Vol. 22 No. 12
I move:
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh £580 thar chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1928, chun Costaisí i dtaobh Abhar Teine do Cheannach le linn strus-ócáide an Ghuail, 1926.
That a sum not exceeding £580 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1928, for Expenses in connection with the Purchase of Fuel during the Coal Emergency, 1926.
This is the end of a transaction in which the Minister for Industry and Commerce played a chief part in 1926. In May, 1926, when the English coal strike was in full swing, powers were conferred upon the Minister to take the necessary steps to provide the country with a sufficient supply of coal while the strike was in progress, and to take measures to deal with profiteering. The Minister, as far as I can make out, although he ascertained at the end of April, 1926, that there was only a six weeks' supply of coal in the country—a very small supply when you consider that a large strike had been embarked upon in England, which continued for several months afterwards—took no steps to deal with the situation and put into operation the facilities conferred upon him by this House. It was not until a severe shortage made itself felt in the beginning of October that he did take steps to deal with the situation. When the question was last discussed in this House he stated that he had been in constant communication with the coal merchants. It is an extraordinary thing, one which we on this side of the House find it very hard to understand, that the coal strike could have been proceeding for several months, with stocks being depleted here in the city, and that the Minister, who says he was in touch with the coal merchants during that period, did not find out the gravity of the situation until there was a very serious situation. That was in the beginning of October. He then offered certain financial assistance to the coal merchants.
The terms of the bargain made by which the Minister was to assist the coal merchants to provide coal to deal with the serious situation that existed are deserving of examination by the House. This is only a small item, no doubt, in the eyes of the Minister. It only involved, in the first instance, a sum of £112,000, but what we on this side of the House are interested to know is whether the same business acumen or lack of that quality which displayed itself in this particular transaction was also displayed during the period that we hear so much about, the period since 1922, when we were absent from this House, and when the Minister was embarking on very much larger schemes and spending millions of the Irish people's money upon the Shannon scheme. It was not until the 26th October, when the strike was at its height, and when the situation was most serious, that any steps were taken by him to provide coal. The terms that he offered the Association on that occasion were that they should be allowed 22/- per ton, as far as I understand it, after the coal had been landed in Dublin, to cover the margin between the cost of delivery in Dublin and the cost as delivered to the consumer. This transaction was based upon the importation of 35,000 tons of coal.
If that coal had been ordered in April, May, June or July, it is probable it would have been got at a reasonable price. The extraordinary thing is that the coal was not ordered until the situation was exceptionally difficult, until it was almost impossible to get coal, and until, in the words of the Minister, "there was an embargo upon the export of continental coal." Under these circumstances he made a bargain with some continental firms for the importation of 35,000 tons of coal, as well as giving the Coal Merchants' Association their handsome terms, paying them, when the coal had been delivered in Dublin for their expenses and their services in connection with it, to the tune of 22/- per ton. He also made the remarkable bargain that any coal that the Association did not see fit to take would be left upon his hands, so that in December—I do not know whether the strike had terminated at the time or not—there were 27,000 tons of this coal still on the Minister's hands, and he estimated that there had been a loss of £50,000 on the transaction.
We read in the newspapers where public bodies are often summoned to give an account of themselves before a public inquiry as to how their finances and their transactions, generally, are carried out. At the present moment, for some reason that is understood on the opposite benches, but that is not very clear to me, the Galway County Council, for example, has been called upon to explain how its finances stand, and the meaning of its transactions during the past three years. But in this House, which is called the Sovereign Assembly of the nation, when the Minister was asked by the late leader of the Opposition to give figures and details of the consignments, prices and percentages of the different kinds of coal which were included in his importation orders, he refused to give the information. Apparently, one has to take for granted what a Minister on the other side of the House says is the law, and it is not alone a mere waste of the time for Deputies on this side to get up and criticise the expenditure of public money, but if we are to believe Ministers, it is real impertinence on our part to question this transaction.
The Deputy, I think, has gone far enough at the moment. If the Deputy wants to discuss the estimate of £112,000 that was passed in 1926, he would not be in order. That estimate has already been discussed and passed. What the House has now to deal with is the Supplementary Estimate before it for the sum of £580. As the Ceann Comhairle ruled earlier in connection with another matter, the contract relating to the estimate of £112,000 in 1926 has already been discussed and cannot be re-opened. Deputies must confine themselves to the Supplementary Estimate before the House.
Surely the Supplementary Estimate deals with the conclusion of this transaction. Therefore, am I not entitled to deal with the events which led up to this Supplementary Estimate?
Not with the terms of the contract.
Very well. I am not permitted to deal with the contract terms, but what I do say is that the House ought to refuse to grant this Supplementary Estimate of £580 until they have had an explanation from the Minister as to why this coal was not purchased at an earlier period and as to why steps were not taken by him under the powers conferred on him to deal with the profiteering in Dublin. It was only in October, six months at least after the strike had commenced in England, that the Minister took any real steps, if I can call them real steps, to deal with the fuel shortage in Dublin. Then he suggested to the City Commissioners that arrangements should be made to deal with peat. Apparently the Minister had never heard that there were Irish coalfields in this country, and for the whole of that six months, during which these powers, which he had himself sought, were in his hands, he took no steps to develop the Irish coal industry, and he certainly did not take steps to facilitate the purchase of peat or coal at reasonable prices for the poor of Dublin.
Of course, I can understand that the Minister, who has such a large army of officials around him—he has an entirely brand new Department which only came into existence since the Free State came into being—may have been at a loss to know what particular branch or sub-department of his Ministry should deal with this question of the purchase of foreign coal and the other remedies which should have been taken to deal with the situation. He has several branches in his Department. He has a Trade and Industry Branch. He may have been at a loss to know whether it was the Trade and Industry branch that should deal with the situation or the Financial Branch. On the other hand, the Transport and Marine Branch, in which is included the steamship Helga, I suppose, might have been called upon to deal with the situation. There was also the Geological Survey. Of course, the Geological Survey would not have a direct bearing on this question because in the nature of things when a Government Department comes to deal with a business transaction, it does not want to leave itself open to a charge of being slovenly. It wants to be fine and large and imaginative and to stretch the transaction as far as possible. It does not go down to Castlecomer or Arigna but it goes across to Germany.
I suppose the fact of our purchasing this coal from Germany helped to strengthen the League of Nations or something, or it gave the Minister for External Affairs something to do. At any rate, we went to Germany, although at the particular time that we went to Germany to buy coal, coal from Arigna was coming up to Dublin and was being exported through the port of Dublin. So we had the extraordinary sight that, side by side with the importation of Germans, Frenchmen and Belgians, we had the importation of German coal and the exportation of our own coal. No steps were taken by the Minister to develop these coalfields. In reply to a question the last day he told me that he could not find time to send his staff down to Castlecomer to examine the outlying seams of that coalfield. I suggest to the House that the Minister had an unique opportunity at this time to develop Irish coalfields, and as that opportunity will not occur again, that the Minister should explain to this House why he did not take some steps to develop the coal resources of the country at that time. Of course, the Minister was enjoying himself, I suppose. It is, in fact, extraordinary to me how this large body of officials, who are costing the Irish people £120,000 per annum, even got to know that there was a coal strike on. They seem to have fallen asleep in the middle of it, and they only woke up to the gravity of the situation when the coal merchants approached them and when the cries of the poor for some help to relieve them in their distress began to be heard about the city. They in their handsome apartments, with their beautiful furniture, their carpets and all the rest of it, are too engrossed with their golf and all the rest of it, and could not be bothered with the poor of the slums or whether they were starving for coal in the back streets of the city. It was not a matter for the Department apparently.
The Department of Industry and Commerce is not there to look after Irish industries. It is there to fill up forms, to supply returns and furnish statistics of emigration and the decline of our industries. It is not there to do any solid practical work such as could have been done in the opportunity that offered itself in 1926 to develop the coal industry of this country. Then, as if the Minister were not satisfied, in true red-tape style and with the traditional regulations behind him, he purchased this coal at the farthest place possible from the point of delivery, and bought it at a time even when it exceeded the highest price of the period of the coal strike. The Minister was not satisfied with that. To show us that he had real business acumen, that he was not a slovenly business man, and that he could give an example to the business men of the country of how a business transaction could be carried out, what kind of coal did he buy? The average price, we are told, was £3 10s. 0d. per ton, but it included briquettes, briquettes with the Kaiser's head on them, and which, when they were burned in slum rooms in the back streets of Dublin, went off in explosions and created a shocking odour. They were perilous to the health of the young who had the misfortune to be seated beside any fire in which they were lighted. I submit this whole transaction is a typical example of the well-known saying that you have often a successful operation and that a surgeon has reason to be proud of himself even if the patient dies. Here we have an Estimate——
We are not dealing with the whole transaction. We are dealing only with the item for £580.
We have here an estimate to make up a further amount of £580 to complete this transaction. I submit to the House that the Minister is in the position of the doctor of whom I spoke. He has carried through a very successful transaction. Whether he was made a tool of by the coal merchants of Dublin or not I do not know; but I know that this transaction did not benefit the poor of Dublin, for whom it was supposed to be carried out, and that the Irish people have to suffer a heavy loss as a consequence. I hope when the Minister is replying he will be good enough to give us the facts and the figures of the situation which he refused to give to Deputy Johnson when he asked what amount of each quality of coal was purchased by the Minister, what was the amount per ton paid for it, and what was the amount of coal on his hands at the conclusion of the whole business for which he could find no purchaser.
As one who has, more or less, a rather intimate knowledge of the coal business, and who, at the time of the coal strike, was largely connected with that business, I would like to say that when the strike occurred there were very few people who believed that it would not collapse within a reasonable time. At the time of the coal strike Ireland was in the exceptionally lucky position of having enormous stocks of coal in Dublin, which made it look as if the people in this country would have sufficient coal for at least a three months' supply. It would have looked foolish on the part of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to have, at that time, rushed in and purchased coal which might have left a considerable quantity of coal on hands had the strike collapsed at an early stage. It was the general opinion of the people in Ireland, and in England, that the strike would not last long, and this opinion was shared by the miners. During the strike every person in the coal business made every possible effort to procure fuel. The firm in which I am interested, were, as I have said, in the coal trade, and they approached all the various Irish coal mines. We were unable to get from them any quantities of coal. From Arigna, Castlecomer, and other companies we received letters that they could not guarantee a delivery of coal inside of six weeks. Therefore, to say that there was any neglect on the part of the coal merchants in the matter of endeavouring to develop the Irish coal mines by purchasing coal from them at the time is absolutely unfounded. Certain institutions were given preference by the Irish coal mines. The coal which was sent round from these collieries was divided and rationed amongst institutions such as asylums, which could not get coal otherwise.
After two or three months of the coal strike, the position became acute and when we were approaching the winter, and when there was no such thing as fuel in the country, the Government took steps to provide coal without waiting until what might have been a serious situation had arisen. The Government were obliged to go to Germany, America and many other places, and to get coal wherever they could get it. In very many cases that coal took six weeks to reach Ireland, and it was very difficult for anyone at that time to look six weeks ahead. As one conversant with the coal trade, I am aware that a great many huge losses were made by the persons in the coal business at that time. I can verify that statement. We had a large quantity of briquettes which are sneered at now. But the people were mighty glad to get them no matter what the cost. Individual merchants, like the Government, had to take precautions and yet with all these precautions, it was found when the strike was over that many of the coal merchants had large quantities of briquettes and coal on their hands. Remember that the coal which the Government had ordered took six weeks in transit. Under the circumstances, I must say that the attack that has been made by the opposite benches for the losses in connection with this coal is very unfair. No person was in a position to know how soon the coal strike would collapse. If the Minister had neglected to order that coal and if the coal strike had gone on during the winter period, a large number of people would probably have died of cold and from the impossibility of not being able to get sufficient fuel to cook food. I do not think that the statement which was made by Deputy Derrig carries any weight because the position was at the time very uncertain. I am perfectly satisfied that under the circumstances the Minister did the best he could for the country and he did this under very exceptional and special conditions.
I rise for the reason that I do not want to give a silent vote on this matter. I listened, with a good deal of attention and interest, to the speech of Deputy Derrig. I must say I was particularly struck by the manner in which he marshalled his arguments against this Vote. His case was spoiled only by his rather petty remarks relative to the fine times enjoyed by the Minister and his officials. That is a class of cheap sneer in which I do not want to indulge and I hope I shall never countenance such things. At the same time, having the experience that I have and the opinions that I had during that particular period of the coal shortage in this country I cannot agree to vote in favour of this Vote. In the City of Cork we had to set up a Coal Emergency Fund in order to meet the requirements of many of our people who were then unemployed and in order to provide them with coal. Knowing as we did and having proof we have now that most of them in the trade engaged in that pleasurable occupation—to them at least—of profiteering—and we have evidence of gross profiteering having occurred in the coal trade in the City of Cork—I want to make manifest by my vote on this occasion, my own protest against profiteering by the coal merchants in the period under discussion. That period synchronised, as I have already said, with a period of serious depression and unemployment in Cork City. For that reason I intend to vote against the passing of this £580. Deputy Shaw told us of the enormous stocks of coal which were in Dublin on the outbreak of the coal strike. Is it not strange that we in Cork heard nothing about the large accumulations of stocks of coal in Dublin in or about that time? It would have been quite easy for the coal merchants in Dublin and those associated with Deputy Shaw outside Dublin to have remembered that charity begins at home and that Cork was not so far from Dublin. They might have let us know about these accumulations in Dublin. It is rarely I find that I have anything in common with the Fianna Fáil benches but on this occasion I intend to vote against the proposal to pay £580 for coal purchased during the coal emergency in 1926.
In opposing this Vote I wish to point out that judging by the material received there was no supervision whatsoever as to the quality of the coal purchased. Anything and everything was called coal and dumped into this country and paid for out of Government funds. Apparently a large staff was employed in the Minister's office but he could not spare anybody to look at what was being paid for out of the public funds. I maintain that this Vote should not be looked for under the head of Vote 72. It should be looked for under the heading of Vote 64—Warlike Stores—for the material that was received from Germany was undoubtedly the same material that the Germans used in manufacturing poison gas. I consider that when the Minister was bringing this coal over he had a right to bring over at the same time a supply of gas masks, or get them in England.
There is enough of gas in the country.
The Minister has his share of it anyway. Let us go further and see the contemptible manner in which this coal, if you can call it coal, is being unloaded on the people; let us see the manner in which the Government is seeking to unload this material on the public. It is more contemptible still. I and other Deputies have asked questions about this coal. For instance, in Haulbowline national schools the Government insisted on this fuel being burned. They insist on it being burned where the children are, despite the fact that a medical officer of health sent a certificate to the Board of Works to the effect that this coal was dangerous to public health. Still, the Government and the Board of Works insisted on the coal being used until the matter was exposed here. Then they said that they did not know it was being used, and they would have inquiries made.
We are not discussing coal being burned in the schools, but the purchase of coal in 1926.
We are discussing what is here. It is stated that portion of this money is paid in according as the coal is disposed of. I am now dealing with the disposal of this coal.
Not of this coal —not a particle.
Oh, yes. Reference has been made to the amounts received for the fuel and paid into the Exchequer.
Not for this stuff.
You will get it here. There was a large quantity of this material dumped into Haulbowline after the coal strike, when it was no longer necessary to bring it to Dublin. In reply to a question a short time ago, I was told that though good quality coal was held up in Haulbowline for supplying the British men-of-war in the harbour, any material was good enough to be supplied to the Irish taxpayers. We were told also that until the supply there was exhausted, they could not consider giving any other quality of coal to the inhabitants of Haulbowline. They also said that they had a free launch bringing it over. The amount at present charged for this famous material in Haulbowline—the stuff you would want to use a gas-mask in connection with—is £2 8s. a ton. That is the price charged for stuff that the coal merchants of Ireland actually paid people to take away. We hear cheap sneers, particularly from the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that there are no brains on this side of the House, and that all the brains are on the other side. I am afraid when the College of Surgeons gets a hold of the Minister's head and chops at it with a hammer and chisel, it will bring a lot of sawdust out of it.
The Deputy will remember that we are dealing with a Supplementary Estimate for £580.
I noticed that the Minister refused to give an explanation to Deputy Johnson as to the class of fuel that was received. He purchased it, I presume, in connection with one of his Public Safety Bills. What he really got was warlike material to make poison gas of. I suppose it was meant to smoke us all out. I do not know if that was the real purpose the Minister had in purchasing it. I do not think there is anything more despicable than the manner in which the Government are trying to unload this material on the public. To my mind it is material that they should be made pay for themselves. It should be included in Vote 64, because it is undoubtedly, as proved by the Medical Officer's certificate, material that is a danger to the public health. The certificate is in the possession of the Board of Works, and I think the Minister saw it. I oppose this Vote, and I suggest the least the Minister might do is to pay the money himself, seeing that he made such an idiot of himself in purchasing the coal.
It is a very easy thing to be wise after the event. A good many people engaged in the coal trade found themselves exactly in the same position as the Government did. I remember after the commencement of the coal strike asking one of the biggest merchants in the South of Ireland, a man interested in the importation of close on one million tons of coal in the year, how long he thought the strike would last. He said he thought it would last two or three weeks. I asked him that because if it was going to last longer many people would lay in supplies of coal to carry them over a period. But so insistent was he that the strike, on account of its size, could not last more than two or three weeks, no precautions were taken. Those who were interested in the coal trade for years, for generations, and who owned mines in England and were in close touch with all the circumstances of the trade, were of the deliberate opinion that the strike could not last more than two or three weeks. I do not see how a Government Department could have any better information as to the duration of the strike.
The surplus that was left in the Government's hands was nothing to the surplus left in the merchants' hands. There were merchants who paid £3 and £3 10s. per ton for coal, and they were people who knew the inner workings of the trade and the inner workings of the strike. On their hands were left thousands of tons of coal. This is what happened to them, and how could a Government Department be expected to be wiser than people who were so intimately connected with the coal trade? I take it the advice the Department looked for was the advice of those interested, those who knew every particle of what was going on in the business.
That was the advice of the men who calculated on starving the miners.
Certainly.
We have had typical meanderings in speeches here, from Arigna to Germany, and from Germany to America, and we have got also the expert opinion of Deputy Corry. What was the condition of the country at the end of this strike? It took six weeks for cargoes to arrive here. Nobody knew but that the strike would last for another six months, and I think the Government was in an extremely happy position to have such a small quantity left on its hands. If the quantity left on the Government's hands is compared with what was left in the hands of the Northern Government and the British Government, I say no case whatever can be made out against this Vote, and no case whatever is being made out against it by the Opposition Party.
I suggest that if the Deputy did not spread his tip from the stables down in Cork we would have managed a lot better, because the people would have got supplies.
I would like to ask, from the experience that has been gained by the Minister, what provision he intends to make for future industrial troubles in England. We have in this country an almost inexhaustible supply of peat fuel, and from experiments carried out by the Leinster Carbonising Company they maintain that their compressed fuel is equal to coal in the ratio of 7 to 8, and that its cost would be proportionately the same. This company are experimenting in what may eventually be necessary as a stand-by for coal strikes in England, and I suggest that their output, which is the product of Irish labour, should get a preference in Government and public institutions. The Government should allow public bodies who are acting as the trustees of public money to give a preference to this commodity. If the cost should be anything higher, we have at least the advantage that it is the product of Irish labour. A few months ago we had a Vote for £150,000 for the relief of unemployment, and I think any money spent on this commodity over and above the proportionate value of coal, will be well spent. It would give an opportunity for developing further the peat industry, and provide a stand-by or storage for times of industrial crisis.
I am afraid the Deputy cannot raise that question on this Vote.
I am making the suggestion to the Minister that it would be better, even if it cost a little more, to have this commodity used to a greater extent, rather than be looking for a Supplementary Estimate to make payments to Germany for coal. The Minister is aware there is such a company in existence, and they have put their material on the market. In the disposal of public money they should get preferential treatment for this product of Irish labour.
I wish to comment on the very extraordinary statement made by Deputy Egan, and to ask Deputies to make a special note of the information which he has placed at our disposal, namely, that from inside sources he had it as a definite and reliable statement that the coal strike would be terminated within three weeks.
That was the opinion.
Of course those who know the Deputy and those associated with him can quite recognise it was a case of the wish being father to the thought. Deputy Egan and many others in this country, as well as in England, believed that they would be able to starve the miners into subjection.
We cannot discuss that matter on this Vote.
Deputy Egan made a statement and I am merely commenting on it, and I hope I am not transgressing the rules of order. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce had been thinking in the interests of the people, and had less in common with Lord Londonderry and his type, he would have made better provision than he did to meet the emergency. For the information of Deputies I challenge the Minister to deny that hundreds of tons of these briquettes had to be taken from the stores on the north side in which they were placed and dumped in the Liffey, owing to the fact that they went on fire in these stores. Is the cost of these briquettes going to be recovered? The money which purchased them was public money. I think the Minister is in duty bound to let the House know exactly what caused such wholesale squandering of public funds. Was it because he neglected to rise to the occasion, and that he had so much in common with Lord Londonderry and the coalowners of England, and that a demand for coal in England in the early stages of the strike would embarrass the coalowners? The lesser the demand the more convenient it was for those who were propagating that strike. As the last Deputy said, the Minister should also let the House know what provision he intends to make in the future for such an emergency, because no matter what Deputy Egan or anybody else may think to the contrary you can be quite certain that the miners of England are not yet beaten.
I am not concerned about how many tons of coal or briquettes went into the Liffey. One would be led to the conclusion that the Liffey has not yet got enough of the refuse of Dublin.
I should like to know what does the Deputy mean?
You can infer any meaning you like from it.
The statement has an offensive meaning from one point of view, and I think the Deputy should either explain it or withdraw it.
The Deputy should proceed to talk about the Vote.
Is it the Cumann na nGaedheal refuse he is referring to?
I think he should either explain or withdraw.
What the Deputy ought to do is to talk about the Vote.
We all know Deputy Gorey is a very good judge of refuse.
I am. I have been looking at it a very long time. Are we to understand there is any State restriction, in Cork or elsewhere, on the purchase of coal either by individuals or by institutions?
Are you not going to ask the Deputy to explain or withdraw?
I cannot ask the Deputy to explain. He made no reference to which anybody in the House could object.
That statement is quite in order?
I heard nothing that I thought out of order.
I rise to refer to an insinuation—whether it is a fact or not I am not aware—contained in what Deputy Corry said, that there is some State restriction on individuals or institutions generally in Cork with regard to the way they should purchase coal or fuel, and I want to have that explained. I think it is an extraordinary thing, if it is true, that the State controls individuals or institutions with regard to the fuel they burn or where they should get it. Are we to understand that the State is supplying some institutions in Cork with fuel free? Otherwise I cannot understand the remark of Deputy Corry, and I want it cleared up.
I think the Minister can hardly be satisfied with the advocates who have come forward to his assistance from his own side in connection with this Vote. It is rather an extraordinary thing, for instance, to find Deputy Shaw putting forward, as a reason for the Minister not taking action, that there were large stocks of coal on hands when the strike started. One would have thought that that would make the Minister's task easier to conserve these stocks as much as possible, so that if the strike lasted over any length of time there was always that reserve and it would be available. That was the reason Deputy Shaw gave in defence of the Minister. Then both Deputy Shaw and Deputy Egan asked how could the Minister have realised, when they and their friends did not realise, that the strike was going to last. If a State or a Government is of any use at all, surely it is the business of the State and the Government to look ahead to protect the people from such a misfortune overtaking them as overtook them in October, November and December, 1926.
No one can look back at that time without being perfectly satisfied that a big Department, with great resources in men and money, failed utterly to meet a situation that could have been easily dealt with. It had got plenty of time and could have got the great assistance that Deputy Shaw alluded to in dealing with it. They had the whole of the fine summer when there could have been encouragement to produce peat fuel. They could have got big stocks of coal and they could have got two not inconsiderable coal mines within the country working that, one would have thought, would have been a large help. Yet, in the Minister's speech I did not find any mention of communication with either Arigna or Castlecomer or any other place. I suppose that would not be laying the economic foundations of the State in the scientific way the Minister described in his speech in the tariff debate. I think this is about as discreditable a transaction or episode as any Government could have in its history. At the end of October you have an unfortunate people in the plight that they could not get coal or fuel or anything else, due entirely to the failure of the Government to take any action. You had them lining up in queues paying 2d. a sod for turf and 1/- a stone for coal, and many even unable to get it at that price. Yet we find that men who claim to be good citizens come forward and defend such a transaction as that. The Minister need not attempt to make a scapegoat of the Coal Merchants' Association.
There is no such organisation, and there never was. There is no trade union of that name. There is no limited liability company of that name. When he met the coal merchants in May, 1926, he had no right to assume that there was an organisation behind them. When he expressed his surprise that that organisation did not keep him informed of their dwindling stocks and their gradual disinclination to buy, and that it was with great surprise he discovered that at the end of October only five out of nineteen merchants were ordering coal, he should not attempt to make a scapegoat of the Coal Merchants' Association. Any fool could have told him there was no such Association in existence, for all practical purposes. Yet he told us that the way it was brought to his notice was that a certain gas undertaking complained that they were unable to get coal they required. When he asked about it he found that the coal merchants had offered them suitable coal. Another mark of his innocence was that he never discovered that when coal is scarce the merchant who has any coal has every possible class of coal. If one went to a merchant, and if there was any coal in the stores, he would be told that even if he wanted to buy anthracite beans he could get them, and the probability is that his order would he promptly fulfilled out of the scrapings of the yard. That was very common during the old times of coal control.
There could be a great deal said regarding the methods taken by the Minister to meet the situation, especially in regard to prices, when he did proceed to act at the end of October, but, as you, sir, have ruled that all mention of prices is out of order, I suppose that cannot be gone into. I can only say that when the Minister agreed to 22/- per ton as a reasonable sum to allow for the discharge and delivery of coal in Dublin, he was deliberately encouraging merchants to profiteer. That is, I think, more than half of the present price of the best coal. No such price was allowed for such services in 1920, when money was about one-third of the cost it was in 1926. Certainly not more than half. No such price was allowed at that time, and 22/- for such a service as that showed that the Minister was dealing with the whole situation in a most careless and indifferent way.
We were told by Deputy Egan that everything went well and that the Government were to be congratulated in having met the situation in such a splendid way. Certainly a number of people in the country are to be congratulated. Only last week a coal merchant in the provinces was showing the position to his friends, and invited their inspection of his books, showing the splendid profits he made during the coal trouble of 1926. He has been every winter since, including the present winter, in the South of France, and only last week a coal merchant known to a number of Deputies on the other side was showing figures to his friends and boasting how well he came out of it. That sort of thing is going to go on again and again, and if the House takes up the attitude that it is all past and done with, and that there is no good to worry about it any more, I hold that in justice to the unfortunate people who suffered so much during that time, and in justice to those who had a right to claim protection of the State, any man with any sense of feeling in his heart, or decency in his head should not vote for this Estimate.
I do not like to let this occasion pass without mentioning the fact that the Minister has made a bold attempt and a glorious attempt, and I hope a successful attempt, to make this country independent of strikes in England whether for coal, paraffin oil, candles or anything in the nature of heat or light by the introduction of the Shannon scheme.
We are not discussing the Shannon scheme.
Then I suppose I am electrocuted.
This debate has wandered over a variety of things, from the League of Nations to the "Helga" and geological survey, but really they have nothing to do with this particular item. Deputy Derrig wandered into another line, and I was glad to hear Deputy Anthony announce that he would not follow that line. There is a particular type of meanness which is only limited by the order of one's intelligence. If a man wants to attack people he ought to attack those who are here. He should not attack civil servants who are outside and talk about their gorgeous apartments and so forth. If the Deputy is courageous and wants to break a lance let him, at least, do it with people who are in the House.
The Minister for Finance stated that the Ministers were the spokesmen of the different Departments. He said recently that Ministers were the mouthpieces and civil servants were the Government. If civil servants are the Government, then——
That is a very poor apology for meanness.
Are we to take it that the scurrilities of the Minister are connected with any of his Departments?
If the Deputy has anything to say he can say it on the proper occasion, and I will be ready to meet him. He should stand up and make a speech and not have these puerile interruptions.
I think the Minister should avoid his admonitions to us about puerilities.
Is this a lecture on scurrility by the most scurrilous Minister in the House?
If it is, there are pupils and there are people who need admonition. Deputy Derrig spoke about Irish coal and said that in answer to a question put to me recently I stated that I had no time to go into it. That is a complete misstatement. I said nothing of the sort. I do not know whether the Deputy is deliberately falsifying what was said openly or whether he is incapable of understanding what was said. I would ask him to get the answer and see why a particular geological matter could not be looked into at a particular time. I was asked why we allowed the export of Arigna coal at that time. We could not prevent it when it had been contracted for previously for export. We came upon cases where ships were able to fill up with bunker coal here. There were only one or two which could do so. That was stopped after a while when attention was directed to it, but one could not interfere with contracts when firms had entered into them previously. Deputy Derrig and others seemed to be under the impression that there was no Arigna coal bought at the time of this crisis. Deputy Shaw gave him the correct answer. Neither in Arigna nor elsewhere could the supply of orders be met, and any assistance asked for was given both to those producing peat and those cutting coal. Everything possible was done.
Does the Minister state that representations made to him from Arigna were carried out in regard to supplying transit facilities?
Not the full representations, but they were helped to get coal out, and they were enabled to meet their orders, and it was not put to us that anything extra we could do would enable them to get more coal out in order to give their customers greater supplies. Deputy Anthony spoke of profiteering. I do not know that there was profiteering under the particular items of this Vote. I say now, as I said previously when dealing with this matter, that it is quite wrong to assume profiteering because a particular price was quoted as the selling price for either peat or coal. I made investigations in what seemed to be glaring cases, but I found there was nobody receiving, on the many transactions that the particular consignment had to pass through, an amount which could be called profiteering.
Was any attempt made during that period to control the price of coal?
Attempts were made to control the price of coal in certain respects. We had to watch certain things which were happening. We made investigation in what seemed glaring cases, but the result showed that there were so many middle-men engaged, who seemed to be necessary to bring coal to the cities—and that was the big consideration at the time— that no one could be said to be receiving what could be described as profiteering. In the end, what the consumers had to pay looked like profiteering, but the amount charged was made up amongst all the hands concerned in the various transactions. I came across no cases of profiteering, and many cases were examined. Somebody said that a certain coal merchant was able to go to the South of France by reason of the profits made then. Profiteering did not arise on a particular consignment, but on the amount of money a man was able to speculate against the end of the strike. A man may have gone to the South of France on money made in a legitimate way. He may have had money to speculate. He took his chance of getting a consignment, which he may have ordered, getting to this country after the strike. I do not know whether I will be blamed for the outbreak of the strike or for its collapse. I could be criticised severely if I bought an enormous quantity of coal, double the amount of coal that was bought. If the strike collapsed and that amount of coal was left on my hands, while coal was coming in at the old rate, what denunciation there would be! I would not, however, try to justify myself as I might do, according to Deputy Moore's statement, that because there was plenty of coal in the country I should buy more coal.
No. I said that that should place the Minister in a good position to deal with the situation and to conserve supplies.
According to my note, the Deputy said that one good reason for getting more coal was that there was plenty of coal in Dublin.
The point is he did not buy coal at all.
If I am to be criticised for anything, it is that there was not enough coal bought. There was a very uneasy period. On the one hand there was the fact that coal was not in the country at that particular time, that it was impossible to get coal of the quality one would have liked, and that for any quantity one had to pay a big price. That had to be ordered against the collapse of the strike. That collapse being inevitable, the only thing in doubt was its date.
I have not previously attempted, and I will not now attempt, to make a scapegoat of the Coal Merchants' Association. I may disregard what Deputy Moore said in that connection. If the Coal Merchants' Association made certain statements about me I am not saying that they made a scapegoat of me. That Association made certain statements to me with regard to the amount of coal in the country. They decided to keep on forward purchases, but there came a period when these purchases were not being met, because coal had advanced about three times the purchase price, and the finances of the concerns did not allow them to make the same forward purchases that would be possible when coal was one-third the price. It is not good criticism months after the events to be very wise and to say there should have been certain forward buying and certain things should have been looked at.
With regard to Deputy Corry's question, I am quite in the dark with regard to that whole episode. I do not know how that particular school comes to be supplied with Government coal, or how the Government could insist on that particular school taking a particular type of coal. It could not apply to an ordinary school, but Haulbowline is not that. With regard to the British ships getting coal, they got nothing from Haulbowline but what they themselves put there. They got the coal previously lodged there, and they were not supplied with coal from my Department, and I was not forcing briquettes or anything else on them. Deputy Boland raised the point about arrangements for the future. I do not know as to the future demand I should have to estimate for year after year. That is a matter for the trade. And at a critical period steps have to be taken to meet the crisis. The Deputy went on to refer to another type of product, and his reference in that respect was hardly relevant to the estimate. I may be allowed to answer in this way, though I am not exactly sure as to what he is referring to, I can say that there is always a provision that institutions under Government control should use a certain amount of Irish coal and the same would apply to the mixture of which the Deputy was apparently speaking. Deputy Cooney asked was it a fact that a lot of briquettes had to be thrown into the Liffey. I do not know. It looked when a ship went on fire as if the only way of putting out that fire was to sink the ship, but the fire was put out before that became necessary. There was a payment of £10 or £15 to the Fire Brigade for their services in that connection. If a certain type of coal is subject to spontaneous combustion I will not take that as any responsibility of my Department, nor would I regard it as criticism of the coal to say that it took fire. I have also heard the criticism that on occasions it could not be got to take fire.
Would the Minister state what assistance has been given to the Arigna coal mine to enable coal to be got out? On last Tuesday a contract for 500 tons of coal for a mental hospital was decided. The Arigna mine tendered, and there was also a tender from a Scotch firm. The quotations were equal, but it was a condition that the coal had to be delivered by a specified time. Owing to lack of railway facilities the Arigna coal could not be supplied in time, and as a result lost the contract. At present the Arigna mine is unable to supply the requirements of one of the local institutions.
Is the Deputy alluding to the time of the coal strike, or is he speaking generally? Does the question relate to the period this Vote covers?
The contract to which I have referred was given on last Tuesday.
I have nothing to do with Sligo Mental Home. I was speaking of the facilities given at the time of the strike, but I am not prepared to discuss them in relation to local authorities over which I have no control.
Can the Minister state the facilities he gave at the time?
I can.
I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Minister has not answered questions I put, and which information he withheld from Mr. Johnson on a former occasion. What was the amount of coal left on his hands when this strike was ended and for which he was unable to obtain purchasers, and the total loss to the State of the whole transaction?
I cannot answer that now, and I am not bound to answer it. In fact, it would be quite irrelevant to answer it as it has nothing to do with this particular item. There is one transaction about which an action at law was taken. Payment for that is still pending. I can state roughly, however, that the loss to the State was about £60,000. There would be a variation on that according to the payment to be made in the transaction mentioned. The proper way to get that information is by the ordinary process of question and answer, or when the last item is up for discussion or prior to that.
Arising out of the question asked by Mr. Maguire, as to whether the Minister can tell us to what extent he offered to give help to the Arigna mine during the coal strike, the Minister admitted he gave some help in order to enable the output of coal to be increased. Deputy Maguire's question related to the extent or nature of the help given, and if it was of a kind that would be permanent it ought to have assisted them to fulfil that later contract. I would like to know what was the nature of the help offered by the Minister's Department to the Arigna mine in order to increase their production.
It was not in connection with this Estimate. There is no item under this Vote which requires any help to be given to Arigna. The help I referred to was not permanent, and not such as to make a local body take coal that they did not want to take.
I am afraid the Minister is misrepresenting my question—I do not think he is wilfully doing it. My question was put very straight, as was the question by Deputy Maguire. It was as to whether the help given was of such a permanent nature as might help the production of coal in greater quantities.
It was not.
With regard to the Minister's statement that the export of coal from Arigna could not have been stopped as it was fulfilling a contract, I desire to ask whether all export was not stopped from Great Britain at the same time. Would it not have been perfectly natural for the State to say: "This is a time of crisis, and our first duty is to our own citizens"?
What is natural and what is legal are different matters.
Did the coal owners at Arigna ask the Government for a loan to develop the industry during the strike of 1926?
Does the Deputy suggest that that is connected with this Vote?
Certainly it is. It shows that they have done nothing to develop the industries of the country.
AN CEANN COMHAIRLE took the Chair.
