This Bill seeks to set up standard hours for the opening and closing of all houses, irrespective of size and the number of assistants. The requirements are:—On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays the working hours shall be 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; on Fridays 9 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., and on Saturdays 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. That means that 1½ hours are being added on Saturdays. The number of working hours throughout the six days will be 1½ hours less than at present. When the Bill that subsequently became an Act was going through this House, I, and, I think, other Senators, were under the impression that it was an agreed Bill. I find that it was nothing of the kind. It was a Bill engineered by a certain section of the drapery trade, and they did not even agree amongst themselves on that point. I find that some of those houses close on Wednesday and some on Saturdays, and I hold in my hands letters from a trade organisation which refute the allegations that they were a party to the deal or that they signed the documents printed and published.
SHOP HOURS (DRAPERY TRADES, DUBLIN AND DISTRICTS) BILL, 1926—SECOND STAGE.
CATHAOIRLEACH
Are you speaking against your own motion?
I am speaking against the 1925 Act. This amending Bill will get rid of Sunday trading. A considerable amount of Sunday trading is carried on in the bye-streets. In addition to that there is a certain section of drapers who keep open after 7.30 up to 10 o'clock. Those are people who do not employ assistants of any kind. In addition to that, I am informed that a number of houses are carried on by the wives of men who are employed in the large drapery houses, and that when they leave these large drapery houses on Saturday afternoons they return home and assist at the carrying on of business in their own private establishments. That, naturally, causes a certain amount of hardship to the other members of the trade. I think if uniform hours are adopted all round all that would be got rid of. I have here in writing—and I presume other members of the Seanad got a copy—a document from the Merchant Drapers' Association of Dublin drawing attention to the Shop Hours (Drapery Trades, Dublin and Districts) Bill, and referring to the statement that this was passed to ratify an agreement entered into at a meeting of the drapery trade at which a certain number of those promoting the present Bill were present. Now, I hold here in my hand a number of letters from members of the Association who disclaim having ever signed the document said to have been put before them and whose names were used. I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
I beg to second the Second Reading of this Bill. I may mention that i have some practical knowledge of the working of these small establishments. I say without hesitation that this is a reasonable Bill and is not intended to inflict hardship on anyone, least of all on the workers. Heretofore these small shops kept open until 11 o'clock on Saturday nights. The 1925 Act came on and reduced the hours to 7.30 on Saturday night. The statement made here in the Seanad that the hour was agreed on has been proved since to be incorrect.
How was it proved?
It was proved by Senator Moran. He has in his possession letters which prove it. Now this Bill will inflict no hardship. It will reduce the working hours per week considerably. All that is being asked in this Bill are 47 hours a week. That is not an unreasonable request. If you do not agree with that you put a number of small traders out of business, and you inflict a great hardship. It has been said that nobody, particularly ladies, will go out to buy drapery at late hours in the evening, on Saturday evening particularly, but the class of people, as far as I understand, who go out to buy drapery on Saturday evenings cannot afford to dress up as they would wish, and they cannot go out and buy in the fashionable parts earlier in the day. They are poor people. If you curtail the hours unreasonably or unnecessarily you are inflicting a great hardship on these poor people and you are withdrawing facilities which they had for years— of going out in the dusk of the evening mostly in scanty attire for reasons for which they are not responsible, and under conditions for which they are not to blame. I would ask the Seanad not to take that privilege away from those people. It is no hardship at all on drapery assistants to work 47 hours a week with a half-day on Wednesday. These assistants have very little to do during the rest of the week until Saturday, and they are kept on largely to my own personal knowledge to enable their employers to cope with the business that has to be done from 6 o'clock to 9 o'clock on Saturday evenings. If you reject this Bill you will be throwing a number of people out of employment, and that is not a thing that can be encouraged at the present time because we have too many people on the unemployment list. I do not know that it is necessary for me to go any further into this matter. This Bill only applies to Dublin, and as I do not live in Dublin——
Hear, hear.
It might not concern me so much, but I take it that if it is passed here in Dublin it will gradually work its way into the country; and down through the country I know that the market day is usually Saturday in the small towns, and if you curtail those hours you will be interfering considerably with traders. For that reason I second the Bill.
I oppose this Bill, and in doing so I wish to express a hope that the good sense of the Senators will not allow them to be humbugged by what they have heard from the proposer and seconder. The Seanad will remember that only last year, after considerable discussion, an Act was passed on the motion of Senator Douglas to legislate with regard to the closing hours for certain classes of shops in the Dublin area on Saturday nights. After considerable discussion the Oireachtas showed its good sense by passing the Bill. This Act came into operation only last July, and immediately it came into operation certain vested interests set to work and within three months after the Bill had been passed another measure was introduced into the other House to repeal that Act. The sole object of this Bill is not to regulate the hours of labour in the drapery trade but to torpedo the Bill that was passed here last year regulating the hours of closing in the drapery trade on Saturday nights. Senator Moran talked about having letters from certain people about this Bill. A statement was made by Senator Douglas when he introduced the Act which this Bill is intended to stultify. That statement was that the Bill was introduced at the request of the Merchant Drapers' Association in Dublin to give legislative effect to an agreement arrived at between the Merchant Drapers' Association on the one hand and the Union that caters for the assistants on the other hand. We hear a lot of talk about establishing a better feeling between employers and workmen's associations and to get them to come to agreement in the proper way by arbitration and conciliation. All these things were given effect to in Senator Douglas's Bill last year which gave legislative effect to an agreement arrived at in conference. The good sense of the Seanad passed the Bill, and, as I said before, immediately it was passed, some small vested interest set to work to get a Bill introduced into the other House. That Bill had to be abandoned afterwards. Now the sole object of this Bill is to try and get back to the bad system of late Saturday night shopping in Dublin. That is the sole reason for it. There is no good in talking about regulating hours. The hours have been regulated and the drapers and their assistants are getting on all right. The sole object is to enable them to keep open on Saturday night until 9 o'clock. We ask the Seanad not to stultify itself by passing this Bill.
Last year you passed an Act, and if you pass this Bill it means that you are going to stultify yourselves. We know the evils of the Saturday late shopping and the arguments we heard from the Senator who seconded the Bill are not convincing. He said he did not know Dublin well, and it was obvious from his remarks that he did not. His description of the poor people coming out half-naked to shop is too amusing for words. The Dublin people do not require these shops to be kept open to shop, and I say that even if the Dublin people do want that that they should be compelled to shop at reasonable hours. People should not be allowed to have other people's sons and daughters slaving until 9 o'clock to meet their convenience. Some other measures must be taken by the State to regulate the hours of labour, and I earnestly hope that this House will not stultify itself by giving a Second Reading to what is a reactionary measure, and by going back on a measure which did not come into operation until last July.
I am not going to take any active part with regard to the discussions on this Bill, for the simple reason that the Union catering for the employees affected recently said that they had no faith in political action but based their faith on industrial action. I am going to vote against this Bill, because I think it is an insult to the Oireachtas that a number of what we may call hucksters' shops can proceed to exploit the Oireachtas. A Bill was passed which I hope had the serious consideration of both Houses last year, and here is a Bill within less than a year's time, to repeal the previous Act. I think we are going to make ourselves a laughing-stock if this is the kind of legislation that is going to be passed, and if the Oireachtas is going to be exploited in that way by a small section of the city.
On page 68 of the Report of Special Committee on the previous Bill it was pointed out that the Bill now before the House had the support only of eight per cent. of the occupiers of shops affected, and that they employed 2.7 of the assistants and paid only 7.5 per cent. of the taxes, and that they bore less than 3 per cent. of the total wages paid by the trade affected. This is the section that is proceeding to move the Parliament of the country in respect to their hours. It is only in special circumstances we should proceed to legislate locally in matters of this kind. Certainly we should not allow ourselves to be made a laughing-stock and to undo to-morrow what we do to-day. The workers are pleaded as being the chief justification for opening those shops. We, who live amongst the workers and are in constant and hourly touch with them, never hear of this at all. It is all a humbug. A suggestion is made that a tremendous amount of goods will remain unsold unless those shops remain open until 9 o'clock at night. In other words, people who buy things will not get them unless they get them after 7.30 and unless the shops are kept open they are not going to buy these articles. The poor assistants are going to be out of employment and the traders are going to become bankrupt. Senator MacGuinness advances the suggestion that poor people with poor clothes all have to wait until it is sufficiently late to go out to save their decency. At 9 o'clock on a summer's evening it is as bright as it is at 7.30, so that a person with bad clothes who cannot go out at 7.30 cannot go out at 9.30. I hope a more serious argument than that which Senator Moran has advanced will be put forward. That is no argument, and the Bill is only trying to toy with the Houses. I do not think the Oireachtas should allow themselves to be imposed on.
I was one of those who opposed the Shop Hours Bill last year. I am equally opposed to the longer hours which will result if this Bill, when read a second time, is not amended in Committee. I am very doubtful of what the effect would be if we refused to pass the Second Reading. It would be a very serious thing. It might be better for the Seanad to pass the Second Reading of the Bill and in Committee insert a later hour, 7.30. I may mention that there are several useful provisions for the workers in this Bill. I would like to call attention to the fact that by refusing the Second Reading to this Bill we might get ourselves into a difficult position without being able to secure the effect we desire.
On the whole, I am inclined to agree with Senator Brown. There are certain sections in this Bill which are an improvement on the provisions of the previous one. There are other sections which are rather curious in view of the attitude taken up by the opponents of the previous Bill. They further restrict the hours and I am opposed to that. This Bill takes away certain exemptions that were, I think, a flaw in the previous Bill. These exemptions were inserted in the endeavour to meet certain opposition. I think it was a mistake that these exemptions were inserted. To that extent this Bill would be an improvement on the other one.
As to the endeavour to get a late Saturday night shopping in Dublin, I am still totally opposed to it. I am in the peculiar position that I am connected with a firm that would gain something if this Bill were passed. That firm is at present bound in honour by what they conceive to be an agreement, to close at 6.30 p.m. while their neighbours close at 7.30 p.m. If this Bill were made law, they would be free from the binding effect of any previous agreement, and would be entitled to remain open until nine o'clock, like the other shop. It is my experience, no matter what may be said to the contrary, that the working classes do shop at the latest hour at which the shops remain open. As a result of a meeting —I will not argue whether it was or was not an agreement—organised by the Drapery Employers' Association, representing the vast majority of the shops, 7.30 closing was generally observed for a considerable period by what is known as the small shops, and 6.30 by those a little bit higher. The tendency was for business to be done during the last two hours. No one lost by that arrangement. It was only when a few people started to break that agreement that those who felt it was not fair, and who could not afford to keep the agreement, went back on it. That is a point of view that I have a good deal of sympathy with. At the same time one should not be hard on these firms, particularly the smaller ones, without a great deal of capital, who felt that they could not adhere to the agreement when it was being broken.
If this Bill cannot be amended, so far as it refers to Saturday night shopping, it is better to drop it. What I think the Seanad should do is to insert in Committee reasonable amendments dealing with Saturday nights rather than reject the Bill. I deliberately state, in view of the limited power of the Seanad, that it is not wise to reject any Bill, no matter how much opposed to it Senators may be. If you do so you take away the opportunity of amending it. I took that view on another Bill that I was opposed to, but I voted for the Second Reading, and I shall do the same in this case. It is not right to reject the Second Reading of a Bill. Let the Bill be passed now and be amended on the next stage. Senator Farren's views were very sound. I think it is better to try and make a clear issue between ourselves and the small majority in the Dáil. It is really not a question of working assistants but a question of late hours on Saturday nights that is involved. We can make that clear by amendment. That is the only reason I am inclined to support the Second Reading of the Bill.
CATHAOIRLEACH
I think I should mention that there is in the mind of some Senators an idea that a Bill that is rejected here comes into operation after a certain number of days, but that that does not apply to a Private Member's Bill. It does. There is no limitation in the Constitution. Any Bill, Private or otherwise, that is passed in the other House and is rejected here on Second Reading, automatically passes into law in the shape it leaves the other House.
I feel sure that what you have stated, sir, is correct. This matter, however, is only arising now, and possibly there could be a debate as to whether there is absolute obligation on the Minister. He held that under the section of the Constitution he was bound to send the Bill to the Governor-General. I would not like your statement to be taken unless it is one that you have carefully considered as an interpretation of that section of the Constitution. Undoubtedly if it applies to one Bill it applies, I think, to the other.
CATHAOIRLEACH
All I want to say, as regards the operation of that clause, that there is no distinction to be found between a Government Bill and a Private Member's Bill.
I move:—That the Committee Stage of the Shop Hours (Drapery Trades, Dublin and Districts) Bill, 1926, be taken on Wednesday, the 9th June.