I moved the adjournment.
Conditions of Employment Bill, 1935. - Finance (Special Drawback) Bill, 1936.—Second Stage (Resumed).
Do we resume on cod liver oil or coal? The Deputy was talking about cod liver oil.
I was talking about rings that were promoted by the Ministers of this State for the exploitation of the consumers of this country. I have dealt with the rings and hope to deal with them frequently on future occasions. Rings and licences are two matters with which I propose to deal at some length at a no far distant date. In conclusion, I want to say a word about the country distributors of coal who have been denied the benefits of the Bill at present before us. The attention of the Minister may have been directed to the situation which developed in Letterkenny and in Donegal where the local distributors found themselves temporarily without coal. The result of that was that the people suffered considerably. Warned by that example, a number of coal distributors in the West of Ireland apprehended that with the approaching strike in the British coal mines and the coal-cattle pact being in operation, a difficulty might arise unless stocks were laid in, and, accordingly, stocks of 50 and 60 tons of coal were laid in by merchants in a moderate way of business. The stocks of coal were not delivered at their respective stations before the Minister took off the 5/- a ton tax. That was a gesture welcomed by everybody, but he must realise that a small distributor of coal who loses 5/- a ton on 60 tons of coal has suffered a very heavy loss, and, in my opinion, has suffered a loss which will exceed the total profit which he might legitimately expect to make on the entire consignment of coal.
Let us assume that a man in a small way distributing coal is making £3 a week. It is not a small thing to walk in one morning and take five weeks' income off a trader. He has no recourse but to go to whatever savings he has and spend them to tide him over the period of difficulty. In Dáil Eireann, where we are all pretty comfortably provided for, £15 is a bagatelle. When we spent most of our time talking in millions, £15 sounds nothing, but it sounds an awful lot in Ballybofey, Letterkenny, Ballaghadereen and Kilcar, and may mean a serious loss to the individual who loses it. I suggest to the Minister that he ought to consider whether there is not some way to assess, broadly, the loss of these distributors and to make some kind of ex gratia grant to compensate them for the injury which he apparently unwittingly did them.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce referred to my manufacturer. No manufacturer complained to me about the price, but a manufacturer did complain to General Mulcahy. He complained that the difference in price which he had been quoted, both direct from the colliery and from the coal importer, amounting to 9/6, was an undue difference. Looking over the Trade Returns for the last four or five years, I find that the price of coal imported during the year 1935 was lower than any of the other three years, with the exception of 1934, and 1933, as to a fraction. It was 26.34 in 1930; 26.1 in 1931; 24.22 in 1932; 22.02 in 1933, 20.52 in 1934; and 22.6 in 1935. That figure does not indicate any reason for the advance that has taken place in the price of coal in recent months. If there were more than 5/- a ton added on by importers, there ought to have been a bigger reduction than 5/- when the tax was taken off. It is said that there are great practical difficulties in searching out all the coal upon which duty is being paid and restoring to all the persons who have coal in stock, upon which duty has been paid, 5/- per ton. There is no such difficulty found in the case of an income-tax payer whom the Revenue Commissioners are after in connection with any item of profit he makes in his business. If a man in business happens to have a few hundred pounds on deposit, and does not return it in his profits, he is liable to a fine.
If a man employs a person who should be registered in respect of National Health Insurance or Unemployment Insurance and does not pay, there is machinery for getting after him; if a bookmaker does not return a wagering transation, there is machinery for getting after him; and if a man has not a light on his bicycle or a tail-light on his car, there is machinery for getting after him. But here, where the State wants to reimburse people in respect of money they have taken from them in a particular day, there are almost imsuperable administrative difficulties in restoring that money, except to a certain class. It so happens that I know one trader—he is not in my constituency and he is not an importer of coal—who had 60 tons of coal. He has either got to forfeit the 5/- or to charge it. If he charges it, it is unfair in the special circumstances of the case; if he forfeits it, he does so because he stocked up his place at a particular time in order to prevent his customers being charged any increase that might arise out of this increased cost which we are told is going to come in connection with the price of coal.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that there was a ring here some years ago. When that ring was here, people were paying less for coal than they are paying now. That is a ring of colliery owners. It apparently does not affect the consumer which is the main question at issue. There is, of course, a great danger that, in the light of this discussion, we will have a leading article in the Government newspaper in the morning about sabotage. It was the public attention that was directed to this cost that persuaded the Ministry that they would have to take off the tax. They have to go a step further. It is their business, and the business of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to see that there is not an undue price charged to the ordinary consumer. Personally, I have no faith whatever in the Prices Commission. The one single report that they issued last year satisfied me that if ever there was a joke of a commission in this country, it is it, and I think the Minister realises that himself. In any case, assuming that it were the proper tribunal to go before, the Minister's statement here this evening, is sufficient to prevent anybody going to it, followed as it was by that most illuminating and lucid observation of his—it was a matter about which he knew nothing.
That is a good speech.
I suppose on any public question he would be an optimist who expected consistency from the Opposition, and I do not think any of us on this side of the House were foolish enough to anticipate that they would display that golden quality on this question of coal. Deputy Cosgrave has said that it was public attention compelled the withdrawal of the coal tax. May I deny that at once? As soon as it became clear from the revenue returns that this year's Budget would balance without it being necessary to collect the tax over the full year, steps were taken to abolish the emergency duty.
Be careful.
It was possibly in anticipation of that that certain Deputies began to interest themselves in this question of coal. But the Deputies who did manifest some concern in regard to this matter did, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce has pointed out, direct their public discussions to the price which was being charged for the coal and we had letters and verbose statements in the Press, all directed to prove that there had been excessive profiteering in this commodity during the latter part of last year and the earlier part of this. They told us that there was, in fact, no shortage of coal in Dublin or in the country. They told us that the merchants were holding up supplies—the merchants, the people who retail coal to the ordinary consumer— in order that they might exact an inflated price for the commodity. But to-day we have not heard a word from the Opposition about the alleged unjust prices that were being charged for coal during the earlier part of January. To-day all the clamour of the Opposition has been to put into the pocket of the alleged profiteers an extra 5/- a ton. That was what Deputy Morrissey, Deputy Dillon, Deputy Cosgrave and Deputy Mulcahy have been crying for.
Your Bill is doing it.
In the first three weeks of January the coal merchants were alleged to be profiteering and on the 12th of February those who made that allegation come here and ask that the public exchequer should put an extra 5/- a ton into the pockets of the profiteers.
The coal importers.
That is the argument which we have listened to here.
You must have been deaf.
No, he is bothered.
Well, it would be difficult for any one listening to Deputy Dillon talking about cod liver oil, and trying to relate it to the subject of coal, to avoid being bothered. That is what the greater part of Deputy Dillon's speech confined itself to—cod liver oil and quack remedies. Why was the Government moved to remit this tax?
Because they got cold feet.
Because it did feel, that if it did not want the money, the poor people particularly ought to secure the benefit of the remission of duty at the earliest possible moment. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has pointed out that when one proceeds to abolish a tax it is generally necessary to give prolonged notice in order to enable people to clear their stocks. But we were aware that, owing to the position which had been created in Great Britain by the threat of a strike, it was possibly difficult for the poor in Dublin, and in other urban centres where alternative fuels are not easily available, to buy coal. And instead of giving the ordinary prolonged notice, instead of deferring action as normally action might have been deferred until the introduction of the Budget, it was felt that something should be done and could be done to ensure that if the duty were remitted immediately the benefit would be passed on to the poor. From whom do the poor in general in the cities buy their coal? They buy it from the bellman and the bellman in general buys it here from a registered importer and, therefore, if we could make arrangements to refund to the registered coal importer the duty on the stocks which he held on the date on which the duty was remitted, the coal importer would be able immediately to give the bellman the benefit of the reduction and the bellman would be able to pass that benefit on to his poor customers.
What about the poor in Ballybofey?
What about the poor in the country towns?
I have pointed out that in most of the country towns there are other sources of fuel available— there is timber and there is turf. It is not so in our big cities and towns. We were justified in doing that on another ground. In order to prevent a situation developing here in 1936 similar to that which had developed in 1926, as soon as a strike was threatened, the registered importers were asked to stock up to the full extent of their ability and they were carrying—the registered importers—possibly abnormal stocks at that time.
And they passed on some of it.
And some merchants were carrying heavy stocks at that time, but they were not carrying them in order that the coal might be available to the whole community in time of emergency; they were carrying heavy stocks in order to make a scarcity profit. There was, therefore, this obligation so far as the registered importers were concerned, that if they were carrying abnormal stocks we should have to see that they, having done what they were requested to do to try to safeguard us against the consequences of a strike, should be indemnified for their action. That is the second reason, and I think that these two were convincing reasons, but that cannot be said with regard to the ordinary merchant. Many of these merchants had fairly substantial stocks and when this coal duty was imposed in the first instance, in July, 1932, these people got the benefit of the appreciation in coal prices which then took place. They made a profit when the duty went on and if they have lost anything now when the duty has gone off, on the whole the balance is even.
But does not the same thing apply to the coal importers?
When Deputy Bennett was speaking he asked why should we compel these people to sell coal at a loss, and I asked the Deputy did he mean actually that a merchant sold coal now when the 5/- a ton went off so that there was a net loss on the transaction. The Deputy refused to affirm that statement. The reason was that if he did he would simply be contradicting what Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Cosgrave, the leader of his Party, had just said. Their whole contention was that the profit which a merchant makes on coal is much more than 5/- a ton. Deputies Mulcahy and Cosgrave have both been appalled by the fact that it is alleged that coal is imported here c.i.f. at 24/- a ton and is delivered to customers at 33/6 a ton. There is only a difference of 9/6 a ton. I am very sorry that Deputy Cosgrave has left, and I am equally sorry that Deputy Mulcahy has left, because they seemed to think that a gross profit of 9/6 a ton on the transaction was an exorbitant profit. I do not know whether Deputy Dillon agrees with that or not.
I do.
So do I.
Well, their hands are clean they think; they are like Pilate.
Did the Minister say that Pilate's hands were clean?
Well, he washed them, and I suppose Deputy Dillon on occasion has washed his hands of the whole dirty past of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. He has nothing to do with the old Cumann na nGaedheal Party. But the sins of the Cumann na nGaedheal are the sins of Fine Gael. I think Deputy Bennett was in the House in 1926 and at that time there were some transactions in coal. They were not very profitable transactions. At the Public Accounts Committee for three or four years a great deal of discussion went on about these transactions. Deputy Bennett will remember that on occasions he talked of Polish coal. Recently the air has been full of lamentations because we are not able to burn Polish coal or German coal. Members of the Opposition in 1933, however, were protesting strongly about the inequity of asking householders to burn rubbish from the Continent. But in 1926 there was imported from the Continent what might be truthfully described as rubbish. We remember that there were a couple of explosions down along the public quays because of this coal from the Continent. On a number of occasions people were gassed by the emanations from it. Whatever we might think about German coal coming in here in 1933 and part of 1934 it, at any rate, was a combustible commodity and it was certainly superior to what was imported in 1926. Deputy Mulcahy seemed to think that 9/6 a ton was an exorbitant profit to be made on the sale of coal.
Yes, it represented about 40 per cent.
In 1926 Deputy Mulcahy had been driven into the wilderness. He was not then sitting on the same bench as Deputy McGilligan, who was Minister for Industry and Commerce. I am not at all certain that Deputy Mulcahy was a very zealous member of the Party to which Deputy Bennett then belonged. At any rate, when the question of these coal transactions came to be considered before the Public Accounts Committee we discovered that the profit per ton which the then Minister for Industry and Commerce was prepared to allow to members of the Coal Importers' Association on the sale of cargoes which were imported with the backing of the Government was not 9/6 per ton but 22/- a ton. The Government took all the risks and the members of the association at that time took all the profits. That 22/- was considered a fair and reasonable profit before the Control of prices Commission had been set up and before Deputy Lemass became Minister for Industry and Commerce. That was the profit on the sale of coal which Deputy McGilligan, Deputy Cosgrave, Deputy Mulcahy, who was then an humble back bencher, and Deputy Bennett, who was then, I think, a Party Whip, were prepared to allow to the coal importers. These people, who in 1926 were prepared to allow 22/- a ton, say that a profit of 9/6 a ton now is exorbitant. I am not prepared to say that 9/6 a ton is exorbitant, or that it is not. I do not know enough about the business, but whatever it is, it is not nearly so exorbitant or so unjustifiable as the profit of 22/- a ton which these Deputies were prepared to allow coal importers in 1926. It may be a coincidence that in 1932, before the present Minister for Industry and Commerce took office, most of the coal importers in the City of Dublin were tied up with the English collieries. As there was a strike breaking out in England possibly these agents and associates of the English collieries had to divide the melon and the Cumann na nGaedheal policy seemed to be that when it came to dividing the melon there must be enough to give everybody as fat a slice as possible. In the arrangements then existing between the English collieries and the Irish coal importers in Dublin under the ægis of the then Minister for Industry and Commerce not merely was 9/6 a ton to be regarded as sufficient profit but it had to be almost two and a half times as much as that. I do not wish to make too much out of that, except to say that the whole of the argument which we have heard here—when we have in mind the fact that in 1926 the then Government were prepared to allow coal merchants a profit of 22/- per ton—is a dishonest one, and has no substantial foundation in fact. The whole of the attack on the part of the Opposition in the first weeks of January was that there was excessive profiteering in coal by the merchants. The whole of their demand to-day has been to put an extra profit of 5/- per ton into the pockets of the profiteers, and we cannot do that under this Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
When will the Committee Stage be taken?
We propose to take it to-morrow. I do not think there can be any amendment.
The Minister is not in a violent hurry? Is he?
Yes, in order to regularise the repayments.
I do not know whether there can be amendments?
It is not for me to suggest, but no amendment which increases the burden on the State can be submitted, except by the Minister.
Amendments might be made on the Minister's lines of spiltting the melon.
Are you going to produce the 22/- again?
The Report Stage will be taken next week? So long as the Minister will give time for amendment at some stage of the Bill, we are satisfied.
We will take the Report Stage next week then.
Amendments would be more in order on the Committee Stage. Would it be agreed to take the Committee and Report Stages on the same day next week?
Committee and Report Stages fixed for Wednesday next, 19th February.