Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 11 May 1927

Vol. 19 No. 22

FINANCE BILL, 1927—THIRD STAGE.

The Dáil went into Committee.

Section 1 agreed to.

Mr. JOHNSON

I move amendment 1:—

Before Section 2 to insert a new section as follows:—

"Section 21 of the Finance Act, 1920, is hereby amended by the substitution for the deduction specified in that section of a deduction of eighty pounds in respect of any child who is over the age of sixteen years at the commencement of assessment and who is receiving full-time instruction at any university, college, school or other educational establishment."

This amendment is designed to secure a remission of £80 in respect of any child who is over the age of 16 years and who is receiving full time instruction at any university, college, school or other educational establishment. Similar motions were put forward on previous Finance Bills, and I think the general view of the House was that there ought to be a greater allowance made in respect of children over 16 years who are being educated at the expense of their parents. But nothing has yet been done in the matter, and I want to press upon the House the need for greater exemption in respect of children of this age than in respect to younger children. It should be clear, I think, to Deputies that the position of a parent who has children over 16 for whom he has to pay tuition fees and maintenance fees at college deserves consideration in respect to exemptions or abatements to a greater degree than in respect to children who are under 16 and living at home.

At present the exemption is the same —£36 in respect of the first child and £27 in respect of the other children who are under 16, or if over 16 are being paid for for full time education at school, college or university. The financial drag upon the parent is very much greater in respect to children who are being educated and whose education costs a considerable sum of money. There ought to be a distinct encouragement given through the Finance Act to parents who can by any means afford it to send their children for full time education beyond the age of 16. We are, in our Education Bills, projecting that every child up to the age of 16 shall be maintained at school, and here is an inducement that might well be offered to parents to allow their children to remain at school beyond the age of 16. I think there is no real case, except the financial one, against the proposition, and I think the general good is worth the cost, whatever the cost may be. I had hoped that the Minister would have introduced an amendment of the Income Tax Act in this respect. As he has not done so, it falls on me to make an attempt to get the House to agree that there should be a distinct encouragement given to parents who can at all afford it to allow their children to remain for a longer period at school than that provided for at elementary or primary schools.

Mr. BAXTER

I desire to support the amendment. I had a few cases brought to my notice of people who, though not wealthy or in prosperous circumstances, are obliged to pay income tax. In some of these cases the persons concerned are business men. They have large families and are making a commendable effort to give their children an education to fit them for their place in the world. They feel that under the allowances made in this matter they are being unjustly treated. They think that the remissions made in respect to children should be larger than what they are. On the one hand we are urging that higher education is essential for the good of the State, and that our citizens should be encouraged to provide a good education for their children. The child of school-going age is no asset from the point of view of production. The Minister for Finance, if he is not prepared to meet that point, is undoubtedly not encouraging parents who up and down the country are making a valiant attempt to give their children a good education. I think the Minister is quite well aware of the justification for this amendment of Deputy Johnson's. I desire to support it.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Mr. BLYTHE

I recognise a case can be made for this amendment just as a case can be made for almost any expenditure in connection with education. A good case could be made for making provision for fairly general free secondary education. I do not know what may happen in the future in regard to that; but we certainly cannot undertake such expenditure at the moment. The argument against this amendment, as Deputy Johnson rightly saw, is the financial argument. We have given a certain concession this year, a concession which goes to the limit of what is right in the present financial position. An amendment such as this, which would involve a loss of approximately £50,000 a year, is not an amendment which we can accept. The amendment would not merely apply to the children to whom Deputy Johnson referred, the children who are being maintained at school by their parents; it would apply to children who have scholarships of various sorts; it would equally apply to parents whose circumstances were necessitous, and it would apply to parents whose circumstances were not necessitous. Of course, it is difficult to give concessions in regard to income tax which have not that defect.

Mr. JOHNSON

Would it apply in the case of scholarships?

Mr. BLYTHE

I think so; that is, where the child had received a scholarship. It is difficult to estimate the amount, but on the best information that could be obtained it seems certain that no less figure than £50,000 a year could be set down. I do not think we can possibly contemplate sacrificing so much. It should not be forgotten that certain things have been done already to assist education, even the education of children of this age. The additional sums that are being made available are of assistance. The increments provided for secondary teachers and the increased capitation grant to secondary schools are of assistance; the proposed schemes of pensions for secondary teachers will also be of assistance by way of getting better people into the ranks of secondary teachers, and by retaining the better people. A certain amount has been and is being done to facilitate parents who wish to give education to children beyond the age of 16. Whatever may be done in the future, I do not think it is possible at the moment to contemplate making a change such as is suggested in Deputy Johnson's amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON

When the Minister speaks of an estimated loss of £50,000 I am prepared to accept it, although he states he cannot give that as anything like an accurate figure, because it is difficult, if not impossible, to make a definite estimate. I think the Minister has estimated the cost of the shilling reduction at £1,000,000 a year in normal years. I shall have to point out later that the reduction is not going to benefit the poorer income tax payers to anything like the degree that remissions of this kind would be expected to do. There is a distinct handicap placed upon the father and mother of several children as compared with the man or the woman with one or two children. Here you have the case where the elder children of a family are to be educated. The chances of the children earning a livelihood and helping to maintain themselves, as apart from helping the family, are postponed, and we are not prepared, according to the Minister's view, to make any remission in respect of those children. We are assuming that a child over 16 years of age is no longer a financial cost to the family; children are only a cost under the age of 16 years.

Mr. BLYTHE

No. So long as the child is receiving full-time education the ordinary allowance is given for that child.

Mr. JOHNSON

But when the child is sent to a school and is maintained at the school there are the actual outgoings to be considered in addition to such loss as would be occasioned by the small earnings the child would have if he were sent to some business. There should be a more direct encouragement given to the parents to have their children educated, and if they do send them to a college there should be a definite remission in respect of those children. The Minister is adamant and he says that £50,000 is too great a charge. He prefers to make a spectacular reduction of £1,000,000 by reducing the tax. It is quite impossible to meet the Minister on this point by votes, I suppose, and we can only hope that some other day Ministers for Finance will be pressed more strongly by Ministers for Education to make better provision for the older boys and girls who might be sent to college. I am sorry the Minister has met my proposal in this way.

Amendment put and negatived.

Mr. JOHNSON

I move amendment 2:—

Before Section 2 to insert a new section as follows:—

"Section 16 of the Finance Act, 1920, is hereby amended by the substitution of one-sixth for one-tenth as the proportion of earned income to be allowed as deduction."

This is an amendment to try to bring the provisions of the income tax law in the Free State into conformity with those of Great Britain in respect to the allowance for earned income. Since 1925 the allowance has been increased from one-tenth to one-sixth in the British Finance Acts, and this proposition is to increase the allowance in the Free State Acts from one-tenth to one-sixth. The question will, no doubt, arise as to the cost of this. The Minister will say it is impossible to afford it. At least, I anticipate he will say that. Perhaps he will not and perhaps he will say this is a matter of stern justice. On the assumption that he will say it is a financial matter that cannot be afforded this year, I desire again to make the statement I have already made, that the reduction of 1/- in the rate of income tax, in the great majority of cases meaning a reduction of 6d. in the £ in actual fact, is going to benefit the richer and wealthier taxpayers and does not by any means give an equitable advantage to the poorer income tax payers or the income tax payers who have several children. The effect of the reduction in the rate of income tax—the effect of the flat rate method—is to give the wealthier taxpayers a distinct advantage over the poorer income tax payers. Taking certain examples, I find that the single man has a distinct advantage over the married man with children under the provisions of the Bill. I am asking that the advantage shall go to the man with a family rather than to the single man.

This case will probably be better argued on a later amendment, but the two might well go together. The deduction of one-sixth would be distinctly more beneficial to the poorer income tax payers with families than the flat rate reduction of one shilling. It would be better for the poorer income tax payers if the rate were maintained at 4/- and this one-sixth allowance were made instead of being retained at one-tenth. A married man with £400 a year and who has three children would be distinctly better off by £3 10s. per year if he continued to pay at the rate of 4/- in the £ and had a one-sixth remission as against one-tenth. A married man with two children would be distinctly better off by £1 16s. under the proposal to increase the allowance to one-sixth as against one-tenth with payment at the rate of 4/- than under the present flat rate reduction of a shilling. A flat rate reduction undoubtedly gives advantage to the men with big incomes. It does not give a proportionate pro rata advantage to the men with small incomes, small assessable incomes, and more particularly to the men with smaller incomes who have families. While a shilling in the £ flat rate reduction sounds well and is somewhat spectacular, it is by no means the advantage to the smaller taxpayers that higher exemptions such as have been adopted in England would have been. While it is not for me in this amendment to propose the retention of the four shillings, I certainly argue as strongly as I can that an increase from one-tenth to one-sixth in the way of an allowance would be much more beneficial to the great mass of the poorer income tax payers than this flat rate reduction. I therefore move the amendment, and I hope it will be received with more interest by Deputies than the last amendment, which had merely to do with the education of the older children. Perhaps the idea of a general deduction of one-sixth as against one-tenth, whether there are children or not, will receive more support.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I support Deputy Johnson in this amendment. On the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill last year Deputy O'Connell, I think, introduced a similar amendment which was defeated. I think the reason given by the Minister for opposing it was the financial one, the loss of revenue. This amendment, if carried, would put conditions here on a level with those in England in so far as the deduction allowed for earned incomes is concerned. I think it is only right that a larger deduction should be allowed in regard to unearned income compared with earned income. Deputy Johnson has also dealt with the next amendment. I think his argument on that shows considerable soundness also. This whole question of income tax requires to be clarified and the laws in connection with it codified, and I think the Minister has given a promise that that will be done. As the law stands a married man and his wife are assessed on their joint incomes. If their incomes were taken separately the advantage to them owing to the separate deductions would be greater. To that extent a man and his wife are penalised. As a certain amount of counterpoise to that Deputy Johnson's amendment, which would give an added advantage in regard to deductions for children, should be favourably considered by the Minister.

Mr. BLYTHE

Nearly any amendment along these lines would give more to the richer taxpayer than to the poorer taxpayer. Even Deputy Johnson's own amendment would have that effect. By this amendment a man earning £1,200 a year would get £12 at the 3/- rate; a man earning £500 a year married and with no children, would gain £2 10s. a year, and a man earning £5 a week and single would get £1 6s. You can conceive no system of allowances which will not give certain classes who are better off greater advantage than others who are poorer. If a man is paying only £1 a year in income tax no concession that you give will relieve him of more than £1, whereas the effect of a concession may be to relieve others who have a good deal more income, and I do not think that it is fair to argue that the only proper way of giving income tax relief is by some system of increased allowances. We could maintain a 5/- or a 6/- rate of income tax and give allowances to such an extent that there would be no more revenue from the 6/- rate than there will be from the 3/- rate. We could increase the earned allowance, the personal allowance and the allowance for children, and we could give various other concessions which would so diminish the revenue that a 6/- tax would give no more than a 3/- tax with the present allowances, and many deserving people would be helped, but income tax as a whole would be more onerous and would be far more likely to stifle and hinder production.

We have to look at the two aspects of income tax and income tax deductions, the social aspect and the productive aspect, and some of the reasons why the flat rate reduction gives less benefit to a particular class of taxpayer than to others is that certain classes of taxpayers have already got concessions, and, having got these concessions, they get less advantage from the reduction than they would otherwise get. If this amendment were accepted the cost would be £170,000 a year, and for that reason it cannot be accepted. I think that if we had a reasonable measure of prosperity, if we had industry and production definitely on the up-grade, there would be a better case than there is at present for adopting amendments which are socially desirable and which can be recommended by social arguments. But, so far, the condition of the country has been such that we feel found to prefer changes which we believe will have a certain stimulating effect on industry and business.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 13; Níl, 32.

Tá

• Pádraig Baxter.
• John Conlan.
• Séamus Mac Cosgair.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Criostóir O Broin.
• Aodh O Cúlacháin.
• Eamon O Dubhghaill.
• Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
• Seán O Duinnín.
• Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).

Níl

• Earnán Altún.
• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Séamus Breathnach.
• Seoirse de Bhulbh.
• Próinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus de Búrca.
• John J. Cole.
• Bryan R. Cooper.
• Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
• James Dwyer.
• Desmond Fitzgerald.
• Seosamh Mac a' Bhrighde.
• Liam Mac Cosgair.
• Seán MacCurtain.
• Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
• Eoin Mac Néill.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
• John T. Nolan.
• Michael K. Noonan.
• Peadar O hAodha.
• Risteárd O Conaill.
• Parthalán O Conchubhair.
• Máirtín O Conalláin.
• Séamus O Dóláin.
• Peadar O Dubhghaill. Eamon O Dúgáin.
• Aindril O Láimhín.
• Séamus O Murchadha.
• Seán O Súilleabháin.
• Andrew O'Shaughnessy.
• Caoimhghín O hUigín.
• Liam Thrift.

Tellers—Tá: Deputies P. Hogan (An Clár) and Heffernan. Níl: Deputies Dolan and P. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Mr. JOHNSON

I move amendment 3:—

Before Section 2 to insert a new section as follows:—

"Section 21 of the Finance Act, 1920, is hereby amended by the substitution of forty-five pounds for thirty-six pounds and of thirty-six pounds for twenty-seven pounds as the deductions in respect of children."

This amendment is to increase the amount allowed in respect to children from £36 in the case of the first child to £45, and from £27 in respect of subsequent children to £36. It is to make an addition of £9 to the allowances in respect of children. I think that there is a definite need for an increase in the allowances, and I want to repeat that the effect of a general flat-rate reduction is practically to penalise a married man with children as compared with a single man, comparing the lower income with the higher income. If we take an income of £400 per annum, without making any allowance for insurance, etc., we find that under the proposal of the Bill a married man with a wife and three children will save £1 2s. 6d. in income tax; a man with two children will save £1 16s. 0d., and a single man with the same income will save £5 12s. 6d. I think that that needs remedying and that the allowances should be greater. If there is going to be crowing over the reduction of the rate of income tax, the men with families should be benefited as compared with the single man. If we take the case of a £500 income, a married man with three children will save under the proposals of the Bill £3 7s. 6d.; a man with two children will save £4 1s. 0d., but a single man with the same income will save £10 2s. 6d. I think that that is disproportionate, that there is a failure to recognise the family as a social unit, and that family obligations are considerable in the matter of finance. Therefore, I think that we should take a step forward by giving an addition over and above those already given in respect to children. It is on these grounds that I move an increase in the rate of allowance of £9 per annum per child.

Mr. BLYTHE

I must use much the same arguments in opposition to this as I did to the previous amendment. It suffers in its own way from the defect which Deputy Johnson points out in regard to the provisions in the Bill at present. If Deputy Johnson's amendment were passed, a married man with three children with £1,000 per year, would gain £4 1s.; a man with £500 would gain £2 0s. 6d., and a man with £300 per annum would gain nothing. If the provisions in the Bill have infirmities, this amendment has just similar infirmities. The cost of adopting the amendment would be £45,000 per year, and I regret I am not able to accept it.

Mr. JOHNSON

The Minister speaks of the infirmities that would be left in the Bill if this amendment were carried. I admit there will be many infirmities left, and I cannot pretend in one amendment to remove all the infirmities. The Minister is in a very much better position to remove infirmities in the income tax law than I am in my position here. I am attempting to remove one or two infirmities and will leave to the Minister the responsibility for not having removed the remainder.

Mr. BLYTHE

I was just pointing out that the Deputy was also adding one or two.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá 18; Níl, 31.

Tá

• Earnán Altún.
• Pádraig Baxter.
• John J. Cole.
• John Conlan.
• Seán de Faoite.
• Séamus Mac Cosgair.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Tomás de Nógla.
• Croistóir O Broin.
• Aodh O Cúlacháin.
• Eamon O Dubhghaill.
• Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
• Seán O Duinnín.
• Donnchadh O Guaire.
• Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).

Níl

• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Séamus Breathnach.
• Seoirse de Bhulbh.
• Próinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus de Búrca.
• Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean. Uí Dhrisceóil.
• James Dwyer.
• Desmond Fitzgerald.
• Liam Mac Cosgair.
• Seán MacCurtain.
• Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
• Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
• Eoin Mac Néill.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
• John T. Nolan.
• Michael K. Noonan.
• Peadar O hAodha.
• Mícheál O hAonghusa.
• Risteárd O Conaill.
• Parthalán O Conchubhair.
• Máirtín O Conalláin. Séamus O Dóláin.
• Peadar O Dubhghaill.
• Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
• Eamon O Dúgáin.
• Aindriú O Láimhín.
• Séamus O Murchadha.
• Seán O Súilleabháin.
• Andrew O'Shaughnessy.
• Caoimhghín O hUigín.
• Liam Thrift.

Tellers.—Tá: Deputies P. Hogan (Clare) and Heffernan; Níl: Deputies Dolan and P.S. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 agreed to.

SECTION 6.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

In regard to Section 6, I want to know whether this section will be retrospective as regards income tax collected from persons who had not the use of their lands.

Mr. BLYTHE

It will not be retrospective.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I think that is an important statement and that the matter ought to be looked into. I understand that several people have objected to pay income tax on land of which they had not the use, and they have been forced to pay it. I understand that relief has been given to someone who stood out and did not pay, whereas men who did pay, perhaps under strong pressure from the authorities, will have to go without their money. I think the Minister, to be logical and consistent, should make this relief retrospective in regard to anybody who paid income tax on lands of which he had not the use.

Mr. BLYTHE

It would be impracticable.

Question—"That Sections 6 to 12, inclusive, stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.

SECTION 13.

Whenever the Revenue Commissioners are satisfied that any articles liable to any duty under Section 19 of the Finance Act, 1924 (No. 27 of 1924) imported into Saorstát Eireann on or after the 22nd day of April, 1927, are so imported for further manufacture and subsequent exportation, they may, subject to compliance with such conditions as they may think fit to impose, permit such articles to be imported without payment of the duty imposed by the said Section 19.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

In the absence of Deputy Connor Hogan, who is attending to other duties, I move:—

To insert before Section 13 a new section as follows:—

"The customs duties imposed by Section 19 of the Finance Act, 1924 (No. 27 of 1924), are hereby repealed, and shall cease to be charged, levied and paid on and after 1st June, 1927."

The effect of the amendment, if passed, would be to abolish the protective tax on boots. I do not intend at this stage to argue the whole question of protection, but I desire to say that this form of protective duty is probably one of the most injurious taxes that could be imposed. It is an inequitable tax, because it really has the effect of taxing the poorer citizen to a much greater extent than the richer citizen, and in that regard, perhaps, it is in line with a great deal of other taxation over which the Minister stands. The larger a family, the more tax a man will have to pay. Many poor citizens are unable to provide their families with boots, partly because of the increase in price owing to protective duties. The only justification for such a duty is that it is intended to protect an industry, but it has been found that it has not been effective in protecting and stimulating industry in this case. According to the statistical returns, the amount of imported boots in 1925 and 1926 was greater than that imported in previous years. I understand that in 1927 there has, so far, been a slight falling off in imports, but the general tendency has been for the quantity of imported boots to increase. Thus it would appear that as a protective duty this tax has not fulfilled its purpose.

We have been told that the amount of employment given, owing to the increased manufacture that is supposed to have taken place as a result of this tax is fairly considerable. I think the numbers given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce were about 700. Comparison is made in that case with the pre-tax years, but no cognisance has been taken of the fact that the years preceding the imposition of this tax were the most disturbed years through which this country passed for a long time, and that the amount of employment in that period was considerably reduced. The manufacture of boots largely takes place in Cork, which was one of the most disturbed cities in the country, and it is hard to expect that in the years 1920, 1921 and 1922 conditions in Cork, which was really the cockpit for the fighting, were normal. This tax has proved ineffective in regard to the object for which it was intended, and the hardship which has been inflicted on people, especially on the poor, is altogether in excess of the benefit accruing to the State by extra employment. I think we should not support a tax of this kind as a means of producing revenue, as it is unsound, cumbersome, and vexatious. It is now really a revenue rather than a protective tax, and I trust that the Dáil will support the amendment.

Mr. M. HENNESSY

The Deputy has stated that this tax is inequitable and unjust and that therefore, the Dáil should pass the amendment. Before it does so, however, I think that the Deputy should produce reliable facts and figures to substantiate his argument. From time to time we have heard both Deputy Heffernan and Deputy Connor Hogan state that since this tax was imposed it involves severe burdens. I deny that that is the case, and I am prepared to bring proofs in support of my statement that it has not placed any unjust burdens on any particular section of the community. I have gone into the question very carefully and I have often ascertained the prices of boots, both imported and home-made. I think I am a fairly good judge of boots and leather, and I know that anyone can walk into a shop and pick up an Irish-made boot which is not alone cheaper than an English-made boot, but is much better in every case. Where, therefore, does the burden come in? If the Deputy, or any of his friends who are not prepared to support this tax, were really paying an extra price for boots I think the House would be prepared to listen to them, but the Deputy has not produced any proof in support of his assertion that this is an unjust tax.

The House will realise that factories that were languishing at the time the tax was imposed are now well on their feet and have done remarkably good work during the short period in which they have been protected. Over 1,000 extra hands are employed in these factories and, surely, Deputy Heffernan will agree that, even if there was a trifling extra cost involved, it is better to keep these 1,000 persons in Ireland than to send them across to the United States. Are there not enough boys and girls going to the United States in search of a livelihood without increasing their number by 1,000? If there was no other argument in favour of this tax, I think that fact is sufficient to justify it. Deputy Heffernan quoted the imports for 1925 and 1926 as proof of the futility of the tax, and stated that more boots were imported then than hitherto. It is well known that when the Minister for Finance introduced his Budget in 1925 information had got abroad beforehand that this tax was about to be imposed, with the result that every idle store in the country was filled with the imports of foreign boots, so that it is not fair to quote the figures for that particular year.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

What about 1926?

Mr. HENNESSY

Those factories that have been protected are doing remarkably well.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

What about Dundalk?

Mr. HENNESSY

It is too soon for Deputies to criticise and the least we ought to expect is that such factories get a reasonable time and a reasonable opportunity to show what they are able to do before they are subjected here to unfair criticism.

Major COOPER

Deputy Hennessy told us that he could pick up Irish-made boots cheaper than English boots. If you pick up boots you can do that cheaply.

Mr. HENNESSY

I meant to purchase boots.

Major COOPER

The Deputy says that you can purchase Irish boots more cheaply than English boots. If he refers to English boots on which the 15 per cent tax is paid, he is right, but can you purchase Irish-made boots to-day at a price which you could purchase English, French or American boots before the tax?

MINISTER for POSTS and TELEGRAPHS

Cheaper.

Major COOPER

That is not my experience. I was buying a pair of boots a short time ago for one of my boys. I had the choice of two pairs—one, a pair of Dundalk-made boots, and the other, English made. They were about equal in quality. They were not very highly finished. They were rough boots for boys' wear. The Dundalk boots were cheaper because the English boots paid the tariff. They were not, however, 15 per cent. cheaper. They were only 10 per cent. cheaper. That is to say, if there had been no tariff on the English boots, they could be sold here at a lower price than the Dundalk boots. I had not intended to speak on this amendment and I apologise for giving only my own personal experience.

The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs asserts that the price of the Irish boot from the manufacturer has not gone up. That has been asserted by a Cork manufacturer and, as Corkmen always speak the truth, I accept the statement. But it does not matter to the mother who is buying boots for her children whether the price from the boot manufacturer has gone up or not. The price she is concerned with is the price she has to pay the retailer. If Deputy Hennessy or the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will look up the cost of living figures, he will find that there has been a substantial increase in the cost of clothing.

I do not want to go into the whole question of tariffs again at this stage. We shall have opportunities of dealing with that question on the platforms. But Deputy Connor Hogan's amendment, moved by Deputy Heffernan, places me in a difficulty. While I oppose this duty and believe it is a bad duty, I recognise that it has caused some industrial development in the country. It has given a certain amount of additional employment and caused people to extend factories or build new factories. The position, so far as industrial development is concerned, will not be satisfactory if every year the question is raised as to whether this tariff is going to be continued or removed. You will not get people to invest capital and start industries while such a state of affairs exists.

Mr. WALSH

It is going to continue; make no mistake about it.

Major COOPER

I should have wished that it were possible to deal with this matter in another manner. I should like to give to the present Commission power not only to deal with new tariffs but to revise existing tariffs. The manufacturer would then be in a position to make his case by his own experts and not through the instrumentality of Deputy Hennessy, ably as he has put the case forward. That would be a fairer method of dealing with the question than by means of amendments to the Finance Bill, considered on short notice. I am not blaming Deputy C. Hogan or Deputy Heffernan, but we are dealing with this matter in the stress and rush of the last days of a session. While I still retain my dislike of the tax and do not withdraw my objection to it in the slightest degree, I doubt if I would be justified in voting for the amendment if pressed to a division.

Mr. BAXTER

I desire to register my protest against this section and to support the amendment. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs says that this tax is going to continue. The Minister must have won yesterday——

Mr. WALSH

Not yesterday.

Mr. BAXTER

In view of the President's definite statement, the Minister must have won yesterday. There is great complaint everywhere against this tax. No taxpayer in the country is suffering more by the tax than the man with a large family. The price of children's boots, which are not manufactured in this country to any extent, has undoubtedly increased because of the imposition of this tariff. It was the poor man who paid the greater part of the £270,000 collected last financial year owing to this tax. We are told that seven or eight hundred hands have been employed because of the tax. That is stated on behalf of the employers, and we can fairly assume that they have not understated the number. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has not, so far, satisfied us that those figures are perfectly authentic. I think —and even some who stand for a tariff agree—that this tariff has not justified itself. It has not had the stimulating effect on industry that it was anticipated it would have.

There is the regrettable failure of the Dundalk factory. That failure may be due to the fact that men went into a business which they did not understand. They burned their fingers That is to be regretted, because a failure like that has a deterrent effect on others who might attempt to build up industries. It is undeniable that the greater part of the £270,000 collected last year came off the poorest people— the very poorest people—with big families. It is the people with families of from seven to nine children who are suffering most by this tariff. The question requires consideration as to whether this tax should be imposed on those people because it is said it will have a stimulating effect on industry.

Mr. COLE

I voted for this tariff when introduced, because the Minister assured us that it was being put on as an experiment. In my judgement, the experiment has been a failure. That is the opinion, too, of the traders with whom I have spoken.

Mr. M.J. HENNESSY

Are they importers?

Mr. COLE

Yes; they import boots.

Mr. HENNESSY

Naturally, they would object.

Mr. COLE

They are in the trade. They are trying to sell the cheapest article and the article which will wear, so that their trade may be brought back again. One of the ex-Deputies of this House discussed this matter in Cavan last week. He pointed to one trader who was importing during the next six months some thousands of pounds worth of boots, and he asked if this man could buy Irish-made boots why does he import them? The fact of the matter is, as explained by the man himself, that he wanted to continue his trade, and could not do it if depending on the Irish manufactured article. He said he would lose his trade altogether if he tried to continue selling the Irish boots. That trader explained that he could bring English boots over of equal quality with the Irish goods and sell them more cheaply than the Irish boots, notwithstanding the tax. The contention is that English stuff can be brought over and sold more cheaply than Irish stuff can be sold here, while, at the same time, the English article is better. The experiment, so far as I know, has been a total failure.

Mr. WALSH

A short time ago I had an opportunity of discussing this question with one of the biggest boot manufacturers in Leicester. He was over here with the intention of opening a factory, and he had no hesitation in declaring that the boot produced by Messrs. Dwyer of Cork—to mention only one firm—was equal to anything turned out in Leicester, both from the standpoint of material and of price. He stated, further, that the English manufacturers had a big advantage over the Irish manufacturers, and particularly the small manufacturers. Owing to the hard times which people are experiencing, the question of credit enters largely into the problem. The combine, of which this gentleman was a member, was in a more favourable position than its Irish competitors in connection with credit. Credit to a shopkeeper who is inundated with outstanding accounts is a very important factor. But I do not see where the value to the consuming public suffers because of that. Nevertheless, the shopkeeper in this country has a big incentive to take goods from the manufacturer who can give the longest credit. That is one of the great difficulties which our manufacturers are faced with—inability to extend credit to the degree allowed by their competitors.

There are now five boot manufacturing firms in the Saorstát. There were six. The Dundalk firm closed down because of insufficiency of capital, which was the initial mistake. I suppose the absence of trained technical material was also responsible, to some extent, for the closing. I am giving the explanation which reached me from a reliable source. The other firms, each and all of which I have visited during the last twelve months, are progressing satisfactorily. The Carlow factory, I understand, is booked well in advance. I had the pleasure of going through the Waterford factory with the President, and he saw for himself that every inch of available space was occupied, while the owner was contemplating a considerable extension. The President also went through the three factories owned by Messrs. Dwyer of Cork. There was one factory in existence before the tax. There are now three in existence The idea of the three factories is specialisation. One factory is turning out men's wear, another ladies' wear, and the third children's wear. The three factories are going as strongly as the supply of trained material will permit. The Commissioner in charge of the municipality is co-operating with the factories, with a view to providing them with trained technical material. That is one difficulty we suffer from, and it is one which we shall have to get over. During the last fortnight, I have been told that a new boot factory has been started in Cork. All these factories are evidence of growth—to what exact extent I am not in a position to say. I do know that prior to the tax there was a great danger of Messrs. Dwyer closing down. There had been 200 hands employed. One hundred of these were later disemployed and the other hundred were on half time. They have now, to my own knowledge, close on 600 hands employed, and they are in a position to take on more.

Mr. JOHNSON

When the Minister speaks of "hands," he means persons?

Mr. WALSH

Yes. There are 600 persons employed at the present time.

Mr. GOOD

How many of these are juveniles?

Mr. WALSH

A great many of them necessarily are, but they will become seniors in due time. This firm, which contemplated closing down at one time, has now a total pay roll of 1,000.

This is one of the factories that has benefited by the dual tariff on clothing and boots. I cannot see how the grievance in regard to boots comes in. We have been assured that Irish-made boots have not increased in prices, at any rate as far as the manufacturers are concerned. I cannot give the same definite guarantee in regard to the wholesaler and retailer. It is quite possible that the Irish article is not getting a fair show from some of these people. It is even asserted that it is not. Another difficulty under which this industry is suffering is the English chain-store business here which excludes Irish boots of any kind whatever. We must also bear that in mind, it is one of the many difficulties that people who engage in Irish enterprise have to face before they succeed. We are told here that the tax this year realised about £217,000. Realised to whom? Where has the tax gone to? It has merely been tranferred from the pocket of the unthinking persons, if you like, the unpatriotic persons, in this country to the pockets of the producers—the farmers. That does not appear to me to be a grievance from the farmers' point of view. It is true, of course, that a certain part of it has also gone to the wiping out of the tea duty, and the practical wiping out of the sugar duty. That does not appear to be a grievance from the point of the poor person. Now the people who are going to benefit by the industry here are the poor people, and the sons and daughters of the poor. Sooner or later we have got to tackle the question of the two-and-a-half millions we have hitherto sent out of the country for boots. Every country in the world is shoeing itself. It is our duty to do so and we are going to do it.

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not think it is necessary to add very much to what has been said by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. When people talk about an inequitable tax, a tax that presses more on the poor than the rich and that is cumbersome and vexatious they talk without any regard to the facts of the situation. Of course it presses more on the poor than the rich. All taxes on the ordinary necessities of life do. The sugar tax and the tea tax, which were lowered when this tax was imposed pressed with just the same incidence as this tax. It is not more costly or cumbersome to collect than those taxes. If this tax had not been imposed, but if the tea duty had been left as it was, the people with whom Deputy Heffernan is concerned would just have been as much pressed as they are by the duty on boots. Where any tax like this would be a hardship would be if it was sufficiently successful to keep out, for all practical purposes, English boots, so that there was no revenue coming into the Exchequer and if Irish-made boots were costing the people 15 per cent. more than they would have the English boots for. In that case the tax would be a burden. It is not a burden at the present time. It simply means that one form of tax has been substituted for another form.

Deputy Cole said the experiment was a failure. It seems to me that is rather talking like a man who was going to sow oats as an experiment, and within a month of the sowing said "Here is a failure." You cannot possibly say for some considerable time yet what the effect of the boot tax will be. It is quite impossible to have boot factories spring up over the country within a very short period, especially when the tax is as low as 15 per cent. If we imposed a 50 per cent. duty there is no doubt that firms would have come from the other side. It would have paid them to undertake the expenses of bringing considerable numbers of trained hands from the other side, and, perhaps, making housing arrangements that would have been necessary. But when we impose a tax of 15 per cent. we can only expect comparatively slow development. There has been steady development; there has been substantial increases in the numbers of hands employed, and, as far as I have learned, there is a certain prospect that if the tax is allowed to remain as it is, the number of hands will continue to grow, factories will be extended, and additional factories will be put up. It might have been better, from some points of view, to have made the tax somewhat higher, so as to speed up the protective effect somewhat further. There is just as much to be said against the higher protective duty. Firms may have been tempted for a considerable time to carry on without attempting, as they are bound to attempt when the protection is just barely sufficient, to get the highest possible efficiency. The danger of any protective tariff is that people may, by means of the tariff, be enabled to go easy. The object of the tariff is that they may be enabled to overcome initial difficulties. The danger of the tariff is that if the initial difficulties had been overcome firms may simply be enabled to go easy instead of seeking to have efficiency. The higher the tariff is within certain limits the greater that danger is. Certainly the greater it is unless firms from outside were to come in.

I believe this particular industry is an industry that will be successfully carried on in this country. All the classes of boots that are bought by the poor can certainly be made here as well as outside, and will certainly, with the continuation of the tariff, be made here. There are certain luxury types of footwear that may never be successfully made here. Even if they are not made here, there should be no exemption of them from the operation of the tariff, because they are the sort of article which might very well be taxed.

Deputy Cooper pointed out that it would be wrong to remove this tariff by a section in the Finance Bill. It would be wrong to remove it within the next six or seven years except an application were made for its removal by the people engaged in the industry. If it were to be removed in any other circumstances, then it would be impossible to get the result that a protective tax should have. People have already, as a result of the imposition of the boot tariff, invested considerable sums in factory buildings and in the installation of machinery and the training of hands. If people lost the money they expended in the setting up and extending of the industry by the removal of the tariff, then no other tariff that might be imposed would produce satisfactory results. I think if we were to do this, we should only do it when we have made up our minds to abandon altogether the idea of promoting industry by tariffs. On the contrary, no person who will get over the prejudice and who will try to look beyond the day after to-morrow will suggest that we should abandon the idea of helping to promote progress by the well-considered use of tariffs. There were certain of the initial tariffs that were imposed which were perhaps doubtful, but I do not think that the boot tax was a doubtful one. I think it is a good one and one that is going to produce excellent results.

Major COOPER

Will the Minister consider the possibility of creating machinery to review tariffs? I agree that there should be an interval of possibly five years. Will he consider the desirability of making the Tariff Commission the implement for that purpose?

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not think it is necessary to consider that. I agree that when a tariff has been in operation for, say, six or seven years one may consider machinery for reviewing it and perhaps for modifying it in some way that would lead to its being gradually reduced. I do not think that even at the end of what one may regard as the period of a tariff it might be a good thing to abolish it. If we had a tariff of 15 per cent. for seven or eight years we might then say we will let it run for three years more and then reduce it one per cent. each year until it is reduced to a certain minimum or disappears altogether. I think at the present time we should not hold out a doubt to people who have money to invest as to whether tariffs will remain on permanently or not. I, consequently, do not think it is at all necessary or desirable to make any arrangements at the present stage for the revision of tariffs. I think when we have them on for a number of years, and when a certain amount of confidence has arisen, then measures might be taken.

Mr. M.J. HENNESSY

Would the Minister not consider the question of increasing this tariff from 15 per cent. to, say, 33? per cent., in the interests of home industry?

Mr. BLYTHE

It is up to the manufacturers of boots to make application to the Tariff Commission. If they do make application to the Tariff Commission they will present a report, and when we have that report we can consider what we will do.

Mr. CONNOR HOGAN

The Minister says that anybody who looks beyond to-morrow will resist the repeal of this particular tariff. I am wondering what set of circumstances has induced the Minister to make that statement. In fact, it is because we look beyond to-morrow that some of us here are making an appeal for the total abolition of the tariff on boots. On the introduction of the Budget resolutions, I asked the Minister what useful purpose this tariff served in this country, except perhaps providing some revenue, and revenue of a doubtful character. I have figures here for two years. The first is the year 1924-25, that is the first year the tariff was imposed. In 1925-26, when the tariff was in full operation, the net sum, making due allowances for drawback, collected was £225,000. In the second year the sum was £272,000—for the two years approximately half a million. I presume, for the year for which I have got no figures, that is 1926-27, it would be anywhere in the neighbourhood of a quarter of a million of money. That is the total amount that is collected in revenue and that, as far as the State itself is concerned, represents its direct gain. There is a further point with regard to the number of persons who have been taken on in employment. I think it is less than a thousand. Let me say that this sum of £750,000, approximately, in the three years does not represent the real charge to the purchaser of boots. It is considerably increased. As a matter of fact, the first result of that 15 per cent. tariff was to put up the price, not by 15 per cent., but by something like 25 per cent., because every retailer realised that as prices had gone up sales would necessarily diminish.

The number of pairs of boots that he could sell was bound to decline, and in order to cover anticipated losses he was obliged to advance his profits beyond the ordinary scale on which they were based. I submit that the figure of 25 per cent., that is 10 per cent. above the 15 per cent. tax, was not an unreasonable sum for him to add to his extra ratio of profit, and on that basis the price of boots has not been advanced by the amount of the tariff of 15 per cent., but I submit by 25 per cent. After all, boots are a necessary of life. It seems to me to be cutting against what is fit and proper to have this tariff imposed. I pointed out on the Budget debate that this boot tax was one of the most cruel and harsh that could be imposed on the people, particularly in the West of Ireland. The people there endeavour to eke out an existence on very small farms. The owners of these farms are very poor. As a rule, these people have very large families. There is no doubt whatever that, in their case, the cost of boots is a very serious burden. When you consider that this tax hits the people who are engaged in a stricken industry, then I say that constitutes a most serious objection to it. The agricultural industry is down and out. I should say that last year was one of the worst years in its history. It surpassed even the year 1921, and one has to go back almost to the fifties or to '47 or '48 to find a period that was as bad as it. Yet it is the people who are engaged in this wretched industry who are called upon to bear tariffs imposed for the purpose of subsidising a sheltered industry. That is not a fit or seeming thing to do, and I say it is open to the most serious objection. Not alone that, but this boot tax also strikes at the health, vigour and efficiency of the people living in the West of Ireland. There the rainfall is very much in excess of what it is in other parts of the country. Good boots in the West of Ireland are not a luxury but an absolute necessity, and yet by reason of this tariff the men, women and children living in the West of Ireland are obliged to wear boots long past their service. Their health is greatly endangered by being obliged to do so.

I repeat that this is one of the cruellest and harshest taxes that could be imposed on these people. It is really a scourge on them, and it is about time that it was abandoned. Agriculture is the basic industry of this country. It is an industry that is down and out at the moment. Why, I ask, should there be this transfusion of blood from the basic industry of the country to bolster up an industrial system that is living parasitically on agriculture. We have been told that the new industries started as a result of these tariffs have absorbed 10,000 people in employment. These people have been placed in industry at the expense of the community at large. We will be told, I suppose, from another source that we need industries to absorb the people who cannot get employment on the land. Let me point out in this connection that some 30,000 people leave this country every year. I have not heard yet from any tariff reformer or from any advocate of tariffs that, under any system of tariffs, we can absorb anything like 30,000 people a year. Is there any possibility that we can absorb 30,000 men, even with a system of harmonic progression, into industry? I say it is utterly impossible. In order to get 5 per cent. in one year and a half per cent. in each subsequent year, we are imperilling the industry on which the nation at large is absolutely dependent—the agricultural industry. By your system of boot tariffs, particularly as it applies to the West of Ireland, where you are making things very uncomfortable, you are perilously shooting near the mark of ruin, as far as the agricultural industry is concerned.

Of what use will your subsidised industries be if you put agriculture out of business. I maintain they will be of no use whatever. It is on their export trade that these industries can ever hope to meet competition, but they are not organised for an export trade. They are only organised at best to meet a fractional part of the internal consumption, and if a body of consumers in this country reach that stage that they are no longer able to buy their products, then your subsidised industries, only artificial ones at best, will simply collapse. I pointed out, on the Budget discussion, that it was by their export trade that the big combines in England, at Northampton and other places, were able to compete and able to do business. But your tariff of 15 per cent. is not sufficient in itself to keep the competition of these big combines out. We heard the cry from Deputy Hennessy to increase the tariff to 33? per cent. In other words, the people are to be exposed to a further burden, and the many are to be mulcted for the benefit of the few. That is the very negation of democracy. I agree with Deputy Hennessy that your 15 per cent. tariff is not able to keep out the Northampton manufacturer, because he has so many styles to offer, while your manufacturer here only deals in one or two lines. As a matter of fact, he only deals in farm boots.

Mr. HENNESSY

I understood from the Deputy that the people in his part of the country were so poverty stricken that they could not buy these nice boots that come from Northampton.

Mr. CONNOR HOGAN

The Deputy, as usual, misses my point. I was pointing out that your home manufacturer only deals in one or two lines. He only turns out rough farm boots, and is not in a position to compete with the high grade quality boots turned out by the Northampton firms. I agree with the Minister that if you do impose a tariff it certainly ought not to be on the poor man's boots. I do say, at the same time, that there is far too much talk of looking at the particular and not viewing the general, which is the majority in this case, in proper perspective. The Minister says that he is going to have this for seven years. I say that his policy is in a sense ruinous and particularly injurious to agriculture in the West of Ireland. I accordingly support the amendment.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 9; Níl, 41.

Tá

• Pádraig Baxter.
• Seán de Faoite.
• Connor Hogan.
• Séamus Mac Cosgair.
• James Sproule Myles.
• Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
• Seán O Duinnín.
• Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
• Nicholas Wall.

Níl

• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Séamus Breathnach.
• Seoirse de Bhulbh.
• Próinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus de Búrca.
• Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
• James Dwyer.
• Michael Egan.
• Desmond Fitzgerald.
• Donnchadh Mac Con Uladh.
• Liam Mac Cosgair.
• Seán MacCurtain.
• Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
• Eoin Mac Néill.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
• John T. Nolan.
• Michael K. Noonan.
• Peadar O hAodha.
• Mícheál O hAonghusa.
• Croistóir O Broin.
• Risteárd O Conaill.
• Parthalán O Conchubhair.
• Conchubhar O Conghaile. Máirtín O Conalláin.
• Aodh O Cúlacháin.
• Séamus O Dóláin.
• Eamon O Dubhghaill.
• Peadar O Dubhghaill.
• Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
• Eamon O Dúgáin.
• Aindriú O Láimhín.
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Séamus O Murchadha.
• Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
• Andrew O'Shaughnessy.
• Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
• Caoimhghín O hUigín.
• Seán Príomhdhall.

Tellers.—Tá: Deputies Connor Hogan and Baxter; Níl: Deputies Dolan and P.S. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Sitting suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 7.45 p.m.,

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE in the Chair.

Section 13 agreed to.

Major COOPER

I move amendment 5:—

Before Section 14 to insert a new section as follows:—

"The customs duty chargeable under Section 8 of the Finance Act, 1926 (No. 35 of 1926), on all apparatus for the transmission and reception, or the transmission only, or the reception only of messages or other communications by wireless telegraphy shall cease to be chargeable or leviable as on and from the 1st day of July, 1927, and no customs duty shall be chargeable on apparatus for the transmission and reception or the transmission only or the reception only of messages or other communications by wireless telegraphy, on or after that date."

The purport of the amendment is to repeal the customs duty imposed on wireless sets or on the component parts of these sets. We imposed that duty last year, and, as some Deputies may remember, I then urged it should only be made effective for one year so that we might review it at the end of that time. The Minister told me it was possible to review the matter on the Finance Bill, and I have taken this method of doing so.

Now, let us consider this tax. In the first place, it is not a protective tariff. The number of businesses manufacturing sets for the transmission or reception of wireless telegraphy in the Saorstát is practically negligible. The bulk of the apparatus necessary for this purpose is protected by patents. Until the working of our new Patents Act becomes very much more firmly established than it is at present there is no likelihood of any industry of this character arising and, even when it does, I think it is probable mass production in the United States and elsewhere will enable the various parts necessary for wireless reception to be produced more cheaply and to be more thoroughly standardised than in this country. I do not think it is disputed at present that this is not a protective tax. It is a revenue duty, a duty which produced in the last financial year £19,000. That includes all revenue paid on Government importations. As the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs estimated, he is going to buy £9,000 worth, which would yield £3,000 of duty. As there were also certain purchases, on behalf of the Army Signal Corps, of wireless equipment, I think we might say the revenue from commercial importation cannot have been more than £15,000 a year. That is not going to make a very great difference in the national balance sheet. When the Minister for Finance estimates that there is an over-estimate, taking the estimate as a whole, of £650,000, a mere £15,000 is not going to make very much difference. The revenue of £15,000 could be sacrificed without any very serious loss to the National Exchequer.

Obviously, I could not ask the Minister to sacrifice even £15,000 of revenue without giving some justification. The justification I would like to offer is that this is a tax which is checking the development of wireless, which is imposing a handicap on a new habit, a new science, which may have incredible advantages for the country as a whole. We have here the same trouble as they experience in every agricultural country. The people will not stay in the country; they desire to rush to the towns. In our case that is aggravated by the fact that they rush not only to our towns, but to the United States. A real development of wireless will make the country a very much brighter place. It will make the people more contented to stay at home. They will feel they are in closer touch with things, and, in addition to great material advantages such as market reports, weather reports and so on, there will be great cultural advantages. This tax is unquestionably checking the development of those advantages.

The theory has been laid down by the Minister that the users of wireless should pay for the development of wireless, and that this tax is not a revenue tax, but a tax for the development of wireless. To begin with, that is not quite accurate. The users of wireless are not paying for the development of wireless. The people who have begun to use wireless and who installed wireless sets since April of last year are paying, but the people who had wireless sets before that date are only paying their licence duty and they are exempt from this tax. It is quite possible to enjoy a great deal of wireless entertainment if you had the foresight to instal a large and powerful set, without paying more than 10/- for it. It is not the users of wireless who are paying for the development, but the newcomers to the ranks of those who are receiving wireless; they are being called upon to pay, and that very fact is limiting and checking the number of new users.

I remember the Minister for Finance told us, with a good deal of truth, that nobody with a wireless set will be contented; the man with the crystal set will become discontented and he will buy a valve set; the man with the two-valve set will not be satisfied until he has bought a four-valve set, and so on. So far as I have been able to discover, that process has been very materially checked. People are being satisfied with the sets they have and with the service they can get, and experimenting, the desire to instal new sets and get a wider range of reception, has very largely ceased.

It is a mistake to think and talk and argue as if the wireless users were very rich men. In my constituency the bulk of the houses that have aerials are not the houses of the rich but the houses of the comparatively poor people who work for a weekly wage. They have found in wireless a pleasure for their evenings, a source of cheap and healthy entertainment. I suggest the Dáil should encourage them in that.

What are the new wireless users paying for? They are paying for the cost of the Dublin station and the Cork station. I have no doubt that the Cork station will eventually justify itself in an increased revenue from licence duty in that area. But also we are told that they have to pay for the cost of a high-power station at Athlone. That is contemplated in the future.

Any persons possessing wireless to whom I have talked have emphatically denied that they wish for a high-power station at Athlone. In fact they mostly profess themselves very forcibly against it, for two reasons. In the first place, there is no widespread demand for a high-power station at Athlone. I know that Deputy White once informed us that what was needed was a high-power station at Carndonagh, and he objected to any other area having a high-power station if there was not to be one at Carndonagh. I do not believe that Athlone will be able to supply Carndonagh. The other objection is that with any wireless set with a greater range than the ordinary crystal set you can change from one place to another, that if the programme in one station does not suit you can pick up another, and, even with quite a small set, you can turn to San Sebastian, Paris or Daventry, and to a large number of other stations. I think Dublin is not always interesting; all wireless stations are sometimes uninteresting, and I presume Athlone will relay Dublin. You cannot get any low-power station with any accuracy when Dublin is working, and if you have a high-power station in Athlone relaying Dublin you will not be able to get any alternative programme, and that will simply discourage the use of wireless altogether.

Therefore, I suggest that this duty should either be removed altogether, which is what I would prefer, or should at least be reduced to five per cent. or ten per cent. You may say that wireless is enough of a luxury to justify a ten per cent. duty, and I think some case might be made out for it, but a duty of 33? per cent. is too much. It is, as I say, checking development. It is hopeless to start a new service, a service to which the people are not used, a service which they have not begun to regard as essential, and expect to make it pay from the start. I am sorry that there are no business men here, but there is no business man who would hope to make a new service pay from its inception, or even during its first year. I forgot the business men sitting on the Government Benches. Business men from Cork are here. It is not business to try to make a new service— a service that people have not been accustomed to, that they still regard as something of a toy, something of a luxury—pay its way from the start. It would be reasonable, perhaps, that it should contribute something to the revenue, but you will never be able to make that service pay under this 33? per cent. duty. It is not paying its way at the moment, even under the yield from the tax and the yield from the licence duty.

MINISTER for POSTS and TELEGRAPHS (Mr. Walsh)

Oh, yes.

Major COOPER

Six thousand pounds from the licence duty and £19,000 from the tax?

Mr. WALSH

Eleven thousand pounds from the licence duty for the last year.

Major COOPER

I have not got the very latest figures for the licence duty. I have only got them up to March, and obviously the development in Cork produced more revenue. I am glad that it is paying, but that makes my argument for the reduction of the tax stronger. A remission of duty will put it in the power of the comparatively poor man, the man who works for a weekly wage, to purchase a wireless set, as he cannot do now. I see many aerials on the houses of comparatively poor people, but these aerials have been there for more than a year; they are the people who bought their sets a long time ago, and I do not see new aerials springing up as I would like to see them. Therefore, I would urge the Minister and the Dáil to consider this question with a view to developing a new habit of life that may be, I think will be, for the cultural and the social benefit of our people, and not to continue a tax that prevents its extension and development.

Professor THRIFT

In the main I think that Deputy Cooper's arguments are really sound. I think that this revenue tax—it is a revenue tax and not a protective tax—is dealing with this problem in a wrong way. I quite agree that the provision of broadcasting should not be out of public funds; it ought to pay for itself, but I think what ought to be sought is permanent revenue and not revenue that comes in principally once and once only. It is only by means of permanent revenue that that result can be obtained, and it is through the rapid extension of licences that I would look to put broadcasting on a paying footing. The number of licences, according to the Minister, is 22,000. That is entirely too small for this country, even with its small population, in comparison with the number of those who pay licences in other countries. I have not got the latest figures for Great Britain, for instance, but I believe there the number is well over two millions. If you take the ratio of population between the two countries—something like 14 to 1—we ought to have between 150,000 and 200,000. Of course they have had the start of us, but unless we take steps which will foster the development of broadcasting, and not retard it, we shall be a long time, even if we maintain the same proportion with regard to population, in getting the required number of reception sets. I do not think that that ratio would in the end give us anything like the number of sets which we ought to have, and the number of those paying licences within our bounds, because the circumstances in the two countries are very different. A reception set is very much more a thing to be desired in our country than it is in Great Britain. There you have a far greater proportion of the population concentrated in big centres. Our population is very largely isolated.

The people here are quite removed from sources of entertainment or sources of culture, and what they can obtain, both in the way of entertainment and culture, is something that ought to be, and will be in time, especially desirable. To my mind the right plan is to do everything you can to encourage the taking out of licences. Fifteen thousand pounds from revenue duty obtained once for all is equivalent only to 30,000 licences, and an additional 30,000 licences would, I believe, be obtained almost at once by the remission of this duty. Whatever may be said to the contrary, the duty is imposing restrictions on the development and on the use of reception sets, and I believe that this policy is a real mistake.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I support this amendment. I look at it from a somewhat different point of view from Deputy Cooper. As the Minister knows, the users of wireless in rural districts, districts that are far away from Dublin and Cork, must have valve sets. These valve sets are, of course, very much more expensive than crystal sets, and this capital cost is still further increased by the addition of this 33? per cent., so that the users of valve sets in the country, in proportion to their numbers, are paying a far greater amount towards the establishment and maintenance of this service than the users of crystal sets. In the debate when the tax was introduced, as far as I remember, the Minister justified himself by stating that eventually the money that is obtained by this method will be used to establish a high power station in Athlone and, I think, high power stations in other places, so that the users of valve sets in the country will be able to get programmes from these high power stations. I am not sure about the technicalities of the matter, but my information is that a high power station will not be able to serve all the rural districts, that even when this station in Athlone is established its radius will not exceed something like sixty miles.

It seems to be taken for granted that those in the country who want wireless are in a better position to pay the capital cost than those in the city. That is not so. Those who get wireless in the country must be in a better position to pay, because they have to pay higher prices, but all those who want it cannot get it because of the very high cost, which is added to by this tax. I think that Deputy Thrift is right. I think that if the cost of getting the apparatus were kept as low as it possibly could be the people would be encouraged to set up wireless, and that the amount received from licence duty would probably make up for the amount that would be lost through the remission of this tax.

It is very desirable that people, particularly in the country, should be encouraged to use wireless. They are really more in need of it than anybody else. In the cities people have other forms of entertainment available within easy reach. Those in the country districts have practically no form of entertainment, and it is the desire of those who are endeavouring to make life bright for them that some form of entertainment should be provided at a reasonable cost, and wireless seems to me to be the most obvious thing to meet the requirements at the moment. But we find ourselves up against the initial cost and in actual fact only the very wealthy people in country districts obtain wireless sets, on account of the high capital charges, increased by this tax.

If the Minister says that the only alternative to this tax is a charge on revenue, I would not support the remission. But if there is any way of getting around that difficulty, either through the taking out of an increased number of licences, or even by increasing the licence duty on the crystal users, I would support this amendment. This is not, and never will be, a protective tax, and it does seem to have the effect of merely lessening the demand for new wireless sets. There seems to be almost a definite stoppage in that direction. I think the Minister would be well advised to remove this particular charge.

MINISTER for POSTS and TELEGRAPHS (Mr. Walsh)

Nobody has ever suggested that this tax was for the purpose of protecting an industry. It has been clearly stated on previous occasions here that the intention is to raise the necessary revenue to bridge the gap between the revenue received from licence duties and the expenditure. Deputy Cooper has taken a new line— a line which is uncommon in connection with the agitation which we have had on this question for the last four or five months. It has, to me at any rate, the advantage of being an honest facing up to the facts. He has not, for instance, argued that by the abolition of this import duty such a wide extension of sales will materialise that the necessary revenue will be secured. He frankly admits that is not the case, and his plea is therefore one rather for the Minister for Finance than for me. I am not concerned, beyond the position of an ordinary Deputy, with expenditure from the Central Fund, except to express my own view, that I think it would be wrong to take money from the national exchequer for a specialised purpose of entertainment like this. I know there are at least a few countries where this is done, and that strong arguments can be put forward in favour of a State subsidy. If we could afford to spend the money nobody would be more pleased to see it spent in this way than I would. It is an excellent thing to find the homes of the people brightened, and an equally excellent thing to find that a medium has been provided for the State whereby information—the truthful reflection of the events of everyday life—may be radiated as we are now beginning to do.

Beyond that I have nothing to say to Deputy Cooper's points except this: that few will agree with his theory that a high-power station is not necessary. In the absence of a high-power station, the poorer people who are outside the limited circle covered by the Dublin and Cork stations, would be entirely ostracised. This high-power station is their only hope. They cannot afford valve sets, and a high-power station is indispensable to them. The valve set user without doubt would have preferred if the number of competitors in the atmospheric realm were reduced to the minimum. But the valve user is the exception, and we must necessarily cater for the majority. In providing a high-power station we are catering for the overwhelming majority.

It would be well if Deputy Heffernan would permit himself to be corrected when he suggests that the station we have in contemplation for Athlone will not provide for that majority within the entire radius of the station. It will as a matter of fact. Its radiation will extend to a guaranteed 80 miles, and, from experience, to a certain 100 miles. Taking the points of the compass from Athlone, one will at once see that only a very small circle, and as we know in practice, no part of this country will be outside it. Therefore, in providing this station—the provision of which depends on the collection of this money, as pointed out here by the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement—we are doing a real service to the poor man, and, in the absence of it, wireless would remain something foreign and unknown to him.

Deputy Thrift has adopted quite a different line—one familiar to those who have been following this controversy for a long time past. I hope from the figures which I have here to convince him that, in the absence of a subvention from the Minister for Finance, the working of broadcasting, as we now find it, would be impossible. Last year our revenue from licences—on the ten-shilling basis, of course—amounted to £11,151—otherwise, something over 22,000 licences. The expenditure reached something like £28,000. The difference between the revenue from licence fees and the expenditure was made up from £19,000 received from this much-debated import duty, leaving a slight balance as against an inherited loss. The position as regards broadcasting to date is that we have a couple of thousand pounds to our credit. Next year the anticipated current expenditure—not including capital expenditure —is £38,415. In addition to that, on the assumption that the Galway and Athlone stations are proceeded with, as now intended, provision is sought for an additional £25,800 capital. That does not concern the House. At any rate, the point we have to bear in mind is that for the coming year the current expenditure will be £38,415. Of this sum we count on securing £20,000 from licence fees, and it is not too optimistic to hope that £18,000 should be secured from import duties. In other words, on the assumption that these two sums of £20,000 from the licence fees and £18,000 from the import duties materialise, we shall be able to pay our way. It will be noted that in this calculation no provision is made for the payment of interest or repayment of principal in connection with this contemplated capital expenditure, but that will be a small item.

We have come to this: that by the arrangement in vogue we are in a position to pay our way. I believe that broadcasting ought to pay its way. It is sufficiently advanced now to do so. I may further say that when the subject of broadcasting was discussed some four or five years ago by a special committee, the public generally, with very few exceptions, rushed to the conclusion that we had in this matter an El Dorado—something that the private investors were going to make a fortune by—and that it was a great shame to contemplate handing it over to a private investor. Now we see the kind of El Dorado it has proved itself to be. We have learned quite a lot, and in the direction pointed out by my Department at the time. We have got in this particular instance to make up £38,415, and on a maximum calculation the licence fees for the current year will produce £20,000 of that sum, leaving a balance of £18,000. Eighteen thousand pounds would mean 36,000 extra licences. Deputy Thrift believes that by the removal of the import duty we will add 36,000 to our present numbers. In other words, that whilst the present number is 40,000—I mean that by the end of the year we believe it will be that—the removal of this one-third import duty would during that period result in practically a 100 per cent. addition. I do not believe that.

I have heard similar arguments put forward in regard to other matters in other places. I have heard it argued time and again that a reduction of the letter postage to 1½d. would not result in any loss of revenue. In England that reduction resulted in an increase of 2½ per cent. in correspondence. There is a big difference between 2½ per cent. and the 25 per cent. anticipated. The result in this case would, perhaps, work out in the same way. I am not prepared to chance it except everybody is agreed that if it does not materialise the stations must be prepared so to curtail their programmes as to work within the limits of revenue. That, I think, would be unfortunate and undesirable. There is no prospect whatever of producing through this particular source anything like £38,000. We might add a few thousand pounds to the £20,000—we might come up to £23,000 or £24,000—but we could not carry on broadcasting with that sum. The balance must be made up in some way.

I have made a proposal to some of the enthusiasts behind this abolition proposal, to the effect that if they are so satisfied that the removal of the import duty will result in such a wide increase in sales and receipts from licences, it would not be unreasonable to expect the big combines which they represent to guarantee that fact by a cheque, and if a deficiency arises that they should make it up. They are the only people to make anything by this. No doubt they will sell some more sets. They believe themselves they will sell many more. If they do, well and good. If it is a case of selling many more, and if the thing works out all right, then they do not lose; but if it does not, under the present arrangement we lose and they gain. I think my proposal is a very fair one. They argue that if the import duty were done away with there would be such an increase in the sale of sets that the revenue would be made up. In return I say: "If that is so, you represent very big companies, and £18,000 is a small matter to you; then plank it down and that will finish the matter." That is a fair test. There is no other test worth arguing about.

There is just one other point. In England, after four years of continued development—development supported by big finance and in very favourable surroundings—the number of licencees had, up to the end of March, reached about 2,200,000. On that basis, our population should, in three or four years from now, have about 145,000 sets. I do not believe that development here will be so rapid as that. I think our people are somewhat slower to take on a matter like broadcasting than the people of England, where technical matters are more a part of daily life. I hope I am wrong, but I must be permitted to express the view that within the next four years the total number of holders of sets in this country will not exceed 100,000. The Minister for Finance shares that view also. His Department and mine went into the matter fully, and we concluded that within the next four years it would be safe to hope that the number of wireless sets in the State would be about 100,000. At the end of this financial year, on my calculation, we will have no less than 40,000 sets in the State. In other words, we shall have reached 40 per cent. of our development after two years. That is not checking development. It is very rapid development—40 per cent. in two years. There is nothing to cry about there. To suggest, on the other hand, as Deputy Thrift has, I think, suggested, that we should meet expenditure during the current year by a 10/- licence fee——

Professor THRIFT

I did not suggest that.

Mr. WALSH

To put forward that alternative would be to assume that, by the end of this year, we would have reached 76 per cent. development. We may be a smart people here, but we do not move as smartly as that.

Mr. ALTON

Does the Minister think that every person who has got a wireless set pays the tax?

Mr. WALSH

We will see to that.

Mr. JOHNSON

Does the Minister think that every person who pays the tax uses a wireless set?

Mr. WALSH

That is his own lookout. If he has a set, we will see that he pays the licence. The question resolves itself into this: Is the Minister for Finance prepared to foot the bill for the balance of the revenue, or is he not? If he is not prepared to do so, then the argument goes by the board. We have got to get our broadcasting programme floated. It requires, for the current year, this minimum expenditure of £38,000. We show the way to get that money, and no alternative method is suggested.

Mr. JOHNSON

I think the Minister has not met the doubts raised upon this question. He has quoted certain figures, but he has not, in my view, quoted the essential figures. Before I could make up my mind on this question, I should like to know what is the present tendency in respect to imports of apparatus or parts of apparatus? Has there been an increase or a decline in the monthly imports for the past six months or is the figure stationary? Is there any considerable increase in the number of new licence holders in the area now met by the Dublin Station? I am speaking of the crystal set area, because it is important to note that the Minister's policy is a crystal-set policy. If we are to take that into account, we ought to have some information as to whether, within the crystal-set area of Dublin, after an experience of a year or so, there is a steady increase in the number of crystal sets. In other words, are we satisfied that there is a steady interest being maintained in "listening in" to the Dublin Station by crystal set? That is important, because it is represented to me—I think with a good deal of force—that, after a period of enthusiasm and of novelty, the only way to maintain interest is to make it possible occasionally for people to hear other stations. Having tested the quality of other stations, they will learn how good and satisfactory the Dublin Station is. I think a lack of interest develops when listeners are only able to hear one station. If you look ahead and consider the position in the country when you have established stations which may be heard within crystal range, and when there is no development of valve sets, then you will have a sagging of interest if my theory is substantiated by fact. I am, therefore, asking for figures of the tendency in respect to imports and the tendency in respect to licences in recent months. Personally, from inquiry and from overhearing discussion, I have come to the conclusion that interest is sagging amongst those people who are using crystal sets. If that is so, then I think the question arises whether it would not be a wise policy to induce a larger number of people to go in for valve sets. That might well mean a modification of the present policy.

The Minister has given certain figures. For the current year's expenses, his figure is £38,000, but the estimate which has been circulated is only for £29,000.

Mr. WALSH

It was intended to supplement that when the high power station was approved.

Mr. JOHNSON

That is to say, it has not yet been approved.

Mr. WALSH

It was forecasted in the Budget speech.

Mr. JOHNSON

I do not know whether the Minister is able to give figures of the kind I have asked. If he is able to do so, it will help me to make up my mind on the question, and it may more satisfactorily prove the Minister's case.

Major COOPER

Before the Minister gives Deputy Johnson his figures, I should like to ask him one or two questions. Incidentally, may I say that the Minister's fiscal methods are even more amazing than I imagined. I hope that that deposit, as a guarantee of good faith and as a safeguard to the public, is not going to be asked only from those who want the removal of the tariff but that it will be also sought from those who seek to impose a tariff. The imposition of a tariff may well increase the cost of living and, consequently, increase the Civil Service bonus, and I hope the Minister for Finance will take that hint from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The Minister gave us the figure of £20,000 for licences. Is that an actual figure or is it an estimate?

Mr. WALSH

It is an estimate.

Major COOPER

It is not the figure obtained for licences last year?

Mr. WALSH

For the past year £11,000 was received.

Major COOPER

These licences, I think, are payable on 1st January or immediately afterwards.

Mr. WALSH

No.

Major COOPER

Are they valid for a year, or are they valid from the date they are taken out?

Mr. WALSH

From the date taken out.

Major COOPER

That simplifies my duty. I need not argue the point I intended putting forward. In the first quarter of the year we have not got anywhere near that estimate of £20,000. One would imagine that a considerable number of the licences for existing sets would be taken out early in the year. There was actually less than £7,000 paid for licences in the first quarter of the year. There was something over £1,000 paid in January, £4,000 in February, and £1,000 in March. I am giving these figures from memory, but I think it is very doubtful that the Minister will get his £20,000. I am afraid the reason he will not get his £20,000 is that this duty is checking development. I hope the Minister will illuminate the discussion a little more. We have learned a great deal. I do not regret putting down this amendment, because we have learned much about wireless which we would not have learned otherwise. The Minister's speech was extremely interesting, and I hope he will give us a little more information.

Mr. WALSH

The advent of a new station means a jump in the sales in the area affected, with a decline in sales when the market becomes satisfied. That has happened in Dublin, and it will happen in Cork. It will also happen in other parts of the country when the high power station is put up. The sales in Dublin last year were upwards. This year they can be voted as flat. That is what one would expect. Last year very few sets were sold in Cork. This year the sales are strong in Cork —very strong, at the present time. Deputy Johnson will see at once that the shifting of the figure depends on the establishment of stations. The figure was high in the early part of last year, and it was down during the end. It is higher to-day than it was six months ago because of the new station.

Mr. JOHNSON

Can the Minister say what the position in Dublin area has been for three months past, as compared with the three months immediately prior to that?

Mr. WALSH

I did not anticipate a question of that kind, and I cannot give the information. I do think that it had been suffering a natural and expected decline, but I have not the information. On the other hand, we had not been able to get at the full development of wireless, through the medium of licence fees, until quite recently, be cause of the absence of machinery to effect that purpose.

Deputy Cooper has given the figures which I had in mind. The figures for the present month of May are £2,500. That shows an increase. We anticipate that four or five thousand, perhaps six or seven thousand, new licence fees or even more will come in from the Cork area because of this station. We are satisfied from figures so far ascertained that we will not be far out in estimating £20,000. That, of course, is only an estimate, and we are only giving our honest views. We feel that our revenue from this source for the next year will be £20,000.

Professor THRIFT

By way of explanation, I desire to say that when I spoke I did not mean to convey that during the current year outlay would be met by receiving fees, but that the maximum revenue to be obtained from licences, which would be an annual thing, would be of such a kind that it would rapidly repay anything done to help broadcasting to get on its feet. I also think that the Minister's budget has been based on two flaws. He estimated this year for 100 per cent. increase in licences. I think he would obtain that without the duty, but I believe that with the duty it would be a flaw in his argument. Experience, of course, will alone show which view is right. The Minister has also estimated for the same amount from customs duty on parts as that obtained during the past year. That, I believe, would certainly be wrong, as many people have already supplied themselves, so that there will not be the same amount coming in.

Mr. BLYTHE

I think we will get rather more.

Amendment put and negatived.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY

I move:—

To insert before Section 14 a new section as follows:—

"Entertainments duty within the meaning of Section 1 of the Finance (New Duties) Act, 1916, shall not be charged or levied on payments for admission to any entertainments as respects which it is proved to the satisfaction of the Revenue Commissioners that the entertainment consists solely of an exhibition of all or any of the following entertainments; that is to say:—

(a) agricultural shows held solely for the purpose of promoting the interests of the industry of agriculture or any branch thereof, at which competitions in the Irish language and step-dancing are held;

(b) band promenades and like entertainments run by local committees or authorities not carried on for gain or profit."

On receipt of several resolutions passed by committees of agricultural societies in the South of Ireland, I tabled my amendment. These agricultural shows serve a very useful purpose, and are not carried out for the purpose of gain or profit. Several of such shows hold competitions in the Irish language and in step dancing, which have an educational value, and are looked forward to locally by school children. An entertainment tax has been charged on those entertainments, and so heavily has it pressed on the resources of the show committees that some of them were reluctantly driven to exclude these competitions altogether. That is not desirable, and I am sure that the Dáil will readily permit those educational competitions to be held without the imposition of the entertainment tax. In this matter I feel that I am pressing an open door, and that the Minister for Finance is in full sympathy with the amendment. It is a comparatively small, but important, matter. Those little entertainments are very important adjuncts to the numerous local agricultural shows which are held up and down the country, and, for the life of me, I cannot see how anyone should be desirous of discouraging them. They help the local shows considerably. They brighten them, and the people, especially the school children, in the district look forward to these competitions, so that I am quite sure there will be no objection to my amendment.

Mr. BLYTHE

I am prepared to accept the principle of the Deputy's amendment, at any rate, so far as (a) is concerned. So far as (b) is concerned, I would like to consider the matter further. In regard to (a), the present position is anomalous. An agricultural show held separately would be exempt from entertainment tax, and competitions in the Irish language and step dancing, held separately, would also be exempt. At present the position is, where both are held together, they are both subject to the entertainment tax. I am willing to introduce an amendment in regard to that. With respect to (b) I think the position is somewhat different, and I would like to have time to consider it. It may be that band promenades are not run directly for profit, but they probably bring profit to people who have shops adjacent to the places where they are held. They may also cause a loss to the owners of cinemas in the same neighbourhood, who must pay entertainment tax. I do not think that the form of the amendment is quite accurate. I am prepared to introduce on the fourth stage an amendment which will exempt agricultural shows, Irish language and dancing competitions, but I would like to consider the other matter.

Mr. M. HENNESSY

In regard to band promenades, they are mostly run by local committees, not for the purpose of profit, but purely as an entertainment, and, in many cases, the local committees run them at a loss. It is certainly a severe burden on them to have to pay the tax. The question as to competition with local cinemas or other local entertainments hardly arises, and I would like the Minister to give the amendment favourable consideration.

Mr. JOHNSON

Would the Minister say whether the entertainment tax is a tax on the committee or on the persons paying the entrance fee?

Mr. BLYTHE

It is a tax on persons paying the entrance fee, but it is difficult to get committees or owners of cinemas to see it in that light. I would be glad if the Deputy withdrew the amendment, as I will undertake to move an amendment to the same effect on the next stage.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY

I move:—

To insert before Section 14 a new section as follows:—

"Sub-section (2) of Section 19 of the Finance Act, 1925, shall be amended as if there were added thereto the following paragraph, that is to say:—

(d) on glass bottles which the Revenue Commissioners are satisfied are imported solely for use by registered chemists and druggists."

Some chemists approached me on this subject. This deals with the tariff on imported bottles, which has met with a good deal of criticism. As one who favours tariffs, I do not wish to say much against it, but, so far as chemists' bottles are concerned, I think they deserve special consideration, since, as I am told, they are not manufactured in Ireland. One of the principal men who approached me on this matter stated that he is putting up a special preparation in this country and, if he imports the bottle, he has to pay the tax, whereas, if he put up his stuff across the water, both the bottle and the preparation would come in free. I wish to read a paragraph from a letter which he sent me on this subject:—

"I will give you my experience and also information which I believe will be found accurate. When this tax was introduced I wrote to the Ministry of Commerce requesting to be put in touch with Irish bottle manufacturers, and, after a time, was introduced to the Ringsend Bottle Company, to whom I wrote for samples, which I never received. After exhaustive inquiries I found out that there was no factory in Ireland which turned out bottles suitable for a chemist's business. There is no probability, as far as I can see, of any such industry being started, for the following reasons:—The numbers of different kinds and sizes of bottles used in a chemist's business being very considerable, their manufacture would necessitate an initial outlay which could never be justified by the requirements of the Irish market based on the most sanguine expectations. As the man who puts up specialities in bottles in Great Britain is able to import them into the Free State without tax, he is obviously placed in a better position than the man who is packing in Ireland with Irish workers. The question is: How long are men, who are doing their utmost by advertising, etc., to advance the trade of the country, to continue suffering under such unreasonable disabilities? It would pay better under the present taxation to close down industries requiring such bottles and to arrange to have the goods packed in Great Britain, which is already being done on a small but steadily increasing scale."

That, I think, puts the case fairly before the Dáil. If we are not manufacturing bottles for chemists in this country, I think my amendment is reasonable and, protectionist though I am, I am not in favour of that kind of protection. We should only protect what we have, or what we are likely to have, but, as regards what we have not or are not likely to have in the near future, I think the tax is only one for revenue purposes, and if it is hampering trade at a time when employment is badly needed, I think it should be eased off for the present.

Major BRYAN COOPER

I think that the Deputy's argument in favour of the amendment is unanswerable. I thought so when I made the same argument two years ago and moved to exempt medicine bottles from this duty. Now, after two years, that news has reached Cork, as a result, I suppose, of the new wireless broadcasting station there. I should like to draw the Deputy's attention to the argument by which he and other Deputies were induced to support this duty. I called attention to the fact that some medicine bottles, particularly those that contain poison, are made of blue and amber glass, and asked:

"Is there any prospect that in the near future Irish bottle manufacturers will make this kind of glass?"

"Minister for Industry and Commerce: Yes."

The Minister for Industry and Commerce concluded a very brief statement by saying:

"I make this simple statement: that during the period of the war the druggists obtained all the bottles they required from one firm. That firm is at present closed down but is going to re-open. The moulds are there, and I do not see why they should not again supply them."

Yet you have the testimony of Deputy O'Shaughnessy, the testimony of a Deputy who does not speak very frequently, and who, therefore, has more time to verify his statements than I sometimes have, that it is at the present moment impossible to obtain these bottles. I do not know what has happened to the firm that the Minister for Industry and Commerce said was going to re-open. I do not know what has happened to the moulds. At present the chemists have to go outside the country to buy these bottles, and Deputy O'Shaughnessy says, with perfect truth, that it is a hardship on the manufacturer of some specific or some cure for coughs or colds, or something of that kind. I think the man who is doing more an assembling trade than a manufacturing trade, is handicapped by this, and I do think it is one of the cases where the tariff needs to be revised. If we are going to have tariffs, and I do not personally think we should, we have to create machinery by which they can be modified, or adapted to meet the needs of the situation. I would suggest to the Minister that he would be well advised to accept Deputy O'Shaughnessy's amendment.

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not propose to accept Deputy O'Shaughnessy's amendment, though I do admit that this particular tariff needs looking into and, perhaps, needs revision. The Minister for Industry and Commerce and myself had an interview with representatives of the Irish Glass Bottle Company recently. We discussed this question of the failure of the company to produce certain classes of bottles. We found that while the company still held they could, and would, make many classes of bottles, in fact most classes of bottles, which they have so far failed to produce, they were not anxious to have the tariff on, at any rate, certain classes of those bottles continued. The position the representatives of the company took up was: as long as there was a tariff on all bottles they would be expected to produce all classes of bottles; that there were many classes of bottles which, while they might produce at a price, they would be better off to leave alone. I think as we have a Tariff Commission, which will not only investigate proposals for the imposition of tariffs but will also investigate proposals for the modification of tariffs, that the proper method to deal with this is not the same rough and ready method we had to adopt when we first imposed it, that is, simply putting some proposal before the Dáil after an amount of private investigation. We ought to make full use of the Tariff Commission machinery, and of the public type of investigation which they will give us. I think we can say this much to the Dáil, that if requested by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and the Minister for Finance, the Irish Glass Bottle Company will make application to the Tariff Commission for a modification of the tariff, a modification which would take the form of excluding, not necessarily all the classes of bottles which Deputy O'Shaughnessy's amendment deal with, but which would take the form of excluding, from the tariff, certain classes of bottles. If that application came before the Tariff Commission the fee fixed for hearing could be placed at a minimum, as the company would not be interested in the same way as a company applying for the imposition of a tariff. The company could state what class of bottle they thought ought not to be within the tariff. Then any persons interested could come along and give their evidence on the proposal, and they would be able to state that the proposal was sufficient or that the proposal, in their view, did not meet the needs of the case. We could have the facts put forward from every angle. Then we would be able to modify the tariff, not in the rough and ready way we would modify it if we adopted an amendment such as this, but with some certainty that we were making the best modification that could be made. I can promise that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with myself, will request the Glass Bottle Company to make application to the Tariff Commission. The matter can then be considered in, I think, the best way.

Mr. GOREY

Is that the form this question has to take: that you make representations to the Glass Company and they make representations to the Tariff Commission to remit?

Mr. BLYTHE

Yes.

Mr. GOREY

Why is the onus thrown on the company.

Mr. BLYTHE

Because nobody has the right to make application under the Act except persons engaged in, or proposing to engage in a business.

Mr. GOREY

It must come from some company interested! I think that machinery is wrong. It seems to be a roundabout way.

Mr. JOHNSON

You are too late. Deputy Gorey appears to have come to the conclusion that the Tariff Commission, in its present form, is nearly a mockery.

Mr. GOREY

The means of coming before it are peculiar.

Mr. JOHNSON

A good many other things are peculiar with the Tariff Commission scheme. The Minister has made an application in regard to his intentions to invite the Glass Bottle Company to come before the Tariff Commission. I hope it will be made possible for people interested in the hand-making of bottles to be heard before any change is made in the tariff. I think I am right in saying that bottles of this kind are not being made by the Ringsend Glass Bottle Company, because of the fact that they are relying on the automatic machine to the greatest possible extent. But the odd makes and shapes of bottles are made by hand in the main, and there is a possibility of establishing a hand-made bottle industry in the country. I hope it will not be ruled cut. The men interested in the hand-making of bottles have been agitating this matter, but they will not be heard by the Tariff Commission because they are not in employment of the bottle makers. Even if they are not employed in the business I hope it will be possible for these men to be heard by the Commission before any change is made. I would like to ask Deputy O'Shaughnessy to give us a little more information. If it is not possible for him to give the information perhaps Deputy Cole would come to his assistance. He has given certain details regarding the trouble in getting bottles, and the effect upon the trade of the chemists of the tariff of thirty-three and a third per cent. on the import price of bottles. If we could get a little more information as to how far that affects the retail price of the preparation that is sold by the chemists it would give us a better perspective. Let us say, for instance, if we take articles that are usually retailed at 2/1½, what is the value of the bottle? What is the value of the advertising? Could we get some idea of the costings of the chemists' production? I think it would be found that the bottles, perhaps, occupy an undue proportion of the actual cost to the chemist, quite apart from the price to the consumer of the finished article. And it would be appropriate to this discussion if the Deputy could give us some information as to the proportion of the production costs of the article which is to be sold that is borne by the bottle. Then we would know something of the real effect upon the trade of the chemist of the tariff on the bottle. I wonder could we extract that information from the Deputies concerned?

Sir JAMES CRAIG

I would have supported very strongly this amendment of Deputy O'Shaughnessy if it were only the case of these medicine bottles, but, as the Minister has pointed out, there are many other bottles that are not made by the Ringsend Bottle Company, and that the tariff should be taken off. I want to say, in connection with the remarks Deputy Johnson has made, that it is not the chemists, but the public, who pay for this duty in an increase of prices. I do deplore the fact that it should be necessary for two Ministries to go to people who are not interested, namely, the Ringsend Bottle Company, with a view to getting them to make a request that the tariff on these medicine bottles should be removed. That seems to be a most futile way of trying to get anything brought to a decent conclusion. It surely should be possible, in the near future, to make some other arrangements. If the Minister finds that a tariff that is being paid on goods is not necessary, it should be possible for the Dáil to remove the tariff without going this roundabout way of sending messages from two Ministries to a company that has practically no interest whatsoever in the removal of the tariff. As I said, I would support this amendment only I realise that there are other classes of bottles from which the tariff should be removed as well as those this company is not making. I think it would be advisable to ask a question in the near future about the position of the company. Perhaps Deputy Johnson, if he wants more information, might ask the question.

Major COOPER

I agree with Deputy Sir James Craig that there are altogether too many "ifs" in this matter. I think the machinery of the Tariff Commission was framed for the purpose of imposing tariffs, and for the purpose of removing tariffs. Surely it should be possible, if we are going to have the question of the removal of tariffs referred to, not merely for the industry on which a tariff exists, but for other industries that are affected by the tariff, to approach the Commission. It is only common sense that a chemist, such as the writer of the letter Deputy O'Shaughnessy read, carrying on business in the Saorstát, should have the right, if his business is hampered by a tariff, to approach the Tariff Commission.

The manufacturer of ink in the Co. Wicklow is also affected by the glass bottle tax to a very serious extent. The Minister is trying to find a devious retreat from an impossible position and from a series of false prophecies. I have here the Official Debates for the 7th May, 1925, when the Minister for Finance said: "One firm which has been out of business and which, I think, will re-start, has moulds for 400 different sorts of medicine bottles. As soon as the furnaces can be re-started, it will be possible for them to supply a very great range of medicine bottles." Now we are told, two years afterwards, that no firm in the Saorstát proposes to supply medicine bottles of any kind. The Minister went on to say: "We are satisfied that the firm will be able to fulfil their promise in this matter. I do not say that if they say they will do certain things in six weeks that it may not take seven weeks." Seven weeks! Here we are, 24 months after, and nothing has been done. We read much of China nowadays. There is the Chinese expression "saving your face." I think the reference of this matter to the Tariff Commission, in the manner suggested by the Minister, is the Minister's Chinese device to save his face. If ever there has been an exposure of the abuse of tariffs it has been this tariff on glass bottles, and I congratulate the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs on having withdrawn himself from the debate.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY

I want to say a word or two more on this question of the glass bottle industry. I am sorry I cannot satisfy Deputy Johnson with the details he asked for as to how the tariff on bottles affects the selling price of the article. What appealed to me was the fact that anyone engaged in business of any kind in this country should be handicapped by a tariff on empty bottles when brought in for the purpose of his business, while his competitors were allowed to send in full bottles without any tax whatever. That is what appealed to me with great force. I am quite satisfied with the Minister's explanation and with what he has promised to do. I am quite satisfied, because I know enough of business to realise that there must be methods of approaching business in a proper way. To do things in a haphazard way or to adopt short cuts is not always the most desirable way. There is a proper way to do things, and I think the Minister has chosen that proper way. One or two Deputies said that they could not understand why the Ringsend Bottle Company should be asked to do this in this case. I can understand it, because I believe they are the only bottle manufacturers in Ireland. They have got a tariff, and having got it, I think it is only right and fair that they should go to the Tariff Commission and say: "Well, we have got our tariff on the bottles that we manufacture, but there is a certain kind of bottle that we do not manufacture and you can remove the tariff from it." I think that position can be easily understood.

Mr. COLE

I did not intend to intervene in this debate, but for the statement made by Deputy Johnson. I am glad to have the opportunity of congratulating Deputy O'Shaughnessy on his coming over to our way of thinking —by agreeing that it is not fair to hamper any business by the imposition of tariffs.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY

I did not go the distance of saying that.

Mr. COLE

At any rate that is the conclusion arrived at after two years. I asked a question on this subject within the last few months. The Minister replied that he could not give any figures; that it would be too much trouble for the company to see what was made. The conclusion I arrived at from that statement was that there were very few made, and that it would have been almost as difficult to find them as a needle in a bundle of straw. Several complaints have been made by chemists with regard to this bottle question. They are finding it impossible to carry on business. The charges made to the poor for bottles, in connection with dispensary work, are exceedingly high. I know the chemists offered to this company, the only one manufacturing bottles in the Free State, according to Deputy O'Shaughnessy, from 2/- to 3/- a dozen more as a preference over the English prices. The company said they could not supply them. It is hardly fair to the trade to have to be paying these exorbitant prices for bottles considering that they made this offer to the company, and that it could not accept it. Why, therefore, continue the imposition of the tariff any longer?

Mr. BLYTHE

I just want to say a few words in reply to what Deputy Gorey and Deputy Cooper said. It may be that we should amend the Act so that the Minister may make application either for the imposition or removal of tariffs, but I do not think that we should amend it in the sense that Deputy Cooper would desire it to be amended; that another person, other than the Minister or the manufacturer concerned, should be able to make applications in relation to tariffs. No person could work with any confidence under a tariff if, week after week, he had to go before the Tariff Commission to defend the tariff because some other manufacturer, or consumer even, was applying for its abolition. We definitely arranged when we were passing the Tariff Bill that only one class of person could make application for the imposition of a tariff—that was the person who was engaged, or was proposing to engage, in the industry.

We made the same arrangement in regard to the modification of tariffs. I think it might be argued, with a good deal of force, that so far as the modification of a tariff is concerned the Minister ought to be able to intervene. That is a matter we will consider, but meantime we have the machinery for examining all proposals in regard to tariff changes, whether it is by way of imposition or remission. Proposals for such modification ought to come before the Tariff Commission for investigation, and all the facts in relation to the matter ought to be set out in the report of the Commission, so that they can be examined by the Executive Council and the Dáil. We propose to take the only method at present available of bringing this before the Tariff Commission, and that is to request the company concerned to do it. This present company is quite willing to do it. Of course there would always be a method of obliging a company to bring a proposal for modification before the Tariff Commission, because if there was a strong prima facie case for modification it would be quite possible to say to the company: "Here is something that ought to be examined before the Tariff Commission. You should bring it before it." If a company declined to be reasonable in the matter it would be possible to say to it: "Then your whole attitude in regard to this matter must be reconsidered." I think a company which had the advantage of a tariff would always feel obliged to take some reasonable line in regard to the matter.

Mr. GOREY

I am quite satisfied if the Minister proposes to modify the method. If he says that the present method is the only method, then a company may put no force behind its application for a remission—it may put up a week case—and with that I would not agree. I say the only method is for the Minister to make application to the Tariff Commission. If he says he is prepared to carry out that proposal I am satisfied.

Mr. BLYTHE

Once a case has been brought before the Tariff Commission other interested parties always can come in. With regard to the point raised by Deputy Johnson as to whether the makers of hand-made bottles can come before the Commission, I should say certainly. They would be entitled to give evidence when a case was before the Tariff Commission.

Mr. HENNESSY

When the Minister says "other interested parties," does he mean interested parties within the Free State or interested parties outside the Free State, such, for instance, as manufacturers in Great Britain, China or other places?

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not think they would be regarded as interested parties.

Mr. GOOD

Would the Minister say whether interested parties, parties, for instance, interested in hand-made bottles, could come before the Commission on their own initiative, or is the position this: that they could only come in when a proposal was being put forward by the Minister?

Mr. BLYTHE

I think they could only come in when a case was before the Tariff Commission. They would be the sort of persons whose evidence the Tariff Commission would be bound to hear.

Mr. GOOD

Would they be notified of the fact that it was the intention of the Minister to bring forward such a case?

Mr. BLYTHE

When an application is being made to the Tariff Commission due notice is published in the Press, and interested parties are invited to submit a statement of the evidence they propose to give, and finally to come before the Commission.

Mr. M.J. EGAN

Apart from this question of tariffs, I would like to know whether it is a fact that after a certain date, I think in January next, bottles will have to be stamped?

Mr. BLYTHE

I cannot say at the moment, but I will make a note of that.

Mr. EGAN

If that is so, then I desire to direct attention to the fact that there are some mineral water manufacturers in the Free State who have at the moment bottles to the value of about £2,000. If all these bottles have to be stamped, it will mean the expenditure of a tremendous amount of money in the case of these people. In fact, if that has to be done I do not know if they will be able to cope with their orders, and I think that some relief should be given to these manufacturers if the intention is to put the order into force, particularly in view of the fact that they cannot get bottles in this country. I think it would be grossly unfair to ask them to expend a tremendous amount of money in the stamping of these bottles.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I am afraid that is a separate question. This amendment deals only with medicine bottles.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. ALTON

I move amendment 8:—

To insert before Section 14 a new section as follows:—

"Sub-section (a) of Section 6 of the Third Schedule of the Finance Act, 1926, shall be amended as if there were added thereto the following paragraph:—

"Any vehicle in respect of which it is shown to the satisfaction of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health that it has been manufactured by a firm which is at present engaged in manufacturing similar vehicles in Saorstát Eireann ...£15."

This is a plea for the old and infirm Ford car. Deputies will remember that to encourage the manufacture of motor cars in the Saorstát it was agreed that the tax on the Ford cars manufactured here to the extent of 75 per cent. should be taxed at a flat rate of £10. In the case of the ordinary old Ford car, there is a standard rate of tax, which amounts to about £23 a year if paid in a lump sum. It is considerably more if paid in quarterly instalments. The owner of an old Ford car is usually a person of limited means, a person who cannot afford to scrap it. At the moment he is on the horns of a dilemma. He cannot find a market for his old car, and he cannot pay the tax—at least, he is not able to pay the tax for the whole year. Very often the owner is a person of a professional or semi-professional character, who needs such a car in the discharge of the duties of his profession. I think my proposal is in accord with the general spirit of the preceding paragraph: that is, to encourage the home manufacturer. I am informed that the Ford company make most of their profits from the sale of parts, and the old car, unhappily is more likely to require new parts than a new car. I had one or two adventures in old Ford cars with some friends of mine. These cars seemed to require new parts at every garage we passed. That brings me to another point. The smaller garages through the country get a considerable amount of their business through the old Ford car, and the removal of it from the road will mean a loss to them. I ask Deputies to remember that a number of these old cars are laid by. That means so much loss to the revenue. I do not think the revenue would lose very much if my amendment were agreed to. I am informed that quite a number of old Ford cars are laid aside, and I am given to understand that if the tax were reduced many of them would appear on the road again, and, of course, would be paying the full tax. Anyhow, I commend the amendment to the Minister, knowing his sympathy for the old and the indigent. I think it is in accord with the generous spirit that made him reduce the tax on the Ford car to £10.

Mr. BLYTHE

The position is that the vehicles to which the Deputy's amendment refers would pay the £23 in Northern Ireland or Great Britain, and the whole argument put up in favour of reducing the sum to £15 here is simply that other vehicles of the same class are paying a £10 tax. I think the Deputy is taking up an unscriptural attitude over the matter. The fact that these recent vehicles have seen less service does not constitute a reason why they should not be treated in as good a way, or a better way, if we care to.

The purpose of making a particular arrangement last year was because the setting up of a new customs barrier here and a new fiscal entity involved a danger that the Ford factory in Cork might close down. That factory was started when Great Britain and the area now the Free State were one customs entity. The setting up of the Free State involved the charging of duty on parts made in Cork on their importation into Great Britain. The result was that the business of the Ford factory in Cork was fairly severely hit. The Government explored various methods of affording relief. The question of effecting something like a customs union with Great Britain, having a common customs pool so far as customs duty on motor cars was concerned, was explored and that was abandoned. Finally, it was decided to give a preferential rate of road tax to the Ford car. That applied to the cars that had been manufactured here. The object was to increase the sale of the Ford cars that had not been sold and, perhaps in some cases, had not been already made.

There is no reason for decreasing the duty on the old Ford car. We returned last year to the tax that had been in operation when we took over. That tax is still in operation in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. Previous to the change last year we had in existence an £18 tax on the Ford car. That tax had been imposed as the result of the adoption of a new formula. The formula was adopted with the definite purpose of giving certain assistance to the Ford industry. I cannot see any reason why we should give these people who own these old cars an advantage which they had no right to expect. I see no reason either why we should reduce the amount of the contribution to the Road Fund, and so impose an additional burden on the rates, because any change which depletes the Road Fund does mean the rates are not relieved to the extent we had hoped of the burden of maintaining roads, so that there is some actual increase thrown on the rates. I do not think there is any case except a purely sentimental case made out.

Mr. COLE

The appeal in this instance is made purely on behalf of the poor man and the hackney-car drivers who now have to pay the full tax, and there is no remission in their case.

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not think that is so.

Mr. GOREY

The Minister seems to forget the position that the owner of this class of car is placed in. If one of these old cars is put up for sale at present it cannot be sold in view of the high tax. I know several owners of old cars and they cannot sell them because the tax is too high.

Mr. GOOD

That is common to all old cars.

Mr. GOREY

It is especially common to this class of car. It seems to me this is rather playing into the hands of the company by forcing people to buy new cars. One would imagine the framers of this part of the Budget were acting on behalf of the Ford Company. These old cars are in many instances unsightly; many of these old cars are nuisances. Possibly the Minister for Lands and Agriculture might recommend them as suitable removable chicken coops or as useful things for fencing a gap. There are any amount of these old cars about the country. The people who own them will not licence them and cannot sell them, whereas if the tax were brought down to the same level as the tax on the new car twice as many licences would be taken out and the revenue would not suffer. Of course the Minister does not live in the atmosphere of the Ford car, but rather in the atmosphere of the limousine, the Sunbeam or the Rolls Royce. We cannot afford them down the country.

Mr. JOHNSON

Perhaps the Minister, when he speaks of the duty payable in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will note that there might be an inducement to the owner of the old Ford car to pay the tax, with a view to subsequent sale, or to scrap the car, if he could buy a new Ford at the price obtining in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Perhaps if the Minister could use his influence with the Ford Company to make the price the same in the Free State as in Northern Ireland, he might get over this difficulty very much easier than he otherwise would.

Mr. J. CONLAN

Does the Minister seriously contend that a remission of the tax on the old vehicles would deplete the Road Fund to any extent? Would it not be merely a trifle?

Mr. BLYTHE

I think there would be quite an appreciable depletion of the Road Fund.

Mr. GOOD

When the Minister was urging some few months ago that it was in the interests of the State to reduce this tax on Ford cars it was with the object of increasing the sale of Ford cars in the Free State. Now this proposal has behind it that object. A great many owners of those old Ford cars are most anxious to get new Ford cars if they could dispose of the old ones. They cannot dispose of the old cars because the tax is so high that nobody considers them worth purchasing.

That is a point which the Minister ought to consider. If he would reduce the tax on the old car, that would be the means of encouraging the sale of a larger number of new cars and that would increase to a considerable extent the Road Fund. It is one of the problems we often have here. In fact, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs had something very much of the same kind to-night. It was mentioned that if the postal duties were reduced by a certain amount the increased business that would bring about would recoup, to a very large extent, any loss. This is a very similar problem. If the Minister could see his way to reduce the tax on the old cars, I believe it would be the means of encouraging the sale of a larger number of new cars.

It is not a question of introducing a new principle. Under the tax brought into operation about five years ago, all cars made prior to 1912 were very largely exempted from the full penalty of the tax. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of that fact, but I think he will find it is so. Therefore, that principle was admitted five years ago. The tax has been continued on the same basis since, but 1912 has remained a fixed year. I think that year should have moved up in order to carry out the same principle; it should have moved by at least one year, and that would have done away with a great deal of the trouble now involved. Everybody finds to-day that the old car, by reason of its age and the higher efficiency of modern cars, is becoming unsaleable. If the Minister could do something to solve that problem, I am satisfied he would increase revenue.

Mr. BLYTHE

I am not so very directly concerned with this, but I have been in consultation with the Minister for Local Government and Public Health and with the Roads Department, and they are quite clear—and the matter has been investigated at some length—that there would be a reduction of revenue, a very substantial reduction, by giving the concession to old cars, that the number of extra old cars put on the road would be small and that they would prevent the putting of new cars on the road. In all cases it would prevent new cars being put on the road, so that there would be a substantial reduction in the yield of road tax. I have no sympathy at all with the claim for a reduction of the tax on the old car. We hear a great deal about the sympathy due to the old age pensioners. I admit that, but when it comes to sympathy with old cars, I have none. There is an attempt to make some sort of sentimental appeal for the old car, because it is old and has done service. I do not propose to give way to that. We hear that old cars are unsaleable because of the high tax. As somebody has pointed out, they would be practically unsaleable anyway. Nobody expects, out of one of these old cars, to get any great length of service, and people might take the difference between £15 and £23 off the price and expect to have the car a year on the road. I think that is about all the difference that it would mean.

It would tend to defeat the whole object of the adjustment of the tax last year, as well as reduce the amount of revenue to the Road Fund. The matter was discussed at very considerable length last year in the Dáil, and the decision then taken was that we should give no concession along the lines that are suggested in Deputy Alton's amendment. I think we should still take up that position; we should remember that the change in the tax was to promote the sale of Ford cars and also the general adjustment—not that particular adjustment—of the taxation was to get increased revenue for the Road Fund. We should not sacrifice the Road Fund except something else was going to be definitely gained by the change. Deputy Johnson asks about the difference in price between the Ford car as sold from Cork and as sold in Great Britain. I do not profess to have a satisfactory reply to that. I do not know whether the explanations offered by the firm are entirely satisfactory explanations. It is, perhaps, a matter that might be made the subject of a definite investigation.

I confess that I am not entirely satisfied about it. I can see that there is a reason for a certain difference in the price, but whether there is a good reason for all the difference that exists I confess frankly that I do not know.

Mr. JOHNSON

Am I to understand from the Minister that it is rather a matter for the decision of the Minister for Local Government, and that if we can persuade the Minister for Local Government that this remission would be in fact a benefit to the Road Fund the Minister would not then stand in the way?

Mr. BLYTHE

Yes.

Mr. ALTON

I am sorry that the Minister's heart is so flinty. I really thought that he had a soft spot in him I confess that I have a certain sentiment for things old that have seen service—old horses, old men, and even an old car. I did not ask for sympathy on account of the age of these cars, but on account of their owners, who are generally poor men who cannot afford a new car, and sometimes old men. There are some principles; it is not merely on sentiment that I argue this case. There should be some proportion between the tax and the things taxed. It is absurd to think that the tax should be 200 per cent. the value of the things taxed. That is what it is at present in the case of the Ford car, and that situation has been produced by the economic policy of the Minister last year. These people, I think, have a claim on the Minister's generosity, or perhaps on his sense of justice, because I think to a certain extent our action last year in putting this flat rate of £10 on the home-manufactured car robbed the existing cars of a certain value and made them, in fact, so I am informed, quite unmarketable. I do not like using the word "compensation," because it is used in so many connections now, but we do owe them compensation to some extent, and I am in earnest in this plea that the Minister should consider it from that point of view.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 21; Níl, 29.

Tá

• Earnán Altún.
• Pádraig Baxter.
• John J. Cole.
• John Conlan.
• Bryan R. Cooper.
• Sir James Craig.
• John Good.
• Connor Hogan.
• Séamus Mac Cosgair.
• Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• James Sproule Myles.
• Eamon O Dubhghaill.
• Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
• Seán O Duinnín.
• Donnchadh O Guaire.
• Pádraic O Máille.
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
• Liam Thrift.
• Nicholas Wall.

Níl

• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Seoirse de Bhulbh.
• Próinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus de Búrca.
• Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
• James Dwyer.
• Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
• Desmond Fitzgerald.
• Thomas Hennessy.
• Máirtín O Conalláin.
• Séamus O Dóláin.
• Peadar O Dubhghaill.
• Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
• Eamon O Dúgáin.
• Liam Mac Cosgair.
• Seán MacCurtain.
• Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
• Patrick McGilligan.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg. John T. Nolan.
• Michael K. Noonan.
• Peadar O hAodha.
• Mícheál O hAonghusa.
• Conchubhar O Conghaile.
• Aindriú O Láimhín.
• Risteárd O Maolchatha.
• Andrew O'Shaughnessy.
• Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
• Caoimhghín O hUigín.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies Alton and J. Cosgrave; Níl, Deputies Dolan and P.S. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Sections 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and the Title put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be reported.

The Dáil went out of Committee.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report Stage ordered for Friday, May 13th.

Mr. BLYTHE

I will have perhaps two amendments for Friday, and I will propose, with the leave of the House, to take the Final Stage on Friday also.