Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 18 Jul 1962

Vol. 55 No. 9

Restriction of Imports Bill, 1962— Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. J. Lynch)

The purpose of this Bill is to give us power to restrict imports from Iron Curtain countries. Hitherto, we in Ireland have been practically alone among western countries in operating a non-discriminatory trade regime, and private traders, industrialists and others in general are free to import their goods and raw materials from any part of the world they like. On the other hand, the trading of Iron Curtain countries is conducted by State agencies, and they do so largely on the basis of securing corresponding facilities for export. Because of our non-discriminatory regime we find it difficult, and in many cases impossible, to export goods to Iron Curtain countries which we know they use and import from elsewhere, even though the same Iron Curtain countries can export freely to this country. The position is that we have no inducement to these countries to ensure that they will take exportable goods from us in return for goods we import from them. In many cases the balance of payments is hopelessly out of proportion as far as the quantity of goods we export to these countries and the quantity we import are concerned. An example was given in the Dáil, where it was stated by one of the Deputies that almost £1 million of goods is imported from one country as against an export quantity of some £125 worth. It is clear therefore from trade statistics such as these that this imbalance will have to be rectified and, unfortunately, it is an increasing imbalance in favour of these Iron Curtain countries. The purpose of the Bill is to give the Government power to ensure that we will have some means whereby we can sell goods to these Iron Curtain countries that they would otherwise buy from countries which have the means of exerting some pressure on them.

It may be said that we have in existing legislation, the Control of Imports Acts of 1934 to 1937, such power in relation at least to agricultural products but, unfortunately, the procedure these Acts require is not flexible enough to deal with the situation that has arisen. It is important to have as much flexibility in legislation as possible and the Bill is drafted therefore in the form to give the Government power in general terms to restrict imports. It is not the intention that Orders should be made restricting imports from specified countries immediately on the enactment of this legislation. It would be more desirable if we could improve the balance of trade between ourselves and these countries otherwise, and Orders would be made only where ordinary means failed and where our trading relations justified such action. It is true that there may be some disadvantages in the use of these powers in that traders in this country may have to pay a little more by going to countries other than Iron Curtain countries for the goods they need, but it will be in the general interest of the country that we have outlets for our exportable surpluses that would otherwise be denied to us. It is proposed, therefore, to use these powers only where other methods fail. I want to emphasise that it is not intended in any instance to use that power against countries with whom we have existing trade agreements or trading arrangements.

It may be suggested that the measure we propose now will result in an undesirable trend in that we will tend to increase our commercial contacts with the Iron Curtain countries but, on balance, in the interests of the country and of the economy, it would be preferable to have to increase these contacts than that the present situation should be allowed to continue. That situation is certainly not to our benefit but only to the benefit of those State-trading Iron Curtain countries. Therefore, I feel the Bill will meet with the approval of the House. I can assure the House it will be used only for the purpose as stated.

Mr. McGuire

We must all support this Bill which is a very short one and which is a very general one, although the Minister tells us it is intended to be used in connection with our trade or lack of trade with Iron Curtain countries. It is only sensible that in the business of the State one would expect a fair balance of trade as between any country and ourselves. That is not only sensible but accepted housekeeping in connection with every State. As the Minister told us, the purpose of this Bill is to deal with the imbalance that is very great in our trading with the Iron Curtain countries. We have no pressure that we can exert on these countries where all buying is done by the State itself. Consequently this Bill, if it ensures that there will be a fair balance of trade with these people, if we have to deal with them, will be worthwhile.

Some people have raised, and are raising quite rightly, the whole question of dealing with communist countries at all. My own feeling is that we should not do so unless we have to. We should trade with them only as a last resort, for our most urgent needs which cannot be got elsewhere and which are absolutely necessary for our economy and the welfare of our own people.

The Minister did not refer here, but he did in the Dáil, to the question of raw materials. It could quite easily happen that the raw materials which we need for our exports, and which are essential and will be more and more essential to keep our economy viable, may have to come from some of these countries. I do not think anyone would argue that we should not buy from the devil himself, if it were a question of life and death. That is not an exaggeration because it could happen in the future that to have the necessary exports, we would have to import our raw materials from the cheapest possible markets. That is one case in which I could conceive that we would have to buy from the Iron Curtain countries. That is the time and place when this Bill will come into operation. We would all hope that a satisfactory bargain will be struck with those people and that we will get a favourable quid pro quo for our goods.

The only other point that emerges on this Bill is whether or not it conflicts with the advent of the Common Market and with the continuing control of imports. The Minister gave the answer to that in the Dáil which was that this machinery will be necessary, even if we enter the Common Market, for the purpose of implementing our obligations vis-á-vis countries outside the Common Market. Taking all those considerations into account, I support the Bill.

Professor Quinlan

I think we have the right Bill, and a very much overdue Bill, but that it is presented to us very definitely for the wrong reason. If I understand the Minister correctly, the reason for it is that we want to sell more to the Iron Curtain countries. That is, as I hope to show, absolute lunacy, and I shall go into it in detail because I think it necessary to put it on the records of this House that there is a case which proves conclusively that it is absolute lunacy. You cannot sell to the Iron Curtain countries.

First of all, I shall deal with the amount at issue. Two years ago, the gross figure of our imports from those countries was a little over £2,000,000 and we exported a couple of hundred thousand pounds worth of goods to them. Last year, that figure was doubled and our imports from them were up to almost £4,000,000, and we exported some few hundred thousands of pounds to them. Last year our private traders bought some £1,000,000 worth of goods from Russia and we were credited with having sold £129,000 worth of goods to Russia, but we did not. The British Embassy bought a chandelier for their new embassy and that accounted for £125,000.

We are quite soft towards Poland. We have naturally a tremendous sympathy for the Polish people and the plight in which they find themselves. Some people think that by buying goods from Poland, we are in some way helping them. Of course we are not because the country is operated as one giant agency, and consequently it does not affect the ordinary people of Poland whether or not we buy from them. Last year, we bought some £2,000,000 worth from them and they took some £200,000 worth in exchange.

The position in regard to Czechoslovakia is much the same. Their glassware is on sale here at ridiculously low prices, and completely undercutting the home products in many cases. That is the position, and we hope to balance that trade. In other words, we hope to get a mere £4,000,000 worth of additional outlets in those countries, if we can get them. With our present total exports of £160,000,000, it might be worth while because £4,000,000 cannot be despised, but £4,000,000 worth of trade in communist countries is not worth a box of matches as I hope to show by going into the position very carefully.

Their trade is not the type of trade you can develop or hold. The normal method of trade is to send a salesman with his products to develop an area and get the people accustomed to them, and in that way build up a trade pattern. What happens in the communist countries? Suppose we sold 10,000 tons of butter to Russia—and what a wonderful boon that would have been last spring, and she might have bought it from us. The following year we would develop some of the other countries and sell perhaps 15,000 tons of butter to them, or they might take our whole butter output. We go along with those markets and when she has us in her power, bang goes the contract, and the countries with which we used to trade and which we have forsaken for the sake of a slightly better price in the Iron Curtain countries, the countries which we have left high and dry, have been captured by others in the meantime. That is a dangerous process and I hope that before I finish I will have convinced the Minister to use this Bill effectively to stop this trade.

The Minister says that the only disadvantage is that we may be contaminated by certain contacts with those countries, that the people going there may be contaminated. I have no worries about that. The personal contacts are of little value or significance compared with other contacts which I hope I can show exist. It appears that the first thing we have to establish is whether or not the trade is good. That seems to be our philosophy. We have to weigh up the question of trade. What may appear to be good for the individual trader may not be good for his professional or occupational group. It may not be good for the group as a whole. It might have been to the short term advantage of the farmers, say, to have sold butter last spring, but it might not have been for the good of the nation as a whole.

The nation is a small fragment fitted into Western Europe and consequently there is a necessity for bringing trade under one central control. We have to ask ourselves then; what are we trading with? The first thing we have to recognise is that we are trading with Government agencies and that all economic and commercial transactions in those countries are governed by those agencies. There are no private trading firms with any degree of independence such as we have in our country. The private trading firms going out from here in the absence of control or restraint have run up these few millions of an adverse balance. Naturally, they have bought at the cheapest price they could and taken advantage of the offer, but in the long run that sort of thing invites disaster.

In those countries, no sphere of human activity is recognised as lying outside the jurisdiction of the State. That is what we mean by totalitarianism: All is for the State; all is in the State; all is by the State. We must examine carefully the objectives of those Iron Curtain countries. One can divide them readily into two groups: one, those that are led, directed and controlled from Moscow; the other, those that are led, directed and controlled from Peking. There is no other subdivision. We find that their ultimate objective, their whole reason for existence is to bring about the world revolution and the whole of communist morality means that anything that promotes that world revolution is good and anything that retards it is bad. There is no objective truth such as we are accustomed to but just this type of dubious communist morality that changes black into white overnight. It is all based on what they regard as the inevitability of world revolution, the historical necessity for this arising from the dialectic clash between the capitalist world and the proletariat, the property-less classes. They are committed to that.

That is their philosophy and everything is geared to that, and, as I hope to show, one means of bringing that about in their way of thinking is trade: if you can trade with the West, that is the means by which you undermine the West. All forms of violence are permissible and have been held to be permissible with one solitary exception: international war involving Russia. That must not be allowed to happen because that would place Russia, homeland of world revolution, in jeopardy, the homeland from which world revolution must radiate into the free world and encompass it. It is incompatible with communist thinking that capitalism can exist side by side with it. We may be fooled by this doctrine of co-existence, but that is not new. It was proclaimed by Lenin in 1924. It was given a different name then but it went all along the way and finally reached the gasping outside world in 1952 under the name co-existence, and praised as if the big bad Russian leopard of Lenin's period had changed its spots and that the lion and the lamb were going to lie down together in co-existence.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

What about the Bill?

Professor Quinlan

I am coming to the Bill. This is important to understand and I hope I will get across to Senator Ó Maoláin.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

If you talk about the Bill you will.

Professor Quinlan

One of the ways of bringing about world revolution is subversion; the other is trade. No less a person than the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Mr. Mikoyan, has strongly criticised the Soviet for its spending on armaments. He said there was no need for that, that it would be more profitable to trade with the West and that this would be a far quicker and surer means of bringing about world revolution. We should take Mr. Mikoyan seriously.

We have seen this fact of co-existence, the consolidation of the revolution and we have seen the fact that Russian troops have not been sent out on any of these forays in China, Korea or elsewhere.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

In my opinion this is entirely irrelevant to the Bill.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

In my opinion it is not.

Professor Quinlan

If you want to understand trade you must understand the philosophy behind it, the Russian plan behind it, or otherwise you will be like the business man who sees an opening and goes in and takes it. I want to show the pitfalls in that. The risk of international war is too great and Russia since 1924 has realised that there are other methods of bringing about the downfall of the free world: the fomentation of strikes, infiltration and propaganda and one of the most effective has been the attack on the economy of the West.

Now I shall go on to examine this attack in detail. I have given you the background. I have not, naturally, been able to go into it in the detail in which it should be examined but I have, I think, said sufficient to show that trade is just another arm of their attack. This attack is fourfold. First of all there is the tremendous drive for industrial expansion in Russia, China and the satellite countries. The second is industrial sabotage in the West by all forms of strikes which in turn raise costs and price the products of these countries out of the market. I hasten to add here that I am not in any way criticising strike action. I am referring to the type of communist-inspired strike which is all too frequent on the Continent and in England.

An Leas-Cathaoirleach

Strikes and strike action have very little to do with the Bill under discussion.

Professor Quinlan

It is one of the attacks on trade which we are trying to prevent and which the Bill seeks to prevent.

The third is the industrialisation of the under-developed areas of the world, in itself a very laudable objective but one into which Russia has poured considerable resources as a means of hastening the undermining of the economy of nations on which the defence of the free world rests.

The fourth and the real key is selective disruption of trade relations of all countries in the rest of the world. Selective disruption is what we are actually inviting by our present idea of trading with those countries. One of the most significant facts of the present decade is the emergence of Russia as a world trading power. Its trade has risen from 250 million dollars in 1938 to over 500 million dollars to-day or a twofold increase. Like the renunciation of war, the crippling of the economies of the West is an integral part of the Marx-Lenin scheme to bring about world revolution.

What are the effects of trading with Russia? The main effect is that once it gets a grip you make your economy dependent on trade with the communist block and this can lead to very undesirable consequences. First and foremost it can have very severe political consequences and can leave our representatives abroad open to severe political pressures from Russia itself. In Russia, we must realise, there are no trade unions as such. What are called trade unions are merely departments of the State whose function is to ensure that the orders of the Government are carried out by the workers.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

May I suggest that we are getting tired?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I do not think that the function of strikes in Russia is really relevant on this Bill.

Professor Quinlan

With due deference, it is. I am explaining that it puts Russia in a position to charge anything she likes for any produce she wishes to sell. It does not affect her as a whole, as I shall show, and, consequently, your economy is left wide open when you are buying from her. She can give one price today; next year it may be up—she can do anything she wishes. The key to it is the fact that labour has no standing there, so the cost of the product has a purely artificial price assigned to it by the committee itself.

Certainly, if you take our position today, if we were in such a position, God forbid, where the price assigned to any product could be regulated arbitrarily, then we could sell anywhere we wished—anything—provided the people at home were prepared to undergo the privation from the lack of purchasing power that such a policy entailed. Therefore, you would have no right to strike, no right to protest or to have public agitation. All that is impossible because——

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Come back to the Bill.

Professor Quinlan

You can undersell or disrupt by dumping in any way possible, and undermine whole sectors of an economy. Other states—in fact, all—have recognised it. India has a particular corporation for carrying out its trading and she regulates it very carefully. The Soviet bloc itself is grouped into specialised units for this trade attack and the foremost country in this trade attack is Czechoslovakia which has the precision type of equipment and has become the showcase of the communist world. Then there is Eastern Germany itself with its industrial equipment; Poland with mining equipment; Rumania with machinery for extracting and refining ore, and so on. And, so, in that way, the trade can be manipulated up and down in a manner which holds very serious consequences for us.

If we get into trading with such a group, then let us realise the consequences before we begin. We can only estimate the consequences from examples of what happened. For instance, take Russia's trading with Finland, a small country. In 1952, Finland and Russia concluded a five year trade pact. In the next few years, their joint trade increased rapidly. Russia was buying up more and more of Finnish produce until, in 1958, it reached the figure that 17 per cent. of Finland's total exports went to Russia.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Does the Senator not know that there is a special agreement between Finland and Russia?

Professor Quinlan

At that stage, a general election was held. The Finnish Communist Party got 25 per cent. of the seats. Immediately, they started an agitation for admission into the Cabinet. Russia reacted by beginning a trade boycott of Finland.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am afraid the Senator will have to be a little more rapid.

Professor Quinlan

I am moving on very rapidly. I am making the point that, if our trade reached 10 per cent., what then about the pressures to which we could be subjected? Would our trade be sufficient to withstand the pressure to have a Russian Embassy in Dublin? Answer that.

Secondly, take 1957. Russia has always been a large importer of tin, mainly from China. In 1957, there was over-production of tin in the world. Russia could have bought this cheaply and stored up a good supply for the years ahead. What did she do? Not alone did she not buy on the over-glutted market but she unloaded 10,000 tons of tin on to that market in 1957 and 17,000 tons in 1958 and sold abroad for a price below the then world price and that was below the price she had paid to China.

These are factors. The result was very serious damage to the tin-producing countries—Bolivia, Malaya, Thailand and Nigeria. She tried a similar business in England in 1958 with aluminium. She suddenly offered aluminium on the British market at 25 per cent. below the then prevailing price and she announced——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Would the Senator like to come home?

Professor Quinlan

I am home, actually.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

We want to come home.

Mr. J. Lynch

Down to earth will do.

Professor Quinlan

If you are not prepared to realise the hazards into which trading with Russia leads, well, then——

Seán Ó Donnabháin

It does not take you to teach us.

Professor Quinlan

Somebody should do it. If you display such gross negligence that you are not prepared to listen to the facts, then there is no hope for you.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

The pupils are getting uneasy.

Professor Quinlan

Perhaps we would like to happen to us, with our butter, what happened to Egypt with her cotton in 1958. Russia bought up all Egypt's cotton supply at a price higher than the world price in 1958. Then she immediately sold it in the traditional places where Egypt sold her cotton at a price lower than what she had bought it for in Egypt. Could she do that to our butter market? Is that the type of trading we envisage? That is not a matter for laughing. I do not think Senator Ó Donnabháin need laugh when he hears that. These are facts.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

It is only you I am laughing at.

Professor Quinlan

Certainly. Again, we have another very dangerous fact. Apart from this selective disruption of an economy which she can bring about, there is this other fact, which seems a great advantage when trading with her. All trade balances can be settled in the currency of a Soviet exporter or supporter. There is no further worry about foreign exchange when we are dealing with Russia. But those balances in our own currency would then be used to foment communist activity and to pay for it within the borders of the state. That is how it is done. It is an established fact that this was how it was done in Japan in the riots when President Eisenhower appeared there in 1960—and it was paid for by the surplus that remained on China's trading account with Japan.

Again, it is not very long since we read of the efforts of the communists in Karelia in India to take over the catholic schools there and to impose a communist regime in that little state. Where do the funds come from—from the surplus on India's trading accounts with Czechoslovakia. These are facts.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

This has nothing to do with the Bill.

Professor Quinlan

Finally, we come to Professor Mikoyan. Perhaps Senator Ó Maoláin will take him seriously when he criticised very severely the spending on armaments in Russia. His own words are that not only was it more profitable to trade with the West rather than to waste money on armaments but that it was, in itself, all that was needed for the subjection of the world to communism. It is rather disturbing to find that such a statement can be taken so lightly and that we just bury our heads in the sand in the belief that this just could not happen to us. But we had better take care. There is only less than a few million pounds involved. In fact, we are selling less than £500,000 worth and we have bought up to the present something around £4,000,000 worth. Does anybody suggest for a moment that it is worth any of our efforts or time to send out trade missions to those countries——

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Of course it is.

Professor Quinlan

——knowing full well—perhaps Senator Ó Maoláin might help us.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I possibly would.

Professor Quinlan

Unless we take care, surely we realise that selling items to those countries places us in the exact position in which India was placed after selling all her cotton crop and in which the tin producing countries were placed on the unloading of the tin market? Let us, with the limited finances available to us, devote our time and energies to developing markets in democratic countries in which we can cultivate a taste for our products. Having made progress in the marketing and research development that is necessary for the establishment of that trade, we would have some hope of its continuation in the future when the market may begin to pay off for the research we have carried out. After all, we are a small country with only a little to export, and that little surely does not call for having trade missions everywhere in the world. If England or one of the continental countries was exploited properly they would take more than we could export at any time.

I would appeal to the Minister not to build any hopes on these Iron Curtain countries, but let us face realities and stop the canker before it becomes too great. We have our job to do and we should not repeat the mistake made in 1958 and 1959 when we spent a considerable amount cultivating a butter market in England. We got it going quite successfully but the following year, due to low production, we had nothing worthwhile to sell and we simply ignored the market we had developed in England at great cost the year before. When we came back the year afterwards, we had to start from scratch. That surely should be a lesson to us. It shows us how money spent on marketing research can be squandered. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to use this Bill is the only way that I believe it should be used.

I intend to move an amendment on the next sitting day to tie the Bill down to the countries for which it is intended. It has been presented to us here as a means to control our trade or, as I say, of eliminating our trade with the Iron Curtain countries. We have been told there is no intention whatsoever to use it otherwise. But the Bill gives a blanket permission to apply to any specified country. Only to-day we had an example of a provision by which a duty could be imposed on a specific article to prevent dumping and an additional penny was put on a packet of cigarettes. In other words, it was used for a purpose for which it was not intended. Seven or eight months ago, we sat here and deliberated on the Road Traffic Act and we went into it in great detail. We had resolutions about how this would be used logically and reasonably, but what has been the result? One section alone of the Act, Section 53, is almost bankrupting the State as more and more money is squandered bringing cases to court which, last November, it was the clear intention of this House would never be brought.

That is an example of intentions, and we might take note of the fact that hell is paved with good intentions. If we as legislators take our duties seriously, we should guard against blanket provisions. If we mean Iron Curtain countries, let us write it into the Bill, because remember it could be very tempting to use this against other countries also. The Minister said it is not his intention to use it against countries with which we have trade agreements. It is not his intention but he cannot speak for his successors and I do not know whether an intention is a binding promise given here. Certainly it is not the type of binding guarantee we need in legislation. Our trade with many other countries, with Germany, for instance, is imbalanced. Why would not the Minister, in frustration with the lack of success of a trade mission going to Germany, reach for this Bill and say that he would teach them and we would be left with a whole lot of new quotas and orders for the goods we want to import from Germany? To my mind, this is a form of legislation that should not be accepted by a Parliament that is conscious of its democratic functions.

Mr. Mooney

I do not propose to deliver a lecture on the same lines as Senator Quinlan. The Minister is to be congratulated on introducing this Bill and I think it answers the arguments put forward by Senator Quinlan. There is the evidence that we import some £4 million worth of goods from such countries as against exports to them of some £120,000. It is to protect us against that that the Minister has brought in this Bill. I should like the Minister to consider the sentiments expressed by Senator McGuire in regard to the import of commodities from those countries which are already produced within the State. No concession should be given to those countries to export such commodities to us. One commodity I have in mind which particularly affects the people in my area is coal. Coal was imported from Poland at a cheap price and sold in my area where there is an industry employing over 400 people. It was rather unfortunate that it was allowed free sale and endangered men employed in the State.

I ask the Minister to provide in the Bill that where materials are being produced here, no concession will be given to any Iron Curtain countries to export such a commodity to us. It was put forward that we had certain ties with Poland and that it was a country apart from other Iron Curtain countries. We must remember, however, that the cost of production in Poland was considerably lower than in this country and it was quite easy to have it shipped at low shipping rates and sold in competition with our workers.

Mr. Moloney

I do not see any danger on the lines indicated by Senator Quinlan. As I understand this Bill, the Minister is attempting to pass into law a measure which will strengthen our hand, or the hand of the agency we will have available to try to barter with the communist countries from which we import at the moment. I listened very carefully to Senator Quinlan because I expected him to make some very definite positive suggestion before he concluded. I also hoped that he would advise the Minister completely to prohibit imports——

Professor Quinlan

I did.

Mr. Moloney

——from those countries so that we would have no excuse to balance them with exports. As I understand this business, the imports we were getting from those countries come in at a pretty low price and in some cases with improved quality. I have discussed this with some foreign people who have been keenly interested in the steps taken by the Minister in this connection. I am glad to be able to tell the House that those people from Western Germany and France— they are important people associated with chambers of commerce in those countries—have told me that the Minister has taken a step in the right direction. They went so far as to say that they could not understand why the imbalance of trade has been tolerated so long.

The Minister indicated very clearly in his opening address in the Dáil that this Bill is designed to deal with certain trading arrangements with the Iron Curtain countries. Reference has been made to the bodies known as State agencies which control the exports of those Iron Curtain countries. My information differs slightly from that. I understand that the economic structure there is also vested to some extent or taken over by the joint chambers of commerce. We know that recently representatives of the chambers of commerce from Russia and Poland visited London and conducted trade negotiations with their opposite numbers in that country. It is a pity that we could not have some contacts with those people and particularly with the chambers of commerce.

Mr. J. Lynch

I thought the Senator wanted all trade prohibited.

Mr. Moloney

I thought that Senator Quinlan would suggest that we should prohibit all trade.

Professor Quinlan

On a point of fact, I did.

Mr. Moloney

I want this imbalance corrected, and if the measure the Minister is introducing will help to correct it, I shall be very happy. I see no reason why we should not deal, in certain circumstances, with the Iron Curtain countries, so long as we do not give them any preference. If we are prepared to import goods from them—and it is quite obvious that we can get commodities from them which we cannot get as cheaply or as comfortably from other countries—we should be prepared also to try to export to those countries certain products which we have here and for which we have no market.

I do not see any danger from the other point of view which Senator Quinlan mentioned. We have a very sound tradition in the matter of religion and morality, and I would not worry about any of the repercussions which Senator Quinlan anticipates.

Mr. Ross

I support this Bill. We live in times of considerable competition in trade. In this Bill the Minister is providing himself with a weapon in trading conditions and he is arming himself with a weapon which he can use to increase our exports. If it happens that we need raw materials in competitive trading conditions, we must buy those raw materials in the cheapest possible market. We would have to consider very seriously whether or not we should cease buying raw materials from communist states simply because they are communist. With this Bill, the Minister has an opportunity to buy from them.

I am afraid I cannot agree at all with Senator Quinlan in his attitude that we should not trade with the communist countries, and that we should have nothing to do with them, because we will be contaminated by any contact with them.

Professor Quinlan

Undermined.

Mr. Ross

My feeling is that if he feels we would be undermined by contact with the communist countries Senator Quinlan is expressing a complete lack of faith in our democratic system. If our own democratic system cannot stand up to the breath of communism, then I do not think it is worth a button.

Professor Quinlan

Economically undermined.

Mr. Ross

Economically or politically undermined. If our own democratic system, our capitalist system, cannot face the breath of communism, I do not think it is worth much. I was sorry to hear Senator Quinlan expressing what was to me his lack of faith in our system. Senator Quinlan has one good point. He stressed that communist trade is governed by state agencies and that if you want to export to communist countries, you must deal with the State agencies; that you cannot go to an ordinary importer and deal with him; you must go through the State organisation.

In this Bill the Minister has an opportunity to deal with those State organisations on the basis of a reciprocal trade. We live in an age when we are exhorted to export, and there is a market, which is comparatively untapped, for our products. We have an opportunity to go into that market. That opportunity should be taken. In that connection I should like to ask the Minister what steps are being taken to export to those countries to correct this imbalance of trade, and I should also like to ask him how many officials of Córas Tráchtála can speak Russian or Czech or Polish to enable some progress to be made in negotiating with the importing organisations of those countries.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Might I say at this stage that it is intended to complete the business which I announced on the Order of Business? I take it the House has no objection to sitting later than the usual hour, in view of the fact that we will not be meeting tomorrow.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Social Welfare Bill, in addition to this Bill.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Yes.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is the House agreeable?

Professor Hayes

It will take a long time to deal with the Social Welfare Bill. I am afraid we will have to meet three days next week. I do not know whether we could finish the Social Welfare Bill tonight. I am quite willing to agree but it seems to be very big business at this point. Will we even finish this Bill tonight?

Mr. Desmond

Are we not meeting tomorrow?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

No; in deference to the Senators who did not desire to discuss the Appropriation Bill at such short notice, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to put it off until next Wednesday. As a consequence, it may be necessary to meet three days next week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I should like to inform the House now of the programme of Bills which it is intended to deal with before we rise. There is of course the Appropriation Bill, the Intoxicating Liquor Bill, The Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, the State Guarantees (Transport) Bill, the Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Bill, the Local Government (Sanitary Services) Bill, the Housing (Loans and Grants) Bill and the Army Pensions Bill. These are the Bills we propose to deal with before rising for the summer recess. That is why I had hoped that we would get general agreement on the matter of speed in dealing with the Appropriation Bill to-morrow, but since Senators desire to put it off until next week, we must do that.

Professor Hayes

I hope "summer" recess is not a slip of the tongue and that it should be "autumn" recess.

Mr. Desmond

With all this work to be done, should we not get some of it finished tomorrow rather than adjourn to-night? There is a considerable amount of work in the roster set before the House by Senator Ó Maoláin but we have not been working very hard and I think we should be able to do that work.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

We will do it.

Mr. Desmond

Why not meet to-morrow?

Professor Hayes

The difficulty is that we have not got these Bills from the Dáil.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

That is the difficulty.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

The Courts (Supplemental) (Provisions) (Amendment) Bill has to be passed also.

Professor Hayes

Let us get on with this one anyway and see how far we get by ten o'clock.

Mr. McDonald

Is it the intention of the Bill to restrict all trade with communist countries or do I understand that a Córas Tráchtála trade mission was sent to Moscow this year? Did I see that on the papers?

Mr. J. Lynch

In reply to Senator McDonald, that is not the intention of of the Bill. I am glad that most of the Senators who spoke realised that the true purpose of the Bill was to protect our interests in trading in modern conditions. Senator Quinlan suggested that the £4 million worth of goods we imported last year from communist countries or Iron Curtain countries would have made no difference whatever to us if we did not avail of the opportunity to export similar quantities to these countries.

It is all very well to listen to an ideological lecture from Senator Quinlan but as a member of the Oireachtas, I have to face the facts of life. As Minister for Industry and Commerce, I have to face the hard economic facts of life and these are many and varied. The Senator does not have to face day after day, week after week, the problems of traders and manufacturers in this country and not only their problems but the problem of trying to maintain employment. Senator Ross put his finger on the difficulty a few minutes ago when he suggested—I think I am interpreting him correctly—that it is only right that our manufacturers should have access to raw materials at the cheapest possible prices in order to make them competitive in an increasingly competitive world.

We are not yet in the Common Market. We have to face from many of the countries, even friendly countries, from which we import, a dual pricing system. That dual pricing system is practised by most countries in order to give home industries advantages over similar industries in countries to which they export raw materials. Its purpose is to keep home industries viable and to see that industries abroad which require similar raw materials to those on which home industries depend are given no advantage. It is a fact that some of these dual pricing systems tend to price our industries out of a state of competitiveness and even for that reason is it not worth our while in our relations with those countries to know that if they will not sell us raw materials at a fair price there are other means at our disposal so that we can maintain employment?

Is it any use to a man who is put out of employment in the West of Ireland or in a city if we say: we could have got the wherewithal to keep you in employment but we have closed the door against raw materials from communist countries? This is particularly applicable as our competitors all over the Western world trade with communist countries. Britain and America trade with these countries and Australia and New Zealand are increasing that trade. Are we to isolate ourselves from the possibility of being competitive? Are we to build around ourselves an economic iron curtain that will price us out of the market in other parts of the world because we refuse raw materials from sources where we could get them cheaply? I have to face the hard economic facts of life. The Minister for Agriculture recently would have dearly loved to be able to dispose of his surplus butter in any country in the world if he could get cash for it rather than store it in storage space which was difficult to obtain or sell it off at cost to the Exchequer.

Not very long ago I had an approach from a man who gave employment in a rural town and who had a surplus of a certain agricultural product on his hands. He bought it in the hope that he could dispose of it in favourable conditions as then existed in a certain favourably disposed country but for some reason he failed to find that outlet he had hoped to get in a communist country and because we had no weapon of our own to induce the communists to buy this raw material from him the man lost a considerable amount of money and because of his indebtedness to the bank and his inability to raise credit he was put out of business and we lost that valuable employment in a rural town. That is not the kind of exercise I should like to be a party to. As Minister for Industry and Commerce I should not like to assist or in any way contribute to the closing down of an industry if we had a possible chance of making it survive.

I do not support all of what Senator Quinlan said on the Bill but in case I might be misunderstood I want to say that I detest Godlessness and totalitarianism, particularly the communist type, as much as anybody in the Western world does. I do not think that is in dispute.

Professor Hayes

Hear, hear!

Mr. J. Lynch

On the other hand, I want to ensure that we in this country will not put ourselves in such a position as will make us less competitive than like-minded countries who perhaps have a great deal more weapons at their disposal in their fight against communism than we have and which, at least in the material sense, are more active against communism but which nevertheless see some advantage or benefit to themselves in trading with communist countries.

Senator McGuire said he was satisfied with what I said in the Dáil about the possibility of some conflict with our Common Market obligations. He possibly overstated it. I said first of all that so far as I saw it now it would not conflict with our Common Market obligations in that we are applicants for membership because there are existing members of E.E.C. who have provisions similar to this. What I did say in addition was that I thought it might be necessary for us if we joined the Common Market to have some provision of this nature in our legislation in order to ensure the purposes of the Common Market in effect.

Senator Quinlan said that he was going to put down an amendment because he objected to the type of legislation we were introducing here because some future Minister might not be prepared to treat the provisions of the Bill in the spirit in which they have been introduced. First of all, it is not for me to designate what Iron Countries are. I do not know what the extent of them is at the moment. I do not know, as I said in the Dáil, whether the Iron Curtain itself will recede or expand—I hope it does not expand. It is far better for us to have a provision in this Bill whereby we can designate any country in an Order rather than set out here and now certain countries some of which, please God, may not be Iron Curtain countries in three or four year's time. Some countries which we now imagine or hope are non-Iron Curtain countries might in fact be so: they might have Communist infiltration beyond what we might think desirable.

While I think it is wrong that we should tie our hands by setting out in this Bill the names of Iron Curtain countries or the names of countries which we regard as Iron Curtain countries, there is a provision whereby every Order made under Section 2 shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and if a Resolution annulling the Order is passed by either House of the Oireachtas, then that is the end of it. Therefore, no Minister will have a free hand in deciding the countries against which he proposes to operate the provisions of the Bill.

It is a provision, I know, that some people do not like, a provision to which some of our legislators of recent times have expressed opposition. However, it is a type of provision which is well known to us in practice and one which has not been abused. This type of provision has not been abused, to my knowledge, since it was introduced. I may tell the Senator in advance that if he puts down such an amendment, I shall not accept it.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

When is it proposed to take the next Stage?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

We should like all Stages now, if there is no objection.

Professor Quinlan

I feel quite strongly on this enabling legislation. I wish to exercise my right as a Senator to table an amendment.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 25th July, 1962.