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Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 19 Jun 1925

Vol. 5 No. 10

SHOP HOURS (DRAPERY TRADES, DUBLIN AND DISTRICT) BILL, 1925—SECOND STAGE.

Question—"That the Bill be read a second time"—put.

We have only got this Bill this morning. I think you are establishing a very bad precedent in allowing the Second Reading of the Bill to be brought forward at such a short notice. If that precedent is adopted in other cases, I am afraid it will have the effect of not giving full consideration to legislation. I hope no precedent will be established in putting through those Bills so quickly.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

We have done so in other cases where it was fairly plain and obvious that the Bill was not a controversial one. I do not think this is likely to be a controversial one, and, if you recollect, you will have the fullest opportunity of discussing it in Committee.

I gave requisite notice of the Second Stage, that is, two days. There will be several days before the Bill comes before the Committee. The position with regard to this Bill is as follows:—I brought this Bill in at the request of the Committee of the Merchant Traders' Association, and since I brought it in I received the approval of the Distributive Workers' Association, including the drapers' assistants. The Bill is simply to give effect to an agreement which was arrived at by the trade generally about four years ago. If the Seanad is not willing to allow this Bill to go through its various stages in the course of a week or eight days it will be impossible for it to become law this summer. As far as a number of assistants in the smaller houses are concerned that will mean they will not get the full benefit of the system. From the time I received the request it was necessary to have the Bill drafted by a barrister, and I may say, incidentally, it was drafted by Senator Brown. It was impossible to have it drafted earlier.

I propose consideration of the Bill be adjourned until next week. I would like to give small traders affected by this Bill an opportunity of expressing an opinion on it. As Senator Linehan says, the principle does not affect people outside the Dublin area, but it may later on. We have heard a good deal recently about interfering with the rights of the people. In my opinion the rights of the people are being interfered with in this. This is, as far as I can see, in the interests of the big drapery houses and the assistants. While the assistants may be able to make a very good case, I think we are inflicting an undue hardship on small traders who find it very difficult to make their business pay at the present time. I think the assistants are fairly well protected under the Shop Hours Act and under other Acts. We have had no time to go into this Bill, and as I do not think it is pressing I propose that its consideration be adjourned until next Session.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

Would it meet your purpose, Senator, if the Second Reading was adjourned until next Tuesday, and the Committee Stage taken on Thursday?

No; I do not see any urgency about the matter.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I know nothing about the Bill, but the Senator who is interested and who moved it put forward reasons for urgency.

These reasons do not appeal to me very strongly.

I would prefer that the Seanad should decide about the Second Stage now. If the House accepts the Bill to-day, it can, if it wishes, reject it at a later Stage next week, or if there is opposition, it can then postpone the Bill until after the adjournment. I hope the Seanad will be prepared to pass the Second Reading to-day. On the Fifth Stage it can be postponed if much opposition arises.

I second the proposition to postpone consideration of this Bill. I think it is unnecessary and very intolerant legislation that will affect a large number of very small and struggling people. I think it is one of the most penal Bills I have read for years. The penalties imposed under the Licensing Act are not as severe as those imposed on a person selling a pair of stockings on a Saturday night. I think the Bill requires further consideration, and should not be allowed to pass now.

Personally, I am always averse and hostile to hurried legislation, but in this particular case this Bill, as Senator Douglas has explained, is the result of an agreement between two parties. The effect of postponing further consideration of it until after the Recess would mean rejecting it altogether for the present year, because the summer season would be at an end, and the great benefit that would be derived by early closing would be useless for the present year. An agreement was entered into some time ago, and a large body of the employers and the assistants honourably observed the agreement. A small section broke away from it without consent. What the Bill seeks to do is to make binding the agreement that was entered into.

The Bill does not seek to hit the very small trader, because it exempts people who run shops with their own families. It would be said, of course, that that would debar persons with one assistant from keeping open. A line can always be drawn, as, if the Bill was to apply to a shop with ten assistants, someone else would come along and say he had eleven assistants and was not allowed to keep open, while those with ten could. There is always a borderline. I am surprised at Senator de Loughry's objection. I thought he had a fairer and a more reasonable conception of freedom and of decent working conditions than he has shown on this occasion. Closing at 7.30 on Saturday evening, with the exception of the three Saturdays that are named, is reasonable. Any person who has business to do should be able to do it before that hour. After that hour the dregs of the business are not worth having, and will fall to the small traders who run their own business.

You may extend the shop hours to 9.30, and still have a section that would want to keep open until 10.30, and even some who would want to keep open until midnight. That kind of thing would be very unfair to those who agree to close at a regular hour. It would be very much better, in my opinion, to have a fixed hour for all shops to close at. When that fixed arrangement is made, the public generally will adjust themselves to it, and the net result will be that the assistants will have a little more freedom, and the employers will be saved a great deal of anxiety caused by the present irregularity in closing hours. The fixing of closing hours will, I believe, also lead to a due distribution of the trade amongst the various establishments. I hope that the Seanad will not agree to hold up the passage of this Bill. Its doing so would deprive a very worthy section of the community of the amount of freedom which they are seeking under this Bill and which the employers are quite prepared to concede.

I am in favour of the shortening of hours as much as possible, but on the other hand I would like to say that I have not had an opportunity of looking into this Bill very carefully. All I have heard about it was the hurried explanation given by the Senator who introduced it. Senator Douglas has told us that if we give the Bill a Second Reading to-day the remaining stages of it can be taken in the next session. Senator O'Farrell tells us, on the other hand, that it would be wrong to do that for the reason that the summer months would have passed when the next stage of the Bill came to be considered.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

There is some confusion in the Senator's mind, I think, about that. What Senator Douglas did say was that if the Seanad gave the Bill a Second Reading to-day the Committee Stage could be held up until after the Recess, but I would like to point out to Senator Colonel Moore that Senator Douglas did not invite the Seanad to hold over the remaining stages of the Bill until after the Recess.

I was not talking about inviting at all. What I did say was that Senator Douglas's suggestion cut across the suggestion made by Senator O'Farrell, and vice versa. If the Seanad agree to do what Senator Douglas suggested, then the next stages of the Bill, supposing it got a Second Reading to-day, would not be taken until the summer months had passed.

What I suggested was that if the Seanad were prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading to-day, the further stages could be taken next week, and that in the meantime Senators would have an opportunity of giving the measure the consideration which Senator Colonel Moore asks for. If, on the other hand, the Seanad were to refuse to give the Bill a Second Reading to-day it would be impossible to proceed further with it before the Recess, even though Senators, between now and our meeting next week, realised that in rejecting the Second Reading to-day they had done wrong.

I am in favour of early closing, but at the same time I am anxious that the small traders who are not, I think, members of the Master Drapers' Association should have an opportunity of having their interests considered. The members of the Master Drapers' Association close, as a rule, at 1 o'clock on Saturdays and at 6 on ordinary week evenings, but then there is a very large number of small traders who are not members of that Association, and I think that before we give this Bill a Second Reading we shall have an opportunity of getting their views on this matter. There is one point, I think, which has been omitted from the Bill. Provision is made so that all the large houses may remain open all day on the Saturdays before the big holidays, such as at Easter and Whitsuntide, but I notice that the Saturday before the August bank holiday is omitted. That is a matter that should be attended to, I think.

I am not very conversant with the merits of this Bill, but I think it will be admitted that the Shop Hours' Act affords great privileges to shop assistants. Before I could agree to the Second Reading of this Bill I would have to satisfy myself that its provisions were not calculated to inflict an injury on the smaller traders. These shops cater for people of small means, and as a rule their busiest hours are on Saturday evenings. Before we come to any conclusion on this Bill I think we should give an opportunity for having the views of the smaller traders put before us. In my opinion Senator de Loughry has stated the position very fairly. The attitude he has taken up is, I think, an equitable one. I certainly could not support the Bill until I get an assurance that its provisions are not calculated to penalise and do a serious injury to the small traders in the city.

I suggest to Senator de Loughry that he ought to move that the consideration of the Bill be adjourned until after the holding of the Seanad elections. After these elections perhaps some of us may not be here either to support or oppose the Bill. I seriously suggest to the Seanad that to turn down the Second Reading of this Bill will do an injury to the prestige of this assembly in the opinion of the people of the country. In my opinion, this Bill reflects the first attempt at democratic or progressive legislation in this House. Some Senators have stated that they have not had sufficient time to study this Bill. In my opinion a Senator who gets up and states that he has not had time to study a Bill which consists of a few small paragraphs must be a very lazy man. We have been told that this Bill will inflict a hardship on the smaller traders, and also that many of them are only able to make a living when the larger houses are closed. I remember the time when many of these smaller houses were open on Sunday mornings. Is it suggested that we ought to go back to that system again? I hold that even in the case of the smaller houses we should not facilitate them to the extent of enabling them to keep open, as some of them used to do years ago, until 11 and 12 o'clock on Saturday nights. I suggest to those who are opposing the Bill to withdraw their opposition and to give it a Second Reading to-day. If there are any safeguards which they think ought to be introduced, well, then, these can be discussed on the Committee Stage, but I do not think the Seanad should agree to the holding up of the Bill by rejecting the Second Reading to-day. I do not think any decent-minded Senator should support such a suggestion.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I might point out to Senators that if the Bill is given a Second Reading to-day it will be open to Senators, on the Committee Stage, to discuss by amendment the position of the smaller traders, and, if it is thought desirable, to limit the operation of the Bill to houses of a certain rateable valuation. These are matters that can be fully discussed on the Committee Stage. I am just pointing that out to the Seanad. At the same time, I desire to say that I have no interest in the Bill at all, and know nothing about it. I thought it well, however, to point out to the Seanad that the difficulty suggested as regards the smaller traders can be fully debated on the Committee Stage.

The object of the Bill is to give statutory authority to an obligation undertaken voluntarily some years ago by certain traders in the city of Dublin. By a majority vote, taken amongst the people engaged in the drapery business in Dublin some years ago under the auspices of the City Municipal Council, it was decided that there should be certain fixed hours for the closing of these establishments. Owing to the abnormal conditions that prevailed in the city and generally throughout the country in late years, a number of people engaged in the drapery business failed to adhere to the obligation, as regards early closing, that they then undertook. A number of them, I regret to say, did not continue to observe the agreement that they entered into, and now they are keeping open after the recognised closing hour. The result is that, more or less, they are in the position of pirates. The people who observed the agreement honourably lost a certain amount of business which drifted to those shopkeepers who failed to keep the agreement. I might point out that the shops which keep open to a late hour on Saturday evening cater for the poorer classes of the people, and if anyone should stand up to defend the interests of the poorer classes of the people surely it is the Senators who sit on these benches.

Thanks to the Trade Union movement, the workers are off now early enough to do their shopping before seven o'clock on Saturday evenings. There is another point. Fancy young people being employed in weather like this from nine o'clock in the morning until half-past-ten at night, and remember that these people engaged in shops which keep open late are all young. Surely we ought to consider their position and see that traders that insist in keeping their premises open and young people employed during long hours should not be allowed to do so.

There is only a certain amount of shopping to be done. People cannot buy more than they require, or more than their pockets allow them. There is no doubt that the big shops get the benefit of the trade taken from the smaller shops. There will be no hardship inflicted on the smaller traders who run their shops with the aid of their own families. This Bill only deals with shops where assistants are employed for hire. I appeal to Senators, from the point of view of humanity, to support the Second Reading of this Bill so that there may be some regulation of the hours during which shops should be kept open. There will be no hardship inflicted, but you will prevent people taking advantage of other people's premises being closed to do a little extra trade.

I asked a question as to whether there would be time between now and the next Stage of the Bill to acquire an amount of necessary information in regard to these particular drapery houses. It seems to me that if the drapery houses close earlier, say at seven o'clock, a great number of working men will have their wages paid to them by half-past six o'clock—

They are paid on a Friday or very early on Saturday.

Well, then they will be parading the town up to a certain hour of the Saturday night with an amount of money gingling in their pockets, and it may be a question as to whether their wives may be able to induce them to go into the drapery shops to buy something useful and necessary rather than go into another class of shop which keeps open until nine o'clock. I think we ought to take a little time over this idea. It would be wiser to try and find out whether people would spend their money with more advantage in the one shop than in the other.

There were several points raised during the discussion which I think would not have been raised if the position had been fully understood, and, possibly, it would have been better if I had made an introductory statement dealing with those points. In the first place, the position with regard to hours is briefly this: During the war it was obligatory to close between the hours of five and six, and during our own war here, if I may use the phrase, it was not wise to remain open after six or six-thirty o'clock and so the houses closed down. In 1920 a general meeting of the Merchant Drapers' Association—and I may say in passing I am not a member of the Association—was held and was attended by almost all the drapery traders known as the late Saturday opening houses. The meeting was not attended by the larger firms like Clery's, Pim's, Todd's, Arnott's and so on, who close early on a Saturday. The small houses may be divided into two classes, namely, those known as the larger and those known as the smaller.

The larger of these houses had been in the habit of closing at eight or nine o'clock on Saturday nights, and the others at ten or eleven. At this meeting it was urged that those in the habit of closing at eight or nine, including the firm with which I am connected, should agree to closing at 6.30 p.m., leaving an additional hour longer to the smaller houses, which did not compete, as a whole, with the larger houses. That was carried, and has been, and is being carried out in most districts in Dublin. But owing to the fact that a number of houses have changed hands in these districts, many of the new proprietors did not feel themselves bound to keep the agreement. I do not want to emphasise that overmuch. Most of the houses do not wish to go back to the late hour of nine or ten o'clock on a Saturday night, but I am afraid that will be the result if people are allowed to drift in some districts, and if a number of the houses remain open up to 9.30 and some up to 10 o'clock. Drapers generally have been informing their staff that if this continues they will abandon the arrangement of closing at 6.30 or so, and that they will remain open until 9 o'clock.

That is being resisted by the assistants, and I am informed by the employers and assistants that the only way to solve the difficulty is to make an arrangement which will be binding generally and which will be carried out. This Bill is not to change or to create new hours. In the next place, it is only covering three years, because it was suggested to me by the Ministry concerned that at the end of two or three years the Government would have to deal with the whole question of shop hours, and that it was better to leave it open so as to fit in with the new scheme. When I speak of agreement I mean two things. Four years ago there was an agreement including the houses to which Senator Mrs. Wyse Power referred, known as the smaller houses. In this particular case a move was made by the Merchant Drapers' Association, and someone had to take charge and get a Bill drafted. I very much hope that the Seanad will not turn down the Second Reading of this Bill. They will have plenty of opportunities between this and next stage to consult persons affected, and if any general outcry arises against the Bill I will not go on with it.

I suppose I should be considered as not very much interested in this Bill, having no connection whatever with the drapery trade. I believe that in that case it would be a hardship on the small traders in the country. The workmen in Dublin are paid on Friday evening or early on Saturday morning, and they can do their shopping early. That, however, does not obtain in the country, as people like farm labourers do not get paid until Saturday evening. Summer-time is not recognised in many country districts, and, as a general rule, it is after 8 o'clock in the evening when people arrive in a country town to do their shopping. If conditions have changed so much in Dublin, and if there is no necessity for people shopping after 7.30 p.m., I cannot see why it is necessary to pass legislation such as this. I think the trade unions here should be strong enough to get people to do their shopping before 7.30 p.m. I think that some time should be given to ascertain the views of small traders who are directly affected. It has been stated that this is in the interests of merchant drapers and the assistants, but I am not much interested in them as they can very well look after themselves. I would be influenced, however, by the opinion of small traders.

I think it is time enough to bid the devil good morrow when we meet him. This Bill applies only to the city, and when the time comes to extend it to the country it will be time enough to argue the merits of the case. I hope it will be extended to the country and I hope that arrangements will be made to have wages paid at a proper hour to enable men to do their shopping early on Saturday rather than having them coming home at midnight to disturb the amenities of country life. We have people parading the roads and streets up to a late hour on Saturday night and into the small hours of Sunday morning, a fact which is very disedifying to a country town. I think there should be no difficulty about this Bill. It is not a drastic measure and its intention is to revive what was voluntarily agreed to some years ago and which would still be agreed to were it not for the dislocation of trade in the country. It is a boon which everybody welcomes, and it is hoped by this Bill to revive that boon. I think that the Seanad should have no difficulty in giving it a Second Reading to enable advantage to be taken of the Bill before winter comes.

Question—"That further consideration of this Bill be postponed until after the Recess"—put and negatived.
Question—"That this Bill be read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.
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