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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Apr 1950

Vol. 37 No. 16

Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) Bill, 1950 (Certified a Money Bill)—Second and Subsequent Stages.

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

The purpose of this Bill is to confirm an Order made by the Government on 23rd August, 1949, increasing the minimum rates of duty on wallpaper with effect from 26th August of that year. The duties in operation prior to the latter date were introduced in 1939 following a review by the Prices Commission and were as follows:—full, 20 per cent. ad valorem or 1½d. a linear yard or, preferential, 20 per cent. ad valorem or 1d., whichever was the greater in each particular case.

In common with many other commodities, the prices of wallpapers have risen steeply since 1939 and the minimum rates, which, in this particular duty, are the operative rates, had lost most of their protective value, with the result that the home industry was suffering severe competition from imports. It was accordingly decided to increase the minimum rates of duty per linear yard from 1½d. full and 1d. preferential, to 3¾d. and 2½d. respectively. There is a separate Revenue duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem on wallpaper which is additional to the protective duties I have mentioned.

The manufacture of wallpaper is carried on in Kildare and Bray and gives rise to considerable direct employment in both areas. In addition, it provides a market for paper produced by the Irish paper making industry. Wall and ceiling papers are items for which there will always be a steady demand.

Under the provisions of the Emergency (Imposition of Duties) Act, 1932, the Order covered by the Bill expires on 22nd April, 1950, unless previously confirmed by Act of the Oireachtas.

I should say that the negotiations concerning this matter were rather protracted and it was not practicable to have the Bill ready before the recess. Consequently, the matter is urgent. It merely confirms the Order made in August of last year.

While I agree with what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, there are some aspects of this matter of which the Government have not taken sufficient notice. 3¾d. a linear yard sounds a very modest sum but, taking an extreme case, you could get a piece of paper printed 12 over, that is, a border with 12 lines bordering, which would be assessed at 3/8 a yard for 12 yards. That would be over £2 duty on a piece of paper that might cost 4/-. That is a very excessive amount.

Everybody would expect that native manufacturers ought to be protected but the question is how far it is possible for them to cover the entire demand or the effective demand from the country. I do not think it is any exaggeration to say that in the days before wallpapers were manufacture. in this country a range of anything up to 4,000 designs would probably be available to a person wishing to select wallpaper. At the present time I do not think it amounts to any more than 300. Somebody may say that with 300 designs you ought to be able to select what you want but to a discriminating buyer who wants to match the wallpaper with the furnishings in the room it is rather a hard task. The real point where the shoe pinches is in the upper value. The manufacturers, I think, are doing their best in the lower and middle class sections but it is not so good when you come to the better class designs of wallpaper. Somebody may say that they can produce good designs too. So they can, but they all cost money and a very large amount of money and unless an enormous amount is sold they would be better if they had not produced those designs at all. There was a feeling, I think, certainly when the industry was first established, that there was really no hope that the local manufacturers would cover the demand for the more expensive wallpapers. Some people, possibly not the manufacturers, would say that financially they would be better by not trying to cater for them but that is a debatable point. The point I really wish to make is that the really expensive designs of wallpaper have disappeared out of this country. The Parliamentary Secretary has said that the wallpaper manufacturers give employment, and so they do, but I should like to remind him that a type of people were employed in better-class decoration, such as paper hangers and decorators, who really get no scope for employment at the present time. The scope for colouring and design in working-class houses, as far as painting is concerned, is strictly limited, and those people are largely unemployed at the present time although the demand for labour is so great that that aspect of the question probably tends to be overlooked. I should like to point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that by covering the better-class papers with a tariff such as this he is shutting them out. If they were shut out and the local manufacturers could fill the bill I think no harm would be done, but I would like to suggest that merely a vacuum is left. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary appreciates the amount of employment that was produced by the decoration of houses in a high-class manner. Not only the paper, the painting and possibly the decoration of the ceilings but the rest of the furnishings contributed to employment in this country. I think there was a suggestion that there should be some sort of conference, but there is no doubt that certain sections of the community do not grieve at this duty in its present form and I am merely putting that suggestion forward to the Parliamentary Secretary.

I think we must all be very pleased at the great progress which has been made by the two industries manufacturing paper of this type. As the Parliamentary Secretary pointed out it gives employment at home and not alone does it give employment in the preparation of the paper but also it utilises native paper. While Senator Dockrell has certainly made what I would consider a very reasonable case on behalf of people who may wish to purchase certain designs, at the same time we must admit that since its establishment here the industry has made great strides and that very many new designs of paper and varieties in price and quality have been put on the market by those industries. If the Parliamentary Secretary gave way to Senator Dockrell's point of view I fear we would never reach the time when any factory of ours could reasonably undertake the expense involved in giving this type of people the particular designs they require. There would not only be competition but in order to hold the Irish market these designs might be dumped into the country by foreign manufacturers. There have been prolonged negotiations over this matter and it has received, I am sure, very careful attention. We on this side of the House have great pleasure in supporting the Bill because this is an Irish industry which we would like to see developed even further.

The general point I should like to raise on this proposal is that it appears that, when duties are put on, not enough consideration is given to the amount of goods brought into the net of the tariff. I am all for protecting an Irish industry that requires protection, but I feel that in a lot of cases the protection of goods goes far beyond the protection necessary, thereby bringing more goods into the net of the tariff and raising the cost of living. We are just as much concerned with the cost of living as with the protection of home industry, in fact they go hand in hand because the cost of an industry increases with the cost of living. When workers ask for more wages they claim that the cost of living is going higher. It is very difficult and it must be borne in mind that we must reconcile our tariff policy with a low cost of living policy because they pull against each other. Let us protect industries in this country by all means but protect what they make and do not protect all the things that they do not make. That has been very noticeable in my own business during the past year where protection was given to a line manufactured in this country in small quantities. As a result of the tariff put on to protect this the price of a huge range of piece goods was raised considerably which in turn raised the prices of making-up factories in the country which had to use these goods. Consequently, in order to protect one small industry the cost of materials and the cost of making-up goods was raised and consequently the cost of living. The cost-of-living index has gone up in clothing by three points since the last period and I attribute that rise in the main to the business of putting on a general tariff to meet a very particular and limited case.

I do not intend to say much on this Bill but I do feel that it is one we must support on all sides of the House. After all, we have the fact that there are two factories making wallpaper in this country. Listening to Senator McGuire emphasising that, in some cases, the cost of living is affected by certain of these industries, we have to remember, and I do not think it is emphasised enough, that in most of our factories it can be demonstrated that the standard of wages paid is, at least, as good, and in many cases higher than in the countries from which the goods hitherto were imported. Therefore, it is an important factor in our national economy. If we want to keep our people at home, and if we want to pay them a fair standard of wages, we have to accept some industries which, on a certain line of argument, can be regarded as uneconomic. Mention has been made, and rightly made, by Senator Dockrell of the fact that the extensive range of the more expensive papers that were hitherto available from outside is no longer available. That again is true, but when this market was flooded with goods from countries outside, the many big industrial countries with big industrial traditions, making in their own case for a market 16 times as great as this, we had the range of patterns that is now no longer available. The variety was then arranged by somebody else, when it suited these countries, and when they had a surplus available. Even, if it were a small surplus that they had no longer a need for in their own market, this was a convenient market to dump the surplus, and not always at an economic price. That is something that ought to be known. I do not intend to make a lengthy speech on this, as I do not think this Bill calls for it, but I do think these points ought to be emphasised. There is too great a desire sometimes to say that the little native manufacturer, catering for a small market of 3,000,000 people, should be expected to produce the wide range of patterns, designs and qualities that formerly came in from outside, without having relation to the economic conditions that obtain in factories outside as compared with our own.

I am glad to be here to lend my support to this Bill. When I hear people talking about lack of variety, lack of different samples that are not being produced in this country, I am reminded that it is no new argument. The people who have been opposed to tariffs over the years in this country have always used the same line of argument. We do not produce the variety. Supposing we do not. Is it not more important that we produce work for our own people? I am vitally interested in the question of wallpaper because the men who make the actual paper are members of my own union and, as a result of the tariffs on wallpaper, one particular mill has installed a new paper-making machine and has increased its workers by practically 100 per cent. I suggest, if we are finding work for an extra 100 people by protecting such a comparatively small item as wallpaper, we are doing a good day's work. There are two wallpaper factories, and there are only four paper mills in the country.

I think it is up to us to encourage that industry. As an industry, it has its limitations to the extent that you have only four factories trying to make the volume and variety of paper required in this country, and I think we should do all we can to protect and help them. There is no question about it that they have justified their existence. The only argument that can be made against the wallpaper people is that they do not produce the variety. I think the quality they produce compares very favourably with the imported articles. I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill.

I, like Senator Colgan, and the other speakers who have already spoken on this matter, am all out to help in every way I possibly can the infant industries in our country, but I rise to ask the Parliamentary Secretary one question on which I would like a complete answer, if he can possibly give it. I will just say, by way of preface, that I am out by every means to protect our infant industries with relatively high tariffs. Now this tariff, the imposition of these duties, is very high, almost a prohibitive one. Why not go the whole hog and have total prohibition altogether? The way I look at the matter is this— I would like to know what have these manufacturers done themselves towards producing a better article or an article that would go some way to meet the competition they get from the outside. I want to know if they have installed any kind of up-to-date machinery, what profits they have made during the time they were engaged in manufacture, and have they any future policy in relation to the manufacture of wallpapers at some kind of price that the ordinary citizen will be able to afford? Now, the question I wanted to put to the Parliamentary Secretary is this: how long does he propose to have this Bill operate; would he fix a time or give these manufacturers two, three or five years. Let us have some period? I have a feeling we can produce certain commodities in this country in open competition with other countries and I do not see why after a period of five, six or ten years, these manufacturers should not be able to produce an article which, at least, if not bought in other countries, they would, at least, be able in our own market to sell the commodity even at a price somewhat higher than you have to pay in an outside market. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to give us some indication of future policy not alone in relation to this matter but on other matters also.

May I speak from the point of view of the buyer of these articles? What is the effect of this particular tariff and tariffs like this in general? It simply, in general, is that we just do not buy. I know from experience that many of my friends are simply not buying wallpaper now. They are having the house painted or distempered or something of that kind, but the money is not going into wallpaper. I am sorry for in many cases I would like to have wallpaper myself, and I think my friends would, too, but in terms of quality and price we feel it simply is not a good way of spending the money. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to keep that in mind, that in such cases certain people just will not buy. Is that good for the wallpaper trade? Is it good for the country? I do not think so.

I feel, as a member of the House, that we should support an Order such as this where it protects Irish industry. I think the principle is very clearly demonstrated by the points raised in the course of the debate on the Order. I would like to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that it shows a state of affairs that should never arise. The arguments put forward by the other members of the Seanad have been two mainly, on superior quality and superior variety that can be brought in from other countries. I think that, since we have heard from the other side of the House of the flourishing state of this country, the time has come when the Government, which has a duty to support industry, has also the right to see that the product of the industry is as good as can be got elsewhere. I think it is unfortunate that the Irish public have always to pay for what is a tenth-rate or third-rate article from their own industry; perhaps it is not correct to say always, I should say often.

We have given protection to many industries and the Government has not yet seen fit to insist from the very outset that there is an adequate standard of design for our Irish products. We see, in wallpapers in particular, the third-rate designs of other countries being copied and we see it in relation to many other products. If we complain to the people who sell it, we are told that that is what the public buys. They argue that the public like it because they buy it and the unfortunate public buy it because they cannot get anything else.

I want to suggest as a general principle, and in particular in connection with the wallpaper industry, which is a flourishing industry, that the time has come when the Government which protects these industries should also insist that we get a reasonable standard of design. I am not so much concerned about having a wide range of variety as I am about the standard of design. I do not think that the standard is something that runs parallel with expense. Cheap things can be well-designed as well as expensive things. There is a mistaken idea in this country above all else that, if a thing is good, it has to be expensive, and that, if it is of good design, it has to be expensive. That is nonsense. A cheap article can be just as well designed as an expensive article, but so much has that idea got abroad that we are losing our sense of quality completely in many things.

I am tempted to begin where Senator Butler left off in order to take quite a different view. I do not accept her suggestion that, because a thing is produced in this country, it must necessarily be inferior. She seems to assume that that is inevitably the case. I will not accept it from anybody without proof that, because a thing is Irish, it is bad.

Senator Butler did not imply anything of the kind. She withdrew her remark, which, at first, through hasty phrasing, did imply that. I think the House will agree that she did not make any such statement.

Unless my hearing is at fault or my understanding has failed completely, she said we are turning out nasty, cheap, inferior designs, copies of third-rate foreign designs. If she did not say that, I apologise to her; if she did say it, I interpret it to mean what I said it meant.

I understood the Senator to say that Senator Butler said, that in general, things produced in Ireland were inferior. She did not say that. If the Senator is referring specifically to wallpaper, I think she did say it. In that case, I have misunderstood the Senator.

I am discussing wallpaper only at the moment. To discuss anything else would be outside the scope of the debate. Senator Stanford rushed to the defence of the lady with too great zeal and too little consideration. I do not accept that the designs of wallpapers here are bad. I would want proof that they are bad and I have not got any proof that they are. I believe that, if they are defective, it is because of the reason which Senator Butler stated, that, in order to cater for a demand, we are reproducing the designs of other countries and not developing our own designs and styles as we ought to do. It is not the public who decide what is a good or bad design. The public must take what they are offered when they go into the shops and the shops must take what they are offered by the wholesalers. If Senator Butler goes in to buy wallpaper to-morrow, she is restricted in her choice to the designs available. They may be good, bad or indifferent, but she has to choose between them. She is not consulted and her suggestion, because I think it was a suggestion, that the Government should not give protection to an industry, even to the wallpaper industry, unless they considered that the designs were good, would, I think, be a rather dangerous suggestion to act on. I am not going to set up the Government or any Department of State as the arbiters of taste in industry or in design or in art. If you once accept that some body of civil servants or some Minister and his Department is to decide what is good taste and what is good art, you have the slave State then surely. Senator Miss Butler may not have realised the implications of it, but if we are to have nothing but civil service designs on our wallpaper, it would be better that we should put on the walls the paint which has been mentioned.

I have quite a different viewpoint from that put forward by Senator Dockrell. He more or less suggested that the expensive papers, the costly and well designed papers, should not be brought under this tariff. I think the people who can afford to buy the costly papers can afford to pay the tariff and if there is to be any remission of duty, it should be in respect of the cheaper papers. The people who have to buy the cheaper paper should get the cheapest possible papers of the best possible design and quality available for money.

Reference has been made to the fact that the cost of living has gone up recently, by, I think, three points. The duty on wallpaper is not going to send up the cost of living by any points. It may increase the cost of the house you buy, but it will not increase it so materially that we need worry about it, to the extent of preventing industries here from developing still further or allowing such free competition from outside that native industries engaged in paper and wallpaper making would have to close down. When I hear people talk of the cost of living rising, I often ask myself if it is a good or a bad thing. I am prepared at times to defend an increase in the cost of living if the cost of living increase is caused by the fact that a greater number of people in this country are rendered capable of earning their living by being taken off the unemployed list and put on productive work. Even if we have to produce something for ourselves that was not produced before and to sell it a little dearer, I think the cost is well worth while. If we take 100 or 1,000 or even ten men off the dole and put them to manufacturing something, we should buy what they are making. Even though it costs a few pence more and may affect the cost of living slightly. it makes the country economically safer and sounder in the end.

I think the duty on wallpaper will have to be accepted as a good thing in any case. I assume that no Government Department—neither the Parliamentary Secretary nor any officials in the Civil Service—would have recommended a duty on wallpaper unless they had first inquired into the whole case made and examined whether it was justifiable or not. Anyone who has any dealings with Government Departments, and particularly with Industry and Commerce for a number of years, will know that there is something more required than merely going in and saying: "Please, sir, I want a tariff of 10 per cent. or 25 per cent." and having it handed over the counter to you. Your industry may be very vital, very good and very desirable; it may employ a considerable number of people and it may be on the verge of collapse because of competition from outside; but you will not get the tariff unless you can prove that a tariff is absolutely indispensable to the survival of your industry. I do not think any Government Department would give a Minister the framework of a Bill of this kind and say: "We want the Dáil and the Seanad to approve the duty on wallpaper being such and such," if they were not prepared to justify it and had not already gone into the economics of the production of wallpaper in this country.

The points raised in the course of this debate show how necessary it is to examine applications for tariffs with care, not merely from the point of view of providing assistance for the industries seeking protection but from the angle of the consumer. The various views advanced in this debate have, I think, covered every aspect of this tariff.

Senator Dockrell mentioned the difficulties which users of wallpaper have in securing variety of designs and papers of quality. It is quite true that, in the past, the quality and variety were not satisfactory. That situation was responsible to a considerable extent, I think, for the losses which the paper manufacturing industries sustained over a period. In the past six months, however, the standard of quality has improved considerably, as has the variety of designs. One of the difficulties in the industry is the limited market. Some Senators referred to that. Senator Dockrell, who has vast experience in paper distribution, referred to the small market here and the difficulty which any industry of this kind must inevitably have in trying to cater for the designs and the variety which people expect, while they are at the same time obliged to compete with manufacturers who have a far bigger market and consequently are able to produce a much greater variety of design and have available the different types of paper people expect to get.

In this particular case, the tariff application was examined with minute care, mainly because any increase is, in effect, a substantial increase. While, as Senator Dockrell says, this increase in the rate of duty seems very small, it can in its effect be fairly considerable. These firms in the past found it difficult to produce papers of quality. I think it was Senator Séamus O'Farrell who said that, if the duty was put on at all, it should be taken off the cheaper sort and put on the dearer papers. The difficulty is that the bulk of home manufacture is in the cheaper line and, consequently, they must get the protection. There is a good deal to be said about the point of view expressed by Senator Stanford, that some users of paper do not buy paper at all because they are obliged to buy very expensive paper or, alternatively, must buy a less satisfactory paper. In such a situation, some people have the walls painted and we see a number of houses decorated by ordinary painters. Some Senators—including, I think, Senator Miss Butler—asked why, if the industry was flourishing, it needed protection. I think the description "flourishing" applied only to the recent improvement in variety of design and standard of quality. In fact, the concerns have lost money in recent years and it was in order to keep the industry going that this increased protection was necessary. Another contributing factor to the difficulties which this industry has had, as well as a small market and severe competition from manufacturers who have available a very big market, is that the base on which wallpaper is made is produced here by the mills and it is a protected industry. Consequently, the wallpaper-making industry starts with an initial disadvantage. Senator Colgan mentioned that the industry with which he is connected through the union has found an outlet for certain paper production in the manufacture of wallpapers.

This tariff is, in many respects, a marginal case. There is a good deal to be said on both sides. There are two concerns here manufacturing wallpaper. In recent times, the standard of quality and the variety of designs have improved considerably and I think everyone accepts the view that it is reasonable, in these circumstances, to provide protection. Senator McGuire mentioned that a number of tariffs catch more than they are intended to catch. That is one of the difficulties of a tariff, especially where the machinery of tariff protection has to operate in spheres where there are various degrees of variety or where the matter is complex. The difficulty is that the tariff has to be operated on the simplest possible lines, in order to enable the revenue authorities to operate it but business is a complex matter and it is not easy to get a tariff framed that will only provide protection for the particular article intended and at the same time exclude all others from its scope. In this particular case, extreme care was taken to see that the tariff protected the particular commodity concerned and did not include in its scope anything that should not be covered by it.

I hope that the industry, as a result of discussions which have taken place, will exert itself to the full to provide better qualities of paper in the future and to provide, in so far as it is possible, with the limited market available in this country in comparison with other countries, greater variety in designs. Anyone who has seen the recent books produced by those firms will agree that there is a substantial improvement over what was produced previously. In recent months, the firms have increased the number of persons employed and I believe the tariff has had a beneficial result, in the last six months, from the point of view of assisting the industry concerned.

It is one of the functions of the Industrial Development Authority to ensure that the cases which come before it for protection of this nature are examined from every angle and that not only is the application examined but that the progress of the tariff and the capacity of the industry concerned to provide an article at a reasonable cost, in view of the measure of protection given, is all the time kept before those concerned.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

When is it proposed to take the next stage?

Now, Sir, on account of the date.

Agreed to take the remaining stages to-day.

Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
SCHEDULE.
Question proposed: "That the Schedule be the Schedule to the Bill."

What does "certain wallpapers" mean? Does this Bill not cover all wallpapers?

I believe there are two types excluded, the Lincrusta and Anaglyptic, the raised embossed papers. They are a very exclusive type and there is no hope of manufacturing them here.

Do I understand the Parliamentary Secretary to say that there seemed to be no hope of getting the Lincrusta or embossed types manufactured here? Is that the position?

They have not been manufactured here up to the present, and I do not like to anticipate what may happen in the future, but these are very exclusive papers and the market for them is very limited. I do not know whether the Senator was here when it was explained that the bulk of our production is in commercial papers—papers used on a wide scale—and that the more expensive papers would have a very limited market.

Question put and agreed to.
Question—"That the Title be the Title of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
Bill reported without recommendation and received for final consideration.
Question —"That the Bill be returned to the Dáil"—put and agreed to.
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