But the gentleman who owns a particular type of factory in this country, whose factory only exists because the ordinary consumer here is prepared to pay twopence, 6d., 1/-, or 5/- more than the price at which he can buy that produce from outside sources, whose factory is dependent for its existence on the goodwill and the readiness to sacrifice of the ordinary consumer, can go to a Government Department in privacy and confidence with an assurance that nobody will know anything about his secrets, his business methods or his book-keeping, except a very small limited number of officials who are pledged to secrecy. He can make his case there for an increase in price and, if within the principles and methods laid down, he can carry conviction, he can get the authority to make the increase. The unfortunates who are about to pay that increase and who have been maintaining that gentleman in a life of ease and affluence have just got to sit back and believe what somebody tells them as to why this gentleman, who has already got far more money put away than they will ever earn, will get a little more out of their meagre means.
I am surprised that our people put up with this imposition for the past ten years. I often wonder how it is that even to-day they remain so patently quiet and patient. I am glad that at last there has been a realisation that if price control is to be maintained —and there seems to be no doubt about that—these ordinary consumers should have some opportunity of knowing how it operates, knowing the arguments made for an increase in price, and that they should have some access to the manner in which the machinery is operated and is being applied.
I say without fear of contradiction that, despite Deputy Lemass's reminder of our election promises, so far as policy on the question of the control of prices and the cost of living is concerned no Party here has the record the Labour Party has. Whatever may have been our differences we have tried to maintain a certain consistency in our approach to this matter. It is not to-day that the Labour Party has demanded that price control should operate in public. It is not to-day that the Labour Party has pointed out —it pointed it out to the present and to the last Government—the very quality that has been lacking in our price control machinery, on which Deputy Lemass put his finger. I refer to that lack of public confidence, that lack of conviction and of assurance in our whole system of price control.
It is not to-day the Labour Party has said it is purely a matter of equity that if an ordinary worker who seeks an improvement in his income has had to make his case before an advisory tribunal appointed by the previous Government under the Control of Wages Act, or before the Labour Court to-day, it is only just that the manufacturer, the wholesaler or the retailer who is making a living out of our system of protective tariffs and out of the willingness of Irish consumers should also be obliged to make his case for an improved income in the same open way.
Deputy Lemass reminded the Labour Party and others of some statements that were made in 1948. We should be reminded of them, and not only by Deputy Lemass, and we should be honest enough to admit where we have not been able to measure up to our promises. So far as the members of the Labour Party are concerned, we made statements in 1947 and 1948 that we believed the cost of living and prices could be reduced. We still stand over that and we still believe that if, instead of operating the Fianna Fáil price control and Fianna Fáil prices for the past two years we operated on our own principles and got some recognition of the difficulties we are now facing, then possibly the Parliamentary Secretary, instead of having to argue that the Government have maintained the cost of living on a level basis for two years, might have been able to take the credit of saying that there was a break in the price level.
It is never too late to come to the repentance stool and the fact that we are trying to face the situation to-night will be welcomed, not by the members of political Parties but by the people, the men who maintain families and the women who have to carry on family life. It is about time we gave some little thought to them and that we attempted to deal with this problem as a human problem and not as a question of figures and principles.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the general position since 1948. Speaking, not merely as a member of a Party associated with the Government but as a trade unionist, I would be ungrateful if I did not appreciate what has been done and what is being attempted. I suggest it is well not to forget this, that those of us who carry responsibility on behalf of the wageearners can still look back to the month of October, 1947, when we were told by the leader of Fianna Fáil, the then Taoiseach, that either we found ways and means by agreement with employers of limiting our wage increase or the Government would take power to do it for us. We already had experience of what happened when we did it before.
When, in the ordinary course of debate, it was asked if there was going to be control imposed either voluntarily or by law on the wages of the mass of wage earners in this country who had already put up with seven years of wage control and galloping prices, and the Government were asked if, even at the eleventh hour, they would give an undertaking that, even if it were impossible to prevent the cost of living going higher, they would give an undertaking to see that the wage earners would receive some compensation to meet a rise in the cost of living, the Taoiseach of that day said "No.". He also said there would be no commitments, and "We will not bind ourselves in any way."
We still remember that, and we are appreciative of the fact that when there was a change we were able to come in and voluntarily, without any threat of statutory action, and by the ordinary recognised and established methods between worker and employer, make our adjustment in wages. We enjoyed them at least for the major part of two years without having seen them wiped out by further increases in prices, as happened in 1947 when, under Fianna Fáil, we got increases and within nine months the cost of living went up by 24 points. We were then worse off than when we started.
It is very easy to come in and criticise and to remind us of election promises. I suppose if we asked Fianna Fáil what could be done in the present position, what is the remedy, we would be told that they should be let back. Suppose we said: "You are right; all the Parties in the Government have failed to keep their promises; they have not been able to reduce the cost of living and satisfy the people, and what is your solution?" we would be told: "Get out and let us back." That, from their point of view, is the only solution, to allow back into office the same group who held office for the seven years of the emergency, and let them develop their system of price control. They laid down the principle and they saw it operating, but I say that during those years they almost wore out the long-standing patience of the masses of the Irish people. With that experience in our minds we are obliged to listen to the dishonest kind of statement we got to-night by an ex-Minister who was blatantly criticising and attacking the very index figure that he formulated, the very figure that is being operated by the same officials who operated under him.
I feel that in his introductory speech the Parliamentary Secretary was too anxious to try to show us the bright spots. I think we must be realistic and face the situation as it is to-day. It is correct that up to the early part of this year there was a relative stability of prices and of the cost of living. Workers and salary earners had made a positive gain in the sense that they had secured adjustments in their incomes and there had been no corresponding rise in prices. But I do not think it is correct to say that the change has only taken place since August of this year because there had already been changes in prices, not only in commodities but also in services, as early as the spring of the year. Anyone who was following the general development both here and abroad realised quite well that following devaluation in October of last year, irrespective of whether the effect would be instantaneous or delayed, it would be felt eventually in this country. The only thing in which we were fortunate was that we actually had a delayed effect. Possibly we are also unfortunate at the same time in that the delayed effect of devaluation has come now alongside of the general worsening of the international situation because of the Korean conflict, the growth of armaments and the general war preparations taking place in a number of countries; and that latter effect is reacting upon the former.
Nevertheless, it was quite clear that whatever the position was the effect of devaluation would eventually be felt here. My criticism is that as early as October of last year there were men and women and organisations here that realised what would happen and sought consultation with the Government so that preparations might be made in advance to meet whatever developments would take place and to ensure that we would not make the same mistake as was made in 1939 of waiting until we were overwhelmed in the vortex of the famous spiral—the spiral of prices ever going up and wages trying to catch them. Unfortunately our suggestions for consultation were not acted upon quickly enough and it is only now in the autumn of 1950 that we are trying to deal with this problem.
I feel that the Government and the Parliamentary Secretary ought to be congratulated on the most significant change suggested in the Bill now be fore the House. I refer to the setting up of a tribunal. Deputy Lemass describes this as another anonymous committee for the purpose of buying off the Labour Party. Sometimes, listening to Deputy Lemass, I become very confused as to who is buying off whom. I do not know where I am. One time it is Fine Gael buying off the Labour Party; another time it is Labour buying off Fine Gael; another time it is the Farmers buying off Clann na Poblachta. The whole trouble is that Deputy Lemass and Fianna Fáil are not able to buy off anyone. That is what is worrying them.
Whether it is a committee or a tribunal is not the important fact at the moment. The important fact, and we want to be clear on this, is that certain powers have been sought in the Bill to establish an advisory tribunal. It will be accepted that the final decision must lie with the Minister and the Government. But we do not want to make the mistake again of having a tribunal or a committee which is not representative of the people it is serving. It cannot very well be anonymous since it must be composed of men and women who are known and who have got certain reputations. I am not now thinking of political figures or members of political organisations. If there is to be a consumers' representative, then that representative must be a consumers' representative. In my opinion, that means an ordinary housewife who goes out every week and spends her money under present-day difficulties. If there is to be a workers' or a trade union representative, that does not necessarily mean an official; it must be someone who knows the run of his own industry and a little bit about his employer. In other words, we do not want people, who, because they possibly, like myself, think they know a little about figures and economics, are more easily fooled than the man-in-the-street. It will be far better to have people on this body who lack, perhaps, economic knowledge and an understanding of industry, but who have the persistence and the determination to keep on asking: "Why? Why? Why?" and who will not stop asking "Why?" so long as they are not satisfied that they have received a satisfactory answer which will enable the ordinary man-in-the-street to understand why there has to be an increase in the price of a particular commodity.
Even if we have the right type of people on the tribunal, it still must operate in the full glare of publicity. We have reached a stage where it is no longer possible to carry the slightest conviction to any section of the community, whether they be wage earners, salary earners, employers or manufacturers, and we have passed the stage where there can any longer be any confidence in machinery unless it operates in public. The Parliamentary Secretary has suggested that certain of this body's activities must be heard in private. I am not altogether convinced that that is correct. I do not know why any manufacturer should feel that his ordinary accounts and costings are of so valuable and so secret a nature that, if they become known to another manufacturer in the same street, he will be put out of business within 24 hours. We are not dealing here with patents or special manufacturing rights. We are dealing with ordinary accountancy and the compilation of costs and there can be no great advantage to me, as a manufacturer, in knowing that my costs, my rent, or some other form of overhead represents such a percentage of my total costs and that that percentage is either above or below that of my fellowmanufacturer down the street. I cannot gain any advantage from that knowledge unless I can bring my costs down below his costs. If the publication of accounts and costs will help to make manufacturers use them as a means of coming lower and lower, it will be all the better.
I think the general activities of the tribunal should take place in public and I think it should be made clear that if any individual or organisation comes before that body seeking an increase in prices and wants their case to be heard in private, the onus will be put upon them of proving the necessity for such a private hearing and the onus will have to be exceptionally heavy and difficult to discharge. Not only that, but if for any reason there has been such a private hearing I do not think it is sufficient to permit such private proceedings to be carried on between the members of the tribunal even with the expert advisers they will have available to them from the Department. I think that associated with those private hearings there should be some expert cost consultant available for the purpose of applying his knowledge for the benefit of outside interests. That should be a body enjoying the confidence of the organisation outside but certainly available there to give assistance to the members of the tribunal, to examine and cross-examine for the benefit of the public, so that the public will know there is somebody sitting in there checking and rechecking all the information coming before the tribunal, somebody other than and in addition to the members of the tribunal and the officials of the Department. We must remember that, even when we establish a tribunal like that and even when we have representatives sitting on it of consumers and workers, and even though they work in full public view, the very fact that at times they have to grant increases in prices will start difficulties for them. Therefore, we have to protect them in every way, so as to ensure that not merely is the public represented through its members on the tribunal but in the proceedings there is complete opportunity to check and recheck all along the line, not merely by the members of the tribunal but by those who are coming forward if necessary to oppose a particular application.
There is the other factor. If the tribunal is going to operate and, we hope, at least do part of the work which will be awaiting it, what is to be the position with regard to the principles that will guide the tribunal? I think that, in regard to our present price control machinery, the fairest criticism to make is not to criticise the honesty or sincerity of the officials operating it, but to pity them and sympathise with them because they have to operate machinery on the basis of certain principles and within certain limitations, that almost automatically lead to the kind of results that we get from the price control machinery and which are objected to by so many people.
The Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out to us that there are two main lines of approach to price control. I think it would be much simpler to put it this way. A manufacturer makes a particular product and charges, say, 4/-. Then we have to take the wholesaler and on that product we have to guarantee him his couple of shillings, and then the next wholesaler or the sub-agent takes it over and we have to guarantee him something. Finally, the retailer gets it and he has to get his guarantee. All this is piled upon an article which originally cost 4/- and by the time the unfortunate consumer gets it, as Deputy Jack Lynch has pointed out, it probably costs 8/-, 10/- or 12/-. Nothing is added to the value of the article, no additional service is rendered except the simple one of distribution, but somewhere along the line a whole group of middlemen have managed to get in.
I understand that the cost of distribution in this country in recent years has represented something like 17 to 20 per cent. as an addition to the cost of manufacture. Therefore, roughly, out of every 25/- we are spending on products, we are paying something in the way of 5/- to a group of gentlemen to hand those articles to us from the manufacturers. That might have been a very excellent system in the good old days when, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, competition was operating. There is no competition to-day. There is a cast-iron circle—it is better than a gold one and it is far better to-day to be a middleman than to be a manufacturer. If the tribunal is to be able to do its job and if our efforts to control prices are to be effective, we must face the problem that this community and this economy cannot afford to pay anything up to 20 per cent. of the cost of articles merely for their distribution. Whether it be machinery and necessary articles for the farm, whether it be consumer commodities, or whether it be services, the public are entitled to get them at the lowest price consistent with a fair and reasonable return for the necessary labour required to manufacture and distribute them.
When I think of some of the simplest cases you come across, of a gentleman holding a quota for a very essential article of clothing, to be manufactured into garments for men's wear, and without even a warehouse or an office, merely a little bag by his side to carry a few samples, he can draw 17½ per cent. on every £1 worth of the stuff he sells, then I think we must be living in a madhouse. The manufacturer giving employment, paying fair wages and giving decent conditions, is solely dependent on that peculiar quota system; and if he is to continue in production and keep his people in employment, he has to go to that middleman, holding the quota with no staff, no premises or anything else except his share in the quota, and pay 17½ per cent. in order to get sufficient cloth to keep his factory working and keep his employees at work. We are told that if we interfered with that we would interfere with the whole system and fabric of industry and commerce, creating all kinds of difficulties and putting people out of work. At the moment, the complaint is that we are putting so many people out of work that they have to emigrate. I think that, for a change, we might try putting the right people out of work and putting the right people into work. The people who should be sent to work are that big mass, which must be considerable, of ladies and gentlemen who have managed to get in between the bricks and the wall and are battening on the manufacturer, battening on the worker and battening on the consumer, and are doing better than the whole three put together.
We have also to face the problem and it is a serious problem, established from the trade union point of view, that we are all not only committed to building up Irish industry because we believe in it, but even whether we believe in it or not we are still committed to it, in the sense that we have gone so far along the road that, even if we wanted, we could not reverse the wheel. Those of us who do believe in it and believe in the system of building up Irish industry by protection, whether by tariffs or by quotas, have to face the other problem and be honest about it, that very often one of the major problems in dealing with that question of prices is the problem of trying to establish a balanced relationship between prices and the maintenance of employment.
Again, this is the kind of thing which causes disquietude and lack of confidence among the mass of the people. I believe myself that any body of Irish men and women, if they knew the whole facts, if they had the whole picture presented to them, would in general have no objection to paying even slightly more for a particular product than that for which they could get the imported product, if that product was to be manufactured here and would give employment to Irish labour. If they do fail to understand that, I do not blame them in the least, when they see increase put upon increase in the price of Irish manufactured articles, being manufactured behind our tariff walls and our quota system, for reasons that they scarcely ever know about or hear about, and certainly do not understand, and when the manufacturers of those articles seem to be in an exceptionally prosperous and wealthy condition. They do not always understand that that increase is very often the price of keeping men and women in employment. I think they should be made aware of it and that, just as we have a tribunal here which it is proposed will deal with the question of prices generally, either before that tribunal or in some other way, when the question comes up, particularly of increases in prices of products made behind the protection of a tariff or a quota, it should be possible to bring the whole of that case before the public. The public should be made aware if on the one hand in order to maintain employment in that industry a case is made for an increase in the price of the product manufactured, and if on the other hand the increase is not to be granted for various good and suitable reasons they should be told that that may result in unemployment, so that the public may know whether the balance should come down on one side or the other. Gradually we may be able to build up a public opinion which will take a stand on the basis that we are prepared to pay a higher price for Irish manufactured goods in order to keep Irish workers in employment. If that is too heavy a burden the public would then have to face the alternative of having no Irish industries and if there is no employment for our own people the workers who also form the consuming public will know what the problem is and why that solution is being applied. It is unfair, however, and it is asking too much of our people, especially after their experiences of the past ten or 15 years to ask them to maintain indefinitely their faith in the need to build up Irish industry in the face—to put it in a very mild way—of the abuses we have seen and experienced during past years.
Finally, as far as this tribunal is concerned there is one important question to which no one has adverted, except Deputy Collins in an indirect way. If we pass the Bill as it is now before the House, with power to appoint the tribunal and if, as the Parliamentary Secretary indicated, this tribunal is established as quickly as possible, are we going to be satisfied just with doing that? Are we to sit back and wait for the tribunal to start operating fast, rapidly and effectively, I hope, but nevertheless having to take each application, each case as ordered and having to spend some hours or even days on each case while leaving these gentlemen completely free to add another little bit to prices day after day? The Parliamentary Secretary was largely following the examination of about mid-August. I suggested there were increases before that. I was trying to jot down very roughly some increases which I could call to mind and I have 27 items. They are various commodities, food and clothing, all of which have increased in price and most of them within the last two or three months. I do not think it would be unfair to say that in three months from the date on which the tribunal is established it would not have reviewed all these prices, but I could well say that within three months there would be such an increase in prices that it would take ten tribunals to catch up on them.
I therefore suggest that not merely is it a good thing to establish the tribunal but that as an essential and necessary addition if the tribunal is to operate effectively the Government should consider imposing full control, stand still and freezing of all prices and that any subsequent increase in prices should be through the medium of application to the tribunal which must make a recommendation to the Minister. This was suggested ten years ago and was rejected. I think it would be lamentable if it were again rejected, because experience has proven that when you are dealing with this kind of problem you either grasp the nettle very quickly and firmly and put up with some difficulties and problems which arise because of that, or you fail to grasp it and find that the nettle becomes so big that you are destroyed by it. That is the situation you are facing to-night.
It is quite correct to say that in the light of the general situation outside the country we can look forward, however unpleasant it may be, to a continual rise in the prices of our basic raw materials and imports. Even if the Korean conflict comes to an end to-morrow, as far as American economy is concerned there will be no change. So long as that American economy is operated on its present basis prices will continue to rise, and small countries like this one which depend on imports for many of their basic raw materials will be squeezed tighter and tighter, not merely with regard to supplies but with regard to prices, and there will be an increasing problem to meet them.
We are facing that problem and that is the kind of situation which gives a happy hunting ground to all the people who delight in raising prices without justification, without explanation, and with complete indifference to their effect on the mass of consumers or on the economy as a whole. It will be completely inadequate, completely ineffective, and a complete negation of what we are trying to do here if the Government along with passing this Bill does not take power immediately to freeze all prices in order to make it possible for the tribunal to carry on with its work. If that were done I would say that more even than the establishment of the tribunal, more even than the tribunal being representative of the consuming public, more even than a complete revision of the principle of price control, it would inspire the mass of the people with a belief and confidence that something was going to be done to ease their present difficult condition, and the increasingly difficult problems they have to face. I do not mean to say that the present time in the industrial world is not one of very great effort—I am not proposing to make a trade union speech—but I am pointing out that after all the efforts which have been made to try to deal with the situation, wage conditions and prices are not coordinated. Having failed to do that we have a flood-tide of wage claims flowing into the employers.
It has been said a little earlier that the trade unions would prefer to see prices kept down than the problem solved by their having to look for more wages. I can assure not merely the House but the people outside that nine out of ten workers would prefer that solution, but they are getting no choice in the matter. If we had a freezing of prices it would not merely have a steady influence on industrial workers in general and help to bring about some understanding of this problem, but I think it would also restore that confidence which is so much lacking at the moment particularly amongst the industrial workers. I think it is not possible to find any other solution than that except increased wages and salaries. A public tribunal operating in public is one proof of our conviction that public confidence is the most important thing in price control. Secondly, in order to ensure that public confidence I think we must show that we are earnest and sincere in this matter by telling the public that until that machinery is operating they will be protected against further increases by a standstill.
We will be told that putting a standstill on prices creates many problems, particularly in regard to imports, that there may be a shortage of a particular commodity and we cannot expect an importer to take a gamble on buying that commodity, if he is buying on a rising market, and is going to find himself faced with a standstill on prices. It is always interesting to find how many technical arguments there are for not doing things, but, when we look at the reverse of the medal, the position is quite different. In the past few months, we had the amazing spectacle in this country of the price of the pound of wool in Australia going up to 18/- and 20/-, and the blanket 12,000 miles away, which never saw an Australian sheep, going up by £2 or £3 the same day. Wireless telephony has nothing on it. It is almost like a button being pressed in Medbourne, and, as a blanket is being bought in Dublin, the pounds, shillings and pence being ticked up here. That has been going on steadily week after week, and everybody knows that, in the first place, many woollen articles, the price of which has been increased, never had any Australian wool in them, and, in the second place, that even the wool that has increased in price will not be available in this country for manufacturing purposes for another two years. The price, however, has gone up.
Why is it that we must not have a standstill on prices in order to safeguard the importer, but, when nothing is imported, when the stuff is already in the country, lying under the counters, the prices can go up and there is no protection for the consumer? I think, and the ordinary man in the street will agree, I am sure, that all these people who have been making and selling things to us in the past ten years have had a good enough time to be able to take a rap now in their turn, and if, in order to deal with prices, we have to have a standstill and a freezing of present prices and if that is going to pinch somewhere, let it pinch those best able to bear it. Even if it does create problems in regard to employment and the continuation of employment of small sections of workers, I have no doubt that a way can be found of giving support and sustenance to these workers and these workers whose employment may be affected by such a standstill will be the first to say that it was the proper thing to do and that they stand over it.
I finish on that plea to the Parliamentary Secretary, that he will take back to the Government the suggestion which has been made, not merely from one side, but which now has general support, that we take our courage in our hands and say that, as from a certain date, all prices are frozen and the machinery to deal with any further price increases is the machinery established by this House. I think that is the proper way. This Dáil represents the people of the country—not the Government—and if there is from the members of the House an indication, speaking on behalf of the people, that such a course is called for and justified, the Government should say that they have no alternative but to follow that course. If difficulties are created, let us who are members of Dáil Éireann, and who speak for the people, accept the responsibility, as I have no doubt all of us are prepared to do, if necessary.
