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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Feb 1958

Vol. 165 No. 2

Tea (Purchase and Importation) Bill, 1957—Second Stage

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The main purpose of the Bill is to terminate the arrangements for tea importation which originated during the war while at the same time providing for a continuance of the policy of direct purchase and importation of the country's tea requirements from the countries in which the tea is grown. That policy of direct importation has been operated continuously since early in 1947 by Tea Importers, Limited, a State-sponsored, non-profit-making body established as an emergency measure during the second world war, which is financed by bank accommodation guaranteed by the Minister for Finance.

Tea Importers, Limited, was and is regarded as a purely emergency organisation and it was always my intention, as soon as circumstances permitted, to replace that temporary arrangement by a permanent measure, designed to ensure that the business of financing and importing the country's tea requirements would revert to individual merchants engaged in the trade, subject only to compliance with the policy of direct purchase and direct importation.

I regard it also as a matter of prime importance that the permanent measure should provide that the smaller traders would not be in any more disadvantageous trading position vis-a-vis their richer competitors than was the case before the war when both operated on the London market. This Bill is the outcome of discussions which were initiated as far back as 1953 with the Wholesale Tea Dealers' Association of Ireland, an organisation which is fully representative of the trade. The association are taking steps to form and register a company which will be known as Tea Importers (1958) Limited and the terms of this Bill must be considered in relation to the memorandum and articles of association of that company.

These documents provide that the new company will have a share capital of £250,000, divided into 100 shares of £2,500 each; one share only may be allotted to each shareholder and a share may not be allotted or transferred to any person unless he is a tea trader, registered under this Bill. These provisions are intended to ensure that the control of the company will be in the hands of Irish nationals. Another provision in the articles of association will restrict the amount of the dividend that may be paid to the shareholders. That provision is designed to ensure that the company, which will serve both shareholders and non-shareholders, will not have an inducement to overcharge for its services, thus benefiting shareholders by returning the overcharges in the form of dividends to them.

The articles and memorandum of association can, as Deputies are aware, normally be altered without any difficulty by a majority of the shareholders. In order that the articles of the company to which I have referred may not be changed, it is proposed in the Bill to provide that the articles shall not be altered without the prior permission of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Bill provides for the establishment of a register of tea traders, and admission to the register will be open to existing tea traders licensed as tea wholesalers under the Tea (Importation and Distribution) Act, 1956.

Would the Minister say how many such persons are in existence?

About 90, I am told, but of course new entrants may also be registered provided they are Irish nationals and financed from sources within the State. These provisions rule out the entry here of external wholesale concerns whose trading operations are carried on practically entirely from outside the State and who did not therefore operate a genuine wholesale tea business in this country and who, for that reason, were refused wholesale tea licences in 1947 when the policy of direct purchase and importation was first implemented. It will not be necessary for a person to register as a tea trader unless he proposes to purchase tea in accordance with the provisions of the Bill.

It will also be observed that the Bill provides that the proposed company will act as an importing agent for any registered tea trader whether or not he is a shareholder of the company. The purpose of that provision is to safeguard the position of the smaller trader and to ensure that any trader, however small, will have the way open to him to purchase in and import from the producing countries whatever supplies of tea he will need to meet the requirements of his own business.

It is, I think, necessary to say something in justification of maintaining the policy of direct importation and direct purchase in the producing countries. The first important consideration is that that policy ensures that the trading stocks and the reserve stocks of tea are maintained in this country. It is hardly necessary now to go back over past history in that regard, but our situation during the war would have been a great deal easier if the normal trading stocks and any exceptional reserve stocks of tea had been within our jurisdiction instead of outside it. Neither is it necessary to speculate on the prospects of the possibility of international conditions arising in the early future which would make it important for us to have these trading and reserve stocks within the country. However, I am sure we would all feel a great deal easier in that regard if these stocks were normally held here. Secondly, this policy of direct purchase retains for this country a very valuable handling trade, a trade which exceeds £5,000,000 a year in value, which was for such a very long time enjoyed in London.

Would the Minister be good enough to elaborate that a little— a handling trade worth £5,000,000 per annum?

What is that handling trade?

That is the value of the trade in tea which this country engages in.

The handling trade?

Yes. Thirdly, there is the question of employment. Apart from the fairly considerable employment which is given by individual wholesalers in the process of opening, blending and packing teas in this country, there is also appreciable employment given in the storage and in the handling of the country's tea stocks. That is mainly done in Dublin and the stocks are usually carried in the warehouses of the Dublin Port and Docks Board and I understand the number of workers employed by the board on that work averages 50 or 60 for the year and rises sometimes to over 100.

Furthermore, there is the important consideration that direct importation is advantageous to Irish insurance companies to which have been entrusted both the marine and general insurance of the teas in transit as well as the insurance of stocks. There is no statutory obligation contemplated in that regard but may I express the hope that the new company and individual importers will continue to place insurance business of that kind within the country?

In recommending the Bill I feel I should stress confidence that the Irish tea trade, which is comprised of merchants of long and varied experience, can buy tea in the countries in which it is produced as advantageously as brokers of any other country. In fact, the experience of Tea Importers, Limited, over a very long period has shown that the average landed costs at Dublin of teas purchased by that company and imported direct by them from the different producing countries compare very favourably with the average cost of teas imported into Great Britain during the same years.

It is well known that a great many traders in various commodities operating in this country tend to import their supplies exclusively through external agents or middlemen and a similar tendency is noticeable in the case of many of our exporters. The Department of Industry and Commerce has for a long time been trying to correct and eradicate that tendency. It is very desirable on various grounds that the business community should establish direct relations with their ultimate exporters in other countries unless there are very compelling reasons to the contrary. In my view, there is no sufficient reason why our tea requirements should not be purchased and imported direct from the countries in which the tea is grown.

I mentioned that this Bill was prepared in consultation and agreement with the Tea Wholesalers' Association. In the course of discussions with the association it was stated that many traders would not have the resources to enable them to operate the policy of direct importation because of the seasonal nature of the Indian tea market, and Deputies will be aware that the bulk of our requirements of tea are drawn from India. The seasonal character of that market involves purchasing and importing a whole year's requirements in a period of four or five months and the consequent holding within this country of very much larger stocks than was the case when the stocks were held in London and purchases were made on a day to day or week to week basis from there.

To overcome that difficulty and in order also to ensure that the maximum banking accommodation would be available to the tea trade, the association proposed that this limited company with sole import rights should be formed, the effective control of which would be in the hands of Irish nationals. The new company will be financed by the tea trade and will act as importing agent for each trader who would make the purchase of tea in the producing countries in accordance with the requirements of his own business. Where necessary, the company will act as a financing agent.

When the Bill has been enacted, the Government will no longer have any control of any sort over the tea trade, except to ensure that our requirements of tea will continue to be purchased in the countries in which it is grown and that new entrants to the trade will be confined to Irish nationals. It it intended to wind up, as soon as possible, when the Bill is enacted, the existing State-sponsored body, Tea Importers Limited, which is now responsible for tea importation. We had discussions with the association as to the possibility of developing here, at some future date, a tea market on the lines of the Mincing Lane market. Such a market could be developed within the provisions of this Bill, but the members of the association tell me it is a matter that will have to be considered over a reasonable period by all the interests which are likely to be affected.

They have undertaken to keep that long term intention in mind and have assured me that the new company, when it is functioning, will examine, as soon as may be practicable, the question of establishing a tea auction market within the country. One of the provisions of the Bill authorises the Minister for Industry and Commerce to permit the proposed company to purchase tea elsewhere than in the producing country. That provision is, I think, necessary to safeguard the supply position in the event of such contingency as a long strike in the producing country, or a threatened emergency situation which might point to the need of building up larger than normal reserve stocks as quickly as possible.

I feel that I should not conclude my remarks on this Bill without expressing appreciation of what has been accomplished by both the directors and staff of Tea Importers Ltd. over a number of very difficult years. Following the reduction—unheralded and unexpected —in 1941 in the allocation of tea which was made to this country by the British Ministry of Food, to 25 per cent. of pre-war purchases, Tea Importers Ltd. was formed to seek out supplies of tea to meet our requirements, in India or wherever else they could be procured. Despite increasing difficulties during these war years, and particularly the very acute problems affecting shipping which arose then, the company succeeded in obtaining from various countries fairly substantial quantities of tea which were used to augment the meagre weekly tea ration of one half-ounce which was the British allocation to us during the emergency years.

Since the company became responsible in 1947 for purchasing the country's full requirements of tea at origin, their operations have assumed very large dimensions, and, since the abolition of rationing in 1952, their average yearly sales of tea were 24 million pounds weight, to the value of £5½ millions. In the period since 1947, the company succeeded in providing a continuity of supplies to the trade and to the consumers at reasonable and more or less stable prices, despite the frequent and violent changes in tea prices in world markets during that period.

I am very sensible of the fact that the services which the directors of that company gave, and gave on an entirely voluntary basis, for a period of seven years, must have contributed substantially to the successful conducting of the company's affairs. It is intended that the new arrangements for purchasing and importing tea will come into operation on 1st July next. I have dealt with the fact that the Bill which my predecessor presented to the Dáil in 1956, the Tea (Importation and Distribution) Act, 1956, which gives statutory effect to the present temporary arrangement, is due to expire on 31st March. It would be undesirable to have a period of three months during which there would be no control on the import of tea. Consequently, I have arranged to bring to the Dáil next week a Bill to continue the present temporary legislation in the 1956 Act, until 30th June, for a period of three months.

I do not know if it is necessary or possible to say anything further regarding the provisions of this Bill at this stage. I think it is necessary to get our tea imports on a proper basis and I think this Bill provides for the best arrangement in our circumstances. Consequently, I would ask the House to give it favourable consideration.

We have given this Bill very careful consideration. We are utterly opposed to it. From our experience, particularly over the last ten years, we regard this as a Bill designed to secure for our people poor tea at high prices, as opposed to free trade in tea which I believe would secure for our people, as it did in the past, good tea at relatively low prices. I listened carefully to the Minister's speech and I wondered why are we departing from the well-established practice that has obtained in this country for over a century—that if a grocer set up in business in town or city, he could buy for his customers the best tea at the lowest price that he could get anywhere. He was free to buy his tea in Calcutta, or in London, in Amsterdam, Dublin or Cork.

Speaking from my own experience, I have bought tea and blended tea, some of which was bought in London, some in Dublin and some in Cork. I have never bought tea in Calcutta. Why did I not buy tea in Calcutta? Because I could not afford it and that goes for 90 per cent. of the people engaged in the tea trade in this country. To buy in Calcutta, you must buy in quantity, which no ordinary tea wholesaler in this country would contemplate because of the warehousing and financing. Let us pause for a moment and think what we are doing.

The Minister tells me that at present there are 90 members of the Wholesale Tea Dealers' Association. There is no reason why others should not join, but, presumably, anybody eligible to join has joined already. I want to tell the House that of those 90 members of the wholesalers' association, I do not believe 20 would be in a position to import tea direct from Calcutta, Djakarta or Colombo. What is ultimately going to happen? The Bill does not provide this, but I am not interested in theoretical speculation of what the Bill hopes to achieve. I am interested in the pragmatic considerations of what my experience teaches me is going to happen under the Bill, or any other Bill designed to achieve the purpose which the Minister has in mind.

Not more than 20 will engage in this operation of direct importation from the Orient. Pause and think what that means. There are 24,000,000 lb. of tea on an average coming into this country. When you have been 25 years in the trade you may aspire to value any sample of tea down to 1d. per lb.; but, no matter how skilled you are, it is a pretty skilful operator who will value tea accurately to within 2d. per lb. The average customer, buying tea per lb., will find it very difficult to differentiate between two samples offered to him at a difference of 4d. per lb. Every 1d. per lb. means £100,000.

The Minister spoke of the average cost of tea landed in Ireland and said it compared favourably with the average cost of tea landed in Great Britain. Anybody who knows anything about the tea trade knows that figure is utterly illusory because it has no significance if you do not know the quality of the tea delivered to Great Britain and Ireland, and every penny that is charged for tea in excess of its true value represents £100,000. You are going to commit into the hands of a body of persons of less than 20, in my judgement, the possibility of handling excess profits of anything from £100,000 to £400,000 per annum, levied on the tea of this country.

How are you going to avoid that? There is only one way to avoid it. This group of gentlemen wants to buy tea from Calcutta. Certainly, let them have every facility they want, but let the rest of us buy our tea from them or from anybody else we choose. The only way we can ensure that the consuming public in Ireland will get value for their money in tea is to ensure that the enterprising tea retailers of this country can apply to Dublin, Cork or London wholesalers, or any other source, for samples and use their own judgement to choose from those samples those which will result in the best value in blend that can be offered to their customers—the best value that their money is fit to buy. Unless we do that we are simply going to levy on the people of this country what, in the old days, used to be described in this House as a hard tax.

The Minister will remember that in pre-war days we used to look on the taxation of tea and sugar, which in those days were a favourite source of raising revenue, as hard taxes, as opposed to the taxes levied on spirits and beer which were not regarded as essential commodities. In Ireland we always regarded a tax on tea as a hard tax because it was a tax on the poor. Everybody in the country drinks tea and every penny that goes on the price of tea is paid by the people, irrespective of whether they are well-to-do or poor. Therefore, I submit to the House that, in respect of a commodity like tea, we must do everything we can to ensure that the people will get the best value for their money. What is the best that Dáil Éireann can undertake in that regard? Nothing. The best Dáil Éireann can do to that end is to get out of the business altogether and let every man operate it as he thinks best, as we have done for a century.

The Minister says there are various advantages to be derived from this centralisation of tea purchasing. To set against the primary advantages to which he referred, I instanced bad tea at high prices. I ask Deputies, whatever side they may sit upon, what have they heard from their own neighbours of the class of tea we have been called upon to drink over the past ten years? Nobody will complain of the kind of tea we had to drink during the war. The British gave us about 7,000,000 lbs. a year during the war years and we had to get the balance where we could. We had to take what we could get, what we could fetch and carry ourselves, but since the war was over, what have Deputies heard from their neighbours? Is it that tea was never worse in quality and the price was never as high?

I do not expect there is much we could do about the price but we could do a great deal about the quality. The only way we could have got something done about the quality was to let experienced merchants compete with one another to draw custom. The sole test of every customer housewife is in the teapot. She cannot judge it as some of us might by looking at the leaf, smelling the aroma, or applying the test of the tea tasters. All she can do is go to McInerney's shop on Monday and see afterwards, in the teapot, if she gets good value. If she does not she will go into Kilduff's and buy there. It is the best judgment in the whole world, that of the experienced housewife brewing tea for her own family in her own teapot. This Bill stops that because the man who seeks to suit his customers' tastes by searching the wide variety of markets available to him can no longer do so. He is constrained to deal with this group of importers because there is nobody else with whom he can deal.

The Minister has told us that there are 50 to 100 persons employed in warehousing of tea according to the season. I do not know what he means. There come in annually 200,000 to 240,000 chests of tea. In the name of Providence, what would 100 men be doing operating on 240,000 chests of tea? Wherever the tea comes from, whether it comes here through London or direct from Djakarta, Colombo, Calcutta or Bombay, it comes in chests and somebody has to handle them.

It is true it all comes in to 18 or 20 wholesalers located in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Limerick and it is warehoused there. It used to be warehoused on my premises. It used to be warehoused in the large tea emporiums in a variety of rural towns. Is there any special reason why it is advantageous to take what employment there is involved in that away from the country towns and put it in Dublin, when you remember that under the old dispensation the entire financing of £4,000,000 to £6,000,000 involved in the purchase of that tea was provided by the tea merchants of London who gave us four months' credit for tea?

Now we are all talking about the difficulty of raising finances for urgent and necessary enterprises here. There is a means by which we got, gladly, an interest free, permanent standing loan from the tea traders of London of from £4,000,000 to £6,000,000. Just to satisfy this daft desire to deal directly with the Indians, the Ceylonese and the Indonesians, we seem to say we do not want that; that we will finance it, and that that £4,000,000 or £6,000,000 will come out of the Irish banks, who have plenty of useful employment for that money without taking that burden of credit off the back of the tea trade in London and elsewhere.

The Minister speaks of foreign agents handling tea. Who will Tea Importers employ in Calcutta to buy for them? Will they not have agents in Calcutta? Who will those agents be? I venture to say that every agent employed to purchase tea in Calcutta, Djakarta and Colombo will be agents whose head offices are in Mincing Lane. There is nobody else. The men who have been doing this trade down the ages are the agents who operate in these centres, 90 per cent. of whom are British agents. They are the kind of men who understand the tea trade in these two islands.

I have great affection for the Indian people and for the Indian State, but let nobody rest under the illusion that our zeal to buy direct from Calcutta evoked any corresponding gesture from the Indian Government, because the Indian Government put a substantial export tax on tea. Nobody ever suggested that they should forgo a couple of pence per lb. of their tax because of our buying of tea direct from Calcutta. We paid the last farthing the same as everybody else.

I am concerned with one thing only, that is, to ensure that the average woman—down the country particularly, because those are the conditions I best understand—will get the best tea for the least money. I am certain that this Bill will result in her getting relatively bad tea for dear money. Secondly, I see no reason for taking away the employment that was available in the handling of tea in rural areas and concentrating that employment in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Thirdly, I am utterly at a loss to understand how anyone believes it is to our advantage to give up the £4,000,000 to £6,000,000 worth of free credit that we enjoyed from the tea market in London and require our own banks to provide it, bearing especially in mind that, under the Minister's plan, we will have to carry the tea for 12 months and finance it for all the time it is lying in our warehouses. As the Minister rightly said, the bulk of tea is bought between September and January and is warehoused here for the remainder of the year until it passes into consumption.

These things are extremely difficult adequately to debate in Dáil Éireann because those of us who are intimately familiar with them are inclined to forget that some of our colleagues do not know how the business operates at all. I make no apology for explaining my opposition and our opposition to this Bill, and for recapitulating shortly to the House what the system of purchasing tea was prior to the emergency scheme brought in and which is to be given permanent form under this Bill. I refer to the centralisation of buying through Tea Importers, Ltd.

Prior to 1939, any grocer in rural Ireland of good credit standing received on his premises from 24th August to the end of the year two or three travellers per week who came in with their cases of samples of the new season's tea. They submitted those samples and were further eager to receive an invitation to send on samples from London of the stocks they were in a position to offer. Every experienced tea buyer in rural Ireland would have five or six tea merchants with whom he habitually dealt. It might be that there would be a couple in Dublin, a couple in Cork and four or six in London. He knew what he wanted whether it was Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon or Southern Indian tea. He knew the variety of tea he wanted; he knew approximately the quality of tea he wanted; and he would send a postcard to various suppliers asking them to submit samples of a certain kind within a certain price range. The subdivisions were innumerable. In Indian tea you had Pekoe, Orange Pekoe, Broken Orange Pekoe, Golden Pekoe, Fannings, and there were three or four other varieties of tea. Remember that was in respect of each district.

Those samples were submitted. I have often had 200 samples set out on my table, and I was dealing with a microscopic business compared with other businesses. I then proceeded to eliminate the manifestly least satisfactory samples. When you had reduced the samples to manageable proportions, you took each section and you spent one day tasting to the best of your ability the samples in that section, comparing one with the other. You might buy 20 chests in London. On the next day, in the next section, you might find yourself buying 30 chests in Dublin. The following day, if you were dealing with Darjeeling, you might buy in London again. You bought wherever you got the best value, both in quality and in cost. In due course, that tea was delivered to you from wherever it was warehoused. If it was delivered to you on 1st April, you were not asked to pay for it until 1st October. Those were the terms of the trade.

Under this arrangement, every tea buyer in Ireland will have 90 per cent. of that discretion withdrawn from him. Instead of examining the values of 200 samples, he will find himself comparing the values of perhaps ten or 11. Why? What is the object of this procedure? I cannot too strongly emphasise this and it must be borne in mind. I am not making the case that a group of wholesalers should be prevented from combining to import from Calcutta. Let them; I have no desire to interfere with them. All I am asking is that those of us who cannot afford to participate in the import from Calcutta will be allowed to import from wherever else we can get the best value for the least money.

Why are we trying to restrict everybody else? I do not believe that a single one of the benefits which the Minister has read out as justification for this is really sustainable on close examination. I do not know what he means when he says that considerable revenue can be derived from handling this tea in Ireland. Will not 24 million lbs. of tea be handled whatever way it comes in? You cannot distribute it if you do not handle it.

I am sometimes bewildered by the way men's minds work. I have been a free trader all my life and there was many a day when I felt I was the only free trader in Dáil Éireann. Now everbody is talking about galloping into the Free Trade Area without even knowing what it is all about. It is the red herring of public life to-day. If you meet an unemployed man, you say to him: Think of the Free Trade Area; if you meet a man emigrating to Nagasaki, New York or Peru, you tell him we are going into the Free Trade Area. It is the universal alibi which Fianna Fáil has evolved. At the same moment as we are being exhorted to romp into the Free Trade Area, where there will be a free for all, we are introducing a Bill where there will be no free trade in tea.

How do you reconcile these things? If the whole future of Ireland is bound up with the success with which we enter into the Free Trade Area, what is the meaning of bringing in a Bill to withdraw freedom of trade in tea, which is a very modest and restricted claim? Why are we legislating to prohibit any shopkeeper in Ireland from buying tea where he can get it cheapest and best? Is there anyone who can tell me why? What are we going to get out of it? The Minister is human. None of us will expect him to be angelic, although he claims to have become angelic recently, but one can sympathise with him to a certain extent. When you think of the circumstances in which the British found themselves during the war, it must be admitted they did not do too badly to send us 7,000,000 lbs. of tea per annum every year of the war. They carted that half way round the world for us when we were neutral and they were fighting for their lives. That was not so dusty. I can sympathise with the Minister's feeling that if we did not have a stock on hands here, we would be dependent on them.

The whole difficulty for the past few years here in relation to tea is that it was dusty.

Surely that is not justification for adopting proposals here such as the Minister puts before us now? I think it was a reasonable enough attempt to give us tea in the actual emergency that existed then, but I do not think the tea trade had anything to do with it. I believe it was the British Ministry of Food who made the allocation. I think it is foolish to carry on a vendetta against the tea trade for some imagined injury they did us during the war.

I am concerned with the interests of our own people. I do not care one hoot where anybody buys tea, provided I am certain that those who supply our people with tea across the counter are left free to get for our people the best tea at the lowest money. The House was shaken to its foundation yesterday when the Minister actually accepted an amendment which, at first glance, he was inclined to reject. Admittedly, the amendment consisted of the insertion of the one word "reasonably" in a Bill. Here is a matter which I cannot feel involves any great fundamental constitutional principle.

This Bill is directed towards settling a very simple matter—how we will buy our tea. I think the case I make is unanswerable. I would be glad to hear anybody who would argue against it. If the Minister is beginning to suspect that to be so, would there be any chance of his saying that, for an experimental period, he would allow the two systems to work together? Providentially, the old Act runs out on 31st March. The Minister says that if this Bill is enacted, it cannot come into operation until 31st July. Would the Minister consider allowing the two systems to operate in parallel for an experimental period and see which works the best, and then come along to the House and say: "We have all seen how things worked and we must proceed in accordance with the result of the experimental period"?

I am perfectly certain that if that is done, this Bill will be as dead as a dodo. I think the Minister will admit to me that it is somewhat significant that he is quite determined, so long as this Bill is his baby, to close the gap between 31st March and 31st July in order to prevent the two systems working in parallel. I think the reason he is concerned to do that is that he knows that if the system envisaged in this Bill were allowed to function parallel with free trading, there would be nobody left but a few wholesalers to defend this device.

Every penny in the price or in the quality of tea represents £100,000 per annum. Does this House seriously mean to leave under the uncontrolled control of 15 or 20 people the means to levy anything from £100,000 to £400,000 per annum on the tea-consuming public of Ireland? If they do, the bulk of that money will be taken from the pockets of the poor, and, though we may have an island of saints and scholars, I doubt if there is any community in the world who would leave to 15 or 20 members of society the right to levy taxes on that scale, without supervision, good, bad or indifferent. There is no machinery you can set up effectively to supervise that except the housewife's teapot. There is no expert in the Department of Industry and Commerce or in any Department of State, who can check the quality of tea against the experienced wholesalers who will constitute the importing authority under this Bill. They are the only experts and there is only one censor who can control them, that is, the woman with the teapot.

The Supreme Court?

She is the supreme court, and remember, all the expert witnesses will be organised under this Bill into the importing authority. Think of what that means, and thinking, give free trade a chance in this very restricted area so that we may brace ourselves for the more stimulating experience of the Free Trade Area or the Common Market into which the Minister so courageously undertakes to lead us.

I find myself in the unfortunate—or, perhaps, fortunate— position that whatever few points I had to make have already been made by Deputy Dillon in his very exhaustive statement in opposition to this Bill. If the experience gained since the setting up of Tea Importers Ltd. is to be taken as a guide, there seems to be no difference in a general way between that body and the company now envisaged under this Bill. Tea dealers are still being refused access to the biggest tea market, and the quality of the tea purchased by that company is likely to be just as bad as it has been, and the price will be just as high as in the past. But the Irish housewife must put up with it.

I do not see why full freedom should not be given to tea traders to purchase tea wherever they like, whether it be in London, Amsterdam, Calcutta or elsewhere. After all, coal merchants may purchase coal anywhere they like in the world, with the result that there is a coal price war now in Cork and in the South which enables people to buy cheap coal. In fact, there is full freedom of action by merchants in connection with the importation of all commodities to purchase in the best markets wherever they like. I think this Bill is actually contrary to the Constitution because it restricts the freedom of the individual to live and carry on his business to the best advantage. It benefits only the few big operators.

There is a tradition in the West and in the South that the women buy only the best tea, and, while I cannot speak for the Midlands and the eastern areas, it may be understood that the principal food of the people is bread, tea and butter, and, as Deputy Dillon said, the woman of the house is the best judge of the tea which will suit herself and her family.

I presume it was necessary to set up Tea Importers, Limited during the war years and I will admit that the then Minister for Industry and Commerce did a good job to the best of his ability to maintain supplies, bad and all as they were; but now the emergency is over and there should be full freedom of action. Individual tea traders or wholesalers, or a combination of these, should be allowed to purchase tea wherever they like so that they will obtain the best blend of tea at the lowest possible price. Only in that way will the consumers and the traders be satisfied.

If at a future date—though it does not seem likely for some years to come and we hope it will never come— another emergency arises, there will always be a Government to ensure, even at short notice, that supplies will be made available. Even without this Bill, the Minister could have power to ensure that sufficient supplies were kept in reserve in the country to make provision for an emergency. As the Bill stands I think it is unacceptable to this House and also to the people of the country.

I think it is high time some effort was made to give the tea-drinking community value for their money.

Hear, hear!

Deputies Dillon and Palmer admitted that what we have been getting is not of the desired standard. Everybody has been complaining: many questions have been asked in this House during the ten years since the war ended regarding the quality of tea. I think we all agree that the quality for the past ten years has deteriorated very considerably compared with that to which we were accustomed in pre-war days. I do not know what has happened: we might have suspicions that tea, as we know, loses its flavour; it will not hold indefinitely. We know, too, that certain teas on the market are inferior and perhaps certain gentlemen who are entitled to purchase cheaper quality tea are putting it on the Irish market as good Indian tea.

I am not so foolish as to think that we have not in this country men of sufficient ability that they could be described as good authorities on the quality of tea. If I were to produce a dozen or more samples of inferior tea, I doubt very much if I could get Deputy Dillon to purchase it at a high price. I do not think it would be easy to fool him or fool anybody in the trade. They know perfectly well whether tea is good or not, when they get a look at it. I am perfectly happy to believe that the experts who have been in the wholesale trade in this country for years are as good an authority on the quality of tea as any other experts. Everybody should accept this Bill on the understanding that the position with regard to tea cannot be worse than it has been in this country.

This Bill perpetuates the present situation, continues the situation.

It alters it very fundamentally. I would ask Deputies to read the Bill, not to take Deputy Dillon's interpretation.

I have read the Bill. How does it alter it?

Our own tea merchants, who, in my experience of 50 years, are honourable, honest to God people, as honest as anybody else, as efficient as any other section of the community, can be trusted, rather than that we should trust people who belong to other countries to whom we are under no obligation whatsoever. We ought to accept this Bill unanimously and stop grumbling. If this company fails to give the desired remedy and the good commodity that I anticipate we will get, action can be taken. I anticipate and am fully confident that our own people, given the necessary authority which this Bill gives them, which will be confined to them absolutely, will bring about a change in the quality of tea which is one of the principal diets of the people of Ireland. We ought to accept the Bill if for no other consideration than that the position cannot be worse than it has been for the past ten years.

The Minister has valiant supporters.

I am opposed to this Bill, first because it creates a monopoly.

It ends a monopoly.

An absolute monopoly.

It establishes it permanently.

It is amazing how the Minister has been wedded to creating monopolies throughout his entire administration since he first became a Minister. He is creating a monopoly in a matter of this kind which concerns every home in the country and acutely concerns the homes of the poor. In every home, tea is used, but the poor people use nothing but tea, bread and jam and marmalade and butter. If they had the sense to buy milk, it would be all right, but milk is too dear where there are many children to be fed.

My second objection to the Bill is that you cannot and will not get the right quality of tea at the right price under this Bill. The tea trade is a highly technical trade, a trade for specialists and for keen competition. Deputy Dillon said that about ten samples of tea would be sent out by these people. They would be selected by one man in the employment of this company. Is he the only expert in tea and in buying tea, the only expert in blending tea to get the quality which suits the water in the various districts? One of the important things about the tea trade in every country is that, owing to the variation of the soils on which tea is grown, some tea does not suit the water in certain districts. That is a specialised matter. In this case, you have one company who will pack the tea in packets or in chests and sell it to the merchants.

That is not in this Bill. The Deputy should read the Bill before he speaks.

The Minister knows all about tea.

I know all about this Bill.

In my hat. Tea is used by every home and particularly by the poor. There are two things involved, as Deputy Dillon said, quality and price. You cannot get those two things with a central monopolistic body in control. This is a matter where you want the keenest competition among experts in order to give the public the value they should get. We will not get it under this Bill. The housewives and their families have endured enough. There can be no calculation of the cost of tea. It is not a question of what they pay for it. If they got good tea at that price, it would be a different matter. If any Deputy buys a chest or half a chest of tea and puts it through a sieve, he will be amazed at the amount of dust he will find. The poor people are paying 7/6 a lb. for that amount of dust.

Who is selling it to them?

That is the problem. The House would be lacking in its duty to the people and to the poor if they did not object to this Bill and reject it. It will inflict untold hardship.

This Bill can be discussed at great length and Deputy Dillon has elaborated on it, but you cannot and will not get the two essential things with regard to tea, namely, quality and price, under it. There is no use in Deputies coming back here two to five years hence to say that the people are being robbed in the quality of tea at the prevailing price. Tea of a good quality can carry a good price, but bad tea is dear at any price, and it is the poor who are affected by that because they cannot afford to buy expensive tea and have to buy at the cheaper price. There should be competition amongst tea merchants so that the public can get the best quality at the keenest price.

I regret that at this hour of the day the Minister is adopting this attitude with regard to a commodity that is consumed in every home in the country. The Minister will regret it, if he is capable of having any regrets.

I am opposed to this Bill on the same grounds as those expressed by previous speakers. Although the Minister has tried to deny it, this Bill will have the effect of creating a monopoly. Tea Importers Limited did have a virtual monopoly.

Tea Importers Limited had an absolute monopoly. That is being ended.

This new company will have a virtual monopoly. There is no great difference. In this case, there will be a register of tea traders. The Minister has mentioned that there will be approximately 90 persons concerned. Among those 90, there will be persons who can command large amounts of money and raise huge loans for the purpose of importing large quantities of tea. There will be others with very limited resources who will not be able to take advantage of large purchases. The result is that the new proposal will bring advantage to a very limited number of those 90 persons estimated to be engaged in the tea trade at present. It will have the effect of creating a vested interest for a small group and, when that position arises, there can be abuses, particularly in the manipulation of tea prices. Deputy Dillon has mentioned that a penny in the price makes a difference of approximately £100,000. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
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