The effect of this Bill is to confirm ten Orders made under the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act, 1932. Orders Nos. 1 and 6 in the Schedule relate to buckets. Prior to the making of the Orders the duty on buckets was limited to the complete article. Senators are, no doubt, aware of the emphasis which is being placed on exports by nearly all countries since the end of the war. A corollary of this policy is that wherever possible countries are concentrating on the export of manufactured or partly manufactured articles rather than on raw materials. These factors operated in the case of the raw materials for bucket making and, accordingly, there was a grave danger that, on the basis of the existing duty, the degree of manufacture of buckets carried on in the country would diminish and that the work would become restricted to the assembly or finishing off of buckets imported in a partially manufactured condition. The two Orders in the Schedule confirm the duty imposed and extend it to component parts of buckets and partially manufactured buckets.
Order No. 2 relates to woollen knitted wear. The revised duties on clothing which were reintroduced in January, 1948, achieved, on the whole, the purposes for which they were intended, with the exception of hosiery. An examination of the position with respect to hosiery showed that the situation was not unsatisfactory in the case of cotton and rayon underwear and hose and in the case of woollen hose, including socks. Imports of rayon hose are, however, subject to quota restriction in addition to the tariff. The output, sales and employment of the concerns producing cotton and rayon underwear and hose and woollen hose, including socks, increased each year since 1946. In the case of woollen outerwear, sales have remained static, while imports continued at the substantial rate of approximately £500,000 per annum. In these circumstances, it was decided to increase the full rate of duty on woollen underwear and outerwear to 40 per cent. and to restore the suspended preferential rate of 33? per cent. The restoration was carried out under an Order under the Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act and the Order is not scheduled in the Bill.
The purpose of Order No. 3 is to remove a loophole in the main Order which it amends. The cloths covered by this Order are used mainly as linings, and the Revenue Commissioners were authorised to exempt cloths which had been subjected to proofing. It was found that cloths were being brought in which were intended for and were suitable for use as linings but had been subjected to a process of proofing merely for the purpose of evading the objects of the duty. The effect of the amending Order is to restrict the exemption to cloths proofed by a process involving the use of rubber or rubber solution.
Orders Nos. 4, 5, 8 and 9 may be taken together because their purpose is to protect a number of new industries. The first of these industries is the production of wide elastics suitable for braces and suspenders by a new company in Ennis. Senators are aware that the production of other varieties of elastic up to one inch in width has been carried on at Ennis for a number of years. The second of these industries is the production of files and hack saw blades at Newbridge. Apart from general economic considerations, there are definite advantages in having essential tools of this nature produced in the country. The third new industry is the production of wallboard from straw at Athy. This industry is valuable not only from the point of view that it produces an article which has a large and growing use and which has hitherto been entirely imported but also from the point of view that it uses straw as a raw material and provides a ready market in a tillage area for surplus straw.
Order No. 7 merely gives statutory effect to what was already an administrative fact by exempting from scope of the duty elementary parts, fixed resistances and fixed condensers for the importation of which, in the past, duty-free facilities were given. Elementary or completely unassembled parts are the raw material of the wireless industry in this country and, in fact, in other countries. The production of elementary parts represents a separate aspect of wireless manufacture which is not yet being undertaken here.
Order No. 10 was designed to meet a specific situation caused by the export from Hong Kong of cheap cotton shirts. The landed cost of these shirts was considerably below the price at which the raw material for similar cheap shirts could be bought by Irish manufacturers. It may be that the danger from this sort of competition will grow in other respects in future but at present it is intended to confine the Order to the shirts mentioned. I may say that a number of orders were places for these shirts and the danger to our manufacturing concerns was imminent.
