I move amendment No. 27 :—
In sub-section (3), line 28, to delete the words " one hundred " and substitute the word " ten ".
I think the fine mentioned is rather drastic. It is a very big stick to hold over a man, that he could be fined £100 if he sold a couple of stones of bacon.
The Deputy will realise that if a man kills a pig on a farm and sells seven or eight pounds and gets caught he is not going to be fined very heavily by a district justice. Where a man deliberately sets out to evade the Act I am afraid he will have to be dealt with.
Is not £100 very high ?
I think that might be amended.
I am informed that it is possible and rather easy for curers to be evasive in the returns.
That does not come under this section. It would be under the section dealing with false returns.
Will the Minister make the first offence £5 and there after £100.
The whole question of wholesalers arises on sub-section (4). The section purports to absolve wholesalers from the operation of the Act. In fact, what is going to happen is that urban wholesalers will find themselves in this position, that the bacon curers can now withhold supplies from them or charge them such prices as will make it impossible for urban wholesalers to carry on. Bacon curers can also set up distributing dep�ts of their own in rivalry to existing wholesale houses. This Bill provides that wholesalers cannot in retaliation combine, with the result that wholesalers bid fair to be caught between the upper millstone of this Bill and the curers and be weeded out of business. It seems that the only remedy for that would be to prepare a register of urban wholesalers and to give existing wholesalers a monopoly of that particular type of distributive trade and minor quotas. I should be glad to hear the Minister's view as to the future of the urban wholesalers to which I refer.
Wholesalers under this Bill are not interfered with. They gave away their whole case. What has really injured them was the prohibition of imports of bacon. They depended entirely on the distribution of imported bacon and very few of them handled Irish bacon. Some of them are handling Irish bacon now. When the high tariff was put on bacon coming in the curers continued to distribute for themselves. Very few of them deal through wholesalers. It was really the restriction of imports of bacon that lessened the business of wholesalers. I do not think this Bill will have any great effect on them. As Deputy Dillon says, it is true that curers can say to the wholesalers " We do not want you. We can go into that business now." Of course wholesalers cannot see that.
Why not ? There is nothing to prevent them.
Except the Minister.
It would not be the policy to issue licences extensively.
But if they comply with the conditions.
Let the Deputy be clear about that. There is no obligation on the Minister to issue licences after this Bill comes into operation, whether they comply with the conditions or not.
With regard to curers, practically the only person who has a right to registration is a pork butcher.
The Minister said that what these wholesalers were dealing in was foreign bacon, to the exclusion of Irish bacon. Perhaps he did not observe that I was careful to qualify the name " wholesaler " by the adjective " urban ". In Dublin the urban wholesaler has for generations purchased green bacon and smoked it or sold it green to his retail customers. The trade grew up because the Dublin retailers were not in a position to buy large quantities of bacon from any individual curer. They found that their trade with their retail customers demanded that they should have one side of one curer's bacon, two sides of another curer's and, perhaps, two sides of a third curer's bacon. They were able to get it by going to the wholesalers and buying five or six sides of bacon from one curer and five or six from another curer. Further, these wholesalers have continually smoked bacon by their own secret processes. There are wholesalers in this city who have made a very comfortable living all their lives smoking bacon for a particular retailer. I know of one wholesaler who sends his particular smoked bacon as far as 100 miles into the country and that is extremely unusual, because smoked bacon does not ordinarily travel well. One of the important reasons why you have wholesalers in Dublin is that distant factories cannot habitually ship smoked bacon to Dublin because the retailers believe that the distance of transport affects the bacon and they will only buy smoked bacon that comes to the Dublin shops fresh from the smokers. When the Minister says that these men deal exclusively in foreign bacon, he should bear in mind that they do that very important trade. There are only 12 such persons in Dublin City, but they are all prosperous men. I would like some statement from the Minister on this point : does he view with equanimity the prospect of the elimination of the wholesalers ?
I do not think that this Bill interferes in any way with the wholesalers.
The Minister knows that in practice it is going to operate to wipe them out.
I do not think so.
In what way will it wipe them out ?
What remedy have they if the curers withhold supplies from them ? If they attempted to do that now, the wholesalers would amalgamate and go into the curing business themselves. Now they are not going to be allowed to do that, because this Bill prohibits them. You leave them without any defensive weapon and you leave the curers with all the offensive weapons.
The wholesalers had that complaint the whole time.
They had a hard fight and they held over the curers' heads the Sword of Damocles, saying that if they were pressed too far they would set up a business as curers themselves.
The wholesalers appear to be perturbed by the fact that they are not mentioned in the Bill. They express a fear that they will be left completely defenceless against the attacks of the curers.
Deputy Dillon suggested that many of the curers have a secret process of smoking bacon. That is an asset that will continue to be of value to these people and it will ensure that their services will have the right of supplies.
They cannot operate their secret smoking process if they have no bacon to operate it on.
You do not suggest that the bacon curer is going to rid himself of a good market ?
No. He is going to set up next door to the wholesaler as a distributor himself. If he goes too far, the wholesalers will amalgamate and go into the curing business.
The manufacturer has been doing what you are suggesting now.
Signs are on it that in one instance a wholesaler started in the curing business and other wholesalers can do the same thing.
Surely you would not oblige the curer by law to supply him with his product if he does not want to ?
No ; but I would prohibit the curer from going into the wholesale business, or else I would permit the wholesaler to go into the curing business.
I do not believe that is right at all. If a man manufactures bacon he is entitled to use whatever methods he thinks proper in regard to its distribution, and if he thinks the wholesale business is not the best way in which he can dispose of it, he should be free to dispose of it in his own way.
Surely the wholesaler should be left free to cure bacon ?
I think the Minister should give special consideration to wholesalers if they apply for a curing licence.
He has that option.
But I do not think he is inclined to use it. If anybody in any wing of the bacon trade, especially a wholesaler, could make a good case to the Minister, he should get more sympathetic consideration.
Will the Minister give us any indication that that will be his general policy ?
I do not know. The Minister must use his discretion.
The Committee adjourned until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 5th April.
