I now want to make a further suggestion as to what the purpose of a Financial Resolution is. IfI understand the procedure, the purpose of a Financial Resolution is to enable the Minister to collect into the Exchequer the proceeds of a tax or fee levied and it is apparently the intention to defray the cost of carrying out this inspection of the quality of filling material by the imposition of a licence fee which is hereafter to be determined. This Financial Resolution gives the Minister authority to draw those moneys into the Exchequer and to use them for the general purposes of the Exchequer. That can or cannot be a proviso which has inherent dangers. It can be used very easily, if the licence fee is fixed sufficiently high, to prevent new entrants to the trade, and to create monopolistic practices. I am not so sure that that is not the purpose of this Financial Resolution. There are a couple of old hakes floating around in this business in this country at the present time. They are well established. They have had protection for a long time. It would pay them well to persuade the responsible Minister to fix a fee of 100 guineas for a licence to enter into this trade.
If such a fee were fixed farewell then to competition evermore. I am not so sure that that is not the purpose of this Financial Resolution. I would like the Minister for Health to guarantee that in regard to licences to be issued in connection with the relevant section of the Act and the Financial Resolution we are now considering he would undertake now to make two provisos. The first is that the fee should be a nominal fee or certainly a fee which would not exceed a certain figure leaving himself a discretion within that limit. The second proviso is that the conditions for securing a licence would be uniform for everybody and that once those conditions were laid down anybody conforming to them would have a right to demand a licence as of right.