We have just had some observations from Deputy Coburn on the attitude of our Party towards the Minister for Industry and Commerce in connection with supplies. We have a perfect right to try to maintain some reasonable standard of honesty in political life, particularly in regard to charges made against the former Government in relation to the cost of living. I wish to repeat here that, during the general election, the definite statement was made by Fine Gael and all other Parties now supporting them, that that Government had been deliberately conniving at excessive profits, that whole groups of wholesalers and retailers throughout the country were charging grossly excessive profits on the goods they sold, that it was not a question of stabilising the cost of living or bringing it down a point or two, but that the cost of living was too high because we had permitted large sections of the community to enrich themselves at the expense of the ordinary poor man. That was the charge levelled against us, and, to the degree that the Government succeeded in earning an extra quota of votes, part of the reason was that some of our people listened to those accusations and believed them.
As I have said, there was no question but that the cost of living was just a little too high but the suggestion was made that we had been bribed by large groups of businessmen not to interfere with profits. In that connection, an advertisement issued on behalf of a relatively small number of businessmen asking for funds for Fianna Fáil was used as a kind of bait with which to dupe the electorate. Well, we have seen the result. We have seen the cost of living stabilised and we have watched the Government make their effort to reduce prices. It is already virtually admitted that there was no large scale profiteering during the period of office of the last Government, by those who retail and wholesale the principal commodities used by the people in the country.
The other day the Minister for Industry and Commerce destroyed half the case made during the election campaign when he said, speaking at the Retail Grocery, Dairy and Allied Traders' Association luncheon, that distributive costs should be reduced but that the present grocery profit margin compared favourably with that of other distributive trades. He went on to say that the 80,000 persons employed in the distributive trade were entitled to reasonable wages and profits for their services to the community. The whole course of his speech indicated that that group of businessmen had been exonerated from any accusation of over-charging and they supply a very large proportion of the commodities used by the housewife. If there was to be any large scale reduction in the cost of living the Minister would have to reduce their profits, and the profits of wholesalers and retailers, by a very considerable percentage. That would be the first very necessary step the Minister would have to take and the fact that he has been unable to take it is proof that the former Minister, working in conjunction with the officers of his Department, was able to peg prices to a sufficiently low level that only marginal changes could be effected. In other words, the price control mechanism in regard to food generally appears to have been satisfactorily operated and no substantial changes have been made by the present Government. That in itself proves that many of the pronouncements made by Government speakers during the last election were deliberate falsehoods, statements uttered for the purpose of securing votes and which had no substance behind them.
As other Deputies have said, the price of food commodities has gone up. Meat has gone up 1d. or 2d. per lb. and the price of bread has been increased. In that connection, Fine Gael have deliberately broken a pledge they made to the electorate. In their official advertisements and announcements they stated that they would continue the stabilisation of prices by means of subsidies. They promised that they would not allow the price of ordinary food commodities in connection with which there was a subsidy scheme to be raised. It is a breach of that promise that there has been no increase in the subsidy on bread and no aid given to reduce the price to the consumer. We see the Minister for Industry and Commerce addressing drapers and exhorting them to reduce their prices. I am prepared to stake my political reputation by making the prophecy that, whatever decision the drapers may arrive at, the reduction in prices will be very small and cannot possibly affect the general price structure in this country. Whatever the decreases—2½ per cent., 5 per cent. or 7½ per cent.—they cannot affect the general price structure, and will cause no remarkable reduction in the cost of living.
The Minister having disposed of the grocery trade and the drapery trade has not been able to effect any considerable decrease in the cost of living. Moreover, as everybody knows, a number of commodities are still rising in price. Certain industries in England are going back to war production with the result that the price of manufactured articles in a number of categories has been actually increased. We were well aware before we left office that the period of inflation had not terminated. We knew that there might be certain price reductions throughout the world which would affect us favourably but we knew with regard to a number of other commodities there would be certain increases. We did not attempt to promise the people that we could reduce materially the cost of living. We were aware of conditions throughout the world and we were aware of the fact that so long as we had to import raw materials at increased prices, it was almost impossible to make any noticeable decrease in the cost of living for the ordinary consumer.
Then we had the Minister for Finance in the course of his Budget statement threatening a number of unnamed people with excess profits taxation because he said they were making excessive profits. He said that he would have to take such action unless the cost of living was materially reduced. His threats so far have not been implemented, and the only justification of the Minister's inactivity has been a statement issued recording a number of price reductions in a series of miscellaneous commodities, none of which has any great effect on the cost of living as a whole. We are all aware of the propaganda and lying talk indulged in prior to the election about the huge profits of manufacturers, and now we have this list of reductions reported by the Minister, many of which have not been reflected in decreased prices in the retail shops. We have such items as ties, readymade garments, enamel ware, aluminium ware, putty for housing schemes, paints and varnishes. That is the list of commodities the prices of which were reported to have been decreased. I should like the Minister to say if he can confirm that even these small decreases of anything from 2½ per cent. to 7½ per cent. have actually been reflected in the prices charged in retail shops, and whether he can give any proof that the reductions have affected consumers. I may add that if they have, they do not by themselves effect any substantial reduction in the cost of living.
Again we have the Taoiseach, in reply to a question by Deputy Cowan, starting to make the inevitable explanations. We awaited these explanations with much interest. We saw the question on the Order Paper, and we waited to see what he would say. We found that he had to make, in respect of a number of items, exactly the same excuse as any person in his position would have to make—that the cost of raw materials coming in from abroad had not gone down, that he saw, in fact, little hope for any substantial reduction in the cost of living until industrial and agricultural production had increased. That was not the statement made by members of the Government Party prior to the election. They had not really to increase agricultural and industrial production to make the cost of living cheaper for the housewife. They represented then that they hoped to be able to discover all sorts of hidden devices in the Department of Industry and Commerce, all sorts of evidence that businessmen had entered into a conspiracy with members of the Government to maintain high profits and high prices, that, in return for their political support, price control machinery was not to be operated against these businessmen, and that the officials had been ordered not to interfere with these firms. We have had none of these revelations so far, and, I venture to say, no such revelations will be produced by the members of the Government, because that was nothing but election bluff. It was thoroughly dishonest, and now we see the result of it.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce in a further effort to bring down the cost of living has made statements contradictory to those made by the Minister for Social Welfare, in that he has clearly indicated that a time has been reached when wages should no longer be increased. He has suggested on at least two occasions to the workers that the only effect of increases in wages is to increase prices. On the contrary, Deputy Larkin, who apparently still supports the inter-Party Government, has twice warned the Government in the course of addresses at trade union meetings that he is not satisfied with the effort made to reduce prices and that, naturally, wages will have to go on increasing. So, the Minister for Finance recommends that wages be stabilised, the Labour Party recommends that wages should be increased, and the public can take their choice.
Incidentally, the Taoiseach suggested that one of the ways of reducing the cost of living was to enable an increase in industrial production to take place. Materials are now in fuller supply. No doubt, there will be some increase in industrial production, but I know of a number of promoters of industry who have not yet made up their minds whether to go into new production or to extend their production, as they are still waiting to find out what the final level of taxation will be, whether the Labour Party's extreme views are going to win the day or whether the Fine Gael Party's more conservative views are going to win the day, and it is unlikely that there will be a very large-scale increase in new production unless the Government can give some idea that they have a stable policy in regard to wage levels and in regard to taxation levels. At present, as I have said, the public are uncertain.
I should like also to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he thinks that the controls upon the use of building materials for housing purposes are having the desired effect. We heard great talk during the election about the vast amounts of materials and labour that were supposed to be utilised for luxury building. It was repeated over and over again that the facts of the situation were that of the total value of all building licences issued in the previous two years only 5 per cent. were utilised for recreational or tourist purposes, and still the talk went on. As a result of the new Government's action, a number of controls have been tightened in various directions and builders have to wait for a considerable period in order to secure licences for this or that commodity.
I should like to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to review the action taken by the Minister for Health in Great Britain. When the Labour Government came into office they instituted a number of severe controls, so severe that materials piled up in warehouses and the effect of the controls was, not to encourage building of the right kind, but to discourage all building. It would seem to me that it may be necessary for the Minister for Industry and Commerce to review present controls to see whether they are having the desired effect, namely, that of stimulating the building of workers' houses and the building of new industries and hospitals, stimulating construction of all kinds useful to the community at large, because I have received a number of complaints from builders and allied trades that these controls are having harmful effects.
The former Government when they left office claimed that they had maintained prices at a reasonable level and that if prices had gone up it was due largely to an increase in agricultural prices, that any other increases that had taken place could only have a marginal effect on the cost of living. We said that there were over 50 States where the cost of living had gone up more than here. We claimed that we had decided to levy subsidies of a reasonable character and that if we had taxed the people more by arranging for more subsidies we could have made our figure in comparsion with England more favourable. We heard frequent reference to the wonderful success of New Zealand in maintaining a low cost of living and we replied to that that New Zealand was a country where every farmer had an average of 200 acres and that, because of that, 80 per cent. of all New Zealand's food-stuffs was exported and, that being the case, it was very much easier to maintain the cost of food-stuffs retailed in New Zealand at a low figure and to maintain price controls and subsidy controls of a kind which would make it possible for them to reflect an increase of only 25 per cent. in the cost of living, compared with the beginning of this war. Everybody knows that in this country for the last 25 years the proportion of agricultural produce exported has been much lower in comparsion and, therefore, the cost of maintaining subsidies, the cost of maintaining price controls, is relatively greater for our people to bear and, as a result, if subsidies are to be increased, the cost rises to the taxpayer. A level of subsidy has to be found which is reasonable and which will enable the poorest man to buy the necessary food-stuffs and at the same time maintain taxation at levels which can be borne by the people as a whole.
We claimed we had done a fairly good job. We claimed that our cost of living increase compared favourably with that of a great many countries, that there were very few countries where the cost of living had gone up less than here, and that in most of those countries there were special circumstances which could explain the fact that the increase had not been so great.
Finally, we are still looking for this great and substantial reduction in the cost of living. We are still waiting for the miracle to be achieved. We are still waiting for the great groups of profiteers arriving in the country in expensive cars to find out that their profits are to be slashed so that there will not be a decrease of 2½ or 5 or 10 per cent. in the cost of living, but the substantial decrease looked for in the case of most of the electors of this country who supported the present Government.
