I was rather glad to hear Senator Johnston start off to deal with the Bill in the realms of Greek philosophy and I hoped that at some time he would have looked at it from the point of view of Greek mythology as well. It is quite apposite that a Bill dealing with restrictive practices should in some way be associated with the Golden Fleece. I was hoping that the idea would run through his mind and that he would give us a description of the anti-social effects of Jasonism in the old days.
One of the most extraordinary phenomena witnessed in this House for a long time has been the number of Pharisees who have made their appearance in the Chamber as a result of the Bill. People have held up their hands in horror and have said: "Thank God, I am not as other men." People have cried: "Is it not nearly time somebody thought of these restrictive practices which are confined solely, by the grace of God, to manufacturers and retail traders?" Is it not a terrible thing that, in a so-called Christian country, where the majority of us are Catholics, we should have such an anti-social outlook as that which has been expressed by many speakers during this discussion—a completely anti-social outlook in so far as they are quite prepared to condemn any other section of the community but their own for the sins which this Bill says are being committed against the public? They went even further than the Minister. The Minister was extremely careful to say that restrictive practices were only "alleged" and he repeated time and again the word "allegation." Not once did he say they were there, but it was said for him by other people who spoke of manufacturers and traders as if they were the sole sinners in our community.
I oppose this Bill for no other reason than that it is an unfair Bill, a discriminatory Bill. If there are restrictive practices, they are not confined to any class of the community. I heard the Taoiseach recently, when speaking about the milk strike, say that he was not going to allow the public to be held up to ransom because of any class distinction or for the benefit of any section. But here we have a Bill which is obviously directed and stated to be directed against manufacturers and those engaged in trade. I go so far as to say that, in the professions, there are restrictive practices, unfair practices. The labour element is protected by law and why that should be sufficient in itself to remove them from the operation of the Bill, I do not know. Even banking practice has its restrictions, but none of these have been singled out for penalties or for odium. Nobody is held up to the public gaze as the great sinner of the new Ireland, but the manufacturer and the retailer. This Bill is unfair in that it discriminates against people who, it is alleged, have engaged in unfair and restrictive practices.
The Federation of Irish Manufacturers at a general meeting held in the Gresham Hotel passed a resolution on this matter. The federation called to that meeting all the trade organisations of prominence in the country and the meeting passed a resolution which reads:—
"That while opposed to restrictive trade practices no matter by whom carried out this meeting, being of the opinion that the terms of the Restrictive Trades Practices Bill, 1952, give wide, dangerous and dictatorial powers which could be used to the disadvantage of the public and would and could lead to the introduction in effect of a socialist form of State; that we call on the Government to defer consideration of the Bill and to meet representatives of the various trades associations with a view to discussing the practices which the Minister has in mind so that a satisfactory and agreed Bill would be introduced."
Despite that resolution passed by that representative body and despite the fact that various members of the federation in various places had spoken against the discriminatory nature of the Bill, no move was made by the Minister to discuss with any of these people their objections to the Bill.
It has been stated here that this is another form of inquisition, a new method of inroad upon the private lives of people in trade. I wonder how far Governments are justified in that line of conduct. I quoted already in this House Oliver Puff and I always think of him when I hear Ministers talking about private enterprise and about Government policy generally in relation to private enterprise, and then see them implementing, in their laws, restrictions upon the developments of private enterprise. The Minister may say that these are anti-social restrictions, as Senator Johnston has dubbed them, but I would say, as Senator Colgan said yesterday, that he has plenty other means of suppressing these anti-social activities, if they are anti-social, apart from the implementation of such a Bill as this. This Bill is an extremely dangerous Bill, even for the people who now applaud and welcome it. It is dangerous for Senators Colgan and McMullen, who spoke yesterday and some day they will learn that for themselves. The Minister has even suggested that the legal protection which they now enjoy and which removed them from the operation of the Bill may be taken away and we then may have the Pharisaical position of my having to get up here to defend trade unionism as being a good thing in itself. This Bill, in its implications, is one of the most dangerous Bills that has been introduced since the Oireachtas was set up. It seeks to give, through the Minister, powers to a commission which I do not believe should be given and which may be argued to be derogatory to the Constitution itself.
The Minister agreed that restrictive practices in themselves are not necessarily a bad thing. We have them all around us. The art of living is a restrictive practice in itself. Restrictive practices even go so far as to involve the Press, finance and every phase of one's life. Even in our domestic lives, restrictive practices exist. These may or may not be in themselves a bad thing. It is assumed that because certain people are not mentioned in this Bill and cannot be affected by it that all the other people affected by it must, of necessity, be bold, bad men out to rob and prosper at any cost to the other members of the community. On behalf of Irish manufacturers, I object to that, but that is the inference that will be taken from the Bill.
The Minister never said that himself. As far as I can recall, he said that they may apply only to a very few. The trouble about it is that it is not what he said but what others have said which has created a state of mind in the country which will be ruinous to industry. The manufacturer and the trader is held up to abuse and calumny. That is the new outlook in Catholic Ireland. That is the sort of idea which is being fostered because of this Bill. The Bill singles out people as being new Publicans, so to speak.
The Bill, apart from the motives implied in it, gives the Minister extraordinary powers to create a new fair trading commission composed of ordinary human beings who are to be definitors, but they have not got any theological basis upon which to define what is or what is not a restrictive practice. Restrictive practices are not even defined in law. The section, if it has any effect at all, should be completely removed, with the exception of paragraph (k). The word "other" might also be removed.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the point raised by Senator Johnston when he stated that there are far too many distributors and too few producers. If we do not want that state of society, we should go out and change it. We should either be a socialistic State or a private enterprise State. You had the extraordinary case of some Americans coming across to tell us that we were neither, but you cannot have a foot in both camps. Both sections of the people are held up to ridicule as a result of the implications in this Bill. Manufacturers and traders are held up as being dangerous and as the boys they are after. It is a peculiar comment to make that the bold, bad men are only business people and manufacturers. They are the types who are not politically banded together and have not voting strength, but maybe, as a result of the continued pressure on the economic life of the country and of the outcry by some of the Pharisees, something will arise out of it and the State will not legislate purely on a class basis.
This Bill contains extraordinary disciplinary powers and powers of penalty. The ordinary power of appeal which is enjoyed by the humblest person in the land will be refused to anybody found committing or infringing this Bill when it becomes an Act. There is nothing in the Bill to give me the right of appeal to the courts in the event of the commission having wrongly instructed the Minister. The sole arbiter is the Minister. I am not referring to the Minister or any other Minister in any personal sense. It is a very serious matter to give any Minister, no matter who he is, the right to decide, on the advice of a group of definitors whom we know nothing about, that I or anybody else is committing an anti-social act, but that is what this Bill is tantamount to.
The manufacturers and the traders are the bold, bad boys. I feel quite indignant about this. I know that this Bill was prompted by the idea that somebody was getting away with murder. The Federation of Irish Manufacturers has time and again stressed the fact that they do not stand for anybody amassing wealth under unfair conditions at the expense of other members of the community, nor does the federation oppose the Minister's statement that restrictive practices are in being, but they do oppose the Bill and they do so purely because it is a class matter.
If the Bill has to go through—and listening to the speeches from the Labour members and others it seems that it will go through—I would suggest to the Minister that there are many changes which he should consider before making the Bill law.
I would have thought that it would have been wise for the Minister to consult the organisations that passed a resolution in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. He should have given them the benefit of a hearing. No matter what the Minister may think, all wisdom does not reside in the ministerial body. We go out and talk about democracy but, nevertheless, the people mainly affected by this Bill were not consulted. The people mainly affected by the Bill ought to have received a hearing in order to find out what they thought of the Bill or whether they agree or disagree with it. They were never even heard. In order to become popular to-day all one has to say is that the manufacturers and the traders are the people who are getting away with it, but God help the farmers and labour.
I suggest to the Minister that the Bill needs an immense amount of revision and I would suggest that, before he proceeds, even with the great majority he will have in this House, he may consider its wider application before it is too late. If there are restrictive practices and you allege that they are not confined to people in trade, and if you are going to pass a Bill which itself is indiscriminate to a confined class of people, and you say that that class only are carrying on restrictive practices, then you are misleading and anti-social. If you have to have a restrictive practices Bill, why not have a Bill which would apply to all sections of the community. It is not my job to argue that there are restrictive practices in all classes of the community, but it is alleged that there are, just as it is alleged there are restrictive trade practices.
As I remarked before, under the present economic system we go around and create monopolies. It is an arguable thing, but it may be a good thing if we had only one source of distribution for one type of goods and so escape any restrictive practice employed, because you could only get, for example, motor cars from Senator Summerfield and shirts from myself. It may possibly be quite a good thing for the community. So long as you have the present economic build-up and are prepared to continue to live with thousands of distributors, then you are bound to meet with ordinary human frailty, and it is not fair that these human frailties should be ascribed to one section of the community.
This Bill confines itself to restrictive practices in trade, and I am protesting as strongly as I can against its unfairness and discrimination, and protesting against many of its clauses. There is sub-section (5) of Section 9, for example, which gives the Minister immense power, and I doubt if any Minister in any country has been given any greater powers, even in madly socialistic countries like Russia and elsewhere. In Section 9, the Minister may, having considered the report of the commission under Sections 6 or 7, if he thinks fit, by Order, prohibit specified arrangements and agreements concerning the supply and distribution of goods and may make such provision as he thinks necessary to ensure equitable treatment of all persons in regard to the rendering of any such services and the avoidance of unfair practices.
Now, that is all right, so long as we have the present Minister in office, or the Ministers we have had in office, but a day may come when a Minister may interpret that Bill in such a fashion that all sorts of repercussions which were never envisaged before might occur. I would say that a lot of the people who have welcomed this Bill have taken up a burning torch that may have an extraordinary effect upon themselves. It is all right now, because they are not affected and because they say, as I remarked before: "We are not as other men."
It is a dangerous and anti-social Bill in the implications behind it: it is a bad Bill, because it is a class Bill, and I appeal to this House, because of its sense of justice, to reject the Bill fully and completely. It could have very serious repercussions on our industrial development, not because it did not set out to do a good thing and was not given consideration, but because of its bad moulding and the possibilities of misinterpretation.