I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The orders which this Bill seeks to confirm are seven in all. Four of them, Orders Nos. 209 to 212, inclusive, are orders which were made arising out of the agreement which was arrived at between our cotton manufacturers here and cotton manufacturers on the other side of the water whereby the reference to the Prices Commission under the London Agreement Act, 1938, was withdrawn and an arrangement was made under which a certain portion of our market which was supplied by imported goods would be reserved for the products of the British manufacturers and whereby also, in return, the British cotton manufacturers would secure to our manufacturers an adequate supply of raw materials as long as these were available. Some of the orders, notably Orders Nos. 209, 210 and 211, provide for a reduction in the duty. The former duty in respect of these orders was at the rate of 40 per cent. ad valorem, or 4d. per square yard on articles covered by the order. In the case of Order No. 209, the duty there fell upon bed ticken and bed mattress cloths, bed sheeting of a width not less than 45 inches, shirtings and pyjama material which are not less than 4 ounces in weight per square yard and which are without pattern and colour; and cloth for the manufacture of dungarees or similar protective garments which is not less than 4 ounces in weight per square yard, all of these being woven piece goods not containing more than 60 per cent. of cotton and not exceeding 10 ounces in weight per square yard. As I have said, in the case of these materials the duty formerly was 40 per cent. ad valorem, or 4d. per square yard, whichever was the greater. In the case of bed ticken, mattresses and bed sheeting, and cloth for the manufacture of dungarees and similar protective garments, the duty was 40 per cent. ad valorem. The new duty is at the rate of 40 per cent. ad valorem, with a 20 per cent. ad valorem preference in the case of products of the United Kingdom and Canada.
Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Orders) (No. 2) Bill, 1940—Second and Subsequent Stages.
And the 4d. minimum is removed?
Yes. The same applies to the cloths which are covered by Order No. 210, which refers to woven piece goods containing more than 60 per cent. of cotton and not exceeding 10 ounces in weight per square yard. The former duty was 40 per cent., or 4d. per square yard, whichever happened to be the greater.
It is now reduced to 20 per cent.?
Yes, the preferential rate has. In the case of Order No. 211 there has been a modification in the duty, but in the case of certain materials covered by this order there was formerly no specific duty. There was a duty of 40 per cent. ad valorem on woven piece goods containing more than 60 per cent. of cotton and of a weight not less than four and not more than 10 ounces per square yard, or which had a pattern woven in colour and were used in the manufacture of shirts and pyjamas. The new duty will be 40 per cent. ad valorem with a preferential duty of 20 per cent. in the case of United Kingdom and Canadian products. Order No. 212 imposes a duty of 45 per cent. ad valorem with 30 per cent. of a preferential rate in the case of United Kingdom and Canadian products on woven piece goods containing more than 60 per cent. of cotton and not exceeding 10 ounces in weight per square yard and not chargeable with the duty imposed by Orders Nos. 209, 210 or 211. Formerly the materials which come under the duty imposed by Emergency Order No. 210 were liable to a rate of 40 per cent. ad valorem.
Order No. 213 imposes a duty of 60 per cent. ad valorem, with a preferential rate of 40 per cent. in the case of the United Kingdom and Canada, on piece goods not chargeable with the duty imposed by any of the emergency orders I have cited—Orders Nos. 209, 210, 211 and 212—and which are woven piece goods, cotton or union piece goods consisting of a combination of two or more fibres such as cotton, flax, jute and artificial silk. The materials covered by the order were formerly liable to a duty of 40 per cent. ad valorem.
I will refer the Minister to the paragraph where reference is made to the fact that no such licence shall be exempt from the provisions of Section 15 of the Finance (Agreement with United Kingdom) Act, 1938. What is that exemption?
If the licence is given in respect of goods originating elsewhere than in the United Kingdom or Canada, there is a 10 per cent. duty added. Emergency Imposition of Duties (No. 214) Order, 1940, imposes a duty on linen piece goods as follows:—Linen piece goods which are terry or are the type used in the manufacture of dungarees or similar protective garments for wear by men, bed sheets, ticken or mattresses, 40 per cent. or 4d. per square yard; all other linen piece goods, 40 per cent. There is a preferential rate of 20 per cent. for goods produced in the United Kingdom or Canada. Originally, the linen piece goods were liable to duty under Order No. 131 of 1937, which applied also to cotton and union piece goods. The Revenue Commissioners have suggested that as we are amending the duties we should make a separate order in respect of linen piece goods. That has been done with the retention of the original duty and the granting of a preferential rate in respect of the United Kingdom and Canada.
Is it a new preferential rate?
No, the old preferential rate. Order No. 215 imposes a duty at the rate of 37½ per cent. ad valorem, with a preferential rate of 25 per cent. on candles, tapers and night-lights. These were formerly liable to a duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem, with a preferential rate of 10 per cent. in the case of the United Kingdom and Canada and 20 per cent. in other Commonwealth countries. In addition to the duty there was also a quantitative restriction, but that quantitative has been removed. The new duties have been imposed as a result of a finding of the Tariff Commission following a request for a review of the duty, in accordance with Article 8 of the London Agreement. The Commission has recommended that the quota should be removed and the duty imposed at the new rate.
The present rate is 30 per cent?
Yes, 30 per cent., with a 10 per cent. preferential rate for the United Kingdom and Canada, and 20 per cent. in the case of other Commonwealth countries.
Is the new rate 10 per cent.?
The new rate is 37½ per cent. ad valorem with a preferential rate of 25 per cent. on goods from the United Kingdom and Canada.
I have said my say on the woven tissues and the other materials. I am principally concerned now with the candle business because it reveals a most interesting development. If you watch the operations of the quota racketeer closely, you occasionally catch sight of him shooting through the grass. "Racketeer" is the word, Sir. Candles, as everybody in this House knows, are used by the occupants of small poor houses and, virtually, by nobody else in this country. I am now talking of paraffin wax candles, not of altar candles or candles of a special category. Candles started to go up in price some months ago. It is hard to carry the figures in one's memory but candles very nearly doubled in price in the last 15 months. If you did not like to pay the price asked for the candles you could go and lump it, because there was nobody else from whom you could get them. There was a quota on candles and you could take the candles offered to you or go without them. I was astonished a few days ago to hear that the price of candles had gone down by 6/- per case. Then I discovered that the candle business had been before the Tariff Commission and that, as a result of the findings of the commission, the quota was going to be taken off and a tariff of 30 per cent. put upon candles. Now, of course, it will be said that this was in the normal course of events. Candles came down by 6/-, but they came down only the minute the quota came off. Observe that they came down 6/- to compete with candles which would have to carry a tariff of 30 per cent. That is the way to get the hang of it. When they had a quota, the candle manufacturers were able to get for candles, from the poor of this country, not only 30 per cent. over the world price, but 6/- a case on top of that and they got it.
Now, a lot of innocent people here will say: "I did not see any change in the price of candles. A penny candle was still a penny candle." There was no change in the price of single candles; a penny candle was still a penny candle, but where I used to sell the people a size eight candle 12 months ago, I was giving them a size ten candle up to a fortnight ago. A size eight candle is a good stout candle, and a size ten candle is about as thick as my pen. The average person would not recognise the difference if he did not see a size ten and a size eight candle together, and nobody but a chandler would distinguish between a size eight and a size nine unless he had the two in front of him. The average countrywoman buys, on the market day or on a Friday, two candles that will keep her going until the following market day. She does not ask for a size eight or a size ten; she asks for a penny candle and that is what she gets. If she were in the habit of getting size seven, she was constrained for the past year to accept size ten, with the result that she found that where two candles kept her going before, under the new dispensation it would take three. That meant that on every house in Ireland in which candles were used there was levied an annual tax of about 3/-.
When the quota operated in this country, it authorised the oil company and the candle merchants of this country to levy a weekly toll on every small house in the country, and did they forbear to take it? Not on your life! Up to the very hour when the quota went off, they got the last drop of blood they could squeeze out of these miserable candles. I am told by some of the poor simpletons who speak in this House that that kind of thing could not happen, that the Prices Commission watch them. The Prices Commission ! Did anybody read the report of L. J. Jordan and Company, published a few days ago? Profits £4,000 last year, which they regarded as normal; profits £24,000 on the same business this year, as disclosed by the accounts published the day before yesterday. And I am told that the Prices Commission are watching these things! The firm which could make a fair profit of £4,000 in 1938-39, watched from day to day by the Prices Commission, kept under constant review, could make a profit of £24,000 in 1939-40.
The Commission does not exist.
I am then told that I am wasting public time in talking about excessive charges and the exploitation of the consumer in this country, because, as the Minister for Supplies is watching this problem from hour to hour and day to day, there is no group in the country which can extract a penny surplus profit from consumers here, because he is on their track all the time. Yet, here we have an instance in which £24,000 was raked off in one year's trading by a company which has a complete monopoly, directly protected by a quota, whereas £4,000 was considered a reasonable profit the year before.
I am raising this matter in this House because whenever a quota is mentioned here, I am going to read the history in this House of those who seek it. I am going to read the history of the profits they make out of it, and I am going to relate the wealth they accumulate out of it to the poverty of those they rob by virtue of it. Let those who come seeking quotas in future know that so long as I am here, even if I am the only person to do it, I shall seek out their history, I shall name them and expose their bank balances and profits, and relate them to the poverty of the poor people they rob. Some day the people of this country will revolt against that vile exploitation of a defenceless people. Some day those who are supposed to represent simple people living down the country, who do not understand the machinations of the tariff racketeer——
Does not a quota mean that there has to be a licence to bring the goods into the country?
It means something worse. I sympathise with the difficulty of a Deputy who is trying to understand this business and who is not in the trade himself. He has his suspicions, but the statement is made: "Here is a quota, but there is a licence attached to it." That is quite true. In theory, anyone can get a licence, but in practice, once you establish a quota, the average merchant who is driven into the markets of the world, by the attempt of the domestic manufacturer to exploit him, finds that the elaborate forms he has to fill, and the elaborate operations through which he has to go in order to get that licence, and subsequently to use that licence in getting his stuff in, make it impracticable for him to get a licence.
Are not those licences confined to a few?
Not in theory. Most of these licensing provisions provide that, if you were in the habit of importing this commodity in the past, you are entitled to get a proportion of your previous imports now. In practice, all the small fellows drop out of the business of importing, and the business falls then into the hands of five or six big importers.
Is not that the idea?
What happens is this. There is complete silence for about 12 months until everybody has forgotten that these goods are subject to a quota. Then you have established here the racketeers who got the quota put on in order to protect the industry in which they are interested. They go to the four or five fellows who have applied for the quotas and who are now recognised importers. They say: "Look here, boys, you are in on the ground floor. Why bother competing with us any longer? Let us make a deal. You have all got your import quotas; O.K., bring that stuff in and sell it and we will give you agencies for our goods as well. You are not allowed to import as much of this commodity as you used to import, and we will make up the difference in the quantity of material on one condition, that you will not cut prices against us and we will undertake not to cut prices against you. We have to give you a share of the spoils. We are generous and openhanded fellows; we are plucking the bird, and we will pass over to you three out of the seven feathers which we pull out of its tail." The five or six fellows with the quota say: "Three feathers are better than none."
I have a few cases in mind.
I would remind the Deputy that, on every occasion on which an order has come up for confirmation, the Chair has had to reiterate that the established practice for years has been that only the orders before the House may be discussed, and that no opportunity is thereby afforded for a general discussion on licences, tariffs, and quotas. The Deputy seems to have lost sight of the candle light.
I could relate all this to the candle only I do not want to go through the farce of seeking to circumvent your ruling, Sir.
Such an attempt might not succeed.
I have no doubt it would not. My point is that I can relate all this to each quota order that is brought forward, except that I am dealing with a different group of people. The line of conduct is common to them all. It always happens. Take the candle fellows. There was a group of candle manufacturers and they were the big oil companies. The boys all got together and up went the price of candles. The big oil companies could submerge the small domestic candle manufacturers if they wanted. What happened was that the big fellows said: "We are going to take nine feathers out of the hen's tail and we will give you two if you play ball." The little fellows said: "If we do not play ball, the big fellows will wipe us out. We are to have two feathers and that is better than nothing at all." They took what they got. What enabled them to do that was that they were within the steel fence of a quota. Suppose they had a tariff of 60 per cent., there would come a point, if they raised the price of candles sufficiently high, when, if they came to sell candles to me, I would say to them: "No, I will import candles from Great Britain and pay the 60 per cent. and still I will have them cheaper than you give them to me." I had no form to fill, no licence to seek, no elaborate investigations to make, and I would have got my candles in, where upon the boys would have to come down.
In addition to that, there is this consideration: that if I come in here and say, "Here are men who are asking for a tariff of 75 per cent.," that sounds bad; people will begin to prick up their ears. One warrior came and asked for a tariff of 100 per cent. and got it. That created such a stink in the country that they dropped it. If those racketeers ask for a tariff of 75 per cent., it looks bad; it stinks at once. But, stick in a quota and no one knows anything about it. The candle fellows have got the biggest tariff they could squeeze out of the Tariff Commission and candles have come down by 6/- a case. Do not have any doubt that they fought to the last inch to get the highest point tariff they could out of the Minister. Remember, he is a tariff Minister and the Fianna Fáil Government is a tariff Government. But, with the highest tariff they could squeeze out of a reactionary tariff Government, candles came down 6/- a case.
There could not be too much time spent in this House on each one of these transactions. The more public attention is concentrated on the activities of these gentlemen, the more it is brought home to them that, every time they come in with exploitation proposals of this kind, they will be exposed, the less scandalous proposals will be brought before this House, and the stronger the Minister's hands will be in resisting, as I believe he is now concerned to resist, the quota racket in this country.
Is the Minister not going to reply? Does he accept all that has been said about the 6/- sheer profit over the tariff bar?
I have no proof that the fall in price is to be ascribed to the removal of the quota. In any event, as the Chair has pointed out, the quota is not under discussion here.
The Chair did not point that out. He pointed out that quotas were under discussion. Does not the Minister know that candles came down by 6/- a case?
The Minister is apparently accepting that.
He admits a possible abuse of quotas.
And the coincidence of this drop.
When is it proposed to take the Committee Stage?
Now, if the House agrees.
In order to allow the Minister to be better informed about this drop of 6/-, had it not better be postponed until to-morrow?
I understand there has been an agreement come to.
I did not know that.
They will probably make some more sallies, and we will get after them again. I am prepared to give the remaining stages.
Agreed: "That the remaining stages be taken now."
Bill put through Committee without amendment and reported.
Deputy Dillon repeatedly referred to the existence of the Prices Commission. Is it not a fact that no such body is in existence at the moment —legally, at any rate?
No.
There is some kind of machinery in the Department of Supplies which takes the place of the Prices Commission.
It is in existence.
The Prices Commission?
Yes, for the purpose of Article 8 of the London Agreement.
The Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Supplies denied the existence of such a body.
For the purpose of Article 8 of the London Agreement, it is.
Surely, the Minister is now almost deliberately trying to mislead the House. What Deputy Davin said is obvious. There is a price controlling machinery.
There is an organisation in existence.
There is a fellow—I do not remember his name—who sends out circulars from time to time about prices. He is an official of the Department of Supplies charged with the supervision of prices. There is an office under the Minister for Supplies charged with the control of prices and the powers are grossly abused.
That matter cannot be settled in this connection.
It cannot be raised?
The question as to whether there is such a body as the Prices Commission is not relevant.
Is it not a fact that the powers of the Prices Commission have been delegated to a civil servant working under the Minister for Supplies?
I suggest that the Deputy should address that question to the Minister for Supplies.
But he said so.
I say that under the London Agreement of 1938, for the purpose of Article 8 of that Agreement, the Prices Commission is in existence.
Who are the members of it?
The Deputy should put down a Parliamentary Question in order to get that answer.
The Minister does not know.
I am not the Minister for Supplies.
I have given a case to him where I was charged 100 per cent. more.
Deputy Davin and Deputy Hickey have already pointed out that the Minister for Supplies is responsible for the Prices Commission.
I am pointing out that there is no such thing as a Prices Commission, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce here in the House about three weeks ago——
Is this in order, Sir?
——was listening to the Minister for Supplies saying that there is no Prices Commission.
The Minister in charge of this Bill is not responsible for the statements made by his colleagues on other occasions.
This is a Money Bill within the meaning of Article 22 of the Constitution.
Apparently, within the purview of the chandlers, it is a money Bill, too.