I find that there have been no Land Commission activities in my area, in which there are a very large number of unpurchased estates. Up to the present I have heard of no appointed day in Inishowen area recorded for any of these estates. There may be a reason for that. The "Ca' canny" artful dodgers of the Land Commission may have been waiting for the Boundary Commission's report. That is the only reason, I think, that can be advanced.
PURCHASE AND DIVISION OF LAND. - MOTION BY DEPUTY RODDY—DEBATE RESUMED.
The real reason is that there is an appointed day for 4,000 acres.
Not fixed yet?
Mr. HOGAN
Yes, 3,980 acres, to be accurate.
That is a matter for further consideration. You have Ballybofey to reckon with yet. Any activity of the Commission that has come under my notice is in the issue of processes, and the mixing up of payments, made in some instances to the State Solicitor and in others to the Land Commission, between both of which the unfortunate tenants are the victims. I want to bring the notice of the Land Commission to a matter in my area. With the expenditure of a reasonable sum of money a large amount of land could be reclaimed there, which would provide, I am perfectly sure, farms from 10 to 25 acres for at least 500 to 700 families. That is a business proposition that should be seriously considered by the Land Commission. I think the situation is similar in other areas in Co. Donegal. Congestion could be relieved and existing farms extended if the land that I refer to was reclaimed. If that work was seriously undertaken farms could be provided for a large number of people in the congested areas, and their present holdings could be consolidated or enlarged.
In Donegal we claim that we should get a share of the lands in Co. Meath and that some of our people should be migrated to Meath. I am sorry Deputy Lyons and Deputy Hall are not in the Dáil so that there might be an exchange of views on this subject. I can assure the Minister that if he provides land in County Meath for Donegal men they will hold it against any invaders.
I have been looking into the muddle about the payment of instalments and the issuing of six-day notices, as well as solicitors' letters and processes. In my opinion the muddle was created by the high priests of Upper Merrion Street when they curtailed the period for payment of instalments to the various banks. They insist now on instalments being paid within 14 days from 1st May and 1st November. Prior to that the banks would take the instalments or the annuities for six weeks or two months after these dates.
Mr. HOGAN
No.
I knew the banks in my part of the country to take payments two months after these dates, and they were glad to get them. I suggest that an arrangement should be made whereby the period for payment of instalments to the banks should be extended. A circular was sent from Merrion Street last year curtailing the period to 14 days. I saw the circular with a bank manager in my own town. If it was not issued from Upper Merrion Street it was issued from the Bank of Ireland with the authority of the high priests of Upper Merrion Street. It would be a sensible business proposition to extend the time.
That question does not arise on this motion.
I am very sorry to have to disagree with you, sir. My idea is that we are entitled to discuss the whole scope of the administration of the Land Commission on this motion. Of course, I may be wrong, as I often take erroneous views of things. There is some untenanted land in my constituency that I should like to see divided and added to the neighbouring farms. Sales of land that was in the direct occupation of landlords have also taken place, and the land has been sold to the other tenants that were in occupation. I do not know whether the sales were sanctioned by the Land Commission, but these sales should not have taken place. The speeding-up of the appointed day in my district is also a matter that the Minister should see to, because in Inishowen there is a very large number of unpurchased estates and we have not yet heard of the appointed day being fixed. The matter should be taken in hand at once.
I wish to support Deputy Roddy's motion. At the same time I wish to call the attention of the Minister to certain estates in the West, especially in the County Mayo. There is one estate in particular that I wish to refer to, the Clifford Estate, County Mayo. There are 36 tenants on this estate whose valuations are under £5, and 4 graziers, who till no land, graze over 2,000 acres of the best land on the estate. This estate has been in the hands of the Land Commission for 15 years and it has not yet been settled. I have received a resolution as follows:—
That we, the members of the Islandeady Branch Cumann na nGaedheal, call on the Irish Land Commission to come immediately and relieve us from our present position. We are over 100 in number, whose valuation stands from 10/- to £3, while there is in our midst 1,105 acres of good tillage land held by three men. This land is practically useless from growing rushes and furze, while if we poor tenants had this land we would have it in a different form.
We earnestly implore of the Irish Land Commission to put the Land Act of 1923 into force and leave us no longer in our present condition.
So far our appeals have been ignored by the Irish Land Commission, and if something is not done immediately we must adopt some other means.
That is a very serious situation in that part of the country. There is one easy remedy that the Ministry should apply, and that is compulsory tillage for the relief of congestion. One solution which I am of opinion should be seriously considered by the Minister is that all farmers whose valuations are over £100 should be made to till at least ten per cent. of their holdings.
We are not dealing with that question now.
If that were done it would relieve unemployment all over the Free State.
With regard to the distribution of untenanted land in the County Cork, and especially in my constituency, I am glad to say that the Land Commission are dealing as expeditiously and in as practical a manner as possible with the matter. One very large estate—the Penrose-Welsted estate at Ballywalter, which contains some 700 or 800 acres—is practically divided. As to the point raised from the Labour benches yesterday, I am pleased to say that in connection with that estate the question of the labourers who had been employed on it was satisfactorily handled by the Commissioners. Of course the Commissioners or the Minister cannot be held responsible for the treatment of the employees until such time as the estate is taken over by the Commissioners. In this case, immediately the estate was taken over by the Land Commission, these men got grazing rights and tillage—as much as they were able to till. In fact, they got the land at £1 per acre less from the Land Commission than they had offered for it.
Did they get those rights after the lands were vested or after they were divided?
Mr. HOGAN
After they were vested.
A very important point was raised yesterday, I think by Deputy Nolan, and the suggestion was re-echoed from the Farmers' benches by Deputy Gorey. No more important point could arise in determining the future welfare of those who are being settled on the land which has been taken over. If the men put on the land have to pay an exorbitant rent or annuity they will not be able to make a living out of it, and a situation will be created which will mean that we will never be finished with the problem of the land. If men who are feverishly anxious to possess land are prepared to pay an exorbitant price for it, and if the Land Commission agree to give an exorbitant price to the landlords for this untenanted land, it will be a very unwise procedure, and it will create a very serious situation that will have to be faced in the near future by the Government and the Dáil. The mode of collection adopted by the Land Commission at present is by no means satisfactory. Some means should be devised by which the tenants would get reasonable notice—say six days' notice. When a tenant knows that his annuity is due on a certain date, and that he is bound to pay, I think he should be in as good a position to pay when it becomes due as he would six weeks or two months afterwards.
We have it on the very highest authority that in a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. Accepting that, we must come to the conclusion that the Minister for Agriculture must be an extremely wise person by this. I do not wish to intervene between the Minister and the Dáil, and I only rise for the purpose of accentuating what has been said by Deputy Noonan, that it is extremely unwise, in fact it is folly, to allow people to take up land at such an annuity that it will work out at a rack rent and that the last state of the people who take up this land will be worse than the first. It will lead to a new agitation in the country—probably a more dangerous one than we have experienced up to this. I know of cases in which land has been distributed and annuities fixed at the rate of about 35/- per Irish acre. Add to that a local tax of about 10/- per acre and what position are these people in? The position is that they have exhausted some of the best lands in County Kildare by over-cropping and not treating it in a proper manner. Of course, that was due to their poverty and the fact that they could not make a proper living out of the land. If that policy is persisted in it will lead to confusion all round. I know it is not in the power of the Commissioners always to fix the price at which land is taken over and that there is an appeal from their decision as regards the price. I think that is not as it ought to be. I think it is not a proper thing that a gentleman—a very learned gentleman, of course—sitting without an assessor——
Mr. HOGAN
No.
I am told that he visits the land that is the subject of appeal as regards price, and probably forms his own conclusion. The Minister dissents from that.
He does not visit the lands.
I am told that is the case. There has been great delay in dealing with some estates with which I am acquainted in County Kildare. I know of one particular estate—the Dobbs Estate—which is in a very congested area. The tenants number about 130 and the average valuation is £5. Certainly, these people may be put down as congests. That estate has been before the Commissioners for a good many years. In fact, I believe it was inspected by the Land Commission before this Government came into power. Then there is another estate which I have often referred to, that is, the Verschoyle Estate, where the people have not got access to the lands and are also deprived of turbary. That is a very great hardship. I hope the result of this debate will be that these matters will be looked into and the division of these lands expedited.
Cuidighim leis an rún seo ach ba mhaith liom labhairt ar cheist eile, ceist na Gaedilge. Bhiomar le fada fanamhaint le'n ár saoirse. Tá se againn anois agus tá súil agam go ndeanaidh an t-Aire Talamhuoichte níos Gaedhilge an tír na mar ata sé. Tá comhacht mor aige anois agus tá suil agam go ndeanthaidh sé usaid de sin. Tá morán daoine 'san Iarthair agus i n-aiteannaibh eile go bfhuil an Gaoluinn aca. Is doigh liom gur ceart d'on Aire feirmeacha do thabhairt do's na Gaedhilgeoiri. Tá talamh le faghail i n-aiteanna ar nos an Teamhair Ní theasthuigheann se uaim puinn a radh ar an gceist seo ac i do chuir roimh an Aire. Iarraim air feuchaint isteach air agus an tír a dheanamh níos Ghaolacha na mar ata sé.
Before the debate ends I would like to say a few words, and I will make them as short as I can. Deputy Roddy's motion aims at speeding up the work of the Land Commission as much as possible, and Deputy Nolan, who spoke afterwards, is rather in favour of advising the Land Commission to go more slowly. With both those recommendations I am in agreement to a great extent. I think the Land Commission, as regards the division of land, must go to the bottom of the matter, to the seat of the disease as it were, where it is worst, and cure that first as far as possible. I do not mean to say by that that the estates that are already marked for division should not be divided, as was attempted to be done by the Land Commission. What I mean is that without any doubt the question of congestion is by far the worst on the western border. Those who have not seen the state of things that exists there cannot understand the congestion and the awful conditions under which people live. Of course, it is up to them to remedy the conditions there first where the question is most acute. They have on their hands a considerable quantity of land, inherited from the Congested Districts Board, for distribution, and I think that land should be distributed as quickly as possible amongst the congests on that coast, but we know perfectly well that even after that is distributed there will not be nearly enough to satisfy the urgent needs of the people on that border. Even after that division has taken place in order to get more land some other scheme must be devised, and I think the Minister has more or less suggested that migration should be taken in hand, and that it might be possible that large farms could be bought up by agreement with their owners, and the owners moved into another part of the country. Where it could be done without disturbing the rights of people who have great claims, I think it should be done, to a great extent, I do not say in every case but in a certain number of cases. It has been said that the western people would not be received very courteously by their new neighbours. I do not know about that. I am not sure that they would not in certain districts. You would have to select districts. During the war, in 1917, when there was a great deal of compulsory tillage being done through the country, and when labour was extremely hard to get in County Kildare, things were different from what they are to-day. You could not get enough men for your work. A great number of farmers from my district got a large number of western labourers.
And kept them.
Yes, for a year. I had five myself and I am bound to say they were the best workers I had. I never came across men who gave less trouble. There was not the slightest bother or trouble with them in any way. At the end of the year I was extremely sorry when they left, for better men, better workers or men who gave less trouble I never came across. They were most satisfactory in every way, and that, I think, was the experience of everyone who had them. It may be said that these men would not be suitable to work farms. In many cases I suppose they might not, but as far as our experience of them went in our district, and we had, I think, about 40 of them, we found them very hard working and most excellent in every way.
They were not Galway men?
They were Galway men. I see no reason why some substantial farmers who live on the edge of a congested district and who might be willing to do so should not sell their lands to the Land Commission for division, and be provided with land in some other part of the country where land can be found without disturbing anyone's interest. I think that such land could be found, and if such a thing as that could be done it would do something towards settling part at all events of this question of congestion in the West where the present stage of things is really awful. As regards the go-quick part of the business and the most urgent part of it, Deputy Nolan wants to go slowly. I am in agreement with him. I think that, viewing the land question as it stands to-day, and on the figures given to us by the Minister for Agriculture, it is very necessary to go slowly.
Like a great many other people, I had an idea some years ago, when I had not any figures before me, that it would be possible for everyone to have an economic holding in the country. It is clear now, from the figures given to us by the Minister, that that can never be done. At the very most you will have 100,000 or 120,000 families who can never be provided with a holding. It is obvious that something must be done for these people other than providing them with land. If the times were more settled and there was more confidence in the country it might be possible to start industries to give them employment. But capital is very shy, and people do not care to fling out their money if they are not able to get reasonable security for it. If the times were more settled some of the money in the banks that we hear so much about might be taken out and be spent in establishing industries with or without the help of the Government. I think it is only in that way that a very large percentage of the landless men can be provided for.
It is probable that those who have farms will be considered first, and it is certain that a large proportion of those who have no land cannot be provided with any. If every acre was divided up to the very hall doors of the demesne owners it would not cure this problem of congestion. The Minister has made that quite plain, and there is no use in trying to hide the matter. Out of the 110,000 people in the congested districts it is certain that a very large number cannot be provided with holdings, and it is only by something in the nature of industrial schemes, organised with or without Government help, that the majority of the landless men and uneconomic holders can be assisted.
On a point of explanation, I desire to say that I am afraid the Deputy misinterpreted my statement last night. The Deputy said that I made a statement to the effect that the Minister should go slow in the division of land. What I said was, that I wanted him to go slowly in the taking over of land in the future, and in the making of bargains for such a purpose as the price of land was going down in the market, but that as regards any land which the Land Commission had taken over that it should be divided up as quickly as possible.
The people of the Gaelteacht should be very grateful to Deputy Baxter and Deputy Conlan for the plea they made in this House on their behalf. From my knowledge of the people on the western seaboard of Tirconaill, they do not want to go as land grabbers into Meath or any of the other counties that were mentioned for the purpose of relieving congestion. That is a very big problem, but it is not going to be met by dividing up bits of land and giving small farms to the people in the Gaelteacht. The problem must be met in some other way. What that other way is I am not prepared to say, but I can assure the House that the people living in the Gaelteacht in Tirconaill are not anxious to get two or three acres of land up around Meath where it might be necessary for them to be protected by the Gárda Síochána from some of Deputy Hall's constituents.
I suppose I should really tender an apology for intervening so late in the debate, but my excuse must be the immensity, the magnitude and the urgency of the problem. Beyond all doubt it is the biggest question that the State will have to deal with in the near future, and on the wise measures we take now for giving relief will depend in a very large degree the ultimate solution of this problem of congestion and the permanent alleviation of the lot of the small holders. Silence they say is golden, but a time comes in the life of every man when silence is wrong and criminal, and when one should speak out the opinions that one holds. I am afraid that many of the arguments and statements put up during the course of this debate in the last three days are not in the least helpful towards finding a solution of the problem. If one were to press the case one would say that they savoured very much of anarchy.
We are told that the case has been more or less put up to the Land Commission to force its hand—to tell it that it must do this or that, and that if it fails to do so that certain parties will go to the country and stump the hustings and organise some campaign evidently not of a lawful character for the purpose of forcing the hands of the Land Commission. I wonder at this stage whether such a thing is justified or not. I wonder whether people's eyes have been shut to the conditions and to the circumstances that existed during the last four or five years when they indulged in that kind of language. Are they oblivious of the campaign of rapine that existed in many parts of the country, where a man could not lay his head on his pillow in peace; where he was forcibly dispossessed of his lands if he were weaker than some of the land sharks around him, and yet at this stage in the year 1925, with all these experiences fresh in the public memory, we are told that they will force the hands of the Land Commission. Some of us feel bound to answer very definitely that threat and that challenge.
I make no secret of that whatever, and I am as deeply interested in the relief of the congest or the uneconomic holder or the landless men as anybody else, and I hold this policy of crime, to give it its correct term, ought not for a moment to be tolerated, and any politician who goes to the country on such a mission should be dealt with by a process of law. It is not fair to go down to the unfortunate people who may be the dupes of these men. Rather strike at the sources of evil—at every person who promulgates a bad doctrine, and I would urge on the Land Commission, if crime results from this, then in no circumstances should lands be distributed which are the subject of agrarian outrage. I say that very definitely having regard to the conditions in different parts of the country, and not in the least my own constituency.
There is a feeling abroad, and it is well to emphasise the fact that because a man who over a series of years or successive generations may have owned or acquired a considerable amount of land—there is a feeling of grievance because somebody else happens not to be so well favoured by fortune. Is that a fair proposition to put up? To say that because Deputy Gorey, for example, might have two or three hundred acres of land, and another person with only ten or twelve has a sense of grievance, as if Deputy Gorey deprived him of some land, savours of anarchy and is to be deprecated.
I never looked upon this question of relief, and I use the word "relief" in a very wide and extended sense, as quite a simple matter; it has many phases and many aspects. It is quite true you can by dividing land in some cases very materially aid congestion and confer substantial relief. In other cases the thing may be quite the reverse. I think the underlying principle of this whole process should be to give as far as possible the widest measure of relief. It is just possible by dividing a farm that you may deprive a large neighbourhood and a very large number of small holders of relief by that very fact. At some time they may have been in the habit of getting hay or conacre in this place, and it is well to bear in mind that once you divide that holding up and make it the monopoly of comparatively few, the others, who may be equally worthy and deserving and equally in need of some outside aid to carry on the economy on their existing holdings are thus deprived of augmenting the feeding resources for their live stock. That, I say, is one problem. In pushing on this question of division of land we need to look at it in all its aspects. I say definitely, in this connection, there are many parts of the country, and I name the County Clare as one, where numbers of people are in the habit of buying meadow on those farms which are a proper subject for division, or come under the scope of the Land Purchase Act and would normally be liable to be acquired for division. You have to judge every case on its merits and have regard to local factors largely, and I object to having anything like a stereotyped line of policy laid down by the Minister or by the Land Commission.
There is no doubt, whatever, that this question of congestion is a very urgent and a very pressing question, but the best utilisation of the land must be a factor. I suggest that all avenues have not been explored. We need to examine the problem in every phase by which relief may be given. It is quite possible, and I have put this case to the House before, that putting a number of persons on the land and giving them rights of a corporation, might be the most effective means of relief, as against a policy of putting each man upon a small piece of land to work for himself. There is just that possibility, and I suggest that it is an avenue that should be explored. I suggested that on my own initiative apart from my colleagues and my party, and I suggest first that a Commission should be set up to explore how far we can permanently relieve the congests, and the small holders, and the landless men, and to explore every avenue, and not to tie ourselves to the policy of splitting up land into small holdings. You find this situation true in the country. You find numbers of small holders within a radius of two or three miles of an estate which is being acquired by the Land Commission. If you tried to give the largest measure of relief you would allow a small portion, an acre or two acres to each of these small men, but I submit that is very often an uneconomic process. In the first place the congests live too remote from the estate. Anything beyond a mile or two is too remote from the property, and the natural propensity or tendency is to dilapidate the newly-acquired holding. The Land Commission must be aware of that. The policy of the relieved persons would be to grow hay upon the new holding without giving it sufficient manure and to cart away the crop and to fodder it on the home farm.
In the course of time this tends seriously to the deterioration of the holding and the holding becomes scarcely security for the money and certainly not as good security as when the money was originally advanced. You have, in the next place, a policy of endeavouring to shift a number of small holders on to those places. You make them surrender their original holdings and give them economic holdings on the acquired estate. That possibly may have advantages and possibly disadvantages. It occasionally leads to friction in the area, but I think it presents a better solution of the problem than the other. It appears to me that we cannot segregate this question of land division from the question of the need for improved conditions in agriculture. For instance, a farm of a certain acreage, worked on ordinary standards, yields so much annually. If you divide that holding into two you know, if you are not to have only half standards of comfort existing in the new homes, you must double the produce and income. There is a further point to be borne in mind, in this connection; the smaller you break up the land you must, as far as possible, reduce its charges correspondingly; that is my opinion.
People have got into the habit of thinking, and the view has been expressed here, that the more you break up the land the more you can knock out of it, and that the small holder can afford to buy on a more extravagant scale proportionately than the large landholder. Nothing could be more remote from the truth. If you break up land into very small holdings you have got to consider the need for the greatest economy in local services, if the conditions of the people who live on them are not to be disimproved.
What does the Deputy mean by "very small"?
The Deputy himself can very readily follow what is meant by very small. Take the case of a holding of 10 or 12 acres, the owner of which may get in addition three or four or five acres, or the case where you break up a farm of a couple of hundred acres into ten holdings of 20 acres each. Do you think that such holdings can afford to bear the same charges as when that land was a single unit? I submit that it cannot, because there would be ten families there where there was only one before, and unless you proportionately increase the productivity of the soil, with correspondingly good prices, you are heading for disaster if you, as the tenant of one of these small holdings, carry on at the more extravagant rate.
When the Minister was giving statistics this night week I heard a very audible whisper—"Liars, damn liars and statisticians." Without in any way, identifying myself with that observation, when one comes to reflect on and contemplate some of the utterances delivered here one could scarcely augment the force of it. I submit that the Deputy scarcely went far enough, that while "statistician" may be the superlative of "liar," there is another realm of lying which he does not even approach, or at least if he does approach, he does so unconsciously. I suggest that the politician's or the mob orator's utterances are the fourth dimension of mendacity, and I will prove it. He possesses the unique power of passing through an opaque substance, the skull of the average elector which a phrenologist will tell you is all bone and no brain.
They returned you.
I was a minority candidate, though. It was the intelligence of the county that returned me. That brings me back nearly to the beginning, as to whether we are prepared to put this question of relief as against division on the highest possible plane, and whether we proceed on wise lines, lines carefully thought out, or whether we proceed in any haphazard manner, without reflection on the consequences of our policy. I hold that the land question should not be a political one, and I have often expressed that view here. I hold that this problem of relief must be approached from three angles. The first is the sense of equity to the existing proprietor, whether the tenant or anybody else. He has a right to get something which approximates, I will not say to the value of the land, but to something which, when capitalised, will give him the equivalent of the income he has been deriving from the land when that money is invested.
Something for nothing.
I hold that we must come to the relief of these poor people who are in need of land, altogether from disinterested motives, and that there should be no such thing as bringing in a political atmosphere. We must pay attention also to the economic stability of agriculture. As far as one can see, some of the wild advocates of an agricultural policy want to put to sea without a chart, with no clear line of policy. I hold that you cannot separate these things, that you cannot separate the economic aspect of land tenure from the policy of division.
As in the case of the Seanad election, the first shall be last and the last first. I did not rise until the end of this debate, but I can assure the House that I cannot follow Deputy Connor Hogan. Deputy Baxter was of the opinion that people who live in congested areas should be migrated to other countries, but I think that would be unjust to the landless men and the uneconomic holders who are already in these counties and in the vicinity of the land which it is proposed to divide. In 1924 I put down a motion somewhat similar to this. I think that as far as my constituency is concerned we have not much to complain about. Something like 3,500 or 3,700 acres of land have been divided there, and it was not given to people who already possessed farms of 100 acres, but to uneconomic holders, who were thus given a means of livelihood. I quite agree that there is some delay in the sending out of circulars from the Land Commission to tenants to find out whether they are prepared to let the Land Commission take over certain lands. I would like Deputies to visit the offices of the Land Commission. I did so, and I never met more courteous men in my life. They are not working Trade Union hours but are working overtime, and I do not know whether they are paid overtime.
I could not tell from the speech of Deputy Hogan of Clare whether he was for or against this motion. Certainly he used very high language, language that it would take professors to interpret. I would like Deputy Hogan to realise that Rome was not built in a day, and to come down to realities. It is absolutely useless for Deputy Hogan to spur a free horse. Since the Land Commission took over the lands from the Congested Districts Board, I think they have done fairly well. Still it is necessary that such a motion should be brought forward in order, if possible, to make them do better.
The Minister last week said that there were 1,240,000 acres of untenanted land in the Saorstát to be divided to relieve congestion, and that something like 40,000 uneconomic holders would benefit. I would like to put it to the Minister now—what about the tenanted land, lands in the hands of tenants, from three to seven hundred acres? Because they are let to tenants under a landlord, it is not possible to have that land acquired by the Land Commission to relieve the congestion. I would ask the Dáil—I am sure Deputies have already made up their minds on the motion, and that it will be agreed to by the Minister for Lands and Agriculture—to try to relieve congestion, not alone amongst the uneconomic holders, but amongst the landless men. You will find these landless men, agricultural labourers, who are living in labourers' cottages, very industrious, and I cannot see why they should be deprived of the right of getting portion of the lands when they are being divided by the Land Commission. I think the question was raised yesterday with regard to employees on these lands. When I had the misfortune— or the fortune if you like—of being a member of the Labour Party in 1922, an amendment was added through that Party to the Land Act that any employee engaged on land which was taken over by the Land Commission, would be entitled to portion of that land. Considering the loss of employment caused by the Land Commission taking over such estates, surely the least we can expect is that a person employed on these lands shall not suffer, and that he shall get portion of the land, so that he will be able to rear and maintain his family. That provision was inserted in Section 31 of the Land Act, and I am sure the Minister will certainly carry out that section to the letter.
What is the cause of the delay in the division of the grass lands in the Saorstát? There are something like 24,000 acres in Westmeath and Longford that are ready to be acquired by the Land Commission. There have been about 3,700 acres acquired and divided —divided, I must say, in a most deserving manner. The Land Commission has succeeded in improving the economic position of a large number of families there. As far as the Land Commission is concerned, the staff is working overtime without any extra pay in order to try to carry out the provisions of the Land Act. In 1924, when I raised this question, the Land Commission was very slow. I think I said at that time that all big bodies move slowly, just like in the cinema, at the conclusion of a fight, we are shown a slow-motion picture. I think they have moved rather quickly since then, and instead of paying 6-4 they are now paying 6-5.
I think the best thing Deputy Roddy could do would be to withdraw this motion in order to give the Land Commission an opportunity of fulfilling and completing their obligations to the State.
I think the Land Commission must be a very big body judging by the slowness with which it moves.
I believe there are 2,500 employed there.
Mr. HOGAN
It must be a very large body judging by the speed with which it is moving. While the debate was in progress I went downstairs to my locker and I discovered I had ninety letters from the Land Commission telling me that matters would receive attention. The Minister was very fair in his statement regarding the distribution of land, so I will be very fair with him. I had only 87 letters relative to land in one constituency— that is to say, the correspondence and the representations all have been made to one Deputy in that county to see that the provisions of the Land Act of 1923 are carried into effect. I have listened to strange doctrines promulgated in the Dáil from time to time, but I must say that I never heard such economic heresy as I heard propounded during the course of this debate. I heard quite recently that the centralisation of control and of management of land would bring about better results than the distribution of land. What proof have we of that? Let us look at a place where any amount of land is centralised in its management and its control, and what is the net result? Is the produce better, is the productivity better than when it is given out in economic holdings? Let us take the landlord class. What demesnes are the centres of productivity? Yet it is seriously suggested instead of dividing land, that it should be centralised in management and control.
Did the Deputy ever hear of the Ralahine experiment?
Mr. P. HOGAN
That was a co-operative experiment, and I do not know that Deputies who suggested the centralisation of control of land suggested a co-operative experiment.
No, it is not a co-operative experiment but it is on rather analogous lines.
Mr. P. HOGAN
I thought the Deputy used the word "co-operation."
"Corporation" was the word I used.
Mr. P. HOGAN
"Corporation"; quite right. I thought the Deputy said "co-operation," and I am sorry. If I understand the meaning of corporation aright—as Imperialism is the negation of nationality, so corporation is the negation of co-operation.
It is seriously suggested that centralisation should be brought about. We would then probably have those centres of culture which we were told about on a previous occasion. I should like to say that when these lands were centrally controlled in the part of the country which I come from, the only sample of culture which we received was the culture of the battering-ram, the crowbar brigade, and the great clearances. I think we should remember what a gentleman who is not by any means a revolutionary in his outlook on any matter, namely, T. P. O'Connor, has written in his history of the Parnell movement, and it will be seen what culture was distributed to the people of Clare by those who had centralised control of the land.
Let the dead rest.
Mr. HOGAN
I did not awaken them, and I am trying to push them back to their graves. The economic doctrine propounded here, stripped of its verbiage, amounts to this, that because you cannot cure a disease in its entirety you must let it develop—you must not endeavour to heal any portion of it. That is what we hear in part from the Minister and in part from most of the other speakers. We have been listening for some time to talk about increased production, and we have been told by people who consider themselves competent that increased production should come from one certain quarter. The Minister for Agriculture has told us that there are close on two million acres of land either untenanted or ready for distribution.
One million two hundred thousand acres.
Mr. HOGAN
Very well. It amounts to this, that now when we are told that increased production is necessary certain people say that these 1,200,000 acres must be withheld from utilisation. What would be the productivity of that land if it were properly utilised? Is it properly utilised to-day? I ask the Minister can thirty-five per cent. of it be regarded as national wealth? Calculated on that basis, sixty-five per cent. of it is allowed to remain dormant. The Government have, on certain occasions, also urged increased production, but here is a case in which they themselves can endeavour to secure that increased production. I should like to register one occasion in which I find myself in agreement with Deputy Gorey, and that is when he regrets the disappearance from rural life of such people as country weavers, tailors and boot-makers. Has he, however, considered what has brought about their disappearance? Has he considered that it was because the people are not planted on the soil and because there is not sufficient demand for the work these people were doing?
The people are supplied elsewhere.
Mr. HOGAN
If you plant the people on the soil their wants will naturally have to be supplied, and you will find people coming forward to supply such wants as clothing, boots and other necessaries of life.
Are not the people there, and from where are their wants supplied?
Mr. HOGAN
The people are not there. There are 1,200,000 acres not peopled.
If people were put on the land would they require more boots and clothes than they do now?
Mr. HOGAN
If these people were put on economic holdings they would be able to purchase clothing and boots which they are not able to do now, to any extent. This productivity in agriculture would have its reaction right through the whole nation, and would have its effect in reducing unemployment, about which we are rightly hearing a good deal, and possibly will hear more. The productivity that would come from agriculture would have its effect in reducing the cost of living, and other industries would spring up. The Minister said that there was not enough land to go around. I wonder does the Minister suggest that we should become a nation of farmers, just as certain other people have been called a nation of shopkeepers, and that there should be no other industry in the country? I move the adjournment of the debate until Tuesday.
We came to an agreement to-day to adjourn until Tuesday, subject to the power of the Ceann Comhairle to summon a meeting for Monday. From the indications I have so far, I think there is a strong probability that the Dáil will be called on Monday.
The Dáil adjourned accordingly at 8.35 p.m.