I move:
That Seanad Eireann hereby approves of Control of Imports (Quotas Nos. 1 to 32) (Amendment) Order, 1939.
Public Business. - Control of Imports (Quotas Nos. 1 to 32) (Amendment) Order, 1939—Motion.
This order is to regularise and to make effective certain exemptions from the operation of quota orders which were made prior to the passing of the Control of Imports (Amendment) Act, 1937, and whereby small parcels and isolated articles brought into this country, and to which quota restrictions were never intended to apply, fell within the scope of that legislation. Prior to the passing of the Act of 1937, the entry of the articles into the Twenty-Six Counties was facilitated by the administrative action of the Revenue Commissioners, acting within their general discretion, but without any statutory authority, and always on the understanding that at the earliest practicable date and the earliest convenient opportunity, the relaxations they permitted would be regularised by legislation. Consequent upon the passing of the Control of Imports (Amendment) Act to which I have already referred, this order has now been made by the Executive Council and, as prescribed by the Act, comes before both Houses of the Oireachtas for their approval.
Under the order, articles of the following descriptions are exempted from the operation of certain quota orders which are set out in the First Schedule: samples or models, stage clothes and properties, scientific medical and surgical articles, upholstery, that is to say, materials brought in for upholstering or covering furniture, the manufacture of curtains, the upholstering of vehicles and binding of books, blanketing and felt, articles brought in for further manufacture and exportation, articles brought in for the purposes of competitions and exhibitions, articles temporarily imported, as, for instance, by people coming to the country on a visit, or a holiday, or passing through the country, articles coming in as part of passengers' luggage, gifts, wedding presents, parts and accessories for further manufacture, or coming in as parts of imported articles, articles imported for the purpose of ship building, articles which form part of the estates of persons dying abroad, articles imported into this country and passed through it for the purpose of the British Post Office and articles used in connection with or in conjunction with transatlantic air services.
I think this amendment order provides one with an opportunity of making a few remarks relating to the general policy, and to the particular facts mentioned in the order itself. In the first place, I am glad to welcome this order because it seems to me to embody a certain liberalising tendency in the general policy of commercial restrictions which has been practised over a number of years. It appears to be a using of machinery, designed originally for the purpose of restricting imports in such a way as to diminish the degrees of restriction exercised on imports, and, to that extent, I welcome it; but it raises one question of general policy, that is, the policy of quota restrictions, associated with a moderate tariff or, indeed, sometimes a tariff that is not so very moderate, or the other policy of a fairly high tariff and no quantitative restriction of any kind.
Personally, if I had to choose between these two methods of restricting and controlling imports, I should much rather have the system of a moderately high tariff and no quantitative restrictions, rather than the system of quantitative restrictions and a low tariff, for the reason that, in the absence of quantitative restriction, the essential freedom of international commerce and the essential freedom of the consumer at home are preserved. The consumer who is patriotic enough to prefer to support the public revenue rather than the native profiteer can always buy the imported article, and have the comfortable feeling that he is contributing to the public revenue in the process of doing so; but, under the system of quantitative restriction embodied in these quota limitations, he has not got that valuable option.
Another point suggests itself to me, and it is that this policy was devised in a time of peace and used as a method of furthering industrial development at home. I am not at all satisfied that, under war conditions, we should continue to use the machinery of restricting imports, however many may have been the arguments in favour of using it in times of peace. Surely the war situation itself creates such a condition of scarcity, abroad as well as at home, that our whole problem at present and in the immediate future will be how to get necessary imports in, rather than how to keep them out. On the face of it, it looks to me as if the war has created a situation in which we should simply scrap the whole of the machinery devised under the Control of Imports Act, 1934, instead of being content with merely modifying it.
Coming then, to some of the detailed orders, I observe with interest that perambulators, if imported as wedding presents, are allowed to escape from this quantitative limitation of imports. Personally, I have never thought of giving a perambulator as a wedding present, but I agree that it is an entirely appropriate and even desirable form of wedding gift, but when we come to the limitation on the import of phosphates, for example, we find that no provision is contained in this amending order to enable one to import phosphates as a wedding present. That may appear absurd, but there is a relation between the fertility of our soil and the fertility of our people, and if you prejudice the fertility of our soil by restricting and making artificially dear the phosphates which are needed for improving that fertility, you indirectly diminish the numbers of our population and the fertility of our people. I can imagine no more appropriate wedding present for a young farmer setting out on the greatest adventure of his life than the gift of a ton or two of first-class imported superphosphate.
That raises another question of, perhaps, more general policy. It seems to me that the whole operation of the policy embodied in this Control of Imports Act has tended to make the requisites of agricultural production much dearer in this area than they are elsewhere and, in particular, in the Six-County area. I have, for some time, been in the habit of receiving, by courtesy of the Minister of Agriculture in Northern Ireland, their monthly report which contains most valuable information about the prices of feeding stuffs, live stock, and so on, in that area, and that, in conjunction with the literature I receive, and which we all receive, from the Ministry of Agriculture here, enables me to effect some interesting comparisons. In that connection, may I say that it would be desirable in the interests of all Ireland that the habit of exchanging official information between members of the Oireachtas and members of the Parliament in Northern Ireland should be encouraged and extended, and, if possible, put under official or semiofficial auspices.
I find that, owing to the unfortunate division of our country, we tend to develop the most remarkable ignorance of the facts and problems with which the different sections of the country are confronted. One way by which we may get to know each other better and to understand each other's problems better would be by the official or semiofficial exchange of valuable documents of official information such as that report which I have just mentioned.
From this publication it appears that in August 1939—before the war situation created abnormal disturbances— the price of maize meal in Northern Ireland was 6/6 per cwt. and it appears from our own official publication that the price of maize meal in our region of the country was at the same date 8/6.
That was the admixture.
At all events, the prices we had to pay for feeding stuffs of all kinds were higher than the prices our competitors were paying in Northern Ireland. That seems to imply an attitude of public policy in which we prefer the interests of 1,000 people manufacturing artificial manures or the interests of another 1,000 people manufacturing Indian meal to the interests of 600,000 engaged in our principal economic activity, agriculture. In my view, it is more important that 600,000 agricultural producers should be enabled to produce and prosper than that the number of people manufacturing artificial manures should be 1,000 instead of 889. These are the only points I should like to raise, but I consider them important and believe they should receive the attention of the Government.
Might I ask the Minister to be a little more illuminating as to what the purpose of the order is, as it appears very technical? Evidently, he takes power to exempt from duty a number of articles for a number of State purposes. I fail to see how it is that that statutory power does not exist already, or, if it does not, why he cannot take it in a more general form. The Government appears to be a complete dictator in the matter of these duties, they may put them on where they like and in any way they like. Why cannot they take general power to exempt these articles at their discretion?
It seems to me that this is the one quota order in which they are taking general power rather than specifically dealing with each item. I think I am correct in saying that tariffs are not affected.
That is so; it only relates to quota restrictions.
It relates to articles imported under quota licence, and now it will be possible to import the particular articles mentioned here without a quota licence for them, if they come within these particular categories. The categories themselves puzzle me and somewhat amuse me. I wonder why certain things are left out in some cases and included in others. I know that silk stockings can be brought in if they are the property of a deceased person, and so can brooms, but not handles. I find that the inner tubes for motor cars can be imported if they are scientific or medical articles. My imagination is not good enough to picture the inner tube of a motor car which will prove to be a surgical article, though it may be temporarily used for that purpose. How you are going to prove that your inner motorcar tube may be used for tying up a wound at a later date is beyond me. Generally, I should say that it is very much better that these small things be exempt, although I do not at all agree with Senator Johnston that it is in the public interest, if you cannot choose between the two, to have high tariffs and no quota restrictions rather than low tariffs and quantitative restrictions. I believe the State has far more control with low tariffs. The use of the quota gives adequate protection to Irish industry, but it does not allow Irish manufacturers to put the price too high, as the Government has power immediately to increase the quota, and that will prove, I need hardly say, an extremely effective check. I do not agree with Senator Johnston that, because it is wartime, one should immediately remove such quota restrictions as were devised before the war, in order to encourage industry here and keep the present industries going. I would have said the opposite—if there were no war some of the restrictions might be due for revision, but it would be extremely dangerous during the present situation to add to the difficult position of many industries. If the supply is short and Irish manufacturers are unable to supply, the Government has full powers under the quota system. They can simply increase the quantities admitted, assuming that they can be obtained. I believe that has occurred in some cases. To simply scrap the scheme without some consideration would be disastrous. I support the motion.
I agree with some of the remarks made by Senator Johnston and especially those with reference to the restrictions on artificial manures and seeds imported. The farmers are well aware that last spring there was not a sufficient quantity of artificial manure. While admitting that the Government did its best to get sufficient supplies, I know there were people in the country who could not get sufficient in view of the extra tillage. Year after year there is an inclination on the part of our farmers to import Scotch oats as a change of seed and, from my knowledge of it, it is well worth the trouble to get a change of seed. There should be no restriction on the importation of Scotch seed oats and there should be no tariffs on oats or manures. The same might apply to flax seed, which is a crop grown very much in the North of Ireland. The Government should seriously consider the advisability of placing no restrictions on the importation of flax seed. I would go as far as Senator Johnston in saying that anything which may promote the agricultural industry should not be subject to restrictions in the way of tariffs and quotas.
Perhaps I have left the House under some misapprehension as to what exactly we are doing by this quota order and what we propose to do. We are dealing merely with isolated and peculiar cases of articles which were caught unintentionally by the original quota legislation. The Act for setting up the machinery for the enforcement of quantitative restriction on our imports was passed in 1934. It was subsequently discovered that no provision had been included in that Act which would enable us to deal with articles coming within the categories which I have put before the House. In order that undue inconvenience might not be occasioned to our residents and visitors, the Revenue Commissioners by administrative action dealt with these things in a commonsense way. The Commissioners take a very rigid view of their responsibilities in this matter, and insisted that at an early date amending legislation should be passed to enable them to exempt from the quota restrictions articles which were brought in in certain special circumstances, in circumstances in which it would be unreasonable to ask an importer to get a licence to import an article before it could be brought into the country. What this order does in fact is to say that when certain articles are brought in in certain circumstances, a licence will not be necessary and they will not be taken as forming part of the general import quota which has been made in respect of these articles.
I do not pretend to be in a position to deal with every one of these exemptions in detail. I can only say that, in their wisdom, the Revenue Commissioners have thought it desirable to seek power to exempt from the quota restriction, certain of these articles in certain cases and that in determining which particular exemption should be inserted in each particular quota, two general principles were followed. The first is that the exemption should be inserted unless there is positive reason why it should not be—for instance, serious danger that the exemption would be abused and the objects behind the quota order defeated. The second is that where an article had been exempted expressly from some general duty of customs, logically it should also be exempted from the general quota restriction. On that basis, the schedule which forms the operative part of this order has been drawn up.
In relation to the one or two articles to which reference has been made by Senator Johnston and also by Senator Douglas, I would point out, for example in the case of pneumatic tyres and tubes imported for medical or surgical purposes, or surgical tables or chairs, that chairs for invalids are often equipped with pneumatic tyres and accordingly as pneumatic tyres and tubes are covered by quota restrictions, it is desirable that they should be exempted.
May I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that this refers to tyres and tubes for mechanically propelled vehicles?
That may be but has the Senator never seen an invalid carriage mechanically propelled?
Might I suggest that it is hard to see the relation between marble chippings and the transatlantic air service.
The position in relation to that is that we are so anxious to remove any barrier to the development of that service that we think there should be no quota restriction there at all. However, I am sure, as I say, that the Revenue Commissioners would not ask that these exemptions should be granted unless they have had on occasion to permit the import of these articles notwithstanding the quota. The other case made had reference to the possibility of a person receiving a quantity of phosphates as a wedding gift. If the recipient is not too particular or too proud of his newly acquired marital state, he can take it as an ordinary gift. If he gets a gift of fertiliser, he does not have to ask the Revenue Commissioners to assume that the presentation of a ton of superphosphates was essentially an expression of good will to a newly married couple on the occasion of their marriage. It would be equally plausible to ask them to assume that there might be an enthusiastic gardener on the other side, who would have a friend here who was equally enthusiastic in regard to horticulture and he might on occasion wish to send him a particular brand of fertiliser as a gift. If Senator Johnston's young bridegroom is prepared to accept the gift under these conditions, I think the Revenue Commissioners would be prepared to listen to any representations.
I shall bear that in mind but would the Minister inform the House what is the precise position at present in regard to imported manures?
The present position is that a very wide quota has been fixed and, in fact, for all practical purposes there is no real restriction on import. We will take fertilisers wherever and whenever we can get them. I would have thought that if there was any point to be raised on this order, it would be related to the fact that somehow or other perambulators have been associated with the transatlantic air service.
Question put and agreed to.