheltering, tried to expose these frauds. In the face of the revelations of that body from time to time, with regard to some of these would-be plunderers, the Government found itself in the position of having to refuse some of these applications, and the result has been that the activities of that "officious" body have been suspended for the last three or four years, and the boys have had a royal time. I am now going to describe in small detail to the House the activities of three or four of them, because I have taken the trouble to find them out. But they are not content with getting the body suspended. They do not like to have their night's sleep disturbed by the thought that it may be revived. They want to dispose of it finally, to bury it fathoms deep, so that it can never be revived. The only way they can do that is to get an Act passed by this House, which is supposed to represent the consumers in the country, burying fathoms deep the Tariff Commission, and we are going to do it. You will see the Fianna Fáil Party waving their banners and marching into the lobby to finish the Tariff Commission.
To carry out Chamberlain's order of last year.
They are supposed to represent the consumers; they are supposed to represent the country people; they are supposed to represent the unfortunate people who have to buy and pay toll to the tariff-mongers. But they are not going to represent them to-day. They have got orders from the tariff-mongers that their sleep is being disturbed by the thoughts of the Tariff Commission, and the only way that royal rest can be restored is to abolish the Tariff Commission altogether. Then they can lie back on their feather beds without this pea to irritate them. What has happened during the period of the suspended activity of the Tariff Commission? We have had a cement industry set up in this country. If the Tariff Commission had been functioning the cement ring would have to go before that commission and explain the circumstances under which they wanted to establish the industry here. What, in fact, happened? The cement ring entered into some kind of negotiations with the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
The Deputy stated that he proposes to go into the details of three cases of administration for which the Minister for Finance has no responsibility, matters relevant to the Vote for the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
Cannot the Minister for Industry and Commerce come in and speak for himself if he wants to?
This Bill has been introduced by the Minister for Finance. The matters to which the Deputy is referring should be raised on the Vote for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who would then have an opportunity to reply, an opportunity to get the necessary files.
The proposal is being made to abolish a body whose functions were to inquire into certain matters. I want to argue with the House begging them not to abolish that body; I want to tell them when they went half-way towards abolishing it by suspending it the evils that accrued; and that the Minister for Finance and nobody else put on the tariffs and proposed the tariffs to this House with disastrous consequences to the people of the country.
The cement industry to which the Deputy is referring was established by an Act of the Oireachtas.
My submission is that in the absence of this commission——
The Deputy seems to desire to criticise an Act of the Oireachtas. For the administration of the Act the Minister for Industry and Commerce is responsible. Criticism of the Act is not legitimate.
I want to submit that the Government Party in this House is the most futile, hopeless, incompetent collection that ever sat on the Government Benches and that their legislation is rotten.
The Deputy should tell us something about the Tariff Commission.
I want the Tariff Commission operating in this country so that with chisel and mallet they may drive into the heads of the Government facts that they now do not know. I say that in the absence of the Tariff Commission legislation is going to be passed to enact tariffs to play into the hands of the tariff-mongers in this country, because it fails anyone, short of the Tariff Commission, to drive the necessary information into the heads of the men who represent the Government.
The Deputy should try to get into his head the fact that statutes may not be criticised except when there is amending legislation before the House. It was not the Fianna Fáil Party, as the Deputy insinuates, but the Oireachtas who passed the legislation. The administration of the Tariff Commission relates not to the Minister for Finance, but to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. What the Deputy apparently wants to do is to make a review of the whole industrial policy and arraign the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is not present, and who is not responsible for this Bill.
Let the Minister be here to defend himself. I want to attack nothing but the tariff on cement. I want to attack the tariff on cement on the ground that it was put over on the House in the absence of information we would have got if the Tariff Commission was functioning.
The Deputy should not allege that an Act was put over on the House. It was passed by the Oireachtas.
I submit that in the absence of the Tariff Commission we lose something and in its presence we gain something. I want to argue that if I had the Tariff Commission here I could go to it as an ordinary citizen and say: "I object to this tariff; I want to bring my facts before you; and I want three impartial men to pass on my version of the case as against the cement ring's version and to report to the Oireachtas that they ought not to be seduced or betrayed into selling themselves to this cement ring." Have I not the right to argue that? If I have not, it means that the exploiters of our people can, if they want, get an Act of Parliament and for ever silence criticism. God forbid that day should ever dawn. This kind of thing has brought down democracies the world over. If the vested interests are to be continued——
The Deputy has departed far from the matter before the House. If he wants to make a general attack on vested interests the Chair has no objection, in proper time and place. The Deputy must confine himself to argue for or against the abolition of the Tariff Commission, and may not arraign the administration of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
I say that the only effective control on the vested interests for certain of our people was the Tariff Commission; that it was the only body that could expose them and control them; that it did so control them; and that the moment it ceased to function that control no longer operated. I want to direct the attention of the House to the fact that the relevant matters relating to the cement industry were never brought before the Tariff Commission, with the result that our people are being plundered by those whom it was suggested they were going to be protected against.
Might I call attention to the Tariff Commission (Amendment) Act, 1930?
Is this a point of order?
Yes. It is an amendment of the original Act. Under the first Act, the Minister competent to refer an application to the Tariff Commission for investigation was the Minister for Finance. Under the Tariff Commission (Amendment) Act, 1930, that was altered, so that the Executive Council might refer such an application. The question as to whether the Tariff Commission has ceased functioning or not is a question of administration which ought to be discussed, I submit, on the Vote for the Minister for Industry and Commerce or on the Vote for the Taoiseach's Department. The fact that an application for a tariff upon cement was not referred to the Tariff Commission is a matter, again I say, purely of administration.
May I submit that this is a Bill to carry suspension to the point of abolition? Having lulled the country into a sense of security by suspension for four years they want to get away with the abolition. I submit that I can argue against that and, with your leave, Sir, I propose to do so. In the circumstances surrounding this House some years ago, you had a Tariff Commission functioning and it was open to any interested party to say to the Minister: "This is a complex matter; this is a matter which we want technical experts to examine: there is only one body can do it and that is the Tariff Commission." If we had done it we would have had the Minister making the case before the Tariff Commission that he made to us. He would have to go forward and state then as he said to us:
"I want to protect the people of this country from exploitation. There is a big international cartel who are just waiting for the chance to raise the price of cement here, and my case is if you let me put a tariff on cement I can protect the people of Ireland from exploitation by that international cartel, for we will make cement in Ireland in a factory over which the international cartel will not have control and our people will not have to pay the international cartel a big tax on the cement produced by this cartel."
That is what the Minister would have told us. It was upon that that the House created a monopoly. When that monopoly had been created, when the price of cement was raised, when the factories were built and when the board was constituted, whom do we find as chairman of the board? A nominee of the international cartel. We discovered that it was too late then, that we had raised a tariff not to protect our people against the cartel, but actually to provide a safe place of refuge for the international cartel inside our own tariff and that we had raised the tariff to enable the Danish cartel to come into Ireland, exploit the Irish people, and deny them the right of benefiting by competition on the cement which is available from Poland and Spain at this moment.
That thing was done with the knowledge, as any of us could have told the Tariff Commission, that time and again the cartel had approached the Spanish and Polish manufacturers and asked them to withdraw their competition from Ireland so that the cartel could raise their prices. But the Spanish and Polish manufacturers said: "No, we are going on to compete in the Irish cement market." As a result of that all the associated units of the Danish cartel, including the British units, had to sell to us in Ireland cement at the same price as the Spanish or Polish cement manufacturers sold their cement; because if they did not the Polish and Spanish cement manufacturers would come in and the international cartel would lose the Irish market. In that set of circumstances they persuaded our Government to provide a safe place of refuge for the Dane to come in here and rob our people as they are robbing them at the present moment. And anyone who dares to comment or dares to object to putting the responsibility and burden on the tenant or occupier of a labourer's cottage being made to pay a heavy tax for cement to the Danish combine is called a traitor and a saboteur.
Does any Deputy in the House doubt that if the Tariff Commission had been functioning they would have found out that plan and they would have warned the Oireachtas of the dangers of what the Oireachtas had been invited to do in this matter of the Tariff Commission? Does anyone imagine that if we had been asked to build a tariff wall to protect the Dane while exploiting the Irish people, that we would have been so foolish as to do it? Is it any wonder that I for one am exposing that here and that I am deploring the passing of the Tariff Commission? Had the Tariff Commission been given an opportunity of exposing that before it was too late we would not now be in the position of looking on at this actually in operation and unable to prevent it. Let me now for a moment touch on the question of the linen trade and the question of the firm set up to manufacture linen.
The Deputy is now going into questions of administration, some even of four or five years ago.
No, Sir, I am going into this matter of the linen trade purely for the purpose of showing the House what will result from the absence of an opportunity of having the merits of the tariff examined. I am stating facts in order to warn the House that heretofore these warriors were always faced with the danger of having the Tariff Commission revived. But if it is abolished there is no machinery, no one can call them up and ask them what are their projects and no one could say to the people: "Let us examine your representations; we want somebody to cross-examine you before the people and tell the people of the country then what three reasonable men think of your proposition."
Now I want the House to take the case of the linen thread. A firm was set up to establish the linen thread business here. I ask Deputies to note closely what happened in this case. These people went to the Government and represented that they had a patent from the North of Ireland thread manufacturers, especially from the Glasgow Thread Company. Their representations to the Government were: "We can face with a tariff of 60 per cent., the competition from Northern Ireland, but the Linen Thread Company of Glasgow is too powerful, and the only way in which you can protect us against them is to give us a 100 per cent. tariff." And they got that 100 per cent. tariff. This House was asked to give them that protection in order to protect them against the Linen Thread Company of Glasgow, which was the villain of the piece. We gave them the 100 per cent. tariff behind which they would have been able to raise the price of linen thread to the people.
Within 12 months of the getting of that 100 per cent. tariff, the Linen Thread Company of Glasgow had a circular sent out. That circular runs:—
"The Irish Thread Manufacturers, Co., Ltd., Dublin, and ourselves have come to an agreement whereby we will be the sole selling agent for their threads, shoe threads and twines in Éire, and this arrangement will take place as from the 1st February, 1939."
We have already had the 100 per cent. tariff wall behind which the Linen Thread Company of Glasgow is to be invited to plunder our people. Is it conceivable that any such plot could have been hatched if the Tariff Commission were there to examine that plot before we plunged into it? Is there any Deputy in this House who knew that that was afoot? Did Deputies know that it was to provide a harbour of refuge for the Linen Thread Company of Glasgow to come in here and to rob our people?
Having said that, will the Deputy answer one question?
Yes, when I have finished. We are only beginning to find a necessity for the gas masks now. I invite Deputies to note the position. We provided not only a tariff but a monopoly to an industry for bootlaces in the town of Ennis. There was no Tariff Commission. An agent arrived here to establish a firm in Ennis to manufacture bootlaces and elastics behind a prohibitive wall. The manufacturing process in the preliminary stages consisted of importing the braid for the laces, cutting this into lengths and putting on the eyelets at the end. The elastic was brought in and bleached and the price was substantially raised. This firm carried on for three years during which they made exorbitant profits in each of the three years after having paid themselves immense salaries. At the end of that period having, I think, taken a bonus they floated a company. Mark well the asset for which they asked that there should be a monopoly conferred on them by the Government! They sold the monopoly back to the Government and put the proceeds of the sale into their own pockets. They floated a company and they let the Industrial Credit Corporation take up the entire issue. The Government have now bought back from Jordan's of Ennis at an immense sum the monopoly they themselves gave them three years before. Is that believable? The only way we had of finding that out was the Tariff Commission machinery —of finding it out, whether it was any good to know it. Now we can only find it out when the scandal becomes so noxious that its stench penetrates into every cranny and nook in the country. But these things ought to be controlled and stopped before they stink. That has never been done. Take the case of the thread company.
Will the Deputy now answer my question?
Not at all. We are now finding why the gas masks are necessary. There was a tariff put on cotton thread coming into this country, a prohibitive tariff, and a monopoly was granted. Mark well what happened here. Two applicants put in for the making of cotton thread in this country, one, the firm of J. & P. Coats of Paisley, and the other a firm from the Midlands of England. Now it is terribly hard to get facts of this kind when there is no tariff machinery working. We have simply got to try to pick up the facts wherever we can put our fingers on them. To the best of my knowledge the facts in this case are: A firm in the Midlands of England had been to Coats three or four times asking Coats to buy them out. Coats's reply was: "We would not take you if you were given away with a pound of tea; you have nothing; we are not afraid of your competition; your product is rotten and we are quite satisfied that you will go to the wall in God's good time."
Would the Deputy inform the Chair whether he did not raise this matter in two consecutive years on the Estimates for Industry and Commerce?
I cannot remember. I want to raise it now on this Bill.
The Chair does not see how the Deputy could review relevantly all or any tariffs given in the last five years, and arraign the Minister's administration in the Minister's absence.
May I say——
The Chair is in possession.
I apologise to the Chair.
The Deputy must realise that, in following his present line, he is making a review of the administration of the tariff policy of the Department of Industry and Commerce over five years. The Chair maintains that such a review is not legitimate on this Bill.
I would be long sorry to challenge the ruling of the Chair, but unless I can suggest to the House that in the absence of the Tariff Commission procedure grave scandals have accrued and that I apprehend graver scandals will arise if the commission is altogether abolished, I do not see how I can make my protest on this Bill.
These things could occur under the Tariff Commission procedure.
None of these tariffs was referred to the Tariff Commission. It is now proposed to abolish the commission altogether. I am arguing that so long as the Tariff Commission was there there was some control on them because they always felt that they might be referred to the Tariff Commission. We are now proposing to go a step further and to remove even the threat of the Tariff Commission. I say if you do that, that whatever control there was on them, whatever apprehension they had that they might be shown up, they can now feel there is no danger at all, once the commission is gone. They can say that there is nobody to ask them any questions, no matter what extravagances they indulge in. Surely that is legitimate argument.
On a point of order. I wish to direct the attention of the Chair to what the Tariff Commission Act of 1926 provides. It says in subsection (1) of Section 2:—
"Whenever an application is made to the Minister for Finance by any persons substantially representative of the persons engaged or proposing to engage in the production in Saorstát Eireann of goods of any particular class or description for the imposition, modification, abolition, or renewal of a customs duty on the importation of goods of that class or description, the said Minister may, if he so thinks fit, refer such application to the commission."
The point I wish to make is this that, in fact, in so far as existing industries are concerned, unless the Minister for Finance under the Act of 1926, or the Government under the Act of 1930, wishes to refer an application to the Tariff Commission, the Tariff Commission acts on its own initiative.
And they could not come in under it and plunder the people.
Therefore, the Deputy's speech is directed to a criticism of the manner in which the Tariff Commission Act has been administered by the Government. I submit that that question should only arise for discussion either on the Vote for the Office of the Taoiseach or on the Vote for the Minister's Department.
My argument can be put in a few words. I am arguing that if this is what happens "in the greenwood" what will happen in "the dry"? That is the whole purpose of my argument. I have one more case to demonstrate what did happen when there was nothing more than the threat of the Tariff Commission in the offing. I have told the House of this company that went to J. and P. Coats and begged Coats to buy them out. Coats's reply, as I have already told the House, was:—
"We would not take you if you were given away with a pound of tea."
That same company came here and asked for a tariff and a monopoly to manufacture cotton thread in this country.
The Chair's objection to that is that it is a question of administration which was raised on the Estimate for the Vote for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Deputy discussed it very fully indeed on that occasion.
The argument that I am making is that if the machinery of the Tariff Commission were available to us we could have called it together. In future, in a similar set of circumstances, if we had that machinery such applications could be referred to it, and we could get them examined closely.
The Deputy could not do that.
There could be some recommendation to the Minister. Therefore, these applicants would have been debarred from establishing themselves if they had to cross the fence of the Tariff Commission. What happened was that this Midland English firm got the monopoly, and, having raised the price of thread to the consumers here substantially, they went back to Coats's and said: "The last time we came to you you insulted us; you said you would not take us if we were given away with a pound of tea; that we had nothing that you wanted to buy. Have we anything that you want to buy now?" Coats's said: "Yes. You have the Irish monopoly." The firm said: "We are prepared to sell it for so much.""There is your money," said J. and P. Coats, and J. and P. Coats came in. The net result of the transaction was that we created a monopoly which J. and P. Coats were prepared to work for nothing, and we would not let them, but we let in this firm from the Midlands of England who went with our monopoly and sold it to J. and P. Coats. Coats were glad to pay for it, and they are now manufacturing thread in this country and charging our people 15 per cent. more than they were prepared to supply them with it if they were let come in without any monopoly at all.
That is what is happening. Those are the kind of things that you cannot find out if there is no body with statutory power to examine tariff applicants, to check up on their statements and find out these things. A Deputy can only find them out after years of inquiry, by going to this one and to that one to get a bit of information here and a bit of information there, and then to weave a pattern as best he can, to ascertain the truth and expose it. Before you have got the truth the damage is frequently done. Furthermore, if you dare to tell the truth the whole power of the vested interests of this country is turned on the person who has the effrontery to do it. They have their spies everywhere and their agents everywhere. Their power is extraordinary. They are wealthy men; they are wealthy combines and they are no fools. They do not threaten you directly, but you suddenly discover that it would have been materially advantageous if you had not taken a certain line. You suddenly discover that there are difficulties arising in your business that never arose before, and when the average man finds that out he begins to ask himself: "Why should I bother about this? I am not very interested in cotton thread, and why should I get my neck broken by the vested interests in order to reveal the truth?" The result is that a gradually accumulating pressure induces a considerable number of people to maintain silence and the game goes cheerfully on, and our people, for whom we are supposed to be trustees, are robbed in silence.
Is it right, in these circumstances, that we should abolish a body to which these powerful vested interests can be sent to make their case, a body of independent men whose position is secured, who operate under the protection of the full power of the Government, who have no reason to be afraid of the vested interests, men whom, by their situation, the vested interests cannot touch? Is this the moment when we should abolish them altogether and leave our people open to be torn to pieces by those who want to exploit them? Is it not time that somebody raised his voice against the invasion that is going on of fly-by-nights from the four corners of Europe, who are coming in here to be licensed on their say-so, without any adequate examination, to rob and plunder the poor of this country?
That is happening now. There is not one per cent of these fellows who would get past the Tariff Commission. If these gentlemen, with names that no man west of the Danube could pronounce, had to go before the Tariff Commission, do you imagine they would be let get away with the murder that they have been allowed to get away with for the last four or five years? Do you imagine they would ever dream of attempting the plunder they are hatching at the moment for the next five years? They would flee back to where they belong, if they would be let.
There is no use in closing our eyes to facts. I want to be clear on this. Any citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, any citizen of the United States of America, who wants to come to this country and, seeking no favour but an equal opportunity with every citizen of Éire, wants to earn his living here, is heartily welcome. It is the least we could do to extend to such people a hearty welcome in acknowledgment of the welcome they gave our people in the past and are giving them at the present time.
But it is an entirely different proposition when a gentleman with a name that is almost impossible to spell and quite impossible to pronounce arrives here and announces that if we give him a 60 per cent. tariff, behind which he is to be permitted to pluck our people, he will graciously consent to employ 35 or 40 little girls at the cheapest rate he can get them for and he will eat his meals in Jammet's Restaurant. I, for one, am sick watching it, and I say openly to those fellows that we do not want them, that they are no good, that they are a pest and that if we ever get the chance we will chase them out. It is time somebody said that.
In relation to the Tariff Commission?
Yes. We will put a commission in existence that will examine these fellows' credentials and examine the advantages our people are getting from these tariffs.
The Deputy is getting away from the Bill, much further than he was already.
He is getting away all the time.
I want to see permanently incorporated in our administrative system a body of independent men absolutely secure from external pressure of any kind, to whom applications for tariffs will be referred so that they may be examined in detail and every facet of them exposed to the Oireachtas, upon whom the responsibility must ultimately rest. I want to put an end to the exploitation that is going on. I want to make it perfectly clear that the honest industrialist, who only seeks an opportunity of a fair crack of the whip, will be very welcome. We will be glad to afford him any facilities or help that we can. But the potential plunderer, the fly-by-night who is coming in here to exploit our working people, to rob our consuming public, is not welcome and is going to be chased out so soon as we can chase him. I want to make this clear, that when gentlemen with names which begin with Z and end with C proceed to explain to me that that is not language which should be employed by a good Irishman, I want to answer them in advance that I want no instructions in patriotism from the citizens of Poland, Czecho-Slovakio or any other part of the Balkan States.
The Deputy is again wandering.
I want to warn those gentlemen that if the Tariff Commission is to-day abolished, it will be revived and, when it is revived, its attention will be directed to their activities and, if I have any say in it, the exploitation that they are now fattening on will be carefully examined and the assets that they are unjustly accumulating——
The question is whether this Tariff Commission should be abolished now and not what the Deputy purports to do in the future, if the opportunity is given him.
I accept your ruling. I will say to the Minister: "If you abolish it to-day, you act in vain. You may abolish it to-day, but to-day is not the last day and the persons you want to nourish on our people's blood may find that they are accepting at your hands an indigestible diet." If they are getting fat on the facilities that are being given them to-day, my comment on that is that there are others who will come after who will give them something to make them thin again. Any good industrialist in this country ——
The Deputy was told by the Chair to discuss the Bill before the House and not the future conditions of certain industrialists. He disregarded the warning of the Chair, deliberately, I am afraid.
I am sorry, Sir, if you so rule. I am not conscious of having done so. I had hoped to envisage what I had reason to expect would happen if this Bill passed. However, I withdraw from that position. I will refer only to the state of affairs existing to-day and what we here propose to do. If you abolish this Tariff Commission you are going to injure our people. The consequences that will flow from it are a matter for another day, but they are of a character which I have reason to apprehend. I have outlined some of them and on these grounds I ask the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party to end their servitude to the vested interests in this country and remember their duty to the people who sent them here. I ask the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party who are supposed to represent the small farmers and the rural workers to bear in mind that those small farmers and rural workers are being robbed at the counters of every country shop in Ireland at the request of the people who want this Bill passed. I say the only effective way of getting back for the small farmers and rural workers an opportunity to get fair value for their money in the shop is to refuse to pass this Bill, to maintain the Tariff Commission, and to prevent the rising of prices by the imposition of exorbitant tariffs. I say if you do not do that you are sharing in the work of robbing our people for the benefit of the foreigner. It is nearly time the Fianna Fáil Party woke up to that. If Fianna Fáil Deputies go amongst their own neighbours they will learn that without learning it from me. It is their duty, their solemn duty to the people whom they are supposed to represent here, to protect them against exploitation and robbery. If they vote for this Bill they are helping the robbers; if they vote against it they are doing their duty to protect the people. It is up to them to make the choice. We shall give them the opportunity of protecting their people by voting with us in one Lobby or by voting for the exploiters in the other one.
After we have heard for the last half-hour the most extraordinary and exaggerated vituperation from Deputy Dillon in regard to the new industries, I think it well that we should recall some of the earlier history of the Tariff Commission. It is granted that the Tariff Commission has certain limited powers whereby the Minister could actually obviate complaints of the kind the Deputy referred to if he so desired, but as a result of the position which allowed the making of complaints against five or six industries which might or might not be desirable, I would remind Deputies that during the earlier period of the Tariff Commission's history, over 117 factories in this country closed their doors. During the period from 1926 to 1931 the actual wages paid in industry in this country decreased, not by a small amount and not by a large amount, but by a certain amount. If there had not been a very large increase in the production of electricity under the Shannon scheme, in the production of soap, candles, furniture and one or two other commodities, there would have been an actual serious decline in industrial production in this country. I would ask the House to measure against the actual cases that might arise—not the cases referred to by the Deputy, but other cases of which he is not aware—where one or two undesirable industries may have been created, the 117 factories owned by Irish industrialists which were closed during that period. The answer is conclusive. During that period we were dependent completely on one market. We had no alternative financial resources. Over 250,000 of our people left our shores, not during an economic war, not during a world depression, not during a condition of adjustment of our economy, but when we had what was supposed to be an ideal economic policy. Yet the Deputy suggests that we should preserve this ancient monument, of what I might describe as, exaggerated free trade.
As far as foreign interests are concerned, perhaps the Deputy is not aware that the vast majority of what foreign interests there are in this country, are what he has already described as being Commonwealth or English interests. I believe a number of companies have entered into industry in this country under the provisions of the Control of Manufactures Act. They are allowed to operate on the basis that they own one-third of the capital while Irish interests own two-thirds of the capital. The vast majority of the new factories to which the Deputy refers as being controlled by foreign interests are actually British rather than foreign. To go further in connection with the Deputy's argument, it is a simple fact that the very few non-British interests that have taken part in our industrial development, either as industrial experts or as people who brought their capital and machinery here, have been unusually successful. While the gentleman whose name begins with a Z and ends with C employs some proportion of young people and females, industries in England which are supposed to set the standard for the Deputy, also employ both. I am not going further into the question of foreign interests except to say that foreign interests which are non-British are definitely in a minority and interests which are definitely British or Commonwealth interests are actually the majority of the foreign interests in this country.
In regard to the question of these exploiters who, according to the Deputy have robbed our people, I have had an intimate experience of industrial development in the past five years and I find the new industries have behaved, as one would imagine they would behave. There are a number who have succeeded admirably. There are others who have struggled painfully along and there are a few who have made excessive profits, but, on the whole, taking them small and large, I think that Deputies can be assured that excessive profits are not being made by Irish manufacturers.
With regard to the cement company, I should prefer to allow the Minister to answer the Deputy's allegations, but I would remind the House that that very same company was invited by Deputy McGilligan to come into this country. Deputy Dillon ought to consult the members of his own Party before he makes these allegations against the Danish promoter of the cement company. The cement company make a very excellent cement which they sell at a very reasonable price. It is under the effective control of the Irish people at present and the majority of the shareholders are in a position to dispose of the company in any way they wish. Further, there is nothing to prevent the Prices Commission which has now really replaced the Tariff Commission, at the request of a builder, an importer or a consumer, making an exhaustive and minute examination of the whole standing and status of the cement company, as far as its prices are concerned and whether these prices can be considered reasonable when compared with the price of foreign manufactured cement or British cement. There is nothing to prevent anybody demanding and obtaining an investigation of that kind by the Prices Commission. I am perfectly certain that, if such an investigation were held, it would be found that the cement company are acting honourably, fairly and squarely. So far as the general exploitation of the community is concerned the Prices Commission are effectively dealing with all these cases.
We are speaking here to a Bill to abolish the Tariff Commission. The Tariff Commission had, or could have two functions. It could have the function, which Deputy Mulcahy suggested, of formulating a general plan for industry and also the function of removing or preventing certain definite abuses. As far as abuses are concerned, it is the belief of those on this side of the House that the Prices Commission should be able to deal effectively with them. As far as the general planning of industry is concerned, we are told that the Government have no plan. Once again I may say that I have been in intimate touch with the Government on questions of industrial development, and I am aware that under the Anglo-Irish Agreement there was a certain free list of commodities on which duties could not be imposed for three years. I am also aware of the fact that when an industry asks for a tariff, so far from being impressed by purely political consideration, the Minister responsible or his Department put the promoters of that industry through the most searching investigation. At present, when a tariff is requested certain conditions are imposed. First of all, it is understood that the prices of the goods manufactured in this country should bear some relation to the price of the goods ex-factory in England. Secondly, they have to warn the promoters of these new industries that under the Anglo-Irish Agreement, as far as English imports are concerned, they cannot exceed certain duties after a certain period during which the new industry has been going through its initial stages. Thirdly, they call for the encouragement of industries of a special type which can possibly develop exports and this last category includes industries with which foreign, definitely non-Commonwealth interests, are concerned. A company has been allowed to operate here because it is going to resume an export trade which it formerly enjoyed in another country. These people are of the very highest standing. They operated their factory under good conditions in the country which they have left and this is an industry which the Opposition should be glad to see established because it will increase industrial exports.
Speaking quite impartially for the moment, I do feel that one aspect of this question of the abolition of the Tariff Commission would strike anybody who is concerned with industrial development. I am quite aware that the Government have a general plan; I am aware that at the present time the rules by which an industry can obtain a tariff are extremely strict, but I do feel the officials of the Department are so overwhelmed with work that the general picture of industry in the future here is very often not examined as well as it should be. Now that the economic war is over, now that the pressure to establish industry and give employment no longer exisits to the same extent, I suggest to the Government that they should endeavour to reorganise the Department so that there would be, shall I say, a more studious planning of industry for the next five years. It is, however, not true that industry of an undesirable kind can start here without full consideration of the facts.
Deputy Mulcahy referred to the Tariff Commission and the Prices Commission in relation to the recent Australian agreement. He suggested that the whole machinery of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in relation to the Prices Commission, now replacing the Tariff Commission, was faulty and would have to be overhauled. This country would have one serious difficulty if it adopted the Australian system. The Australian system provides for the operation of a series of maximum duties and, under the tariff-assessment method which was adopted and carried on by the first Administration in this country, the tariffs are assessed on the price at which the goods can be bought on the quay at Dublin. Under that method, it is very easy for goods to be dumped here at low prices, because the sole duty of the customs officers is to ensure that the goods were actually invoiced in the books of the exporter at the prices at which they can be bought on the quay at Dublin. The Australians have a different system, which effectively excludes dumping, and I do not see how the Prices Commission or the Tariff Commission could adopt the Australian system without drastic overhaul of our entire method of customs assessment.
I should like to close my few remarks with a reminder to Deputies on the opposite side that for ten years we were in a wilderness of inferiority complex and did nothing in relation to the home market. Industry after industry was being closed down because of the failure of the Tariff Commission to give them practical assistance. It was not that they were planning badly, but rather that they were not planning at all. We have no regrets if, out of the many hundreds of industries established in this country during the last five years, there may be, here and there, a few black sheep, because we have altered the economy of the country in a more balanced direction. We have seen that there will be an opportunity of a livelihood of a more varied kind for the people and we have secured that, in time of war, certain commodities, such as cement, can be produced and normal conditions maintained as far as possible.
I am opposing this proposal to abolish the Tariff Commission. It is rather interesting to hear occasionally about the many ills from which this country suffered from 1922 to 1932. We have heard that about 117 factories were closed during that period and that about 250,000 left the country during the same period. That is all very interesting. I wonder if it occurred to anybody who made these statements to examine what was happening in the year 1922—whether there was any inducement to an industrialist to embark his money in this country or to invest a single penny in it. It is instructive to observe that while we get a single figure for emigration—250,000 during that period of ten years—no advertence whatever is made to the fact that the largest numbers left in the earlier years and that in the last year of our administration there was no exodus at all.
What has happened during the last six or seven years—the period in which we have got an industrial Utopia, when we have large and expansive industrial activity and what is called a "balanced" economy. From having practically no emigration in our last year, it is now swelling up and we have as many leaving the country as left in the heyday of the disorder created by the architects of the industrial expansion of the last five years.
The Deputy will not forget that he refused a commission to investigate the origin of the 1922 disturbances.
Another smoke-screen.
I shall give the Minister, in return for his interruption, one bit of advice: let him look up the Dáil Debates of April, 1922.
It would be much more interesting if——
Stand up to your medicine. This is one of those things in which the Minister has all the characteristics of a baby. He wants everything, and if he does not get it he commences to cry.
It is the Deputy who is crying about 1922.
If the Minister looks up the Dáil Debates of April, 1922, he will find there a record of a deputation of Army officers from what was called "both sides" coming to the Dáil to ask for a truce. From the speeches from the opposite benches, one gets the impression that the Civil War started on the 28th June, 1922. That is not the case. That was about the end of it. We were then putting an end to the Civil War. In April, 1922, we had people coming to the Dáil to ask for a truce.
The fact remains that the Deputy shirked the inquiry.
It is extraordinary that, notwithstanding the opportunity the Minister has had of growing up in the last 15 years, he is as childish to-day as he was 15 years or 17 years ago, when he was against the Treaty. He wants to forget that. The fact is that the Minister must stand on his record and it is a horrible one. How has this better-balanced economy, of which we hear so much, been effected? By beggaring the rural districts. That is how it has been effected. We are told that 117 factories were closed during that period. Is there any country in the world in which factories were not closed during those ten years? What country showed such expansion of industry during those years as ours did or what country had so many factories started during that period? Take a single example. A tobacco manufacturing industry was started in 1922. What did the industrialists do when they came into power? In their very first year, they closed a tobacco factory giving employment to 300 persons. If the Tariff Commission had been operating at that time and the action of the Minister in that connection were put before them, I wonder what would have been their answer? This "better-balanced economy" has been introduced to the detriment of this country. It has led to the sapping of the rural population and to a reduction in the number of people engaged in agriculture and, now, we are told that we have an extraordinary expansion of industry, effected, mind you, at the expense of the agricultural population of the country. Not a single pound has been sunk in industry in this country that the farmers and the agricultural population of the country has not paid five times over every year since the start.
What is the objection to the Tariff Commission? The real objection to the Tariff Commission is that by reason of the agreement which has been made with Great Britain, this Parliament has, in respect of certain fiscal powers, lost its sovereignty, pawned its sovereignty, and that was to improve or help to improve to some extent the condition to which the agricultural industry has been reduced by reason of the policy which is blazoned as a better balanced economy. There was a dispute at one time between two cats, and a monkey was called in to settle the matter. The "balanced economy" of one cat happened to be bigger than that of the other, so the monkey consumed the surplus. That is the manner of our balancing of our national economy. A falling emigration is what this Ministry was presented with in 1932; it was down to zero, with a rising population inevitable, and they have sent the people flying out of the country during their extraordinary industrial expansion.
We are told that possibly some industries are not as desirable as others. Is it not likely that the Tariff Commission would consider all the phases of any proposal for a tariff on industry? Is it not likely, if such a question as an increase in the boot tariff had been put before the Tariff Commission, that we would not now be presented with the danger of boot factories closing down, or of their working short time, or something of that sort? Is it not more than likely that the Tariff Commission, if it had been allowed to operate and function, which it has not during those last few years, would have paid due and proper attention to the consumer, to the operatives, and to the person who is putting his money into any industrial concern? While we are told that two-thirds of the money invested in those new industries is Irish money, it is quite possible that the aliens who have come over will get a sufficient salary to compensate them for any loss of capital they may have to sustain, and that they will get out while the going is good.
A new term has been introduced into our discussions—"British but not foreign." There is one thing, anyway, about that Party over there, and that is, that they can contradict one another from morning till night, but all the time they have a plan, a planned economy. Where is it? What has happened to it? There never was one. There was never a plan for anything except muddling, and it has been one long succession of muddling from beginning to end. The Minister can make his speeches at banquets at which he draws attention to the necessity for expansion in our production to compensate us for lack of interest on the capital that has been taken in from abroad, and that had to come in by reason of the events of the last few years—not a good sign. If there had been a sound national economy, and a properly balanced national economy, in which the agricultural output of this country had been increasing in value as well as in volume, then everybody could welcome the expansion of the secondary industrial arm of this country, even at a cost, but if by reason of the method which has been employed we have an increase and, perhaps, only a temporary increase in our secondary industrial position at the cost of our agricultural position, then we have thrown away the substance for the shadow, and eventually we will have to get back to a sound national economy which can do away with or not pay any attention to such well-sounding terms as "a better-balanced national economy."
I am opposed to the repeal of the Tariff Commission. The Minister made no case for his Repeal Bill, and certainly I did not extract anything from Deputy Childers's speech that would persuade me to change my views in the slightest degree. The gem of Deputy Childers's speech came towards the end, when he said that the general plan was not examined as well as it should have been. In those words, I think our case is made better than some of us could make it. What is the case for the Minister's Bill? Evidently, it is that things have gone on so well in the last six or seven years, that they have gone on better than they would have gone if the Tariff Commission had been functioning, which it had not. I wonder if the House remembers that four or five or six years ago the Government brought in a Bill and rushed it through this House and eventually passed it under the closure giving them powers under which they have operated ever since. Surely it is time we got away from that situation? Surely it is time we took out of the Minister's hands the power to pass tariffs and other similar legislation by regulation, possibly without examination or with only tentative examination, with the result that we have had certain people fostered in industry in this country growing rich at the expense of the vast majority of the consuming public of this country? If there are wealthy men, and if there have been, as Deputy Childers said, numerous men amongst the manufacturers of this country who have been unusually successful, there are tens of thousands of the people of this country—the people that matter in this country—who have been unusually misfortunate. In this Oireachtas, within the last five or six weeks, when a certain prominent member of the Government Party was making a case for the Bill dealing with the increase of Ministers' salaries, he was taunted with a previous statement of his——
I have not got back the Deputy's ten pounds yet.
——that £1,000 was too much for any man. Like an honest man, he did not get up and deny that he ever said it; his case was that when he made that remark £1,000 was a good salary for any man, but that things had so improved under the beneficent Fianna Fáil Government that neither £1,000 nor £2,000 nor £3,000 was a good salary for any man; that if there was one man receiving £1,000 at that particular period, there are ten men receiving £2,000 at the present period. There are plutocrats now receiving up to £5,000, who are waxing rich on fostered industries at the expense of the rural community. If there was any case at all made for meddling with the Tariff Commission, it should not be in the way of abolishing it, but rather towards getting back to the position when applications for tariffs on industries were referred to it.
How many did they give?
They gave all that they believed was for the benefit of the vast majority of the people.
Deputy O'Briain must not interrupt. If he wants to make a speech he can do so when Deputy Bennett concludes.
The tariffs they gave were given after consideration. They were successful and did not impose undue burdens on other sections of the people. Under this planned economy, and under this system of government by regulation, the powers given under the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act, and similar Acts were rushed through this House without proper discussion, and under the closure. The Government has been operating under these measures for the past five or six years, and these have brought men from various parts of Europe to set up industries under the protection of impossible tariffs, and, as Deputy Dillon said, to plunder the people of this country. Deputy Dillon did not use words that were too strong. It is time that we got back to sanity. There are successful industries here. Why should there not be? Why should not any man start an industry if he saw that there was a possible demand for the product, and make it a success under protection varying from 80 to 100 per cent. The rural people have been footing the bill. They can do so no longer. It is time we got back to the position when applications for tariffs on industries were carefully examined. If that was done we would not have the results to which Deputy Dillon pointed, regarding five or six of the largest industries that had been established. No case has been made for the abolition of the Tariff Commission. On the other hand, every case has been made for its retention, and for its having the duties which first devolved upon it, that of carefully examining the possibility of any new industry. If that had been done, possibly we would have been spared much of what has resulted under what has been described as the carefully thought out plans of the Government, plans, as Deputy Cosgrave pointed out, that have resulted in depopulating some of the rural areas and pauperising the remnants of them.
I was handed a pamphlet last night which was written by ex-Republican Judge Crowley, the heading of which was entitled, "Step by step back from the Republic." Now we are going step by step back from economic and political independence, and this Bill is the most important and overt step taken in that direction. I had great sympathy with the Ceann Comhairle when he made certain rulings, and I wish he had insisted upon them, because it would rid the issue that is before the House and the country of all the padding and camouflage that is obscuring the real issue. Of all the speakers I think Deputy Cosgrave was the only one who mentioned the real issue, and it is more or less incidental. Every old Sinn Feiner knows that that policy sprang from the fertile brain of the late Arthur Griffith, and that the central feature of it was economic independence. Now it has been given away. It was bartered away last year by the Agreement in London, and this Bill is an accurate corollary of that Agreement.
Which the Deputy's Party did not oppose. Perhaps I should apologise to the Deputy. It may not have been his Party then.
My Party was not serious, in the Minister's estimation, of national self-sufficiency. He considers that only one Party has been carrying on the tradition of Irish nationality, the Fianna Fáil Party led by Eamon de Valera.
Hear, hear.
The Deputy says "hear, hear." Will he say "hear, hear," to the bartering away of economic independence?
He will not.
The Tariff Commission was set up by the Irish Parliament to try to do Ireland's work in Ireland's way, and now it must be abolished, and supplanted by what is called the Prices Commission, which was set up at the dictation of England. That was the price that the Taoiseach and his Party had to pay for their folly and in order to settle the economic war. They had to forfeit their economic independence that had been won after years of struggle. As a tariff reformer and a supporter of tariffs, I was never enamoured with the Tariff Commission. I always considered that the Party to govern this country was the Party that thought out schemes of tariffs and that was able to stand over them. That was the policy I heard the Minister for Finance advocating on public platforms time after time. As a matter of fact we advocated it together. Now the Minister has gone away from that. Of course, he was told to go away from it by England, and the Tariff Commission must be abolished. I was never greatly in agreement with it, as I considered that a Government elected on such a policy should have thought it out and put it into force without calling together a few civil servants to advise them. That was the view of the Fianna Fáil Party when they got into power. The effects of the policy of Fianna Fáil have been the product, mainly, of the economic war. Young Deputy Childers rather gave the game away. He said his Party would promote new industries now and establish those that were likely to produce an export trade. That was the secret of the precipitate settlement of the economic war. That is the secret that prompted the setting up of the Prices Commission. England had given notice that she would no longer exchange her £ sterling for our £, because the balance of trade and the balance of payments had gone against us. The Banking Commission was set up to investigate that position, and as soon as the Banking Commission Report was in draft, An Taoiseach—I do not know whether he was called An Taoiseach or President then, or what he was called—made a bee-line for London and capitulated and accepted England's terms, and England's terms are the surrender of our economic and fiscal independence, enshrined in this negative Bill that is before us now. The issue before us now is to scrap the Tariff Commission, a body set up by the Irish Parliament to do Ireland's work, and put in its place a Prices Commission, and that Prices Commission, according to Agreement, must give English manufacturers or their agents the right of audience and, if they make a good case, their case must be implemented. So that this Prices Commission and not this House becomes the body that will make or unmake tariffs in this country. I put it to the Minister to contradict the statement that, if the English witness before the Prices Commission puts up a good case, his case will not only have to be listened to but granted, and that this House will not be able to supersede that decision and give a tariff or a higher tariff against the case made by the Englishman. That is the undertaking. Where is our freedom gone?
The Bill is a small Bill, a short one. It is simply to repeal a previous Act and the repeal of that Act has been ordered by the British, just as the nonrecognition of General Franco was ordered by the British; just as sanctions against Italy were ordered by the British; and just as the "Right-about-turn" was ordered by the British, and we did it, and just as the Treason Bill, which we will be discussing in a few hours, was ordered by the British.
There are a few matters on which I wish Deputies opposite would try and come together before coming in here to air their different opinions. We had Deputies Cosgrave and Bennett complaining here very bitterly that all those new industries that were started in this country for the past five or six years were throwing too heavy a burden on the agricultural community. Deputy Belton came on the other side of the fence saying that we are giving up starting industries here and that we did not go fast enough while we were going.
I said nothing of the kind.
We cannot read anything but that into Deputy Belton's statement.
When you grow up, you will understand.
It would be very hard to understand Deputy Belton; he wheels so often.
He did not wheel at the dictation of others in order to keep his job. Why did you follow me into the House?
He is hopping about from this seat to that seat.
I got you £7 a week.
You make too many changes. You are a weathercock. I would like to know which end of the seat the Deputies are sitting on.
Mr. Morrissey
Which do you agree with?
There is one thing that I do agree with. Let us examine what Deputies have put up here during the past three or four years. Number one, Deputy Belton complained about the settlement of the economic war and, lo and behold, from the day on which the first annuity was withheld from Britain up to the day of the settlement, Deputies over there, not alone here in the House but down in the country, were howling and moaning and shouting for the settlement of it at any cost, not for any kind of settlement or agreement, but the handing over of the whole money to Britain rather than have the economic war continue. Then, when it is settled, they are not satisfied either. Deputy Cosgrave went back as far as 1922 with his argument. The less Deputy Cosgrave and Deputies opposite have to say about 1922 the better.
Mr. Morrissey
Or even yourself, in view of coming events.
Better for those who were associated with the Tans and who now sit over there in those benches.
Mr. Morrissey
Careful, now.
Yes, the less they have to say about 1922 the better. Deputy Cosgrave had a fairly ordered time from 1922 to 1927 and from 1927 on to 1932 in which to start industries here and in which he had a Tariff Commission working. I say here frankly I have the utmost contempt for all commissions, the utmost contempt for them. My opinion of these commissions is that they are brought together and their findings are agreed before they sit; they sign their names to them or bring in a minority report. Most of them are too lazy to prepare a minority report and, therefore, they always get a majority in favour of what is agreed and they sign on the dotted line.
Mr. Morrissey
Including the Agricultural Commission?
Yes, everyone of them. I make no bones about it. I never have and I never will. I always call a spade a spade. There was a report last week by the Beet Tribunal. That is my opinion of commissions as a whole. There is no doubt about it. I saw Deputies clapping their hands over the Agricultural Commission and saying they had won something, whereas they had walked into it like a pack of geese. They got an Agricultural Commission and I wish them joy of it.
How did the Deputy vote on it?
We were told the Tariff Commission was doing Ireland's work in Ireland. We saw the result of it. We saw the result of it down in my constituency, where the flour mills were either closed down altogether or working one or two days in the week. That was the position there. Those flour mills are now working full time and overtime.
Mr. Morrissey
And so they should.
And so they are, thank God, and no thanks to Deputy Morrissey's Party, who thought it was good enough for the Irish people to walk the streets idle and have the English people milling flour for them. They thought it good enough for them and it was good enough for those who put them over there and kept them in office at least ten years too long. I gave an example here of one finding of this famous Tariff Commission which was implemented by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy McGilligan, who put a 25 per cent. tariff on waterproofs coming into this country and 50 per cent. on the materials for making them, with the result that two waterproof factories in my area had to close down altogether. To-day you have three of them there giving employment to over 300.
Mr. Morrissey
We have more rain.
We have more coats, too, made by Irish people, not imported. That has been the argument, and if that is the Tariff Commission that is now being wiped out of the way, thank God it is being wiped out of the way.
I am not going to say that everything that has been done in the way of starting industries is right. It is not. There are too many foreigners getting a stranglehold on our industries here and too little appreciation of Irish efforts and Irish capital and Irish people who are prepared to start industries. There is an opinion in this country that if you are going to take charge of an industry at all you must be from Czechoslovakia or from Germany or some other part of the world, but you must not be an Irishman. I have examined a few of these industries from time to time, and that has been, unfortunately, my experience as regards the Department of Industry and Commerce also. There is too much anxiety for the foreigner. But, the idea of Deputies, opposite, like Deputy Cosgrave, getting up here and complaining that the agricultural population were being wiped out of existence on account of the industries that were started! Then Deputy Belton got up, following him, and complained because the Tariff Commission is to go. The only way in which they could have been affected was by profiteering, and the one industry that has been put on its feet here has been attacked right, left and centre, both by the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party, on the grounds of profiteering, and that is the flour-milling industry. There is an objection now because a Prices Commission is being set up that can, and will, examine any cases of profiteering that are there.
Mr. Morrissey
What did the Deputy say about commissions a few minutes ago?
You are for them and can have a trial of one. If Deputy Morrissey has a case to make, he can go before the Prices Commission and try his hand, anyway.
Mr. Morrissey
That is not what the Deputy said about commissions a few moments ago.
The Deputy can then see how it will work out. We have it suggested that the Tariff Commission was doing Ireland's work in Ireland. One need only look at the results. One need only go down to Clondulane and speak to the workers there, whose flour-mill is working at full speed, a flour-mill which was completely closed down in 1929 on the Tariff Commission's report, with Deputy McGilligan, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, implementing it. Let the Deputy look at that mill to-day and let him ask the 75 men working there how much employment they got from 1929, when their mill was closed down, until the end of 1933, when it re-opened. Let him ask the 75 families how they lived while Deputy Cosgrave was in office, and how they expect to live if Deputy Cosgrave and the Deputies opposite who feel as he feels came back again?
Undoubtedly, the manner in which industries had, so to speak, to be plunged into this country, partly on account of the economic war, put us in the position in which every industry was not capable of being put on a paying basis, but that is a matter that can be rectified by degrees. We have statements from Deputies opposite of the type which Deputy Belton made— and Deputy Cosgrave apparently agrees with him—that our whole economic freedom and independence has been handed over to Britain because there is a Prices Commission set up to inquire into profiteering that Deputies opposite have howled about for the past four years. We have heard nothing but howls about profiteering. If there is profiteering, let them prove it before that commission. We have references to the number of people who are leaving the country at present. We are quite willing to have that examined, too, and we will very quickly come to the root of it. Deputy Cosgrave told us on one occasion that they were only going to see their friends in America. We had a very definite organisation working in this country from 1933 to 1937, an organisation which endeavoured, where there were three men working on a holding, to reduce the number to one, because the agricultural labourer did not support Cumann na nGaedheal in 1932, and an organisation that went further and insisted on men being dismissed from their employment because they would not travel in certain cars to the polling booths.
You took a lot of wrong ones the last time.
I did not. I came here in 1927, and I will see the last of you out of the place. Each time I come here the numbers of the Party opposite become smaller and smaller. After a couple more elections there will be no one at all there except those members who have to be imported, as they brought in Deputy Belton and Deputy Dillon, to try to fill the gaps. Who, in the name of Heaven, can vote for that Party when Deputy Bennett and Deputy Cosgrave give one point of view, Deputy Belton a directly opposite point of view and Deputy Dillon agrees with neither of them?
What about Deputy Childers?
That is why I cannot understand what the Deputies opposite are driving at. It is impossible to understand it. They are like the Tower of Babel, all talking in different tongues. Come together and get some policy and stand up to it. Let us know what it is. They remind me of the members of the old Farmers' Party who used to go down to Midleton, and Mr. O'Gorman would stand up and speak in favour of free trade, and Deputy Brasier, from the same platform, in favour of protection. Let us have some definite policy. I am afraid that there is really no hope for the Deputies opposite unless they can actually gag Deputy Dillon or remove him altogether, because you will never get agreement between the farmers over there who claim to speak for the tillage farmers and Deputy Dillon. You will never get Deputies like Deputy Belton, who—and I give him credit for it—has some appreciation of Irish industry and some anxiety to see Irish industries here— and Deputy Dillon, with his policy of nothing being any good unless it is imported, to agree. Let them thrash it out at a Party meeting, let the majority rule and let them come in here and speak with one tongue instead of a dozen.
Mr. Morrissey
Whatever may be thought as to who on this side should be gagged, I have no doubts whatever that the two Ministers on the Front Bench would not raise any objection if somebody had gagged Deputy Corry before he made that speech.
You often tried it and failed.
Mr. Morrissey
Fortunately for the Deputy's peace of mind, the Ministers' backs, and not their faces, were turned to him. The Deputy accuses this Party of having more than one mind. Deputy Corry cannot understand that. He cannot understand any member of this House being allowed to think for himself, because, in the Fianna Fáil Party, there is only one mind, or at least only one mind is allowed to become vocal, and that is the mind of the leader. Everybody sitting behind has to say "ditto to that," whether he agrees with it or not. The Deputy will have to realise that there is some independence of thought in this Party. It is well known, of course, that there is no independence of thought in the Fianna Fáil Party. Only one person in that Party is allowed to think, and he thinks for the whole Party. Let Deputy Corry turn that over in his mind, if he is allowed to turn it over in his mind. He talked a lot about the 75 families in his constituency who are employed in the flour mill and who were unemployed under the previous Government. We are all very glad to hear that, but is there any reason why every flour mill in this country should not be working to full capacity? Does Deputy Corry advert to what the community as a whole is paying to have those 75 families employed in the mill in Cork? Will he ask himself what is the difference to any labourer or farmer, whether large or small, who goes in to buy a sack or a half sack of the flour produced there?
I thought the Deputy was a trade unionist?
Mr. Morrissey
The Deputy has to ask himself that question, and the Deputy cannot get away from the fact that the mills are producing because they have a virtual monopoly, and because they are making very fine profits out of it, and the ordinary consumers, the ordinary people of the country, are paying through the nose for it. The Deputy talked about the people who are being put into employment and about the people who were walking the streets idle because of the work of the Tariff Commission under the previous Government, or, if you like, because the Tariff Commission was not working in the direction the Deputy thinks they should have worked. Now, that brings us back to the principal point in connection with all this. Every tariff, whether considered, well-considered, ill-considered, or not considered at all, that has been imposed in this country was imposed on the people here because they were told that it was necessary to make sacrifices in order to put our people into employment; and every tariff that was imposed was justified by the Ministers opposite on the ground that it was going to put so many more of our people into employment: not on the ground—that ground was never put forward—that it was going to provide big dividends and fat profits for individuals, but that it would put more people into employment. What is the position? Notwithstanding the sacrifices the people have made, notwithstanding the enormously increased cost of living, and notwithstanding Deputy Corry's humbug about the numbers of people that have been put into employment, there is to-day a greater number of unemployed registered in this country than practically ever in its history, with the exception of one black year when the figure went to over 140,000. Deputy Corry talks about putting 75 men into work in a factory in Cork. Would he look up the figures for the County Cork generally and see what reduction there has been in the number of male agricultural labourers there during the last four years?
Will the Deputy deny the campaign that took place there amongst the farmers?
Mr. Morrissey
Yes. I have denied that before and will deny it now with regard to any such campaign. Of course, the Minister for Industry and Commerce claims, in regard to this matter of the unemployment figures— and up to a point I agree with him, although I do not wish to be taken as agreeing that the present figures represent the full volume of unemployment, in this country because they do not represent it—that prior to 1932, before he took office as Minister for Industry and Commerce, the figures published did not give any real indication of the actual numbers of unemployed in this country. We are in agreement there, but I say that at least we did get some indication of the actual numbers of unemployed at that time and, I think, it was the best indication that under the circumstances could have been got, and perhaps a truer indication than we can get under the present machinery. Under the 1926 Census—I am speaking from recollection here—it was shown that the total number of unemployed, of all classes returned in this country, was either 75,000 or 76,000.
That was outside agriculture.
Mr. Morrissey
Outside agriculture?
Yes. Anybody connected with agricultural work at that time was not returned in that total, even though he described himself as unemployed.
Mr. Morrissey
Well, it would be very hard to know that.
Does the Deputy deny it?
Mr. Morrissey
Of course, when we look for information, the Minister will say nothing. Last week we were accused of not having read a report three months before, although it had only been issued that morning.
You did not even know there was a report.
Mr. Morrissey
Apparently, the Minister himself, whose job, for which he is paid, is to know these things, did not know it. In any case this fact emerges: that, notwithstanding the huge volume of emigration that has been going on for the last seven years, and notwithstanding the tariffs, quota orders, prohibitions and so on, as well as the increasing cost of living, which the people of this country have to pay in order to put people into employment in these industries, we are now in the position that there are 105,000 registered unemployed. In that connection, let me tell Deputy Corry that there are 3,117 fewer male workers employed on the land in the County Tipperary than there were four years ago, and I venture to say that Tipperary has been fairly generously treated with regard to factories.
And also fairly generously treated by the Land Commission.
Mr. Morrissey
Yes, but does the Minister suggest that the 3,117 unemployed agricultural workers there have been accommodated by the Land Commission?
No, but I suggest that when large estates have been divided into small holdings there may be fewer people employed as agricultural labourers, but that does not mean that fewer people are employed on the land. The trouble is that the Deputy does not understand the figures.
Mr. Morrissey
Of course, every time the Minister is faced by facts such as these, his answer is "the Deputy does not understand the figures." That does not carry much weight here in this House, however, because the Minister has been saying that kind of thing for the last seven years, but the fact remains that in this State there are 43,000 fewer people employed on the land than were employed four or five years ago. I suggest that these are facts that ought to receive the serious consideration of this House, and there is not a member of this House, either on this side of the House or the other side, who does not know quite well that the consumers of this country have been fleeced for the past four or five, or six or seven, years, or any period you like. There is no question about that. The Minister himself knows it. Within the last 12 months, the Minister himself has issued warnings to industrialists and others in this country. Deputy Corry says, of course that a lot of those industries were plunged into because of the policy of the Government, and he is going to vote for the abolition of the only Tribunal we had in the country that was set up to examine such proposals.
What commission is that?
Mr. Morrissey
Of course, Deputy Corry has no respect for any commission, although he told us that if we had any doubts we could go to the Prices Commission and that they would settle all our difficulties. However, I should like him to apply himself to that point of view. This commission was set up to examine applications for tariffs and so on. What is the position going to be, or what has the position been for the last few years? What has this House had to say to the imposition of tariffs, quota orders, and so on? Nothing whatever. Everybody knows that. It was just a case that, morning after morning, the postman arrived with an envelope and when you opened the envelope you pulled out a sheet of white paper in which there was Order No. So-and-so. Orders were imposed in the Minister's office, and very few Deputies of this House knew anything about them. Those are the facts. Now, the position is that we are going to have the Government, plus this Prices Commission—this overloaded Prices Commission that is not able to deal with the problems that they have to deal with already. The Minister told us here last week, when he was asked how many questions arising out of the Trade Agreement had been referred to the Prices Commission by the British Government, that he could not tell us exactly, but that there were more than sufficient to keep the Prices Commission going for the duration of that Agreement—in other words, for the three years. Yet this is the sort of nonsense that is trotted out here.
The people of this country would be prepared to make sacrifices and to pay substantially higher prices in order to encourage Irish industry here and to absorb our unemployed, but notwithstanding all the sacrifices that have been made, and all the emigration that has taken place, we find ourselves faced with an increased number of unemployed in this country. There is no getting away from that fact. The figures are there and the facts are there, and there is no use in Deputy Corry speaking of campaigns amongst the farmers to increase the number of unemployed. The Deputy, if he spoke honestly, because he is a practical farmer and living amongst farmers, knows that conditions during the period of the economic war were responsible for farmers having to let men go because they were not able to pay them.
They were ordered to let them go.
Mr. Morrissey
The Deputy cannot get away on a side issue like that.
I am stating facts.
Mr. Morrissey
The Deputy is not, and he knows it.
The Deputy can prove them.
Mr. Morrissey
I make the statement, and any man living in rural Ireland knows it to be true, that there are hundreds of farmers, perhaps thousands, who were forced, through no fault of their own, simply because their income had diminished so much, to let men go because they could not pay them. Does not the Deputy also know that as a result of the disastrous harvest of last year and the bad winter farmers are in such a bad way at present that, I am afraid, they will have to let still more men go? What is the use in trying to fool ourselves here by putting up what the Deputy alleges to be facts, but which he knows are not facts? There might be some excuse for some Deputies living in Dublin, and who have not the same opportunities of meeting farmers and experiencing conditions on their own farms as Deputy Corry has. But when the Deputy knows the facts, he is not doing any service to himself or his constituency or his Government by hiding these facts and making a speech which he knows is not accurate.
I have given facts, and if the Deputy is in a position to deny them, let him deny them, and I will prove, either here or outside, any time he wishes, that that conspiracy was there and that the written orders were sent out.
The Deputy may not make a second speech.
Mr. Morrissey
The Deputy does not believe that. Will the Deputy get this between his teeth and worry it? There are 42,187 fewer men employed on the land than four years before. Will the Deputy see if he can find any solution for that, and if he has a solution, he ought to hand it to Ministers?
Not in my part of the country.
This debate might have been a great deal shorter if Deputies opposite really knew what exactly were the powers of the Tariff Commission which it is proposed to abolish and what was the extent of its labours over the past six or seven years. Perhaps some of them did know. I should not be surprised if Deputy Mulcahy did, for instance.
I knew what the intention of the Tariff Commission was.
Perhaps Deputy Mulcahy knew, because he was a member of the Government which submitted the Act of 1930, amending the original Act of 1926, to the Dáil. But the Deputy chose to mislead the House and to ascribe to this Tariff Commission powers of investigation which it never had, and which the Government responsible for setting it up took very good care not to confer upon it. This body was a body of extremely limited utility from the point of view of the economic development of the country, and of great use to a Government which did not want to develop this country industrially. It was the body that used to fight the delaying actions for a Government which had tied itself up with foreign milling interests and had associations whose one object was to prevent the establishment of new industries in this country. When, therefore, our flour mills were closing, when our other industries were decaying, and the pressure of public opinion compelled the Government in 1926 and 1930 to take note of that fact, they set up this body and they referred to it, in the words of Section 2 of the Act of 1926, "any application, made by persons substantially representative of the persons engaged in or proposing to engage in the production in Saorstát Eireann of goods of any particular class or description, for the imposition, modification, abolition, or renewal of a customs duty on the importation of goods of that class or description". That was the sole power, that was the sole use, which that tariff commission had—to inquire into an application when it was referred to it, under the Act of 1926 by the Minister for Finance, and under the Act of 1930 by the Government of the day. It had no powers, as Deputy Mulcahy implied, to investigate the whole industrial situation here.
I made no such implication. I said that, so far from abolishing it, it ought to be given additional powers and additional functions.
I am willing to admit that perhaps I did not hear exactly what the Deputy said.
I said it loud enough.
If my recollection is correct, the Deputy did not advocate that this Commission should be given additional power. What he did imply was that it had power to conduct an investigation of the type which he envisaged——
——and that it was the fault of the Government of to-day that such an investigation had not been set on foot.
The Minister might have listened to an important discussion.
That was the line which Deputy Dillon took, in so far as there was any part of his speech relevant to this Bill. That was the line that Deputy Belton took, who said that in abolishing the Tariff Commission we were depriving this country, if you please, of its fiscal freedom and destroying the keystone of the arch which Griffith built. I do not think he put it quite so coherently as that but, at any rate, that was what he was trying to say. I have pointed out to the House what the powers of the Commission were. Deputy Childers pointed out to the House, to the annoyance of the leader of the Opposition, who, in order to cover his own confusion, had to harp back to 1922, a subject which I thought, to the benefit and advantage of this nation, might perhaps be left undiscussed henceforward in the Dáil——
Like the economic war.
In any event, as Deputy Childers pointed out, during the period the commission was supposed to have the wide powers, which both Deputy Belton and Deputy Dillon ascribed to it, there had been no industrial development in this country— practically none; over 100 factories and industrial workshops had closed down; there had been an ever-increasing disemployment of people engaged in manufacturing pursuits in this country during the period this Tariff Commission was in fact in operation; but since it had fallen into desuetude, since the present Government had put it upon the shelf, there has been widespread industrial development, industrial development to which the Party in Opposition was concerned to devote a great deal of attention during the general elections of 1937 and 1938, when they were playing up the canard, to which Deputy Belton gave fresh currency to-day, when he wanted to imply that, as a result of the Trade Agreement of April last, industrial development in this country was going to be curbed or restricted or handicapped in one way or another.
The Party for which Deputy Dillon is spokesman in this debate to-day, the Party that permits its Deputy leader to refer to those who are engaged in industry in Ireland as "tariff hounds" and "plunderers", was the Party which—if there is any truth in what Deputy Dillon has been saying—in its General Election manifesto in 1937 and in the pledges which it repeated again in 1938, undertook, if they were returned to power, that these "tariff hounds" and "plunderers", as Deputy Dillon calls them, would be free to prey upon the people. But what does it show? It shows this, at any rate, that without the assistance of the Tariff Commission, without having to have any recourse to this cumbersome machinery which was set up to fight a delaying action, the Government of to-day was able to undertake the industrial development in this country. That industrial development could not have taken place without full fiscal freedom.
What is the new machinery through which the development took place? There are Orders under the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act. Under the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act we have had duties imposed upon cotton thread, elastic and laces, three of the four industrial developments which Deputy Dillon criticised in this House to-day. If protection is being given to these industries by means of the Imposition of Duties Act, that means that if the Government has made up its mind that there is an opportunity to establish a new industry here and that there is a case for protecting the initial products of that industry during its development stages, it can at once impose a tariff to prevent the establishment of the industry being forestalled by dumping and other means. But it does not mean, as Deputy Dillon knows, that the case for the establishment of that industry goes on undiscussed or unexamined. It is examined first in the Department of Industry and Commerce. Before the tariff granted for that Emergency Order becomes a permanent feature of the fiscal system, the Emergency Order must come here for examination, and if it is not confirmed by the Vote of the Dáil it collapses and the tariff falls.
These tariffs upon cotton thread, linen thread, elastic and shoe laces were discussed here in the House, were approved of by the Dáil, and were embodied in our statutes. It is these tariffs that the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Party opposite, guaranteed to the people of this country would remain in force, even if the improbable happened—or with more speeches like those of Deputies Dillon and Belton, say the impossible happened—and we were to be turned out and the Administration was to be taken over by the Fine Gael Party. Therefore, it is not true to say, as Deputy Dillon has alleged, that these tariffs were granted without due and proper inquiry.
I think it will be conceded, bearing in mind the developments that have taken place in this country during the last six or seven years, that our method of fostering industrial development here has been very much more successful than that which we have superseded. It is not true, either, to say that the incidence of these tariffs and their effects upon the people can go without due and proper inquiry. One feature of the Tariff Commission which we are now asking the House to abolish is this—that unless a member of the Government wished to have an investigation into the effects of any tariff that Tariff Commission could not move on its own initiative or upon the initiative of a private citizen. One of the reasons which I gave for the introduction of this measure was the wide powers which had been given to the Prices Commission, and the fact that to some extent the Prices Commission was superseding to the full extent the activities which the Tariff Commission was formerly discharging.
Under the Prices Commission, as it is now constituted, a private individual, a private citizen, can move to have the price of an article investigated. The Minister for Industry and Commerce can move to have the whole question, if he so desires, of its effects and the incidence of the tariff investigated, too. So, in fact, we have combined the functions of the old Tariff Commission with the other and more independent functions of the Prices Commission, and we have put it in the power of any individual who feels aggrieved by the price of an article, to go and ask the Prices Commission to say whether the price charged for any article is fair or not, and therefore, by implication, if the article is a tariffed article, to investigate whether the tariff is fair or not. That is the machinery which is to-day in existence for the fostering of Irish industrial development, and also for the protection of the consumer about whom Deputy Dillon was so plaintive here to-day.
A great deal of this discussion would have been avoided if only Deputies opposite did inform themselves before embarking on a discussion, what the discussion is about. That obligation is upon them before taking up the time of the House. It is clear from the speeches of Deputies Dillon, Belton and the other Deputies opposite, to which we have listened, that they did not know what they were taking about. They may have been misled by Deputy Mulcahy's speech. They may, perhaps, have misunderstood him as I misunderstood him. They may have thought that the Tariff Commission which we propose to abolish had indeed wide powers of inquiry and investigation which they have not, but which the Deputies said they had.
This is a grand get-away. In Parliamentary debate nothing is more useful than ignorance as a protective device.
The longer I listened to this debate the more I wondered at the outlook of the Deputies, and the more I was surprised at the inconsistency of their arguments. When another measure, the Valuation Bill, was before the House one of the stock arguments which the Leader of the Opposition used against it was that it was going to give employment to more civil servants and that the farmers of this country should not bear any heavier impositions than they were bearing. But here is a body which has been in existence since 1926. I am not going to deal with the very limited range and the very limited number of subjects which the Tariff Commission investigated during the period 1926 to 1932. But from 1932 to 1938 they only investigated one subject—the question of a tariff on casks and barrels. They made a report on it in 1934. The report was completely out of date, and it was not necessary to waste public money in printing and publishing it.
Is it going to be printed?
The point that I am going to make is this: that the Party opposite, which is complaining all the time about the growth of the Civil Service and the cost of the Civil Service, is now advocating that we should continue in existence a body which, during the past six years has only reported upon one subject. They want us, in fact, to continue to spend public money upon a commission which they know themselves cannot do anything, and which, in view of the altered attitude of the general body of the people of this country towards industrial development, serves no useful purpose whatsoever in the public administration. If it were only on the ground of the economy which will follow from the abolition of this commission, then I say if there was any consistency left in the Opposition they would have seen that this Bill passed through all its stages to-day without discussion.
Can the Minister say whether the report which he says has not been circulated has actually been printed, and why in these circumstances he refuses to circulate it?
That is a matter upon which I will answer the Deputy if he gives me due notice by way of Parliamentary Question.
I am giving the Minister notice now that on some suitable occasion I shall ask him whether that report, in fact, has not been printed, and why he refuses to circulate it. I also give him notice that I shall ask him to tell us how much annually he will be saving by this proposed abolition.
Tá
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Níl
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