A Chinn Comhairle, the terms of this motion before the House proposes a certain course of action for the Government, and it proposes a time limit in regard to another matter for that course of action. It is proposed that the Government decide not to go ahead collecting the land annuities over the period, and while the position over in England remains as it is, with the British Government imposing tariffs for the declared and specified purpose of collecting land annuities in that way. Now the President said that we had to come over to this side to take that action, and to realise that the farmers were in a bad way, and he blames the present Opposition owing to the fact that we left the farmers with one market, and that we made it a penal offence for farmers not to pay land annuities. We did make it an offence for farmers not to pay their land annuities. As the law was, it provided that the Government shall collect land annuities from farmers for the purpose of passing those land annuities over, through defined channels, to people who are bondholders. The law permits the Government to collect the land annuities for that purpose, and so long as the moneys were being passed over, through these channels, to the bondholders the law was being completely fulfilled. Last year, certainly, the effects of the world slump began to be felt in this country, and a position was arising in which farmers were less able to pay land annuities than they were previously. But now, and I think I am not exaggerating when I say that, as the law provides for the collection of land annuities for a specific purpose, namely, passing them over to the bondholders, it is dubiously legal at this moment for the Government to collect land annuities and create a position where there is even a shadow of doubt as regards the legality of the Government. Certainly that position should not be persisted in. We are accused of having to come over to this side to realise that the farmers are in a bad way. The truth is that the farmers are in a bad way because we are on this side. The present mixed up cause and effect now being that the farmers require to be relieved of these payments of land annuities. We recognise perfectly well that the course we propose would only give very minor relief to the farmers, and we know perfectly well that the annual payment of land annuities is a very small matter compared with the deleterious effect of the present situation with regard to England. I want to repeat that this time limit for the proposal we make is based upon the time during which the present tariffs will be maintained by the British Government, those tariffs imposed specifically as being an alternative method of collecting the land annuities. The President, in his statement, tells us what the Government proposes to do. It proposes to borrow money, I presume, when he talks about funding, instead of land annuities. So that the farmers for the next two gale days will not have to pay, but the Government will have borrowed money to fund the land annuities for these periods; so that after that date the farmers must pay ordinary land annuities such as they are plus a sum equivalent to 4½ per cent. on the land annuities on the next two gale days and presumably for a sinking fund for the elimination of them. Now, I presume that is the proposal which the President brought along as a sort of alternative to the proposal we make. I think if the Government paid more attention to it before this motion was put down they would have evolved something very different and more adequate. There is one thing which I take out of the Government's proposal, it proposes that for those two occasions they will fund the debt. What I read into that is this, that the Government do not see any outcome or any termination to the present condition of our farmers with a tariff on their goods going into the British market. It does seem to me that what the country must read into this proposal is this: that the present position with regard to England, and the exclusion of our agricultural produce from the British market, is a thing that was imposed in perpetuity and that, consequently, although the President is prepared to borrow money, the farmers are going to have to pay it back. What is the purpose of the proposal for funding during this immediate period? Is it because the President recognises, as a result of his policy, he has brought the agricultural industry of this country into an extraordinary position? Why, he has actually brought about a condition totally different to last year, and it is not that we were wrong last year in saying the farmers should pay the land annuities but that the President, by his own policy, brought about such a change in the position of the farmers of this country. While it was quite right last year to pay the land annuities it is quite wrong now because, it is impossible for the farmers to pay. The President goes on to justify his policy on the payment of the land annuities on the grounds that it is a debt to the State. That is a thing we cannot admit. I presume his assumption is this, that under the 1920 Act the land annuities were made as a present. I presume he also assumes that, whereas there were originally landlords here for some period, in time the land of this country belonged to the Government, and the Government, being owners of the land, proceeded to make arrangements for selling that land to the farmers and consequently the farmers were due to pay the Government and not the people who loaned the money. I regard that as a very dangerous doctrine for this country. The farmers were told they owed this money to the Irish community, and then the President suddenly asserts that these land annuities belong to his Government.
I should like to know from the President, as a question of law, is he ready to assert that he is firmly convinced that any impartial international tribunal will agree that these land annuities belong to his Government and not to the British? When you raise a case on a legal point you mean it is justiciable; that if it comes before a competent court that court will find in your favour. The President knows as well as anybody on this side that if he took that before any tribunal in the world he would get only one reply, and that is, that these moneys collected as land annuities must be paid over, through whatever channels are provided, to the people who lent the money for buying out Irish land.
The President suggests that our purpose now is to deprive his Government of the money that would enable them to carry on the struggle with England. It is nothing of the sort. If the British Government imposed tariffs, as they have a perfect right to do, in exercise of their sovereignty, merely for the purpose of excluding goods or raising revenue, they would have created a position in this country where we would have had to face up to the situation as to whether or not special arrangements should not be made in order to assist the agricultural industry here, which would have been appallingly hit. At present the British Government are imposing a tariff for a specific purpose. That money, in so far as they collect it, is allocated for the purpose for which the land annuities have always been collected, namely, paying the bondholders. Consequently every beast, every egg, every chicken a farmer sends to England is actually paying the land annuities. I do not know whether, when it comes ultimately, if it does come ultimately, to settling with the British, their book-keeping arrangement will give us credit for having paid these annuities or not. Certainly if I were engaged in negotiating with the British at any stage. I would urge that they should recognise, as they had publicly affirmed that the purpose of the tariff was to collect money for land annuities, having ceased to be able to collect them through the other channel, that these moneys should be allocated to the payment of land annuities and, consequently, we should not be debited with the land annuities due during this period. If the British agree to that then it would be a clear case that the farmers during this period had actually paid the land annuities to the proper people who should receive them through a new channel, through the agency of the tariff. Therefore, during the period of this tariff war, as it is called, there is clearly a situation in which the farmers are paying twice.
The President said that, even if the present situation had not arisen, the farmers would now be in a desperate position. They are presumably in a desperate situation that would have arisen anyway through our incompetence when in the Government. But, on top of that, they have to pay 40 per cent. on beasts and another percentage on various other goods sent to England. The result of that tariff has been to reduce the price that the farmer can get for the goods he sells for consumption here. On top of that, also, it has upset his whole market so that the goods he sells, both here and in England, are reduced in value by a greater proportion than the actual amount of the tariff.
The Government in resisting this motion propose that the farmer should pay twice the land annuity that he paid previously. That seems to me to be inequitable. At the same time, in persisting in collecting land annuities, as the Government are doing, without using these land annuities as the law provides they should use them, they are in a position of very dubious legality which is calculated to bring the whole law into contempt. If the Government insist on continuing the collection of the annuities, and a case is taken to the courts, as it may be, and the courts find against the Government's right to collect the annuities, you will have a position in the country in which the Government have been taking money from farmers without any legal sanction whatever, at a time when the whole industry is in an appalling situation. Also, as it is so difficult at the present moment for farmers to pay, we know well, as human nature is, that if the farmers cannot pay and are legally assessed as being liable to pay, they get into the position of being defaulting debtors. Once they get into that position their morale tends to collapse, and they will tend to feel that once they are in for a sheep they might as well be in for a lamb, and tend to avoid paying other debts they may really be able to pay.
The President talked about the Six Counties. He warns farmers that if they fail to pay to his Government they will forfeit their title to the land. He justifies that by saying that, as those who do not pay in the Six Counties do not deprive the bondholders, so we are in exactly the same position. As far as I remember the position with regard to the Six Counties is this: that once the British Government withdrew from a large part of the administration of the Six Counties and were unable to collect the land annuities directly, they assessed on the Six Counties an annual payment, not allotting certain portions of that sum to certain indebtedness in relation to definite things, but just giving a round sum to cover a whole lot of moneys that should be paid by the Northern Government. In our case, the British Government have no control whatever here. As far as the Six Counties were concerned, the British Government said: "You shall pay a certain sum to us; that will include the land annuities, your share of the cost of maintenance of the Army and all the rest." If the Northern Government failed to pay, as the British Government collected a very large portion of their revenue, they were able to get that money by refraining from handing over to the Northern Government the sum due to that Government. So far as we here are concerned, the British Government had no such power. In so far as the Northern Government pay the amount they are liable to pay annually to the British Government, they are paying something in relation to land annuities. Inasmuch as they are paying that to the British Government, they have a claim on the Northern farmers to collect annuities from them.
As far as the Government here are concerned, they have no claim whatsoever. If the Government here assert that the farmers are bound to pay the annuities to the Irish Government and the Irish Government take no responsibility either to the British Government or to the bondholder, then that is an assertion on the part of our Government that they are the real owners of the land and that the farmers only hold the land from the Government here. That is a thing that every farmer in this country has always resisted. It would mean State ownership of land and it would give rise to a situation fraught with very considerable danger to the titles of farmers. If the Government can say that if farmers do not pay the annuities to them the farmers will forfeit their titles, what is to prevent the Government from saying that even if the farmers pay the land annuities they will still forfeit their titles?
The President came again and again to the assertion that the farmers owed a debt to the State and to the community at large. The community at large did not advance any money to the farmers for the purchase of land. The Irish taxpayer has not been out of pocket to the extent of the value of the land and, consequently, the Irish farmer is not bound to pay him. I quite agree that the Irish farmer should pay the value of the land that he has received; but he should pay it to the people who advanced the money to purchase and to nobody else. The President wandered a lot. He said that they promised the farmers all sorts of things, and he said there was no preference without a quid pro quo. If we had been in office, if we had gone to Ottawa and had got the preferences that the other Dominions got, what would the quid pro quo have been that we would have had to give to the British, and how far would our people have suffered?
If you compare the position now with last year, there is no doubt the agricultural market is worse. There is no doubt that our farmers are suffering to the extent of the tariffs imposed by England, and also additionally by the expensive methods of collecting them. The President asks "Why did you make a bargain?" We made a bargain in 1925 that the people of this country had been warned time and again by the President and his Party we would never be able to achieve. The people had been warned that Article 5 would impose an intolerable burden. We got rid of that intolerable burden, whether it was estimated at £19,000,000, £15,000,000 or whatever sum the various members of the Government Party fix it at. Then it came to last year and the position of our agricultural production began to be jeopardised. As Deputy Cosgrave pointed out yesterday, we were faced with a certain position in England. The British Budget had failed to bring in the money required; their financial obligations were not met and they had to go off the gold standard. The position this year is quite different from what it was last year.
The President has pointed out that the 1923 land bonds have also to be met. I quite agree. There is no doubt the 1923 land bonds have to be met. The men who bought out under the 1923 Land Act are themselves paying money to the British Government, the equivalent of the annuities. As far as the Government here are concerned, they have committed our farmers, those who paid previous to 1923 and those who paid from 1923; they have made them answerable to the British Government, by means of tariffs, for a sum equivalent to the land annuities that were previously paid to the British Government. You may also add to that the amount of the 1923 land bonds and another £1,000,000. The annuities due under the Ashbourne Act, under the 1903 Act and under the 1909 Act have to be paid by our farmers by way of tariffs. Our farmers have to pay the 1923 annuities also through the medium of tariffs, and at the same time they have to pay another £1,000,000. The more they produce and the more they export, the more they will pay of a sum equivalent to £5,250,000.
The land annuities previously paid to England amounted to about £3,000,000, and I think the 1923 land annuities amounted to £800,000— roughly £4,000,000 in all. Our farmers are now so committed that in so far as they produce and sell goods they are going to pay a sum amounting to £5,000,000. At the same time they are warned that if they attempt to avoid paying these land annuities over again to our own Government they are going to forfeit their titles to the land. That is an undesirable situation, because it is inequitable. It is inequitable, as the British Government state clearly that the money they collect by way of tariffs will be used for the sole purpose of liquidating the debt in respect of land annuities. The whole thing is unjust to our farmers. The procedure also is only dubiously legal and it is likely to bring obedience to our law into contempt and to make our law generally disregarded here.
The whole position, as I say, is inequitable and only dubiously legal. It is economically necessary for our farmers to do something to save themselves from the position to which the Government have brought them. It seems to me that the interests of our country, the maintenance of law, the well-being of our agricultural industry and the whole economic position will be furthered by accepting this motion rather than by rejecting it.
The President says that he is going to bring in legislation which will relieve the farmer of a large part—he does not say how much—of the land annuities in perpetuity. That is to say, he will bring in some legislation which will reduce the amount of the annuities paid by the farmers. I presume that means that he will bring in a Bill to provide for the reduction of annuities payable not only under the Acts previous to 1923 but also under the 1923 Land Act. I suppose he is bringing in that legislation because he feels he ought to do something—that the position in the country brought about by his own efforts is such that soon the people will simply refuse to tolerate it any longer. He is making this gesture now but I think it is a very inadequate gesture. This, of course, presupposes that he will increase taxation, because that must be done in some other form in order to pay off a portion of the land annuities. I assume that he will borrow money to pay the land annuities due next December and June. The farmers will continue to pay a portion of the land annuities, not as much as they paid before, but added to the reduced sum will be 4½ per cent., plus sinking fund, in respect of the amounts withheld in December and June.
Our proposal has one great advantage over the Government's proposal. The Government make a proposal which is based on the assumption that our goods are going to be excluded in perpetuity from the British market to the extent of a 40 per cent. tariff. Our proposal is the non-collection of land annuities by the Government only during the period that these tariffs are imposed by England. So long as the tariffs are maintained by the British Government, I think our farmers must be recognised as having already paid their annuities. If at any time it is decided to negotiate with the British to bring that position to an end, I think that those negotiations should at least succeed in getting a recognition from the British Government that during the period of the tariffs they have collected the annuities from our farmers and consequently our farmers have paid them. It does seem to me that the motion proposed by Deputy Cosgrave is a motion perfectly adequated to the situation as it exists; that is to say, so far as the annuities are concerned the motion exactly proposes to meet the situation.
It does seem to me also that what is possibly at the back of the President's mind is this: He came into power last February; he proceeded to produce a situation in this country which makes it abundantly clear to every man and woman in the country that his administration has not brought a betterment but a decided pejoration of the situation here. He proposes to meet that situation by borrowing money to meet the legitimate expenses of that time and to hand over to his successors a debt, so that they will not merely have, out of revenue, to pay the ordinary expenses of administration during their period of office, but that they will also have to pay for the land annuities during President de Valera's period of office. That seems to me to be a position rather like the President's proposal with regard to the Road Fund—that is, to spend this year the Road Fund money due to be spent during the next two years. So far as this year is concerned, the President is—this is how I understand it—going to borrow money and to take into the Exchequer, to spend as he thinks fit, a sum equivalent to the land annuities that would ordinarily be collected. He is going to borrow that money roughly on the security of the land annuities due during that time, which shall be collected by the Government that succeeds his Government, that Government having to collect not only the land annuities of its own time, but the land annuities of President de Valera's time, plus 4½ per cent. interest on these annuities. That seems to me to be just in keeping with his whole policy.
What is that policy? Borrow money, get money in any way, and squander it during his term of office to show the people how well off they are during that time, and leave his successors not only to pay the cost of their own administration, but the cost of the administration during the de Valera régime also. That seems to me to be what his proposal is. It is a proposal not calculated in any way to benefit the farmer, because the farmer is only going, during the de Valera régime, to get further into debt and because the farmer will be responsible for the land annuities and for the interest on the money during that time. Personally, I have always felt that the best arrangement in this country was that the farmers, having received the asset of the land, should pay the sum at which that land was valued. That seemed to me to be the most perfect arrangement, the money being paid to the people due to receive it—the people who advanced the money to buy the land. What is the position now? The position now is that President de Valera has instituted a new arrangement whereby he said he was going to force the British Government to pay the people who lent the money. He was going to force them to do it. He has not succeeded in doing that. The British continue to collect the money, and as President de Valera had calculated on having that money to play with during his term of office, he is going to continue to collect it from the farmers.
I know a farmer with an annuity of £70 per year. He sent cattle to England through dealers. These cattle, on arriving in England, were charged with duty to the extent of £95. Anybody who thinks that the cattle dealer who bought the cattle from that farmer did not advert when making the bargain to the £95 which he would have to pay in England is obviously in error. When that dealer bought the cattle from the Irish farmer, he paid him a price which took into consideration that payment of £95 duty. That is to say, he deducted from the price he would otherwise have given to the farmer a sum of not less than £95 and probably more, because he had himself to avoid any risk of loss. Consequently, that farmer who would only be due to pay £70 in annuities this year has actually, on one lot of cattle sent over to England, paid £95. That is to say he has paid £25 more than he should have paid. On top of that, President de Valera's Government say that he must pay them £70. That farmer contracted years ago to pay £70 for that land. Now, an arbitrary third party has stepped in, without the consent of the farmer, and increased his payment at least from £95 to £165. What we propose is that that farmer should be given credit for at least £70 out of that £95. That is a mere attempt to give some sort of equity to the farmer in the position in which he has been landed by the present Government. It does not meet the situation at all. We know that very well. When the British Government announce how much they have collected per month on Irish imports since they imposed these tariffs, does anybody think that that represents the sum lost by the Irish farmer? It represents nothing of the sort. The Irish farmer has lost more through not exporting to England than he has paid on the goods he did export to England. At the present moment, there are cattle retained here that could, some time ago, have been sent over to England and which would then have fetched a better price than they would fetch now. They have been kept by the farmer during this period. They are not improving. As a matter of fact, they are disimproving in quality. That farmer stands to lose on the impaired quality of the goods that he could have sent over to England and he stands to lose in respect of the maintenance of those beasts. I have spoken to many farmers and I have tried to get approximate figures from them. It seems to me that there are farmers who, since the tariffs were imposed in July, have actually lost the equivalent of five times the land annuities they would have paid.
President de Valera is constantly getting up and telling us of the enormous drain upon our people and the enormous loss represented by the five and a quarter million pounds paid over to England every year. That, he says, is money gone from this country. As a matter of fact, it is not all gone from this country. I myself know people who hold land bonds. They are paid their interest in this country. So far as I can observe, the majority of the ex-R.I.C. are still in this country. Why does not the President get up and tell us about all the ex-soldiers here drawing pensions to the extent, I think, of two million pounds from Britain, the ex-R.I.C., a great many of whom live here, and the bondholders, some of whom live here. We were told constantly of this country being drained white by sending five and a quarter million pounds over to England and we were told that that is relatively greater than the German war debt. We were told that it is equivalent to giving England all our butter for nothing. We know that the British have invested capital in the Argentine to the extent of £500,000,000. The Minister for Finance put the capital sum represented by these annual payments at £170,000,000. That was complete rot. He based his assumption on the belief that the land annuities were going to be paid in perpetuity, that the ex-R.I.C. are different from all other people in the world inasmuch as they are never going to die and that the Board of Works loans and moneys like those are all due to be paid for ever. Even then, his £170,000,000 represents a greater sum than anybody making an actuarial calculation would arrive at. Suppose the figure were £170,000,000. What does that amount to? It means that the British people, so far as they are bondholders, invested money to that amount here—lent it to Irish farmers to buy Irish land in the same way as they invested money in the Argentine for the building of railways. It was stated that we were giving England the equivalent of the whole of our butter supply for nothing. You might just as well say that the Argentinians are making the British a present of all their beef and a lot more products because they are paying the equivalent of the value of the beef in dividends on the £500,000,000 invested in the Argentine. The President talks about the German reparations and says we are paying something more. Consequently, we are bled more than Germany. He forgets that there is British and American and other people's capital invested in Germany. To make a proper analogy, he would have to calculate all the foreign moneys invested in any country and assess the dividends payable on these moneys as a sort of national debt and add these moneys to the sum that the country is paying on war debts or otherwise.
As regards the five and a quarter million pounds, we would have been better off if we could have got the British to agree that we should not have to pay it. But if we had continued to pay that full sum, I personally think that with economic affairs as they are, after the Lausanne arrangement and with the present proposals with regard to war debts, we should at least have anticipated that this year, once the British had got out of the position of last year—when they had to go off the gold standard and introduce a supplementary Budget— we should have got a reduction. But suppose we could not. Would the Irish farmer or the Irish people generally be better off or worse off now if we were paying that full sum of £5¼ millions to England and as a result of doing that had none of these special tariffs on our produce; had no interference with our export of goods to England, and were having to the full extent the benefits of the Ottawa Conference, as Mr. Thomas said a year ago they were completely open to us? What would be the position of this country this year if such had continued? Would we be better off or worse off? Anybody who takes the trouble to examine the situation will say that even paying the £5¼ millions — and none of us expect we would have to pay all that—we would be enormously better off than we are at the present moment.
What is the hope held out to our people by the Government? The Minister for Defence said some time ago if everybody supported the Government, that at the end of five years we would be producing a large proportion of the wheat used in this country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said a short time ago that during the next two years there would, under the new arrangements, be more people displaced from employment than will be given employment. That means that our people will have got to face more unemployment. They will have stopped their ordinary means of living from the profits on the export of live stock to England. But at the end of five years the goal proposed for us by the Minister for Defence is that we shall be producing some portion of the wheat that we are now importing.
Is that the sort of prospect that the Government holds out before the people? It is a prospect that shows that the Government are themselves living in a world of unreality. They tell the people that they have only to live five years, not selling any cattle, or sending any goods to England or getting any goods from England and then the goal is that the people will produce a large amount of the wheat required in the country. It would be just as wise to say that if everybody in this country lived on nothing for the next 14 years and saved all their income then that because of that they would be able to live the rest of their lives without doing anything and have an income equal to what they have now. Having become accustomed to living on nothing for 14 years they would be able to insure their children an income in perpetuity without doing any work whatever; they would have a better income than their parents are getting now. Remember we have got to live for five years on nothing and for two years we are promised more unemployment than we have had up to the present. These are the promises made by two Ministers and what is the end of it? At the end of five years we will be producing more wheat than we produce now. But the British market for our produce will be completely killed.
The President's statement indicates that the present situation is going to be continued in perpetuity, and that it is going to impose upon our people year after year, not merely the present burden that Fianna Fáil have imposed in taxation but a further addition is to be made to the National Debt to allow him this year to fund the land annuities. The suspension is going to end at a time when his successors find that Irish produce is excluded from the British market. Then the President will be able to say after two years or so that they were better off in the previous two years than under his successors because he is going to let the farmers have the instalments for the next two gale days. It is perfectly clear to anybody who examines the situation that the farmer who will find himself unable to pay his land annuities will look back to the position he was in the previous year when he was not paying his annuities as a position of enormous prosperity compared with his position for that year or than it is likely to be the following year.
Remember this motion is limited to time, it is during the period of the operation of the tariffs. The Government have a splendid alternative to it, they can say there is no need for this motion "because we are going to end the term. We are going to settle with the British and we will make reasonable arrangements with them." I ask the Government to get out of this insincere playing up to the irregular, subversive and revolutionary body in this country, and to say: "we are only going to consider the welfare of the Irish people and not play up to the so-called consciences of the black-guards that we have been playing up to so long."