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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 20 Oct 1937

Vol. 69 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Control of Prices (No. 2) Bill, 1937—Money Resolution.

I move:—

That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas of any expenses incurred in carrying into effect any Act of the present Session to make further and better provision for controlling the prices of commodities.

I think it convenient at this stage to underline the futility of the purpose for which this money is being voted. On the Second Stage I pointed out that we did not believe this machinery would effectively control prices at all. The Minister said he thought it would, and stated that in his experience he was satisfied it would. We are now asked to vote money in order to pay the expenses of this commission to do a job which we all know it is unable to do; that is, to inquire into and to ascertain from time to time the prices of various commodities and to determine whether reasonable prices were being asked or not. I want to demonstrate to the House that it is impossible for the commission to do so. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, with the whole resources of the Department, set himself the task of doing that, and set out to ascertain so simple a fact as the price of bran. Mind you, this commission will only have the support of its own officials—a very restricted number of persons—while the Minister had the support of the entire Department of Industry and Commerce, and set out to ascertain the price of bran.

I submit that this is irrelevant on the Money Resolution.

The Minister knows he is going to be shown up.

If the Chair rules that the matter is in order, I will be satisfied.

I do not know what the Deputy proposes to refer to.

I made the case that the Prices Commission was a futile fraud, because it cannot do the job. It will not control prices and cannot get the necessary information effectively to do the job. The Minister's reply was that it would control prices, and that he was providing machinery to get all requisite information effectively to do so. I am saying that it cannot do so. It has a certain limited personnel. I am going to show the House that the Minister, with the unlimited personnel of the entire Department of Industry and Commerce could not ascertain the price of one commodity, much less ascertain the prices of all commodities, and that as the commission has a very restricted personnel it makes the expenditure of this money wholly nugatory. We are going to throw money away.

I submit that the only matter relevant for discussion on the motion is the purpose for which this money is to be used and the manner of expenditure.

The purpose for which the money is to be used.

I am prepared to accept the decision of the Chair.

Every Deputy is entitled to put a submission to the Chair even without the permission of the Minister, or without interruption. The contention is that certain Government machinery under the Minister cannot do a certain thing. He is now setting up other machinery, as he has failed up to the present to do it. Deputy Dillon is suggesting that there is no possibility of this machinery justifying the expenditure which will be incurred, seeing that much more elaborate machinery in the hands of the Minister has failed in the case of one commodity. I submit that it is perfectly relevant to argue from that that the House ought not to pass a Money Resolution of this kind, because it is futile to expect this, that a smaller body can succeed where a much more elaborate instrument failed. In that case surely it is relevant to this Money Resolution to say so.

I have decided that the Deputy can proceed.

On the last occasion, when we were discussing at length the price of one simple commodity, the price of bran, the Minister said he had foreseen before he came to the House that he would be questioned about the price of bran. Foreseeing that, he made full inquiry. It was not a case of being taken suddenly unawares, or relying on his memory, but foreseeing that he was going to be questioned, he turned prominent officials of the State on to the task of getting into touch with every centre in England, and made most exhaustive investigations in Ireland, so as to be fully fortified, and, as a result of the investigations, he discovered the price of bran in various centres in Great Britain fluctuated from £7 10s. to £7 15s., and the price of pollard approximately the same. He investigated prices in Saorstát Eireann, and was informed that the price of bran in Ireland was £6 10s. per ton. I want the House most carefully to note what happened and to remember that the entire resources of the Minister for Industry and Commerce were invoked, and yet their collective leg was pulled by one miller who made the unfortunate Minister get up and make a public fool of himself. On the day in question the Minister assured the House that the price was £6 10s. ex-mill in this country. I had in my hand the current quotation for bran from Irish millers which was fixed by the millers' ring and it was £7 10s. per ton ex-mill. I produce the current price list of the Irish mills. I did not quote it carriage paid. I quoted the price, ex-mill. I produce the current price list of another milling company, the National Flour Mills, Ltd., Victoria Quay, Cork:—

"6th October, 1937.

"Dear Sir,

"Our prices for flour offals this day are as follows:—‘National Choice' (Blended Bakers'), 51/-; ‘National Super-Strength' (Strong Bakers'), 52/6."

They then give the prices of retail flour and quote white bran at £8 10s. per ton, mixed bran, £8 a ton; white pollard, £8 15s. a ton, and mixed pollard, £8 10s. a ton. All prices are ex-mill Cork, due nett in one month, subject to discounts of 4d. in the £ for payment within seven days, 3d. in the £ within 14 days, and 2d. in the £ within 21 days. The letter proceeds: "Your esteemed orders will receive prompt attention." The Minister, of course, is not familiar with conditions obtaining in rural Ireland. He is a man who has lived all his life in the City of Dublin, and, as I said in this House on another occasion, he would not know one end of a cow from another. He allowed himself to be fooled by a miller, who told him that he was prepared to deliver red bran at £6 10s. a ton ex-mill.

There is an infinitesimal percentage, perhaps 7 per cent., of the total bran consumed in this country sold in North County Dublin by two mills in the city as red bran. All the rest of the red bran in this country is sold as mixed bran. It is put through white bran and sold by some mills as mixed bran, but by most mills as plain bran. The Victoria Quay Mills, the National Flour Mills, Ltd., charge £8 10s. a ton for white bran, and for mixed bran they charge £8 ex-mill.

Would the Deputy quote the price in Cork?

Will the Minister hold his hold for a minute. The price of mixed bran is £8 a ton. The price at Portarlington is £7 10s., ex-mill, for bran—just bran—and nobody can say what proportion of red bran is in that, and what proportion of white bran is in it. But that is not all. I will quote not only the millers' quotations, but I am now going to quote figures taken from the Minister's own publication. In the Irish Trade Journal the prices are set out for white bran, red bran and pollard.

If I understood the Deputy aright, he was proceeding to argue that the machinery which it is proposed to set up could not effectively collate the information that we wanted, and that, therefore, we were expending money uselessly.

That is my submission.

And that even the Department of Industry and Commerce could not collect the necessary statistics. I understand now that the Deputy is quoting from the statistics of the Department in the Irish Trade Journal.

Yes, and I submit that every official in the Department had a different set of figures: that they all gave them to the Minister, and that the Minister turned out with different figures. We have the millers' figures which the Minister trotted out. Now I am going to give figures from the Irish Trade Journal.

The price ex-mill.

I will read out the average retail prices at which red bran, white bran and pollard are sold in this country.

In all the towns of the Saorstát?

The average retail prices at which white bran was sold in this country from January to June in 1937 were as follows:—8/3, 8/9, 8/9, 8/11, 9/-, in May, and 8/9 in June. The average retail price at which red bran was sold—that is not mixed bran, but red bran—was 7/6, 8/-, 7/11, 8/3, 8/3 and 8/-.

Would the Deputy say what issue of the Trade Journal he is quoting from?

From the monthly prices of the Irish Trade Journal and from the last number published by the Department of Industry and Commerce—the last number containing the prices down to June, 1937.

What price does the Deputy give for June, 1937?

8/- for red bran.

Where did the Deputy get the figure of 6/7?

I did not mention 6/7 at all. The price quoted for pollard in this publication was 8/4, 8/10, 8/9, 8/9, 8/10 and 8/7 in June. These are the figures from January to June of 1937. These are not the figures that the Minister gave to the House.

I gave the figures for the 1st September, but not for the 1st January.

Recently?

The Minister's contention, in the course of his speech, was that the prices of these offals had been consistently lower in the Irish Free State than they were in Great Britain. Is not that right? We must note most carefully that these monthly prices here are, I think, retail prices in quantities from several centres in the Saorstát, and from them we must subtract about 10/- a ton for freight.

I do not accept that. I say that there is no comparison between the average retail prices in the towns of the Saorstát and the ex-factory prices in Dublin.

Does not the Minister accept the 10/- a ton for freight?

I do not say that the price in Cork is the same as in Dublin.

I say that we want to allow 10/- a ton for freight, and 3d. or 6d. a cwt. for profit. That will reduce the price I have given by about 1/-. When we do that we find that the price of red bran in this country was approximately 7/- ex-mill, according to the Minister's figures published in the Irish Trade Journal in June, 1937. The price in Great Britain for the same bran in June, 1937, was 6/10½, 1½d. less than the price obtaining in Saorstát Eireann. The point that I desire particularly to emphasise is this: that the Minister, in the course of his argument here, stated not that the price of bran was £6 10s. Od. ex-mill in Dublin but he stated the following at column 271, vol. 69, No. 3 of the Dáil Debates:

"Mr. Lemass: I knew that Deputy Dillon would contradict that, so I took the trouble this morning to get the officers of my Department to telephone to all the principal centres in Great Britain and in this country in order to find out the price of bran to-day. The price of red bran to-day is £6 10s. Od. per ton——"

The Minister says: "That is the price at which I was offered it this morning."

The Deputy is not reading a continuous sentence.

This is what follows:

"Mr. Cosgrave: If you could get it. I sent to four places myself for a small quantity and I could not get it.

Mr. Lemass: The price is £6 10s. Od. per ton. That is the price at which I was offered it this morning. The price in London is £7 5s. 0d. per ton; Liverpool, £7 10s. 0d.; Cardiff, £7 12s. 6d. The price of red pollard in Dublin is £7 5s. 0d. per ton; in London it is £8 5s. 0d.; Liverpool, £8 7s. 6d., and in Cardiff, £8 12s. 6d. These are the prices to-day.

Mr. Dillon: And the Irish miller's price to-day is £8 per ton and the worst of it is the Irish miller has not got it."

The Minister then passed from the subject of bran, but observe that the Minister says that he telephoned to all the principal centres in Ireland to ascertain the price of bran, and the fruit of his inquiry was that he was satisfied that the price of bran consumed throughout rural Ireland was £6 10s. 0d. a ton. If he approached all the centres, and, with all the resources of his Department at his disposal, accepted that as the true state of affairs, then he allowed his leg to be pulled in the most unmerciful way, because anybody who knew anything about the trade would have told him that, outside a very restricted area in North County Dublin, red bran is not consumed by the Irish feeder at all. Very few people will buy it at all, and in fact you find that the big national flour mills in Cork do not offer it; they offer a mixed bran and they offer a white bran, and all the other mills just offer bran which, according to my belief, is mixed bran containing red and white. The net result of it all is that, in fact, the price of bran, as consumed by the rural community in feeding to their live stock, ranges between £7 10s. in the Midlands up to £8 10s. per ton ex-mill, according to the style and quality of the bran, but the price which the Minister was persuaded to offer to this House as the true price for bran was £6 10s. If that is the best we can hope to get as a result of Ministerial or Departmental inquiries into prices of commodities, then I say that it is waste of time to set up a commission—a commission with a far smaller staff than that of the one already existing— to deal with this matter.

I may say, Sir, that all I have said with regard to bran applies with equal force to pollard; and it is typical of the attitude of any body of men who are trying to exploit the consuming community that it is in their interest to prevaricate and to mislead, so far as they can, any body or any authority which desires to restrict them in making the largest profits they desire to make. Deputy Dowdall explained the position the other day. The attitude of these people, said Deputy Dowdall in effect, was: "When you get a tariff you should try to make the most out of it that you can, and, if you do not do so, you are a fool." Naturally, when the Minister tries to cross-hackle them with a view to forcing them to take less profits in bran or pollard or anything else, they will immediately resort to any expedient to fool and mislead the Minister, and if they can induce him to get up in this House and attach his name to the statement that the price of bran is £6 10s. per ton, then they know that, by doing so, they purchase immunity from any further interference because it becomes the Minister's personal concern to persuade the public that the price of bran is not excessive, that he has investigated the matter, and that he is satisfied that the price is quite all right.

Once that has happened, they know that they can then go on and collect, as they are collecting at the present moment, from the consumers of this country, from £7 10s. to £8 10s., and the Minister gets up in this House and says that the price is £6 10s.—that that is the truth, and that so long as it is the truth it is all right. I can tell the Minister that 90 per cent. or 95 per cent. of those who buy bran in this country are paying from £7 10s. to £8 10s., but the Minister says that the price is £6 10s. and that that is a reasonable price. I have no doubt that the commission, when it is set up, will come out with similar reports; but every member of the agricultural community in this country knows that, no matter what the Minister or the Prices Commission say, they have to pay from £7 10s. to £8 10s. That is what matters to the average small farmer in this country—not what the Minister says is true, but what the small farmer finds to be true when he goes to spend the money which he has for spending.

I have no doubt, Sir, that the money we are going to give the Prices Commission in order to enable them to carry on the farce which has been going on for the past five years will be frittered away, and that the reports we will get from the commission will resemble for veracity the nonsense that was talked by the Minister for Industry and Commerce a few days ago about so simple a commodity as bran. In so far as that is so, I believe that every penny voted and every penny spent under this Financial Resolution will be so much money thrown away.

Deputy Dillon has spent so much time, Sir, getting around this matter, that it would be wise, perhaps, to bring him back to the period that he is so anxious to bring in again. Deputy Dillon's whole idea in those attacks here, day after day and week after week, on all Irish industries, has only one object, and one object only, namely, to close down the industries and get back to the happy days when everything we ate and everything we used in this country had to be produced by the foreigner. I have been looking back and trying to get a period that would be on a par with the present period in so far as the price of imported wheat is concerned. That would be the period of 1925 and 1926. Imported wheat was then in or around its present price of 30/- per barrel. We found at that period——

How is that relevant, Sir, to the Prices Commission?

I shall bring it home in a few moments.

It is just as relevant as Deputy Dillon's point.

Why does not the Minister step into the Chair when he is at it?

I understood Deputy Dillon's argument to be that we were setting up machinery which would be ineffective for the purposes for which the machinery was being set up, and therefore voting money for machinery that would be ineffective. He instanced what he alleged was the ineffectiveness of the present machinery that was set up by the Department of Industry and Commerce, which had a larger staff and wider ramifications than the machinery which is now proposed to be set up, and he proceeded to discuss the Money Resolution on that basis. Now, the prices of imported wheat and other articles at an earlier period does not arise on that Resolution.

I can assure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle that those who know this country know that the price of bran has a very definite relation to the price of wheat, and I have endeavoured to get to the direct period in which the price of wheat would compare with the price to-day, and to find what price bran was when imported at the period as compared with the alleged profiteering price at present, in connection with which Deputy Dillon has spent two hours here in vilifying the millers.

It is a question of the effectiveness of the machinery that is proposed to be set up, and Deputy Dillon, in connection with the actual price of the commodity concerned, was discussing the effectiveness of the machine and whether we should spend money on a machine which he alleged to be ineffective.

Yes, and I intend proving that it would be effective. That machine—even the partial machine that has been in operation up to the present—has brought about this result: that the price of imported flour at the period of which I speak, when imported wheat was the same price as at present, was from 52/- to 53/- as compared with 51/- at present; and that of imported bran, about which Deputy Dillon apparently is so anxious, we imported, in 1926, 254, 703 cwts. and we paid £115,757, or roughly 9/2 per cwt. or £9 odd per ton.

How much did you import last year?

Deputy Dillon can go and find that out himself.

I do not see the relevancy of what we imported in connection with the effectiveness of the machine we are setting up and for which we are voting money.

My argument, Sir, is going to show that the partial machine that has been set up at present to control Irish industries and to control prices has resulted in the price of bran, instead of being what it was when it was being imported from the foreigner and when we had no control—that is, £9 odd per ton—is now, even using Deputy Dillon's own argument, only from £7 10s. 0d. to £8 10s. 0d. That is an improvement, and if the Department succeeded in bringing the price down that much under the old machinery they set up, then the new machinery will succeed in bringing the price down further, perhaps.

Perhaps!

Yes, perhaps, and it is better at any rate than Deputy Dillon's anxiety that, no matter what we pay to the foreigner it is all right, but if a commodity is made or produced in Ireland, then there must be something wrong with it, just as there is something wrong with Deputy Dillon himself—something of the same kind, but I suppose you cannot expect anything else out of anti-Irish Irishmen. I did not come in to delay the House, only to place these few figures before them and let them judge for themselves. I gave the price of wheat in 1925 and 1926—30/-, the same as to-day. I gave the price of imported flour in 1926 as compared with to-day and the price of imported bran in 1926 as compared with our home product to-day. Deputy Dillon can compare these for himself and if he has any sympathy for the small farmers he talked about, he can thank God that for the last three or four years there was an Irish Government not alone to produce these things at home, but to reduce the price comparatively for the farmers.

Not being very familiar with parliamentary practice, I suffered from the delusion coming in here that this particular discussion was on a question of finance—in fact, a Money Resolution. I further suffered from the delusion that this Control of Prices Bill would be, in the parlance of the man in the street, what we would term a bread-and-butter Bill. But I have been very much disappointed, particularly by Deputy Dillon. On the last occasion this particular Bill was debated we were treated to a lot of cross-talk between Deputy Dillon and the Minister for Industry and Commerce concerning the price of commodities such as bran, bakers' flour, and so forth, with which I suggest, the majority of the people, generally speaking, are not very much concerned. We were, in fact, treated to a visit to the Himalayas, Czechoslovakia, and even to parts of Spain. In fact, Deputy Dillon definitely disappointed me to-day, because I fully expected him to finish his tour around Europe by giving a demonstration of how he had a fan dance in Spain with some Spanish senorita.

On the other side we had the Minister for Industry and Commerce endeavouring, if I may say so, to pull the wool over some of our eyes by doing something in the nature of the threecard trick by this substituting of the Irish Grocer, a well-known journal, for the Trade Journal, or some other paper. We spent a considerable time on all this, and I suggest that we have got nowhere.

As representing the only Party concerned with the working classes in this country, I suggest that we have listened to too much of this tommy-rot. We all agree that the cost of living has gone up. The Minister agrees with that. I agree that he dealt with Deputy Dillon's attacks very effectively. But it cannot be denied that the cost of living has gone up. We now have legislation introduced to deal with that, and I consider that, instead of indulging in a discussion as to what is the price of bran or whether the Minister rang up England, Scotland and Wales to find out the price of flour, we should end this matter and get down definitely to the Bill and consider whether the machinery in the Bill is effective enough to deal with the atrocious profiteering in this country. I suggest that all this conversation should be stopped, and that we should definitely get down to deciding how we are going to prevent that profiteering and control prices.

Although it is obvious from Deputy McGowan's speech that he is suffering from more delusions than he confessed, there was some point in his opening remarks. In my opinion, the discussion on the motion should be confined to the finance of the Bill. But, if Deputy Dillon achieved nothing else in that way, he has succeeded in establishing a practice in this House as a result of which we have a re-hash of the Second Reading debate on every Bill on the finance motion in connection with it. In my opinion, Deputy Dillon's speech was entirely out of order, but the Chair ruled that it was in order, and I have to accept the Chair's decision.

I am intervening now merely to prevent anyone being misled by the misleading remarks which Deputy Dillon made. I do not know whether he gets his inspiration from the Irish Independent, or whether the Irish Independent gets its inspiration from him. In relation to the price of bran they both adopted the same tactics. The price of bran is of some importance, because not merely is it an article purchased in considerable quantity by farmers as a feeding stuff, but it has a very direct relation to the price of flour. If bran is dear, flour is cheap, and if bran is cheap, flour is dear. It is an important consideration to know whether the price of bran is dear or cheap when one is seeking an explanation of the price of flour, and the price of flour has a relation to the price of bread.

I gave certain figures for the price of bran and the prices prevailing for red bran and red pollard on the 7th October, the date I was last speaking on the motion. These figures were correct. The Irish Independent, of course, was perturbed by the revelation of the fact that the prevailing ex-factory prices for red bran and pollard in Dublin were similar to those in other centres in Great Britain, and set out to discredit the figures. Their tactics were somewhat similar to those of Deputy Dillon. They got some retail trader in a Midland town to write up a letter to the effect that he had to pay more for red bran or red pollard delivered at his store. They did not trouble to explain the difference between the delivered price and the ex-factory price. Even when the particular miller from whom that bran was purchased wrote to the Irish Independent to explain the difference, they avoided giving him anything like the same publicity that they gave the original allegation.

Deputy Dillon is trying to adopt the same tactics. I do not know what purpose he has in mind. I do not know how his particular point of view in the matter of prices is advanced by what he alleged. There may be a difference of opinion on this, but it is desirable to make an attempt to put him right. I choose the price of red bran for the purpose of my comparison, not because red bran is widely used here—I understand there is some foolish objection to its use amongst the farmers of the country—but because it was necessary to get some commodity the price of which could be compared with a similar commodity in Great Britain, and only red bran is being purchased there. No white bran is purchased in London, and if a comparison with England is to be made it must be in reference to red bran and pollard. The Deputy quoted the price of white bran. It is a higher price in Dublin. The price of white bran on the date I refer to was £7 10s. ex-mill in Dublin. Red bran was £6 10s. ex-mill in Dublin. The Cork price was £1 higher per ton.

I am not going to offer an explanation at the moment. I am merely stating that that is the case. It is ordinarily so, I understand. There may be some good reason for it, and I presume there is. But Deputy Dillon attempted to discredit my figures by quoting the Cork price, attempting rather stupidly and unskilfully a little bit of leg-pulling. The prices I gave for red bran at London, Liverpool and Cardiff are quite correct. They were the prices prevailing on the 7th October. So also were the prices I gave ex-mill Dublin. These prices can be investigated by anybody who makes inquiries at the Dublin mills or at the other centres. The national average retail price in all the towns of the Saorstát had nothing whatever to do with it. The Deputy knows that quite well.

I am not attempting to justify the price of bran. I am not concerned with justifying the price of bran. I merely stated it here because it had been mentioned in connection with a query addressed to me as to why the price of flour should be higher here than in London. I do not pretend to be able to give people an explanation of why the price should be higher here but there are certain known reasons. One of the known reasons is that all these corn offals fetch a lower price here than in England. They fetch a lower price because we are producing higher quantities than heretofore. I think Deputy Dillon can remember when he was getting agitated last year at the prospect of these flour mills closing down because they were stocked to the roof with all these offals. He and members of the Labour Party were quite agitated at the prospect of a complete stoppage of flour milling here because of the inability of the mills to get rid of the corn offals which had accumulated in the stores.

And yet you issued a licence for the free import of bran this year.

Is the Deputy worried about this year?

We are manufacturing more bran than ever before?

Of course we are.

And, presumably, we are consuming more?

I say we are manufacturing more bran and the price of bran is determined by what the millers can get for it. The higher the price they get for bran, the lower the price they charge for flour. Anybody who knows anything about the condition of the flour milling industry and who has even taken the trouble to read the various reports circulated to Deputies from time to time knows that. I did not attempt to justify the price of bran or pollard here as against the price in Great Britain. I was stating the facts, and the facts are incontestable. I move the motion and the price of bran has nothing to do with it.

I think it has everything to do with it. I do not blame Deputy McGowan for misunderstanding the issue. He has spent most of his life in the suburbs of Dublin, but after he has been in this House for some time, I have no doubt that he will learn the facts of the situation. Those who come from the country know that bran is a very important matter for the average small farmer in the country. I reiterate that the Minister allowed himself, with the assistance of those upon whom he relied for his information, to be deceived into representing to the House and to the country that, as the responsible Minister, he was satisfied that the price charged for bran was £6 10s. ex-mill. His leg was pulled. He was made a fool of; and if they can fool him, they will be able to fool any Prices Commission he sets up. I know, Deputy Corry Knows, and every farmer in this House knows that the price paid by the farmer for white bran or mixed bran—and the bulk of bran is white and red bran mixed—was from £7 10s. to £8 10s. ex mill.

£7 10s. is the price of white bran.

The price of white bran in Cork is £6. 10s. The price of mixed bran is £8 10s. The price which farmers pay bears no relation to £6 10s. ex mill. They are paying a retail price based on from £7 10s. to £8 10s. ex mill. If the Minister has been fooled into any other belief, I say the Prices Commission will be similarly fooled. In so far as that is true, the money which Deputy McGowan proposes to vote for the establishment of a Prices Commission will be wasted. His own leader stated a fortnight ago that the money which was voted over five years ago had been wasted. The Deputy waxed eloquent here to day. Far be it from me to extend any discourtesy to a new-comer in this matter. Later on we may have occasion to cross words more vindictively, but I wish to reiterate that the Minister was misled in this business, and as he has been misled, so will the Prices Commission be misled, and by the very same people who misled him.

Question put and agreed to.
Resolution reported and agreed to.
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