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Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 8 Apr 1938

Vol. 70 No. 14

Committee on Finance. - Vote 54—Lands (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy Davin.)

When they were speaking on this Estimate yesterday, it was rather amusing and contradictory to hear Fianna Fáil Deputies disown that any attempt was made to bring political pressure to bear on Land Commission officials. I did not make the allegation that it was being done, but the allegation was made. While Deputies here may deny that political pressure is being brought to bear on Land Commission officials, Fianna Fáil clubs down the country try to impress everybody that no land can be got unless through them. That is the fact. Wherever an estate is divided, the Fianna Fáil people will take credit for its division when all the work is over. Let there be some consistency amongst the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. I would like to hear Fianna Fáil Deputies assure us to the contrary, and, if there is not pressure of any kind being brought to bear on Land Commission officials, then they ought to get under control the secretaries and chairmen of Fianna Fáil clubs and not have them going around the country seeking members for their clubs by telling the people that no one can get any land unless through them.

You are giving them the credit for it, anyhow.

No, I would not. I do not believe it is happening. I do not believe the pressure is any good.

I am glad to hear that.

I believe the Land Commission officials are standing up to it, and that they are giving fair play. But, notwithstanding that, the Fianna Fáil people are claiming credit for it, and they are telling the people in the country that they are the parties who are getting it all done.

They would claim credit for anything.

Absolutely. We had Deputy Corry and Deputy Maguire dealing with the collection of annuities, and they were trying to throw the blame on us here for the fact that there is a sum of £1,250,000 outstanding. That is merely eyewash, and everybody knows it is. Nevertheless, we will have the back-benchers of the Fianna Fáil Party here standing up to make that statement. It has always been done, and it ought not to be done. The first person who recommended the nonpayment of annuities was the present Minister for Justice, back in 1922, and there is no use in saying that we started it. Any person who has any knowledge of agriculture, and who recollects what happened here during the last six years, knows how agricultural prices have become depressed and how agricultural production has gone down in value. Anyone who studies the position must know that the farmers are finding it hard to meet their liabilities. There is a genuine case to be made for the people who cannot meet their obligations with regard to annuities and rates.

The present Government collected annuities up to the passing of the Act of 1936 without any legal or moral right to do so. They had to put themselves right by getting legislation through this House—the Act of 1936—when moneys were being withheld from local councils without any authority to do it. At the back of the whole thing was a grave injustice. I preached that in this House and I tried to inform the Government that there must be an injustice somewhere, and that they ought to tackle it and put it right. We had Deputy Kelly from Meath telling us that the present system of land division is in accordance with the Government's tillage policy. What is the Government's tillage policy? What has been the increase in tillage for the last six years? Have we yet got anywhere near what was laid down by the late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Hogan— one more cow, one more sow, and one more acre under the plough? When will we, at the present rate of progress, get near it?

All the sows are gone.

While Fianna Fáil allow themselves to be educated by such stuff as appears in their organ, in which it was stated quite recently that a schoolboy with the most elementary knowledge of agriculture knew that tillage would improve land, not much progress can be made. That is about the worst agricultural heresy that anybody could utter. If you want to kill land you will kill it with indiscriminate tillage.

The Deputy should reserve all that for the Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. Boland

I was about to say that.

Deputy Kelly referred to the Government's tillage policy.

The policy of the Land Commission is founded on proper farming, and if what Deputy Brennan has said does not come under the heading of proper farming, I do not know what does. The whole policy of the Land Commission, as expounded here, is founded on proper farming, and I want to get around that.

The Deputy seems to think he has put a poser to the Chair. The plain fact is that "proper farming" is a question for the Minister for Agriculture.

It is a question that has a direct bearing on the Land Commission policy.

Deputy Brennan will resume, and the policy of farming per se is not open to discussion.

There is just one thing I would like the Land Commission to do, and that is, in selecting applicants for land, in choosing incoming tenants, irrespective of what preference might otherwise be given them, they should give preference to people who are prepared to farm the land in a proper way. There ought to be some eye to the future when applicants are being selected. The House expressed the opinion yesterday that men of the old I.R.A. ought to get the preference. That is quite right to an extent, but we ought to remember, and the Land Commission ought to remember, that the primary purpose of land division is to provide a potential living in the future for somebody, and while we all favour giving the men of the old I.R.A. their proper due, I do not want to go over the margin by saying that a man in receipt of a pension of, say, £80 a year ought to get the preference as against a man who has nothing. Last night I pointed out where the Land Commission might say to a man who has a pension: "You cannot get land because you have a pension." On the other hand, they might inform a prospective pensioner: "You are going to get a preference." Those things are inconsistent.

There is another matter that I rather expected would be raised by the Labour Party. I do not know whether they have any instance of it, but I had one brought to my notice last year. I refer to people working for the Land Commission in my neighbourhood. They were being paid the full day for Saturday, although they worked only half the day. That was provided they worked five days a week. If they worked less they did not get paid for Saturday. What it meant was that if the unfortunate men, through broken weather, were not able to work more than three days, they were not given the full day for Saturday. I do not think that was fair. I have in mind married men with families, and they are living in a poor way. They were quite agreeable to work all day on Saturday if they were paid for it, but they were knocked off the half-day and got paid only for that half-day, the reason given being that the weather was so bad that they could not earn a full week's wages. I think that is not fair, and if that practice still exists I should like the Minister to take steps to effect a remedy.

I hope the Minister will be able to point out, as he said he would, the reason for the very large increase which we observe in the staff. As I pointed out last night, it does not appear to me to be consistent. There is, as the Minister indicated, a dwindling amount of land to be divided. There ought to be a dwindling number of estates. In such circumstances, why should there be an increase in the inspectorial staff, the staff generally, and in the expenditure of the Department? We ought to realise that, sooner or later, we will come to an end of land division; or will we bring it to the point of dividing the 20-acre holding into two holdings of ten acres? We ought to visualise an end somewhere to land division, and, in the circumstances, it is an awful mistake to be adding to the Department, especially when we are approaching, as the Minister says, a period when the amount of land to be divided is dwindling. I do not think that there has been much vision brought to bear on the whole position. I hope that some people in the Department will take this matter into serious consideration—this whole question of land division. It must be done by somebody, and the sooner it is done the better.

I think the debate up to the present has indicated one thing, and that is that there is a deep interest being taken in land division by Deputies on all sides of the House. Most of the speeches contributed something that should give rise to thought and that will, perhaps, tend to remedy any grievances that may exist. I do not think it would be possible for any Act of Parliament or any Government to divide such an important thing as land without having grievances in many directions. The county from which I come is one in which, in the last couple of years, possibly the greatest amount of land was divided. Looking at it generally, I must say that it has been divided with satisfaction. There has not been any great degree of discontent. A very large number of houses has been built in the county. The Land Commission has practically entered into competition with the Local Government Department in the building of houses so far as County Meath is concerned. It certainly has changed the whole appearance of the county and given it a different outlook. The people in general seem to have settled down and are making an effort to work their land as best they can. We have, of course, some difficulty.

Some serious questions arise over migration. I propose to criticise the migratory schemes, not with the object of preventing migration, but with the object of improving it, provided that the experiment shows that it is going to give good results. It would strike one who thinks over these things that the migratory scheme for County Meath got very little thought. The people were simply dropped into certain areas in which land could be procured with facility, without taking into consideration what were the circumstances that existed there. Any people who take an interest in these schemes should take into consideration the conditions in the areas in which they have been placed and they will find that invariably they are placed where there is a reasonable number of people. In fact, they were placed where most of the people in County Meath reside, that is, in the most thickly populated areas. In the first place, that was an error of judgment, because it brings about many difficulties in the matter of employment. It is obvious that in the thickly populated areas of Meath there are many people looking for employment, whereas, in other districts of the county it is sometimes impossible to get a man to work, and we are carrying on a process of drawing coals to Newcastle. I think that is one of the biggest difficulties that arose in connection with these migratory schemes. Athboy is a reasonably thickly populated area, and we have two colonies there. The first colony that came there is one in which there were at least 12 or 13 persons in each family, and that seems to indicate that there was not a lot of thought given to the economic situation. I take it they were placed there because the land was easy to acquire and the block was rather large, and it was a question of the Land Commission facilitating themselves instead of making an effort to have a more equal distribution of population, with the result that there we have a certain clash in the matter of employment. It is quite true that quite a number of these people emigrate. Possibly they would do that anyway, but I am putting these points forward in order that everybody will take an interest in this question of the distribution of land, and will not try to get away with the idea that, in County Meath, we are selfish and hostile people. All we ask is reasonable and fair treatment.

There is the other difficulty that the farms in Rathcarne, and possibly in Gibbstown, are entirely too small. Twenty statute acres with the ditches, the roads and the house taken out, make a very small farm of land in County Meath, where there is practically no alternative to farming. People may ask how they lived in the West on holdings the valuation of which was only £5, but, in those cases, there are alternatives, and anybody who looks at a Board of Works map will see what is taking place there as an alternative. There are fisheries and different other employments in those congested areas, but when these people come to a farm in County Meath they have to live on them. The poor law valuation of such a farm would be about £20 with the rates, possibly about 8/- an acre, and rent 10/-. These people find it rather difficult to make ends meet.

Another difficulty arose there which may not have too happy results. Deputy Brennan has referred to it and I am not going to be ruled out of order by directly referring to the amount of land tilled, but as it was carried out by the Land Commission it is necessary to refer to it. The Land Commission generally tilled for these migrants in these small farms some three or four acres, and the results of that were reasonably successful, but these men are now faced with laying down these acres and with carrying out the usual rotation and the question of manure immediately arises. If people have the impression that land in Meath, or in any other county for that matter can be profitably utilised and its fertility and value kept up by incessant tillage without manure, the result is going to be that the land will eventually become as poor as the land they left, so that rushing in and ploughing up a lot of land for these people, without any reference to the question of manure the following year, is going to give rise to some very serious difficulties. However, the houses are nicely built with a small, neat shed alongside. That shed is pretty to look at, but is practically no use whatever. They got 30/- a week for a year and the intention was that they should put up whatever other sheds were necessary. That is not being done because the 30/- was probably necessary for the support of the families, and the result is that these little farms still look extremely naked. The little shed that was erected can serve no useful purpose. It is certainly very decorative and neat, but it is not a useful or practical building. So far as the people of Meath are concerned, they have no objection to migration as long as it is carried out on reasonable and sensible lines, but my contention is that it has not been carried out on reasonable and sensible lines, because the people were put in districts in which there were other people to occupy the land. We have a situation in Rathcarne in which there is a bog—and these schemes were always carried out in close proximity to a bog—and in Meath, where there is a bog, there are people. The Freyne situation has not yet been dealt with. Weak efforts are made to deal with it, and there are a number of uneconomic holders in that bog. I suppose there must be something like sixteen people living there on an average of three acres of land. I think everybody will admit that it is not very reasonable to have a colony just on the other side while the natives of the county— possibly people who were once evicted from those lands—are still living on the bog. Very little effort was made to take them out of this bog and to provide land in its proximity. The main point is that a bog in County Meath is just as useful as, and possibly more useful than in any other county. The migrants are being very deliberately placed in close proximity to these bogs which the people of the district need, and beside which most of them live. They went there through pressure of the old landlords, or because the bog was there. It is very doubtful which drove them there. They may have been compelled to go, but they may also have gone because the turf which is, of course, a very useful commodity was available there.

So far as the holdings are concerned, the present Minister very wisely increased the area to 25 acres. I still contend, as do most other Deputies, that the holding should be at least 30 acres, in order to get them to farm it in the proper way. Complaints are made that houses are not occupied in the County Meath by those who got the land, and that the land is not profitably used, but it takes a little time to get those holdings in order. The people of Meath are fairly practical, and they know their business. They are not going to rush in and plough up four acres of land, and then wait until next year to find out where they are going to get manure. They look to the next year first, and they say to themselves: "We cannot do this sort of thing; we made this land good and we intend to keep it good, we are not going to do anything to deteriorate it."

These people practise a reasonable economy. There has been a good deal of talk about the people who got these new holdings, and the suggestion has been made about their not working them. But I say if there is any question of examining these people who are not supposed to be working their holdings properly, there should be an individual examination, and what each man is doing should be looked into properly. There is no use and it is all wrong in supposing that because a man is a Meath man he is not working his land properly and economically. I say here and now that if a man finds it pays him better to feed his cattle on the land I am going to tell him to feed his cattle. If it pays the man better to till his land, I am going to tell him to till his land.

Hear, hear! Now we see.

I am going to tell the man on the land to do what is most economical for him with his land. The Government or the Land Commission did not order him to do anything else but that. The Department of Agriculture encouraged him to do what he thinks is best. These statements that men were forced to do this thing, or that men were forced to do that thing or the other thing by the Government is totally wrong. There was a good deal of propaganda made by rather clever men on the opposite side that we were going to destroy the cattle trade——

We are out to do justice to everybody——

The Deputy is getting away from the Land Commission Estimate.

And he is getting away from the slaughter of the calves.

They have destroyed the cattle trade.

We come back again to the question of economic holdings and to the manner in which the land is divided by the Land Commission. I hope that this individual examination will take place, and it is my candid opinion that when it does take place, and I hope it will, that we will get at the truth. I want to see the inspectors visit these farms and without fear or favour have an individual examination as to how they are worked. If the inspector finds that the individual who signed the contract with the Land Commission and took over the liability to work that land, is not working the holding properly, then it is the business of the Land Commission to take steps to see that that man is removed off the land, because there are people to take his place. The matter is altogether too expensive and too important to have it treated in any other way.

Speaking on this Vote last night, Deputy Cosgrave, and, I think, Deputy Linehan, brought up a case in the County Meath in which the Land Commission are supposed to have done wrong. It was a question of a fee farm grant. I think the name was mentioned, but there is no necessity to mention the name now. Under the 1923 Land Act there was very little notice taken of these fee farm grants. These fee farm grants came about in a peculiar way. I think they were the first attempts on the part of Irish farmers to get a secure grip of their land and to get some fixity of tenure. There were very many of such cases in the County Meath; they are found in all rich counties. I may take take it that Meath, Westmeath and Kildare would have more of these fee farm grants than the other counties. They arose in this way; the landlord wanted to raise the wind, and when such a landlord had tenants with some money he went to them and said: "You want some security in your holding; I will grant you a lease if you pay me a bit of money." The sum may have been £3,000 or £30. When this sort of thing originated the Department that then corresponded somewhat with the Land Commission in later days were anxious to help this business and they made little advances. They sometimes advanced half the money to the tenant, the tenant himself putting up the other half for the purpose of these leases. There was no change in the occupation of the land. The farmer continued to work it as usual. The conditions usually were that if the rents were not paid within six months, the landlord had power to break the lease.

It is quite obvious that in these cases there were two interests to be purchased. The landlord had an interest and the tenant had an interest in the fee farm grant. In their day, these fee farm grants were considered by the banks and others as good security, and money was lent on them. It was not until later years that the banks realised that the security was not as good security as they had believed it to be. The consequence is that these fee farm grants became overloaded with debt, and in addition there was a good deal of money owing to the landlords. When these came to be dealt with by the Land Commission in the last two or three years, and when all the liabilities were worked out, it was found that the landlord's interest was much greater than the tenant's interest. As a result the tenant got very little. It was pretty much the same as a registered holding taken over by the Land Commission and previous advances had to be redeemed. There was very little to go to the tenant. In equity, of course, it is tough luck on these people that their goodwill was worth so very little. Very little was paid, or could be paid, by the Land Commission to the grantee in the case of these fee farm grants. I do not know what remedy could be devised. There is, of course, a grievance. It is like a property owing a debt to the bank. The bank holds the title deeds. A good deal of sympathy can be aroused for the case that Deputy Cosgrave made, but when it comes to be examined, it is not quite so easy to see what remedy can be adopted. It is quite true that in 1925 a certain figure was offered for this land. But that is some time ago, and the land was only purchased two or three years ago by the Land Commission.

But is there not a great difference between the sum that was offered in 1925, £3,000, and the £5 that the Land Commission is paying for it now? Would not the Deputy relate these figures and then talk about justice?

Deputy McMenamin has not listened to what I said. If the Deputy figures it out, or if he asks somebody, he will be told all about it. The position is that everyone of us would like to help people who are in the unfortunate fix of the original tenant of that fee farm grant, but it is not quite so easy to devise a remedy.

But is not this legalised robbery?

I mentioned this matter on a previous debate. Most of the House was in agreement but they saw the impossibility of doing anything.

Has the Deputy ever heard of such a thing as amending legislation? Amending Bills have been brought in from time to time.

Legislation may not be advocated on the Estimates.

There has been quite an amount of land divided in Meath. It has been divided with the minimum of disturbance and the minimum of friction. These farms are uneconomic and I hope the Minister will consider increasing the size of the holdings. It may be difficult to do that now. The lands have been divided and they are as they are, and it is very difficult now to make them economic. The next thing that has to be considered is the question as to how these lands are to be properly used, and how are you going to make genuine homes of these farms. I take it that once the lands are vested the Land Commission is finished with the matter. Other Departments must then come in. The Department of Education must come in and try to reap the benefits of what has been done. I think the Department of Education is prepared to enter on that business and see that these farms are fully utilised. As far as I can see, the Land Commission has done its duty fully and well There is that difficulty that there are more things to be done and there is the undoing of what has been done under the previous regime. Very few houses were built then. The uneconomic holders were given holdings extending sometimes three miles away from their residences. A great deal of the time of the Land Commission has been occupied trying to adjust these things. Quite a number of farms have been divided and no houses have been built on them. These farms are almost derelict. Many Deputies here passing along by rail will have seen a number of those farms and they get a very bad impression from the sight. I want to explain clearly to them that that is not our work. Previous Governments have been responsible for what is wrong there. Only in a few cases along the railway line are people able to see the work done by the present Government.

Only in a few cases?

It will take us a considerable time to rectify those mistakes that were made.

What about the bus lines?

We have divided a good deal along the bus lines. It will, as I say, take quite a long time to rectify the mistakes that have been made, but I hope the Land Commission will give attention to those farms because they are in a bad way. It is impossible for people living three or four miles away to work these farms properly. The solution of the problem will cost money, I know. I trust sincerely that the Minister will reconsider the migratory schemes, and that, as far as possible, people will not be brought into areas in which there is at present a reasonable population; that land will be sought for migrants in areas in which there are not many people already resident, and there are a great many such areas in County Meath. If colonies are established in such areas, the schemes could be worked properly and there would be no friction. It is quite obvious that people who own land will work that land in the proper way, in the way that they think best if they get an opportunity. I do not think it quite fair that we should be led away by wild phrases that people are not working their land properly. As I say, they will work it in the way that they consider best themselves. That generally is the best way to work it, and they should get all the assistance and encouragement they can. I hope the Minister will consider these questions on migration carefully, and that in connection with the present scheme which is under consideration as far as the Craig Waller estate is concerned, he will carry out the promise made to me that eligible men will be sought for this estate and that the limits will be increased there. I must pay a tribute to the Land Commission for their efficiency and courtesy, and certainly for their hard work. We cannot at present realise fully what is being done. In three or four years' time, when these farms are beginning to be worked properly, the full effect of what is now being done will be better realised. I am sure that it will be a source of satisfaction to all concerned, and that it will bring credit to the Land Commission and to this House.

I had occasion to rejoice recently over the conversion of the Labour Party. I now may rejoice, as I do know all my colleagues on these benches will, at the conversion of Deputy M. O'Reilly. That a man who stumped this country on the policy of "Grow more wheat, whether it pays or not," now declares his conversion to the doctrine that any man who is using his land as he thinks best to use it, should be approved and encouraged by the Land Commission, is a remarkable thing. I think that, if I may say so, is a great tribute to Parliamentary institutions. In other countries differences are settled by revolutions and they have a great contempt for the talking shops of democratic countries, but here, by protracted argument, we actually succeed in converting so convinced a Deputy as Deputy O'Reilly. That, I think, is something which should give great heart to Parliamentarians the world over. If Parliamentary debate can convert Deputy Matt. O'Reilly it can do anything. I look forward with enthusiasm to the day when we can receive into the ranks of our Party all the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. When they return to sanity they will be very heartily welcomed in the work of governing this country.

Now, Sir, with special reference to the Land Commission, I feel bound to say that I think the Land Commission is endeavouring at the present time to deal with a volume of work beyond its capacity, with the result that a very considerable element of confusion is taking place within its organisation. I ask the House to remember that they cannot expect a single man to do the work of three men efficiently. I believe that there are people working in the Land Commission at present, including the Minister, who are trying to do in a month work that they should not be reasonably expected to complete in three months, with the result that it is very difficult to get information from the Land Commission. It is very difficult to get satisfaction when you have an inquiry to make, and I am afraid some of the work of improvement, and some of the work of choosing tenants with discretion, is not being done as well as it should be done. I, therefore, suggest to the Minister that he should very seriously consider whether some scheme of reorganisation should not be contemplated with a view to getting control of the work that has to be done, with a view to removing confusion and getting the machine working smoothly. It might mean the temporary slowing down of the actual process of land division for a period of a few months until the process of reorganisation be completed but, in the long run, I believe it would be the best course to pursue. There is no use in spurring a willing horse, and if all the responsible officials of the Land Commission year after year find themselves borne down by an accumulation of work, upon which they can never satisfactorily reach, it will be more than human nature can stand, and their efficiency, and the efficiency of the men who work under them, will be, eventually, irreparably impaired. If there was a pause, and a satisfactory reorganisation carried out, it would remove that atmosphere of strain which is embarrassing the whole Land Commission personnel. I believe more efficient work would be done and, taking the long view, the land distribution problem would be more efficiently and effectively dealt with.

The next question to which I wish to refer is the matter of allocating land. Do you know, I think it rather helps the Minister for Lands if violent allegations of corruption are made against him from this side of the House, because if they are not made from this side of the House it will be suggested by his own supporters that he has sold out to the Fine Gael Party. I am not concerned to protect the sensitive feelings of the Minister for Lands. If I thought that there was corruption in the allocation of land, I should not have any hesitation in saying so, but I do not believe there is. I think the Land Commission allocate land very fairly. I have known estates in which practically no supporter of mine got an acre of land, and I have known other estates where men who were notorious adversaries of the Government got a larger share of the land than Government supporters. I believe that, on the whole, the allocation of land is carried out without regard to the political convictions of the allottees.

There is no use in this House passing laws requiring the Land Commission to give preference to certain classes of individuals, and then, when it carries out the laws, finding grave fault with it for having done so. We have laid it down in these laws that certain classes of persons' claims must be considered in order, and, so far as I am aware, that is what the Land Commission did. There is a qualification of that statement which I wish to make. There is no use imagining that the Land Commissioners can go and walk the land on every estate. They have to act through inspectors. I believe these inspectors are, on the whole, a disinterested and a conscientious body of public officials, but I say this to the Minister, that I believe there are some amongst them lacking in discretion. I believe, with the best will in the world, they go down under the commissioners' instructions to inquire into local views so as to choose the most suitable tenants. Certain people are active and go out to meet an inspector, seek him out and invite him to come and interview them. The inspector in perfect good faith does so, but it may become clear locally that the Land Commission inspector was, in fact, discussing the question with nobody but stalwart supporters of the Government Party. He may not be conscious of that. All he knows is that he gained local knowledge and, having listened, called upon them for advice. I think the Minister might sound a note of warning to all the inspectors and point out to them that they had got to be tactful when conducting inquiries in the neighbourhood of an estate about to be divided. If they had the advantage of discussing their plans with persons who were very violently associated with the Fine Gael Party, they ought also seek out someone who was an ardent supporter of the Labour Party or an ardent supporter of the Government Party to get their views. Then when the scheme was finally prepared, the inspector would be in a position to say that, having heard all parties, he did what he thought was best, and did not acknowledge any particular right in persons who had strong political views to dictate as to how the land was to be divided, but he did acknowledge it as part of his duty to hear everyone who was prepared to give bona-fide information on the problem to be resolved, and did not want his judgment to be unduly coloured by persons whose observation might be inspired by some ulterior political motive. I believe if the Minister would do that, and give that word of counsel to the inspectors in the Land Commission, he would remove the last substantial ground upon which the commissioners administration could be seriously impugned, so far as the allotment of land is concerned. I am naturally more concerned for the old evicted tenants, and for the old soldiers of the Land War, than many other Deputies, and I note with regret that the work that was done 50 or 60 years ago when the Land War was commencing, is naturally being more and more forgotten by the generation that is rising now. Nevertheless, in every Land Act passed since 1885 down to to-day, lip service has been paid to the evicted tenants. I cannot help feeling that they are being forgotten. I know some men who are still struggling to get back to holdings that were taken from their fathers 55 years ago. I think they ought to be put back. They are entitled to be put back. I remember that in East Mayo prior to 1918, one of the greatest sources of gratitude we had then was that a fortnight before Mr. de Valera was elected member for that constituency, the member who had sat for it before that put back the last evicted tenant there. There were other counties where the Land League had not been so strong as in Mayo, where the evicted tenants were forgotten, and I would like to get from the Minister to-day an assurance that the case of any evicted tenant brought under his attention would be guaranteed favourable consideration. I know that in regard to many of them an argument can be advanced that they have gone in for other kinds of work, and have become detached in one way or another from the land. I do not think too much weight should be given to that argument. They have sentimental claims on these holdings, and if the fight for the land is to be honoured and vindicated in an adequate way, I feel that these old warriors should be put back on the holdings from which they were originally evicted.

Now we come to the matter of the failure to collect land annuities. We cannot escape from this fact, that when the last Government went out of office, the arrears under all Land Purchase Acts from 1885 to 1923, amounted to £650,000, and that the tenant purchasers were then paying 100 per cent. of the annuities. All the arrears were funded under the 1933 Act, and the annuities cut in two, but to-day we have arrears of over a million on half the annuities that used to be charged upon the land. To explain that some Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party suggest that that is due to a no-rent campaign. Everyone knows that that allegation is "cod". If we got the figures for the several counties we would find that the arrears were largest in counties where Government support is strongest. I invite Deputies on the Government Benches to inspect the arrears records for counties like Clare, Kerry or elsewhere.

That would prove nothing.

I claim to have converted Deputy M. O'Reilly, but I do not claim yet to have converted all who support Fianna Fáil in the country. It cannot be assumed that Fianna Fáil supporters in the country are withholding their rents because Fine Gael preached a no-rent campaign. We must have some reason in this matter. The truth is, there is no foundation for the allegation made by members of the Fianna Fáil Party, and it is going to serve no useful purpose by jumping on the backs of the farmers who have withheld the annuities or upon the Land Commission, which sought to get them in a reasonable way. We all know that the difficulties that existed during the last two or three years made the payment and collection of annuities very difficult, and that getting excited about it is going to do no good. What we ought to do is, to try to make it possible for the tenants to pay the annuities. If we do that, it will largely resolve the difficulties of the Land Commission in collecting them. I have not the slightest doubt when normalcy is restored the tenant farmers of this country will prove just as scrupulous in the payment of their commitments, as did their fathers and grandfathers before them. But I do not believe that it is expedient to pursue that question too deeply, because at this stage in the affairs of the State I do not think it is desirable to be wrangling and arguing as to the financial circumstances of the agricultural community of this country. We will have an opportunity of doing that on the Vote for the Department of Agriculture and on other votes, and events will then have come and gone which will leave us all freer to speak our minds more cogently than we could speak them to-day. But in the meantime——

The Deputy will go into training.

In the meantime the Deputy will go into training, and also in the meantime he would urge Deputies not to grow too eloquent either about the collection branch of the Land Commission or about the tenants themselves. If the truth were told, probably both parties are doing their best to overcome their difficulties, and no matter who was faced with it he might have just as great difficulty in meeting the situation as these people are finding at the present time.

I do say, in regard to the allottees, that greater discrimination ought to be shown in selecting them, not from the political point of view at all, but from the point of view of their competence to use the land profitably when they get it. I say that for two reasons. The first is because I think it is a highly undesirable thing to put impracticable persons on to the land, and, secondly—and to this reason I attach the more importance—that if you put in unsatisfactory allottees, and, under the terms of the 1933 Act, I think, take them off again because they are proving unsuccessful, you are in the minds of the people of the country shaking the whole conception of fixity of tenure. We understand in this House the difference between a vested tenant and a non-vested tenant and a tenant at will, but country people have always understood that once they got an allotment of land, or a straw out of the thatch in the cottage to which they went, that that was their home. Fixity of tenure meant to them that, once they closed the door of their cottage, nobody must cross the threshold without their leave. If you qualify that, country people will begin to ask themselves: "What has become of fixity of tenure? Does anybody own their land any more? Can we be put out of our holdings overnight because some neighbour wants it?" Therefore, the less chopping and changing that we have of tenants the better it will be.

You see, there are certain things extremely difficult to explain. The late G. K. Chesterton—requiescat in pace—was in many ways a very wise man. He once pointed out that it was a very dangerous thing to abolish an existing custom even though you were not quite clear what purpose the custom served, because, he said, suppose you abolish what appears to be merely an archaic custom, unless you know the reason which originally gave rise to that custom, when you abolish the custom the evil that that custom was originally designed to abate may manifest itself; and in our generation we may not have the wisdom to perceive that the custom is the best way to abate the evil. So when we abolish an archaic custom, the evil may manifest itself again, and we may be at our wits' end to end an evil which was satisfactorily provided for by the archaic custom which we in our folly abolished.

A great many Deputies of this House do not realise the evils that existed before the 3 F's were secured for our people. All the Deputies in this House have grown up in the possession of fixity of tenure, fair rent and free sale. They do not know what it means to live in rural Ireland in the absence of those things, but their grandfathers, and fathers even, would have told them that, in the absence of those things, the tenant farmers of this country grew steadily poorer until they became a by-word in Europe for poverty and degradation. Once they were persuaded that the land was not inalienably theirs, the tenant farmers of this country refused to invest any money in it. They knocked as much out of the land as they could, and they put nothing back into it. They were always afraid that if they put anything into the land a covetous neighbour would come along and take it from them, and that the money they invested in the land would be lost to them. They let their houses fall into disrepair. They would not improve them lest the rents would be raised. No young fellow regarded the land as offering a decent livelihood. Young fellows would rather go to America because they felt that if they ever wanted to sell their tenant right in the land the landlord had the right to interfere.

This astonishing thing has happened. After a 50 years' struggle we established free sale, fair rent and fixity of tenure in this country, and in the last five years, amidst universal rejoicing, we have abolished them all. In the last five years, amidst acclamations from the sons of the men who fought in the land war, we have abolished fixity of tenure, free sale and fair rent.

Is not the national interest at stake?

Deputy Victory says that it is in the national interest to abolish them—that they have been abolished in the national interest.

Is the Deputy purporting to criticise legislation?

Not in the least. Deputy Victory says that it is in the national interest to do it. The Deputy, I believe, is a thoroughly well-intentioned man, but it does throw a flood of light on the public men of to-day that they do not realise what they are doing. They think it is in the national interest to do it. I say it is to the national ruin to do it. It will destroy the entire rural economy of this country if it is successfully done. How can any man like Deputy Victory, who knows the country, claim that the whole foundation of the land war was wrong? How can he claim that the argument of the Clanricardes and the Barrymores was right—that there ought to be some over-lord over land who could control and enslave the people living on it? Is not that the very principle that we fought to destroy? The whole doctrine of the Land League was that a man who was living on the land should be the lord of that land, and that, instead of having a lord of vast domains and vast estates, you should have the lord of the homestead, and that nobody should have any right to enter that homestead and interfere with it. Deputy Victory says to-day that it is in the national interest to abolish all that, and to get back to the Barrymores and the Clanricardes, substituting the Government for the Barrymores and the Clanricardes.

On a point of order. Is Deputy Dillon in order in discussing the policy already enshrined in an Act of the Dáil, or an alteration of the terms of that Act, in this Vote?

The Deputy is not entitled to discuss legislation on this Vote.

It is purely administration that I am discussing. Remember, Deputy Victory says that the administration of the land code with a view to destroying fixity of tenure, free sale and fair rent is in the national interest. It is to rebut that assumption by a man whom I believe to be bona fide and well-intentioned that my remarks are addressed. Fixity of tenure is destroyed by the practice of the Land Commission in choosing unsuitable tenants. When they find them unsuitable in practice—as 90 per cent. of the people could have told them they were going to prove to be before they were put in—the Land Commission take them out and try to find alternative tenants for these resumed holdings, whereupon all the neighbours say "There is a man who has been seven years in that holding and he is thrown out on the side of the road because the Fianna Fáil club say he is not running his farm in the right way!"

Because the Land Commission say it.

Let us approach this matter in the most objective way, without getting heated about it.

Mr. Boland

Is the Deputy dealing with a concrete case or a hypothetical case?

A hypothetical case. Let us not get heated over the matter. I appreciate the Minister's difficulties and if I had any specific allegation to make, the Minister ought to know me well enough to realise that I would make it. Heretofore, the fault he has found with me has been that I made these allegations too readily.

Nobody minds what you say.

A man who has been seven years in a holding is put out. Local people say he has been put out because he did not please the Fianna Fáil club. The truth may be that the man was setting his land or that he was not a very good farmer or that he was short of capital, but he should never have been put into the land if he was not a suitable tenant. My submission is that there are altogether too many of that class of tenant put into the land and that that is being done because the Land Commission are not being given the time properly to do their job of choosing a suitable tenant.

That happened before Fianna Fáil came into office as well as now.

I should be glad if Deputy Killilea would intervene in this debate for the purpose of rebutting my argument.

He does not know what your argument is.

I do urge Deputy Killilea to let me speak my mind and then he can speak his. The next way in which fixity of tenure is being jeopardised is by the practice of acquiring very small farms quite out of the category of demesne lands and of what was associated in the public mind with landlord's property. I admit that, once the 1923 Land Act was passed, every Land Act that followed that was merely a development —and a logical development—from the authority included in that Act to break the demesne wall. I do urge upon the Minister that he should try, by administration, to abate, so far as he can, the evils that are arising from the power of the Land Commission to re-purchase land vested under previous Land Acts and to break the demesne wall.

I know it is difficult. Once you give the Land Commission authority to go back on sales made in the past, take land from people who had bought under previous Land Acts and re-divide it amongst any group, you are opening a floodgate that human ingenuity will find it very hard to close. But it is bad for the country to throw the whole land-settlement into the melting pot. If that is done, there will be no end to it and, eventually, as I warned this House on three successive occasions, you will start minor land wars all over the country. I ask the Minister if my words have not been borne out. Has he not found in the day-to-day administration of the work of the Land Commission that minor land wars have been started in different parts of the country? The recent scenes in Ballyhaunis recalled the old days of 1883. I know nothing of the merits of that dispute, but it is deplorable that you should divide a parish into two warring factions, one half describing the others as land grabbers and emergency men, and that you should have a group of enraged women going out and attacking the Guards. Remember, respectable women from East Mayo do not go out and attack the Guards unless they are very deeply moved and are labouring under a sense of very deep grievance. On investigation, their grievance may prove to be ill-founded, but that is typical of the danger of destroying the principle of fixity of tenure. No matter how careful you are, you are running straight into the peril of starting minor land wars all over the country and creating bitter parish feuds that may go on for generations. That is no laughing matter. It could develop into a very deplorable state of affairs, and I think the Minister ought to say categorically to-day that he is strongly opposed to any administrative policy which would persuade the average farmer that there was any danger of disturbance of his right to his land—that the policy was not to interfere in the administration of any farm once the tenant had been firmly fixed upon it.

I agree that you can make a very strong case when you reply: "Suppose a fellow proves to be no good; suppose that he is obviously a failure, are we to leave him on the land?" On balance. I should be inclined to say "yes." These men are an infinitesimal minority and the amount of damage you do by shaking the whole concept of fixity of tenure in shifting these fellows off to make way for more prudent persons, outweighs altogether the advantage of getting land into the hand of competent farmers. I admit that, where you give a man a holding under the Land Commission and he goes and sets it and becomes a petty landlord, he is deliberately stepping back into the Clanricarde and Barrymore class and you can defend your saying to him: "If you are going to set the land and make no attempt to work it, to turn it into a sort of investment, there are plenty of people who would like to live on and out of the land and they are entitled to have it."

Is not that what is being done?

Not altogether. There should be a clear-cut policy announced with regard to any man who sets his land without good reason. You can imagine a widow with an upgrowing son who may want to set her land for a few years until her son is able to work it. That is a perfectly good excuse, and I do not think that that person ought to be disturbed. But if a man gets a holding and, for no other reason than the desire to make money out of it in rent, sets it, then the Land Commission are entitled to regard him as a minor landlord and to apply the ordinary land code. But where a man is in occupation of land and is working it, we should not set ourselves up as judges as to whether he is working it badly or well. He must determine that for himself, and we should not strike at the root of fixity of tenure in order to gratify our own desire to be judge and jury on the methods of husbandry which are being practised on every acre of land in the country.

The next point I want to make is about free sale. Free sale is of immense importance to the people of the country. Suppose a farmer needs to invest money in the improvement of his land, he must have the belief that if some family emergency arises he can put that improved farm on the market, sell it and get a fair bonus from the purchaser for the improvements he has done on the soil and the buildings. That is not happening. The very reverse is happening. If I improve my land and make it an outstanding farm in the neighbourhood and afterwards make up my mind that I want to change my place of residence, or perhaps live in the city, and I put my farm up for sale and ask the auctioneer to advertise it and the solicitor to take carriage of sale, on the following morning I will get a letter from the Land Commission to say that an inspector will walk the land. I may conceal that letter. A purchaser comes into me and bids a good price for the land, when the Land Commission inspector arrives and walks the land and the sale is finished. The other party to the sale withdraws immediately and says: "Where is the use of my buying the land? If I give £2,000 for it, the Land Commission will walk in the day after the sale and take it over and give me £300." That is literally what would happen, if the Land Commission make up their mind to take it, with the result that free sale is completely finished.

Nobody dare offer a good farm for sale now amongst his neighbours. That is common knowledge. The result of that is going to be that a farmer who has any surplus profits will put his money in the bank and not into the land. Remember, the old 20-acre man did not start putting money into the bank until he had ample savings invested in the land. He bought slag and artificial manures. He conserved the product of his land for the purpose of improving the soil, and it was only when he had the soil up to the standard he thought right that he began to put money into the bank. What is going to happen now is that a farmer will not buy manure, will not repair fences, and will not repair outhouses, because he has the feeling that if the son goes to England and the daughter to America, and he wants to sell the place, he cannot sell it. He dare not sell it, because the Land Commission will come in, and it will be divided up, and he will not get any price for it. In any case, whatever price the Land Commission gives him, they will give as much for rotten land as for good land. They will rob him in any case, and he would sooner have money in the bank than have it invested in the land, to be robbed of it when the Land Commission comes to buy. In so far as that is true, free sale is gone.

The last thing is fair rent. In the old days, we set up courts of law, we passed Acts of Parliament, and insisted that tenants would not be rack-rented in this country or would not be asked to pay more than an economic rent for the land. What has happened? The Land Commission have reduced the rents by 50 per cent., and a new body of Barrymores and Clanricardes have appeared on the horizon. When the Land Commission reduced the rents, the tariff-mongers and the quota-mongers proceeded to collect on the kettles and pots, the boots and shoes, the clothes and everyday necessities of the people, a far greater rack-rent than the landlords attempted to get.

The Minister for Lands has no responsibility in that connection.

I put it to you that the Minister for Lands, having done his best honestly to interpret a fair rent, finds himself in this position, that having returned to the people 50 per cent. of the land annuities, a sum far in excess of that is being taken out of their pockets by the minions of his own colleagues.

Yes, but on a particular Estimate Deputies must confine their remarks to the Department of the Minister responsible.

I will not press that beyond saying that it completes the picture of the abolition in our day of the three F's, that Deputy Victory triumphs in that abolition, and the whole Fianna Fáil Party honestly believe that they are serving the best interests of the country in tearing down and destroying what the whole land war was fought to get. Surely it is time for the Minister, who as a Dublin man probably had little association with the Land League, to give his own followers a lead in this matter and tell them that their fathers and grandfathers were not all fools, that they did not go to gaol and suffer eviction for something that was all wrong; tell them that Michael Davitt did not spend a great part of his life in penal servitude in defence of things that the Fianna Fáil Party should tear to pieces and destroy. The three F's were worth fighting for. Tenant farmers never dreamt that when we got a national Government it would triumph in the destruction of the three F's. They were convinced that with the advent of a national Government the three F's would be for ever guaranteed. Is it not an appalling commentary that so prominent and well-informed a Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party as Deputy Victory should proclaim to-day that these three F's were abolished and abolished in the national interest?

A Deputy

By the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in 1923.

I do not care who abolished them if we could all get together to re-establish them. What terrifies me is to hear Deputy Victory, who speaks for Fianna Fáil, not only acknowledging their abolition but triumphing——

That is a good headline for the newspapers tomorrow.

I will be patient with Deputy Killilea. I invite him to get up after me and answer any of the arguments I put forward. The last matter I want to refer to is the matter mentioned by Deputy O'Reilly. Deputy O'Reilly deplores the Minister's present policy of the migration of Gaeltacht residents to Meath, the general suggestion being that little or nothing was done for the Gaeltacht dwellers until this Government came into office. In fact, the schemes sponsored by the late Deputy Hogan for the migration of residents out of the Galway Gaeltacht were infinitely superior to the Gibbstown scheme at present in operation and provided the Gaeltacht residents with a far better type of farm and a happier household in which to dwell and did not involve a tithe of the expenditure which the present scheme demands, with the result that far more people were looked after and far more people stayed where they were put.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported, the Committee to sit again on Wednesday, 27th April.
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