On Question No. 3 on the Order Paper, Sir, I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce to-day if he would consider removing the duty which at present applies to the component parts of cubicle egg cases, and he referred me to an answer he made on the 7th February. On that day I asked the responsible Minister if he was aware that the use of native timber in cubicle egg cases had resulted in catastrophic losses to egg merchants who placed Irish eggs in cold store in Great Britain; and if he would make representation to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to have the duty, that had been recently imposed on component parts of egg boxes, removed.
The Minister for Agriculture replied that the reply to both parts of the question "is in the negative." I further went on to ask the Minister if he was aware that eggs had deteriorated in cold store in Scotland. and if he was prepared to contradict the statement that out of a total quantity of 120,000 cases of eggs, a minimum of 2,500 were marked by the local authority of Glasgow for total destruction, and that out of 500 cases consigned by one exporter an average of 12 dozen eggs in cubicle egg cases were destroyed as unfit for human consumption, because they had been spoiled by the timber of the cases in which they were exported.
Dr. Ryan replied as follows:—
"My enquiries have gone so far as to establish that the Public Health Authority of Glasgow did not interfere in this matter, and the Deputy should consider the desirability of getting proper information about this matter before making speeches attacking Irish eggs being sent abroad."
The facts are as follow. When this tariff was before the House for consideration, I asked the Minister if it was a tariff which applied to planed and sawed timber, and, if so, would he consider exempting the component parts of cubicle egg cases, as it had been laid down by the Department long ago that only foreign and well-seasoned timber should be employed for the purpose of making cubicle egg cases for export. He said that he would not do it. I asked him if he had consulted the Department of Agriculture, and he said that he had, and that they were quite satisfied with the position. I have stated that the use of unseasoned timber in the construction of egg cases, used for cold storage, results in the eggs becoming contaminated, either by the aroma of the wood or by a certain type of mould which tends to come from unseasoned timber in cold store. I warned the Minister of the possibility of that development if he insisted on imposing a tariff which would result in our being compelled to use that class of unseasoned timber. Despite that warning, the tariff was imposed, and the cost of the component parts of cubicle egg cases in foreign seasoned timber was made prohibitive, and the supplies available to the manufacturer of egg cases became, almost exclusively, domestic and inadequately seasoned timber. A very considerable quantity of eggs was shipped to the British market during the summer and autumn of last year in those cases made of unseasoned wood, and when the time came to take these eggs from the cold store and to put them on the market a catastrophe ensued, and it was discovered that a very large percentage of the eggs was destroyed by the blue mould. I will inform the House now, from five or six sources in the British market, of the measure of that disaster. My attention was directed to this business, particularly, by a circular which I received, in the ordinary course of my business operations, from one of the largest importers of Irish produce in Great Britain. He wrote to me, as he wrote to every other member of the trade, in the following terms:—
"As the time is drawing near when we shall be coldstoring Irish eggs, we must insist that you pack the eggs in cubicles entirely made from well-seasoned foreign timber. Under no circumstances will we accept cubicles made partly or wholly from native timber. The experience we had last season with the latter was simply disastrous and it is imperative that you stick to foreign timber.... You must admit that all the above precautions are necessary after what happened last year. This coldstoring business is a trade in itself and it is up to you Irish shippers to do things right and keep up the standard of quality."
That letter was followed in a few days by another letter which ran as follows:—
"There seems to be some misunderstanding regarding the circular letter we sent to you about the using of well-seasoned foreign timber for the packing of eggs. Some shippers seem to think that we shall take other timber for eggs that are not for coldstoring, but that we refuse to do. We must have all our eggs packed in cases made entirely of well-seasoned kiln-dried foreign timber as when we buy eggs from you we do not know whether we shall be coldstoring them or not. That will depend upon the state of the market here, and we must ask you to give us a guarantee that all eggs you send to us will be packed in cubicle cases entirely made from well-seasoned foreign timber."
I got into communication with the Scottish egg people in order to find out if these allegations were well-founded, as I thought that, perhaps, this individual merchant was making a mistake and that, possibly, it was the fault of the cold storage and that my prognostications were not well-founded. I received the following reply:—
"Dear Sir,
I have your letter of January 1st, in connection with Irish cold stores.
In a nutshell, unprecedented trouble has arisen during the autumn in Irish cold stored eggs, and losses prevailed all round. Total quantity stored in Glasgow was approximately 120,000 cubicle cases, and a minimum of 2,500 cases were placed with local authorities for total destruction. At least one-third of the residue showed trouble to the extent of one-quarter to one-third of each case. A committee of my executive were deputed to investigate cause, and the unanimous opinion prevailed that trouble arose through timber. Numerous cases could be indicated. However, sufficient to state that where imported seasoned timber was utilised, package was perfect and if native timber was used, even to the extent of centre boards, waste prevailed. The trouble was pronounced in goods from the West of Ireland."
He then makes a reference to certain specific cases, but asks me not to mention the name of any one particular individual, so accordingly, I pass over that paragraph. The next paragraph goes on as follows:—
"On examination of quantity in various cold stores in this area, my committee found blue-mould was evident in case of native timber while, alongside, perfect packages were examined in seasoned imported timber. This position was general in all cases examined, and the considered opinion of trade is that each member will request a guarantee from the exporter that seasoned imported timber has been used to ensure that all eggs for cold store purposes during 1934 will be safe from the precedent of 1933.... The authority of my association has been given to make use of the foregoing, but no personal reference to be made to names, and this information can be used by you in the best interests of all concerned."
That information was confirmed to me by a number of other firms, one of which writes to say:—
"This has been a very unfortunate year. To-day I heard there are 500 cases only fit to be sent to the destructor. The class of timber is blamed for most of the loss, damp green wood is the generally accepted cause, and the cold store traces the waste to this."
Still another of the importing firms wrote as follows:—
"We regret to inform you that in our opinion the past season has been one of the most disastrous as far as this particular aspect of the egg trade is concerned. We put into store round about 3,000 quarter cases from various shippers and our experience has been most unfortunate. Some lots turned out comparatively well while others showed a very heavy loss.... Having investigated the whole question from every point of view, it is a well-considered opinion that enormous havoc has been wrought through unsuitable wood being used in the case-making. Some of the wood has still a damp, musty feeling and we are convinced that some sort of dampness must have been thrown off when the eggs were in the store with the consequent ill-effects.
"We are pleased indeed to know that you are investigating the whole position and we hope that success will attend your efforts, because the continuance of troubles such as we have had during the past year will ... adversely affect the good name of Irish eggs...."
What I want to emphasise is this, that the eggs as shipped were the highest quality eggs going into the Scottish market. The West of Ireland, particularly, has always shipped large quantities of eggs to Scotland. During the war it was extremely easy to get a market for eggs. After the war competition became extremely keen, the standard of eggs going into the Scottish market from foreign sources rose very high. Then we had regulations and legislation passed in this country and we got by all the foreign eggs, passed them and beat them in the Scottish market. The result was, as any man who knew the egg trade in the West of Ireland found, that instead of having to look for a buyer of eggs in Scotland, the buyers were writing to him asking him if he had any eggs to sell. That was the happy state of affairs at the time of the economic war. After the economic war things got difficult, but then the bounty which the Government made available helped considerably. At any rate, the reputation of Irish eggs in Scotland was never higher than it was 12 months ago, the eggs going in there from this country were giving satisfaction in every conceivable way.
For years the Department has advised shippers of eggs to use only kiln-dried foreign timber in cubicle egg cases. I think they made a definite order some years ago prohibiting the use of native timber in cubicle cases. I know that the ordinary discoloured native timber would certainly be rejected by the Department inspector at the port. Practically no native timber was used in the manufacture of cubicle cases, as the Department frowned upon it and warned every shipper that foreign timber should be used. With all their experience and despite the fact that an experiment had been made ten or 15 years ago to find suitable domestic timber—an experiment that had failed—the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Fianna Fáil Government consented to the imposition of this tariff in such a form as to make the importation of the battens used in the manufacture of these cubicle cases impossible by raising the price so high as to make their use prohibitive. After the Government had hit the agricultural industry right, left and centre, this tariff imposed by them has resulted in the splendid reputation of our egg trade in Scotland being blown up in smoke in one season.
The letters I have read here in the House are letters from experts in the trade. The letters are from men who know what the cause of this deterioration in Irish eggs was. They know that the eggs themselves were of excellent quality. They know that had they been properly packed they would have come out of the cold store as good as they went in. But these experts in the trade are wholesalers. Our trade in Scotland depends on the readiness of the retailers to sell Irish eggs, each one of which is stamped "Saorstát Eireann." We can see what has happened to the retail trade. These retail shopkeepers have gone to the wholesalers, bought two or three cubicle cases of eggs or whatever quantity they required. When they brought them home to their shops they took off the lids and found the contents bad. Every one of those bad eggs was stamped "Saorstát Eireann." The shopkeeper went back to the wholesaler, returned the eggs and said: "I will take no more of these ‘Saorstát Eireann' eggs; give me Danish eggs or give me any eggs that are good."
The eggs in many of these cubicle cases had deteriorated only so far as that part of the consignment which had come in contact with the native timber used in the manufacture of the cases was concerned. What sometimes happened was that, as many small shopkeepers found, half the case of eggs was good and when they got half way through they found that the rest of the eggs in the case were rotten. The result of this was that the ordinary shopkeeper, who is not an expert in the trade and does not know the difference between one type of badness in eggs and another, was in the position I have described. All the shopkeeper knows is that the eggs are good or that they are bad. This season, for the first time, all over Glasgow and all over the area which these wholesalers supply, you have these eggs going out a large percentage of which were rotten. The result of this is that the shopkeepers in Scotland will not take Irish eggs and there is the likelihood that this will destroy our egg trade in Scotland.
This is all because the Minister for Industry and Commerce did not take the trouble to consider the reactions of the tariffs which he imposes. The simplest inquiry made of the inspectors of the Department would have informed the Minister that they were unanimously opposed to the use of native timber for this purpose. I say that because, being an egg exporter, I have myself received warnings from nearly every inspector in the Department of Agriculture against the use of native timber in egg cases. In the ordinary course of their duties the inspectors came to my premises. The ordinary inspectors and the chief inspector sometimes called my staff together and cautioned them against the use of native timber in cubicle cases. They pointed out where it may be done. Where you are shipping six-hundred to twelve-hundred cases—cases that cannot be put into cold storage—native timber might be used. But it is never safe when you are sending cubicle cases, because you can never tell whether the cubicle cases will go into cold storage or whether they will be sold immediately. If these eggs were for immediate use it would not have resulted in this catastrophe, because the blue-mould would not have time to form. Of course, the moment these eggs were put into cold storage to be left there for two or three months the deterioration began. Anyone exporting eggs in boxes made from native timber can imagine the appearance they would present. I have said the eggs become blue-mouldy, but in a large percentage of them the mould is black. This mould travels from the timber to the eggs. The result is that the appearance of the eggs is not only irritating but disgusting. Let the House remember that this merchandise, as it left this country, was of the highest quality of any merchandise going into the Scottish market. This deterioration is due solely and entirely to the absolute disregard of the Minister for Industry and Commerce for the interests of the egg exporters of this country. The responsibility for the well-nigh irreparable damage that has been done to this valuable trade connection with Glasgow is solely the responsibility of the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture. I can only hope that at the eleventh hour——
