My idea about the Land Commission is that they are more to be sympathised with than censured. Every day you take up a newspaper you will find resolutions passed by public bodies and organisations (1) calling on the Land Commission to reduce their staff, and (2) calling on the Land Commission to expedite the carrying out of the Land Act of 1923, and to give the tenants the benefit of the extra ten per cent. The first resolution makes the second one impossible. Therefore, the Land Commission have my sympathy. Our duty here is to give the Land Commission any help that we can. At present in the Land Commission there exists what is called the order of priority, which is based on the fact that the solicitor of a particular estate is able to lodge the particulars with reference to that estate at an earlier period perhaps than some other solicitor. I hold that simpler cases should get preference over the more complicated ones. If the simpler cases were taken up first a great many tenants would be enjoying the benefit of the ten per cent. reduction. The complicated cases should be left to the last and the simple cases taken first, where the tenants had an honest landlord or a landlord who did not leave any bequests, etc., that it takes solicitors from Great Britain and other places to disentangle, and which prevent the tenant from enjoying the ten per cent. reduction to which he is entitled. If the simpler ones were determined, then the people would see that there was something being done. That is a matter which should engage immediate attention if the Land Commission will take my humble advice. Then in connection with the division of land, we are told that the best tenants are not selected. I hold that the man most entitled to an allotment of land is the labourer who loses his employment by reason of the fact that the land is being taken over. I would not give land to every labourer on the property.
In Committee on Finance. - Vote 55.—Land Commission (Resumed).
A Deputy
Why not?
I would select them carefully. I would give land to the men who would be likely to pay their annuities. Unfortunately there are men of all classes who will not pay their annuities. You will get good tenants from every class, and bad tenants from every class. I should also like the Parliamentary Secretary to take note of the fact that I have been urging on the Land Commission for the last two years the necessity of taking over and dividing a small property of about 80 acres near Killavullen and dividing it amongst the people of the village. There are ten or twelve people in the village adjacent to this property, and as they have houses already it will not be necessary for the Land Commission to build houses for them. The parish priest is very anxious that the land should be divided, and he says that if the land is given to any but the people of the village he fears they will kick up a bit of a dust. There is also a small property of about 150 acres at Glanworth. The whole matter was settled six months ago, but the land has not been divided. A great many small farmers with 12 and 14 acres tilled some of their own lands in the hope that they would get some of this land immediately and be able to graze it. If that land were given to them before the end of next month they would be pleased. Another matter I should like to mention is the fishery rights. I believe there is a case in abeyance at present, as it has been appealed. The lawyers took advantage of some little weakness in the Land Act and persuaded the judge that the fishery clauses were faulty. He took the bait and decided against the tenant and the Land Commission. In my parish, one man had the courage to appeal against that decision, and I hope he will be backed up by the Land Commission. It is their duty to back up their own Act.
Another matter to which I should like to call attention is that a great many tenants in my district suffer from flooding from the river. Deputy Goulding knows all about that. I think it is the duty of the Land Commission before vesting the lands or paying the landlords to see whether the landlords have been maintaining the river banks for the last 50 years, and, if so, to deduct from the sum to which they are entitled as much as will continue to maintain them. There are also sluices that need to be maintained which I hope the Land Commission will also see to. As I have said, I hope the Land Commission will give the simpler cases first attention and let the people see that some of the properties are being vested and that the Land Act of 1923 was not, as some people tell us, intended to be a landlord's Act, but a tenant's Act, and that the tenants will get their reduction of 2/- in the £ that some people tell them they will never get.
Deputy Daly has reminded me of one or two things in connection with the Land Commission administration which, perhaps, it is no harm to call attention to. He dealt with the question of the river embankments. I have a case in my mind in my own constituency that will illustrate the disability under which many tenants have suffered in the last few years in connection with this matter. When the Land Act of 1923 came into force many of the landlords took advantage of it to evade their responsibilities. There was one case in particular that caused very great hardship. A number of tenants, under the impression that the Land Commission had taken over the responsibilities of the landlord refused to pay annuities owing to the fact that the river bank on their land had broken and rendered a considerable portion of the land useless. They claimed that as the land was useless to them they should not be asked to pay for it. Now the unfortunate result is that five or six years' annuities have accrued and three of the tenants are unable to meet them and are threatened with eviction. It is a pity the Land Commission, at the outset, did not make it clear to them that the responsibility was upon the landlord and, then, it would have been open to the tenants to proceed against the landlord. They were under the impression, all these years, that the Land Commission was the responsible party. The unfortunate result now will be that there will be some trouble there, I am afraid, if the people are evicted, because popular sympathy will be with them.
Tenants have also complained to me that they have not been at liberty to let their land for grazing purposes in the endeavour to make some money to be able to pay the Land Commission. They could not let the land owing to the fact that the Land Commission threatened seizure and actually did seize cattle put on the land to graze. Now if an arrangement was made with these men by which the Land Commission would undertake not to make seizures provided the grazing lettings were earmarked to pay off arrears, these tenants would be given an opportunity of getting out of their difficulty. Their complaint is that for the last two years the land is useless. They cannot use it, and they are precluded from letting it. It is a pity that some effort could not be made to meet these people. I have approached the Land Commission officials and found them sympathetic I must say. They met me very fairly in the matter. But many of these people are in the position that they cannot pay their annuities and they have not been able to use the land for the last two years. They feel bitter. They say that if they were allowed to let the land they could procure enough money to help to clear off the arrears.
One aspect in connection with this Vote that I would like to call attention to has been already dealt with, but I do not think it is any harm to return to it, perhaps at some length. It is the reduction in the Improvement Vote. I do not know anything more regrettable than the decision in regard to that Vote. For some years—the last two years notably—no money has been provided by the Dáil directly for the relief of unemployment. Members of this House coming from rural constituencies are aware of the fact that any steps taken in that connection had to be taken through the money provided out of this Vote. Outside that aspect of the case the work done through that means has been of real value to the country. I am well aware of that myself, and I am very glad to be able to bear testimony to the fact that this money was very well expended and was of real value to all sections of the community.
I cannot understand how it is that at the present time a decision of this kind is taken. It is more regrettable in view of the fact that schemes in the hands of the Land Commission were left unfinished. Portion of them were carried out, but they were left unfinished so that the money originally expended is of no real value, having regard to the fact that the principal works are unfinished. I am glad to say that in the constituency I come from the Land Commission have made a substantial contribution to solving the housing question. Deputy Sheehy (Cork) will know that in the particular portion of the constituency near to where he lives a good deal in that direction has been done. But I think he will agree that in the constituency we come from, as in many other places, there is great opportunity for doing a great deal more, and a great and urgent need for doing more. In the whole congested area of the western portion of the County Cork I would like to see a great deal more done by the Land Commission.
Isolated cases have, here and there, been dealt with and relieved to a certain extent. But what we expect and need very badly is a bigger effort in that direction, and a more general attempt to come to the assistance of a large number of people who can never be touched by any ordinary housing legislation, no matter what grants are provided. There are a certain number of very deserving and hard-working people who could never avail of such grants, because they never could provide the difference between such grants and the amount needed to erect a house. With the addition of some amount to their annuities, a great deal could be done by the Land Commission if there was a more generous application of the steps that have been taken already in one or two districts in the constituency towards dealing with the matter.
I have to complain also that an old outstanding matter has not been dealt with as well as some of us would like. I suppose no question has been more fully debated over a long period than the question of the evicted tenants. There has been some general idea lately that all cases of that kind that anything could be said for have been dealt with. That is not so. In West Cork we have a very large number of cases of notorious victimisation and these people have not been dealt with at all.
I am very anxious that we should have some statement as to what steps are being taken to deal with such cases or even to keep in touch with them. In that connection, it is, I think, right to mention the fact that in a constituency like ours in West Cork, where there is not a great deal of land available for distribution to evicted tenants and other people, the most is not being made of the opportunities that exist for obtaining the land there is for such purposes, and that we have at least two or three cases in the constituency where substantial parcels of land, eminently suitable for distribution to evicted tenants or other people, are not available. Through some means or another the Land Commission refused to move, with the result that some people who otherwise might have been attended to were not able to avail of the machinery which the Land Commission provided for them in that connection.
I would like to see the Land Commission endeavouring to do more in the direction of the prevention of flooding. We have machinery to provide for grievances of that kind through the Drainage Acts, but there are certain minor schemes that the drainage legislation, passed by this House, can hardly be said to be suited for. Through the machinery of the Land Commission minor schemes of that kind might very easily be tackled during the summer period. They would be of much assistance to the individual small holder of land.
I am glad to be able to pay, to some degree, a tribute to the work of the Land Commission in one connection or another which I have mentioned. I regret to see that the Land Commission have decided to suspend what certainly was one of the most useful functions performed by the Department.
On a Vote involving over half a million pounds it is necessary that a strict investigation should be made into the manner of its expenditure, particularly where the Department deals with one of the most important services in the State. Speaking with the knowledge of a countryman and with the knowledge that has been expressed by various Deputies in this House from all sides, I am forced to the conclusion that that Department which, as I say, is one of the most important in the State and should be one of the most efficient is, in some manner or other, one of the most inefficient and gives the least satisfaction. I was listening the other morning to the leader of the Farmers' Party, Mr. Heffernan. What struck me very forcibly was the point which he wished to emphasise very much, and that was that the Land Commission should slow up. I thought that, coming from a Deputy who speaks as the leader of the Farmers' Party, was very significant, because I am convinced of one thing, that when he told the Land Commission to slow up, except he referred to the fact that it might be advisable to slow up in some of their actions of late years, particularly their harsh methods in compelling farmers to pay land annuities where their means do not warrant it, I am sure he does not represent the voice of any farmer in the country. Deputy Heffernan mentioned, and it has been mentioned by the front bench, too, that the Department should slow up rather than to proceed. It is a striking statement to make, particularly in view of all the cases, that have been mentioned in this House where agreements to purchase land entered into twenty years ago have not yet been completed, and particularly again in view of the fact that the Land Acts passed in the British House of Commons over twenty years ago laid special stress and emphasis on the necessity there was for dealing with the congested areas in the country.
As a result of those Acts certain attempts were made to deal with them, but after twenty years or more have passed the congests are there to-day in a greater state of want and poverty than at any other period since the Land Acts were first introduced. In face of those facts for a Government front bench, or the leader of the Farmers' Party, to say that the duty of the Land Commission is to slow up is not speaking the minds of the farmers or showing any appreciation of their wants.
Looking through the Estimates, you might say the whole of this money is spent for administrative purposes, for administering the various Land Acts. With the exception of a sum of £161,000, which has to be spent on improvement of estates, all the rest of the money is for administrative expenses. I hold that a great deal of that money is quite unnecessarily expended. I have sufficient experience of the working of the Land Commission to know that it is very expensive, and unnecessarily expensive. Let us take a case where the Land Commission set out to acquire untenanted land, or again, where they set out to purchase an estate and transfer it from the landlord to the tenants. They set about it in a very elaborate way, which is entirely out of proportion to what the real value of the property concerned would warrant. Let us take it that a parcel of land down the country is to be sub-divided. The Land Commission inspectors visit the place, and after various visits and inspections, all thorough and elaborate, come to a decision as to the price of the land. They next set about receiving applications from the various people whom they consider may be eligible for an allotment on that land. They set abroad the idea that every grievance that an uneconomic holder has in the area is to be rectified and that all persons who claim to be capable of tilling land, all landless men, will be supplied. The result is the raking in of reams of grievances and numbers of applications for land from people who, in the ordinary way, have very little interest in land or would not waste their efforts in looking after it, but inasmuch as they anticipate the possibility of getting something handy they make their application. When the Land Commission has settled with the owner and has spent money on the improvement of the estate, making roads, drains and fences, building and doing other things, they allot according to the applications before them, and only then the incoming tenant realises the price he has to pay for the land.
I consider that that is entirely a very inefficient method of going about the work. They are securing land for allotment. They sub-divide it and they offer it to persons to enlarge their holdings or to landless people. They secure a number of applications, many more than they are capable of dealing with, and they are thereby in a position to say to people that if they did not take the allotments there were others who would. In that way they set up a form of competition, much on the lines of an unscrupulous auctioneer when disposing of a farm. If, instead of that, the Land Commission set up a local committee and entrusted it with certain powers to investigate the local requirements of the small uneconomic holders, they would do much better work. They could tell that local committee that they could not rectify grievances beyond the land at their disposal, that there were no uneconomic holdings that they could enlarge, or that there were no evicted tenants that they could reinstate, except in so far as there was land available to meet their requirements, and that there was no money that they could give away for drainage or other work that the tenants would not have to pay back. If they made that committee aware of the situation they would find a committee composed of parties who had an interest in the work, and these people would set about evolving such improvements and purchasing at such prices as would, make the undertakings economic. All of us have had experience of the methods of dividing land under this very elaborate kind of scheme of the Land Commission. I have met people in the last few years holding a lot of land under the Act of 1923, and they have asked me to try and get the Land Commission to take back the land that had been given to them under this huge scheme, because the price of it was prohibitive and they were unable to pay for it. If they worked in that way I am satisfied that a considerable sum of money could be saved in the salaries and expenses of inspectors, and they would get a much more efficient service and better results would accrue.
There are a few items in this Estimate under Appropriations-in-Aid. I see here a sum mentioned— Interest on Church Surplus Grant— amounting to £41,000. From what I can find out, that grant is put to the credit account of the Land Commission. That represents a sum of money that under the Land Act of 1896 was handed over for the improvement of the congested estates. I am very much surprised that the Parliamentary Secretary, who represents. as I do, a congested area, would approve of the appropriation of that sum of money that was voted in 1896 in the British House of Commons, to improve the condition of the congested areas. I cannot understand how he would sanction the appropriation of that sum of money for the expenses of the Land Commission, leaving the congests in the destitute condition in which they are.
Very recently I had occasion to mention in this House the state of one district in Leitrim—Ballinaglera —that was subject to flooding. After stating the case, as I saw it, I was answered from the Government Benches by the Parliamentary Secretary. He stated that no money was then available, but if something was done first by the county council, his Department might afterwards see their way to do something. The county council have since allocated a certain amount of money to relieve the destitution of that district, but the Land Commission up to the present has done nothing. Yet there is a sum of money that by right belongs to the congested areas of which Leitrim is an outstanding part, and that money is taken from them and spent on the salaries and expenses of the Land Commission. The whole Vote for the Land Commission is made up of salaries and expenses, with the exception of £161,000. I appeal strongly to the Deputies representing the congested areas to investigate this sum, and before they give a vote for the confiscation of the sum of £41,000 I mentioned for the general expenses of the Land Commission, I would ask them to examine the situation and to act according to justice.
Further, there is this wholesale neglect on the part of the Land Commission to deal in any way effectively with drainage. The Land Commission have been spending certain sums from time to time for what they call the improvement of estates and for the drainage of estates. At the same time I have known them to spend considerable sums of public money on drainage schemes which were entirely impracticable, because there was another Department in this State—Public Works—who had been carrying out drainage schemes, and there was overlapping. One Department had been operating against the other. Clearly there is something very wrong in having two Departments with interests that clash so very gravely as in the case of these two Departments. I feel that there should be closer cohesion between the two Departments. I am also convinced that where the Land Commission feel it necessary to spend money on the drainage of estates they should have sufficient power to remove any obstacle, regardless of legal rights that could have existed and that were held by the Board of Works. They should have the right to remove these obstructions. There should be no dual ownership or rivalry in a matter of such concern to the farmers who have to live in the State.
Reference has been made here, from time to time, whenever this question of the land comes up, as to what one Party did in assisting the farmers to purchase their land. It has been stated that the Government Party introduced a Bill that has gone a long way towards solving the land problem. The insinuation has been made that another Party has done nothing but criticise and obstruct. No Party in this House should take any credit for any Land Act that has been passed here or for the good work that has been done in dividing land or for taking any of the land that remains from the landlords and vesting it in the tenants. The land question was fought long before this Dáil was set up. It was the fight made by the people during the land war that settled the land question, as far as any settlement we know exists, and the Acts of Parliament that were passed by the British House of Commons, by the old Irish Party who fathered them, were the result of the fight made by the farmers at home, and I think it is cheap for any Party in this House to claim any great credit for anything that was done in the way of acquiring land in the last few years. I think that claim is too cheap and certainly not much credit to the people who make it.
Deputy Heffernan the other day stated that it might be a mistake to acquire too much land, to move too quickly, or to utilise good land for sub-division. He made what to me appears to be an extraordinary statement, that bad or poor land was better for sub-division than good land. Now, if Deputy Heffernan, the leader of the Farmers' Party, stated that the poor land would be less suitable for extensive farming than good land, I would agree with him; but to state that poor land was better in the matter of small divisions than good land appears to me to be a perfectly unaccountable thing. I leave it at that. I do not agree with the Deputy and neither do the farmers of the country agree with him.
I will now refer to an outstanding grievance of mine, the vesting of land. Though it may worry the patience of the House, still I feel in duty bound to mention the matter once more. I have repeatedly made reference to the glaring injustice that exists in the cases of tenants who entered into purchase agreements some twenty years ago and whose holdings are still unvested. If any argument could be brought forward to justify leaving such holdings unvested it would be another matter, but to me it seems there has been grave injustice done to the tenants situated in the manner I have indicated. I could put forward several unanswerable cases in which grave injustice has been inflicted on farmers. Until those cases have been attended to I feel it my duty to keep on insisting here that they be remedied. Under the 1903 Act farmers were persuaded to purchase under certain promises but these promises have never been kept. In consequence of entering into agreements then, the farmers have been deprived of a considerable amount of money— they have been swindled in their bargains. I say that is an injustice and this Government is bound to take some action.
Let us take our minds back to the conditions that existed prior to the introduction of the largest Land Act passed in the British House of Commons—the Land Act of 1903. We will recollect that conditions then existed under which it was no longer profitable, indeed it was impossible, for landlords to collect their rents.
In such an atmosphere the Bill was introduced, and eventually it passed into law. The farmers had made up their minds that the issue was knit. They were determined to resist paying the landlord. They succeeded with wonderful effect, and then the compromise came along They were told that they could purchase their farms on the basis of a certain number of years purchase. It worked out on an average of 20 years, and they were promised a reduction of 20 per cent. on their annuities. After a period of 68½ years they would become the owners of their farms. In that way, on the very worst estates, agreements to purchase were entered into. Thus faded away the big resistance on the part of the people that beat down the landlords and brought all landlord aggression to a standstill. The unfortunate people who were highly rack-rented and who lived in desperate conditions, had made a strong fight, but they were misled by the promises made them. They looked upon the offer as a fairly decent offer. Thus were brought out of the fray the strongest forces arrayed against the landlords. The unfortunate tenants were left high and dry, and under the agreements they then entered into they are still paying. The mortgage they originally contracted for, covering a period of 68½ years, is not reduced by one cent. These people entered into contracts to purchase on the basis of 20 years' purchase. They now find that they will have paid what would amount to a 30 years' purchase by the time the lands are vested in them. Can they be blamed for refusing to tolerate that?
How does the Deputy arrive at the 30 years' purchase figure?
Perhaps the figure may not be accurate. I will, however, quote the case of a farmer paying interest in lieu of rent for a period of 20 years. With a reduction of 20 per cent. on his rental, the interest in lieu of rent would be about £13. Taking that over a period of 20 years——
I am afraid the Deputy is not a mathematician.
I will not state that I am, but if I am not a mathematician I am at least capable of understanding that the Department for which the Parliamentary Secretary is responsible is surcharging the farmers to the extent of millions of pounds.
The Deputy made a specific statement about 30 years' purchase. I want to know how he arrived at that.
The bargain was for 20 years' purchase. The farmer has been paying interest in lieu of rent for 20 years. I calculate that the amount he has paid in the meantime would represent an additional ten years to the purchase price.
How does the Deputy arrive at that figure?
On the grounds that I have stated. The farmer has been paying interest in lieu of rent for 20 years and I contend that he has paid approximately a sufficient amount to add ten years to the original 20 years' basis on which he purchased. He was led to believe that he could purchase on the basis of 20 years, but for a similar period he has been paying interest in lieu of rent and the land has not yet been vested in him. The position is that after all those years the tenants have not reduced their mortgages by one penny. All sorts of promises were made to the tenants. They were to get good roads, drainage would be carried out, and there would be general improvement on the estates. The Land Commission inspectors then as now went through the country. I have lists of cases where inspectors promised tenants that money would be at their disposal varying from £10 to £50 to improve their farms and buy more stock. Those promises were never made good. I brought these claims to the Land Commission offices, but they merely regarded them as out of date. Years ago the Land Commission gave as an excuse that during the progress of the European War they had no funds available for carrying on work under the Land Acts. They pointed out that England was involved in the war and that consequently money was scarce. The farmers of this country contributed their share to the general expenses of the war. They paid their share in taxation. The then Government did not observe the promises that had been made to the unfortunate tenants. Apart from making Irish tenants pay their share in taxation towards the war, they taxed them further by withholding the grants that were promised relative to the purchase of the land in this country. They thereby put a very substantial additional charge on our unfortunate people. The authorities then in existence failed to carry out their contracts with Irish tenants, and they did not act towards our people in a fair or reasonable way.
I hold that it is the duty of the Dáil to push home to the British Government a claim for a refund of any sums of money that these farmers have been obliged to pay because of the delay caused them in the vesting of their holdings. The Dáil should not fail to make that claim because of any inconvenience it might cause to the British Government for the time being. In addition to that a sum of £41,250 is being unfairly and unjustifiably taken from the congested areas. That money was held by the Congested Districts Board and given to the general spending department of the Land Commission. What has become of the £20,000 a year that under the Act of 1903 was handed over to the Congested Districts Board to be spent on improvements in the congested areas? What became of the £144,000 that was annually handed over by the Imperial Government for the congested areas for a similar purpose? Have these sums ceased, and, if so, what are the reasons? I again stress my appeal to the Deputies who represent congested areas to give very grave consideration to this matter and to be very careful before they give a vote on this Land Commission Estimate. They can surely insist that the moneys that by right should belong to these areas, and which were passed for the improvement of those blots in the country—the congested areas— should be devoted to their improvement. They should refuse to give a vote for the spending of one penny until that money is readjusted or handed back for the purpose for which it was really intended, and that is the improvement of the congested areas.
I rise to support the Vote for the Land Commission. I have much pleasure in endorsing the remarks which my colleague, Deputy T. Murphy, made with regard to the administration under the Land Commission in West Cork. There is no doubt that we are all under a great obligation to the chief of the Land Commission for his great work in wiping out some very unsightly spots in that part of the country. Down in Hare Island you had a population of 219 people living in the most horrible hovels in which human beings could dwell. The Congested Districts Board came along there, and now these hardy fishermen are living with their families in comfortable homes. As Deputy Murphy pointed out, there are other spots along our seaboard that require immediate attention. We have other places along our seaboards in which many unfortunate people have been very patient for years, living in the midst of bad surroundings, and unless the Land Commission come to the rescue, these people cannot be properly housed.
I listened to the last speaker giving us a history of the land question for years back. Well, I wish to inform the House that I enlisted in the eighties as a soldier under the banner of the Land League. I addressed meetings side by side with Parnell, Joe Biggar, Dillon, Davitt and the other leaders in different parts of Ireland. I attended conventions, and in my youth and vigour I travelled from meeting to meeting. When the Land League was suppressed, we established the National League, and I became its first secretary in Skibbereen in 1885. When that organisation went by the board, we established the United Irish League, and continued the fight and kept up our agitation for the betterment of the people. We succeeded in getting three great Land Purchase Acts passed, and, thank God, this Dáil has put the coping-stone upon land purchase by the passing of the Act of 1923.
Looking back at the great fight, looking back at the self-sacrifice of thousands of my fellow-countrymen and remembering what hundreds of the tenant farmers suffered in the Plan of Campaign days, I recall how we were hunted through the country by the old R.I.C. when we were collecting funds for the fight. Many men in the past sacrificed their homes in the interests of the tenant farmers of the country. Now, when one hears, as we have heard in the Dáil those last few days, terrible criticism of the action of the Land Commission with regard to the non-vesting of holdings, and when one considers all the row that is made on that matter and contrasts it with the patient and enduring fight that was made forty years ago when we were building up the citadel of Irish freedom and raising the people from the condition in which they then lived, one is surprised. I remember when the tenant farmers could not keep a dog. If tenants had nice gardens or if they improved their houses or drained and improved their lands, their rents were immediately raised and they would have to pay these rents or go to the emigrant ship. These were the things the people had to face in the old days that I remember so well. Thank God we have a better condition of things to-day in Ireland.
We should have a different atmosphere here. We should not have the carping criticism that I have heard during this debate. It was an enormous weight of work to vest all the lands in the Saorstat and even if all of it has not been vested I am satisfied that the Minister has been doing his level best all along. The Land Commission may not be perfect, but I am sure they are doing as much for the country and working as hard for the vesting of these lands as they possibly can. I say that the tenant farmers of Ireland who worked so hard and endured so much in the fight to overthrow landlordism and who lived until the day when we saw the great Land Purchase Act of 1903, were delighted to be in a position to purchase their holdings. I say that when decent men supplied them with money to buy out these holdings the decent tenant farmers of Ireland are not going to repudiate the repayment of that money. I tell you, a thousand times, "No." They will do no such thing. The tenant farmers of Ireland who have gone through so much suffering to get their lands purchased are loyal and faithful to their bonds and they will not throw away the reputation they have won for honesty. They will hand down to their children and to their children's children farms with a heritage of honour on them and they will do nothing to lessen the credit and reputation of the country.
I attribute a good deal of the trouble and discontent amongst the farmers in the country at the present time who purchased their lands under the Land Act of 1923 to the position in which they find themselves consequent upon their having done so. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture at the time of the passing of that Act was warned of the consequences by Deputies in this House, by, amongst others, Deputies Heffernan and Gorey. But he disregarded these warnings. Commissioners who were sent down through the country to purchase untenanted land were latently sympathetically disposed towards the landlords. The result was that in the prices paid for the untenanted land the landlords reaped a golden harvest. As far as the tenants were concerned it was the case of "Walk into my parlour said the spider to the fly." The Minister for Lands and Agriculture walked into the mesh that was so ingeniously spun for him by the landlords. The result is that the men who were put into these untenanted lands are at present paying exorbitant rents. They now find that they cannot pay these exorbitant rents. The whole proceedings showed a great lack of experience and foresight on the part of the then Minister for Lands and Agriculture. It may be said that this Land Act of 1923 was for the tenant farmers of the country who fought for it for years and years in order to purchase their holdings. I maintain that it was a landlord's Act and it was only intended to be a landlord's Act. At the time the new Government had very little experience in the drafting of Bills. They were quite a new Government and perhaps it may be hard to blame them.
I wish to bring under the Parliamentary Secretary's notice a few cases down in my locality of which I wish to complain. The first is in the case of the estate of St. John Grant in Kilmurray. Time after time Deputies came up here and interviewed the Parliamentary Secretary, who received them very sympathetically and very cordially, and he gave them a kind of promise that the grievances they were sufferring under would be remedied.
I visited those lands at Kilmurray this time twelve months, when the farmers had sown their seeds, planted their potatoes, and had nearly all their spring work completed. A flood, however, occurred on the Blackwater and swept the seeds down the river. Their grievance was that they are paying rates and rent for the Blackwater which has a valuable salmon fishery on it. If they got the fishery rights vested in them they would be partly satisfied, and, in my opinion, that would only partly compensate them for the loss which they sustained by their seeds and crops being swept away. Nothing has been done by the Minister for Fisheries. I understand that a lady inspector was sent down to inspect those lands. I cannot understand how a lady inspector comes to be an official of the Land Commission. I would like if the Minister would tell us how many ladies there are in the Land Commission. This lady inspector, as I say, went down to inspect the lands, but she never went beyond the town of Fermoy. If there are any more lady inspectors in the Land Commission perhaps that is a reason why that Department is so slow in vesting lands. I would suggest to the Minister for Fisheries that he should not get entangled in the apron strings of these lady inspectors. There is also the estate belonging to Miss Green, which has been acquired recently but has not yet been divided. I hope when the time comes for dividing those lands that the representatives of the people who formerly had land in that district will get preference. I maintain that in the division of those lands the best men should be selected, men of experience who are capable of carrying on farming work.
Then there is the land at Moor Park, about which I raised a question over twelve months ago. There about 1,000 acres were handed over to the military after the evacuation of the British—1,000 acres of the finest arable land in Munster. It seems extraordinary that the Land Commission would have to go to Swords to commandeer a farm of 150 acres of land while thousands of acres are lying undivided in my district. That land is at present let on the eleven months' system. Perhaps the Minister would inform us what amount of revenue is derived from those lands and what is the cost of keeping a caretaker on them. A good deal has been said about the vesting of lands and about the rapid pace at which untenanted lands are being bought. My advice to the Land Commission is to cry halt in the acquisition of land until the lands have been vested in the tenants who bought them. It is all very fine to talk about what is to be done for the unfortunate farmers. I say, and I am sure that every farmer Deputy will agree, that with the cost of living, the cost of labour, the depreciation in the prices of cattle, farmers would want land for nothing if they are to pay their way and rear their families. Deputy Gorey, I think, said that there was too much sympathy for these poor devils. I know some farmers, poor devils, who have been pulling the devil by the tail all their lives. The sun of prosperity did not shine on them as brightly as it has on Deputy Gorey and they were not born, like him, under a lucky star.
As I say, I advise the Land Commission to cry halt in purchasing land until the Government turn the corner about which we hear so much. They should get a move on and not grope around the corner. When they do get a move on I hope that they will bring the farmers out of the shifting quagmire in which they find themselves and restore them to their former prosperity. Are we to hand down slavery and poverty from one generation to another? Was it for that that the Land League was formed and was that the prosperity and freedom for which the men of 1916 fought? The Government should do something practical and get competent men in the Land Commission to do the work. There is also a case which I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will note. I refer to the estate near Fermoy, formerly held by Mr. Noonan, which was taken over by the Land Commission. The former tenant paid 13/4 an acre as rent, whereas it is now 18/-, and it is being paid by a woman who was brought from a congested district in the West. That proves to me that the inspectors who were sent down were more sympathetic to the landlords than to the unfortunate people who got the land. If that is allowed to continue we will be handing down to posterity a legacy of slavery and poverty which it will take many generations to abolish.
There are some thirty estates in Galway in which I am interested but into the details of which I do not now purpose to go. I may, however, refer to a few of them as examples of how things should not be done. In the first place, the reduction of the Improvement Grant by £191,000 is, to my thinking, false economy, as such expenditure is in the ultimate resort productive. In a question on to-day's Order Paper I referred to one case in which, owing to the neglect in draining seventy acres on the Ruthven estate at Portumna, nearly half the land has become soured, sodden, and in danger of being permanently submerged. The river flows into Lough Derg and was drained annually up to ten years ago, but since then nothing has been done though it was inspected two years ago. Worse than that, these seventy acres form portion of a farm of 120 acres which was taken over by a Committee of fourteen poor tenants many years ago and who have been paying for it in the hope of getting reductions, getting it vested and of having proper drainage done. That is one sample. There is one particular case which affects the problem of congestion and also the Gaeltacht.
I refer to the village of Pollough, Ballinderrin, County Galway, in which there are some fourteen Irish-speaking families with farms ranging from 5 to 12 acres each. Even if they have more, one could scarcely call it land. It was proposed some years ago to get land in another district for three of those tenants and thus to some extent relieve congestion. Finally, it was decided to remove one of the tenants so as to give some relief, though it would be very small. There seems to be no other land available in the neighbourhood and no means of giving relief except by removing some of the tenants to another district. The tenant to be removed was a Mrs. Linnane. A new holding was laid out and a house built for her on the St. George and Concannon Estate. There were delays for one reason or another, and some time last year a Mr. Quinn, P.C.—a very estimable citizen, no doubt; I have not the pleasure of his intimate acquaintance—was made caretaker, and he has now got the land and house destined for the poor woman, with the result that no relief can be given to congests in the Pollough area. I was informed by the Land Commission that this Mr. Quinn had no land in 1913 and that he had no living relations except two elderly maiden sisters. He got married since he was promised the land, but, at any rate, in 1913 he was given a holding and removed from Pollough. He got a holding the rent of which was £25 and the valuation £35. He has now also got the land destined for Mrs. Linnane. The reason he got the land I was told was that a nephew of Mrs. Linnane wrote a threatening letter to Mr. Quinn. Suppose that that was true, and that the land could not be given to Mrs. Linnane, why not remove one or two of the other tenants out of this congested village and give them the land, instead of giving it to a man who had land already—perhaps not in his own name, but in his deceased father's name or in his maiden sister's name? Why not give the land to some of the other congested tenants of that village? I refer to this case because it looks as if there were something fishy about it. Mr. Quinn, I have no doubt, got the land because he is a P.C. a reliable citizen, and will pay the annuity. I heard him speak down there and it was not in Irish. I was in the houses of these congests and I heard not one word of English. Of course, we are very sympathetic to the Gaeltacht.
Another case to which I would wish to refer is that of a tenant on the Lewin Estate, Kilshanry, Kilconly, Tuam. There was a tenant there named Nicholas Canning, who had a small portion of land. He was a resigned member of the R.I.C., and he applied for a pension, but did not get it, for political reasons, it was stated. At any rate, he applied for a holding on the Lewin estate in order to make his present holding, which is very small, economic. It seems very strange that he was the only tenant who did not get any land in that district. When I inquired into the matter, I was told that his holding was excluded from the Act of 1923. It is very strange that his was the only holding excluded. On the same estate a shopkeeper—I have no objection to his getting land, and I believe he is a good citizen—who has already 10 acres has got another 10 acres. An ex-teacher and a man who is serving as a sergeant in the Civic Guards have also got land there. There seems to be something strange about that. I just quote these cases as examples of some of the things that perhaps should not be done. Whenever I approached the Land Commission I found them very reasonable. If one had a good case one would be listened to and justice was generally done. These are two cases, the Pollough case particularly, in which I think the right thing was not done.
Deputy Wolfe, a few days ago, when this Estimate was under discussion, made a fierce attack on the Land Bill which we introduced some time ago. He spoke away from the Estimate, in my opinion, but at any rate, although he spoke very fiercely and at great length, he finished up really as a lamb in wolf's clothing. He was a great thought reader. He read our purpose in this Bill, and what it implied. I do not agree with him, though, of course, I would feel nervous in disputing matters of land law with him. Still I am venturesome enough to disagree with the conclusions which he drew. He is an excellent thought reader. He is positively psychic, and would be a great help to those in search of media over in England. I think he should get in touch with some of the psychic research people. He spoke as Sir Oracle: "This is the law, and nobody dare contradict it." He said that we apologised for the Bill. That is something like a legal quibble. We admitted that the draft of it was not altogether perfect, but we submitted that the House should allow us to amend it in order to cover the two objects that we intended to cover. Deputy Wolfe also nearly shed tears—there was a lump in his throat and a break in his voice— when he came to talk of our treatment of the non-judicial tenant. We suggested that they should be all dealt with before 1932. I wonder if Deputy Wolfe believes that the Land Commission will have dealt with them by 1932 at the present rate of progress? Regarding the position of the tenants under the Land Acts and their treatment by the Land Commission, I should like to go into some figures. Under the Act of 1903, known as the Wyndham Act, a bargain was made. There was certainly a delay in vesting then, because cash and not bonds had to be provided, as it would not do to put large blocks of this land stock on the market. While there was a delay, I believe that was the chief cause of the delay winder that Act. Under the 1923 Act the landlords are paid in 4½ per cent. Bonds, and that difficulty does not exist. Still, most of the land under the 1903 Act was vested in the tenant within six years after the bargain had been made. It is now nearly six years since the bargains were made in August, 1923, under the 1923 Act, and yet there is very little vested in the tenants, that is the fixing of the appointed day under the 1923 Act. It is not correct to state, as the Minister for Agriculture did, that the tenant under the 1903 Act got no reduction till the day of vesting. What usually occurred was this, if I am right: if it was a second-term tenancy—that is, a rent fixed between August, 1896, and 1911—he usually bought at 22 or 23 years' purchase. That was a reduction of between 5/- and 5/8; let us say, an average of 5/6. He did not get this reduction till the land was vested in him, nor was the Sinking Fund operating to redeem the capital sum. In place of paying on the purchase price 3¼ per cent. (as when vested) he usually arranged with the landlord to give 3½ per cent. on the price. In some cases it was higher than that, but 3½ per cent. was the 1903 Act. This meant a reduction. That 5/6 in the £ meant 72½ per cent. of the old rent. At 3½ per cent. it would work out at nearly 78 per cent., and meant during the waiting period, 22 per cent. reduction. On first-term judicial rents—that is, rents fixed between August, 1881 and 1896, the fifteen year period—it meant, of course, a greater reduction. The Minister for Agriculture says that our Bill meant that the landlord would suffer not 25, but from 30 to 35 per cent. reduction. But is that not provided in the Act, unless, of course, they mean to keep the tenant paying until the crack of doom money that he should not be paying. What about the gilt-edged security, what about the bad debts and the cost of collection that are avoided by sale?
Now let us consider what the tenants suffer. We will take four tenants. The first and second term tenant pays £75 out of each £100 of rent, but the sinking fund of one-quarter per cent. does not begin to operate until the appointed day. He should be paying only £65, but the £65 includes sinking fund, because it is 4¾ per cent. of price, exclusive of bonus. Hence he should be paying only £61 3-7ths. Seventy-five pounds, minus £61 3-7ths, is £13 4-7ths actual loss, or, working it in percentages, it would be 22 per cent. more than he should be paying, since he is not credited with the sinking fund portion. The landlord gets £75 instead of £67½. If the tenant paid £67 10s., he would pay the landlord in full. The State, of course, escapes the bonus for some years to come, and some other Government will have to deal with it.
As regards the third-term tenant, he pays £75, instead of £70, but the £70 includes the sinking fund portion. Therefore, taking this from the £70, we get £70 less, £3? or £66?, instead of £75. Seventy-five pounds, minus £66?, is £8?, and this, expressed in percentages, is nearly 12½ per cent. Here, the landlord should be getting about £72?. In the case of a non-judicial tenant, the price, of course, has first to be fixed, if it is not agreed upon, and the purchase will then take place at the new price as a third-term one. In the case of fee-farm and long leaseholds the price has to be fixed. Until then the tenant gets no reduction whatever. Under Section 38 of the 1923 Act, and also under the 1927 Act, that will be found. The bonus in this case does not come to his relief. At present the tenants pay about £100,000 more than they should. The landlords benefit, and the tenants are no nearer to being absolute owners, and it seems to be a deliberate penalisation of the tenants for the benefit of the landlords. I wonder when it is intended to pay the interest on the bonus portion. There was a loss of £55,000 last year, I think, on the untenanted lands, and the estimate this year is £50,000 or £51,000, and that seems to me like a subsidising of grazing.
The British did not acquire in this country compulsory powers until 1909, and I believe distributed one million acres. Has one quarter of that amount been distributed under the 1923 Act? I should have remarked above that in paying the £75 on each £100 the tenant is paying a sum exceeding by at least £4 all the landlord should get. Why could not they so arrange matters as to give the landlord £67 10s, his full rent under the 1923 Act, when vesting occurs, set aside £3 10s. for sinking fund, and reduce the £75 at once to £71? The State would still have its bonus. If you take the existing rents under the 1923 Act as £900,000 —I think that is near the figure— the loss to the tenants, apart from the sinking fund, must be, I maintain, £85,000 to £90,000 per annum, and if you multiply that by six you have got that in the last six years tenants have lost £500,000 as a result of the slowness of the Land Commission. If I am wrong in these figures, I should like to be corrected. Another matter I should like information upon is—and this is just a question put to get a definite answer— whether or not it is the custom of the Land Commission to inform Deputies or any others concerned of the exact price paid for any estate, and if not, why not? Some tenants are suffering more than others, of course, by this delay. Deputy Gorey speaks of the "poor devils"——
On a point of explanation. The Deputy is the fourth or fifth Deputy who has attempted to quote me and, I contend, quoted me wrongly. It is time that I should intervene before any other Deputy attempts to quote what. I said, Deputy Nolan was wrong. He says that I referred to the people who got land after the 1923 Act. Deputy Hogan made the same mistake, and I think Deputy Kent. I did not refer to people who got land divided-under the 1923 Act at all, nor did I refer to the people who suffered losses from fluke, or any other such happening. What I did refer to, or intended to refer to, was people who owe seven or eight, or ten or twelve years' annuities, and whose land is vacant, who cannot farm the land because they have no means, and who cannot let it because people cannot take it. The class of people I refer to are people whose land is derelict. It is neither stocked by themselves nor anybody else. The Credit Corporation cannot come to their assistance because of their position. While that continues, and while the land is vacant, they are losing their time, because they could be doing something for themselves if they turned their hands to some other means of livelihood. I refer to people who occupy land and who have no chance of making good, and I am ready to bear any criticism on that point.
If Deputy Gorey was referring to men who are wastrels and who could not make a success of their land I am absolutely in agreement with him that they should not get land.
I was speaking of people who had land before, who had bought it under previous Acts based on judicial rents in every case.
I do not want to enter into any little arguments with Deputy Gorey. If he wants these people evicted or dealt with in other ways that is his look out. There are some who have suffered more severely than others and who have been waiting a long time to get into the promised land. If Deputy Gorey had consulted Deputy Heffernan he would find cases round about the town of Tipperary. Tipperary is not my county and I do not want to go minutely into cases there, but I shall quote one. It is the case of Denis Hayes, and he was, I suppose, a fellow-soldier of Deputy Sheehy (Cork) and was one of the wounded soldiers of the Scully estate fighting for his land in 1868. He must be a very old man now. He still has a small piece of land on the edge of the Smith-Barry estate, and he is living in hopes that before he dies he will get portion of that. But it is surely a long time to have had to wait.
Deputy Heffernan said he was struck with the unreality of this debate. He said it is rather unfortunate, perhaps, that, the activities of the Land Commission, more than the activities of any other Department of State, supply matter for election propaganda. The Minister for Finance to-day, talking about de-rating of agricultural land, said: "In Great Britain the cost of making good the rates lost by the local authorities will be about 2.8 per cent. of the national revenue. In the Saorstát it would be about 9.2 per cent. of the revenue." Later on he says: "The present valuation of agricultural land in the Saorstát county areas, including urban districts, is 71.2 of the total valuation of these areas for rating purposes. In particular counties the proportion rises to 84 and 86 per cent. In the Saorstát, as a whole, the percentage of the total valuation represented by agricultural land and farm buildings is about 65 per cent., while in Northern Ireland it is about 38 per cent. Agricultural land and buildings in Scotland represents about 6 per cent., and in England and Wales 2½ per cent."
There is very little unreality about these figures. They reveal that the main source of wealth here is the land and the Department primarily responsible for the equities and titles and rights of the main source of wealth in this country should come in for the major portion of the discussion in this House upon the Estimates. I do not believe that Deputies on any side of the House who realise the vital concern to the majority of the people in the country that the land question is, are using it for election propaganda.
It was pointed out here by Deputy Flinn that if you go in for economically producing agricultural wealth you can do so with a half a million people with labour-saving devices, and you can herd another million into the towns to supply them. You can get away from all these ideas of Lawlor and the other people who were so foolish as to talk about "a peasantry rooted in the soil." Of course, that is in keeping with the present policy enunciated by the Minister for Agriculture and praised by Deputy Gorey when he talked about getting rid of the "poor devils" here whom he has recently defined.
I do not share Deputy Shaw's enthusiasm for the activities of the Land Commission in Westmeath, because I have never seen them. Within a radius of ten miles of where I live there are four very large estates taken over under the 1923 Act—the Smythe estates. None of these has been vested, and there is no sign of them being vested. Again I have repeatedly gone to the Land Commission about the lands of Dardistown on the Medge estates. There are uneconomic holders to the number of ten or twelve round this place with valuations of from £2 to £10. The Land Commission have permitted people recently to come in and buy this land, people who have neither heirs nor heiresses and owned over 300 acres of land between them. I do not think they will enjoy this land very happily.
We were told that there were 150,000 letters received by the Land Commission last year. I suppose that it took a big portion of the staff of 600 employees to answer these in the following manner: "I am directed by the Land Commission to acknowledge your letter of such-and-such date, with reference, to such-and-such a thing on such-and-such an estate, and to state that your letter will receive attention. Mise le meas." You repeat these letters because one does not like to take up too much of the valuable time of the Land Commission interviewing them, considering that they were so busy recently as to erect an inquiry office to keep us from invading the sanctum. I remember writing after a third answer similar to this for something definite. I put that request at the bottom of the letter, yet I got back a similar letter saying that the matter would receive attention.
We were told about the progress of the 1923 and the 1927 Acts and the 1903 and the 1909 Acts are held up in comparison. The Parliamentary Secretary seems to forget that there was no compulsion in the acquisition of estates under these Acts. I asked a question on February 23, 1928, about the number of estates taken over on that date and the number vested and I got the reply that particulars had been lodged of about 5,550 estates, comprising 2,756,000 acres, concerning 86,540 tenants and that 2,398 holdings representing 663 estates and comprising 110,764 acres had been dealt with up to that date. In a supplementary question I suggested that at that rate of progress it would take 20 years to complete the vesting. The Parliamentary Secretary said the Deputy would be silly in making such an assumption. Yet, taking his own figures for the financial year ending the 31st of March, we find, even with the speeding up process, that they have dealt with only 132,000 odd acres comprising 3,700 holdings. Even taking the holdings which I suppose it will be contended are the main obstacles it will yet take 20 years to complete the purchase under the 1923-1927 Acts.
I am glad the Parliamentary Secretary adopted my suggestion last year that the staff should be concentrated on the vesting of tenanted estates. I should like to see that because I believe as I said last year that the price being paid for land is too high, that the proper people are not getting it and that men are put on land without proper capital facilities being placed at their disposal. The ideal state of things I would like to see is the Land Commission working in co-operation with the Agricultural Credit Corporation so that when a man was placed on a farm as in other countries he would be given the necessary amount of capital to work that farm and that he would not, immediately he acquired the farm, have to let it on the eleven months system as I know happened in cases in Meath and Westmeath. What he got for it in the eleven months did not pay his rent and rates.
Deputy Roddy said, in concluding his speech: "If the Land Commission was staffed entirely by temporary forces, without restriction as to numbers, it might be possible to make quicker progress with the completion of its main work, but where a large staff of permanent and experienced officers are involved the State must take notice of the danger of being left with a greater number of such officers on its hands than can be fully provided with work for the full period of their permanent service." So that really the Government is more concerned with the welfare of the 600 officials in the Land Commission than with the welfare of the hundreds of thousands involved in the 1923 and 1927 Acts. We have a suspicion that all is not well in the Land Commission and that these officials are not doing their duty effectively and well, and that they are more concerned with the protection of vested interests than with the speeding up of the work of the Land Commission, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Fisheries has shown us nothing to indicate that that suspicion is not well founded.
I have the same complaint as a number of other Deputies with regard to the non-vesting of estates. So far as my inquiries go. I cannot discover a single estate being vested under the 1923 Act in my county, and in any case there has not been a single estate vested under the Act in my own area, Inishowen. There is a large number of unpurchased estates in that area, large estates, too. I do not want to reiterate the arguments put forward by a number of Deputies as to the loss to the tenants of unpurchased estates by not having them vested. There is another matter I would like to have the opinion of the Parliamentary Secretary on. That is with regard to the date of the issuing of Land Commission processes for arrears of annuities. I have a process here. It was issued by the solicitor for the Land Commission on the 15th December, 1928, for hearing at the District Court in Carndonagh on the 26th April, a period of practically four months. The tenants who were sent these processes were held liable for the costs of the process by the solicitor acting for the Land Commission from their date of issue, though these processes properly are not served until within a fortnight or three weeks of the holding of the district courts. The very worst of the old landlords did not issue ejectment processes for a longer period than a month or three weeks. I think it requires some investigation to see if the Land Commission officials in the collection branch have power to issue bundles of processes four or five months before the date of the holding of the district court.
I have a complaint here from a tenant named Gallagher, of St. John's Point, Dunkineely. Bailiffs were sent by the Land Commission to seize cattle from this man. He states that cattle were seized, valued for £22, by the court messenger or the bailiff in that area. These cattle were removed from the town of Donegal to Strabane and sold by auction there for £9. After deducting the court messenger's fees, poundage, keep and rail, the balance of £2 11s. 1d. was remitted to Mr. MacMenamin, for the credit of the tenant. If the facts, as stated in those letters, are correct, and I hold a letter in my hand from the curate of the parish in which this man resides verifying the statement he made to me, I have no hesitation in saying that that is oppression of the poor. If the man's cattle were worth £22, some effort should be made to sell them in the town of Donegal and they should not have been brought to Strabane and sold at a sacrifice. The court messenger's fees were taken and £2 11s. 1d. was handed over. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take a note of this complaint and have it investigated. I would like also to hear an explanation from him with regard to the issue of these processes.
I was very pleased to hear my—I do not know whether I should say it or not—colleague from Donegal attack the Government on their policy in regard to this particular Vote of the Land Commission. Probably the Deputy would not agree with me if I said that I should agree with him. However, he pointed out certain things which were absolutely correct. I must say that I find myself also in agreement with Deputy Gorey when he talks about "the poor devils" who are in arrears with land annuities, because we have, as Deputy White, who has just spoken, would say if I asked-him, a lot of "poor devils" in Donegal who are in arrears with land annuities. They are not all in Donegal, because recently some of them have been sent to Sligo Jail. I think the Deputies of Cumann na nGaedheal and the Labour Deputy for Donegal will agree with me that the conditions there are very bad. I include in Donegal all those congested areas along the seaboard. All those areas are in a very bad condition at the present time. Deputies in this House, perhaps, have been bored time after time listening to the conditions that obtain in those congested areas. It would not be any harm to tell them a little about them. Those areas along the seaboard are, as I say, congested in this respect, that the land is not capable of keeping the number of people that are there. It is no fault of the people that they are there at all. It is no fault of any Government, either the British Government or the Free State Government, that those people are alive. It is not because of these Governments that they are alive. It is in spite of them. The only thing, to my mind, that keeps those people alive along the seaboard is the amount of money that is sent across from America, and the amount that is earned annually by all those who go across to England and Scotland at harvest time. The people are so conversant with those things lately that they should know as much about them practically as anyone who comes from the area, so there is no need to dwell upon them. But the fact remains that for some years past, during the time of the trouble, for instance, and since, people in those congested areas fell into arrears of land annuities, with the consequence that when John Bull, in his role of Shylock, demanded his pound of flesh the Free State Government were in the position of trying to supply that pound of flesh and, unfortunately, it had not quite the same effect as Shakespeare had in his play, because not alone did they take the pound of flesh but they took the life blood with it. What I mean by the life blood is this: Bram Stoker wrote some thrilling stories about vampires taking the human blood, but Bram Stoker never wrote anything to compare with what anybody could see if they could go to any port in the Saorstát on any Saturday evening, or any evening when a vessel is sailing for the United States. Bram Stoker never realised what it meant not alone to take the life blood but to take the flesh, blood and all from the nation. That is what is happening now.
Deputy Morrissey referred to a certain thing here in the debate on Friday last. He was talking about people who objected to expenditure and at the same time, when there was a decrease in expenditure in a Government Department, they were the first to kick. He said the only expenditure he objected to was useless expenditure. Fianna Fáil are absolutely on a par with Deputy Morrissey in that particular regard, because what we want is decreased expenditure where it is useless, and increased expenditure where it is necessary. In this Vote you have £166,000 less for the improvement of estates. There might seem to the Minister or to the Parliamentary Secretary conflicting opinions here on our benches, but it is not so. For instance, where estates are vested the moneys paid for improvements in estates would cease automatically, but in congested areas—this is, I think, well worth the attention of the Minister and it is not put in any critical mood at all—it perhaps for the time being would not pay to have those estates vested if they lost the amount that was formerly expended in the improvement of estates, because where a man would gain, say, 10/- a year, he probably would have if he were working, say, on the improvement of estates, five or six or ten weeks' work at £1 or 25/- a week, and that would more than compensate for the money he would gain by the estate being vested, which goes to prove not that the estate should not be vested, but that there should be some special treatment meted out to the congested area.
Suppose I were to say those words here in the Dáil—I have heard words somewhat similar from our Party here, and the President was the first to take them up—
"I feel quite sure that neither the Minister nor the Government want a renewal of the agrarian troubles in this country, and so far as I can see there is no other prospect before us unless adequate measures are taken to allay the exasperated feelings of the people."
If those were my words, the President would be the first to get up and say: "We will not have any sabre-rattling in this House." He said it here before. He would stand up like Ajax defying the lightning and say: "I yield to no man on points of nationality." But remember those are not my words; those are the words of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands and Fisheries, and to bear out what the Parliamentary Secretary said in 1925, I beg to affirm in 1929 that the people are so exasperated that they are prepared to go to jail or to a hotter climate. Jail is not so very hot. I have been there and never found it hot. But they are prepared to go anywhere for the sake of certain opinions that they hold and that the Parliamentary Secretary referred to in 1925. I will go no further. It is time that this question of the Land Commission and land annuities should be considered in a light in which they were never considered before by any politicians in this country. The Parliamentary Secretary visualised it, and I must say so far as I know the Parliamentary Secretary, he certainly does one man's part in the Land Commission.
Anybody who knows the Parliamentary Secretary cannot make any mistake about that. In 1925 he visualised what was going to happen, and in the congested areas in Donegal that thing is happening at the present time. There are people living there whose last cow was about to be seized and they resented any such action. They were not able to pay, they did not intend to pay, and they were put in jail. All that must stop.
Unfortunately, the President is not here. I would like to be able to tell all this to the President, because I like those fellows who are fond of defying the lightning. The Parliamentary Secretary will not quarrel with me and the Minister for Lands and Fisheries will not quarrel either. There is nothing to be gained by talking to them. There are complaints from people in the congested areas. This does not apply to Donegal alone but to all the other congested areas. We have here Fianna Fáil T.D.'s and Cumann na nGaedheal T.D.'s and, perhaps, with more experience of the Government Departments, the Cumann na nGaedheal T.D.'s, are more clever in ferreting out things than the Fianna Fáil Deputies. In various constituencies people hold that unless they are supporters of Gumann na nGaedheal they cannot get a bog road done or they cannot get a portion of land divided. I would be long sorry to believe that.
You can believe it.
I see the Parliamentary Secretary shaking his head as much as to say that it is not so. I would like to have from him, even by way of interjection, a remark to the effect that it is not so. I would be long sorry to believe that the Fianna Fáil Deputies have not been as effective in getting divisions of land for those people who are deserving of land as the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies. Is it or is it not so? There is no answer.
The answer will come at the end.
It came in 1925.
The answer, we are told, will come at the end. I would be loth to believe that, because my colleague, Deputy Blaney, and myself have been very busy in Donegal in regard to land division. At least we thought we were busy and I would be long sorry to think that all our efforts were wasted and that the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies for Donegal could simply walk in through the back doors of the Department and get things done—get land for the people merely by saying, "well, old fellow, so-and-so is deserving of a bit of land." Unless the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister deny it, I will not believe it. They must, however, deny something else. On Friday last Deputy Heffernan, who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, made a statement here. Whether or not he meant it, I do not know. He said that he had been instrumental in bringing about the division of land in Tipperary.
Holding up land division.
Whether that is right or wrong I do not know. If the Minister contradicts Deputy Heffernan, I will believe him. Does Deputy Heffernan mean to say that Deputy Morrissey and the rest of the Tipperary Deputies got nothing? Deputy Heffernan claims to have got all the land divided and unless the Minister contradicts that, what can be believed? Is the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary going to say that those who belonged to the Gumann na nGaedheal Party in the past got the land divided amongst the people whom they favoured and that when the Fianna Fáil people went to the Department they got nothing? Is the Minister going to say that nothing at all was got by members of other parties, whether they be Fianna Fáil, Farmers' Party, Labour Party or anything else? If the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary says that all men were equal in this matter, then we are going to believe it, but until they do say it we must take the word of one who is in close touch with the Cabinet. I refer to Deputy Heffernan, who says that he was instrumental in getting land divided in Tipperary. I have heard about the people who were instrumental in getting lands divided in Donegal, Kerry, Sligo, Leitrim and other places. I want the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister for Lands and Fisheries to tell me whether they have given preference to those who support their Government or whether they give equal facilities to other Deputies in the Dáil who put forward cases on behalf of men genuinely in need of land.
Like most of the Deputies here, I must congratulate the Land Commission on the work that is being done under the 1923 Act in County Galway. I do not agree with the new policy of the Opposition, which aims at giving preference to the vesting instead of the acquisition and division of land. I know that in County Galway the Land Commission are dealing with 160,000 acres, and under the 1923 Act they have divided 47,000 acres between 2,400 allottees. If the Land Commission were to concentrate on vesting as against acquisition and division, it would tend to hold up matters. If you are to concentrate on vesting, you are giving double benefit to the people who have already got the land. That is to say, you are giving them the land and you are also giving them the other benefit of getting their purchases vested. In a congested county like Galway you have in or about 118,000 acres ready to be divided, and by the policy now put forward these people who are waiting to get this land would have to wait a further period until the 47,000 acres that have been already divided are vested in the tenants. I think it is most unfair that in a county such as Galway you would leave 118,000 acres lying there undivided——
Who on the Fianna Fáil Benches suggested that the work of dividing up the ranches is not to be proceeded with?
Mr. Brodrick
From the great number of speeches I have listened to, I gather that is the policy.
Tell us of one speech in which that was indicated.
Mr. Brodrick
In nearly every speech the burden was that the vesting should be gone on with, and I take it for granted that means that the vesting should be carried on in preference to the division of the land.
You should not take it for granted.
Mr. Brodrick
That may be all right in some counties, but I do not agree that it is a good thing in a county like Galway or in any congested county, because you are giving the benefit only to one section of the people—a double benefit—and no benefit at all to the other section.
Perhaps it would clear the air——
The Deputy must be allowed make his speech. I will not hear any more interruptions.
Mr. Brodrick
I put up a number of cases in the County Galway that I know very well, and I am sure Deputy Fahy knows some of them, too. There is a case from Turloughmore, in Galway, where there are six tenants whose valuations range from £6 10s. to £7 10s. a year, and who pay from £40 to £50 a year for con-acre.
That is why I urge that the division of the land should be carried on with as much speed as possible, because if you do not carry on the division you have these small tenants with small valuations having to pay big prices for con-acre such as I have just mentioned. I know that these tenants with valuations from £6 10s. to £7 10s. pay up to £50 a year for con-acre. Deputy Nolan in the course of his speech four years ago suggested that the Land Commission should go slow in the division of lands. He believed that at the end of the four years the land would be much cheaper than it was at that time—in 1925. That is not the case in the County Galway, at all events. I know one farm of 100 acres set for grazing this year and that farm is carrying £1 an acre more than it was let at last year.
Is that a fine?
Mr. Brodrick
No, it is on the eleven months' system. Now, in addition to these 118,000 acres you have also the schemes in Connemara and the Cloosh Valley. I suppose Deputy Tubridy will say this is a pet scheme. There are 13,000 acres in the Cloosh Valley and of these there are 6,000 ready for occupation. In the other scheme you have in or about 4,000 acres. Already the Government have spent in buildings, roads and drainage something like £7,000 there. That is the position in Galway. All I ask the Parliamentary Secretary is to reconsider his decision in the matter of his policy of vesting and to try to get the division of the land carried on as fast as possible. I spoke a while ago of a £6 or £7 valuation, but you have a number of tenants in Galway with valuations as low as £2, £3 or £4. Certainly these people have a great grievance if they find that their neighbours who got divisions of land four years ago are having these lands now vested, while they themselves are left without any land until all this vesting is finished. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary and to the Minister to consider favourably whether they should not speed up the division of untenanted land as much as possible.
This debate, which has proceeded in its own quiet kind of way, would not suggest to anybody that this is really one of the most serious struggles which has taken place yet in this House. It is a question of the Irish race—the Irish nation—versus the same sort of selfish interests which practically destroyed the Irish race in the past. This is a continuance of the policy which we see back through the history of this country. We have here a very big issue. I hold that this question of the division of Irish land is really a question of the existence of the Irish nation. That question takes a curious form at present, because the enemies of the Irish nation are working most effectively for the destruction of the nation. The backbone of the Irish nation will be smashed in ten years if the present policy of the Land Commission is allowed to continue.
One meets with courtesy and a certain amount of efficiency from a great many members of the staff of the Land Commission. One has no quarrel with these people. We do not attack the permanent officials of the Minister. The Minister is responsible for this policy, but apparently the Minister is not able or willing to make Irish nationality prevail in the Land Commission. He is not able or willing to save Irish nationality. I have listened to the debate here, and I have listened to the speeches made from the Cumann na nGaedheal benches, and it is clear to me that the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies are not satisfied with the administration of the Land Commission. Not only are they not satisfied, but they realise that there is something like a big issue at stake now. There is something here which must be done if the Irish nation is to be saved. The something that is to be done will come from these Benches rather than from the Government Benches. The characteristics of the policy of the Land Commission at this time are delay and the high prices of land. These characteristics have not changed. The whole land war ranged around the handing of the land over to the people at as moderate a price as possible, and at as quick a rate as possible. Land Act after Land Act has been defeated by the same powers and influences that are driving the unfortunate people now out of Ireland by preventing them from getting land at a reasonable price and from getting the money to work the land. These influences are working very effectively. It seems there is no power able to stop these influences in the carrying on of that work. So far as the prices of land are concerned, they seem to be dominated by minds whose decisions are in keeping with the same mentality as that which advocated the execution of our men in Easter Week. If the Irish nation is to be destroyed, the best way to do it is by destroying the small farmer in Ireland, for he is the backbone of the Irish nation. The Irish nation is not composed of the rancher or the large farmer. The Irish nation is composed of the general mixed type of farmer, the small farmer, and if he is ruined the Irish nation is ruined.
They are the keepers of the traditions of Irish nationality. They have been the backbone of resistance to British influence in this country and every fight for freedom has been fought by the small farmers and the workers. The policy of the Government at present is a policy of letting the land go into ranches. We have had an indication of that this evening when it was suggested that our policy was that the land should not be divided. However important it is to end the question of delay in vesting, it is equally important that the land should be divided. After all it is by their fruits that you judge them. In Waterford, you have farms that were sold under previous Land Acts which have now become derelict, and some of them have been bought by ranchers who are actually taking the roofs off the houses on those lands in order that they might not have to pay rates. These things appear to happen by accident, but they do not happen by accident, because I believe that if you had the right type of dominating influence in the Land Commission it could prevent these things, and it would divide up the ranches. It could acquire the land and divide the ranches, and give them to small holders and other people who are deserving of them.
May I ask to what class of land the Deputy is referring?
I have two different types of land in mind. First of all, there is land which was sold under other Land Acts. I know that there is a difficulty in that matter.
And vested in the tenants?
Yes. Then there are the cases referred to by Deputy Gorey which, owing to lack of money or for other reasons, have been put on the market and sold to large farmers in the neighbourhood, who allow the lands in some cases to run into weeds and who use them merely for grazing purposes. That, I submit, is completely defeating the object of the land movement, which was to divide the land amongst the moderate-sized farmers. Here you have land drifting back into the condition in which you have nothing but ranches.
I admit that it is difficult for the Land Commission to deal with such land, because it would be expensive for them to re-buy it. I do not know whether they have statutory powers to prevent land accumulating in the hands of such individuals, and to see that those farms would be sold only to men who have not farms or, at least, large farms. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will enlighten us on the point as to whether they have such powers, but, if they have, they are not trying to exercise them. Then there is the case of untenanted land. The speakers on behalf of the Land Commission, both the Minister for Agriculture and the Parliamentary Secretary for Lands and Fisheries, emphasised the particular point of view that they are now willing to concentrate on the vesting of land, and not to go in so much for the dividing of untenanted land. There is really no excuse for doing one and neglecting to do the other. Both should go hand in hand. You have the scandal of the dismissal of a number of temporary inspectors at a time when they are most needed for the purpose of distributing land. Seventeen of them, I think, have been dismissed. That is the kind of economy over which no sensible Government could stand.
The number is nine.
I heard both figures mentioned. Is there any doubt about the matter?
No.
Nine inspectors have been dismissed at a time when the Land Commission is complaining of pressure of work and of not being able to get through with it. I questioned an official in the Land Commission recently whose characteristic is frankness. I asked him if he thought that our Bill could be made effective. He said that Lord MacDonnell had asked him a similar question about the rapidity of vesting land in 1913, and had quoted Wyndham who, when introducing the 1903 Act, said that all the land would be vested in the Irish peasant in ten years. It was in 1913 that Lord MacDonnell spoke to this official, who replied, "Well, I hope that the work in the Land Commission will last for my lifetime." In other words, he expressed just the view that the Parliamentary Secretary expressed the other day in his speech, when he said that there are a number of people on the staff of the Land Commission, and that they all have to be kept occupied, and for that reason the land of Ireland must be kept unoccupied. That is subordinating the end to the means. If there is any sacrifice to be made in this matter, and I do not believe there is, it is ultimately the staff of the Land Commission who should be sacrificed to the farmers of Ireland, and not the other way about.
I do not know whether recruiting for the Land Commission has been stopped but certainly it should be stopped. That, at least, would do something to prevent the accumulation of vested interests, except in so far as it is necessary to take on men who would make the work go more rapidly. It is always possible to draft men from one Department to another, and even if the Land Commission completed its work in five years, useful work could be found in another Department for the Land Commission staff. It is remarkable to contrast the rapidity with which annuities are collected on the one hand and the slowness with which the work of acquisition and vesting of lands goes on on the other. There is one case which I would like to mention in County Waterford and that is the case of the Bosanquet estate, where you have a landlord who is willing and anxious to sell his estate and have it divided up amongst the men who have proved over a period of years to be good workers on that estate. He has had the greatest difficulty in carrying that scheme through. There is apparently the influence of the strong farmers who want to divide the land amongst farmers who already have sufficient land for their own purposes. I suggest that as there is absolutely no difficulty in dividing up that estate it should be proceeded with as rapidly as possible and divided up amongst those who were workers on the estate. I suggest also that that is in keeping with the best policy adopted in the past by the Land Commission. In 1926, the late Mr. Kevin O'Higgins when speaking on the Lynam case expressed annoyance because some of the Lords of Appeal had said that the vesting of Irish land and the completion of land purchase would take a very long time. He said: "The materials necessary for giving the Act effect being now mostly at hand, the proceedings will develop rapidly and at the expiration of about three years it is anticipated that fully 75 per cent. of the tenanted land will be vested and that over 60 per cent. of the available untenanted land will be divided."
The Parliamentary Secretary pointed out that 200,000 out of the 690,000 acres of untenanted land, had been divided—that is to say, 29 per cent. and not 60 per cent. which was the calculation made by the late Mr. O'Higgins. The number of judicial holdings which remain to be vested is 49,560, and the number of non-judicial holdings, 33,692. The total number of holdings is 88,702, and of these only 6 per cent. has been vested. Compare the 29 percent. and the 6 per cent. with the late Mr. O'Higgins's promises of 60 per cent. and 75 per cent. respectively. A great responsibility rests upon those members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who feel deeply convinced that this is one of the biggest issues which this House has had to face. Mere individual detailed criticism of the conduct of the Land Commission is not going to effect anything. It has been going on from year to year. It will go on again. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party in power have not got the right point of view. The Minister for Agriculture has definitely stated that he stands for the 200 acre farm. It is well-known that he wants to prevent the ranches from being divided up. The time has come when those members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who feel strongly on this question ought to reconsider their whole position, and to see which is the Party which stands for the small farmers of Ireland, which is the Party relies on the small farmers and the workers and to realise further that if they are to be true to the traditions of Irish nationality and the future of the Irish race, they must vote against this Estimate and for the amendment, and show that they are not giving mere lip service, and that they are not trying to do something that is dishonest. I believe they are honest. I believe they really wish to serve the nation, but it is by their acts we will judge them, by their vote on this question, and by nothing else.
I move to report progress.