If the Senator would like me to be more precise, I should say that, as a rule, he speaks on behalf of the employees. This evening he has made himself the champion of the employers. He spoke of an industry in which there was only one employer and hundreds or, perhaps, thousands of employees. What, he asked, was to be the position of that employer? His position is fully covered by paragraph (a) of sub-section (3) of Section 6. There is nothing to prevent this single employer from negotiating with his hundreds or thousands of employees, or, as he would presumably do, with the authorised trade union representing these employees. He goes on to ask: "Suppose you had only two or three employers in a particular industry, what are they to do?" I have suggested that individual unions within one industry, such as the building trade, should federate for the purpose of conducting these negotiations. I think it is equally open to the three, four or five employers operating in a particular industry, as Senator O'Connell has suggested, to act similarly. I cannot see any reason why, if these employers are conducting these substantial undertakings, they should not be able to raise £1,000 between them. But if this very unlikely hypothesis be granted, what is to prevent their joining one of the federations of employers, forming a group inside that employers' association and, through the agency of that federated association, conducting those negotiations which they find it necessary to enter into with the organisation representing their employees? I do not think that the employers will be put in any more difficult position than that in which the employees will find themselves. It will be just as easy for employers to federate as it will be for the employees' organisations to federate. The main factor is that we must get some kind of impelling cause behind these two elements in industry to induce them to consider the question of rational organisation of industry. I cannot see that we can get that impelling cause in any other way than we propose to do under sub-section (7)—by imposing upon them a condition which they will have to fulfil, and which many of them may have to fulfil in co-operation with other similar organisations. I quite admit that this may be a rough-and-ready way of dealing with the matter. We could not frame legislation upon any practical basis which would deal with particular cases, or with particular trade unions, whether of employers or employees, or which would deal with every hard case. It is an old saying that "hard cases make bad law," and the only thing we can do is to find some general rule, some norm, to which the mass of individuals in the community will have to conform. We have done that here. I do not say that it will not inflict hardship in some cases. That is, unfortunately, almost an inevitable characteristic of law.
Senator Tierney has suggested that this provision is only another example of the way the State is arrogating to itself certain functions. The State is not arrogating to itself any function in this case. The State has the duty to ensure that the general interest of the community will be protected and that the productive interests of the community, as a whole, will not be upset or jeopardised by irresponsible individuals. In my view, the State has, accordingly, the obligation of trying to devise some expedient which will prevent that sort of evil from persisting. We could perhaps, set up some sort of judicial tribunal, as Senator Tierney has suggested, which would call every organisation before it and ask it to justify its right to act on behalf of one class or the other in regard to the fixing of wages or the regulation of conditions of employment. But, surely, to set up a tribunal of that sort would be to interfere very much more and in a more objectionable way with the rights and liberties of individuals. Not only would we be interfering in a more objectionable way but it would be found, I think, that we were interfering in a way which was impractical and impossible. I suppose there would be about 150 organisations —some of them are not known to our law—of one sort and another which negotiate for the fixing of wages and the regulation of conditions of employment. Will Senators consider how long it would take a tribunal such as has been suggested to consider every one of these cases and to bring the order out of chaos which, we hope, this Bill will do something to effect? If we were to set up the tribunal, we would have all the expense—why, I think that a tribunal of that sort might quite easily cost the Ennis Labourers' Society, for whom Senator Hogan is concerned and, undoubtedly, rightly concerned, very much more than they would be able to afford: perhaps, even more than they might be called on, under this Bill, to deposit, or to raise for purposes of depositing; and they might not be any better off. They might not, at the end of it all, get their negotiation licence, and might be compelled by this tribunal to go out of existence, but in the meantime they would have lost their money trying to substantiate, before the tribunal, their right to survive. It would mean that we could have these proceedings spread out over a number of years, and what would be the position with regard to Irish industry in the meantime, when you would have all those unions, which saw themselves at one time or another having to justify their existence before the tribunal, going out and competing with each other for membership and trying to ensure that, whoever else would be refused a negotiation licence, they would not be refused, trying to ensure that their dangerous rivals and competitors would be put out of existence? Would not a tribunal, such as Senator Tierney suggested, be more likely to aggravate this industrial problem than to cure it?
And, again, what is going to happen in the meantime with all these unions, even if it did work? This is a problem which is urgent. I submit to the House that the failure of the efforts which the Irish trade union movement has made to deal with this problem is an indication that it is not the sort of problem that can be dealt with by a tribunal: that, again, it is a sort of problem with which you can deal only by imposing a general condition and saying to the trade union: "If you do not conform to that general condition, arbitrary and all as it may be, and empirically applied as it may be, you have got to consider merging your identity with other organisations, or go out of business." I think that the history of this problem, the domestic history of this problem, in the Irish trade union movement, is an indication that it is not the sort of thing that you can solve by tribunals. Once you can secure preliminary reorganisation of the movement, in the way in which I think this deposit will compel that reorganisation to be undertaken, you can then set up a tribunal which will deal with the wider aspects of the question, which will not have to concern itself with whether an organisation is going to be allowed to exist in this town or that, but in what way the existing large organisations should be restricted to particular fields for the sake of peace in Irish industry.
Now, I think I have dealt, as reasonably as I can, with all the points that were raised. Senator Lynch mentioned the case of the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen. Well, of course, that association is not a registered trade union in this country; it is one of these English trade unions, and its problem is, perhaps, more difficult on that account, but if the organisation, to which these 450 members belong, is not prepared to put up this £1,000 for them, I presume they will have to become a trade union on their own account, registered under the laws of this country, and as these are generally people in fairly well-paid jobs, again, I do not see that they are going to have any great difficulty in raising the £1,000 and making the deposit, bearing in mind that it will be in the form of interest-bearing securities and that the income arising therefrom will go to meet any bank charges that might be incurred by the organisation raising the money. I do not wish to detain the House any longer.
