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

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

Mr. Rooney

When I moved the adjournment of the debate before Question Time, I was complaining that this Bill would have the effect of creating a virtual monopoly, replacing an absolute monopoly which existed under Tea Importers Limited. This provides an opportunity for abuses at the expense of the public and particularly in relation to the poorer section of our people, amongst whom tea and bread are the staple diet. I feel that there should be free trading in tea and that tea traders should not have to be by registered as they will have to be by this Bill, if they wish to deal in the purchase and importation of tea.

I am in favour of free competition because it would ensure a better quality of tea at more competitive prices amongst the traders. Everybody knows that people deplored the low quality tea which was available during the war years. It was probably the best available at the time and it was obtainable in very limited quantities; but since the war, and since Tea Importers Limited have been carrying on, the public are complaining very bitterly regarding the inferior tea which is on the market. There appear to be different grades of tea at different prices, but there is no certainty that the tea which is sold at the dearer prices will be of better quality. Frequently, a householder who is accustomed to paying a certain price for a certain blend of tea from one week to another, has reason to complain regarding the quality of the tea. There is an abnormal amount of dust and rubbish in one week's tea compared with another.

I feel that where a monopoly is concerned, such as this Bill proposes, we will have a situation where the general public will not have the flexibility and freedom in the buying of tea which they would otherwise have amongst various grocers and tea traders. It is stated that the existing regulations under which Tea Importers Limited ensure the existing supply of tea will expire on 31st March and that the proposals contained in this Bill will not come into effect until 1st July. In the meantime, I feel that some investigation should be made to prove that this Bill is neither justified nor necessary during peacetime.

We could have an arrangement whereby a State body, such as this, if you wish, could ensure that at a time of emergency or in anticipation of an emergency, a quantity of tea could be purchased for storing, but at a time when we are looking forward to peace rather than war, and planning for peace rather than war, we should give the advantages of peacetime to the purchasing public whereby they will get an opportunity of purchasing their tea from dealers who have got their supplies in ordinary free competition and on the basis of their own business ability to obtain a decent quality of tea at a fair price.

An example of that is that during the war we had wartime bread and flour. We had restrictions which applied at that time. People were obliged to eat a kind of dark coloured bread. But since the war efforts have been made to improve the quality of bread and flour available to the public. We have not insisted upon the people tolerating a continuance of the rough type of bread which was available during the war but this Bill, which is taking the place of Tea Importers Limited does not in its terms promise to the public that they will be sure of getting a better quality tea than the quality available to them during the last ten years since the war ended. I think the only function of the Government should be to ensure that adequate tea supplies would be available in the event of an emergency, or during war time, and a monopoly of this character is not justified at present.

We must consider the people who are interested in getting a decent cup of tea. Apart from English people, I believe Irish people are the greatest tea drinkers in the world and are most sensitive to the taste and quality of tea. If I were satisfied this Bill would ensure that there would be a better quality of tea available to the public, I would accept it, but I do not feel there is anything in the Bill which will satisfy the public that the change in this arrangement is going to give a better quality tea to the public at competitive prices.

There should be free and fair competition amongst traders in the matter of quality and price of tea. The proposed Bill will cut out that competition and the public, in the main, will be obliged to accept what they get from this combine. It will be a combine which will be set up by this Bill, a combine on which there will be a register of traders. It will be confined to those people and they will be obliged to make their purchases as defined by the Bill.

Individual traders will not be given the opportunity to purchase whenever and wherever they wish. They must accept the quantity of tea available from the pool which will be purchased through the machinery of this Bill. I feel there is a move in this Bill to control imports of tea, but why should we control imports of tea? Surely we should permit traders, in the ordinary operation of their business, to import quantities of tea directly from wherever they wish themselves.

I want to say finally that though the Minister has pointed out that there will be a difference in the working of the machinery which will be set up by this Bill, compared with Tea Importers Limited, I am satisfied in the long run it will become a monopoly, and will perpetuate the system whereby people are being left with a very limited choice. Though there is a very large number and variety of blends of tea this new combine, naturally, will confine itself to a rather limited number of blends of tea.

I was interested to hear Deputy McMenamin say that the tea brewed on water in various districts tastes differently. That is where the housewife comes in. She knows what any particular blend of tea will taste like when it is brewed on water in the area where the tea is made. That is very important. I believe, under this Bill, the combine which will be set up will not have the local knowledge which the people resident in various areas will have, regarding the taste resulting from the brewing of a certain blend of tea on the water in any particular locality, and that is why I am in favour of giving trading freedom to traders and tea dealers.

I should like the position to be brought back to that which obtained before it was necessary to bring in regulations during the war. Everybody who can remember the tea available before the war will remember there was a range of prices, and there was also a better quality of tea available than there has been since the war. Many people are inclined to blame Tea Importers Limited, for the lack of variety in relation to the range of qualities available since the war. I would ask the Minister to reconsider the introduction of a Bill of this nature and allow the restoration of free trading in tea to the position obtaining before the war. As housewives can remember, very good quality tea was available before the war; if they paid a dearer price they could get a better quality. Instead of a monopoly we should allow freedom.

Mr. Norton

I am afraid Deputy Rooney, according to his remarks, misunderstands the purpose of this Bill and misunderstands the new marketing system. As I see the Bill, it is a piece of legislation designed to promote the organised purchase of tea in the country in which it has grown. For that purpose it creates a kind of co-operative organisation—one might even call it a vocational organisation. I am not terribly impressed by vocational organisations in the sense in which they have been talked about in this country in recent years, but this does promote a co-operative organisation. Anybody who wants to put down their money may buy shares in it and the share dividends are controlled. Of course, anybody can buy from this organisation without being a shareholder. One can buy any class of tea or quantity one likes. You place your order with this organisation and they then put through your order to India, a tea-growing country, from which we take virtually 95 per cent. of our tea imports. The Bill does no more than that.

It is not correct to describe it as a combine—a group of people coming together, with the approval of the State, for the purpose of organising the purchase of tea in a tea-growing country and distributing that tea to anybody engaged in the tea trade in this country. Everybody engaged in the tea trade can register with this body for the purchase of tea, and that body is obliged to put through their orders for purchases. Deputy Rooney thinks something has happened to the tea plantations since the commencement of the last war. Tea is an annual crop and all the varieties of tea grown 50 years ago are grown to-day. In addition, there are new varieties of tea grown to-day, so that the choice is greater than it was ever before.

If complaints are made about the quality of tea I think it is due to the fact that, because of the increases in the price of tea in India, the tendency now is to consume the cheaper qualities of tea. The tea which was sold pre-1939, at pre-1939 prices, is no longer available. Since then, India has secured her independence and the tea workers are a lot more willing to work than they had been for the miserable pittances for which they were compelled to work by the tea planters in the years before the last war. They now rightly aspire to a better standard of living; they are able to enforce their claim for a better standard of living. They feel that an independent India should not mean for them a continuance of the exploitation they suffered at the hands of the tea planters in the days when they were a subjugated nation. The result is that the growth and handling of tea in India has increased and the remuneration of the workers in the tea trade has also increased; but the costs have increased, too, with the result that the tea now exported from India costs substantially more than it did in prewar days. But without doubt a tea trader can get any variety of tea he wants, so long as he is prepared to pay the price.

The opponents of the Bill take the view that it is better to let our tea traders deal in the Mincing Lane market. I do not agree that they should be allowed to deal in the Mincing Lane market. What appears to be, on first sight, a simple claim to allow traders to go to the Mincing Lane market is an over-simplification of the whole position. If traders are allowed to go to the Mincing Lane market, for a time, they may get preferential rates, but only until Mincing Lane is able to kill the notion that this country should buy in the country of origin. If they succeed in killing that notion, once we are out of the Indian market, they will make up for what they lost in their efforts to wean us away from the Indian market.

I put this consideration to Deputies who are opposed to this Bill. Surely it is possible for us to buy tea in the country of origin rather than to buy it from traders who have bought that tea in the country of origin and are trying to make some profit on selling it to us. These people are living between the producers of tea and the consumers or importers of tea. They are going to get something for their service and in the past some of them have been able to get substantial sums for that service, which in fact is really unnecessary.

Therefore, I cannot see anything in the plea that you can buy cheaper in Mincing Lane, where tea is not grown, than you can buy in the tea plantations or in the tea auctions in India. It may happen that occasionally you can get a package of tea in Mincing Lane or in Amsterdam cheaper than at the auctions in India. That is due to the fact that it is the previous year's crop or that it is an inferior grade that somebody has too much of, that he wants to cut down on that grade so he can release his money and buy another grade for which there is greater demand.

But are there not obvious advantages in buying in the country of origin? If we continue to buy tea in Mincing Lane, then Mincing Lane will buy the tea for us in India. Mincing Lane and those associated with it will place the insurance on the freight from the tea auctions in India to London. They will get the insurance from London to Dublin as well. They will charge for the storage of the tea in the London warehouses. They will probably make up the tea in packages, buy the packaging in England and English workers will be employed in packaging the tea. In addition, the blending of the tea will be done in England instead of here.

When buying the tea in India gives the opportunity of carrying the transit insurance to our own insurance companies, provides employment by blending it here, provides employment by opening it here, provides employment by packaging it, provides employment by ordering the packaging here, provides employment by storing it in warehouses here, I cannot see why we should not do something which would keep all that work here, as it will be kept under this Bill. Whereas, if you continue to buy in Mincing Lane, all that work will be done in England and we will have the privilege of paying for that work which is done in England and of being charged a higher price for the tea which we buy from Mincing Lane.

I do not know how the opponents of this Bill can argue against that contention. I think it is sound business to organise the purchase of tea on the Indian market where the tea is available. The very fact that such a valuable amount of employment is provided in the opening, blending, packaging and storage of tea here ought to encourage us to arrange our tea purchases in such a way that that employment will be provided for our own people here.

At the moment the Dublin Port and Docks Board is warehousing about 120,000 chests of tea. Probably 50, 60, 70 and sometimes up to 100 people will be employed, according to the season, in packing the tea, storing it and handling it generally. If you allow people to buy in Mincing Lane, then the bulk of that work will be done in London and the Irish tea consumer will pay for its being done there because the London merchants will not do that free of charge when they can recoup themselves by higher prices for tea.

Therefore, I am in favour of this Bill, not just on sentimental grounds at all. I think it is a sensible Bill. I introduced a Bill in 1956 to continue Tea Importers Ltd. until such time as we had worked out a scheme of this kind for the purchase of tea. This is the type of Bill which I discussed at the time. This is the type of Bill which I intended to introduce at the time. It is not a question of sentiment, a question of prejudice against Mincing Lane, or anything like that. It seems to me to be a sensible arrangement to purchase tea in the country of origin and therefore I am strongly in favour of this Bill.

I cannot see any arguments against the Bill. I certainly cannot see any arguments against it from the point of view of the Irish tea trader. I could see arguments against it, if I wanted to see them, from the point of view of the manufacturers' agents and from the point of view of the person who wants to sit in an office in Dublin with his telephone, take an order for tea, ring up his parent company in London and say, "Send a certain quantity of tea to Mr. X", any place along the western seaboard. I cannot see the consumer objecting to a Bill of this kind, nor can I see any objection coming from a responsible tea trader here. I think the Bill has everything to commend it and I do not see any argument against it whatever.

Mr. Booth

It seems to me that this Bill is a very good illustration of the danger of assuming control of any commodity. I do not think it is being considered as a Party measure in any way, but I think it does illustrate what happens when the State decides to act as a grandmother, if you like, and to assume responsibilities which are not the normal responsibility of a Government. Tea Importers Limited, was set up at a time of emergency when there was no other way in which we could get an adequate supply of tea. During those initial years and during the emergency period generally, the directors and staff of that company did a magnificent job, every bit as good as anybody could have hoped for and possibly better than many believed possible. The situation now is that in certain quarters—I am not quite sure what the quarters are—there is a feeling gaining ground that once you let control off, some frightful disaster will take place, quite ignoring the fact that for literally hundreds of years before 1939, there was no control over the import of tea into this country and everything went on reasonably well.

I am not keen on restrictive trade practices. I believe that this restriction on entering into the tea trade is a restrictive trade practice. I am not keen either on centralised buying of supplies by those who are not directly responsible for selling them to the consumer. I do not believe centralised buying will ever be properly done because the real incentive to good buying is the knowledge that whatever you buy, you yourself will have to sell. You know your customers. You know what your customers want, and, consequently, you only buy what your customers want; but once you set up a virtual monopoly in respect of the import of tea by a company which does not only act as an importing agent but also as a buyer in its own right, I am afraid you will find that the standard of selective buying will drop.

I do not think we need consider our neighbours at all in this case. We have to consider only our own larder and our own experience that the present standard of tea in the Twenty-Six Counties is bad. Those of us who travel frequently across the Border know that, immediately you cross the Border, you notice a higher quality of tea. I regard that as being due to the fact that the tea trade is open. It is highly competitive and people buy only the sort of tea which their customers want to drink.

This Bill appears to me to be planning for another emergency. I can see that it might be wise to reserve the power to bring it in at a later date, but at the moment I am open to conviction on the point. I do not see the necessity for it. I would ask the Minister to consider deferring the date of the implementation of this Bill. I would very much like to see what would happen if the previous Act were allowed to lapse and this Bill was not brought forward to take its place. Even if free trading in the tea business were allowed for a period of six to 12 months, I might then be more convinced than I am at the moment of the necessity for it. I hope the Minister will at least consider letting us try free trading for a limited period before going further with this Bill.

I maintain that the best control of price and quality is free choice in an open market. The consumer has not got free choice in an open market at present. I am afraid that Tea Importers Limited are losing the good reputation which they built up during the emergency period. To be quite frank, I am not frightened about the bogey of Mincing Lane which Deputy Norton apparently is so greatly concerned about. I do not know anything about the tea market and I am speaking, therefore, completely without the knowledge which possibly Deputy Norton has, but I cannot believe that there is anything sinister about the activities of the market in London. Even if there is something sinister there, surely our own traders are perfectly able on their own, without Government support, to enter into direct trading negotiations with the country of origin if they wish to do so.

Deputy Norton describes the proposed company of Tea Importers (1958) Limited as a sort of co-operative society. I must say that I see no evidence of that in the Bill, as it is before us now. Deputy Norton says that anyone can join this company, can buy shares in the company, but there is nothing in the Bill that I can see to show that. Possibly the Minister can help us in that when he is concluding, but I cannot see anything to show that the shares will be put on the open market and that anyone who wishes to join this company as a shareholder can do so.

Mr. Norton

He must be a registered tea trader.

Mr. Booth

He must be a registered tea trader to do what?

Mr. S. Lemass

To acquire a share.

Mr. Norton

But he can be a tea trader buying tea for them without being a shareholder.

Mr. Booth

He may, but at the same time this company may buy on its own. I am concerned about the trend of legislation of the State interfering in trade and in business, because I do not believe that has been proved successful. There are exceptions, such as the sugar company, where there was not an existing company, but State interference in an existing trade organisation has not, to my mind, proved successful in this country, Great Britain or in any other country abroad.

I believe that the Civil Service organisation, set-up and approach is completely inappropriate for a trading organisation. Again, I am open to conviction on this matter, but I would feel that Tea Importers (1958) Limited would become and would act very much more like a Civil Service department than a co-operative society or a normal limited liability company. If it is so good to buy in the country of origin, I cannot see why our tea importers are not doing it already, or would not be prepared to do it, if they are given the freedom to do it and if it is as good a thing as Deputy Norton says it is. If it is as good a thing as he says it is, I assume the tea traders will do it on their own.

I also assume—and I think rightly— that tea importers or wholesalers are very concerned about price. All business people will agree that if you can reduce your price, you should be able to increase your turnover. Business people are always accused of keeping up prices artificially. That is nonsense. Any business man who has any business ability will cut his price to the minimum, not out of sheer goodwill towards his customers—I say that because of the smile on Deputy Larkin's face—but because it is good business to cut prices to the lowest level in the hope of increasing turnover. The wholesalers, the importers or whoever they may be, are the people, therefore, most concerned about the price. They are the people most concerned about turnover because they are the people most concerned about their own profits. They believe, as any businessman believes, that the secret of good business is maximum turnover.

I am speaking with hardly any preparation on this Bill because this is a matter into which I have made very little inquiry up to now but, in general, I am concerned about it because it seems to me that we are getting State interference in business which will be very hard to relax subsequently and which may be good or may be bad. I would much prefer if possible that we should try free open trading in the tea market; let our own people do their job and see what happens. It will be time enough then to implement this Bill if we find that the quality of tea is deteriorating or that the price of tea is going up without proper justification. But interference in ordinary business transactions like this is to my mind very dangerous and something which I cannot see to be fully justified at the moment. I am sure the Minister will deal with the point and I look forward to hearing him further on it but I am not yet convinced that it is necessary and I would ask him to consider seriously having a trial period of free trade to see whether we get better and cheaper tea.

Dr. Browne

I am not absolutely certain that the provisions of this Bill are justified. Certainly from what I know up to the present, I do not know that it will be desirable from the consumers' point of view, and I should like to discuss the matter from that point of view. I am one of the few speakers concerned, not with the trade or the wholesaler, but simply with the consumer. Certainly there has been no public demand for this Bill that I am aware of. The Minister may be aware of it.

I want to make clear that I am completely opposed to the suggestion that we should be restricted in any way in buying our tea in Mincing Lane. I completely approve of the suggestion that we should buy our tea in the country of origin. That is such an obvious thing that it hardly seems to need defence: it should be clear that the more people there are handling the tea between the country of origin and the consumer the more the consumer will pay. That is the real point.

It is of no use for Deputy Booth to say that our buyers will not buy in Mincing Lane unless they can get a better price. Of course they can afford to buy in Mincing Lane if they can pass on the unnecessarily high price to the consumer which is what they have done in the past. If, as happens in most cases, the tea trade is riddled with restrictive practices and monopolies of all kinds it is clear the consumer has no choice but to buy from a central wholesaler who sells through the retailers and as we know, if you go into different shops you will still pay the same price.

Mr. Booth

Because it is imported by one company.

Dr. Browne

The important thing is that the consumer pays in the end. On the general principle of winding up Tea Importers Limited, I should like the Minister to throw some light on this point. Tea Importers Limited, is a State company established in 1941 under very difficult conditions when Mincing Lane or the British Government, or whoever it was, cut our supplies to 25 per cent. of the pre-war total. Tea Importers Limited came into the market after a time and I would like to draw the attention of the House to the remarkably fine job which this State company has done in providing tea at reasonable prices over the years while operating in difficult circumstances. Nobody will contest that. We have it on the word of the Minister in his tribute to the company when he said—and I mention it for Deputy Booth's edification—that this State company over the years had provided continuity of supplies to the trade and to consumers at reasonable and more or less stable prices, despite fluctuations and frequent and violent changes in world markets. That is not a bad job for a State company.

Mr. Booth

They were selling very dearly for a long period.

Dr. Browne

I see no reason why this company should not be maintained even though it is run, admittedly, by voluntary workers. I believe they should be paid. It is a non-profit-making organisation and it has a very big turnover of some £4,500,000 or £5,000,000.

It seems to me the private wholesaler wants to get his hands on some of that and that is why they are anxious to take it over. As Deputy Booth told us, these businessmen do not go into business for the love of it but for what they can get out of it. I believe the wholesalers want to get all they can out of this new company, the establishment of which we are authorising. Subsequently they will be given a complete monopoly. Deputy Dillon mentioned the numbers involved including 20 or 30 larger importers who will probably control the greater part of this business. At the moment we have the position in which a non-profit-making company is controlling the tea industry. We have a number of businessmen who intend to make a profit on the importing business and it would seem, because of the cost of maintaining business organisations, that any profit they choose to make will be added on to the price of tea to the consumer.

That is what I am concerned with. I do not see the advantages of what the Minister has decided to do. It may be said we already have a monopoly but it is a State monopoly and the virtue of that is that any profit goes towards reducing the price to the consumers and not towards feathering the nests of a small group of wealthy men. It is a very good general principle that if a profit is to be made it should be spent in trying to reduce the cost as much as possible to the consumers. I do not have to defend the merits of State enterprise to the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the face of attacks made on it by Deputy Booth. We have the magnificent examples, most of them attributable to the Minister during his time in office, of Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna, the E.S.B., Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann and Irish Steel Holdings——

Mr. Haughey

Is it not a wonder the Deputy did not remember that when he was attacking the personnel of these bodies earlier this year?

Dr. Browne

That is all right. I am perfectly prepared to deal with it. It is vitally important that they be properly run, not run subject to patronage and jobbery but competently and efficiently run. I am interested in the principle of State enterprise being vindicated and it is in that way that it is undermined.

I find it difficult to agree with Deputy Norton who suggests that this is one wonderful co-operative of wholesalers. It seems to me that it is sullying the whole conception of the co-operative movement to suggest that a ring, a monopoly, of 90 traders— somebody talked here about 20 men, but 90 at the very most, according to the Minister—who will control the main intake for the whole tea trade in this country, to be consumed by the best part of 3,000,000 people, could be called a co-operative organisation. It is a common or garden trade ring or monopoly to whom we are handing over, lock, stock and barrel, all responsibility for the ultimate price of the consumer's pound of tea. It seems to me that we are handing it back to a group of people of private enterprise, merchants, traders, whose record in the past was to concentrate all their trade in Mincing Lane and make no attempt to buy in the country of origin. As far as I am aware, they made no attempt to by-pass Mincing Lane.

Because of that possibility, likelihood or tendency on the part of these people, could the Minister clarify for me Section 7 (3) (b) and tell me what he means by "imports it under and in accordance with an authorisation given by the Minister"? Could the Minister say what conditions he has in mind, under what conditions he would permit imports from countries other than the country of origin?

Knowing the record of these people in the past in the matter of buying tea, it seems to me that it is very important that it should be made quite clear that only in an exceptional emergency would they be permitted to buy other than in the country of origin because it is clear that, if we do establish a monopoly of private businessmen, if they choose to go to Mincing Lane without a valid reason, we have no control over them whatsoever. The Minister may suggest that there is some control here but I see none other than a very simple directive that they may not go to anywhere other than the country of origin except in exceptional circumstances of emergency.

Do we, the consumers or people who represent the consumers, have any say in the company? Do we have any nominee at all in the company? It appears to me that in the Bill the company is to be entirely composed of the members of the trade. Will the Minister take any steps to try to see that the consumer is represented on this board? Has he a nominee?

In respect of the tea auction, does he really believe that, although they say that they have accepted as a long-term objective the establishment of an auction mart on the lines of Mincing Lane, that is likely to occur here?

Mr. Dillon

No, he does not.

Dr. Browne

Neither do I, and I suggest neither does—however, he can answer for himself. It seems to me it would be an advantageous thing were it to happen but I gather from the Minister's statement that he could get no undertaking that it would be entertained by the wholesalers in anything but a long-term, rather nebulous sort of way.

The main point with which I am concerned is, why is the Minister, as it seems to me, back-tracking on an excellent principle? He had Tea Importers Limited, which has done a really magnificent—a very good—job since it was established. Surely it should be possible to maintain that company, pay its directors and carry on in the way that has been so well justified in respect of other matters?

Mr. Larkin

It appears to me that there are two aspects only on which I can speak on this Bill. First of all, there is the aspect of the ordinary family in the areas with which I am familiar and the areas that I represent. My immediate consideration of the matter is whether this Bill is likely to affect the position of the ordinary Dublin housewife when it comes to purchasing tea. During the period that Tea Importers Limited operated, they operated as a non-profit-making concern but I do not think that the people engaged in distributing or selling tea to the general public were denied a profit. Therefore, I do not think there is any substantial change except in so far as this Bill appears to be mainly for the purpose of ensuring, as far as possible, that tea will be purchased directly from the country of origin and that it will be purchased by the company on behalf of recognised and registered tea traders. I do not think that the purchase of tea in that particular way should reflect an increased price to the consumers just because of that particular operation. Therefore, on that aspect, I personally feel that this Bill would be a much more desirable way of dealing with the importation and purchase of tea than the line suggested by Deputy Dillon on one side and by Deputy Booth on the other, which would be a complete reversion to the original method of dealing with tea and which I understand consisted to a great extent of purchasing our requirements from the London tea market.

The second consideration that arises and which, from my point of view, is also important, is whether operating in accordance with the general principles outlined in this Bill will affect the employment of those engaged in the handling, warehousing, sorting, blending and distribution of tea in the country to-day. It appears to me that the Bill as it stands would give much more protection for continued employment of workers engaged in all aspects of the tea trade in Dublin and Ireland generally than would be afforded if we were to revert to the earlier system whereunder for many years tea was imported almost in packet form.

The Bill gives the Minister power under certain circumstances to relieve the company of the duty of purchasing in the country of origin. Nevertheless, it aims principally at the importation of tea directly from the country of origin and thereby I trust, would cut out certain middlemen interests that can operate so that buying in a market like Mincing Lane would become the regular practice again.

If the Bill is given a Second Reading and if the result of the Bill is not to the detriment of those who buy tea or of the ordinary housewife, I certainly would support it. When I speak of the ordinary housewife, I am not talking of the housewife in the South or West of Ireland, who purchases at all times high grade tea, but of the ordinary housewife in the City of Dublin, particularly the working-class woman, to whom the difference of a copper or two in the price of a quarter of a pound of tea is very important. If their interests are protected by the Bill and if the employment now being afforded to our people is also protected, I would certainly support the Bill as against the point of view expressed by Deputies opposing the Bill to-day.

Mr. Lindsay

That is what I would like to hear developed. In my view, that can happen without this Bill at all. There must be some underlying purpose. When it tends to enter into the realm of trade, the State should have not alone an underlying purpose but a highly patriotic motive. I cannot see that in the provision of this Bill, though I have been reading it rather assiduously.

I want to put another objection to the Minister, and I mean it in no offensive way. There is a phrase of the Minister's well known to all of us—"competition is the only effective control of prices and profits." How can he reconcile that statement—that true statement, which I accept fully—with the provisions of this Bill which he is recommending to the House?

Mr. S. Lemass

This is a Bill to intensify competition in the tea trade.

Mr. Lindsay

Well, if the Minister is able to show me and the House generally in his concluding speech that this is a Bill calculated to inspire competition and to promote competition, then I will be very much inclined to withdraw any objection to it.

Mr. S. Lemass

I hope, therefore, to have the Deputy on my side in the end.

Mr. Lindsay

I do not know what the Minister is going to do. If he is able to bring me on to his own side, he has then to reconcile himself with Deputy Booth. We may be able to make a simple exchange.

Mr. S. Lemass

I will get him round, too.

Mr. Lindsay

On the broad general principles, I do not think there is any necessity for this Bill. The less of this kind of legislation there is, the better for the economic life of the country. Moreover, in this type of legislation, there is a tendency to damage the integrity of the State itself, because nothing can be more damaging than the suspicion attaching to monopoly. I am satisfied that the principle of monopoly premeates this whole Bill. I am satisfied that price rings are capable of being manipulated within its provisions. I am satisfied now— subject to what the Minister has to say and subject to its being cogently said—that this Bill does not promote competition but will stifle it, and leave us with the kind of tea we are having at the moment, and possibly worse.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 19th February, 1958.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 13 Feb 1958

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

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Feb 1958