I move:—
"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Local Government (Rates on Agricultural Land) Bill, 1931—Second Stage.
I move:
To delete all words after the word "That" and substitute the words "the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill providing for the additional relief of rates on agricultural land which does not provide for the total de-rating of agricultural holdings of £10 valuation and under, as well as relief of rates on £10 of the valuations of all other agricultural holdings."
The sum of £10 mentioned is the nearest I could estimate that the proposed grant of £750,000 would meet. I am not absolutely certain of that figure. I take it that the amendment will be interpreted as an objection to the principle on which the proposed allocation is based and that the House will wish to substitute another principle as to the allocation of the amount that is to be given. The Dáil has indicated already that it is willing to accept the Government proposal of £750,000, but we are not satisfied with that amount. The principle of allocation that I should like to see substituted for that proposed in the Bill is that the money should be used to relieve rates on as many pounds valuation as it will go. I have put in the figure of £10 because it is roughly approximate to the extent that the money will go and it makes clear in general phrasing what is intended. The effect of the amendment will be this: that the rates on holdings of less than £10 valuation—that is, assuming the money provided will be able to meet that—would be removed. That is, that no small holder whose valuation is less than £10 would have to pay anything in rates and that in the case of holdings of a higher valuation than £10 they would get relief to the extent of £10 of their valuation. The justification for that in the present case is this: there might be objection to it as a principle, although I think a good case could be made for it as a principle, independent of the method by which it is intended to raise the money. But when you take into account the method by which this £750,000 is to be raised and that the whole purpose of it is to relieve agriculture, I think that the particular principle which I should like to see substituted for that in the Bill is one which can hardly be disputed. The position is this: the House proposes to relieve agriculture by a grant of £750,000. The small holders of less than £10 valuation, instead of being relieved, will have an additional burden placed upon them by the proposal in the Bill as it stands.
I gave figures recently, which I can give to the Dáil again, in order broadly to make clear what is going to happen. Take the case in Kildare which we have been dealing with, and for which I happen to have the figures. In the case of Kildare, I estimate that the 2,918 occupiers of land with valuations of less than £4 will, on an average, be relieved by the Government proposal to the extent of a little over 2/6. If they are to bear their share of the sugar tax, supposing there is a family of five, as the President said, the amount that will be contributed on an average by each family of five will be 10/6 per year. We have disputed that figure, because, in our opinion, the yield of the tax will be higher than that estimated by the Minister, as indicated by the quantity of sugar consumed last year. Taking the President's figure of 10/6, it means that these 2,918 small farmers in Kildare will get relief of rates to the extent of 2/6.
How does the Deputy make that out?
It is made on the basis of the distribution, by finding out how much is to be allocated to County Kildare and estimating what relief in the rates it will give.
Seven pence halfpenny in the £!
I am putting it that the relief will come to about 2/6.
Or 7½d. in the £ on £4 valuation.
The basis of the calculation is the amount that is going to be given to the county as a whole. That is the average for those under £4 valuation. They are not all £4.
Take £4 valuation.
They will not be all £4 valuation, but it averages out at that. I have no reason to believe that any of these figures are wrong. It works out at about 2/6. In order to get that benefit of 2/6 these small farmers will have to pay 10/6. Therefore, instead of being relieved, there is clearly going to be an additional burden of, roughly, 8/- placed on them. Certainly that was not the intention of the Dáil. If we are going to relieve agriculture at all these small farmers are most deserving of relief. I am not saying that the larger occupiers of land who give a good deal of employment do not deserve relief also, but I say that they will not have an additional burden, as is clearly demonstrated here, placed upon them. Therefore, no matter what case may be made for occupiers of large holdings who give considerable employment, we have here the case of the small holder who is entitled to relief and instead of getting relief is going to have an additional burden placed upon him. I believe it was not the intention of any Deputy that instead of relief being given to him we should put a burden upon him. When you come to those between £4 and £7 valuation, the average relief there works out at about 3/3. Therefore, there will also be an additional burden placed on them.
That is 9¾d. in the £.
Does the President understand what an average is?
I do perfectly.
Everyone of them has not a valuation of £4.
£4 is the lowest.
No. It is up to £4.
The Deputy was dealing with those between £4 and £7.
The result will be that these also will be burdened. I will get the figures, as I have not the full details here. The Minister was very anxious to rush this Bill, and to prevent anybody having time to take up the figures and make certain. I am giving the figures, and until they are proved wrong I am going to stand by them.
That is right.
If there is any interval I will be able to check up and make certain of them. I have never found these figures wrong yet. In the same way, I believe that in most counties, until the valuation goes up close to £10, the amount paid in sugar tax will more than balance any relief it is proposed to give. That was not the intention of the Dáil when they agreed to give relief to agriculture. Supposing the figures I am giving were found not to be accurate, it is clear that on general principles anyhow the small farmer is going to contribute in proportion to any relief he is getting, far more than will be contributed by the large farmer. I am not admitting the figures are not absolutely correct. I believe they can be shown to be correct.
They were given to the people of Kildare as correct.
And accepted.
They were, and I believe it can be proved——
Unfortunately they were.
Not at all. Is it because the President questions them? A man who turned the balance of trade from £17,000,000 on one side to £17,000,000 on another in a public speech is not a man whose word I am going to take on figures. At any rate, the general principles are unchanged. If the Minister was not in such a mighty hurry, if he was not in such a hurry as to prevent anybody from making a detailed case, then we would have got the figures not merely for Kildare but for a number of other counties as well. The Ministers here introduced two Bills on Wednesday to be forced through the House by their majority, thereby bringing about a situation in which anybody who wanted to propose a reasoned amendment had not an opportunity of drafting it and going through the statistics to prepare the case.
As I say, I believe these figures are correct, and I believe that we can go into it if you like and prove they are correct. It is only a question of getting the necessary statistics. But even if these figures should prove to be incorrect to the extent that a person with a valuation of £4 gets as much in return as he paid out in taxes, it is obvious to everybody that a small farmer of £5 valuation is going to contribute in the shape of the sugar tax proportionately more in regard to the relief he gets than a large holder. Anybody who cannot satisfy himself of that can scarcely be said to be able to reason at all. There is certainly a line to be drawn at some distance, £4, £5, or £10. I have drawn it at £10 because £10 in my opinion is the amount that the £750,000 will meet. If it does not meet £10 let it meet £8 then. The small farmer is entitled to relief in the first instance because he is going to contribute and anybody whose valuation is such as not to give him relief to the extent of 10/6 is going to lose. Such a man is going to lose if he does not get relief to the extent of 10/6, seeing that the average family is going to pay at least 10/6 in the year in sugar tax.
To prevent such a burden being placed on such a man and on such a family I say that the principle in this must be changed. The principle must be altered and the principle in my amendment must be adopted, namely, that you distribute the money so as to relieve some certain number of £'s valuation right through. That will relieve the small farmer to the extent at any rate that if he is not getting a benefit he will, at least, have no additional burden placed on him. If the House passes the Bill in its present form what it will do is to place an additional burden on the men least able to bear it or on the men most entitled to relief. We know that there is five times as much labour given on holdings of 15 to 30 acres as there is given on holdings of 200 acres and there are three and a half times as much labour given on farms of between 30 and 50 acres as on holdings over 200 acres. We know that there is more food produced on small holdings than on the large holdings and that the kinds of stock produced there are those that require the most labour.
Therefore, if agriculture is to be relieved at all it is the small farmer who deserves the first attention. It is certainly an extraordinary way to provide relief for agriculture when that particular section of the agricultural community that most requires relief is going to have an additional burden placed on it. Leaving the figure at 10/6, accepting that as the figure, it is obvious that every small farmer who does not receive relief in rates up to at least 10/6 in the year is going to be penalised. There are a number of small farmers whose total rates do not amount to 10/6. They, even if they were relieved of the whole rates, would, in fact, be getting no relief. If a man has to pay 8/- a year in rates, he is losing 2/6; if his total rates are 7/6, he is going to lose 3/-, and so on. The object of the amendment that I have introduced is to avoid that hardship and to see to it that if money is going to be distributed, money raised by the means of taxation, that the balance is not going to be against the small farmer. We have indicated by our votes here in this House and otherwise that we are against raising this money by a tax on essential articles of food, and especially raising it from the poorer sections of the community. We think it is a wrong way to raise money at all. If the Government is not prepared by economies and retrenchments to provide this money, but is to find it by increased taxation, we are prepared to say that the rest of the community should come to the relief of agriculture. But we think that that section of the community that should be asked to the relief of agriculture is not the poor man, whether he be in the city or town, but it ought to be those who are able to afford it. We would have preferred that this money would have been got by an increase in the income tax rather than that it should be raised by a tax on sugar. It is absolutely iniquitous to speak of relieving agriculture when you are, in fact, putting an additional burden on that section of the community which most deserves relief. It is not necessary for me to labour the point any further, and I ask the House not to take this particularly strange method of coming to the relief of agriculture.
I congratulate Deputy de Valera on having, within such a short space of time, turned such a somersault as he has turned and having come round to our amendment which he opposed here last March.
Might I remind Deputy Davin that I mentioned this particular way immediately the Report of the De-rating Commission was issued in which that suggestion was made, and I considered it an admirable suggestion?
I congratulate Deputy de Valera in having come completely round to our point of view since the 26th March last. This is the 3rd July, and on 26th March last Deputy de Valera rushed into the House in haste and in anticipation, as he thought at the time, of the De-rating Commission Report.
No. I did not.
He proposed a motion then asking that a sum of £1,000,000 should be raised to de-rate agricultural land. In that motion, no matter what Deputy de Valera says now, or what he has said outside since, he cannot blot out the records of this House——
Neither can you.
The meaning of that motion—much as Deputy Aiken may dislike it, and no matter what he has discovered now, or what Deputy de Valera has discovered—is that out of the £1,000,000 raised for de-rating agricultural land, one-third of the money proposed to be raised under the terms of the original resolution would have gone to the landlords, graziers and ranchers of the country— eight per cent. of the farming community.
He did not mean that.
He discovered the real meaning of it since. I heard somebody talk about the effect of that motion. The effect of it would be: In Kildare we have 7,105 occupiers of agricultural land, and under the terms of Deputy de Valera's motion as he now knows, £10,500 of the £32,000 which would have gone to that county would have gone to 247 graziers and ranchers, men of the type of poor Lord Cloncurry, people who are not sure whether they will have their breakfast, dinner or supper to-morrow. Deputy de Valera has discovered something in his tour of the Co. Kildare. That is the real meaning of the amendment we have here.
He discovered more, too.
I have endeavoured to find the real meaning of Deputy de Valera's speech on the original motion.
You have not got rid of the indigestion yet.
It is telling all right.
We would hear you better from the other side.
Fair play.
I will wait until Deputy Briscoe has finished if he likes. Subsequent to the discussion on Deputy de Valera's motion, Deputy Lemass, speaking in Monasterevan——
That is good.
—stated that the Fianna Fáil policy on de-rating was that they were prepared to relieve all those occupiers of holdings with a valuation of £15 and under from the payment of any further rates. In other words he accepted the dictum of the De-rating Report which was signed by Mr. Odlum and Mr. Cussen, a very handy way of taking over a policy signed by somebody else. Now we have the figure reduced to £10 in Deputy de Valera's amendment.
That is the amount which the distribution of £750,000 would meet, as I indicated.
It is quite true that people occupying holdings of £10 or £15 valuation, or perhaps a little higher, represent the section of the farming community who carry the biggest section of the population on their backs. They give more employment, whether to members of their own families or to agricultural labourers, than any other section of the farming community. That is now recognised by Deputy de Valera in the amendment which he is moving to the Second Reading of this Bill. In the amendment which we moved to Deputy de Valera's motion on the 26th March last, we stated quite specifically that the money which would have to be raised for the derating of agricultural land, should not be raised by a tax on the necessaries of life. Deputy de Valera very cutely steered clear of stating in his motion how the money should be raised.
That is quite untrue, Davin, and you know it.
If anybody is being misrepresented a very simple way is to get up after such a person has spoken and expose these misrepresentations.
He should not misrepresent the facts. When Deputy de Valera made the speech, Davin was in the House.
The whole essence of parliamentary debate is that people are difficult to convince.
People have no right to tell lies.
The word "lie" was alleged to have been used here on Wednesday in a certain part of the House, and there was a great hullabaloo to have it withdrawn. Now we have it used by somebody else. The word should not be used and the simple way is to wait until Deputy Davin has finished and then by way of explanation expose the fallacies and misrepresentations that it is said have been made in the course of his speech.
For the information of Deputy Aiken, whose memory is so very short. I will read the motion moved by Deputy de Valera on that occasion. The motion was:
That the Dáil is of opinion that, in the present depressed condition of the agricultural industry, the Executive Council should, this year, provide a special Additional Grant of one million pounds for the relief of local rates on agricultural land, the sum allocated to each county to be in proportion to the average of the total assessments on such land in the county over the current and past two years.
That does not indicate, and all the speeches which were made in support of it did not indicate in what manner the million pounds should be raised.
Read the last part of my statement.
Deputy Aiken has no right, at least it is not correct for him to deny the statement that Deputy de Valera had not indicated the manner in which that money was to be raised.
Yes, he did.
Comparing the motion moved by Deputy de Valera, and the speech made in support of that motion with the amendment moved by Deputy O'Connell and the speech made by Deputy O'Connell in favour of the amendment——
Read the two speeches.
Read the whole debate.
I could not read the whole of his speech.
It would not suit.
Deputy Lemass only suffers from loss of memory when it suits him to do so.
I have a few things to read too.
It may be that, as a result of the election and the lectures delivered during recent times to the Fianna Fáil Party, as a result of these people coming into contact with the small farmers, that Deputy de Valera and the other members of his Party have been brought round to the point of view expressed by Deputy O'Connell in this House on the 26th March last, namely, that preference in the allocation of any money which is to be raised at the expense of the taxpayers for the purpose of de-rating agricultural land, should be given to small farmers, the people who carry the main body of the population on their backs, and the people who are mostly in need of relief at the present time. For that reason we welcome the conversion of Deputy de Valera and the members of his Party to our point of view.
Since Wednesday last the members of the Labour Party have succeeded in dragging into the discussion on every subject that has taken place the matter of the bye-election which took place in Kildare. I am sure that you, a Chinn Comhairle, would agree that it is most desirable that something should be done to make it impossible for them to refer to the Kildare election in this Dáil ever again. I do not know what is the best way to go about that, but I have a statement here issued by Deputy Davin to the "Irish Times" on Friday last——
About?
Entitled "Why the Labour candidate was going to win in Kildare."
If that is Deputy Lemass's cure for references to the Kildare elections, it does not commend itself to the Ceann Comhairle. The Ceann Comhairle would like to see the amendment discussed de novo, beginning with Deputy de Valera's speech and going on with the speeches made in this debate. It does seem to be impossible to rule out quotations from the debate on the motion referred to by Deputy Davin, but the Ceann Comhairle is certainly going to set his face against any quotations from any speech made in the Kildare by-election or any statement made with particular reference to that by-election. I think Deputy Lemass has got out a certain amount, but I think it is better to have no further reference to statements made outside the House.
Let me come to the subject from another direction. Deputy Davin has just made various statements to the effect that the whole anxiety of Fianna Fáil has been in the past to protect the interests of the large farmers, and that we were indifferent to the welfare of the smaller farmers. Deputy Davin and members of Cumann na nGaedheal have been obviously recently in consultation on the best method of attacking Fianna Fáil. The similarity of the wording of their propaganda during the election would indicate that.
It is unfortunate that this particular subject does not appear to have arisen on that discussion, because if it had we would not have Deputy Davin making these statements to-day. Simultaneously with the statement made by Deputy Davin on Friday there appeared a statement issued by the Party opposite stating that Cumann na nGaedheal were going to win in Co. Kildare, and one of the reasons——
This is not on the amendment.
It has to do with the amendment.
I want to get on to the amendment. The Deputy is quite clear, I am sure, that he is not going to convince me that something is relevant which was said in the Kildare election by reading it first. He could not get around my ruling in that way. I think the Deputy has got a fair show now and that he should come to the amendment.
I think, if you hear this particular sentence from this statement you will have to admit that it is relevant.
I may, but if I did I would have to admit the relevancy of other statements. My position is that I am not going to admit the relevancy of any document connected with the Kildare election. I think the note with which Deputy Lemass opened his speech would indicate that we ought to avoid statements made in or about the Kildare election.
Deputy Davin has been criticising Fianna Fáil on the ground that in the past it has endeavoured to provide benefits for large farmers as distinct from small farmers, and he is now pretending to believe that a change of policy has taken place in our Party.
Hear, hear! Welcome.
On the other hand, we have his recent allies criticising Fianna Fáil on the ground that our whole concern is for the small farmers, that the large farmers will suffer severely at our hands if it should happen that a Fianna Fáil Government should come into office. What I am anxious to know is why this particular subject was not discussed between Deputy Davin and members of the other Party when planning their joint campaign against Fianna Fáil in the particular county of Kildare, because if they had discussed this matter and arrived at a joint plan of campaign in relation to it, as they do in relation to other matters, we would not have these contradictory statements made. Obviously both statements cannot be correct. Fianna Fáil cannot be here for the purpose of defending the interests of the small farmers and also for the purpose of depriving these farmers of their elementary right as Deputies on the Cumann na nGaedheal side say.
I rise to a point of order. My point is that both sides agreed to the sugar tax, and they went down to Kildare and denounced the Government there for doing what they were a party to here in the Dáil.
Is it not a fact——
There is no use in asking me whether something is a fact. My mind is purposely a blank upon the facts.
Ask Deputy Lemass is it a fact that he, Deputy de Valera and members of the Fianna Fáil Party went into the Lobby with President Cosgrave in favour of the allocation of money for de-rating on a valuation basis?
No. We voted against an amendment by Deputy O'Connell, not because the principles embodied in that amendment, in so far as there were any principles, did not meet with our approval but because a particular method was suggested which if adopted by this House would have meant that no relief would have been given to any farmer in the Twenty-Six Counties this year.
That is a joke.
That is a common practice with the Labour Party, when they see an amendment which is likely to put the Government in a hole to come along with an amendment carefully calculated to make it possible for the Government to do something to get out of it. On every occasion on which a motion was submitted in the Dáil by Fianna Fáil concerning which a direct vote for or against the Government would be particularly awkward for the Government we always had a Labour Party amendment, generally a foolish amendment but sufficient to let the Government Party out of its difficulties. The Government were for months talking of the million pounds relief they were going to give the farmers. During a by-election in Dublin Minister after Minister definitely promised that this was to be given immediately the by-election was over. The by-election took place. The Dáil met again and then adjourned and there was no sign of any member of the Government coming to the House to propose the giving of this million pounds. Months passed and still the million pounds was not available. In these circumstances we came here with a clear, definite, simple motion the main purpose of which was to make the Government redeem its promises. It was quite obvious to anyone with ordinary intelligence— I will try to make it clear even to Deputy Davin—that if the Government could get any opportunity in the way of wriggling out of that particular promise they were going to avail of it. We did not give them that opportunity. We did not want to complicate the motion by inserting conditions or reservations which would give them an opportunity of criticising them in detail and thus avoid a decision on the principle. We wanted to get a decision on the principle whether or not relief was to be given. The Government was sheltering itself behind the De-rating Commission. The De-rating Commission was meeting for well over a year and there was no sign of a report forthcoming. In these circumstances we came to the Dáil and asked the Dáil to vote a million pounds for relief this year. Deputy Davin tries to pretend that the proposal we submitted was a proposal for the permanent relief of agriculture. It was not submitted to the Dáil as anything of the kind but as a temporary measure designed to meet temporary circumstances pending the publication of the report of the De-rating Commission and the preparation of a permanent scheme of relief.
Why did you go with the Government into the Lobby?
We wanted to vote against an amendment which, if passed, would have meant that no farmer would get relief this year and which would have meant the appointment of a new horde of officials. We voted against an amendment which was humbug. The fact was, however, that the Government succeeded, whether in consequence of the Labour trick or not, I will not say, to get out of its promise to provide one million pounds for relief.
With your votes.
On the contrary, in spite of our votes they succeeded in getting out of that promise. Deputy Davin should not talk about votes. There was very nearly an extra member here in consequence of the votes cast by the Labour Party. The Government ultimately came to the Dáil with the proposal to give a relief grant of £750,000. I do not believe they would have agreed to give that amount, if it were not that public opinion was aroused in consequence of the discussion which took place on Deputy de Valera's proposal. Deputy Davin knows quite well that it was the introduction of that motion, and the agitation of public opinion which followed that discussion, that forced the Government to redeem their original promise to the extent of £750,000.
That is not a fact.
If the Deputy reads the speeches of his leaders he will see it.
I know what their intentions were.
The Deputy will find there is no element of doubt whatever concerning the correctness of what I am saying. Minister after Minister, from the President down, automatically talked about the relief they were going to give the farmers. The "Irish Independent" day after day came out with large headlines across the principal page, parading the statement that one million pounds was forthcoming as soon as the Government candidate had successfully negotiated the County Dublin by-election. Other Deputies with less responsibility than members on the front benches went beyond one million. I have produced quotations in the Dáil showing how members of Cumann na nGaedheal bid against one another as to the amount of relief they were going to provide. Deputy Connolly won the auction. He offered two million. Only £750,000 was ultimately provided, and that was provided because Fianna Fáil carried out its functions, the function of walking upon the heels of the Government, trying to make them go a little faster than they were prepared to go.
Walking after them into the Division Lobby.
I suppose it is impossible to cure Deputy Davin.
Come to the allocation of the £750,000.
A sum of £750,000 was provided in a manner to which we took considerable objection. Deputy Sheehy says that we voted for the sugar tax.
Mr. Sheehy
Your Party agreed to it and did not take a division.
On every occasion on which the Finance Resolutions, the Finance Bill, or sections of it relating to the sugar tax, came before the House we divided the House. The last division took place less than 24 hours ago. Deputy Sheehy does not know what was being done. He comes to the House when the division bell rings and asks Deputy Duggan or Deputy Doyle, "What side am I on, Tá or Níl?" He does not know what decisions are being taken.
Mr. Sheehy
I am here for hours daily and the Deputy is not.
Only yesterday we voted against the sugar tax, while Deputy Sheehy voted for it, and apparently did not know what he was voting for. We objected to that particular method of raising money. Our main objection was that the sugar tax would result in a certain class of agricultural holder being compelled to pay more in taxation to the Central Government than it was being relieved of in rates charged by local authorities, and that on the majority of farmers we were increasing rather than decreasing the burden. The method of allocation proposed here means that we are taking more from those who need relief most, in combined rates and taxes, than we did before, and giving the benefit of the increased charge upon them to those who need relief least—that is, assuming that a person's need for relief decreases with the size of the holding.
We believe that the proposal submitted in the addendum of the majority report of the De-rating Commission by Mr. Cussen and Mr. Odlum was worthy of the consideration of the Government and of this House; that it contained the elements of a scheme of relief so obviously fair and capable of being made applicable to the existing situation here that we were very much surprised that the Executive Council decided to reject it. These two members of the Commission proposed that instead of giving relief on a flat rate to all farmers, or so much to each county on the basis of population, or on the basis of total valuation, the relief should be given so that all farmers under a definitely fixed valuation of, say, £15, would be entirely released from the obligation to pay rates and that all other farmers would be released from that obligation to the extent of the first £15 valuation. It might have been made the first £20 or the first £25 of the valuation. The extent to which we would give relief would be determined by the amount of money the Government proposed to give. We understand that if the Government give £1,000,000 we could give relief on the first £15 of the valuation. As the relief is limited to £750,000, we understand we could only give relief on the first £10. Deputy Davin attempted to represent Deputy de Valera's amendment as another change of policy on the part of Fianna Fáil. The Deputy does not understand, and I cannot make him understand the position. The original proposal of Fianna Fáil was that £1,000,000 be given. Because that has been reduced to £750,000 we cannot give relief on more than the first £10 valuation.
What was the method of allocation of that amount?
I will tell you.
I thought Deputy Lemass had given up Deputy Davin, more or less.
I am afraid I must. In our opinion the method of allocation proposed, although slightly better than the method in the existing agricultural grant, was such that the benefits of the amount which the Dáil is providing for agriculture will be greatly diminished. If the method of allocation was devised to help those who need help most, and to limit it in the case of those who least require it, we would get full value for the amount proposed to be taken in taxation from the people. The benefit of this grant will be considerably reduced, and in some cases it will be practically nil. That is why we are opposed to this particular method of allocation, and that is why we say, even at this late stage, that the allocation can be changed without legislative difficulties. I hope we will be able to get the Dáil to consider the principle embodied in the Bill, as compared with the principle embodied in the amendment, and get a decision on the merits regardless of any red herrings that the Labour Party may introduce into the discussion.
We came here to-day prepared to show that the Government by the method in which they have allocated the money were not doing what is best in the interests of agriculture. We expected we would get co-operation from all sides of the House when Deputy de Valera definitely proved that the farmers were going to be relieved under this scheme of less than 10/6 in rates, while they would have to pay more by way of a tax on sugar. We thought at least that every member who said that he was standing in the interests of the ordinary people would have assisted and supported Deputy de Valera's case. Time and again we have stated that £750,000 or £1,000,000 was not sufficient to take agriculture out of its present depressed state. We have pointed to the burdens that have been piled on to the agricultural community by the Government, year after year, while the income of that community was going down. We have pointed out that if we had control of the Government, instead of giving £750,000 we would give £2,000,000 for the relief of the agricultural community.
We could give much further relief by keeping more of our money at home. All this has been pointed out time and again by Deputy de Valera, who is the leader of the principal Opposition here in this country, and seeing that the Fianna Fáil Party are the alternative to the present administration and that they stand not for £750,000 relief to small and large farmers alike, but for two million pounds, and that if a smaller sum is to be given it will be given in a manner that will relieve those who are burdened most, surely to goodness anyone who had the good of the ordinary people at heart would have come in here to the Dáil and supported Deputy de Valera in his attack on the Government for their maladministration. Instead of that we have Deputy Davin coming in here and repeating misstatements which he has been making around the country and which were refuted here on 13th May last. I do not know what the reason of it is. I do not know whether Deputy Davin is going to get another token of appreciation or not.
What does the Deputy mean by that? I am not looking for appreciation from the Fianna Fáil Party or from the Government.
You will not get it from us.
What does the Deputy mean by that statement? Let him tell the country what he means.
I will tell you; don't you fret. Deputy Davin is not going to get any appreciation from me, or anybody who prates about doing something for the ordinary people of this country and does his best to keep that gang in power.
Is the Deputy in order in referring to the Government Party as a "gang?" He knows a good deal about gangstering.
I do not think the Deputy is in order in referring to the Government which is the creation of the House as a "gang." There is no doubt about that.
I want the Deputy to be frank and tell the country what he means by the insinuation that I am looking for appreciation from the Government. If he can shoot straight let him talk straight.
I am not excited about getting that made clear at all. What I would like to make clear is that we are discussing how we are going to distribute £750,000 by way of rating relief. I want Deputies to keep to that.
Yes, we were discussing that and I was pointing out that an honest effort had been made here by the principal Opposition to bring the Government to their senses and to force them to do something for the ordinary people, particularly the farming community that are at the present time in most need of relief, and that we have also been trying to get the Government, if they are only to spend a smaller sum than the two millions which is necessary for full de-rating, to spend that money in giving relief to the people who are in most need of relief. Deputy Davin, instead of supporting our case, and instead of attacking the Government, as they should be attacked, never even mentioned the Government's policy once. I challenge those who were not in the House when he was making his speech to read it, and say whether there was one single word of condemnation of the Government's proposal to distribute the rates as they propose doing. Deputy Davin, as far as this House is concerned, is quite agreeable to the Government's present distribution.
That is not so.
He did not say a word against it. Anything he said was a misrepresentation of the Fianna Fáil Party.
Look at the debate of the 26th March.
Deputy Aiken is very good at misrepresentation.
One of Deputy Davin's misrepresentations was this — one would think it was a Cumann na nGaedheal speech down the country. It was "Deputy de Valera,""Deputy de Valera,""Deputy de Valera," all the time.
I should have mentioned Deputy Aiken of course.
Of course he deserves a token of appreciation from the Government for that. "Deputy de Valera," says Deputy Davin, "did not say how the money was to be raised when he introduced a million motion." Deputy de Valera said this on that occasion:
"We pointed out here in the last two or three days ways in which a sum equivalent to that mentioned in the motion can be found by economies. We pointed out the direction in which these economies can be effected, but the men who talk of economies, `at the bottom, in the middle and at the top' were not prepared to face these economies."
Again Deputy de Valera said:
"I am precluded from referring to the land annuities in connection with this motion. It is not that I am abandoning our case, but I did not want to have another red herring across the debate by the Deputies on the benches opposite."
Our leader, on that occasion, by his motion, indicated two ways of getting the million relief without adding any further burden to the community, either agricultural or the towns. The first was the retention of the land annuities of which Deputy Davin and the other members of his Party want to make a free present to John Bull every year. If Deputy Davin and the members of Cumann na nGaedheal had not enough backbone to stand up for their rights, we want them at least to effect economies amounting to one million in order to give farmers a million for that year. We all know the tactics in war of creating a diversion. If Deputy Davin were over on those benches he would not be so effective against us as he is when he is pretending to be a Labour man. When we introduced the motion asking the Government to give a million pounds towards de-rating, Deputy Davin and the rest of them came in and tried to create a diversion so that the Government might get away in the confusion. That is what he is trying to do to-day, but we want to pin the Government down to what they can do. When we introduced the million motion our leader gave his reason for the system of allocation.
He said: "This motion of mine is not intended to be a substitute for a considered scheme of de-rating. It is purely a temporary measure introduced to give timely assistance, because we are of opinion that immediate assistance is wanted. It does not indicate, as far as we are concerned, the lines on which we would propose a de-rating scheme, if the duty of proposing such a scheme devolves upon us." Deputy Davin has ears, he has eyes, and he is clever enough to take sense out of ordinary English when he wants to take sense out of it. Of course he is also cunning enough when for his own purposes he wants to, to twist ordinary English used by Deputy de Valera to the advantage of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. Clearly our leader showed there that the introduction of our million motion was to give immediate assistance, that it did not represent, or propose to represent, our system of permanent de-rating, and when the Budget was introduced we proposed that the first fifteen pounds valuation should be completely de-rated. We find that £750,000 will only completely de-rate the first £10 valuation, and we propose that the Government should use the money in order to de-rate completely all holdings under £10 valuation. Surely, when it has been proved that those under £10 valuation will pay more by way of additional tax on sugar than they receive in relief of rates, any ordinary person who wants to do his duty most effectively would support such a motion as ours. The Government have behaved scandalously towards the ordinary people during their term of office. They have every year and in every way so arranged the machinery of Government, so distributed taxes, as to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. In every Budget they have given enormous relief to the people who pay income tax. The year before last they reduced the tax on champagne but on nothing else. This year, when they wanted to raise additional taxes, instead of putting anything on champagne or on tall hats or black silk stockings for attending official functions, they put something on the sugar. Then you have the situation that, instead of being asked here definitely to stand over their policy, a diversion is created to confuse the issue. You have people like Deputy Davin coming in here and creating a diversion to cause confusion so that the Government may not be asked to account for their policy.
So as to drive the Deputy into the same Lobby with them.
Deputy Davin could not drive me into the Lobby if I did not want to go into it.
He drove you before.
Was that the purpose?
No. You are coming around to our point of view now.
Of course Deputy Davin must approve of the Government policy.
As a red rag is to a bull, so is Deputy Davin to the Fianna Fáil Party.
What about the amendment?
The Government, to raise this £750,000, have to increase taxation, and seeing that they are going to raise a large proportion of the money by the sugar tax, which will come off the small farmers, they should try and see, at least, that the small farmers will not be worse off this year than last year and take the burden of the rates completely from those under £10 valuation. I think it is a scandal that people getting less than 7/6 in relief in rates should be asked to pay more by the additional tax on sugar, and I hope that any of the members of the so-called Labour Party who get up to speak will ask the Government to justify this instead of telling lies and misrepresenting the Fianna Fáil Party.
I think the Deputy should withdraw "telling lies."
I will withdraw that and substitute "deliberate untruths."
I want to say this much. On a certain famous occasion——
Would Deputy Davin sit down?
—when a colleague of his was a blackleg.
Do you remember a famous occasion?
He blacklegged on the occasion of anti-conscription. Find out the member of your Party who did it.
I wish the Deputies would keep to the allocation of the £750,000. That is what we are discussing. If they had a little sense of humour there would not be so much heat at all. If they look at the Government Front Bench I am sure there will be less excitement.
I would like to draw the attention of the House to the complete change of front by the Fianna Fáil Party in regard to the allocation of the money in relief of rates. I remember the time when the Fianna Fáil Party were out to give relief of rates to the tillage farmers simply because the tillage farmers employ four or five men. We do not hear now of relief for the tillage farmer or the dairy farmer employing four or five men. The Party has evidently discovered that the voting power of the tillage farmer and the dairy farmer is practically negligible as compared with the small farmers, hence the zeal we see displayed for the small farmers. I believe the Government allocation is a wise one, because they have taken into account the stress of the tillage farmer and of the dairy farmer, men who give large employment, and I am sure they will not accede to the wishes of the Fianna Fáil Party in the allocation of this money, a Party who are always guided by the results of the polling day.
[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]
I have a grievance in connection with the allocation. A small section of the agricultural community is entirely overlooked on this occasion. Under Section 48 of the Local Government Act, 1898, agricultural holdings situated in urban areas are excluded from the benefits of agricultural grants, and they are also excluded from any benefit under the present proposals, and I think it is unfair. I am putting up no plea for the wealthy shopkeepers in towns who may have land in urban areas, but there is a considerable section of people in the country whose land is situated in these areas, and they are subject to undue hardship. They are subject to urban rates. They get certain reliefs, but I am sure that, on the whole, their position is a hard one, and I ask the Minister if he can give them relief. The amount of money required is not very considerable, and it should not be hard to find a means of giving relief to these people. I do not want to take part in this controversy, but with reference to Deputy Dr. Hennessy's remark, the small farmers are all tillage farmers; the small farmer is, perforce, a tillage farmer. Therefore to say that we have purposely left out tillage farmers is perfectly absurd.
I find it hard to know what all this debate is about if it is not simply poking around, having found out that here and there there is a small pocket of the electorate that might be brought, by a few sympathetic phrases, to the back of one or other of our different Parties. We are supposed to regard the debate as for some other purpose, and that it is because agriculture wants to be relieved of some of the taxation that falls upon it. We have a tremendous amount of sympathy poured out on the farmers that have holdings valued at £4 or £5. I would like Deputies to tell us if a person with a holding with £4 or £5 valuation is a farmer from their particular point of view, and particularly whether the work they carry out on the land is of such a nature that it is crushed by the amount of rates that fall upon land of £4 or £5 valuation. The Government's attitude to agriculture and the relief of agriculture is shown by its attitude in relief of rates on agricultural land during the time it has been in office. When it came into office rates on agricultural land were relieved to the extent of £599,000. With the £750,000 now added the Government has provided from ordinary taxation an additional sum of £1,350,000 in relief of agricultural land since it came into office, so that agricultural land is now relieved of rates up to the extent of just £1,950,000.
Will the Minister say how he gets that figure?
By adding.
By adding what figures? The Minister is about a half a million wrong.
If the Deputy will take £599,000 and double it, and add £750,000 he will get it. That is the position. Deputies come along now and say that they consider agriculture should get another £2,000,000 relief in respect of rates, and they outline the way in which they would give all this money. They also outline the way they would use this present sum of £750,000. Deputies will find in appendix A, table 3 of the De-rating Commission's Report the number of holdings of various valuations throughout the country, and they will find that Deputy de Valera's present proposal is that out of the 378,000 odd holdings 210,000 are to be relieved entirely of their rates on agricultural land, or practically entirely relieved of their rates, so that the electorate, upon which the local government of the country is based, is going to be completely undermined, by taking 55 per cent. of them and relieving them practically entirely of their obligations financially to the extent of the support given to local government.
Assuming we can never get the Utopia where Deputy de Valera could get his £2,000,000 for this purpose, still he would like to give as much as would relieve rates on agricultural holdings up to £15 valuation. If he did that he would relieve 250,000 out of the 378,000 holders of agricultural land, or 67.5 per cent. approximately of the present holders of agricultural land in the country.
What is the objection to that?
Deputies on the other side of the House charge us with centralising everything and with wanting to wipe out local institutions, and to take away from the people their responsibilities. Does the Deputy who interrupted know any more effective way, in the first place, of doing that than their own present proposal to relieve 55 per cent. of the holders of agricultural land from any of their local government responsibilities?
What power have they?
We are not taking the votes from them.
No, but you are taking responsibility from them.
We are not.
You took their power from them.
I certainly would like to see Deputies giving some thought to the reactions upon local work and responsibility if it were done, and in the second place to the reactions on social conditions generally if you take responsibility for payment from 55 per cent. of a particular class of people, and no doubt, as the Deputy's line of argument goes to show, throw the burden that is proper to fall upon their shoulders over entirely on the shoulders of the other 45 per cent.
How can you throw the burden over on the other 45 per cent. if you pay for the relief out of central funds?
Out of central funds drawn from whom?
From the smallholders in the main.
If we put a tax of a halfpenny in the pound of sugar we are told agriculture is crushed.
Because relief is given to the wrong people.
Because a man with a £10 or less valuation is asked to pay a halfpenny upon the pound of sugar agriculture is crushed.
They are going to pay more than they can afford.
I would like to try to get down to the real lines of policy enshrined in Deputy de Valera's amendment and to keep the discussion upon that. I suggest to Deputies that when they say they want so much it creates the situation in which they would completely destroy local responsibility, and therefore local power, because if anyone ever steps in from the central position to take power from the local people who are without responsibility, their irresponsible action would bring about a situation in which they would destroy themselves. It seems to me the Deputies, too, are attempting to create to a very large extent divergent classes in the country and to create social antagonisms and social confusion.
As to the history of this relief of agriculture, if we go back over a few months, before Christmas, we find that the Government, pending the issue of the De-rating Report, were promising that they would give relief to the extent of £1,000,000 to agriculture. That was, as I mentioned before, during the County Dublin election. When that election was over this promise seemed to be almost forgotten. As a matter of fact, we were informed by the daily Press that there would be no relief for this year, and in these circumstances Deputy de Valera introduced his motion here for £1,000,000 relief. As pointed out already, he did indicate certain lines upon which that £1,000,000 could be got without inflicting additional taxation. Everybody, of course, will admit he did not contemplate there would be a tax on sugar in order to relieve the small farmers, because everybody who had the interests of the relief of agriculture, and especially the small holders, at heart, will see that the relief of the small holder by putting a tax on sugar was no relief at all. Under these circumstances, when that motion was introduced, the Labour Party tabled an amendment setting out certain modifications of the rate of allocation of relief.
The strange thing that appeared to us at the time was that whereas we were following the line on which relief had been distributed for the past five or six years, the Labour Party, and every other Party in the House, had allowed that form of allocation to go and did not attempt to put in any amendment to the form of allocation adopted, first by the British Government and afterwards by the Free State Government. However, an amendment was put down, and we voted against it because we believed it could not be regarded as anything more than a red herring drawn across the discussion at the time.
Now the Government in the Budget proposed to give £750,000 as relief for agriculture, and in order to raise that sum they proposed to put a tax on sugar and a tax on petrol. Now, as a Party, we have tabled an amendment to the Government's proposal, and again I say the Labour Party have not tabled an amendment to the Government's proposal; we did, and we meet with the hostility of the Labour Party in doing so. Our object in this amendment is to see if possible that no farmer is to be at a loss by the proposals of the Government. I think it is fairly obvious that a farmer under £10 valuation is at least in danger of being at a loss by the present relief measure of the Government. Because roughly, for every member of his household, a farmer will be compelled to contribute about 2/- in the £ per year, in extra taxation on sugar, and he will only receive about 2/- in the £ relief on his valuation; so that a man with a £5 valuation, and five in family will be no better off. If there are six in family he will be worse off. In the same way if there is one member in the family for every one pound of valuation, he is just as well off as he was before, so that this amendment is proposed to try to prevent the evil that might arise in making people worse off than they were before.
We do not in any way consider that if our amendment were carried it would be a solution of the de-rating question, because we believe £750,000 is altogether inadequate. Deputy Doctor Hennessy raised the question as to whether we had now neglected the tillage and dairy farmer. We have not. We believe that tillage farmers and dairy farmers who employ between them somewhere about 90,000 labourers are entitled to relief. But we cannot relieve them and the small men at the same time out of £750,000. It cannot be done. If we are confined by the Minister for Finance to the £750,000, and if we are to avoid doing injustice, we must see that the small man gets total relief up to about £10 of his valuation. If there was additional money provided, and if we could frame regulations whereby these tillage farmers and dairy farmers who are employing labour would get extra relief, it would be the most welcome solution that we, on this side of the House, could get, but we are not in a position to include in our amendment any relief for that class of farmer because of the inadequacy of the sum of £750,000.
We do not hold with the Labour Party in the amendment they introduced some time ago that the definition of a small farmer is a man with a farm of £50 valuation. As a matter of fact, there are farmers under £50 valuation not entitled to relief. There are many farms under £50 valuation which, if worked properly, should employ one or two workmen in addition to the farmer and his family, but they are not doing so. Some of them are perhaps let on the eleven months' system and they are not entitled to relief, unless we are going to de-rate agricultural land entirely and deal with the ranchers and persons who let their lands on the eleven months' system by some other methods through the Land Commission, but so long as we are confined to a certain sum—£750,000 or even £1,000,000—we do not hold with the Labour Party that a small farmer should be defined as a man under £50 valuation. We hold that it is quite common throughout the country to see men with farms of £40 and £35 valuation not using their farms as they should be used, not producing as much as they ought to produce, and not, therefore, entitled to Government relief. But when you come to £10, £15 or £20 valuation you do not expect such holdings to maintain more than the owner and his family and you are only acting justly in giving the holder of such valuation complete relief if you have sufficient money to do it.
This £750,000 is absolutely inadequate when we consider the fall of prices. If, for instance, we consider the price of milk and butter we find that the producers of milk in this country have lost at the very least £2,000,000 this year as compared with 1929; that is to say, that their receipts for 1930 were £2,000,000 under those for 1929 and probably they will be less still in 1931. Take the producers of bacon. At the present price of bacon in this country, if it continues throughout 1931, the producers of bacon will be in receipt of at least £3,000,000 less in 1931 than they were in 1930. There I have taken only two commodities— milk and bacon, and between them there will be a loss this year of £5,000,000 as compared with 1929, and yet we are offered this relief of only £750,000. It is no use for the relief of agriculture in general. If Deputy Hennessy points out to us that the case can be made for the dairy or the tillage farmers that these are perhaps the two classes that are going to suffer the biggest loss owing to the fall in prices in the milk and bacon industry, all we can say is that we cannot do anything for these two classes of farmers out of £750,000. If you take the producer of milk in the County Limerick, the man with a fair-sized farm even of £100 valuation what relief is he going to get under this scheme? He is going to get £10 a year. He would lose that on two cows this year as compared with 1929. He is a man who probably has forty or fifty cows on his farm and he would lose this money on two of these cows.
It was pointed out here again and again that this money could have been raised otherwise than by putting an extra burden on people in the form of a sugar and petrol tax. Economies were pointed out, and this Party got no support in its campaign for economy in the administration. It was pointed out that economies could be made on salaries, on the Army, on the Gárda, and in many other Departments, such as that extravagant Department, the Board of Works. When these suggestions were pointed out there was no support for this Party in trying to effect these economies. The Minister for Local Government has pointed out now that the Government are granting about three times as much relief to agriculture as was granted before the present Government came into power. The farmers are quite entitled to it, because, as the Minister pointed out, the farmers themselves contribute to that taxation just as much in proportion as any other class in the community, and this Government of ours is taking from the people more than three times as much as was taken from them by the Government administration pre-war or up to 1914. So that the farmers are now only getting their own back, even putting it at the very best. Deputy Davin more or less boasted here that by their amendment in March they drove the Fianna Fáil Party into the division lobby with the Government Party. We admit it was very distasteful to us, but we are going to make it just as distasteful by our amendment at the present moment. We are going to drive the Labour Party into the lobby with us in favour of this, and that must be fairly distasteful at the present moment.
If I wished to speak solely as a politician and desired to take revenge on the opposite Party I would ask the Minister to accept this amendment. I should like to see Deputy Ryan, Deputy Lemass, and even Deputy Corry getting up here after next year or so and telling the farmers of this country under £15 to £20 valuation, say the type of man who milks eight or nine cows and tills a bit of his land, providing labour for three or four people, that he, when there was a chance of dividing £750,000 amongst men of his class in relief of agriculture, was to get no benefit whatever, while men under £10 valuation would get the whole.
That is not the proposal.
Men of £30 valuation would be exactly as well off under the amendment as under the present Bill. There would be relief up to £10 for all.
I think it was stated that the reason the £10 figure was fixed was that the amount provided would give relief up to that limit. Deputy de Valera led me to believe that he put the figure at £10 for the reason that the £750,000 would only provide total relief for those farmers up to a £10 valuation, and if that is so I do not see——
On the first £10 valuation.
In his speech Deputy de Valera made it clear to me that the £750,000 would only be able to relieve in full people up to £10 valuation. However, if the Deputy says that is not the case I will pass away from the point. Speaking generally on this de-rating motion, it is very easy to be wise after the event. When de-rating was first mooted at meetings here and there in this country, I personally never heard of a Fianna Fáil Deputy get up to address any audience in the country and tell them that if de-rating were passed he was going to discriminate as between one class of farmer and another.
This is not de-rating.
I never heard such a proposition made or mentioned by that Party on any public platform. On the other hand, there have been numerous Deputies on this side who had the courage to go down and tell their constituents before de-rating was brought in by the Minister here that while de-rating would be useful there were difficulties in de-rating, and that it would be almost impossible to devise a de-rating scheme which would be equitable to every farmer. I for one in my own constituency had the courage—and I hope it was courage, because it was not popular—to make the statement that it would be almost impossible to devise a scheme that would be equally fair to every farmer in the country. I did so because I knew it would be impossible to devise such a scheme. Now the Deputies on the other side, when legislation is brought in, find out the snag which was always there. That is a snag that they did not find until they wished to oppose the Government policy. As I have already stated down the country, there was a snag in de-rating as far as the small farmers were concerned. It would be impossible to relieve the farmer under a valuation of 10/-, 15/-, or £1. That would be impossible under any scheme of de-rating. If we de-rate at all, whatever scheme is adopted must be universal. It must include the small farmer and the big farmer, because no matter what Party tries to hammer out any other scheme they will be up against some section of the community who will be able to produce as good a case for inclusion in the scheme as the people who are included. Unless we provide total de-rating it cannot be done.
The Fianna Fáil Party put down a motion some months ago, and that motion only went to the extent of £1,000,000. I do not know why they did not make it more. Possibly they felt it would be an unjust burden to place on the rest of the community. I do not know whether that is the reason as to why they did not put down more than one million. We might have made it two millions, and the same snag that exists now as between the 10/- valuation and the £100 valuation would arise, with this added disadvantage, that the resultant burden, the increased taxation which they would have to bear, would be much bigger. I say that because in finding two million pounds it would be necessary not only to put a halfpenny tax on sugar, but to put taxes on other things.
Not if they keep the land annuities.
The land annuities will be debated another day, and there are some of us here who will not be afraid to get up and speak honestly on that issue. We have never been afraid to speak honestly on it. There has been a great deal of talk as between the small farmer, the middle-class farmer and the large farmer. Nobody will dare assert that the small farmer of £1 or £2 valuation is really a farmer at all. I do not think any Deputy who is honest will get up and say that the farmer with such a valuation is in reality a farmer. It would be impossible for such a farmer to make his living by agriculture, and he does not. The £750,000 which we are distributing in relief of agriculture must go more largely to his help than to the help of any other section of the farming community. He will gain from this £750,000 through the distribution of the local rates, in poor relief or home help, in work on the roads, and in other ways. This will go more to the cottier who also pays rates, to the small farmers with a valuation of £1 or so than to any other class. He will get more direct share in the spending of the rates of the county than any other class. He will get a share in road work and other local development. It is possible for him to get it in ways that the middle-class farmer or the big farmer does not look for.
The large farmer very often employs the man of £1 or 10/- valuation of whom we have heard so much. I have as much sympathy with the small farmer as has any Deputy on the opposite side. I believe that all our assistance should be directed towards helping the very small farmer. But de-rating will never help him. I do not know that it was ever meant to help him. The snag in de-rating was always there, and will always be there. Whether it is our scheme or a scheme of the Opposition, the community will always be up against the snag in the case of the very small farmer with a valuation of a pound or two, or even four. Telling us to accept such a scheme here and that to confine the possible benefits to men under a valuation of £10 is going to be a solution of this difficulty is only demonstrating to us, or trying to demonstrate to us, that we are devoid of all practical intelligence. I hope there is no possible chance of this amendment passing.
There is on point that seems to be lost sight of in this debate. The proposals in Deputy de Valera's amendment are largely the proposals put forward by my own County Council as written evidence before the De-rating Commission. There are administrative difficulties which confront these proposals and which, I think, have been lost sight of. In the first place, how are you to find out the person of £10 valuation?
From the rate book.
You will not find it in the rate book. Take, for instance, a rated occupier, whom we will call "A." I have in mind one particular rated occupier in my own parish who gets thirteen demand notes for what appears to be one farm. That farm, apparently, was originally occupied by a number of different people, who were evicted, who sold out or who left the place for some other reason. Suppose you find, as you will find, that this man "A" is rated for £5 in one demand, for £6 in another, for £2 in another, and so on. On the method proposed here, if you take that man's total valuation out of the rate book, his total valuation would be £45, and on this method he would be entitled to relief on £40 and would be only rated for £5. Consequently the first thing you would have to do would be to consolidate the rates before you and find out the amount on which such a man was entitled to be de-rated. In that respect you are up against another difficulty, and, to my mind, you could not put this into effect without further legislation, because as the law stands at the moment, if this man, "A," who holds different farms on different rates, went into the Secretary of the County Council after this amendment was passed, and said to him: "I am not in possession of such and such a place; my wife is in occupation of that place. Please put her down as the rated occupier," the Secretary of the County Council would have no option to putting down her name. That is a difficulty that is to be encountered in every proposal of the same nature as that proposed by Deputy de Valera and Deputy O'Connell. To my mind, it would require further legislation to amend the existing law, and you would eventually find yourself in the midst of confusion. You would find wholesale evasion of the provisions contained in the amendment. I think that is a point that has been really lost sight of, and that, to a large extent, would control the whole situation.
When this matter was dealt with here before, we were not aware that the Government, in order to prevent any further demand for de-rating on the part of the agricultural community, were going to come and make the demand for de-rating as unpalatable as possible by putting a tax on the sugar of the poor. During the time that Deputy de Valera's motion was being discussed here several ways and means of finding the money were pointed out. It was pointed out, for instance, that the Government could get £136,000 more than they could get out of the sugar tax—they would get £436,000—by dropping the cost-of-living bonus on salaries over £400 a year. I consider that that would have been a far fairer means of finding the money, and that the man who has £400 a year salary would feel it less to lose the cost-of-living bonus tacked on to it than the unfortunate poor man or farmer with a £10 valuation would feel the halfpenny per lb. clapped on to the sugar used by himself and his family. The Government, after endeavouring for three years, during the whole period of this de-rating demand, endeavouring to delay it and prevent it by every means in their power, when they found themselves face to face with this problem, said: "We will prevent any further demand," and they put a tax on the sugar of the poor. That is one of the reasons why the amendment was brought in. The amendment is brought in to-day because you are taking directly out of the pockets of these people more than they will get in relief.
Several charges were made here to-day, amongst them some charges from the Labour Party. When I was speaking here in connection with our motion to grant one million pounds relief for rates I congratulated the Labour Party on their conversion. I would like to repeat that congratulation to the Labour Party to-day on their conversion to our proposals. I am sorry that there are not any of them here now listening to me. It is a rather extraordinary thing that from 1923, when the Labour Party first made its appearance here, to 1931, during which period there was given each year an agricultural grant—and on no less than two occasions there was introduced here a proposal to increase the agricultural grant—that not on one of these occasions was there a single word or an amendment from the Labour Party suggesting that the poor man, the tillage farmer, or the man under £15 valuation was to be treated in any different spirit to the man with a thousand acres. There was not a single word about it, and it remained until 1931, when a motion was brought in for immediately granting relief, which was definitely explained to be a purely temporary motion, to hear a word from the Labour Party.
It was because the Government had stated their intention to give no relief whatever to the agricultural community, that that motion was brought forward. It was definitely stated here when the Minister for Finance introduced the old agricultural grant, and said not one single word about further relief for agriculture. Then the Labour Party, seeing some hope of getting into the limelight came in, pirated a motion of mine that appeared on the Order Paper in October, 1929, and clapped it down here as an amendment to a purely temporary measure. It was explained very clearly at that period, that that motion of mine which appeared on the Order Paper, asked that the agricultural grant should be taken from men who had not at least fifteen per cent. of their farms under tillage, or were not using their farms as dairy farms, and increasing it to those who were tilling their lands and making proper use of them. That motion of mine was withdrawn, pending the report of the De-rating Commission, for, whilst that motion was on the Order Paper the Government appointed the De-rating Commission It was withdrawn pending the report of that Commission. From 1923 to 1931 not one single word was uttered by the Labour Party in this House in favour of making any difference in allocating the agricultural grants as between the ordinary farmer, who tilled his farm, who employed labour, and the large rancher with one thousand acres.
Thus they came in on a temporary measure in order in some way to get something for themselves out of it. So much for the Labour Party's proposal. When we introduced our motion for a million pounds we pointed out that if this was to be dealt with in a permanent manner we would take an entirely different attitude. I do not believe for a moment that the rancher with 1,000 acres or the man with 100 acres or fifty acres, who does not till his land or give any employment, who has it let on the eleven months' system or keeps bullocks should be entitled to any relief whatsoever out of the pockets of the Irish people. I believe that is a problem that will have to be dealt with by itself. It is a problem that should not be dealt with under this section. It should be dealt with by the Land Commission who will act as a Land Commission Department should act who would take that land from those people and give it to those who would till it. We had various statements made on this section to-day. I believe firmly that the farmers in this country are entitled to complete de-rating on their agricultural land, and I hold it is the duty of a Government, not a caricature of a Government, to provide complete de-rating in this country. I believe if it is not provided that the farming community will be completely wiped out. I am speaking as a farmer who knows what he is talking about.
[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]
Deputy Ryan gave figures which showed that on milk and bacon alone there would be a loss of five million pounds. Does the President or the Executive Council still maintain that the body of farmers who lose five million pounds in twelve months should be compelled to pay the same salaries to bloated officials in keeping up this caricature of a Government that they did when they had this five million pounds? Is that the case they put up that the man with £500 a year is to get £4 a week cost-of-living-bonus while the farmers lose five million pounds this year? When this Bill was introduced we had a speech from the Minister for Agriculture. He twitted us on the change in our policy because in introducing a purely temporary measure we did our utmost to leave the Government Party no loophole. Because of that they were correspondingly disappointed. He said when we will introduce a permanent scheme we will give you a policy. The statement is contained in Volume 37 Column 2275. Deputy Lemass asked him:
"Why have not you a permanent scheme?" Mr. Hogan said: "We will have it. We are not accustomed to do business on the lines of introducing schemes that we do not understand. We are going to have a permanent scheme."
This Government, which has given the same relief to the ranchers and the landlords from 1923 to 1931, now bring in their permanent scheme for another £750,000. They split that between the rancher and the landlord again. That is the permanent scheme of de-rating as held out by the Minister for Grass. Surely if you are going to take from the pocket of one individual more than you take from the pocket of another you must give him some corresponding relief. That is what we are endeavouring to do here. The Government have closed their eyes on the rich. They have said: "We are not going to increase the tax on champagne. We are not going to increase the income tax, which is something like 1/6 lower here than it is in England and Northern Ireland. We are not going to touch the rich, to whom we owe our funds for fighting the by-election. We are going to drive a nail in the coffin of de-rating." The means they found was to tax the poor man's sugar. They raised such a cry about de-rating in this country that it will never again be heard of.
I would like to hear some Deputies' arguments put up against this scheme. I heard none from Deputy Brennan. Deputy Brennan admits that his county council sent up an unanimous resolution, supported by himself, demanding this very thing. Deputy Brennan will walk into the Lobby to-day against it. After proposing it and supporting it in the county council he will walk into the Lobby to-day and vote against his own motion.
I think it is not fair to deliberately misinterpret what I said. What I did say was that proposals similar to these were submitted by our county council but we found ourselves up against administrative difficulties. Is not that right?
Did your county council adopt it unanimously?
We submitted a similar proposal but we found administrative difficulties.
The Deputy did not deny that his county council unanimously adopted those proposals. Those administrative difficulties which the Deputy spoke of were small farms, several of them owned by one man. The Deputy has a fairly long experience of local bodies. He is very well aware that the rate demands are all bulked together in the county council offices and the demands for rates in the case of six, seven or eight pounds valuation are all served at the one time.
There are separate documents.
I am afraid the Deputy does not know what he is talking about. Some of these areas are dealt with by a different collector altogether.
They are dealt with in the one county council office.
Not always.
You are taking the one case in a million. The complaint of the Minister for Local Government was that we were taking away the responsibility those men had. He took away their responsibility month after month and week after week. He made them pay more each year. He increased the amount they would have to pay to the county secretary, to the law adviser or to the county surveyor by a couple of hundred a year. When those poor farmers he speaks of elected representatives on the Co. Council to look after their business what happened? They fixed a salary, for instance, of £500 a year for a county surveyor. It went up for sanction to the Minister for Local Government, and an order came down that a man in that responsible position should get at least from £1,000 to £1,500 a year. He did not say where it was to come from. Now he is afraid that if you take away the responsibility that they will go back forgetting that those men will still have to pay rates on their houses and farm buildings the same as the man in the town.
Mr. Byrne
The man in the city pays for everything but he gets nothing.
Will Deputy Corry come to the amendment?
I think I have dealt fairly well with the amendment.
I think so, too.
A statement was made by Deputy Bennett in which he pointed out that farmers with a valuation of £30 were going to be hit. The Deputy does not realise one thing in connection with that, namely that these farmers will get just as much relief under this amendment as they would get under the proposals of the Government. They would get complete de-rating up to £10, Relief would be given on the basis of one-third of the valuation. If we examine the figures an amazing state of affairs will be disclosed. Farmers with valuations from £10 to £15, from £15 to £30 and upwards number 34,000, 75,000 and 51,000 respectively, as compared with 5,959 farmers with a valuation of £200. In other words, we find that the majority employed on the land are employed on small farms. Deputy Bennett's argument could not bear daylight. I confidently ask the House to accept the amendment. We are now dealing with permanent proposals showing how the money is to be expended year after year. As far as the case made from the Labour Benches goes, I have only to say that from 1923 to 1931 the Labour Party sat here and said nothing. A proposal was brought in in 1925, to allocate £559,000 as an agricultural grant. Not a single word was uttered in the House by the Labour Party so that the ranchers would be deprived of any share of that money, and that tillage farmers should be treated on a different basis.
The only time they made a move was when they borrowed a motion I brought forward in 1928 and tried to make political capital out of it, by speaking of a purely temporary proposal brought in by Deputy de Valera. The only object of my motion was to force the Government to stop robbing the farmers and turning their pockets inside out. I regret that the statement made by Deputy Haslett that they would give more was not realised, as he found when he came up against the plutocrats who rule the Cumann na nGaedheal Party.
I wish to support the amendment. My main reason for doing so is the fact that it proposes to give complete de-rating to agricultural holdings with a valuation of £10 and under. My only regret in regard to the amendment is that it does not go far enough. De-rating affects County Donegal differently to the way it affects southern counties. Donegal is bordered by Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, and in these counties there is complete de-rating. The farmers of Donegal, large and small, believe that, as they have not the same advantages of full de-rating that the farmers in the Six Counties have for placing their agricultural products on the market, it is to their disadvantage. The farming community in Donegal contend that they should not be placed in a worse position than the farmers in the Six Counties. Although I support the amendment because it proposes to give full de-rating on holdings under £10 valuation, I would like to see it going further, so that the farmers in my constituency would have complete de-rating.
As far as I heard the speech made by the Minister for Local Government, it indicated that the Government agreed with the justice of the amendment proposed by Deputy de Valera, and that the only fault he found with it was that it affected another question totally different from the question in connection with which de-rating was introduced.
My point was that I wanted to find out what Deputies were talking about.
When I entered the House the Minister was explaining that under Deputy de Valera's proposal a great number of local government electors would be free from responsibility in connection with rates, that they would subscribe practically nothing for local government purposes, and that consequently local government, as at present constituted, could not be carried on. It seems to me that is a very different problem from the problem of de-rating for the purpose of relieving agriculture. Surely the question of farm relief is not to be determined by a discussion as to the basis on which local government should be carried on. It seems somewhat like the proverbial red herring that, not being able to say that the proposal in the amendment was in any way unjust or in any way defective, the Minister then turns the attention of the House to another question of a quite different character. If the Minister's contention be right, and if the only reason why we should not pass this proposal is that it is necessary to have taxation in order to continue local government, that is a new situation. It looks like taxing people, not because taxes are necessary, but only as a means of creating a feeling of responsibility. I do not think any theorist on the principles of government, either central or local, has ever before proposed that people should be taxed simply in order to create within them a feeling of responsibility towards their fellow-citizens. It has thus fallen to the Minister for Local Government to enunciate a new principle in regard to all government. If he is correct he should have told us at what point the responsibility arises—how much taxation will be necessary in order to create that feeling of responsibility. As Deputy Corry has pointed out, he does not appear to have worried up to the present about the great number of people living in cities and towns whose contributions to local rates are very meagre indeed. Is it his intention to increase taxation on them in order to create that feeling of responsibility within them? I am sure the Minister will take the first opportunity of developing this, because it is one of the most remarkable statements, to my mind, that has ever been made in the Dáil, and it is deserving of a lot of attention if it is going to be the basis of Government policy in the future. I cannot accept the idea that simply because taxation is necessary to create a feeling of responsibility we cannot relieve the burden of the people engaged in agriculture. I cannot see that that is a just decision on the part of the Government, and I will be surprised if the Dáil will accept it. I think it is necessary also to state that most of us here, if not all, are in no way satisfied that the relief that can be given to the large agriculturist if our proposal be carried, will be any thing like sufficient to meet his present circumstances. We realise we must all keep in production the big farmer who is tilling his land and employing labour. The relief which will be left to him if Deputy de Valera's amendment is carried will not be anything like sufficient, we admit, to meet his case for relief, but we cannot, even in face of that, agree to the injustice that is inevitable, if the Bill that is before the Dáil goes through in its present form. We cannot agree to the injustice by which the small farmers, poor people such as the cottiers in the Gaeltacht, will have to pay increased taxes in order that the bigger farmer should get relief. I think the big farmer throughout the country would be the last, at least those who are worth considering, to say "I am entitled to relief even if the farmer of two, three, or up to seven or ten acres must pay for that relief."
That is what will happen if the Bill goes through in its present form. I submit that as far as the Minister for Local Government has attempted to make a case against the amendment, he has only made one that, at its best, should never be accepted by the Dáil.
I do not propose to deal with anything else except some of the speeches made here to-day, particularly, I understand, by Deputy Davin. In the course of the debate he repeated much of the misrepresentations which were a feature of some of the speeches delivered recently in the country. May I say, in regard to the principal author of these misrepresentations, Deputy Davin, that his fertility of invention makes one believe that when he entered into political life the nursery lost what would have made a first-class writer of fairy tales? He stated recently that there was no difference between the Government attitude and Fianna Fáil's so far as agricultural relief, and he bases that statement on the motion which was proposed by Deputy de Valera on the 26th March, 1931. In order to make clear how shallow the statements of Mr. Davin are, and with what little foundation they have been made, I would like to refer, first of all, to the speech in which Deputy de Valera introduced that motion, where he made it quite clear that his proposals were not intended to afford a permanent solution of the problem, but that they were introduced merely as a temporary measure in order to deal with an emergency and crisis then created in Irish agriculture. These are his exact words:—
"Now, this motion of mine is not intended to be a substitute for a considered scheme of de-rating. It is purely a temporary measure introduced to give timely assistance, because we are of opinion that immediate assistance is wanted. It does not indicate, as far as we are concerned, the lines on which we would propose a de-rating scheme if the duty of proposing such a scheme devolved upon us."
I do not think that anything could be clearer than that, and even Deputy Davin's genius for political propaganda cannot make that statement mean anything other than what it does mean— that the motion was introduced as a temporary measure to deal with an emergency.
Deputy Davin is here now, and he cannot deny that that statement was made.
Does Deputy MacEntee deny that it is the duty of the leader of the opposition to put forward a policy?
The De-rating Commission had not reported.
You were trying to anticipate it.
I was trying to get relief, and the Labour Party tried to come to the assistance of the Government as usual.
You agreed with them and went into the lobby with them.
I will leave the skipper of the submarine to keep his peace at the moment while I go on. Again Mr. de Valera said:
"Our policy with respect to de-rating was complete on the assumption that the moneys were to be got by retaining what is at present, in our opinion, being paid away needlessly. We have also made it quite clear that we favour a system which would discriminate to the advantage of smaller holdings—the holdings of the small farmers."
Mr. Davin, who depends on his imagination rather than on his memory when quoting from Deputy de Valera's speeches, made it appear that that was not so, but Mr. de Valera, our leader, made it clear that we favoured the system which would discriminate with advantage to the small holder and the small farmer.
Why did you not put it into the motion?
I will answer Deputy Davin in the words of Deputy de Valera on the 26th of March, when he said:
"Why are we not doing that here, it may be asked."—We even anticipated Deputy Davin's misrepresentations.—"Why are we opposing the proposal put forward by the Labour Party which seems to indicate a line of approach in that direction? I say to the Labour Party that we are opposing their proposal because of the fact that we want a definite motion that the gentlemen on the opposite benches will have no excuse whatever for rejecting."
Of course, Deputy Davin, knowing what was the purpose of the Fianna Fáil Party, endeavoured to provide the Government with an excuse for rejecting Deputy de Valera's motion and coming forward afterwards with this three-quarters of a million motion.
Why did you go into the lobby with the Government?
They were sensible that time.
We also made it quite clear that we did not believe that the proposal which had been put down was the best that could be devised. It was the one which offered the least line of attack from the Government. I quite admit that when putting it forward we allowed our flank open, if you like, to attack from the allies of the Government, but so far as the main body of the enemy were concerned we were advancing upon a front that was secure.
Into the same lobby.
At any rate, Deputy de Valera, speaking on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, said: "I am not in favour of the principle of allocation as a permanent policy." That is our answer to the suggestion which has been made here to-day that this amendment of Deputy de Valera represented a change of front. It does not. It shows that while Deputy de Valera was prepared to do something as a temporary measure now, when there is an opportunity to consider a proposal as a permanent feature in the finances of the country we are putting forward a reasoned and considered amendment which would to a certain extent carry out the principles which we had in mind when the original resolution was put down.
It has been said that there is no difference between the Government and ourselves, because we propose to find the money in exactly the same way. It has been alleged, because Deputy de Valera did not make it clear in his motion on the 26th March where the money was to come from, that we propose to find the money in the same way as the Government have since shown themselves prepared to find it. In that connection again I would like to quote from Deputy de Valera's speech of the 26th March. He said:
"I want to make another point clear. It is said that I did not point to where this money was to come from. No. I did not."
Then he gets in a home thrust at the Labour submarines when he said:
"Deputy O'Connell did not point out where this money was to come from either."
So if the allegation is that because Deputy de Valera in his motion did not point out where the money was to come from he was prepared to put a tax on the necessities of the people, then Deputy O'Connell, who levelled that charge against Deputy de Valera, is open to the same accusation, because neither did Deputy O'Connell indicate where it was to come from.
He indicated where it should not come from.
"He indicated that he did not want it to come by way of indirect taxation on the section of the community which is least able to bear it. With that we agree, and if there was any proposition that it would put such a burden of indirect taxation on the section Deputy O'Connell wishes to protect we would vote against it." We proved he was speaking the truth when we opposed the proposal to put an additional tax on sugar. Deputy de Valera went on:
"Where is the money to be got for it? I am precluded from referring to the land annuities in connection with this motion. It is not that I am abandoning our case but I did not want to have another red herring across this debate by the Deputies on the benches opposite."
He was already impeded sufficiently by the red herring of the Labour Party in his endeavour to procure some sort of relief for the farmers, and the small farmers particularly, of this country. "We pointed out," he went on, "here in the last two or three days, ways in which a sum equivalent to that mentioned in the motion can be found by economies. We pointed out the direction in which these economies can be effected, but the men who talk of economies, at the bottom, in the middle, and at the top, were not prepared to face these economies. On the benches opposite it was said that we were not prepared and that we were always putting forward motions for relief of this, that and the other thing. We are bringing forward motions for relief of those who need relief and we think that the burden ought to be borne by those who can bear it. If necessary put a tax on petrol or increase the income tax. If the economies we recommend cannot be carried out, and we believe they can, I am prepared to stand over that motion and to back it up by finding the moneys necessary by taxation of those who can bear it."
There, in his concluding speech, on the 26th March, 1931, Deputy de Valera quite explicitly pointed out where these moneys were to be found: First of all out of the land annuities, secondly, in view of the attitude which the Government took up on that matter, if we are not permitted to have recourse to the land annuities, then out of economies, and if economies are not to be made then in the last resort by additional taxation, taxation upon the backs of those who can bear it. Those were the ways in which Deputy de Valera proposed to find the million. I think I have recapitulated what Deputy de Valera said in the course of that debate, and I have laid once and for all the misrepresentations of the Labour Party. I do hope that henceforward we shall have none of these fabrications from the Labour platform which, during the past few years we have been accustomed to.
Deputy Davin is here now. If he can deny it let him get up and do it.
Domhnall Ua Buachalla
Ba mhaith liom ceist do chur ar an Aire—ar bhuail sé isteach i n-a aigne, nó in aigne an Aire Cuireadóireachta nach mbeadh gádh ar bith leis an gcongnamh airgid seo dos na feirmeóirí dá gcosnóchadh an Rialtas iad ar na feirmeóirí gallda. Bliain i ndiaidh a cheile, bíonn scéim éigin ag an Rialtas chun chongnamh airgid a thabhairt dos na feirmeóirí, cé nach mbíonn ag teastáil ós na feirmeóirí céadna ach go gcosnóchaí iad ar na Gaill.
I should like to ask the Minister has it ever entered into his mind, or the mind of the Minister for Agriculture, that there would be no necessity for these schemes of financial assistance for farmers or labourers if the Government would give protection to the farmers and labourers by keeping out foreign goods which are dumped here from other countries at half the price at which they can be produced at home? The farmer or the labourer does not want pauperisation. The labourer does not want the dole. The money spent on the dole is increasing year after year because labourers cannot get employment. Why?
There is no dole in this country. That shows what the Deputy knows about it.
Domhnall Ua Buachalla
Because the farmer has not a proper way of living, because he is not given protection. If the farmer had been given protection in the last seven or eight years from the inroads of foreign produce there would be no necessity for this yearly dole to the farmers, and it is nothing else.
Unemployment insurance is what they get.
Domhnall Ua Buachalla
This dole is being brought in here to give relief to the farmers. In other words, the farmers and labourers are being pauperised because the Government are not doing their duty towards them.
The De-rating Commission Report contains in Appendix A, on page 100, a Table 3 which gives the total number of holdings in Co. Kildare, and that is, I presume, where Deputy de Valera got his figures of 2,918. The valuation of these holdings is given as £5,034. A very small examination of the figures there, and of calculations, according to the Deputy's own method of averaging, will show that it is unlikely that 15,000 persons live out of land with a valuation of £5,034. I am taking an average of five persons to the household.
Why is it unlikely when it is given as a fact?
I am saying that it is unlikely that they live out of that. There is another means of support for these persons outside of the land. If the Deputy holds that they make their livelihood exclusively out of that land, then there is a different situation. He does not make that contention, I presume. Very good. Then the valuation is not a material point, and the reduction of the valuation is not a material point. In the case of a holding of £4 valuation and under, it is unlikely that there is employment for more than one person on the holding. If there are other persons living on it they must find employment elsewhere. I wonder is that point conceded? It is a material point in this discussion. If they have to find employment elsewhere it comes from various sources—from persons having larger holdings, or on roads, or from industrial or business activities in the neighbourhood. The question for consideration then is, how far is it possible to make it easier for persons affording employment to keep those whom they employ in employment? Some members of the Party opposite, notwithstanding the fact that they may have their eyes all the time on the larger number of people and endeavour to put up a popular and attractive programme at election times, have it in their minds that they must concern themselves with these farmers who provide employment. Having examined, and having heard a great many statements in connection with this matter of tillage, it appears to me that the farmer who affords employment is a very important person in the community. I do not know whether Deputies opposite have that point of view or not. I think some of them have. If we are to take Deputy Corry, who spoke to-day, as a type of depressed farmer, he certainly shows remarkable vitality. If we are to take another Deputy who also spoke to-day, and who, notwithstanding the depression in agriculture, has bought a farm in Co. Dublin within the last few years— Deputy Aiken—we have another example of a vigorous type of farmer in a very depressed cycle.
There is a couple more of them.
What has that to do with the question?
They gave expression to feelings of extraordinary depression and certainly there is no atmosphere of depression around either of them.
Have you no other argument?
Might I ask the President does he know the circumstances under which Deputy Aiken could not hold land which his ancestors held elsewhere?
That is not the point. The point I am at is that if a man goes into an industry he goes into it for some purpose, either for pleasure or to make something out of it. There is a depressed industry there, and I find an intelligent member of the Opposition going into that industry when it is in its most depressed condition.
We would like to be clear as to the President's argument.
The Deputy ought to allow the President to proceed. He was allowed to make his own speech without interruption.
The point urged by Deputy de Valera was that the small farmer of £4 valuation and under is getting relief to a smaller extent than he has got to contribute by reason of the extra taxation.
That is true.
Supposing it is a fact——
It is a fact.
Can a man with a holding of under £2 valuation give employment on that holding to two or three sons? Obviously he cannot. If we are going to consider any economic or business question, ought we not to consider it on a sound economic basis, rather than on the basis which Deputies opposite rejoice in when endeavouring to see how much political capital it is possible to make out of the depression or anything else in the country? I would ask the two Parties opposite to read last Sunday's Gospel, in which they will find this: If you have a dispute with your brother and bring your gift to the altar, it is better for you first to get reconciled with your brother and then offer your gift.
I think that is very nice from the Rev. Mr. Cosgrave.
The Labour Deputies have all the advantages in this discussion.
We are only acolytes.
Deputies opposite produced a motion some three or four months ago and did not advert to the complications which were likely to arise from the activities of an intelligent Labour Party. I do not know that the Labour Party really concerned themselves at the time when they introduced an amendment to that motion with all the complications there would be in the matter. Deputy Brennan anticipated me to-day in connection with that matter, being of course more intelligent than the members of the two Parties opposite, in discovering the weakness in this particular amendment.
There is another weakness. Let us assume there is a farmer with £20 valuation, what is to prevent him dividing that holding into two parts of £10 valuation each? Nothing under the law. These matters are all very fine to put down as a sort of headline but it is a very different thing in practice. It would be quite possible and within the law to divide a £50 valuation into five separate valuations of £10 each and they would get the advantage. Is that the intention of this proposal? How is it going to be corrected?
Let us take one example of the County Kildare. Kildare, on a population basis would pay about one-fiftieth of the sugar taxation, which is estimated to amount to something like £300,000, so that Kildare would pay about £6,000 in sugar taxes. On the same basis of population in the case of the petrol tax—and I think the sum calculated will be found to be somewhat in excess of what is likely to be collected from that county —Kildare would pay about £9,000 a year, so that Kildare would pay a sum total of £15,000 in taxes while it would get in relief of rates under this scheme £18,000 if this Bill and these proposals become law.
Who in Kildare will get it?
The people of Kildare and the ratepayers of Kildare and those who make up the agricultural economy and the business economy of the County Kildare. Are we to be told that that balance, such as it is, in favour of the County Kildare is an unacceptable gift and that it imposes a disability that is likely to lead to any restriction of employment and that it is not going to be of absolute benefit to the county? Children can talk finance and make up figures and divide £900 into £7,500, but it takes more than a child to conceive what are the proper plans in connection with the distribution of taxation for the benefit of such an important industry as agriculture.
The plan is to rob the poor and give it to the rich relatively.
The Deputy says the plan is to rob the poor and to give it to the rich. If, by reason of this proposal the man that I have mentioned with a holding of £1 or £2 valuation, having two or three sons, taking the Deputy's own figures, loses on the transaction 8/- in the year, yet gets one week's employment in the year that he would not have got but for this benefit——
Where will he get the employment?
In the county.
From the ranchers?
From the same type of gentleman who can talk about depression, and look as vigorous as the Deputy. Deputies made reference to salting the poor and relieving the rich. They have talked about remitting of the champagne duty while they know in their hearts and souls why the champagne duty was remitted. France is a very big purchaser of tractors, and a treaty had to be made with that country. We had not a free hand in the making of that treaty because they could put on a tax on our tractors. What they asked was a remission on the wine duty. Was it in the interests of the rich that we gave that remission of the wine duty? Certainly not. It was to maintain the trade we were opening up and actually doing with France in connection with the most important industry in Cork. Is it honest for Deputies opposite knowing these facts to go before the public and say this is a rich man's Government; they have reduced the duty on champagne? How much does the remission of the duty on champagne amount to? The whole remission of duty on wine amounts to £16,000 or £18,000. In one week we might export to France tractors of a corresponding amount of value.
When people speak of independence they must recollect that there is a limit to the independence in any country in respect of economic problems. We would not normally have made that treaty with France, and we certainly would not have made it but that it was for the benefit of the country.
What position would we be in going before the people of the country if we had to say we lost the trade in tractors with France because the Fianna Fáil Party would tax us with being the friends of the rich if we remitted the duty on champagne—Balderdash!
Let us examine what the taxation was in 1922. What did it amount to? It amounted to £8 13s. 11d. per head of the population. What is it now? £7 2s. 9d. What was the indirect taxation in 1922? But there was an income tax of 5/- or 6/- in the £1. The indirect taxation was 72 per cent. What is the figure to-day? 68 per cent. What is the difference? The difference is 28/- reduction upon what is called the poor man and 3/- reduction in the £1 on what is called the rich man. And there are very few rich men in this country. The actual reduction amounts to 31/-, and of that indirect taxation is reduced 28/- the direct taxation is reduced only 3/-.
Does not the President know that there is in reality an increase in the burden of taxation, and that it will have to go down not by £1 11s., but £2 18s. to keep pace with prices?
He does not always think of that.
If I were to accept that it would mean that to keep pace with prices old age pensions have to come down from 10/-.
Do not talk of taxation being reduced then.
I am not talking of taxes being reduced. Yet statements are brought up about this rich man's Government, and nobody knows better than Deputies opposite that that is untrue. What is included in the £7 2s. 9d. Out of that taxation of £8 13s. 11d. per head which I mentioned the relief towards agricultural rates was £1,025,000; that was the contribution to local authorities towards the reduction of rates. What is it this year? If this Bill passes it will amount altogether to £3,500,000.
What is the increase of rate?
The Deputy had an opportunity of making his speech and I did not interrupt him. I will give the Deputy in respect of the counties where the Deputy was probably enjoying himself and paying compliments to the Government for the last two or three weeks——
We put the run on them.
I do not think it was a satisfactory run for the Deputy, or that the Deputy thought it as satisfactory as he would like it to be.
You were a great help to me there.
That large increase in contribution is equivalent to a direct advantage to the agricultural industry in this country. Now, more than the question of the individual small farmer arises out of this matter. In connection with taxation and the distribution of public money care must be taken to ensure the least disturbance of and the greatest impetus that can be given to agriculture. In connection with the county in question, where Deputy de Valera has, by using childish methods of calculation, discovered that there is a disadvantage to certain people, I take another figure. The total collection of road tax for the nine years in County Kildare plus the sixpenny rate for damage to property, which I am sure must occasion a great many heart-burnings amongst Deputies opposite, is £176,000, and the total amount paid from the Road Fund to County Kildare for the same period was £215,000. There is a difference between two things—argument and fact. Those are the facts, and I would advise Deputies to consider them in the interests of truth.
Hear, hear.
That is, a sum of practically £40,000 collected in other parts of the country were made available for that one county. Let us take another figure. What is the effect of the whole proposal on the various counties? The Deputy, when he was making his proposal that £1,000,000 should be granted for the relief of rates, wanted to have an average of the rates for the last two or three years. That was his proposal. Granted we accepted that, we would have to come in with a proposal to which the Labour Party might have put down the Deputy's own amendment to-day and have been admonished by him for doing such a thing. If we accepted that motion of his three months ago there would not have been as fair a distribution of the different moneys as there is by our proposal to-day.
You would have relieved the farmers of one-third of their rates.
And given one-third to the 8 per cent., the graziers.
You would not have taken anything away by the sugar tax from anybody.
Order. It is the President who is supposed to be speaking now.
It would take too long to go into the various figures to prove my contention, and I do not propose to delay the House further than to say that in connection with these problems—and they are problems—better consideration can be given to them if we keep our eyes on the problems rather than upon popular pronouncements. Agriculture, industry, commerce—all the things that go to make up the economy of a country—are in these days in such a serious position, by reason of world depression, that bandying them about in a political atmosphere and seeking to make political capital out of them is not in the best interests of the country.
Hear, hear.
I watched the course of the recent contest in Kildare. If people concerned themselves with constructive efforts in connection with the business of the country there would have been very much more attention given towards recommending Irish products and Irish manufactures to the people. Not at all! It was a much easier thing to criticise and to condemn, and the Deputies opposite were very much assisted in that by Deputy Davin and the members of his Party. As I say, the situation is too serious, not only in this country, but in all countries, so serious as to require——
What did the President's own Party spokesmen do? Did they address themselves to economic questions?
Abuse.
Civil war.
Speaking for myself, in those speeches to which I listened and those which I read of my own Party, there was more consideration given to what had been done and it was not easy to do it. The last eight or nine years were not easy years by any means. They were years in which constructive work had got to be done in a country where there had been no previous political responsibility. Let us consider that there are outside this House and outside in the country people who have had to bear that strain who never had to bear it before, and as I have said, not in a time of normal conditions but in a time of acute depression. When such a proposal as this is introduced for the purpose of helping an entire industry, it is the easiest thing in the world to select a man or a body of men and to say that they are not getting a fair share out of this relief grant to agriculture. What is the City of Dublin or the City of Cork getting out of it?
How much have they got out of us already? Look at your Estimates.
I can see the Estimates, and I can see what is more— that in the consideration of those matters if they are to be divided up to see how the last man is going to be most hardly hit, the problem itself cannot be seen any more than the man who concerns himself with the particular tree will ever see the wood. That is the Deputy's difficulty. This proposal which has been made has been made for the agricultural business as a whole not for individual cases, and, as I said before, persons under a £4 valuation cannot have more than one individual employed on that holding. And persons in the family of that holder must get employment elsewhere. We are helping such a family by these recommendations.
Question—"That the words proposed to be deleted stand part of the Bill"—put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 62; Níl, 47.
Tá
- Aird, William P.
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, John Joseph.
- Carey, Edmund.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Connolly, Michael P.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Craig, Sir James.
- Crowley, James.
- Daly, John.
- Davis, Michael.
- Dolan, James N.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Duggan, Edmund John.
- Dwyer, James.
- Egan, Barry M.
- Finlay, Thomas A.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Reilly, John J.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, William Archer.
- Reynolds, Patrick.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Heffernan, Michael R.
- Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Henry, Mark.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Kelly, Patrick Michael.
- Keogh, Myles.
- Leonard, Patrick.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Myles, James Sproule.
- Nally, Martin Michael.
- Nolan, John Thomas.
- O'Connell, Richard.
- O'Connor, Bartholomew.
- O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Shaw, Patrick W.
- Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Tierney, Michael.
- White, Vincent Joseph.
- Wolfe, George.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Broderick, Henry.
- Buckley, Daniel.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cassidy, Archie J.
- Clery, Michael.
- Colbert, James.
- Corkery, Dan.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corry Martin John.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Fahy, Frank.
- Flinn, Hugo.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- French, Seán.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kent, William R.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- O'Connell, Thomas J.
- O'Kelly, Seán T.
- O'Leary, William.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ryan, James.
- Sexton, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).
- Smith, Patrick.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Duggan and P. S. Doyle; Níl, Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Amendment declared lost.
Question—"That the Bill be now read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, the 8th July.