I move:
That the Control of Manufactures Regulations, 1932, laid on the Table of the Seanad on the 13th December, 1932, pursuant to Section 12 of the Control of Manufactures Act, 1932, shall be and are hereby annulled.
I want to assure the House at the outset that it is not the intention or expectation that the House will agree to this motion, but, as Senators know, it affords me the only proper constitutional opportunity of raising the very important issues involved in this Order. The House will remember that, with great difficulty, it persuaded the Government to accept, or forced on the Government, an amendment which finds expression in this Order. It was an amendment to the effect that the Minister must by Order state the grounds to which he will have regard in the issue of licences. In fact, I would suggest that these reasons strike at the root of the whole measure. You have now the reasons stated in this Order and I suggest that they must occasion very considerable alarm. They fall under a number of heads. The first head to which the Minister has regard is whether the requirements in connection with new manufacture licences are already met or likely to be met by existing concerns. Picture yourself a Minister met with a problem of that kind— having to say to a person coming in here with, perhaps, a scientific process capable of unforeseen development, involving matters, perhaps, which deal with a new invention. No Minister could posibly say that the requirements as to those proposed processes are likely to be met or are met by existing concerns. That regulation can have only one effect—the effect of limiting enterprise and the mere revelation of such an outlook will deter people from seeking to establish business in this country. I heard it stated once of a man that he was so clever he could unscrew the inscrutable. That might apply to any Minister who would attempt, except in the very simplest of cases, to determine an issue of that kind. It displays an utter ignorance of the unforeseen forces that operate in business. The whole essence of enterprise is the things that you cannot see or cannot weigh. If all the cards are on the table would not everything be so simple? It is the unforeseen things which are always there, the new things which suddenly arise, and which cannot be foreseen, that justify the free play and flexibility of private enterprise, and that are the driving force behind initiative and spontaneous endeavour.
Then as to popular taste, how can the Minister possibly assess popular taste? A man comes in to deal in new fashions. Does the Minister suggest that the present standard of fashion should be stereotyped and is sufficiently and adequately met, and that if a person comes in with new ideas he should be met merely with the attitude that what is already there is good enough and that what our people have amply satisfies for the future the requirements of the consumers? What about scientific development? How can the Minister foresee that and in considering an application for a licence gauge the potentialities of scientific development? It can only mean stereotyping the present conditions on a grand drab basis and destroying all the imaginative qualities which go to make civilisation worth while. It also involves, if I may say so, the exclusion of brains, because no person with brains is going to come in and submit to the interrogation that a condition of that kind involves.
The next thing is that the Minister is to have regard to the ownership of capital. I suggest that what we want is all the capital we can get from anywhere—from China, Japan or Timbuctoo. What we are suffering from is a lack of capital. The Minister may know of a recent enterprise to raise capital in this country for a clothing company by private subscription. He probably knows that the people of this country were not too ready, in spite of the economic outlook, to come to the assistance of the new enterprise. What we want is people of enterprise to come in and fertilise industry, increase the consuming power, and make things cheaper and more abundant. That is the basis of all progress. This attitude of having regard to the ownership of capital is reactionary in the extreme.
Then we have the next thing: the ability or resources of the applicant. Perhaps the Minister may remember the case of Lever Brothers. The first founder of that industry started in a small shop. Who could then possibly foretell what that was going to develop into? Who could gauge the abilities or the resources of that pioneer? In the same way, a person will come along with very little to show. He has got brains and enterprise—things no Minister or anyone else can assess—yet he is to be examined on that basis. There again, I suggest, the whole attitude is utterly reactionary and against the free play of enterprise, which we all want and which is the only basis on which a country and its civilisation can prosper.
Then the Minister is to have regard to the locality of the works. That again is an intolerable condition to impose on anyone who knows better than any Minister can know. A person of enterprise comes along and he has to put the works where, in his opinion, he can do best. Why should he be limited except by the limitation implied in town planning and conditions of that kind? It is his own money and he is prepared to risk it. Why should he not be allowed to go where the law allows and not where the Minister in his wisdom suggests he should go?
Then again the Minister is to have regard to the amount of local employment that is likely to be afforded. Throughout all this, the person who seems to be disregarded is the consumer. The national employer is purported to be protected under the measure and the worker is purported to be protected, but the poor consumers, who are far more numerous, seem to be entirely neglected. If a person comes in with a modern process that demands little labour, why should he be debarred? Presumably, the effect of a process largely mechanical, is that the goods will be produced more cheaply. Should not that be the object of all enterprise and efficiency? I am reminded in this respect of a resolution that the Waterford County Council, I think, tried to pass, in which they called upon the county surveyor to do all the work without machinery. The county surveyor suggested that the farmers should do all their work with spades. We are to try to regulate and stop the march of progress. That is an attitude, no doubt well meant in the interest of labour, which must in the long run destroy enterprise and react on the consumer.
Then the origin of the plant and equipment is another question. A man of enterprise who wants to come in is not going to be limited or affected by the origin of his plant. He may require highly technical machinery. He has to get it where he can and should be allowed to get it where he can and not be debarred, if he wishes to come in for the good of the country, and incidentally for his own gain. Anyone who comes in here to spend money is also for the good of the country.
As if all these conditions were not enough, the Minister must have regard to the general economic conditions of the country. Lest he left any loophole by which he might not be able to refuse a licence or tie up the licensee sufficiently, he must have regard to the general economic conditions of the country. The Minister for Agriculture not long ago was making sport of Senator Counihan's amendment in which he had a lot about general conditions or otherwise. I consider the Minister is open to that charge here. Where he has not specific power, he is taking general power.
I raise this question on broad lines and as a warning of the tendencies in Government circles towards enterprise. It is because it is so serious that I have raised it. People who have brains and energy may want to make money. Undoubtedly nobody is going into business except to make money. They are not going in for the good of other people. That is an attitude that I find voiced in certain quarters, that people are going into business for the good of the community. That is only incidental. They are risking their money for their own good and for profit and you cannot get away from that. I would strongly advise the Minister, when people come along with mealy-mouthed talk of patriotism and doing things for the good of the people, that he should be very suspicious of them. Charity begins at home, and what is left over after they have their share will be for the good of the people. The more people you can get to risk their money the better. Capital may be lost. That is the way it is always. All the amenities of life, such as wireless and cinemas, have all been the result of enterprise and money risked, and a large amount of employment given in the process.
I raise this point and I think it is very serious because if these licences are going to be given or withheld in the spirit that this Order implies, it will be a very serious day for the country. The country will go back to a low, drab level of existence, deprived of progress and of all stimulus to enterprise. For that reason I ask the House at least to give an opportunity to the Minister to make his case in favour of this Order.