I want to say a few words. Generally the cry through the country is to divide the land. Nobody thinks of the price the owner has to get. I do not suggest that the land Commission or any other Department of the Government should confiscate the owners' rights, but I suggest when the land is being taken over that the owners should not get such a price as that the tenant who is put into occupation should have to pay an uneconomic rent. The annuity fixed on the holdings of the allottees is entirely beyond what they are able to pay. I know some cases in Leinster where those who have got the land have not tilled it, as they are not able. They are now setting it on something like the same principle as that which was carried on by the ranchers previously. What they are getting on the eleven months system is, in some cases, less than what they are paying to the Land Commission, and out of that the local rate has to be found and other expenses. Those lands taken over by the Land Commission are no better than derelict farms. The drains were not clear. The passages were in a bad state. The Land Commission are giving for this land something like £40 an acre, which means an annuity of £2 an acre from the tenant. The tenant does not mind what the price is when he is getting it, but when he is in for a few years I am afraid there will be more land trouble for another Government.
When a tenant gets a holding there are no dwelling houses, out-offices, gates or passages in it. He has to build a house, out-offices, drain the land, buy all the necessary implements for the farm and utensils for the house. All over the country an amount of arrears is due in the way of Land Commission annuities by those people who have taken over the land who have only the landlord's interest to redeem and who are paying only an annuity of 12/- to 14/- per Irish acre. At present we have, I am sorry to say, about forty thousand pounds worth of arrears of annuities in County Limerick due to the Land Commission. Very little of that is land divided recently. It was the landlord's interest that had to be bought. The Land Commission is dividing now land which is costing the tenant about £2 10s. an acre. It has been said that it is not essential for the allottee to have finance enough to work the land. I say it is essential because without finance you are only making a bad case worse. Those people must be in arrears in future. It will be hard to expect one body of men to be paying rates and annuities for another. Generally the Government have got credit for doing the right thing regardless of popularity.
People who are interested in the division of land are crying out for it all over the country. I am sorry that the Department have given way to that popular cry. It is up to the Government not to give too high a price for the land. As I said before, I do not suggest that there should be confiscation. There should be proper value, but how to arrive at that value is a difficulty. Recently an estate was taken over in Enfield. The Land Commission offered £48,000. The owner appealed, and the Judicial Commissioner increased the offer to £51,000, on the ground that the owner was able to show his average figure for the previous five years. There is no comparison between the value of agricultural produce five years ago and to-day. Those who set the land at that time were getting more than three times per acre what they are now getting. The value of cattle was about 100/- a cwt. at that time for all classes, whereas now it is only about 50/- for the best beef. Land has gone down in value by about 50 per cent. during the past twelve months, and it is not down to bedrock yet. What I would advise the Land Commission to do is to concentrate on the land in their hands for the last fifteen years, divide that, and take over no other land until the land that they possess is divided. I do not know how much land there is in the Land Commission which is not yet vested under the 1903 Act. I put a question in regard to that some time ago, but the Land Commission did not answer. I do not know whether they were afraid to answer, but I asked for information as to how many estates were in their hands under the Act of 1903.
I was told that in order to compile these statistics it would take a considerable time, with the result that the staff would have to be taken off more useful work. If there were anything like proper accounts in the Land Commission I do not think that it would take a man ten minutes to find that information out. In any case, when the question was put down, I think it should have been answered. It is evident that they did not want to disclose the actual loss sustained by the State in regard to holdings which have not yet been vested, and which are paying interest in lieu of rent at 3½ instead of 3¼ per cent. That would nearly meet the income tax of the owner, but that in itself is a loss. Not being able to get the figures from the Land Commission, I got figures from my own area in connection with the Dixon estate, where there are sixty tenants who signed an agreement to purchase nearly twenty years ago. The average annuity that they are paying by interest in lieu of rent is £14. They are paying £840 a year, and in twenty years they would have paid £16,800, which is a dead loss to the State. I would suggest to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, if he were here, that that is blood and money going out of the country without protection to the farmer. It is free trade blood and money. Some of the tenants, as a protest, refused to pay their annuities in the last few years. One man was brought to court, and, having given his reasons for not paying, the judge refused to give a decree against him. The excuse given by the State solicitor was that the landlord was not able to prove title. A landlord who is not able to prove title in twenty years has no title to prove. I would suggest that that estate be taken over.