I did not intend to deal with Sub-head I. It speaks for itself. There is an increase of £40,793, as shown by the Estimate. In addition, there is a sum of £40,000 from the Unemployment Fund being spent on the Improvement of Estates.
To come to the work of the Land Commission for the last year, when the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board were amalgamated there were £4,000,000 worth of pending sales in the Land Commission, and £5,000,000 worth of pending sales in the Congested Districts Board. The £5,000,000 worth of pending sales in the Congested Districts Board had been accumulating for years. One of the complaints against the Congested Districts Board was that they were accumulating estates and not dividing them. That was not their fault. They had not sufficient powers under the Act to acquire lands compulsorily to meet the peculiar and difficult needs of the congested districts. They bought lands and they kept them on hands with a view to acquiring more land, so as to have sufficient land to deal with the problems in that area. However, we have far more drastic powers under the Act of 1923. There is no occasion for the Land Commission to keep lands on hands. As I have said, there were £5,000,000 worth of pending sales under the Congested Districts Board, and there were £4,000,000 in the Land Commission.
The Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board amalgamated, and now there are £2,000,000 worth of sales, that is to say half the Land Commission sales are being dealt with still, and in addition out of 21,000 acres of untenanted arable land which the Congested Districts Board had in their possession when the amalgamation took place, 11,000 acres has been divided, and the balance will be divided before the end of this year, so that all that untenanted arable land will be divided before next Spring and in time for next year's sowings. That 21,000 acres represents the total area of arable land which the Board had at the time when the two services, the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board, were amalgamated, that is to say last September. Within the year the Land Commission have divided half of it, and before the end of the year will have divided the balance. I may say that the average rate of division of land during the year 1922 was £2,000,000, so that in respect of the old sales sales of lands purchased under previous Acts, the Land Commission in the last year have dealt with £2,000,000 worth of the land which they had before the amalgamation, and at least half the arable land which the Congested Districts Board had in their possession at the time of the amalgamation. That is in addition to dealing with extraordinary arrears, and dealing with all the huge preliminary work that had to be done in connection with the Land Act of 1923.
With regard to the arrears of annuities problem, this is a sore subject, and I wish to put before the Deputies the position in regard to arrears of Land Commission annuities. In 1922-23 about £1,000,000 worth of arrears of annuities began to become due. The total collection of annuities amounted to £2,900,000. The gale days are June and December, and in January, 1923, there would be about £800,000 worth of arrears, and that would be reduced down to £400,000 by the following May, that is, a month before the next gale. What did that show? It showed that the annuitants were trying to establish something in the nature of a hanging gale, by paying the December gale of annuity about a month before the next annuity was due. The same thing happened in regard to the June gale of annuity; arrears again showed up to £1,000,000, and began to fall gradually to £300,000 or £400,000, say, in November or October. Everybody knows that unless Land Commission annuities are paid, the money must be found from the Guarantee Fund. Everybody knows that the Land Commission annuities are the interest on the Sinking Fund of stock that was issued for the purchase of the lands. The draw on the Guarantee Fund takes place in the month of February in respect of the December gale. Any arrears in December carry on to the beginning of August, and any arrears in respect of June carry on to December, so that what was happening was this, in those months, February and August of each year, there was a draw of £500,000 or £600,000 on the Guarantee Fund, and a draw on the Agricultural Grant. The Agricultural Grant is the first item that has to bear the loss. What was the result? The result was that the rates on agricultural land were considerably higher than they should be, and that the men who were paying the arrears of annuities were paying an increased agricultural rate. You had people complaining about the increased rates and the size of the rates all over the country. It was inevitable that the rates should be much bigger if this tendency to increase the arrears was allowed to grow. We were faced with the problem either of collecting Land Commission annuities punctually or allowing the rate on agricultural land to be inflated to a far greater degree than it should be. There was no question of what we should do in the matter. There is not a farmers' organisation in the country that does not admit that the Land Commission annuities must be paid.
I will go further. There is not a responsible farmer in the country who does not admit that Land Commission annuities should be paid. But while these admissions are made, while no one makes a case that they should not be paid, nevertheless there was the problem that one-third of the annuities were going into arrears, and so far as about 40 per cent. of the annuitants were concerned, the receivable orders might as well not have been issued. In at least 40 per cent. of these cases they waited until they got the six days' notice to pay, and in some counties in at least 80 per cent. of cases the annuitants waited, wherever they paid at all, until they got the six days' notice to pay. So that these six-day notices which were used in normal times to remind three, or four, or five per cent. of annuitants who were in arrears that they had not paid their annuities were becoming in fact another receivable order, and it was practically evident that the expense— practically evident that the money— orders was money thrown away; that the six-day notices were taking the place for 50 per cent. of the annuitants of the receivable orders. In that state of affairs, and in view of the necessity of collecting these arrears of annuities promptly, which everybody admits should be paid, the Land Commission ceased issuing the notices, and in the month of January of this year they published in all the daily and provincial papers notices to the effect that they would not in future issue these notices, that the annuitants who were in arrear would be processed without the usual six-day notices. It is alleged that annuitants in some cases have been processed after they had paid their annuities. I have never got a single case authenticated where this has occurred, and I am anxious to get these cases. Deputy White raised it by asking a question some time ago. He asked was it a fact that a couple of hundred processes were issued in Donegal, and was it a fact that some of these processes were served on annuitants who had already paid. What are the facts? The facts are that a couple of hundred processes were issued in Donegal against people who were a year in arrear, and for whom the ratepayers of the County Donegal were paying. Only in five cases were processes served on tenants who had already paid their annuities, and in these five cases the annuities came in after the processes had been handed to the process-servers, and before service.
I know exactly how that sort of thing happens. The solicitor writes for the payment to the tenant-purchaser. He asks him to pay his annuity. He probably gets no reply. This annuity is a year in arrear. The tenant knows that it is due in the month of June or the month of December, as the case may be. He does not pay it. He does not pay the solicitor. He waits for two or three months, when the processes are issued and are in the hands of the process server. It is not absolutely unknown that the fact that the processes are in the hands of the process-server gets out, and he hops in and pays his annuity. As I say, in five instances in this particular case, which I have investigated carefully, out of the few hundred, where the annuities have been paid they were paid after the processes were handed to the process-server, and before he had succeeded in serving them. I would not make the slightest excuse if that were the case in the whole two hundred and not in the five instances, because I know how these things happen.
With regard to the work of the Land Commission in connection with the new Act there are about a hundred thousand tenants unpurchased, and for the purpose of collecting both the compounded arrears of rent and the payments in lieu of rent it was necessary to get the correct particulars of each of these and of their rents. For the purpose of vesting their holdings in the Land Commission it was necessary to get not only the name and address and the correct rent of each of these tenants, but also particulars as regards their holdings, the area, a map of each holding, whether the holding was judicial or non-judicial, and whether the rent was first, second or third term. That was all required for the purpose of fixing a price. That is to say, if you joined the two necessities, namely, the necessity for getting particulars for the collection of payment in lieu of rent, and the fixing of the price of each holding, it was necessary to get in respect of each tenant unpurchased his name and address, his exact rent to a penny, the map of his holding, his area, and whether his holding was judicial or non-judicial, first, second or third term. That is to say the Land Commission had to establish what was a land agent's office for every tenant left unpurchased, and had to get particulars not approximately correct, but particulars with regard to each tenant's holding absolutely accurately.
Otherwise any sale based on that figure could be afterwards upset by the Courts. They proceeded to do that by writing to each landlord asking him to return the rents of his tenants with these particulars. That was obviously the right course. There is about one landlord for every 20 tenants, and there would be about 4,500 landlords against 100,000 tenants. The landlords within a certain time returned these particulars, and in 40 per cent. of cases these particulars were found to be incorrect. They were materially incorrect in regard to the rents because as a rule the tenants did not get credit for abatements. You all know what abatements are. Abatements may not appear on the face of the receipt; they may appear on the fly-leaf or something like that; but you all know that in a great many cases the rent receipt does not show the exact rent. In any event, in 40 per cent. of cases the particulars were not accurate. That meant that the Land Commission had to interview every tenant or every landlord, or had to settle the question by correspondence. Possibly Deputies have some idea of the difficulty of settling a question of that sort. These questions had to be settled, and in over 2,000 cases they had to go before the Land Judge. For the last ten months Judge Wylie has tried about 2,000 cases which will rule, I suppose, a large number of others. That work has all been completed within about eight months, and in my opinion it was a very considerable feat for the Land Commission in all the circumstances, in view of the difficulty of dealing with people on a question like this by correspondence, and getting all these particulars accurately within a period of eight months. And remember all these particulars are necessary for the automatic working of the Land Act.
Deputies should also remember that the Land Act in a great many of its more important provisions works automatically once the basis is laid down, and this preliminary work is of primary importance in view of the fact that it is the basis on which any question in the course of the administration of the Act might be brought before the Judicial Commissioner. Any sale might be interfered with if the preliminary particulars were not accurately ascertained. All these preliminary particulars have been ascertained within the last eight months, and practically the first year's compounded arrears of rent have been collected with very little difficulty in the circumstances. The payment in lieu of rent is being collected, and between payment in lieu of rent, compounded arrears of rent, and between the annuity and interest in lieu of rent the Land Commission has collected £5,000,000 per annum. In addition to that the Land Commission have now inspected about 350,000 acres of untenanted land. After inspection and before the land can be acquired compulsorily a three months period must intervene. When the Land Commission decide that they intend to acquire a certain area of land they gazette it in the Official Gazette, and a period of three months intervenes between the date when this notice is inserted and the date when the lands are actually acquired. The same applies with regard to vesting a tenant's holding. Before any tenant's holding can be vested it must be three months gazetted, for the reason that a great many people may have a right to object to the vesting. It is quite possible that a tenant would not have a legal claim to the land, and there are other reasons of that sort.
To make a long story short, within the last year the Land Commission dealt with almost as much land, purchased under the 1903 Act and the 1909 Act, as the Land Commission in previous years when they had nothing else to administer but these Acts. That is to say, they dealt with £2,000,000 worth of pending sales as against an average of £2,500,000. In addition they have divided half the arable land which accumulated under the Congested Districts Board, which came over with the Congested Districts Board and which represented years of arrears and will have completed the division by the end of this year. In addition, they have reduced the abnormal arrears problem which developed during 1922 and 1923 to practically normal proportions. They have done practically all the preliminaries, the important difficult preliminary work in connection with the Land Act of 1923, and they have inspected at least 350,000 acres of untenanted land. They have done that with practically no additional staff. They have some additional officials on the outdoor staff, but it is only within the last two months that an additional outdoor staff has been employed and a further additional staff will be employed as they are required. It is often suggested that the land should be divided here and there without any general plan on the part of the Land Commission, and I just wish Deputies to get an idea of what that would mean. These figures will have to be taken as approximate. There are about 5,000,000 acres, available for the Land Commission under the new Act. That is a very generous figure, and that is taking as much land as they possibly could, in my opinion, take. There are 100,000 tenants. Most of these tenants are in the congested districts. Most of them live on very small, miserable holdings. They are the problem that was not solved in the past. They are the problem that was never faced in the past owing to the difficulties of solving the problem. Taking a line from the 1903 Act, it takes about 3,000,000 acres to deal with 100,000 tenants. I cannot give accurate figures, but this figure is a deduction. Taking a line from previous Acts, it took on an average about 3,000,000 acres to deal with 100,000 tenants.
It will take at least 3,000,000 acres to deal with the 100,000 tenants we have. Most of them live in Connaught, on the western seaboard, in Cavan, in all the counties where the congests are and most of them have small miserable holdings, smaller holdings than were dealt with under the 1903 Act, and, in my opinion, the amount of land you require will be nearer 4,000,000 acres. We have to make up our minds whether we will deal with the congests now regardless of the difficulties or the attraction of leaving them there and dealing with other classes, or whether we will set out to solve the biggest problem left in the country—the terrible poverty that you find in places like Mayo, Sligo and Donegal. I have no doubt myself that whatever the difficulties are that the Land Act of 1923 will have failed unless we deal with the problem that these counties present, and that any other policy in the way of giving land to the landless, no matter how attractive, at the expense of these congests, is unsound. If we carry on that policy to a successful conclusion it will mean that we will have to be under the necessity of migrating a very large number of small tenants from Connemara, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry and other counties which I need not mention and which are not included in what is rather technically known as the "congested areas." In addition, we will have to migrate—and this will be the more difficult problem—fairly large tenants with 100, 120, and up to 150 acres in order to make room for the congests in the holdings which they leave after them. There is no question about it, the larger tenant is the more suitable migrant. He is better educated, he knows his way about better, he knows conditions better and, as a rule, he will prefer to go because the large tenant with 120 to 140 acres surrounded by twenty or forty miserable congests has not got all the security of tenure he would desire, and it will be an advantage to him and to the congests to migrate him. The real danger will be in his reception in the other districts by the tenants, say, in the counties of Kilkenny, Tipperary, Meath or Dublin.
This problem cannot be solved unless every party co-operates. They must co-operate and resist the temptation of making cheap capital out of migration and out of getting land divided round their own districts. We have to face the thing now. We are at the parting of the ways. The preliminary work is being done, and we must make up our minds as to what our policy is going to be. I know the country well enough to know that it will be extremely difficult to carry out. There is no question as to the right policy, and that it cannot be done until Deputies remember that each in his own area must get up and say even the unpopular thing when they know it is the right thing.