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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Oct 1947

Vol. 108 No. 6

Industrial Efficiency and Prices Bill, 1947—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Debate resumed on the following amendment:—
To delete all words after the word "That" and substitute the following words:—
"the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to the Industrial Efficiency and Prices Bill, 1947, unless and until Part V is deleted from the Bill."

When I was reporting progress last night, I was dealing with the question of the investigation which this Bill envisages into industries which are not regarded as being run on up-to-date and efficient lines and where the standard of production and the degree of efficiency in management leave much to be desired. I was then saying that we have reached the stage where we have had 15 years of intensive tariffs and that that period has been sufficiently long to allow of a not unsympathetic review of the situation which has been created in new industrial undertakings by the application of tariffs as a means of stimulating industries. I took the line—and I think it is a sensible line, probably supported from all sides of the House —that in our circumstances here, it must be our endeavour to develop these secondary industries which are as indigenous to the country as circumstances can make them. We must aim, therefore, at helping the promotion of our secondary industries which are organised on efficient lines and which give hope of being able, not merely to supply our own home market, but, in the course of time, to find an export market for portion of these industrial products. I know that is not an easy task, but other European countries, small in territory and small in population, have been able to attain that position, but only by reliance on high standards of efficiency and by a standard of organisation which has made many of those small countries very valuable producers of industrial goods have they been able to find a market against competition from many countries throughout the world.

What about Guinness's and Jacobs?

Guinness's and Jacobs are the kind of industry we should encourage.

Hear, hear!

I want to see this investigation so designed as to make all our industries reach a high standard of efficiency, but I am not unconscious of the difficulties. We should endeavour to see that industries in every way should perfect their machinery, equipment and technical knowledge and attain such a standard of efficiency as to give to our people a good quality product, to give a good standard of living to those engaged in making it and the promise of finding an export market for their goods in order to pay for the goods which we must import. If this Bill does that there is much to commend it.

I know nobody who can reasonably or intelligently defend a system which imposes tariffs which are to be utilised by a lazy and inefficient industry, not to equip itself to meet foreign competition, but to lie down on the job in order to earn easy money by mulcting the consumers in the form of substantially higher prices at home. There is in this country an immense amount of goodwill for any line of policy which would give every possible assistance to an efficient organisation which gives good conditions of employment and wages and which recognises the workers as an integral part of that industry as producers of wealth for the nation. You never see an inefficient industry with second-hand machines in a back street paying good wages or giving good conditions of employment to its workers. Where there is a good industry, efficiently organised, there is a good standard for the workers. In some industries which have inefficient machinery, the conditions are such as to impose on the workers a serious physical ordeal in trying to give of their best. If this Bill gets after inefficient industries and helps them, firstly, by encouragement and, secondly, by compulsion, to get out of the rut of inefficiency in which many of them are at present, the Bill will have much to commend it. It will be calculated to give us a better standard of industry and more efficient methods of production.

There is some significance in the fact that Guinness's and Jacobs were established under free trade.

Many countries in Europe can produce goods which find markets all over the world under free trade.

This is not a debate on free trade versus tariffs.

Free trade is a good producer of efficiency.

There is a notion in this country—a notion which is happily dying—that goods must be inferior because they are ours. This old-fashioned notion has been sedulously fostered but it is happily dying rapidly. It will be killed all the more quickly if our own industries are equipped to produce goods on a high scale. Every inefficient industry which turns out goods without regard to the people's interest or to a high standard is the greatest menace to Irish industry because it gives more scope to the many people who have that old-fashioned notion that Irish products are inferior, and who maintain that propaganda against the produce of Irish industry.

Hear, hear!

In many respects we could usefully find examples in Europe of small countries which are well worthy of our emulation. Switzerland is one of those examples which should commend itself to close study by our people. Switzerland is a country which should provide us with an incentive to emulate her high standards of production and efficiency. She has no coal, she has no oil, she has no raw materials for iron or for steel or for wool or for cotton. In many respects, therefore, Switzerland resembles the position as regards raw materials in this country. Notwithstanding the fact that Switzerland has a population of only 4¼ millions and that one-third of the country is under mountains, she has been able to build up not merely most efficient secondary industries but a colossal export trade. This can be gauged by the fact that Switzerland is producing to-day for many countries in Europe and South America, railway rolling stock and electrical and engineering equipment of all kinds. Because she can do that she has not got the problem which we have of searching the world for wheat. I do not think she would have the chance of doing that except for a systematic policy of insisting on efficiency and a scheme of technical education designed to make the Swiss worker not just a general labourer, an unskilled labourer who has to emigrate to any country which will take him. If a Swiss goes overseas he goes as a high-class technician whom every country is glad to get. In every country in which they have settled, the Swiss command the highest possible wages and salaries, because they are equipped with a technical education which gives them skill, technical knowledge and adaptability, unlike our people who are hewers of wood and drawers of water in countries where people are too wise to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.

I think if we are going to build up here an industrial position capable of producing good quality products and which will give the people decent rates of wages, it can only be done by the same methods which have given other countries a high standard of efficiency, that is by insistence on efficiency in the control and direction of undertakings, and the avoidance, by legislation, if necessary, of inefficient methods of production and the recognition that our aim must be the production of goods for our own people and the provision of much-needed employment for our people at home.

As I said briefly, last night, I think that this Bill requires as its counterpart and necessary corollary the establishment of a development commission which would survey the nation's resources and plan to ensure the utilisation of these resources in a manner best calculated to aid the establishment of efficient industries at home.

Wherever you have a shortage of commodities, you inevitably have difficulties in the matter of price control. The fact that commodities are in scarce supply is the best possible incentive to the establishment of black markets. There are no black markets in commodities that are in abundant supply. The black market exists and thrives on scarcity. If we are ever to have a properly regulated system of price control, we may get it, to some extent, by legislation but, more so, by a combination of that with increased production. I feel, therefore, that a Price Control Bill alone in a period of scarcity may not give us the type of price regulation so much to be desired if the community are to be protected from such a fleecing as they have got, particularly during the past seven years. The plain fact is that, in a period of scarcity which ought to have affected every citizen, many people got rich—enormously rich—by handling a smaller quantity of goods, while the masses of the people are to-day finding it harder than ever to live and harder than ever to get the things they require for sustenance. If there is an emergency, is it not absurd that some people should get wealthier than ever they were during that emergency while others get poorer? If there is an emergency, why does not everybody feel the impact of it? The truth is that they do not. A privileged hierarchy of profiteers and financial sharks, native and foreign, have been able, during the past seven or eight years, to get away with every piece of loot on which they set their eye. While I hope that this Prices Bill will get after them and while we will give the Minister any and every power to do so, after our experience of price control during the past seven years, I am rather sceptical.

I think that a Price Control Bill is not sufficient to deal with our problem, which is a double-barrelled problem, in a sense. It is a problem of inadequate powers to deal with high prices in a land that is relatively undeveloped. If we are to have any satisfactory system of price control in operation, we must, in the first place, have a prices commission charged with surveying prices and taking steps to secure the fixation of prices at a level within the capacity of the people to pay and at a level which will prevent extortionate profits being made by those who handle the commodities. In the second place, we need a development commission, which will accelerate production, accelerate the establishment of industries and make available to our people a widening pool of produce. In my view, that more than anything else is calculated to contribute to a reasonable price level in this country.

I have heard, with no little wonder, pleas being made from Government platforms and from the Government Benches for more production. I agree that our main difficulty here is the low standard of our productivity. A nation lives on what it produces, because there is nothing else on which it can live. The standard of our productivity determines the standard of life of our whole people. If there is an abundance of goods, there is a better standard of living. If there is a scarcity of goods, there is a debasement of the standard of living. What we have got to do, obviously, is to aim at a target of greater production—production that will give to the masses of the people a better and a rising standard of life. But, while we hear pleas for greater production, we have the paradoxical position that we sit down and calmly contemplate the export of tens of thousands of men and women who would be capable of giving us that production if only we had the intelligence to organise the nation on the basis of using their brains and brawn in the enrichment of the national estate. It seems to me to be vain to cry out for more production while every boat leaving this country is packed with emigrants who cannot get work here producing the goods of which we are in need. Until we get down to the problem of harnessing the energy, ability, brains, brawn and enthusiasm of all those who are now leaving the country, because they cannot get a livelihood in producing goods here, we shall have failed to tackle the problem of increasing production. No country in the world has been able to increase its production at the same time as it exported the cream of its manhood and womanhood. We cannot do it. Least of all can we do it with our slender and relatively undeveloped industrial organisation. Therefore, I want to see established a development commission for the purpose of surveying our national resources, for the purpose of planning to utilise those resources in the manner envisaged by the present Government when it favoured the establishment of an economic council, in the days when it was in opposition. I still believe that an economic council on the lines then advocated both by the Labour Party and the Fianna Fáil Party has much to commend it and more so in the circumstances in which we find ourselves to-day. I want to see a body of that kind survey our resources and plan to utilise them, plan to build up an efficient industrial position here, so that that industrial position may be utilised in providing more wealth and keeping in employment at home the tens of thousands of people who are drifting out of the country in search of work elsewhere.

I wish this Bill well. I wish it well, particularly in respect of its provision for a prices commission and in respect of such investigations as may be undertaken in connection with the standard of efficiency attained in industries. Frankly, I am rather sceptical at this stage, after so much disappointment in respect of price control, that this commission will give us a more efficient method of price control in the future. If it does, nobody will be better pleased than I shall be and nobody will commend this Bill more than I shall. Our people, during the past seven or eight years, have been treated in a most unfair way, so far as exploitation by profiteers is concerned. Many people will endure scarcities which are unavoidable. Many people will willingly suffer if commodities are in short supply and if it is not possible to improve the supply. But what people cannot understand is why, if commodities are in short supply, some people should be able to get them by paying the ransom which the profiteer demands, while the mass of the people, simple people who only want to go their own way of life, without the power of the cheque book, are compelled to abandon any claim to their share of those goods. If this prices commission is a live and alert body, it may well do a good job. I hope the Minister will take particular pains to ensure that it will be a live and alert body and that the powers given in this Bill will be used to the fullest to protect the consuming public against such fleecing as they have undergone for the past seven years. Therefore, if this prices commission does a good job it may well protect the public from the exploitation which it has suffered too long already. On the other hand, if this prices commission fails to do its job in a thorough-going way, the second position will be worse than the first and instead of having price control we will still have the public suffering from the fleecing which has been their lot for all too long a period.

I want to say, in conclusion, that I think this Bill has no meaning whatever unless the Minister gets a competent and efficient prices commission and unless he makes that body get about the job in a thorough-going way. If he does that the public may yet bestow encomiums on this commission and it is for the Minister to decide whether the public will be privileged to do that or whether they will select that commission as the object of all the maledictions they will utter if they see it fail to take effective steps to regulate prices. On general balance, I welcome this Bill if it is utilised to reduce prices. I think the Minister has, in connection with this Bill, a heavy responsibility for seeing that the vital link in the Bill, the prices commission, does its job in a way that will protect the public from being fleeced in the future.

First of all I want to make a point which is, possibly, a Committee point but which it is no harm to make at this stage. A number of people are doubtful as to what "service" means, line 39, page 4. Some people are wondering if that would cover the charge that an accountant or an architect or a number of other professional people would make.

The Bill is called an "Industrial Efficiency and Prices Bill." A number of people are wondering what exactly all that means. The impact of the Bill will not really be understood until the prices commission gets to work. I take it that the prices commission as envisaged in this Bill is going to step easily into the shoes of the committees which are at present controlling prices. If one assumes that something like that procedure is going to be adopted and that that is the road on which we are going to travel, there will be some peculiar results.

The Bill is named "Industrial Efficiency," but it could very well be worked in such a way that industrialists would have to run for their lives. If we pursue the line that we are going on, the question is where a halt is going to be called. One notices that the Minister said yesterday that the Government did not believe that the economic development of the country could be effectively secured by any system of State Socialism. "We do not want," he says, "to interfere unduly in the operation of private commercial enterprise." If this Bill is not State Socialism I do not know what State Socialism is. I take it this Bill pursued to its logical conclusion means rationalisation. At the present time the procedure is to control goods, the prices of which are controlled. As time goes on, everything will be brought within the scope of the committee regulating those prices. The procedure is to fix a gross profit from which the overheads of the business have to be deducted. I think that will produce a most extraordinary change in the ordinary structure of the business life of this country, because it will leave all the firms above a certain line making money and all those below the line losing money. If that is not rationalisation I do not know what rationalisation is. Another extraordinary effect which this Bill will presumably have will be that it will not matter what a person will pay for goods—whether he buys them cheap or dear he will only be allowed to put on the same profit. One might hazard a guess that the ultimate effect will be to make the rich richer and the poor poorer and very much to reduce the number of persons engaged in industry. That may be the Government's object, but, if it is, it still further reinforces my argument that this Bill really is State Socialism. There is an amendment to Part V of the Bill. That, of course, is really only dealing with the manufacturers who are operating under the protection of a tariff. I suppose the Minister may feel that they are in a special category and that he ought to have special powers to deal with them. I do not think the ordinary public have the slightest idea as to the ultimate effect this Bill will have on the life of the community. I would like to suggest that this Bill must be read in conjunction with the effect of some of the committees which have been operating and after they have been in operation for some time. Yesterday, Deputy Dillon referred to the turn of the thumbscrew. I would not like to use such picturesque language, but most people who are in industry are aware that the margins left to people in certain industries have progressively decreased over a period.

Of course, the Minister will say they were making too much in the way of profits, that that was a war measure which was necessary and had to be done. I suppose that is so but he is now carrying over to the post-war period the effects of a whole lot of measures which, possibly, during the war period were tardily introduced and which if allowed to operate to the full may have a most profound effect on industry. I was wondering if the remarks which the Taoiseach made in his speech, before the Supplementary Budget was introduced, should not more properly have been introduced in connection with this Bill. Certainly, some of the implications of that speech seem to be tied up with this Bill and one wonders how far the Government intend to go and what is the goal which they wish to reach.

I do not think that anyone can seriously quarrel with the intentions of this Bill which, both with regard to the control of prices and profits and the industrial efficiency of certain industries, are ones with which I think most people will agree. I was considerably surprised to discover that some Deputies, apparently, did not agree with Part V of the Bill, dealing with industrial efficiency. If I may say so, I was more surprised when I considered the direction from which the criticism came because I had understood that the particular Deputies had always advocated that sheltered industries should have rigorous examination of their methods. However, there may have been some misunderstanding of the intentions of the Bill.

Most of the things I should like to say will arise on Committee Stage. They are small points dealing with the intentions of various sections and subsections. It is not very clear, here and there, what the precise intention is. There is confusion, to my mind at any rate, in the various parts of the Bill as to the commodities referred to. For instance, in regard to Part III, I presume Section 27, which refers to marketing orders, will affect nonprocessed foodstuffs. I imagine that they are excluded only from the provisions of Part V. These various doubts can be dealt with more appropriately on Committee Stage, but there are one or two matters to which I should like to refer now, because I am not clear whether the intention is different from what I imagine it to be or whether the confusion arises merely from rather hasty drafting. For instance, there is in Section 39 a reference to a body of persons, and one Deputy passed a remark about this section which made it obvious that he was not clear as to what the body of persons would be. In fact, his interpretation of the section was completely different from mine. That is a point which should be cleared up, because that Deputy envisaged a person or firm evading the restriction which it is attempted to enforce in this section on the regulation of minimum prices. If that Deputy was correct in his interpretation, the section is unnecessarily harsh, because, in the case, say, of foodstuffs, where there is more than one firm making a proprietary brand of the same foodstuff, I can see no reason why any one of them should not make a minimum price for his product. I imagine that it is not the intention to have it otherwise, but I think the phrase "body of persons" may need some explanation.

As I have said, I cannot understand what is the great objection that Deputies have to Part V. To my mind Part V is almost the most welcome Part of the Bill. I have always felt that any industry which was sheltered by a tariff or quota restrictions owed to the country an explanation of the way in which it carried on its business. I am very glad indeed that the Minister has inserted this Part in the Bill. There was very general relief when, about a year ago, the Minister made a speech at a dinner in Cork, warning industrialists that they were not going to get away with anything they might like, that there would be some attempt made to see that they were efficient. I think the reactions throughout the country will be intensified when it is realised that the Minister has made some attempt to carry his expressed intention into effect. Whether or not the Part will succeed is, of course, another matter. Like Deputy Norton, I feel that this whole Bill hinges so much on the direction given by the Minister and the persons employed on the prices commission that it is impossible at this stage to say whether or not the Bill will succeed. I do not think there is anything we can do about that now, but I cannot imagine any other way in which this could be dealt with before Parliament. Deputies have suggested that the prices commission is being set up in a wrong way; that something which they very loosely described as a "body of a judicial character", should be set up. That may be very well, but I would prefer to have explained in greater detail just what they mean by "a body of a judicial character".

It is very easy to criticise a Minister because he proposes to set up a body in a certain way and to say that it should be set up in another way but, personally, I should like to hear the other way more fully described. Personally, I would not approve of it, if it could be done. I think it is highly important that a Minister should be involved in this matter. It is a matter which affects everyone in the State and it is important that a Minister should be responsible to this House, as I presume he will be, for the acts of the commission. Obviously, he will be because the various Orders have to be laid before this House.

In respect to the laying of Orders before the House, a distinction appears to be made in regard to Orders in Section 51. Section 7, which lays down that an Order made by the Minister shall be laid before the Oireachtas, and the usual business about 21 days, does not appear to apply to Orders made under Section 51 because they are not Orders made by the Minister; they are Orders made by the Government. My only reason for referring to that now is to ask whether or not that distinction is intentional and whether the Orders under Section 51 will have immediate effect, without reference to this House, except in as far as the House is supposed to control the Government generally. In the same section—this is really a Committee point—it is provided under sub-section (3) that where an Order is made under the section, a copy of it shall be served on the person concerned, and that shall be done not later than 90 days after the day on which the Order is made. I am wondering why a period of 90 days was selected. It seems to me to be a pretty long period, especially when you look at sub-section (4), where it is provided that a person who contravenes, whether by act or omission, any provision of the Order shall be guilty of an offence. I am wondering whether an offence can be committed after the making of the Order but before its service on the person concerned. However, that is, as I say, really a Committee point.

With regard to development councils for industry, I think that the intention there is very good, but whether it will produce the desired effect is another matter. With regard to the query that Deputy Norton put in regard to industrial diseases, I should have thought that they were definitely included under sub-section (3), paragraph (a), which speaks of the "promotion or undertaking of scientific research" and paragraph (g) which refers to the "promotion or adoption of measures for improving factory design and working conditions." I do not think that the fears expressed by Deputy Norton with regard to industrial diseases need cause any anxiety, because I imagine that such a thing would come under the review of these development councils.

There is one point about these development councils to which I desire to draw attention, and it is that they are to be set up in what seems to me to be a rather arbitrary way. I am not exactly quarrelling with that, but they are to have the power to exact levies while no provision appears to be made for an appeal by anybody affected by those levies who may not have direct representation on a development council. In fact, there is no provision for an appeal by anybody who has direct representation on a development council. I wonder would the Minister not consider making some provision to give the right of appeal. I am not perfectly clear as to what the precise duties of these development councils will be, or as to what the levies are likely to be. I think it is going a bit far to set up a body in this arbitrary way and give it power to make levies and not provide for some sort of an appeal to the Minister by anybody affected by the levies.

There is a further point with regard to these development councils. The Order which sets them up is of the 21-day type, but no alteration can be made in the Order without a vote of both Houses of the Oireachtas. I wonder is that not tightening up the Minister a bit too much, though usually I do not object very much on that score. It has struck me, however, as being a bit odd that the setting up of the council in the first instance can be done under an Order which comes into effect immediately unless there is an annulling resolution passed by the House, but a mere amendment of that Order cannot come into effect unless a resolution has been passed by both Houses.

There is a welcome provision under Part VII to the effect that specified commodities must bear the maximum prices, whether they are produced in this country or imported. Some time ago I drew the Minister's attention to the fact that very probably the public were being charged unduly high prices for footwear. Due to the fact that the footwear did not bear a price label, the whole control of the price of footwear ceased to have any effect. At the moment that is not a very serious matter, because the importation of footwear has gone down considerably. About a year ago, however, there was a terrific run on footwear. A great deal of it was of a very inferior type, and it could be sold without any price being marked on it. There was nothing to indicate to the consumer that he was not being fleeced, and neither could the Department's inspectors, even if they followed up the matter, find out what the price charged was. One price might be quoted to them and another price to the ordinary consumer. I think the Minister should see that any commodity produced at home would bear a price mark, and that the same would apply to a similar commodity imported. Provision is made for that, and I hope it will be carried into effect.

The only other point that I want to make arises on Section 71, Part IX of the Bill, which deals with the statement which a person buying a commodity may demand from the seller. This is an amendment of what was laid down in Section 35 of the 1937 Control of Prices Act. I take it that this section is intended to be an improvement on that. It may be an improvement, but I am wondering if this section does not go too far. For instance, the section states that one of the particulars that may be demanded is the name and address of the vendor. The section lays it down quite categorically that that information must be given in writing. I do not imagine for a moment that that is the Minister's intention, because I am sure the printed name and address of the vendor would do. But, under the section, it is definitely laid down that all the particulars are to be in writing, and one is the name and address of the vendor. One can imagine the confusion and trouble that the enforcement of that section would cause in a large store if everybody purchasing small articles there made a demand for the name and address of the vendor in writing. If that demand were made it would have to be complied with. One of the provisions of the 1937 Act was that the limitation in regard to price only applied if the purchase entailed a payment of more than 2/-. That is taken off, and I can see the point in doing so particularly where the value of rationed commodities supplied by the week may represent a very small sum. The point, however, is that anybody with a nasty turn of mind could cause great inconvenience in many retail establishments by making a demand for this written statement in the case of articles costing, say, 3d. I am not prepared to say whether it is desirable or not to make such a provision. I think, however, that the point I have mentioned is one that needs to be cleared up.

On the same section I am not quite clear as to the precise effect of sub-section (3). I can see the intention. It seems doubtful under sub-section (3), if customers do not demand this particular statement laid down in sub-section (1), whether when the vendor comes to give a receipt he would be breaking the law if he does not also give this statement in writing, whether it has been asked for or not. I presume it is intended in Section 76 that the Minister may not, when Part IX comes into operation, make any change in the price of an article or commodity which is subject to control, but that he may completely take it from out of control. That appears to be the effect of the section and I presume that is the intention.

These are points which are really proper to Committee Stage and I hope to raise them then. I only mention them because some of them may not be referred to in this debate and they may be considered a bit wide for Committee if some mention is not made of them. As I said, I am very glad to see the Bill introduced, and I hope it will have the desired effect. That is something which I do not think Parliament can hope to secure by passing the Bill. I mean by that that I do not think it is fair criticism to say that it will not have the desired effect, because that is something which will depend on the way the Minister goes about the business, and it is something we will have to leave to him. As I said, such criticism as has been made of the Bill was either made under a misconception of what the Bill intended, or there was a remarkable change shown on the part of the Deputies who made the criticism.

I welcome this measure. I listened attentively to the speeches made on the Second Reading. I join with Deputy Sheldon when he welcomes Part V of the Bill particularly. In fact, I cannot see any objection whatever to any portion of the Bill from Part I to Part IX. I have, however, some doubts as to the effect of Section 42, Part V. It says:—

"This part applies to an undertaking carried on by way of trade or business, in the course of which something is made, altered, repaired, ornamented, finished or adapted for sale, if

(a) what is so made, altered, repaired, ornamented, finished or adapted for sale is of a kind that is subject to a customs duty or import restriction...."

I believe that this measure is a reaction on the part of the Minister to public opinion expressed in the Press and by various organisations who condemned the attitude of the Government in not controlling prices sooner than they have done in this measure. I want to know from the Minister now whether Section 42 will adversely affect the small trader, the craftsman, who is mainly confined to some of the smaller cities and towns, such as a shoemaker or a handicraft tailor. I do not see anything in this measure which will protect him against some of the examinations that might be carried out in larger concerns. We are aware that the smaller man has been the backbone of many countries and is the backbone of Great Britain. I refer to the man who starts in a small way and perhaps ultimately becomes the proprietor of a large factory. I want to know will the small craftsman, such as the handicraft tailor or the shoemaker, be affected by this section.

I am also concerned with another aspect which has been adverted to by Deputy Norton, namely, the question of industrial diseases. I am aware that the Factory Acts are almost a dead letter in this country. That is a challenging statement to make, but if proof is wanted of that, the proof can be found in some of the statements made to-day by Deputy Norton and others in relation to some of the smaller factories established in this country under most unhygienic conditions. There are so-called factories to which very few visits have been paid by inspectors. I should like the Minister to give some attention to this matter of industrial diseases, in so far as it relates to certain factories where lead and paint are handled and to bakeries. Anyone who has any contact with the working people will understand what I mean when I say that these industrial diseases are preventable in many cases by ordinary methods of hygiene and cleanliness. We know that the Factory Acts provide, amongst other things, that hot and cold water, soap and towels should be available in many of these places in order that operatives may wash their hands before taking meals. Apart from the lack of transport at the present time, we also know that in ordinary circumstances, owing to the short time these operatives have for meals, they frequently have not time to wash their hands, and if there are not soap and towels provided in the factories and offices, they have to go without doing it. I ask the Minister in implementing this Bill to see that factory inspection does not remain the dead letter it is at the moment, that the factory inspectors will become live wires and that prosecutions will follow where breaches of the Acts are committed. I ask the Minister to clear any doubts I have in relation to Section 42 and to say whether it will adversely affect the type of craftsman I refer to

In welcoming the Bill, I should like to say that I think it is long over-due. These steps should have been taken almost at the outbreak of the war. The Minister is well aware that certain people in this country have done well owing to the failure of the Minister to take the steps which he should have taken. He had certain powers under Emergency Orders, but these powers were not fully exercised. The blame for that has been put on the failure of the inspectors to operate it. I do not accept that. We had many instances where people were caught out by these inspectors and, when they were taken to court, only very nominal fines were imposed. So small were the fines that the matter became more of a laughing stock than anything else and public opinion forced the Government to remind district justices that they would have to be more severe in imposing fines and punishment on these people.

While the Bill is generally welcomed, I am still of the opinion that, so far as controlling prices is concerned, it will have very little effect, because the Minister enjoyed all the powers he required to enforce controlled prices and yet failed, as he knows he failed, to do so. I do not see how he will now achieve the object he failed to achieve over the past five or six years. The establishment of the proposed prices commission may be a help, but I wonder who the people to be members of the commission will be and from what walks of life they will be drawn. The Minister has the appointment and the dismissal of these members, but let us hope that they will be representative of housewives and workers and that all those on the commission will have a reasonable knowledge of what should be done and how it should be done and of what is happening generally throughout the country in relation to excessive prices and overcharges.

The introduction of this measure, as Deputy Anthony has said, is due to the pressure of public opinion, because of the glaring scandals which are taking place. People who, in 1939, were worth very little are in the position to-day that their capital is unlimited because they have exploited the poor people in the towns and cities, and that that exploitation was taking place was well known to the Minister because, time and time again, questions were addressed to him about the prices of various commodities—foodstuffs, household utensils, and so on—and he was not without knowledge that these things were happening. Yet, no drastic measures were taken to prevent these things happening. I feel that it is because of the pressure of public opinion and the desire of the public to organise themselves, so as to force the responsible Minister to do something, that this measure has been introduced rather late, and, indeed, very late, in the day. Looking back on what has happened during the past five or six years, we realise that it clearly shows a lack of interest and foresight on the part of the Government.

With regard to industrial efficiency, let us hope that the articles produced by these industries which are protected will be produced more efficiently and will conform more closely to the required standards. These industries would be more careful with regard to the type of article they turned out if they had to face competition from industries outside the country. So long as they are sheltered and protected, and so long as they know that similar articles from outside will be heavily taxed, no matter how superior in quality they may be, and will not be able to compete with the products of an inefficient industry which is protected at the expense of the taxpayer, they have nothing to worry about. I believe in the development of Irish industry, but, as I have said, on more than one occasion, I do not believe in the development of Irish industry at the expense of the working man, whether he be the man employed in an Irish industry or a man who must purchase the goods manufactured by Irish industry. I recognise that when an industry starts to produce an article which has not heretofore been produced here, and when the market is being flooded with similar articles by an outside industry, the native industry must get a helping hand, but I expect it to mature and to be able to stand on its own feet some day. It would be too bad if a father were to be expected always to be responsible for the maintenance of his family. A father expects his family to be able to stand on their own feet some day so that he will not always have the responsibility of their maintenance, and the same applies to industry. After a considerable time, one would expect that an industry would be able to stand on its own feet and there are industries here which have been protected, which should be able to take their place in the competitive market.

The provisions relating to hygiene in factories are very essential, and particularly in relation to lavatories, washbasins, towels, canteens, cooking utensils and all these things which are directly or indirectly connected with the health of the workers, the Government cannot be too severe and I would be prepared to grant any powers, no matter how extreme, to the Minister to ensure compliance with these health provisions. There is not very much that one can say on this Bill, if one wishes to avoid repeating criticisms already put forward, but, while welcoming the Bill, let the Minister not be mistaken that we recognise that its introduction is due to the pressure of public opinion and not to any desire on his part to put through legislation to benefit the people. That, in my view, would be the Minister's last desire, but, being forced and having no alternative, he has introduced this measure.

In welcoming this Bill some weeks ago, one of the newspapers of this country described it as the Government's declaration of war on profiteers. The 1939 war accustomed us to the phrase "phoney war", and, in my view, this is the phoniest declaration of the phoniest type of war to which we have yet been treated. Deputy Cafferky says that the Minister has been forced into this, that he has been forced to do something to recognise that prices, profits and profit margins are far too high. To my mind, he has met it in the usual way. There has been a certain amount of talk about this, and the pretence can be made that the Government are bending themselves in great efforts to try to readjust what they have allowed to become completely distorted. I doubt, however, if the Minister believes very much in this measure, or if he believes that any effect of a wholesome type will be produced by its introduction, or its operation when it becomes law. I did not hear him speaking yesterday, but I read in the newspapers what he said and it seemed to me that he was backpedalling and was being soft-spoken the whole time.

My mind goes back to 1932, when the Minister first introduced a Control of Prices Act. I remember speaking on the Fifth Stage of that measure, after we had gone through the details of the measure, and asking whether there was really any belief that the measure was going to do much good. So far as my memory carries me, the Minister did not express himself as being very keen on the whole matter. He said that it was in answer to a public demand which there was even earlier than his time for a control of prices, it being realised that once you drifted into a tariff economy, there was bound to be an increase in prices.

I remember in those days asking him whether any example could be got from any other country of the effective use of the sort of machinery, the Civil Service or other machinery, established under the 1932 Act. I did not get any example from him, but I remember quoting to him from a book written by a civil servant, who later became a very famous man, and who is now Sir William Beveridge, the man who introduced the social security scheme in England. As a civil servant, he had been in charge of food control in Britain during the 1914-18 war and he decided to record his experiences for the benefit of the people who came after him. Then the Carnegie Trust people were so interested that they decided to publish the book as a guide to others.

In that book, Mr. Beveridge, as he then was, gave it as his opinion that price control could work but only in a general way and only in very special and peculiar circumstances. The special circumstances that he laid down were that you need pay no attention to quality. For instance, he said, with regard to the price of butter during the 1914-18 War, butter was anything that was sold as butter, even including margarine when it was sold as butter. There was no gradation. It was just a question of a price fixed for something called butter; whether it was axle grease, margarine or butter, the price held. One thing was that one had to be ruthless. The price was struck despite all complaints; even if it led to a crop of bankruptcies the price had to hold. There was no necessity, he said, to strike a price for all the country. You have to strike a price for certain areas and enforce it. His last words were that, in order to control prices effectively, you had to control them at every stage—from the primary stage of production until you got to the eventual customer. He said that unless you had a sufficiently wide, comprehensive series of powers to hit at every link of the chain the thing was impossible.

Under these circumstances it seemed to me the moral to be drawn from the book was that price control would not work or would only work when introduced to meet very special circumstances. However, we decided to try it out. As I say, I do not think there was much joy in the Minister's heart in bringing in the measure and I do not think there was much energy on his part in putting it into operation afterwards. Yesterday he told us that the 1932 Act was replaced by the 1937 Act, which re-enacted the earlier Act with certain wider provisions allowing for greater speed and a more accurate estimation in regard to prices. That was again extended by the 1938 Act which was peculiar to the agreement made with England in that year. Then, finally, we got to the war period and he then had to take such powers as were necessary to enable him speedily and effectively to control prices. His summing up on the whole matter was that the whole machinery of price control had been fully and continuously operated since 1932.

Can anybody be pleased at the result? The Minister does not complain of the machinery. He had first the 1932 Act which he changed in 1937. Again he enlarged the measure in 1938 and he got the widest possible control, all he asked for, in 1939. He was given power to control prices and his colleague the Minister for Finance was given power to control profits. Can anybody say, from his experiences during the war, that price control has been a success? Is there an achievement to be proud of? I do not think there has been. I doubt if any cumbrous detailed machinery of this sort can ever work except in circumstances of war, under the peculiar conditions which war brings about but, even in war conditions, our control was ineffective. It led to a complete distortion of the whole life of the country in a rather painful effort to try to adjust the burdens for some people. The pain was greater than the effort and the effort was greater than the success which has attended it so far.

The Minister knows—I have the quotations here if he wants to hear them again—that his colleague admitted that during the war immense profits had been made by business people. He even went further. He said that these had been made owing to the exigencies of the war situation. He was given power to control profits and what did he do? He held out the bait to the people who made profits: "If you can make 100 per cent. more than the amount we stabilise as your standard profits, we will take 75 per cent. of these profits and we will give you 25 per cent." A calculation has been made for those who had to pay excess corporation profits tax—of course it is not a reflection of the profits made by these people—that the amount came to about £43,000,000 in the war years— that is £7,000,000 a year. That was thrown back to them last year when the Minister decided to abolish the tax, so that they could play with it.

A hope was then expressed that it might lead to a reduction in prices but in fact prices have gone up since. We have had an increase of from ten to 14 points in the index cost-of-living figure in one quarter, a fact which spurred the Minister to bring forward the rather ineffective Budget proposals of the other day. There then was that situation—£43,000,000 taken in in six years, or £7,000,000 a year. Of course that does not reflect the profits. That is what was taken from those who confessed profits. It takes no account of those who make profits and paid on them but who were not subject to a corporation profits tax. It takes no account of those who evaded payment or those who dishonestly engaged in black market transactions and whose great effort, successfully carried through, was to conceal the huge profits they were making from the Revenue Commissioners.

There are many cases that we can glance at in order to fill in the details of the general picture. I need scarcely refer again to the scandal caused by the Rank flotation. These people, as a Government commission report says, got a business that cost them very much less than the capital floated by them. They put a value on it of about £700,000 and they off-loaded less than 50 per cent. on the Irish public. They continued to hold a majority control. As the Government commission pointed out, the people who were concerned in this pocketed all the purchase price they had paid for the original Ballantyne concern and they put at least an equal amount of profit into their pockets. They paid back £250,000, and £250,000 in addition, and then they hold more than 50 per cent. of the new company of Ranks (Ireland), Limited. In addition they have raked off dividends ever since. I brought the case of Ranks before the Dáil and the only answer I got was that it was a peculiar flotation, but there it is. They are still getting a profit on the inflated capital value put on this concern. Certainly over 50 per cent. of the profits is going into the hands of the people who put some smallish sum of money into the business, and have eventually recouped themselves to the amount I believe of 100 per cent., and in addition, continue to make a profit from their holdings in the company.

There is a less known person I alluded to here in this House because I have been told by those who have been able to follow the gyrations of his flotations, his capitalisation of profits, his payment of bonus shares, that he actually puts Rank in the shade. He has been allowed to issue a prospectus this year and he boasts that he has covered his original capital more than three times over. That is a complete understatement. He has covered his original capital about ten times over. Notwithstanding that, the Minister, with his special powers, and his colleague with special ways of turning the sharp edge of finance on him, let this go to the public.

I would also mention the bacon curers. I do not want to go into any great detail, but I would remind the House that a Government commission was set up to report about these people. They were folk who were brought under the sort of paper machinery that is here, operating under one of the several boards that the Government set up with a view to helping, but that really succeeded in destroying, the bacon industry. There came a point where certain moneys piled up in a fund at the disposal of the curers. It lay open to their inspection and, as was found out afterwards, it also lay open to their appropriation. There was an investigation and it was found that there was £170,000 in the pool. They took it, and a commission was set up to find out how they divided this sum between them. Some might be inclined to describe it as a kind of thieving. At any rate, the commission wanted to find out what kind of honour there was among these people and how they carried out the looting of the amount of money that was in the kitty at the time.

They reported that unless the amount of the fund be taken as a measure, there appeared to be no exact basis on which the amount of the payments was determined. In other words, the commission found that the bacon curers discovered there was a little fund that they could take and they took it all, and the only measure for their depredation was: "How much is there for us to take"? They swept the pool bare. I brought that matter before the Minister for Agriculture soon after the report was published, and he said: "I do not approve of it". That was his weak answer. But he had those people under his control and certainly the sharp edge of the finance weapon could be turned on those people. The attitude could have been adopted: "We will take that back from them and put it into the revenue of the State".

The report also said that a combination for interference with trade competition in the bacon industry did exist and they pointed to certain manipulations of one of these boards as evidence of that. On the 2nd March, 1939, I put down a question to the Minister for Agriculture with regard to the part which drew his attention to trade combination for interference in the bacon industry. He merely replied that his attention had been drawn to the report. That was all that was done about it. The people who dipped their hands into that money probably subscribed to it to some extent, but it was not subscribed wholly by them. It was just lifted and the Government allowed that to happen and they did nothing in the way of penalising these people.

With regard to price fixing, they said: "Our attention has been called to it and we have noted the report." That was in 1939, and this is 1947, and we have now a measure giving the Minister power to deal with organisations which enter into agreements for the fixing of prices.

In recent weeks attention was drawn to one of the projects for which the Minister is responsible, and that is the assembly of motor cars. Detailed letters have been written and the gist of them was published in one of the newspapers circulating in this country. The net result is that one correspondent takes as an example five types of motor cars—the Austin, Ford, Hillman and Morris, all of 10 h.p., and the Vauxhall of 12 h.p.—and he gives the prices at which these cars are sold in England, without the purchase tax. He gives the tariffs supposed to be on them; he allows for everything and he multiplies that to a point sufficient to cover everything and then he shows the Eire price for these cars. That indicates an increase of 44 per cent. on the English selling price. The first article appeared on the 24th September. Only one motor trader ventured into the fray and he dealt with one type of car. All other motor car assemblers and importers remained quiet in face of the criticism that that letter and other letters aroused.

That happens under the full and continuously employed powers which the Minister got to prevent price raising of an excessive type and to control prices, and the powers his colleague has to prevent excess profit-taking. The Minister said that some of these powers—the ones during the war period—were given to him to enable speedy and effective attack to be made on these prices. Unless he will convict himself of some negligence in the use of these powers I must assume he used speedily and with as much effect as he could these powers that he had continuously at his disposal since 1932. However, there is the result of it all and it is with that view in retrospect from 1932 to this date that we try to project ourselves into the future and visualise what is likely to happen under this Bill.

Deputy Dillon has an amendment to the effect that the Bill be not proceeded with until Part V is cut out. I am in favour of that amendment, with the addition that it would be better not to proceed with the Bill at all, excepting only one or two small details of it. Part V has the great heading "Industrial Efficiency". The scope of it is something quite staggering. It applies to an undertaking carried on by way of trade or business in the course of which something is made, altered, repaired, ornamented, finished or adapted for sale, with certain other additions. It is not industry; it is an undertaking. There are certain exceptions, such as if what is done is merely altering or repairing by a person. Then there is a big list of exceptions which mainly comprise agricultural products. I notice bacon is excluded from the matters which may be investigated with a view to seeing whether there is industrial efficiency or not.

Finally, there are excepted statutory undertakings, bodies that are completely carried on by the State or where you have the directors appointed by the Government or by a Minister of State. Leaving these out—and they form a smallish part—industrial efficiency may under this Bill be examined over all the range of industries and businesses that the country has.

The chairman—who certainly would have considerable periods of fatigue in his life and much sleeplessness, I think —is to exercise a continuous supervision over the efficiency of the industries and undertakings to which this Part of the Bill applies and is to seek to obtain an improvement in the efficiency of such undertakings and industries. Then he is given power to consult with people carrying on undertakings supposed to be similar ones and he is to advise on matters relating to industrial efficiency. He may advise on matters relating to industrial efficiency, as if he had not enough to do. Then he may have the services of such people as the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, may give him.

Later, it may come to the point when he orders an inquiry and I suppose he makes a prima facie case for an inquiry. The Minister will, everything else being all right—which may hide a great deal—direct that the inquiry be held and, if it is held, there is a report from the commission to the Minister. The Minister need not act, as far as I can understand it, on the report, but if he decides to do so, he has to give a direction as to the changes that should be made in relation to the undertaking—such changes “as appear to the Minister to be necessary to promote greater efficiency”. Then, if the direction is not followed there are certain terrible consequences.

When I was a member of the Government I used to ponder often over the amazing efficiency that was supposed to be in one Department of Government, the Department of Finance. There was not a solitary service that any other Minister of Government had to attend to, that the officials of the Department of Finance did not claim to control; and they claimed to have sufficient knowledge and experience to be able to control that. I often used to wonder where we got such men. It is all very well for them to deal with the ordinary matters of Governmental business, but when you come to undertakings that have been introduced from time to time, you do begin to think over the tremendous adaptability that there must be in certain members of the Civil Service. Having been recruited in the only way that civil servants are recruited, that is to say, without any experience of industries and having been mainly occupied in something that partakes of clerical work—I am not by any means demeaning clerical work, and in this case it is a very heavy type of clerical work—a very small proportion having got on to the higher level of very important executive work, though still with that background, they purported to be able to investigate the charges that were made for everything. I remember one time being held up by them to know if some sort of switch gear being ordered in connection with the Shannon scheme was really the best we could buy or the cheapest we could buy.

It was all a pretence. Standing back and looking at it, no matter how much you might admire their native gifts and whatever experience may have sharpened those gifts, no one ever believed they could control all the things they purported to control. The most one could say was that they acted as a brake and made someone else answer questions. They put someone else, who did know, on his mettle with regard to really investigating a case and made him put up some answer. Think of these civil servants, or some of them, and think of the job now being handed over to some one man. The chairman of the commission is to have really a bird's eye view continuously on all industries and undertakings in the country. He is to have a staff, I understand, and has power to consult expert people. Is there anyone who believes that you have a man of this type—or let us say there is going to be a board of a dozen, that you can get a board of a dozen people able effectively to put into operation that Part of the measure?

When it is all over, they report to the Minister, who exercises his second judgment—possibly gets his Cabinet colleagues to assist him round the table on that, before a direction is given; but he will have to decide in the end what changes are required in a particular industry in order to promote a greater efficiency in it. The thing is impossible, when it is coldly analysed, and no one believes this is going to do anything more than simply give another chance for a certain amount of embarrassing, annoying and retarding interference by the people who will be established as this commission and the servants of the commission. I wonder if the Minister is serious in bringing this forward. Does he believe he is going to get anyone? I would like to hear, before he starts discussing that question, what emoluments he intends to give this man. I believe that if there is a man of that calibre in the country, he will not go into the service of the Government unless they go far beyond the wildest range of their extreme payments in order to remunerate him. The man who will do all that is a £50,000 a year man—there is really no limit to what you could give him. He is not going to get £50,000, we know. He will be asked to go into all these industries and keep his eye carefully on, and his mind attentive to, how they are being run. He is to seek to obtain an improvement in the efficiency of the business. Is this going to be, so to speak, an enlargement of the Department of Finance letters that go round to ordinary Departments of Government, something like those that ask people what they are doing and why they are doing it, putting people to an extra lot of effort and trouble and not really resulting, in the end, in anything that is an advancement.

Supposing we get to the point of an inquiry. The commission, on completing the inquiry, is to report to the Minister over all this range of manufacturing industries, leaving out agriculture altogether, and also over businesses and trading concerns. They have to report on each of the following matters: quality and price, quality and suitability of materials and the manner in which the materials are purchased; the method of production —that, in itself, is a year's work in most industries—the suitability of the equipment and of the premises; and the methods of management. Let me stop there. What mind does the Minister think, carried around here in any body, is going to be big enough to investigate the methods of management of even a limited but varied range of industries in this country? He has then to tackle the method of recruiting, training and employing labour, the sales organisation and the methods of marketing; the costs of production and distribution and overhead expenses—I am leaving out one thing because I like it—and then "any other matters" that are affected.

They are asked to report on the capital structure. That would be a great task to give one man for a year —simply to go through all the businesses that are established here and to report on their capital built up over, say, the last five years. Give him a limited term of reference and let him pay special attention to bonus shares, capitalised profits, watered capital of every type and, mind you, he could do some good reporting on that alone. We are beginning to know a little bit more about profits which are made and are being tucked away. Big profits are being taken, but they are concealed, as the dividends appear to the people at a small rate, but this watered capital has multiplied itself many times and the rate of dividend which appears is not the actual rate. Does the Minister think that any man of that type will be got? The Minister says that he only intends to use this as a last resort and authorisation will only be given as a last resort. He has, more or less, said that this will be brought in very quietly and gradually and only if and when the necessity arises. Deputy Dillon looked at the other side of the question and we must look at the other side. It allows for the greatest possible amount of political patronage and of wire-pulling to an extent that even last night's debate will be thrown completely into shadow if this is allowed to go through. It allows of lobbying to a desperate extent and manipulation, and everything will be used except efficiency. It may be said: "That is not going to happen", but this House has no control over this. There is no insistence on publicity for anything done under this section or for anything which is revealed. It can take place that the commission will go round reporting quietly to the Minister, and the Minister can hold this big stick over certain businesses until they walk the line which he marks and it need not deal completely with efficiency. In so far as we are told that it will only be introduced gradually, it can cause a great deal of trouble in this country.

The main criticism that has been made on certain approaches in England at the moment is that the controls, if they are used as the legislation allows, may be oppressive. We must bear in mind that Hitler, who was at least an expert on propaganda and on devising methods to establish his own authority, said that the advice he had to give to anybody who wanted strong measures was to introduce the matter by instalments, to go gradually, because if you let people see the full impact of what was being brought in they would shy away. But on the basis of a step here and a step there you can build up power and the people find that they have given themselves over to you before they realise what has happened.

I object to Part V and I do not think it will be applied to improving the efficiency of trade, and it is open to abuses. I would risk the abuses if there was an easy approach and immediate results from the application of it. I think that the abuses side overshadows any good that may come out of it. Business, I know, and industry, generally, object to it. I do not think that any of the organised bodies representing industries or trades have announced themselves as being in favour of it or have given it a cheerful reception. All those who are against it see the terror of bureaucracy in the background. One tendency of all those to whom we are proposing to give work of an interfering type will be to make work for themselves and that makes for greater and greater interference in business activities and business activities will suffer as a result.

Part VI is devoted to development councils for industry. I do not know what that means. I am sorry that I did not hear the Minister when he was explaining the Bill, but I read the White Paper and I did not get much enlightenment from it. If it is something corresponding to the working parties on the other side there may be some good in it. The working parties on the other side have definitely been given powers but these powers are not here. The working parties have a limited outlook and a limited aim. They are mainly established in order to see if industries are in need of an overhaul with a view to the chief need of Britain at the moment which is the export trade. But when these working parties are set up they are set up in such a way as that workers, employees and employers have equal representation and equal access to every aspect of the business, capital structure, profits, earnings and everything else, and both parties are on an equal footing in regard to making recommendations. I do not know whether there is numerical equality, but there is equality in so far as that the workers' representatives can look in on every aspect of the business. I would like to see that here. I would rather see employees who have an interest in a concern looking into it than have an outside body like the commission or individual members unless they were represented in another way.

If the independent members are meant to be consumers, if we are approaching something in the nature of a consumer share—I do not mean a consumer share in capital but a consumer share in the interest of the business— I think that it is a good thing. I wonder if we are going to get that. There are to be other persons—not persons carrying on the business or workers but other persons, referred to as "independent members". Are they to be civil servants, inspectors of the Minister or persons representing the element which is always left out in connection with these commissions, the people who, in the end, pay, the people from whom profits as well as wages are derived—the people who are unfortunate at this period in that they have to buy whatever is given them without any chance of questioning either quality or price?

I do not know what some of the phrases towards the end of this Part concerning development councils mean. Why judicial notice is to be taken of the seal of a development council, I cannot understand. I do not know that development councils will ever have much activity which will bring them into or near the courts. Why is judicial notice to be taken of their seal or of documents which purport to be signed in particular ways? That breaks through the ordinary laws of evidence. Unless a good case can be made for it, I should object to it. However, I do not know what the purpose is and I shall wait until I hear an explanation. In so far as development councils are to be composed of workers, employers and consumers, if they are to have complete freedom of access to every aspect of the business and if equal consideration is to be given to every recommendation they make, apart from what the body, as such, may make, then some good may come out of these councils, but I doubt very much whether this is intended to be a realistic approach to the matter.

Looking at Section 25 (3), certain functions may be assigned to a development council. Who is to assign? The Minister, of course. He might not establish any council. If he hears that people are coming together for that purpose, he can cut across them by establishing, through his Order, a development council and assigning limited duties to it. Here is what he can pick and choose from—(1) the promotion or undertaking of scientific research. If a business has to await a Ministerial Order before undertaking scientific research in its own interest, it will hardly be worth the Minister's while to set up a development council for it. The next function which may be assigned to the council is—

"the promotion or undertaking of inquiry into methods of production, management and use of labour".

Production, I take it, is one item, management another, and use of labour a third item, or it may mean production, management and use of labour as a single item. I am not sure of that. I am not sure if the last-mentioned is one of the functions the Minister will ordinarily assign to these councils. The other functions refer to the extension of facilities for the technical training of persons engaged in industry, the promotion of measures for the improvement of design and standardisation of products, the promotion of research for improving marketing and the encouragement of co-operative societies for supplying materials and equipment. I shall wait with interest to see a council set up with that as an assigned function. The only valuable one of these functions is—(b) the promotion of inquiry into methods of production, management and use of labour. I should like to see the reaction of business firms to this proposal in theory and, secondly, when made concrete by the establishment of a council and the assignment of this function to it.

With regard to the rest of the Bill, as the Minister said, it is really a reproduction of the 1932, 1937 or 1938 Acts or a mixing of them all. I am told that it includes certain powers which the Minister believes will lead to greater effectiveness. The general run is, however, the same as that of the 1932 and 1937 Acts. There were the same definition sections there; there was the establishment of a body known as the prices commission; power was given to that commission to inquire of their own initiative, and compulsorily under the direction of the Minister, the prices charged for any commodity or service, and there was general control of prices, profits and trading methods. Does the Minister seriously contend that he is going to control these? Does he think he can deal with prices? He has now had 15 years' experience of this sort of work and he must see the results. Can be promise the public any good from this measure? How is he going to operate? How is he going to avoid the old complicated question of varieties? What standard is to be fixed? These matters have been glanced at in his speech, but merely to point out the difficulties, not to let the House know what his proposals are for dealing with them.

In the end, the Minister comes back to competition. In one of the papers last night, it was stated that he had "nailed private enterprise to the mast." I think that he has nailed it in a way which is not meant—that he has nailed it by the ears to the mast. This Bill will not promote private enterprise. It will have quite a different result. According to the Minister, if we can only get into the area of free competition all will be well, but at the moment, with the immediate aftermath of the war and with scarcities, we cannot do that. We shall, however, emerge from that and get into another period. Apparently, that is a period in which he contemplates the necessity for price control, the fixing of prices, the establishment of price or profit margins and some control of profits over and above that. The Minister had all the power any man wanted during the war and the community has, in the main, been fleeced. People in business are in the main—it has been stated that certain establishments closed down—rolling in money. Letters in the papers have called attention to the change in the circumstances of one section of the population. They moved out of houses which nobody could regard as uncomfortable, or the occupation of which could not be regarded as demeaning, to palatial mansions the prices of which have risen enormously because of the demand for the limited number available. A movement has been seen here quite different from what has taken place in England. We pride ourselves on our Catholic ideas and Catholic philosophy. The Christian ideal of economics is better distribution of property. Man is a rational and social being, with independence and reasoning powers and saddled with responsibility for which he must answer. Such a man requires certain conditions so as to give of his best. The best minds operating along certain lines of thought say that men give of their best only when removed from a position in which they are dependent on what somebody else gives them and obtain some holding of property themselves. If that be the philosophy, we have gone very far from the practice of it in recent years. The division of the national income is such that we have now a greater number of persons, relative to our small community, who are enjoying big incomes while a large number who used to be receiving what were called "middle class" salaries have been thrown into the lower income group. That movement has been facilitated by those excess profits which were allowed to raise certain people from the place in the scale of incomes which they occupied to a higher place. The prices they charged and which gave them these profits have been the means of shoving a number of people below the rather poor level which they occupied. We have far more people than ever before on the old level which used to be marked by £3 per week and which now has to be marked by about £300 per year. While we have been doing that, the country we criticise as pagan— England—has actually put into operation a better distribution of property. The number of people in possession of bank balances or with savings of some kind and who are in the possession of big personal incomes is something England has never seen before. Complementary to that, they have reduced the numbers soaring from the areas of big incomes. These people complain that they have been impoverished. But, from the angle from which I am speaking, there has been a better distribution of property.

I do not think that this Bill is going to aid us in getting into a better situation. We do want competition. The difficulty in this whole matter is that, once a State enters on any sort of tariff programme, it immediately enters into an area in which competition is prevented from having its full effect. The higher the tariff is raised, the less there is in the way of competition. If the State, in addition to that, gets into the mood in which it splashes around State moneys to various, selected firms, it will see that the money it gives will not be lost through any failure of trade and it will protect from any blast of competition the favoured firms or group of firms or particular line of industry. When you get a further step to corporations under Government control or with Government-appointed directors in which there is State money invested or in which State policy or State personnel is involved, then, of course, the difficulty of failure becomes greater. That all means that competition is lessened and diminished until, in the end, it does not exist. It can be said in respect of most of the industries in this country that there is no competition whatever. Once a Government starts a system of monopolies and so forth, private firms follow suit. Undoubtedly in this country we have had over the past ten years very successful big endeavours made by numbers of businessmen to do away with what they call "wasteful competition". They say: "Why are we cutting one another's throats; let us combine and reap the profits we can take from the public when we have them at our mercy?" How the Minister is going to break through that I do not pretend to know, but I know that the blast of competition is the only thing that will help. A slight whiff of competition will do far more than messing with paper controls, inquisitions, inquiries, inspectors and so forth. I feel also that the weapon of taxation is a weapon of which we have not made enough use. I see the Minister's proposals about investigation into the capital structure of business. I welcome them. In fact, if they were made into a separate Act, I would consider that to be good work. Coincident with that and complementary to it you must have other things. The Minister has paragraphs about trade combination for the purpose of fixing prices. It is not terribly drastic. It allows people to register themselves and then, if these people should register and become registered trade associations, they may enter into combinations for the keeping up of prices and for the restriction of trade. Why not outlaw, simply outlaw, combinations for the fixing of prices or for the restriction of trade and allow such exceptions to be made as are required? The Minister will probably answer me by saying that there are some exceptional cases. I agree, but could we not provide for them under conditions of full publicity? Why not let the people know? Let it be made illegal for anybody in this country to enter into combinations of this type—pricefixing or restriction in trade—unless the particular people have made a case that it should be allowed and unless notice has been given to the public that such has been allowed and the reasons why, so that when they are dealing with traders they will know exactly where they stand in regard to these matters.

My third point which I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister is that competition cannot have its way to the extent it might in other circumstances. I do not want the full play of the oldtime cut-throat competition but I think it should be allowed to have some effect on the price structure of the country. I think you can deal with that at the other side on the question of profits. Take, for instance, the case of a group of industries that have got a prohibition on import entries against the products they are making. I suggest that that puts those firms into the position of being gilt-edged securities. Why should they be allowed to look for and to get the level of profit that one associates with a speculative industry? In the past, when capitalism was cut-throat, people made their calculations that the profit was a reasonable profit in the circumstances on the basis of whether they were exposed to a competition that might wear them down quickly and they had to remunerate themselves for their outlay as quickly as possible or whether they were running on easy times and on smooth lines where they could look forward to a good prolonged period in business with a reasonable rate of profit coming in. Some difference should be made between these types of business. A speculative person who is taking a big risk could be allowed a different rate of profit from the person who is protected against opposition. The greater the protection, the more is the business to be regarded as gilt-edged and, therefore, the less the rate of profit should be. I can see no difficulty in having differentiation in the matter of rates of profit based upon that. I do not say, however, that that is the only consideration.

For instance, I would give great consideration to the emoluments that were being given in the way of salaries or wages to the employees of the firm. It is possible by weighting the efficiency and the treatment the firm gives to employees to establish, generally and roughly, rates of interest which will differ from business to business and which will allow the Minister for Finance to take the surplus. In that way we would get competition and at the same time we could have a bit more publicity about these things. We should follow the example of many other countries in this connection. Most countries have moved along the line of demanding from companies that are registered in the State far more information for the public than is given at the moment in the company sheet. For instance, there is a prohibition as to allocation of moneys to what was called "general reserve". There is a definite provision in many Acts that when company balance sheets or prospectuses are produced they must give certain detailed information. Reserves cannot be bottled, that is, reserves against anticipated losses are narrowly and curiously inquired into. You can have reserves appropriated to all sorts of named contingencies if they are named. The system we have in this country of allowing a company to build up its capital in a haphazard way—capitalised profits and so forth—until you get a vast capital structure which people must remunerate and are satisfied if they appear to remunerate at an easy rate of profit when in fact they are paying five, six and seven times that in reality should not be allowed to continue. That sort of capital should be broken up.

I am not sure if some of the matters which occurred in this country recently should not be prohibited and that there should be a scaling down of the capital put into business when it appears to be far in excess of what was previously in it when there is no explanation as to any demand for fresh capital. I would suggest the introduction here of the type of legislation which other countries have in existence in regard to the showing of company trading results. They should show what they earn, not merely what they paid in profits and so forth, which means little or nothing. The most amazing example of what I am talking about is the system that obtains in the banks of this country. The Minister for Finance felt he could get away with the point by quoting the dividends the banks have paid in recent years. He spoke about their having got somewhere between 12½ per cent. and 11½ per cent., and actually lower in recent years, he said, and also that very few companies can show such a situation. We are not interested in dividends in this connection. We are interested in the profits. That is the information we want, but nobody will be told the profits of the banks. It is the practice in banking returns to build in two items and nobody except the accountants in the background of the bank can segregate them. I, therefore, object to Part V of this Bill. I see no great chance of its being used except in a bad way. I join with Deputy Dillon in appealing for the postponement of this Bill until this Part is taken from it. Even if it is, I doubt if the Minister himself can promise any good result to the public from it. I know that business fears it. I am not too sensitive about the fears that business expresses from time to time about certain things, because when people put themselves inside the heavily protected and closely welded ring, as they are at the moment, they cannot complain. They have brought this type of measure on themselves. By looking for efficiency and looking only to get the human element urged on to greater enterprise which will give cheaper goods, good employment and payment of wages, I think this will be a block on efficiency. I do not see that it is getting the fullest amount of competition which we might get and should get in order to produce a good result in the way of the lowering of prices. The Minister and his colleagues should think more and more of profits that can be characterised as excess profits, not on some artificial standard but in relation to the risk that their capital has to run. I do not say everything should be taken from them. The only incentive to people at the moment to work is the profit motive as it is also in the case of employees.

In addition, the public should get more information as to what the businesses are doing. They should get more information about all this capital structure which has been built up, so as to enable them to pass a judgment as to whether it is sound or not and as to the amount of capital the business requires. The companies and all trading concerns should be obliged to do that, which would not cost them one-tenth the effort the answering of questions asked under this Bill would take, namely, to produce a balance sheet which would be open for inspection by the public and even by the employees of the firm, documents that will show exactly the profits made and how they are being divided and what people are working for, so that employees can say: "If so much was made last year, a great amount of that was packed away to provide a new building, better plant, better premises, better schemes and systems of work in the future. That will be all to our good and we can agree to having a certain amount of that going in that direction instead of being paid out to us in wages". The system is to hide all these things and there is this terrible insistence on the part of business people on the utmost secrecy in what they are doing while, at the same time, they are clamouring here to get help on the basis that they cannot live unless they are given help. Surely we are entitled to demand from them as a consideration that they will show to the public the situation they are in, whether it is strong or weak, and leave us to judge whether the prices they are charging are properly demanded of us or whether they are not.

The Minister can try out this Bill. He tried out Bills from 1932 to 1937, and changed in 1937. He got further powers in 1939, and we know where we are. If he wants this measure, I would let him have it and judge him on the results but I would like to hear from him whether he would really like to be judged on the results and whether he thinks he can get an effective result from the operation of this scheme.

So far as this Bill will be effective in controlling prices, I think the Minister will have the co-operation of the members of this House and, I hope, of the general public. We are all suffering, in conjunction with the people of the world, from the effects of the foolishness of mankind in destroying the means of production that had in past years given us full and plenty. To-day the position is that money is chasing goods. That is responsible for much of the discontent that exists. Candidly, I may say that I am no believer in legislation as a means of effectively controlling prices nor am I a believer in legislation as a means of making a country prosperous. That can be done only by hard work and increased production. While wishing the Minister the best of luck in putting this Bill into operation, I am afraid he will be disappointed with the results achieved. It is an extraordinary characteristic of the Irish people that they believe in changes. We seem to put great trust in legislation. I know there is a general demand for this Bill so far as the control of prices is concerned, but I wonder will the Minister get the co-operation that is essential for the success of the Bill. I quite appreciate the fact that in a great many cases the people themselves are responsible for high prices. Many Deputies who have not already spoken will agree with that if they have the moral courage to say it. Everyone knows that that is due to the fact that certain goods are in short supply. People want goods and will pay a high price. One could argue that it is possible that certain articles would be cheaper if there were no control. I have it from many retailers that they could sell many articles at a lower price if they were allowed to do so but that they have to charge the price as fixed by the Department after consultation with the trade in general. Of course, these people had to fall in line. They would not receive the supplies if they did not charge the prices as officially fixed.

Price fixation is a very difficult and intricate matter and it is almost impossible to carry it out efficiently and thoroughly. The human element enters into it very largely. Numerous factors contribute directly and indirectly to the price the retailer has to charge. When we consider all these things we must conclude that the Minister and his officials will have a very difficult task. The only solution that holds out any hope of immediate success is competition but, in view of the state of the world at present, we may have to wait some little time before competition reasserts itself and the supply of goods is equal to the demand. There are many instances where it would be impossible to put price control into operation. Many factors over which the Minister or the Department or the people can have no effective control contribute to the raising and lowering of prices. Therefore, I should like to point out to the people generally that they will be sadly disappointed if they think that this Bill will create a sudden fall in prices. They may take it that that will not happen and I think the Minister will agree with me in that. The only thing that can be done is to try to keep prices from rising and that can be achieved only by all parties, employers and employees, co-operating.

Bills such as this commend themselves to certain parties who, perhaps, like to interfere in other people's business. The price of many essential commodities should be reduced, particularly in the interests of the poorer sections of our people, the old age pensioners, the people with fixed incomes, the many people who have been accustomed to a decent standard but who, for various reasons, now find themselves in the position that they are unable to purchase the goods they formerly purchased. We should all do our bit to try to bring down the price of essential commodities in the interest of that less fortunate section.

In connection with Part V, about which so much has been said, again I have strong views, which may differ fundamentally from the views of my friends of the Labour Party. As one who has gone through the mill, in work of every description, I still pin my faith to private enterprise.

I have not much confidence in the policy of people interfering in other people's business. I do not think it has produced very happy or efficient results in the past, nor do I think it will do so in the future. I believe in the old saying that nobody can do a man's business as well as himself. In my opinion the Minister should be very careful as to the manner in which the powers taken in Part V will be used. It may be said that they are not meant to be used. If not, why put them into the Bill? It is highly dangerous to make a law unless you intend to carry it out. The law is either right or wrong. If it is right it should be put into operation, and if it is wrong it should be changed. Therefore, the powers set out in Part V should not be given if it is not intended to put them into effective operation.

I do not believe in this matter of giving a discretion. We have had a painful experience of that under the Dance Halls Act. Certain district justices have made certain decisions in the exercise of the discretion given to them under that Act which have created irritation and annoyance throughout the country. With that experience before my mind, I am of opinion that the powers under Part V of the Bill— the power, for example, which enables the chairman of this commission to inspect and decide whether a man is running his business efficiently or otherwise—should be put into effective operation if they are given by the House. There should not be any talk to the effect that the Minister does not intend to use them except in certain cases. That at once raises the suspicion that there might be differentiation in the treatment of certain firms.

In my opinion it is always dangerous for any Government to interfere with a man who thinks he can manage his own business efficiently. In any event, who is to determine whether he is doing so or not? It is not clear from the Bill whether a business man will have the right of appeal to a court. I think he should have that right since, possibly, he could convince a court that he was running his business in an efficient manner.

Some Deputies have stated that enormous profits have been made by certain manufacturers. These statements may or may not be true. We know that manufacturers have passed through a difficult period and that they have produced goods of good quality and have sold them at prices comparable with those prevailing for the same articles produced in other countries. I am not one of those who will say that they are all profiteers. Many of them have carried on their business here in a very efficient way without the aid of tariffs or protection. They were doing so long before this State was set up. The goods they produce have stood the test of time and find a ready market not only at home but on the export market as well. On the whole, I think it is true to say that many of the industries which have been established here give good value in the goods they produce and also provide good employment. I should not like to think that they were so concerned in their own selfish interests as to be making undue profits at the expense of their less fortunate brethren.

Reference was made to one particular firm that had transferred a sum of £60,000 to capital account. I know that particular firm well, and I can say that it is a very efficiently managed business. It was possibly as a result of that efficient management that the firm was able to make these profits. It is not to be inferred from that that the firm charges anything extra for the goods it produces. It is well that Deputies should remember that the goods produced by many of our home manufacturers are subject to keen internal competition, apart, altogether, from the competition which they have to meet from outside. Therefore, I suggest that if this particular firm made good profits they were due more to better management than to any increase in price as compared to the prices charged by other firms. We all know that some men can manage a business more efficiently than others and can make greater profits than other firms engaged in the same line of business without charging anything extra for the articles they produce. I think the Minister should be very careful in regard to the powers which are to be conferred upon the members of this prices commission, especially the power to inquire into the efficiency or otherwise of those engaged in the manufacturing industry.

I know there are many people in this country who, possibly, think it is a grand thing to be annoying employers. They look upon employers as their enemy—the capitalist. I hold a different view. I have always maintained that the firm which is highly successful, so far as the management of its affairs is concerned, is the firm that invariably pays the best wages and provides good conditions for its employees. Therefore, instead of creating distrust between employers and employees the aim should be for more co-operation, more good will and more confidence as between the various interests concerned, whether in the manufacturing, or any other business. That has always been my view. I think that in the long run it will prove to be the wiser course to pursue. I think, too, that it is the policy that will be in the best interests of the employees.

I hope that when this Bill is put into operation it will get the co-operation of those for whose benefit it has been, in the main, introduced. While the element of competition would be the greatest safeguard in the matter of controlling prices, nevertheless, I think some good may come from this Bill if the Minister can count on everybody giving him a hand and helping to carry out its provisions. The Bill, after all, is intended to be of advantage to all sections of the people. On the whole, I think the Bill, with the exception of Part V, as to which many speakers were fearful that the powers conferred on the Minister might do more harm than good, will command the support of all Parties in this House as well as the people outside.

Deputy McGilligan prefaced his remarks by expressing the opinion that no system of price control ever has been or ever can be made effective. I do not agree with that. I agree that what can be done by means of price control can be exaggerated, and I have frequently accused Deputies of the Parties opposite of exaggerating what could be achieved by price control. I disagree, however, with the assertion that it cannot be effective in preventing unnecessary price rises and in protecting the interests of the public in times of abnormal scarcities. It is completely beside the point to quote opinions expressed by those who were associated with price control during the first world war. We have learned a great deal about the technique of price control since then. So much so, that it is possible to assert that it is 100 per cent. more effective now than it was in that period.

The war has not proved that.

It has proved it.

It has not.

Every Deputy who takes the trouble of examining what happened during and after the first world war knows that the rise in prices on this occasion has been much less than it was then, although the circumstances were such as to suggest that it should have been greater. I am very anxious to disillusion anybody who believes that, by a system of price control, increases in prices can be avoided when the costs of production or distribution are raised by reason of higher wages, higher cost of materials, or other factors of that kind. Others have tried to create that illusion; I tried to kill it. But it is going much too far to assert that no system of control can achieve any benefit at all.

Deputy Cafferky and other Deputies said that the Government were driven to the introduction of this Bill by public opinion, by public agitation, concerning the rise in prices. So far is that from being true, that I asserted when introducing the Bill, and I repeat now, that this Bill does not confer on the Government any powers for dealing with the present price situation that the Government have not got already. We had under the Emergency Powers Act and have under the Supplies and Services Act ample powers to handle price problems, to minimise price increases, so far as it can be done by Government regulation. The sole purpose of the Bill in relation to the provision of powers to the Government is to transfer from temporary legislation, which was due to expire, into a permanent Bill the statutory basis for these powers. It is obvious, however, from the speeches of Deputies opposite, including the speech of Deputy McGilligan, that their view is that, whether the Government have ample powers or not, whether the power of price control can be made effective or not, the Government will still be held responsible for everything that happens to which anybody can take exception, whether that exception is based on genuine regard for the public interest or mere jealousy.

The whole attitude of the Party opposite during the course of the debate has been: "Give the Government the minimum of power, and, at the same time, the maximum of responsibility." Only a fool would take responsibility without power and, if Deputies opposite want to keep the Government responsible for restricting rises in prices, they must be prepared to give the Government the powers also and not to justify the withholding of the necessary powers by vague talk about Government interference with private business.

Deputy Cosgrave asked why associate in one Bill proposals relating to control of prices and the supervision of industrial efficiency. It is precisely because there is an association between prices and efficiency that the two functions are given to the one commission and the statutory basis of their activities included in one Bill. The old Prices Commission, which was established by the Control of Prices Act, 1937, was, in fact, misnamed. It was not concerned with prices at all, except in so far as prices were affected by profits. It should have been called the profits commission. Our experience of the operation of that Act showed that you cannot prevent an unnecessary rise in prices or handle an unsatisfactory price situation merely by controlling profits. If there is to be effective price control in the case of protected industries or in times of scarcity, then the controlling authority must have power to do something more than investigate profits. It must also have power to investigate costs of production and distribution, the efficiency of operations and whether it is possible by renovation or improvement of machinery or other reorganisation to bring down costs and, with the reduction of costs, to bring down the prices also.

Deputy Hughes described Part V of the Bill as outrageous. Frankly, I am completely astonished by the attitude taken by Deputies in relation to that Part of the Bill. It relates to protected industries. There are not so many protected industries at present. It is at least problematical whether we will ever again require the assistance of tariffs and other import restrictions on the scale in which they were in operation before the war. Part V relates to protected industries only, and it is precisely in relation to these industries that Deputies opposite have been continuously asserting that there has been a lack of efficiency, a lack of regard for public interest, and an undue exploitation of the situation created by tariffs. If, to-day, an industry is enjoying the protection imposed by an Act of this Parliament, we have responsibilities in relation to it which we have not got in the case of industries not enjoying that protection.

Deputy Hughes and Deputy Coburn asked what standards of efficiency are we going to apply. That has no difficulty for me. If there is an industry in this country producing and selling goods of the same quality and at the same price that similar goods are produced by other firms in comparable conditions in other countries, I am satisfied. I would not bother investigating the efficiency of that industry; it is efficient enough for me. It may be possible by the utilisation of new processes or by some system of specialisation to make it more efficient; but an industry which is working to that standard should, in my view, be immune from any special interference by Government or investigation of the kind contemplated by the Bill.

If, however, there is an industry not working to that standard of efficiency, if it is for some reason, which may be good or bad, producing goods which are less satisfactory in quality or higher in price than the goods produced in similar conditions in other countries, have we not got the duty to find out why that should be so, if we are keeping that industry in existence by means of a protective tariff? Of course, we have. It is not intended that the powers of investigation for which this Bill provides should be utilised until every other method of getting an improvement in the efficiency of an industry has been adopted. The plan of operation which I outlined in introducing the Bill and for which the Bill provides is the bringing of persons engaged in industry together for discussion, helping them by means of the provision of expert advice and generally, by exhortation and organisation, getting them to improve the position themselves. A formal investigation into the efficiency of any industry will not be undertaken until all efforts to get an improvement in an undesirable position by means of consultation and exhortation and the provision of expert advice have failed. Even then, even if the commission recommends and the Minister agrees to the holding of a formal investigation, that formal investigation may be postponed, and the Bill provides for such postponement, if, in the course of the inquiry, it emerges that the proprietors of the industry or the firms in the industry have plans for the installation of new equipment or the necessary reorganisation.

At no stage is it intended that the powers conferred by the Bill will be used in an arbitrary manner. If the inquiry is completed and a report is presented to the Minister and that report reveals that in stated respects an industry is inefficient and that that inefficiency could be remedied by certain changes, the Minister can, by consultation with the persons concerned, endeavour to get the desired result, and, if consultations fail to get the desired result, can issue directions. It is only if all that process has been completed to the issuing of formal directions and there is still continued and persistent refusal to comply with the directions that the penal provisions of Part V can be brought into force.

Deputy McGilligan says that there is no provision for publicity. I think there should be no publicity up to that stage, but the Bill provides that if the persons concerned with the industry refuse to carry out the changes which the commission believes to be possible, the changes which are indicated in the commission's report, that report will be published to the Dáil and until it has been published to the Dáil, the Government has no power to proceed further in the exercise of the sanctions for which the Part of the Bill provides.

Everybody has spoken about the importance of competition in the regulation of prices and the promotion of efficiency. Nobody will dispute that. Deputy Hughes said that lower tariffs will give as good a result as can be secured under Part V. That is true, as a general rule. It is true in most circumstances, but it is not true in all circumstances. Deputy Hughes spoke of low tariffs promoting healthy competition. They can also promote unhealthy competition. Deputies are inclined to forget now the circumstances under which our tariff system was built up. They were not circumstances of fair competition. They were circumstances in which every country in the world was trying to cope with a trade depression by subsidising exports and shipping freights, by competitive currency depreciation, by every method of unfair trading which enabled it to ship its goods abroad and under-sell the products of the countries to which they were being exported. Deputies know that, in the years before the war, Japanese products, for example, came in here at fantastically low prices, at prices which were obviously lower than the mere cost of shipping them to this country and prices which represented a nil return to the producers of these products in Japan. We had to protect our industries against that type of unfair competition and we did so by means of quantitative restriction of imports and high tariffs. It is wrong to assume that the absence of tariffs or a low tariff system means healthy competition. It could mean competition so unhealthy as to destroy our prospects of developing efficient industry here.

The pre-war circumstances do not now exist. They may never exist again in our lifetime. At the present time, there are very few industries in the country which could not export on the basis of their present production costs and sell their products abroad in competition with the products of any other country. There is now no country in the world trying to sell goods to us by the process of cutting prices or subsidising freights. Perhaps these circumstances will at some stage reappear, but all the efforts of the nations who are endeavouring to frame an international trade charter are directed towards preventing the reappearance of these conditions, while, at the same time, ensuring general international trading rules which will facilitate the free movement and sale of goods sold under fair conditions.

We have had many references in this debate to the chairman of the commission to whom the Bill proposes to give functions in relation to industrial efficiency. It is easy to make play with the phraseology of the Bill which gives functions to the chairman. If the chairman had to discharge all these functions personally, he would have to be a superman, as has been suggested. If Deputies will take the trouble of going through all the Acts of Parliament which define the functions to be discharged, or the powers to be exercised, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, they will think he is a superman altogether, but of course the Minister does not do all these things himself. He could not. He delegates his functions, responsibilities and powers to others to act on his behalf and that is precisely what the chairman of this commission will do. He will not be an expert in every industry, but he will be able to summon to his assistance persons who are expert in the particular industry with which he is dealing at the time. It is intended that he would normally discharge his functions under that Part of the Bill by delegating them and the necessary powers to other members of the commission, to officers of the commission or to persons who are temporarily engaged by the commission because of their special expert knowledge or experience.

Is it intended that the officers will be civil servants?

Not necessarily. There is nothing in the Bill which requires that the members of the commission or its officers should be recruited from the Civil Service. Every Deputy knows, however, that we in this country have a particular difficulty in getting people of the experience and capacity required for work of this kind from the ranks of industry. We have not got the type of industrial organisation, represented by very large combinations, such as exists elsewhere, and therefore it is not easy to attract out of our industrial or business life into positions of this kind people of outstanding ability or experience. We are, in practice, very largely confined to the recruitment of staffs for these duties from people in certain professions, from the Civil Service or from people who have got their experience in certain types of administrative organisations.

Deputies have spoken about the desirability of having a first-class commission. I appreciate that fully and for my part I shall very gladly welcome suggestions for appointments to it. It is I think true to say, as Deputy O'Sullivan stated, that if the commission proceeded to do itself all the things that the Bill contemplates, all the things that have to be done if the desired result is to be achieved, it would be overwhelmed with work. It is not intended that the commission will do all these things. Deputy Cosgrave suggested that there should be no Prices Order until the commission had made a recommendation. That would be an unworkable system in present circumstances. The commission investigates before making a recommendation and, with the many price changes now taking place, a leisurely process of investigation by the commission and the making of a recommendation to the Minister before making an Order would be unworkable. Therefore, the Bill provides that in conditions such as at present obtain, while there are scarcities, while there are interruptions in the normal methods of distribution, the Minister may make on his own initiative, without reference to the commission, such Orders as he thinks necessary to deal with the position. In practice, the Minister is making Price Orders or variations of Price Orders every day of the week. That is likely to be the position so long as we have these abnormal circumstances and the many price fluctuations which they produce.

Many Deputies during the course of the discussion referred to matters affecting the operation of price control during the emergency. Deputy Ó Briain made one very important point. He said that any system of price control is effective only to the extent that the public support it.

Except competition.

There is as everybody knows considerable difficulty in enforcing Price Orders, if there is not wholehearted co-operation by the public in making available to the enforcement officers information as to where price offences are being committed and a willingness on their part to go into court and to give evidence. It is true that we have often difficulty in securing a conviction in cases where we know that offences have occurred, by reason of inability to secure legal evidence. In some of these cases, where the Department was aware of the existence of abuses, the trading licences were withdrawn. Deputy Cosgrave objects to that system. I think that it would have been impossible during the whole course of the emergency to have maintained public respect for the rationing system or to have ensured enforcement of the various rationing and price regulations, if that fear of the withdrawal of trading licences were not fully realised. It was the fear of losing trading licences which operated in the minds of traders and not the fear of the penalties which might be inflicted by the District Court.

I have said before, and I repeat, that if there is another war, whoever during that war has the same responsibility as I had during the past war, for rationing and price regulation, would be well advised to establish some judicial system for dealing with rationing and price control offences, other than the District Court. Last week there was a man before the District Court who had built a bungalow in County Meath. He got the timber for that bungalow without a permit. He got the cement for the bungalow without a permit and he built the bungalow without a licence. He was charged in the District Court and fined 4/-.

That is the Minister's version.

There was another man in County Kerry who built a cinema without a licence. He got the timber and the cement for that cinema without a permit. After he had the cinema built, he was charged in the District Court and fined £5. Having decided that that was a reasonable charge, he built another cinema, again without a licence and again without having any permit for cement or for timber. Again he was charged before the District Court and again he was fined £5. How can any Minister secure the enforcement of necessary regulations if that is the co-operation he gets from the court?

Why not go after the man who supplied him with the timber?

Certainly I shall go after the man who supplied the timber without a permit and I will see that he or any other person who supplies material of that kind without a permit will be put out of business. That is the only way of enforcing these regulations.

Why did you not take action before the cinema was built?

I did not know the cinema was built until it was reported by the local Guards.

Have not the plans to be passed by the local authority?

They have not to be passed by me.

Have they not to be passed by the local authority?

The Deputy has put his finger on the essence of the problem, that in relation to this matter there is insufficient public co-operation. There is not that general respect for the efforts that are being made to keep the situation under control, to protect the public interest in these difficult times that there should be. Unless we get that change in the public attitude, unless we get that certainty of co-operation and the understanding that every man who breaks one of these regulations is doing something detrimental to the interests of the public and not merely scoring a point against the Government, then all the Orders we make or laws we pass are just waste of time.

Deputy Bennett referred to the question of bacon. I do not want to discuss any particular commodity, but bacon does help to illustrate some of the problems associated with price control. I have no doubt whatever that if we were to abolish price control for bacon, we would get a great deal more bacon. Everybody knows that is so. Everybody knows that we have held down the price at which a bacon curer can sell bacon to a point at which the bacon curer cannot sell the bacon except at a loss, if he is to pay for pigs the price which other people are paying for them. Deputy Hughes said that the solution was to abolish the sale of pork and to confine the whole supply of pigs to bacon curers, in other words, to cut off supplies to the pork trade. I wonder if we could get agreement on that? I doubt if we would. What is more, if we were to examine all the consequences, we might find that a black market in pork would be a far more lucrative business for the people who rear pigs than the existing black market in bacon.

It might be that the bacon problem would be solved by abolishing price control but there is another danger there. Deputies should understand the ramifications which these questions can have, the danger that if the price of pigs were to go up very considerably by reason of the removal of price control on bacon, there would be such a wide divergence between the price of pigs and the price of wheat, that the wheat we require for human food under present conditions would be fed in greater quantities to pigs. Some is being fed at the moment. It is of course illegal but it is not easy to enforce the law. We do not want to give a greater price inducement to the feeding of wheat to pigs than at present exists. If we remove, as has been suggested, price control over bacon, we might get more bacon but we could easily get it at the expense of much less wheat.

Deputy Hughes said that the retailers in bacon are getting too high a margin. That is a matter on which I had the same view as he has. I announced on one occasion that I was going to cut their margin and the retailers' association said that if I did they would stop selling bacon because they were not prepared to continue selling bacon at a loss. But they said more than that. They said they were, in fact, selling some commodities at a loss; that the margin allowed them on present prices was so small in relation to their increased costs that they were, in fact, maintaining sales at a loss, and, while their over-all position might not be so unsatisfactory, they were not prepared to have further lines so interfered with that there would be no return for them should they continue to sell these goods.

Deputy Dillon said, quite rightly, that the margins that many traders and grocers got in circumstances of full competition are lower than the margins fixed under price regulation Orders. That is so, but can any Deputy suggest an alternative? In times of plenty the grocers sold sugar at cost price in order to attract customers into their shops so that they could sell tea to them. But that is not the circumstance now. A grocer does not have to attract a customer into his shop in order to sell tea. Whatever quantity of tea he has he is selling it to his registered customers. He would love to sell more to them, but he cannot. He is not prepared to continue selling sugar at cost in order to get increased sales of tea, because that practice is of no value to him now. Therefore, when we come to fix the price of sugar we have to allow to the trader a margin on sugar. If we do not do so, some traders will not be interested in selling sugar at all and, if they are not, then the system of distributing sugar on the ration may well break down here and there through the country.

That is all "cod". I have not met such traders yet.

The Deputy's standard of intelligence is represented by his interjection.

My intelligence is as high as yours.

The Deputy need not advertise it any further.

The Minister is talking through his hat.

The provision for the establishment of development councils for industries received a somewhat mixed reception, but I think, on the whole, Deputies favour the establishment of these councils. I do not want to exaggerate the importance they may have in the future of our industrial organisation. I think they will be important, but it would be undesirable to saddle them with too many duties in the beginning. If they prove satisfactory in particular cases we can, if necessary, add to their duties, but it is desirable that at the beginning they should be limited in the scope of their activities to matters reasonably within their compass.

That is Part VI the Minister is dealing with?

Yes. Deputy Martin O'Sullivan suggested we should establish similar councils for industries other than protected industries. I am not so sure that that is desirable. Anyhow, we can discuss that point more fully on the Committee Stage. If Deputy O'Sullivan will indicate the industries he has in mind which would not be classified as protected industries in the period before the war it will help me to understand his point.

I do not think we can do what he has in mind, and that is establish these development councils for industries in which there is only one firm engaged. The main purpose of these councils is to bring together the representatives of firms engaged in the same industry with the workers employed by them to consider problems affecting the organisation of the industry, the possibilities of rationalisation, in the sense of having individual firms specialise in particular lines and, generally, to get more efficiency and more economic production by considering the industry as a whole and not merely as a series of separate units.

I do not think it is necessary to exclude from the functions of the development councils matters affecting wages. They would be excluded in any event. The British Act does not specifically exclude wages, but it prevents the Minister—in that case the President of the Board of Trade—requiring any corresponding council there to report to him on matters concerning wages.

The reference to research and standardisation in that part of the Bill may be a bit confusing. The research could be into such matters as distribution methods, and standardisation could cover what I have in mind in the term specialisation, as well as the things which are the concern of the Institute of Research and Standards.

Would not that tend to set up a series of monopolies in a certain trade?

The provisions of the Bill relating to trade associations are ample as they stand. I do not want to take the attitude that every trade association, even if it has for its purpose the maintenance of a minimum price or confining trade to a limited class of persons, is anti-social and should be abolished. There may be circumstances in which failure to maintain a minimum price might result in a serious deterioration of working conditions, and where the confining of trade to particular persons might be advantageous if it is for the purpose of ensuring that these persons have a particular standard of skill which would mean that the public will get better service. The intention of the section is to enable the commission to consider each case on its merits and approve of associations which have in their rules provisions relating to minimum prices or the confining of trade activities to particular persons only if it is beyond doubt that it is in the public interest.

As a general rule I think associations for such purposes are undesirable and should be prevented from operating as the section proposes. In the case of a single firm being the sole producer of a commodity, if it tries to maintain a minimum price which is unduly high the commission can deal with it under its general powers and, if necessary, a Prices Order can be made by the Minister which would be adequate to remedy the situation.

There were a number of more general matters raised to which I do not want to refer now. I think, however, that Deputy Norton in his statement concerning emigration, is taking a very shallow view of that problem if he attributes it entirely to the inability of workers to get employment in this country. Everybody who has studied the problem of emigration knows quite well that there are many other forces at work in relation to it, forces which are far more potent at the present time than inability to get employment. The outstanding fact that was brought home at the time when I had responsibility for the administration of the restrictions on emigration was the continuous pressure for exit permits from people who were in employment, people who did not appear to me to be bettering their personal position by going to jobs in England which they had in view, having regard to the jobs they were leaving in Ireland. Whatever social or psychological reasons are at work, it is quite clear that if we are to deal with that problem we shall have to tackle it as something larger than a mere economic one. One of the most effective methods of checking the emigration of people from rural areas is to provide in the country a variety of alternative employments which may attract them and that is the primary motive of the whole policy of industrialisation which the Government has been following.

You will have to hurry up because soon there will be no people there.

As I have told the Deputy already, we have at the present time a larger population than we had before the war. We have more people employed now than at any time since 1921.

I do not believe that.

The fact is that we have more people employed in industry now than at any time in our history and we have fewer people unemployed since reliable statistics became available. These are facts and apparently the Deputy does not like them.

Why are they going across the Channel?

Actually there are more people employed in this country now than at any time since 1921. Deputies do not like facts because they seem to disturb their theories and for that reason they like to ignore them.

I do not believe that.

If we can keep on improving at the rate we have been going, despite the obstructive efforts of some of the Deputies opposite, we will be more than satisfied. However, I said I did not want to get into these wider issues raised by some Deputies. There is the Bill. If anybody has exaggerated what it can do in the way of restricting prices, it has not been I. Others have exaggerated it, and possibly with their tongues in their cheeks. In so far as it is possible, by the operation of legal processes, to restrict the rising prices, it will in future depend on the efficacy of this measure. I invite Deputies to make this measure as effective as possible. If, when this Bill has passed the Dáil, price control should be defective because of the absence of legal power or the wrong drafting of the provisions under which that power is exercisable, it will be the fault of every Deputy in the Dáil; because this Bill, as presented to the Dáil, is one to which they are invited to make the best contribution they can towards its effectiveness, and every amendment they produce which has that end in view will be considered and, if deemed practicable, will be accepted.

Has the Minister considered the possibility of separating Part V?

I have fully considered it. I consider Part V to be an integral part of the Bill, an essential portion of it. I dealt with that matter in my concluding speech, before the Deputy-arrived in the House.

I was engaged on public business elsewhere.

Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 22; Níl, 63.

  • Bennett, George C.
  • Cafferky, Dominick.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Hughes, James.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • O'Driscoll, Patrick F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Roddy, Martin.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Healy, John B.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Larkin, James (Junior).
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McCann, John.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary
  • Daly, Francis J.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • McGrath, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Norton, William.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheldon, William A. W.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Spring, Daniel.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Walsh, Richard.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Dillon and Doyle; Níl, Deputies Kennedy and O Briain.
Amendment declared defeated.
Question—"That the Bill be now read a second time"—put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 67; Níl, 16.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Cafferky, Dominick.
  • Carter, Thomas.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Daly, Francis J.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Healy, John B.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Larkin, James (Junior).
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McCann, John.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • McGrath, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Norton, William.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheldon, William A. W.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Spring, Daniel.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Walsh, Richard.

Níl

  • Bennett, George C.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Hughes, James.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Roddy, Martin.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Kennedy and Ó Briain: Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
Committee Stage fixed for Wednesday, November 5.
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