I have the greatest faith in the Minister and my assessment of him is based not so much on promise as on performance. In my view, judged on the test of achievement, he stands alone. The problem of greater industrialisation requires serious consideration. This whole question of prices is one of the Minister's problems. There has been a considerable rise in prices generally— naturally, in the price of food, because of the removal of the subsidies, but also in the retail price of textiles. The present situation seems, to a casual observer—and I have no intimate knowledge of it—to be rather serious, in so far as there has been a recession in buying, a buyers' strike. That is the apparent immediate result of a slight panic on the part of traders generally, who have marked down their prices fairly considerably. The fact that a person has marked down a shirt from 37/- to £1 and apparently is still making a profit and still satisfies the Prices Section of the Department has caused a considerable degree of suspicion to enter the minds of the people as to the efficacy of the Prices Section.
The other result of this buyers' strike must naturally be a trading slump and the laying off of workers in shops and industries. That again, as everyone knows, will cause an extension of the buyers' strike and so on ad infinitum, with the inevitable end in a complete trade slump. I wonder if the Minister agrees that that is the situation and if so whether he has any other solution than the suggestion he made to the people to buy now because prices will not fall any more. I am afraid that, so far, that advice has not been taken, whether it is because people do not believe that the prices will not fall any more or because they simply have not got the money to buy.
I would like to draw the Minister's attention to this aspect of prices. One of the troubles of being in Government and being surrounded by either friends or enemies is that you find it very difficult to know what is the truth. If I might class myself as an independent observer of these things, I would assure the Minister that in relation to prices generally neither the Prices Section nor the Prices Tribunal have the faith of the people throughout the country at the moment. I would like to say this, for fear I might be considered as attempting to be derogatory to the civil servants of his Department—I am one of the few people who are very great admirers of the Civil Service generally and certain civil servants in particular—I do not think it is any lack of anxious intention on the part of the civil servants to try to find out the truth in these matters that has brought about the position but rather that the Prices Section appear to "have had their eye wiped" over the years by the industrialists. One of the occasions when I experienced worry as a Minister was when I was praised in public at great length by R.G.D.A.T.A. and on another occasion—that is a long time ago—by the Medical Association. One of the first things I did on going back to the Department was to inquire what we had done that was wrong since it was quite obvious to me that neither of these bodies was particularly interested in praising me for what I had done for the public but they were expediting some little game they had on for themselves.
I have read a number of these industrial journals—they are sent to all Deputies—and also I have spoken to many industrialists about prices. I know that when any complaints are made or letters are written to the Press, the answer is always the same:—"These prices have been submitted to the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce and you may take it that they are legitimate." Rightly or wrongly, I feel that I cannot agree that the prices at present being charged are above board. I know it is not really fair to make such allegations without being able to substantiate them, but the Minister can take it from me for what it is worth that if the public could find expression here in the Dáil they would join with me in saying that they do not trust the methods used by the Prices Section for catching out these people who put their case before them. One of the things which people say outside is that it is remarkable how prices, agreed upon by the Prices Section and marked or labelled, particularly on textile goods, have now been slashed, sometimes even halved or more, during the present trading slump. There was the recent example where the motor car people went to the Prices Section and were authorised to fix a particular price; then there was a slump in car sales for one reason or another and they proceeded to reduce prices, using the slump as an excuse and everyone was satisfied. The most important thing from the car buyers' point of view was that they secured a reduction in price.
If the Prices Section is to be competent to handle these problems, they must have access, first of all, to the most private business documents of these people. In addition, they must be competent to anticipate the many stratagems built up over the centuries by industrialists generally, not alone in this country but in every country where you have free business enterprise. In the old days of gangster wars in America, one of the cleverest and most important assets to any group of gangsters was the shyster lawyer. He was a man who could go along at any time and by using apparently legal methods he could get his gangster out of any difficulty or trouble. He could plead his case before the court and so bemuse and befog the judge that he got his man off.
Again, completely legally and within the definition and so on, I believe that the villain of the piece in industry—if I may call him that—is the chartered accountant. I believe that to really make your way in industry and to make it pay, which is more important still, a chartered accountant is very much more important than raw materials, labour, factory or anything else. He is the backbone of the business and he can so wriggle accounts within the law that it is impossible for people like me and civil servants to really find out what is the fallacy in the apparently fair-minded, honest reasoning of the case put forward before the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce.
I do not intend this to be any reflection whatsoever on the profession of chartered accountants. Everything they do is done completely legally and apparently above board, but due to the manipulation of the laws they are apparently able to make a fair case and so get away with the present prices.
The Prices Tribunal is likewise composed of men and women of the highest integrity. They are obviously doing everything in their power to exercise their functions as efficiently and as competently as they can. Unfortunately, rightly or wrongly, the public has no confidence in the Prices Tribunal any more than they have in the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce. If the Minister is not merely retaining both of these bodies as a face saver to which he and industrialists can refer when they want to get out of a tricky situation, I would urge him to review the whole position in relation to these bodies and give them whatever powers and personnel they require in order that they may compete with business men in attempting to protect the people from the unfair and dishonest prices which are being charged throughout the country.
As I say, that may appear to be a plethora of wide charges against our industrialists and the Prices Section, but it is not intended as such. It is intended as a simple reflection of the comments by the ordinary man in the street. I think it would help the Minister very much indeed if he can prove beyond yea or nay that there is no justification for these charges in this way.
With regard to the question of industry generally, I do not accept the view that all our industrialists are out merely to screw what they can out of the people. I think many of our industrialists were men of great courage and men of considerable ability who started their industries when there was little real hope on their part that they would ever get anything out of them. Unfortunately, as is the case in every other aspect and walk of life, the "chancers" in industries have tended to give industrialists generally a bad name in the country. I do not think they worry very much about that, but, at the same time, I would suggest to the Minister that, as we are entering into a quite different phase in industry, the Minister could examine the whole situation.
In the first part of the industrialisation of the country the Minister's target was a fairly small country, requiring a fairly small output and offering the industrialists, the honest and dishonest ones, a limited market, and, what was very much more important, a protected market. What happened, as is the normal sequence in regard to uncontrolled private enterprise anywhere, was that a lot of the small men were driven out by the bigger ones and the bigger ones basked in the sunshine of protective tariffs and a safe market. By merely turning out the goods, no matter how old or obsolete or inefficient their methods or machines are, they are guaranteed a gilt-edged security for their investments.
In the beginning, the man had to be a man of courage, ability and considerable competency. Unless we move on to the next phase, the expansion of our industry to take in world markets, then Irish industry in my view is merely a very pleasant and charming but extremely expensive business. Leaving wars aside, we should be prepared to move out and compete. Nobody can deny that our tradesmen and our craftsmen and many of our managers can deal with any opposition. But if our industrialists are content merely to refuse to take on the challenge of outside competition, then they are being most unfair to the rest of the community and I do not think we can afford it as a community.
Consequently, I believe the time has come for the Minister to carry out what I think was one of his own ambitions discontinued in 1948 or thereabouts, that is, legislation in relation to industrial standards, the question of examining our industries and assessing their potential, their efficiency and their competency, and, either by dropping tariffs or removing quotas, the elimination of the incompetent businessman and the incompetent industrialist, leaving behind only the good, hard-working man who is prepared to use the best methods. If the Minister intends to go on with this private enterprise type of business which he appears to favour, that is his own responsibility. I believe that those who are left, after you have ruthlessly eliminated the incompetent and inefficient incubus on the community are entitled to think that it is the duty of the Government to facilitate to the maximum the businessman who remains and the industrialist who survives that pogrom or whatever you like to call it.
I believe that the industrialists who have made a real effort to improve their methods should be given every possible encouragement. They should be facilitated in capitalizing their industry and in the replacement of obsolete equipment; and they should get protection in the earlier years in which they go out to meet competition from the protected markets abroad.
I do not think that there is any facility which should be denied to that man if we are really intent on meeting the challenge of world markets. It is quite useless and it is unfair to ask the good and competent industrialist who is anxious to compete in world markets, and thereby bring money and prosperity to Ireland, to take the limited resources at his disposal and to meet the terrific competition of Government-subsidised and protected companies in other countries. That is the most important problem facing the Minister in the coming months and, I hope, years.
The position is that we can no longer be content with the small industries producing for our own needs. That phase is finished. From what I understand, mechanisation has wrought such changes that, in the average industry, it is possible, by introducing certain types of machinery, to supply the home market in a couple of weeks, a month at the most, and one is left then with the alternative of exporting or closing down. I do not think we should be afraid to enter into the really big-money industry. If we do not enter into it, we are only playing with the balance of trade problem with which we are faced.
There is one other aspect of industrialisation which could be considered. It is a truism that one of our greatest problems is raw materials. For instance, in the pottery industry, if we have to import the clay from Staffordshire, and the coal, our industrialists are at a very unfair disadvantage in competing against the British, Belgian, French or German producer.
Broadly speaking, the only advantage we appear to have is the relatively low wages paid to our workers. Due to different circumstances, different standards of living, social services, and so on, generally, the wages paid to our skilled craftsmen and workers are lower than in other countries. Consequently, there is an advantage. Just as the British have cheap coal, we have, not exactly cheap labour, but labour which is relatively cheaper than in other countries. That is an advantage when considering the final price of the particular article produced.
I do not know to what extent the Minister has the power of direction as to the type of industry that would be established. I do not suppose he has any degree of power in that matter. It would appear to me that such industries as would produce nylon, synthetic materials, plastics, and all the industries deriving from the advances that have been made in chemistry generally, would be more appropriate to Ireland than those which we appear to be attempting to develop which are based on the importation of heavy raw materials from other countries, particularly the North of England.
What I have tried to put to the Minister is that we should not adopt the orthodox policy of industrialisation if we intend to industrialise our country. To a large extent, many British factories, because of geographical nearness, have decided to establish subsidiaries of their companies in Ireland. The only purpose of that is to dodge tariffs and to get the benefits of quotas, and to see that they get our market. These companies, of course, are no use to us as a people. They are no use to us in our attempt to increase the wealth of the country. They are merely coming here for their own private gain, and will add nothing of any great value to the country, as a whole, and they certainly will not solve the Minister's problems. So, it would appear that, if the Minister leaves the problem, as he has left it up to the present, in the hands of the private speculator, he is largely tied by whatever whim or fancy may take them as to the particular line of production that they will engage in and as to the site at which they will produce.
I wonder would the Minister reconsider the whole line of his policy over the years or the line of our policy as a country over the years? Some of our most competent and efficient industries flowed from the establishment of State-sponsored companies—the Sugar Company, the Electricity Supply Board, Aer Lingus, Irish Shipping, Bord na Móna and, I have no doubt, in time Córas Iompair Éireann. There is no clear case that private enterprise is inevitably or essentially the line on which our industries generally must develop. I can quite see that it is something which has been tried in most other countries and has failed. I do not want to enter into that argument at the moment. The position is that we have a number of companies which have been established by various Governments to carry out certain very difficult tasks. Most of the tasks which have been tackled by the State-sponsored companies have been the most difficult tasks in any country and the tasks that have been left to private enterprise are tasks which, having regard to their record, State-sponsored companies could have performed in their sleep, as it were.
One of the troubles with a private company is the fact that they are satisfied merely with their own private gain and exploit labour and capital for their private gain, to the exclusion, not necessarily entirely, but almost entirely, of the community's welfare. In the Minister's present dilemma, which calls for vast expansion of exports, he cannot influence in any way the degree of expansion or the lines of expansion to which these companies will turn their energies. He may have ways of doing it but I do not know that he can. On the other hand, he has a number of these Government-sponsored companies, which have done extremely well, with odd exceptions. Most of the appointments to these companies have been very good appointments.
Of course, they have depended entirely on this particular fact. One of the things which helped the whole conception of the State-sponsored company—not exactly the nationalised company but the company which lies in between a private enterprise undertaking and a nationalised company—is the fact that the men were appointed for their own special merit. I think that is reasonably true of appointments made by each Government. The thing which would have destroyed the whole conception of the State-sponsored company would have been an attempt to make political jobs in these particular companies. The point I am making is this: would it not be possible for the Minister to explore the likelihood of some such companies taking on some of the tasks which await Irish industry at present in its attempt to break into world markets generally? Up to the present, industrialists have done the limited job put before them relatively well. Serious complaints are made about high prices, but I do not think that these are of much importance at present compared with the big problem which faces industry. I cannot say that the present-day industrialists, taking them as a whole, will be able to cope with the task ahead. For one thing, many of them are not sufficiently competent or hard-working, and those of them who have these qualities have not got the necessary money. I do not see how the Minister can cope with his task unless a fairly revolutionary method is adopted. We can meander along the course we are taking at present, but it is quite obvious to anybody studying the problem that we are being protected entirely from the results of the inadequacy of our present policy, which is the policy not only of this year, but of last year and of the past 20 years. We are being cushioned against the real effects of that policy and our lack of expansion by the fact that those who are laid off employment are emigrating and that, consequently, we do not have the bread-lines. One Government after another play about with the figure of 50,000 or 70,000 unemployed and try to blame each other for it. They get away with the illusion that this figure represents the total number unemployed. In actual fact the total number is very much greater over the years but it does not show itself, due to the fact that some of the unemployed in this country go to industries in Great Britain and elsewhere. They could easily be doing some job here and making money for Ireland instead of for Britain and other countries.
My own particular penchant is for the State-sponsored company. I believe that the only criteria for membership of a particular board or company should be those of competence and efficiency. Efficiency of management is, of course, a tremendously important factor in industry. I do not believe that either the worker or the son of the owner has any right per se to management in industry. There is a certain amount of talk about the rights of workers in industry. In my view, a worker in industry has the rights which derive from his ability as manager and no other rights. My objection to the private enterprise approach to business is that the incompetent and inefficient son of the competent and efficient father, who started the business, walks into the board room and takes his place there, no matter what kind of a half-wit he may happen to be. In my view, the sane approach to the management of industry, which is the very important problem facing us at the moment, is to provide the most competent man to run a business. Our industrialists did the job up to the present. As a result of the particular set-up in business, we are now facing the next generation who will walk into the board room and make decisions in relation to industry. They may be highly competent and highly efficient. However, generally speaking, it would be expecting too much if all the hard-working, efficient, competent fathers who start our industries were to produce highly competent, efficient and hardworking sons. I am not interested in the particular kind of sons they produce, but I am interested in the kind of business or industry they will bring to this country. I do believe, with regard to a particular firm or a particular set-up in business, particularly where it refers to private enterprise, that neither the son of the father or the worker per se has any right in the board room except that which he derives from a proper knowledge of management.
That brings me back to the whole question of the organisation of the community generally with which, a Cheann Chomhairle, I do not think you would allow me to deal. In passing, I will just say that it is a scandalous thing if a competent worker, through lack of educational facilities—an accident over which he had no control—does not find himself in the board room directing an industry. I hope I will have an opportunity of dealing with that question some other place.
Another question which must concern the Minister is the provision of capital for his industries. I do not know how he is going to produce a fair amount of capital to establish his industries, to maintain them or to get people to establish and run industries bearing in mind the price of money as controlled by the banks at present. My view, of course, is there can be no real progress in the community and no real expansion of industry to the extent required unless the power to control the banks is taken over by the State. Short of that, the problem means that the amount of money required for industries necessary for the welfare of the community will not be available.
One of the points made by the present Minister for Finance was that a considerable amount of dollars were spent on trivial, idiotic goods such as lipstick, hair curlers and so forth. While this was very foolish, it illustrates the point that dollars were made available to anybody who wanted them. The sad part of the matter is that those dollars should have been used to purchase tractors, farm equipment, farm implements, industrial equipment, mechanical equipment, to re-equip our factories, to replace obsolete machinery and so on. Through no fault of the then Minister for Finance, these dollars were not so spent. The necessary machinery was not purchased and that, of course, is the very serious problem which faces the country—that, both in industry and on the farms, our people do not appear to have, or to be able to lay their hands on, the capital to buy equipment necessary to make this into a prosperous State. I do not see how that is to be done. In the case I mentioned of the buying of lipsticks, hair curlers and what you will, these people bought them for the simple reason that they knew they would sell them rapidly, but from the community point of view, the country's point of view, the prosperity of the nation point of view, it was a waste of dollars. But, again, it does illustrate the very important question of provision for replacement of machinery in industry and on the farms.
If I might say a further word on the question of industrialisation, I mentioned this matter of plastics, resins and chemical processes of different kinds as a reasonable line of development for our industries, a line in which we might compete abroad in so far as it seems very unlikely that we shall be able to sell knives to Sheffield and that type of thing. My view is that industry must largely be based on agricultural products. I do not mean the old kitchen-garden mentality or the fat cattle-tillage mentality.
There is tremendous scope for development in the processed food business generally and if it were possible to make agriculture efficient— and I know what a thorny subject it is—if it were possible to encourage agriculture by means of co-operative farming, increased mechanisation, facilities for cheap loans and by educating farmers to produce food cheaper, then the Minister would have a relatively easy task. But it is because I have no reason to feel that agriculture is likely to become efficient, under the present system at any rate, that he is thrown back entirely on his own resources for the expansion of industry. I do not know to what extent he can influence agricultural policy, but it must be quite obvious to him that there is no expansion in relation to agricultural products, and due to that lack of expansion he is denied a relatively easy raw material of industry because there is no doubt that the one negotiable commodity is and will be for many years to come food, because other countries are busy arming and have not got time to develop their own agricultural industry.
I believe that the main task facing the Minister is the weeding out of the incompetent and then the offering of every facility, if he does not accept the idea of establishing Government-sponsored companies of some kind or other, to the established good and efficient industrialist. One of the great dangers facing us is the fact that many of our industries are subsidiaries of English companies whose only interest is the supplying of our market. Secondly, many of our industries, being as they are of the private enterprise type, must now pass on into the hands of possibly not as hard-working and competent young men as were their fathers. That is a very serious consideration and I have the greatest sympathy with the Minister in his problem, because, with the Department of Agriculture, his Department really shares all the responsibility for the prosperity or otherwise of the State in the years ahead. The success which the Minister in the past has shown by his approach to these problems, his readiness to examine new methods, his great courage in trying new methods and breaking with the old traditional ways, gives most of us on both sides of the House hope that he will tackle these problems energetically and successfully.
There is no doubt, however, that the immediate situation is serious for the people. There is no doubt that there appears to be a slump in trade, and there is no doubt that there has been a considerable rise in prices, particularly in relation to foodstuffs. We all expected that, but we also all anticipate and expect that the trade unions will press, without delay, for equitable and fair increases in wages to meet these rising costs. It is obvious to most of us that the niggardly agreement by the Congress of Irish Unions to a 12/6 wage increase is accepted by many as a sad betrayal of the workers, if they are limited to this increase. However, I have no doubt that that will be dealt with in the proper place, but it must be accepted that, for different reasons—some of which have their origins outside the State and others due to governmental policy within the State—considerable increases in prices have taken place and further increases will probably take place. The only normal sequel to that must be a fairly steep increase in wages. That is a very sad, and, for the country, a very dangerous consideration, but it is a normal sequel to the Government's policy in attempting to introduce a deflationary Budget and must be accepted as such. It would be quite impossible to keep wages in any way in step with the rise in prices which has taken place. The Minister has a very formidable task ahead of him and he has the sympathy of the whole people in his attempts to accomplish it.
