In marking my objection to the Bill, I do so because I feel it is entirely aimed at the setting up of a form of control over property that I hold belongs to the individual. The result of it will be that it will have an opposite effect to that of developing afforestation. There can be no doubt about it, that, up to the present, there has been only one form of incentive for the planting of timber, mainly to beautify a district. Perhaps another incentive would be its commercial value. That work has been undertaken by individuals. What has been done by the State, so far as results go, is practically nil. The tendency in this Bill is to take property out of the hands of the owners. Timber is property just as much as any other thing. The moment you interfere with property you tighten up every source from which enterprise would have a chance of developing. This Bill deliberately aims at taking control from the owners of timber—a control which they had a reasonable belief they were empowered to exercise—and hands it over to an authority set up by the Dáil, with power to say what shall be done. That is very arbitrary. It is incredible that this system should be extended. If logically extended, in a short time farmers may be told by an Act passed in this House that they can only do such and such with whatever stock they have on their farms, or that they shall do such and such with their crops or other chattels.
If it is thought that farming, or the development of any industry in this country, can best be served by abolishing private ownership, without establishing some form of State compensation, or taking over and running industries under State direction, individual enterprise and development will come to a standstill. I have a fair amount of experience of timber growing, and I have a fair amount of experience of the conversion of timber into a commercial asset, and I find, undoubtedly, that in recent years the clearance of timber has been greatest. At the same time during a period of great depression timber has been very useful for firewood, but if the Dáil thinks that this is a suitable time for interfering, especially when employment is so scarce, the result will be that there will be a tightening up of industrial development and a number of saw-mills must close down. Does the State consider that this is a suitable time to cause more unemployment? If there was any real sincerity about this Bill, granting that there is necessity for conserving our timber supplies, I think the State should first set a good example. I know properties that were taken over by the State during the last few years on which a considerable amount of timber was growing. That timber was sold, not in the ordinary way, but at a much cheaper rate. As a matter of fact, I heard of a property that was taken over by the Land Commission where the timber was sold for a few pounds an acre. In other cases I know that timber has been ruthlessly cut down. The owner got the timber on the farm, and is simply using it for commercial purposes. What the value of that land will be subsequently is problematical. I am sure it will not be able to bear the annuity fixed on it.
I am sure, from my experience, that the land will not be able to bear the annuity that is put on it, and I am also satisfied that, as some of the people who have been given this property do not belong to this country at all, as soon as they have taken the timber off it they will clear away back to their own country, leaving the land valueless to the person who gets it, and there will consequently be a loss to the State.
In the Sligo end of my constituency there is Lough Gill, which is a very pretty place and regarded as a beauty resort, and there is some fine timber around there. I am told that land there came into the hands of the Land Commission recently and they are scarifying the beauty of the place by cutting the timber away. Very severe protests have been made by the local people against that. If the Government were really sincere in their desire to maintain these beauty spots and conserve the timber they would, first of all, see that they made the best use of those plantations that came into their hands, but instead of that they are the great scarifiers themselves. In this Bill they make no attempt at all to provide any form of compensation to the owners for the rights that they are taking over from them. There has been a good deal of talk in this House, and generally all over the country, about Russia and about the Bolshies in Russia and in this country, but this is really a very Bolshevist Bill and a very big advance in the direction of what has been condemned as very unfavourable. I can easily see that the Bill will undoubtedly inflict very great hardships on people who purchased forests during the last few years with the definite objective in view of cutting the timber and making use of it. If these people are handicapped by the Bill, as presumably they will be, quite a recent investment will be tied up. Perhaps these people had weighed the whole situation and had intended to turn over their money in the course of the next few years, but now that money is lost. It comes to this, that it will practically mean the end of any possibility of encouraging investment, with the immediate result that the Bill will inevitably lead to an increase in unemployment. It will also add in an extended and in a more dangerous way to the impossibility of any immediate improvement, or any improvement at any time, with regard to the investment of money with a view to the development of further industrial projects.
There is nothing decent in the Bill; there is nothing honest in it. If there was any show of sincerity on the part of the people who introduced it, they would first show a good example with the property that they have in their own hands, with which they can do what they like. They are handing it over to Englishmen engaged in saw-milling as tenants and allowing the trees to be cut down and used for commercial purposes by these people, who will only use the land as long as there is any money to be made out of the timber. As long as I see that attitude and know that they have done practically nothing by way of tackling this problem of afforestation in a big way, as it requires to be tackled, I am certainly opposed to the Bill. The House should be very careful about giving a mandate of this sort to a Government to allow them to gather up all the control they are aiming at, which is really to direct the farmer as to what he should do with his own goods. Before giving that control into the hands of any man in this House, or in this country, the House should carefully consider it and see what it amounts to. As I say, I do not see any use in the Bill. I see many things that are very dangerous in it, and I do not believe that the people who introduced it have any honest intention. Their tendency is very largely to get control of all the business, power and influence in the country, and their aim is directly at a dictatorship. A tendency towards a dictatorship is a bad thing. It has not had good results in any country that has had experience of it. Mexico is a sufficient example of a dictatorship. In other countries similarly we condemned it, but still every move that we have been making in this big scheme of centralising, of taking the rights, liberties and powers from individuals and vesting them in any one person, is tending in a direction which will inevitably react and leave this country in a very dangerous position.