This Bill, to my mind, is a very bad and a very unpopular Bill, and the Government would be well advised to withdraw it. It is going to affect people who are already overburdened with taxes. In the cities and towns it will affect professional men, working men and citizens who took advantage of the Housing Acts to build or to improve their homes. In the country, the Bill is also very unpopular and is creating a feeling of uncertainty amongst farmers, especially those who go in for cattle raising. Conditions have changed in connection with that industry, and farmers who want to get into the British store market have to adopt new methods. They have to provide more housing accommodation for cattle in the winter, and to put the stock on the market earlier than was the rule in the past. The day when four-year-old bullocks were fattened here has gone. Irish farmers have now to compete with Canada and other countries in the British market. British stock owners can get suitable cattle in Ireland. Our cattle suit the climate there, but to have stock in proper condition in the early spring, they must be well fed and well housed. Farmers are not prepared to put up additional houses if they have the feeling that in a year or three years they are going to be taxed for doing so. They have the fear that they are going to be taxed out of existence if, in order to compete in the world market, they put up housing to enable them to have their stock in proper condition. Farmers are affected in other ways. In districts where potatoes are extensively grown the old custom was to feed potatoes to stock. This was the severest winter we had for many years, with heavy frost and heavy rain, and many farmers, when they opened their pits in the fields, found that the potatoes were rotten. The alternative is to build proper potato houses.
The only alternative to that is to build proper potato houses and, according to this Bill, you will be liable to extra taxation on those houses. It also affects the dairy farmer. Under the Milk Regulations Act farmers had to improve their cowsheds or else go out of producing milk, whichever they liked. It cost a good deal of money to improve the cowsheds and now they are afraid they are going to be taxed for that improvement. They feel that the farmer has no security. He does not know where he is or what he is up against. The sooner the Government withdraws this Bill the better it will be for them and the country. There is a feeling in the country that farmers should be encouraged to put up haysheds and cattle sheds. They fear that, if they borrow the money to do this or if they do it out of their own savings, they will be taxed on the re-valuation which is sure to come.
I would advise Fianna Fáil and every member of that Party to study this leaflet, which was circulated before the 1932 election, when they were telling the people the way to reduce taxation, and that the only way was to put Fianna Fáil in power. I wonder what the poor people who put them in think to-day of that reduced taxation. They were to decrease taxation by £2,000,000 a year, but what do we find? It is going up in leaps and bounds every year and there is no sign from this Bill that they are satisfied yet. They are going to bleed the people further. It is nearly time for this Government to waken up to facts and to think of all those grand promises in this and other leaflets that were distributed to the country, telling what they were going to do for the poor people, how they were going to help the unemployed, and how they were going to help the workers, the industrialists and the farmers. First of all, you had six years of an economic war that led this country into debt. The towns, villages and cities have been feeling the effects for the last two or three years. In addition to that, you had ten months of the worst weather in living memory. You all must know that to have this country prosperous agriculture must be prosperous. The farmers must be in a position to make money to pay a living wage to the agricultural worker. You have no money in circulation in this country if the farmer is down and out. I see nothing in the policy of Fianna Fáil since they got into power but to depress the farmer, to try to get him on the road to ruin, which they have almost done. It is nearly time for this Government to waken up and, instead of putting more taxes on the people, come to their assistance right away and not collect the taxes or rents for the next two or three years. The rents have been raised until the farmer is unable to pay them. Surely they should not be further depressed by trying to get through the flying squad what is not there, by seizing the farmer's stock and putting him in a worse position. That is not going to make this country prosperous. There are many farmers in this country to-day, especially in my own county, who do not know where to turn to get seeds and manure for their land. They have no credit and they have no money and their seed has been destroyed by the bad season. My advice to this Government would be to withdraw this Bill and instead of increasing taxation reduce it and keep to their promise in this leaflet. If they do that they will be doing a good day's work.