In raising this question I want, in the first place, to make it perfectly clear that I do so in no spirit of hostility to the Imperial Tobacco Company. I have been a smoker of their products for a great number of years, and when they decided to jump the tariff wall, and to come into this country, giving very much-needed employment and acting as a stimulus to trade and commercial life in this country, I, together with the great majority of the people, smokers and non-smokers, welcomed their advent. I would still continue to welcome their presence in our midst if they did not ape the tactics of the cuckoo in the thrush's nest and attempt to throw overboard the prior owners of the nest who had really a prior claim on the surroundings. In reply to my question to-day I note that the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that "in the event of facts being furnished to me indicating that any practice is being followed in the nature of an undue or unwarranted restraint of trade I will have them examined to see what action is open to me."
In the light of that particular statement, I want to endeavour to satisfy the Minister that there is something in the nature of an undue or unwarranted attempt to restrain trade. The facts, briefly, are as follows: The Imperial Tobacco Company came into this country as a result of the tariff. They had a certain bonus arrangement with traders. That bonus arrangement laid it down that the company's goods should be displayed in a prominent and conspicuous manner by the shopkeepers, and that at least one-half of the slot machines would be retained for the sale of their particular products. There was nothing else very specific in the restrictions placed on the retailers. That was read by most tobacconists as implying that at least one-half of the window and shop space would be devoted to the products of the Imperial Tobacco Company, and the remaining half of the window or shop space could be devoted to the products of any other firm.
We have in this country an old-established Irish firm selling tobacco and cigarettes, Carroll's of Dundalk. Until some time last summer, in the cigarette market at least, Carroll's were not a very serious rival to the Imperial Tobacco Company. But somewhere about the summer of 1929 they endeavoured to extend their market in this country for cigarettes, and they decided upon a scheme of gifts for coupons. Each packet of cigarettes would contain a coupon, and fifty and a hundred of these coupons were to purchase certain gifts and so on. This scheme was put into operation somewhere about December, 1929. The first point is that there was nothing particularly novel about that type of pushing sales. Tea people, cocoa people, butter people, sweet people, and a number of other trading concerns adopted the same system. The first move made by the Imperial Tobacco Company was in November of this year, when a circular was sent out to the retail tobacconists containing the following paragraph: "My directors regard action which tends to push or advertise this form of trading as being against the best interests of trade as a whole, and they wish it to be understood that they consider gift displays in windows and show-cases as contrary to the spirit of the bonus scheme."
As I said, in the bonus scheme the only restriction placed on the trader was that at least half of the slot machines would be reserved for the Imperial Tobacco Company's products and that their goods and advertisements would be placed in a conspicuous place. There was no further restriction and no attempt whatever on the part of the retailers of this country to depart either from the letter or the spirit of the particular agreement they signed. Yet on the 1st of November this particular circular was served upon all traders. I have here an amount of correspondence which I shall submit to the House and the Minister without mentioning the names of those to whom letters were addressed, for the simple reason that I have not got permission from those people to use their names in this particular debate.
The next step in this particular attempt to force Carroll's tobacco and cigarettes off the Irish market was a visit by the inspectors of the Imperial Tobacco Company to various retail shops in Dublin. In one of these shops there was no display of gifts but there was a very prominent display of "Sweet Afton" cigarettes. The inspector ordered the tobacconist to remove them from the window. The tobacconist offered to give three of the four shelves to Imperial Tobacco products and to reserve the fourth to Carroll's cigarettes. The reply of the inspector to that particular request was that he would have none of Carroll's stuff displayed in the window. The next thing was that that particular attempt to drive Carroll's products out of the shop windows extended to the country and the same attempt was made both through correspondence and the inspectors to intimidate the retailers from stocking Carroll's goods. Now the Imperial Tobacco Company has really won the premier position in the cigarette market, chiefly due to the excellent cigarettes they supply and to a great extent to the very generous terms they give to agents. They have won such a position that it would be nearly impossible for any retail tobacconist to carry on if the supply of the Imperial Tobacco products were denied him. The very fact of accepting that as being a reasonable statement of the position and to follow up that by a threat to refuse to give him the bonus would be tantamount to dictating absolutely to that particular retailer not to handle Carroll's goods any more. If there is very general evidence, and I think there will be, from practically every constituency that there was an attempt to dictate to retailers as to what other goods they should keep in their windows, then I submit to the Minister that that is certainly undue and unwarranted restraint upon trade.
Now the position with regard to the sale of the different cigarettes is this: With an Imperial Tobacco Company packet of twenty cigarettes you get a picture and a halfpenny or a box of matches. By the accumulation of so many of these halfpence you can buy anything that a particular number of halfpence will buy. Carrolls give a coupon and by collecting so many of these you can buy certain goods. The difference is this, from the Irish point of view, that with the number of halfpence you can buy any goods you like but with Carroll's coupons you can only buy a particular set of goods stocked by a particular department. Carrolls have made every endeavour to ensure that the goods supplied under their gift system are of Irish manufacture. Therefore they are not only stimulating and pressing their own particular commodities but they are also of immense benefit to other Irish industries.
Nobody, I think, will deny the fact that they are not big enough, and never will be big enough, to be a serious rival to the Imperial Tobacco Company and that this attempt by a huge combine more or less to push out of trade a smaller Irish factory is certainly most undesirable, and every effort should be made by an Irish Government to protect an existing Irish concern. There is plenty of room in this country for the carrying on side by side of both, and the mere extension of Carroll's trade is not going seriously to jeopardise the position of the Imperial Tobacco Company. I would like the Minister, therefore, through his Department, to make every possible effort by negotiation to try to get the Imperial Tobacco Company to withdraw this persistent attack on Carroll's products. It would be much better that the question should be settled in this way than that an outraged sense of fair play should make the public take it into its own hands and possibly launch a boycott against certain products, which would only result in injury to certain industries which are giving a considerable amount of much-needed employment in our midst, and possibly bring about a situation where employment might not be so great as it is at the present moment.
