When dealing with this matter last night, I called the attention of the Minister to the appalling condition of affairs in my constituency where a large number of estates—I cannot call them anything else—of 400 acres and over are left there with arrears of rates due on them for nine or ten years to the county council, and these rates have to be paid by the unfortunate smallholders in the district. You have those estates hanging there, which in the ordinary course should be taken and divided, owing enormous sums in arrears of rates to the county council. I have been harping on this matter since, I might say, 1927, when I first came here. The Bill is growing every year, and whenever these lands are taken over all that the unfortunate ratepayers will have to get will be two years' arrears of rates. The balance goes west. In 99 cases out of every 100 all that money will have to be made up by the unfortunate smallholders living on the mountain side who were evicted out of those lands in the earlier times. That is the condition of affairs there. One gentleman, whose address was given as the United Services Club, London, owed £1,700 in rates alone.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands—(Resumed).
He is not a gentleman.
Well, I hesitate to give in this House what would be a proper description of him. That was the only address we could get. He owned Rostellan estate in the County Cork. But between the Land Commission, on the one hand, and the Forestry Department on the other, they kept arguing for seven years as to which of the two were going to take the whole of the estate, or how they were going to divide it. Now they have taken it over and all that the county council has to get are two years' arrears of rates. The rest is wiped out. That is not the only case of the kind in County Cork. You have a whole line of 400- and 500-acre farms stretching from Aghada right up to Midleton. One can call them farms if he likes, but they stretch along that line of country, and all that land is planted land.
Can those farms be bought at a cheap price?
They are farms that the Land Commission should take over for the relief of congestion. That is what the Land Commission is there for, and it was on that policy that this Government was elected. These ranches should be taken over and divided up. While I agree that the Land Commission officials may have the best knowledge of the agricultural land that is required to be taken over for the emergency, I still hold that we cannot afford to have the policy of the Land Commission, in regard to its ordinary operations, held up in the manner that it is at present, because of the fact that it has lost a number of its officials during the emergency period. The worst of it is that the land that has been taken over by the Land Commission, and that it held in its hands when the war started in September, 1939, will be absolutely worthless for any practical purpose after the war. I can say a word of praise in regard to the Land Commission as far as its tillage operations are concerned this year. In my constituency it had the land prepared in time for tillage and had the crops in in time; but what condition is that land going to be in after the war if we bear in mind that in 1940, 1941 and in 1942, crops of wheat were taken off it without as much as a shovelful of manure of any description being put into it? Of what use is it going to be to the unfortunate smallholder who will get it after the war?
That is why I say that the holding up of the division of land by the Land Commission is a mistaken policy and should not be allowed. I do not know what influences are operating there. I cannot find out. Then we had the scandal of the Flower estate. That was a scandal that no Department with any respect for itself would be guilty of. Roughly, you have about 500 acres of land lying there. The Land Commission advertised the greater portion of it to be let on the 11 months' system for grazing. The people of the district expected to have that land divided up. What happened? The Land Commission sent down some of its officials who held a court in Cork. Nobody knew that the court was to sit there, and none of those who had appealed to have the land divided up got any notification of the sitting of the court. If the Deputies for the constituency had been notified about the sitting of that court some definite proof would have been put before it as to the manner in which the land was being used. Instead of that being done two or three officials came down, held their court and heard evidence for the landlord and no evidence on behalf of those who wanted the land divided. The decision of the court was to take 40 acres out of the 500 for division. Nine days after that decision was made, an advertisement appeared in the public Press stating that 380 acres of the lands of Cloyne were to be let for grazing on the 11 months' system.
I would like to have some explanation from the Minister in connection with that holding. I wanted to get some definite statement from him as to how this came about. The people of that district have been looking forward long enough for the division of those lands so that it is time to have that farce finished with. Surely the organisations which sent in appeals to have those estates divided were entitled to get some notification of the sitting of the court in Cork to which I have already referred. They should have been told that it was not going to be a one-sided affair altogether.
The only other matter I want to refer to is the reduction in this Estimate for the improvement of estates. In fact it is the only reduction I can find in the Estimate. A few minutes ago we were listening to the Minister for Finance speaking on employment. This particular sub-head of this Vote is one that used to give a good deal of employment. Yet, what do we find? A reduction, as compared with last year, of the amount to be expended to the tune of £128,600. If ever there was a time to have land drained and fenced it is while that land is in the hands of the Land Commission. It is dealing with one portion of it, and finds that it cannot deal with another. This is the wrong time to have a reduction under that sub-head of the Vote. I have no doubt that part of it is due to the fact that so many officials have been taken away from the Land Commission. Their withdrawal is having very serious repercussions, and in this particular matter we have evidence of that. I do not wish to labour the matter further, but I do hope sincerely that I will not again have to call the Minister's attention to the condition of the ranches in the County Cork to which I have referred, a condition of affairs represented by unpaid rates and unpaid everything, and all that coming down on top of the people who were wiped off those lands in former times and who are now looking down on them from their 20 and 30-acre holdings up on the mountain-side. Why should they have to pay these unpaid rates for the absentee gentlemen who are supposed to own these lands at present?
When one remembers that the activities of the Minister's Department are practically brought to a standstill one can hardly understand why this Estimate of nearly £1,500,000 shows only a reduction of £130,000. That is a figure which the Minister made no effort to justify. It appears to me that when this Department is carrying on practically only a skeleton service, a reduction of £130,000 on that huge sum is a negligible amount in the circumstances and that the Minister should have made some attempt to justify that figure. I understand, of course, that the salaries of the officers who are on loan to other Departments are still charged to the Minister's Department. Nevertheless, it appears to be an extraordinarily small reduction in the amount to be expended by the Department this year.
On reading over the Minister's statement, there are one or two points to which I should like to call attention. He says:
"It is with reluctance that such a big cut as £128,000 has been made in the Improvement of Estates Sub-head."
Then he goes on to say:
"But as well as the general necessity for economies in present circumstances, the activities of the Land Commission in land improvement cannot escape drastic curtailment."
When every Deputy points to the necessity for making provision for employment during this difficult period, I think any Deputy with any experience of agriculture must argue that that is a situation over which neither the Minister nor the Government can stand—that there is a necessity for drastic curtailment in expenditure on land improvement at present.
In face of the situation that exists in Great Britain, where vast sums of money are being expended on land improvement, where scrub land is being cleared and being turned up by tractors, and the land drained and brought into an arable condition in order to grow food, it is incredible to find that here no attempt is being made during these difficult times to provide work on a very profitable source of employment for our people, namely, the general improvement of land here. I think it is very much to be regretted that there has been any reduction in this particular sub-head. On the contrary, I believe that there is room for a very considerable increase in expenditure and for vast improvement in that respect. It is a type of expenditure which no one could criticise because it would be productive. It would be a source of income to the State, and it would be money very well spent. Yet, we find that the sum for estate and land improvement has been reduced by £128,000. I think that neither the Minister nor the Government can stand over that. I say to the Minister that it is a matter which, if it cannot be amended this year, ought to be reconsidered in the future.
On the question of the payment of arrears of annuities, I appreciate that, where representations are made, particularly by public representatives, in the case of a man in arrears with his annuities, reasonable facilities are always given, and the Department is prepared to deal in a sympathetic manner with such an application. We have, however, experience occasionally of cases where people were not aware that it was possible to get such facilities and where hardship has occurred. I should like to say to the Minister that at the present time these cases should be leniently dealt with. This is not the time to press farmers to pay up arrears of annuities.
The farmers are being asked to expend extra capital in the production of food, and when that extra call is made on any little capital resources they may have, the Department should not try to collar that money in order to pay off arrears which may have accrued during difficult times. I think every possible facility should be given to people who are not in a position to meet their liabilities in that respect and that the arrears should be spread over a considerable period. I know that the Minister promised that he and his Department would take a sympathetic view of such cases and I am merely impressing on the Minister the necessity for sticking to that policy.
We have always listened to a great deal of argument when this Vote comes before the House as to the size of holdings provided by the Land Commission in cases of land settlement. Specious arguments for and against the present policy of land annuities will convince nobody. We have heard Deputies argue, and I am inclined to agree with them, that the holdings which have been allotted are not economic. On the other hand, we have Deputies from the western counties who argue that a holding of 20 or 25 acres is economic. I think that the present inactivity of the Minister's Department in that direction offers an opportunity for reviewing the whole system of land division to see how far it has succeeded, how far it has met the demand and the requirements; whether in fact the policy of land settlement pursued in recent years is the best which could be pursued and whether the results have been satisfactory or otherwise. I think a comprehensive report covering the whole field of activity in that respect would be very useful if land division is to be continued in the post-war period. That report should cover not only what has occurred in the past but the economic position of those people during the present emergency and what their position is likely to be in a difficult post-war period.
It is rather interesting to read of British agriculturists talking about the difficulties that agriculture must face in the post-war period. They are inclined to the opinion that it would be impossible for small farmers in England to face the difficulties that inevitably must be faced in the post-war period. Many experts on this question of economic agriculture are inclined to the opinion that it would be necessary to have some sort of collective or co-operative farming for smallholders in England. In that connection we must realise that a farmer with from 60 to 100 acres is looked upon as a small farmer in England. If they feel that as an isolated individual there is no hope for such a farmer preserving his stability, what hope can we have for our people who have to live on much smaller holdings? I think this is the time to make a full investigation into that whole situation. I, too, am inclined to the opinion that something will have to be done in the way of co-operation for small holdings in the future. There is no doubt that in the difficult post-war period overhead charges will inevitably be higher, and taxation will probably be higher, because the policy that is pursued not only in England but even here in this House to-day, the policy of not facing up to our ordinary everyday household expenses, as one might call them, but postponing the evil day by borrowing, means that someone in the future will have to face up to that liability. Those charges will be thrown back on the people and will have to be met in the post-war period. For that reason, the overhead charges will inevitably be higher, and we must also take into consideration the fact that countries like Britain, which have been forced to adopt modern mechanical methods of agriculture, will have a higher degree of efficiency, and because of that higher degree of efficiency the cost of production will be relatively less. In that competition between food-producing countries, we cannot afford to lag behind.
We are aware of the fact that in Dagenham in pre-war days Henry Ford made co-operative farming a success. He bought a very big estate and settled a number of families on it. He charged against those families the full capital that was invested in the estate, the cost of equipment, and so on, and the experiment proved an undoubted success. Whether or not the Irish temperament would permit of that sort of arrangement is quite another matter. Up to the present, co-operation in any sphere of Irish life has not proved the success we would wish it to be. I would suggest to the Minister that he might avail of the opportunity now to divide up some estate here and carry out an experiment in that direction, with a view to discovering whether or not it is possible to make a success of co-operative farming in this country. The Minister will appreciate the fact—it has been alluded to by Deputy Kennedy and Deputy Giles—that the small farmer with 20 or 25 acres cannot maintain two horses for ploughing. You cannot expect a farmer on a holding of that size to be able to provide all the capital to purchase the equipment which is necessary if we are to carry out a proper system of husbandry here. He cannot have at his command the best equipment that science can provide for agriculture at the present time. The only way that you can bring to his aid the best equipment which can be procured—nothing but the best is any use, in my opinion; there is no use in trying to operate with second or third-rate equipment—is by co-operation with his neighbours. Whether or not that can be worked successfully will only be proved by experiment.
I should like the Minister to consider that matter, and to carry out an experiment in one or two cases. If that system could be made a success, it would be a great asset, because it would raise the standard of efficiency enormously. It would be a great help to people who through no fault of their own are not in a position to buy the best equipment because of their limited resources not only in the amount of land they hold, but in the amount of capital that is available for them. I notice that people whom we might look on as comparatively large farmers are forging very much ahead in that direction, and we cannot afford to ignore that situation. Deputy Cosgrave made reference to post-war plans. Are we to plan against the difficult problems that must inevitably be faced in the post-war period? In my opinion, this is portion of the type of planning that he referred to, and that I wish to refer to also. We must now make provision against the problems and difficulties which will inevitably confront us in the post-war period. We must endeavour to help those people who cannot possibly buy the modern equipment necessary to reduce their cost of production. I would ask the Minister seriously to consider the possibility of carrying out some experiments in that direction, as a means of holding out some hope for the people who have been settled on very small holdings.
Reference was made by Deputy Kennedy to the fact that we have a policy at the present time of settling migrants in County Meath, North Kildare, and places like that, and giving them very substantial assistance, while side by side with those migrants we have settled some of the local people and treated them in a vastly different way. They got land, but were given no assistance outside of that. I do not see why we should differentiate between the people who come from the west and the local people who are settled on holdings side by side with them. I understand that those migrants are brought there for the purpose of establishing an Irish colony, and that as a result the people in Kildare and Meath are likely to become Irish-speaking in the future. I think there is not a hope of that; I think you might as well try to push back the tide as get the people in Meath and North Kildare to start speaking Irish because you have started a colony from the West of Ireland in their midst. I think it is inevitable that the other thing is likely to happen: that those Gaelic speakers will eventually speak English and lose their Irish. Apart altogether from that aspect of the matter, I do not see why there should be any preferential treatment. Those people should get a fair chance and be provided with equipment to enable them to make good, but the local man is entitled to the same consideration. I do not see why he should be expected to make good without any provision of cattle or stock or anything else. I agree with Deputy Kennedy that there should be no differentiation whatever between them. It may happen that the local man's forefathers had been evicted from that same estate, and that himself and his father and generations before him had looked across those broad acres and longed for the day when their people would be settled back on them again. Possibly, they have a better claim to the land than some of the people from the west. However, I have no objection to the migratory system at all, provided that the local claimant is considered and treated in the same manner.
Deputy Kennedy also referred to the fact that there are companies being formed in this city at the present time for the purpose of buying land. I think it is rather an alarming situation. I realise the difficulties of dealing with it, but I think it is rather an alarming situation that such magnates, if you like to call them that, should be permitted to operate freely in the purchase of land and in speculation in any quantity of land. They do this merely for the purpose of investing their money which they believe would, in liquid form, be in jeopardy. They feel that there is some grave risk in holding it in liquid form, and that the best medium of security is to have it invested in land.
I do not think that is in the best interests of agriculture in the long run. Those people are permitted to buy land, but they have no interest in carrying on a good system of husbandry. Their policy is to wreck the land and get all the crops they can out of it. They exhaust the fertility of the land and then, after the war, they will put it on the market and take any price it may realise. I quite understand the position. A man anxious to dispose of his property is entitled to a free market and the best price the land will command. But you will often have a situation arising where farmers' sons, anxious to get settled on a holding, and who are prospective buyers, will be out-bid by a city man who has a purely passing interest in the land and is merely concerned to get some method of securing his money during the emergency. I realise the difficulty in handling a situation like that, but it is a matter that is worthy of examination.
There is one thing that this Government and every other Government in this country ought to be jealous and conservative about, and that is the fertility of the land. The most precious thing we have in this country is the fertility of the soil, and the preservation of that fertility ought to be the first consideration of every Government. I am of the opinion that there is a steady diminution in the fertility of the soil, owing to the absence of good husbandry in many districts, and that situation is forced on people through the operation of the Compulsory Tillage Order, which cannot be avoided at the present time because of the emergency.
This, in a particular manner, applies to land under the control of the Land Commission. Land that is held by the Land Commission pending a scheme for division is set, year after year, on the 11 months' system without any regard for soil fertility and its preservation. That land is bound to suffer from exhaustion. What is the position of a man who enters on land after four or five crops of cereals have been taken from it, without any regard for the restoration of its fertility? Nature demands compensation, but the Minister and the Department never worry about that; they simply go on letting conacre and, at a later period, some unfortunate person will take over that land and he is expected to make a living on it and restore its fertility. It will take a lot of money and time to restore the fertility of land. It is a slow process. You do not restore that fertility over-night.
I think the policy of serving a notice of resumption on a man and then allowing it to hang for years is all wrong and operates against the preservation of soil fertility. You can picture the position of a man who is notified that his land is going to be resumed. His immediate reaction will be: "I am going to lose this farm and I do not give a damn about its fertility. I will take everything I can out of it while the going is good." He is going to draw on the fertility of the soil, soil that rightly is not his. He is not entitled to draw on and exhaust the fertility of the land because he has only a passing interest in it. It really belongs to posterity. He is encouraged by the operation of the resumption order to draw all he can out of the land while it is in his possession. We are bringing land more and more into a semi-barren state by the operation of an order of that sort.
These are matters that vitally concern the future of the country, because agricultural prosperity depends on the raw material for agriculture, and that is the soil. How are the Minister and the officials of his Department doing their jobs? They set land for indefinite periods on the conacre system without any regard for the preservation of the fertility of the soil. In other cases they notify a man of their intention to resume his holding.
The Deputy has repeatedly stressed that certain lands are set by the Land Commission year after year without any regard for their fertility, or the effect of such setting upon them. What particular lands has the Deputy in mind?
Estates in North Kildare.
Will the Deputy give me the names of those estates?
I will give the names of the estates to the Minister later—I noticed them advertised for the past two or three years—and I can also give to the Minister the names of men who got resumption notices many years ago and the farms are still in their possession. I may say that the land has been racked and torn for years and I am satisfied that the fertility of that land to-day is infinitely less than it was ten years ago. Can the Minister claim that that is in the national interest? Can he claim that that policy is in the interest of the preservation of fertility? I suggest it is a very important consideration and, where resumption is intended, the moment notice is served the Land Commission ought to resume immediately. The land ought to be taken over and no opportunity given to a man to take all he can out of that land, the possession of which he will soon lose. It is only human nature for a man to take everything he can out of land in such circumstances. I do not blame the man at all; it is the system that is wrong and it is the unfortunate person who will take over that land and try to make good and rear a family who is going to be the victim.
On the question of collective or co-operative farming, as I told the House already, a good deal of attention is being paid to that matter in England now, and a fair amount of ground work is being carried on. They are really planning for the future. As regards the man with 60 or even 100 acres, they say there is no hope for him as an isolated unit in a post-war period. I feel that some planning must be done here in order to bring about co-operative methods which will ensure a higher degree of efficiency and output on small farms. Something along those lines must be done if the small farmers are to exist in the difficult post-war period. We have an opportunity now of carrying out some experiments that may be of great assistance later when we are planning a post-war programme.
I rise merely to make a further appeal to the Minister on a matter on which he has already been appealed to in various ways. I refer to the recent division of certain lands at Emly in County Tipperary. I think this is the first time during my long membership of the House that I have found it necessary to refer to the division of a farm or estate in my constituency. I desire to add my voice to what has been said by other Deputies for that constituency. They have already spoken on the matter, and they have interviewed the Minister. With some other Deputies from the county I visited this parish, and we were supplied with the fullest possible information.
The Minister, I am informed, was also supplied with information which should have been sufficient to show him and the Land Commission that a grave injustice has been done. I do not know on whom the responsibility for that injustice rests. I do not know who was responsible for the particular division, but I do know that in the opinion of all the people of that parish, and of a very wide area outside the parish, including the parish priest and other priests, and in the opinion of the Deputies for the constituency, it was a grave scandal. One can understand a Minister's sense of loyalty to those for whom he is responsible in this House. One can readily understand that it is impossible to expect that all people will be pleased about any particular division, but when it is established, as I believe it has been very definitely established in this case, that a grave injustice was done, I think it is the Minister's duty and the Land Commission's duty to take whatever steps are necessary to set the position right.
I do not want to occupy the time of the House in labouring this matter. As I say, it has been fully presented to the Minister, but I do say that neither the Minister nor the Land Commission, so far as I know, has given a satisfactory explanation as yet as to why they went outside a parish where already there were more suitable and genuine applicants for land than could be supplied with land that was ready for division in that particular parish. The Minister was furnished with names and addresses and was given the fullest possible detail. The Minister, I understand, from what I have heard of certain interviews which he accorded to people interested in this matter, and from replies given to Parliamentary questions, states that he is perfectly satisfied that everything that was done in the Emly division was done as he would wish it to be done, that he is satisfied that the whole matter was carried out in a proper, efficient and just manner. If that represents the Minister's mind, I can come to only one conclusion, that is, that he has not opened his ears to what has been stated about the position in Emly and that he has not read the memoranda submitted to him by the local clergy and others concerned. I am convinced that, if he had given the matter the attention it should have received, he would immediately see the necessity for setting it right. I hope even now, at the 11th hour, if I may so put it, this matter will be attended to.
There is just one other question. It may be looked upon as a minor matter, but I look upon it as a rather important one. I notice that on estates that have been divided, the bank fences that are usually erected by the Land Commission do not last very long. One notices that banks that have been erected on estates that have been divided within the last two, three or four years, are crumbling away, that the division that was originally put up between different allottees on a particular estate no longer exists. I do not know whether that is due to faulty building in the first instance or whether it is due to laxity on the part of the allottees. I do not know what the explanation is, but I think it will be admitted by Deputies from all sides of the House who have eyes to see that that is the case. It seems to denote laxity on the part of the Land Commission, either in the original building or in not insisting that they are properly maintained. I agree that the responsibility of the Land Commission should cease once they are erected and that the least that might be expected of people who have got parcels of land on an estate is that they would maintain the banks.
Finally, I would appeal to the Minister that he would, even now, do something to rectify the very grave injustice inflicted upon the parishioners in the parish of Emly, County Tipperary.
I would also like to refer to the practice of the Land Commission of holding up land which is due, no doubt, to the fact that they may have calculated that the war would not last as long as it has lasted or as long as it may last. It is becoming rather unfortunate. There are quite a few farms in County Meath that the Land Commission did not succeed in dividing. There are some farms on which fine houses were built, possibly for migratory purposes, and they did not succeed in getting tenants. The result will be, if the war continues, that these lands, being set for tillage purposes, will become exhausted in time and there will possibly be great difficulty in getting tenants to take over these places. Where the houses were built it has been the practice generally of the Land Commission to set the land immediately surrounding the house for tillage, with the result that an incoming tenant will find the greatest difficulty in laying it down. He will have to keep cows and fowl. I think that in future they should desist from tilling the land immediately surrounding the building. Already numerous applicants have refused farms on that account.
Another thing that has occurred is that many of these houses were extremely badly placed, in hollows, without any means of drainage, and during the winter months the land surrounding the house is a quagmire and not accessible for three or four months of the year. That is a fault in lay-out. When it comes to a question of an economic holding, I think the lay-out to a large extent determines whether it is economic or not. It has a great bearing on whether a farm will be profitable or not. If a farm is well laid out, it is likely to be profitable, and if badly laid out it is certain that it will not be profitable. The Land Commission have many faults in that respect. Many of the farms that have been laid out in Meath for the last 20 years are almost all uneconomic and impossible to work because of the lay-out. The very buildings there were erected for the purposes of a live-stock business. These tenants now have no place to store corn, although many of the sheds are fine sheds, and if measures had been taken in time they would be quite suitable for the storage of corn. So that farmers in these places have been presented with a very big difficulty.
I think that some effort should be made to select a certain number of these Land Commission tenants and have agreements come to between them and the Land Commission and the Department of Agriculture to keep audited accounts. In that way we could see where one farmer was getting on, and the reason for it, and where another was not getting on, and the reason for it. I have heard such accounts read out in connection with the migratory schemes, but if they were not purely imaginary there was very little reality about them as they were only concerned with one type of farm. I think it would be a very good thing at this time if in connection with a certain number of farms of all descriptions audited accounts were presented so that we could know how things are run. In Meath we have a variety of farms. In Rathcarne, for instance, you have farms of 21 acres, but the garden and the location on which the house is built have to be taken into account, which leaves an extremely small patch of land, but they appear to be carrying on reasonably well. There are, of course, farmers with 25 and 30 acres in my constituency, and some of them do not appear to be getting on quite as well as those with 21 acres. There is, therefore, a little doubt as to exactly what is occurring and what is the cause of the failure of one and the success, or being able to hold their own, in other cases. It would be interesting, indeed, to see what is taking place there.
I believe it will be necessary in the near future to make some effort towards co-operative farming. I notice that in some of our colonies in Meath there may be anything up to 30, 40 or 50 horses, ponies and donkeys, all consuming a good deal of hay and grass, and using up a good deal of land. These farms were worked successfully in former times, and even in the period when they were worked for tillage there were not more than four or five horses on them. That is a thing that could be conveniently examined. I believe that half the number of these horses would be quite sufficient, or indeed a quarter of the number, if there were some method of co-operation. The same applies to machinery. I think the Department of Agriculture and the Land Commission will have to make a decided effort to see that some co-operative method is adopted for the purpose of harvesting the huge amount of tillage that we have in most counties, at any rate in my own county. I know that both motor and horse power is short, and the greatest possible use should be made of it. That can only be done through some scheme by which you can introduce some sort of a co-operative method for the purpose of harvesting. So far as the co-operative method of farming is concerned, it was tried in many counties years ago and failed. That was sometimes due to the fact that secretaries were not efficient; sometimes they had no business knowledge. At any rate, generally, co-operation in most counties is not very acceptable to farmers because of these disasters. I know that it could be argued that they should not have occurred, but I think that if you could introduce during this period some form of co-operation for the saving of the crops it would go a long way to reassure farmers and prepare them for a general scheme of co-operation eventually. If prices fall, as people say they will fall, it is up to the Land Commission and the Department of Agriculture to see that some effort is made to reduce the costs of harvesting.
There is another point I should like to put forward for the Minister's serious consideration. Deputy Morrissey referred to it, and I take it that many other Deputies referred to it. What I have in mind is the appearance of a great number of the fences on Land Commission holdings. They certainly present a most dilapidated appearance. Now, most of that dilapidation is due to the fact that no effort was made by the inspectors, when the land was divided, to have any agreement between the two tenants concerned as to which portion of the fence they were to take. What happened was that immediately after they got the land they had a dispute about a tree, and there was no possible hope of these two men, after disputing about the tree, coming to an agreement as to which portion of the fence belonged to each and should be maintained by each. The obvious result is that the fences have been left in a bad condition for years, with cattle trespassing in and out through them, and possibly with the owners going to court and spending money without any hope of agreement. They have come to me on many occasions and asked me to settle their disputes. I always asked them whether there was any copy of an agreement given to them by the Land Commission and the answer they always gave me was, no. Of course there was a map, but that would be no use. The same applies to laneways and pathways, and it is a thing that has led to enmities and bad blood. I believe that if there was any sort of copy of an agreement made by the Land Commission in the hands of these people, these things could be settled very easily, but I do not think such agreements exist, at any rate in any of the cases I have come across. I do not know whether it is the fault of the Land Commission or of the legal advisers of the Land Commission, but I think it would be a good thing to have copies of agreements in such cases given to the tenants, and then, if any dispute arises, it is easy to settle it without going to court. A number of these cases will come up and it is a calamity that these fences should be allowed to get into such a state of disrepair and dilapidation because there is no agreement. I know of cases where one man has tilled the land on his side of the fence and the other man has had nothing but cattle on the other side of the fence. Some effort should be made to see that when the land is divided the two tenants should come to an agreement as to which portion of the fence they should maintain, because that would end all these disputes.
As far as the co-operative method is concerned, I myself do not see that there is very much hope of bringing it about unless you can begin with some system of co-operation which will encourage the farmers, especially the small farmers and these migrant farmers who have come into the County Meath. If we do not take an opportunity now, and if prices fall, I do not think there will be much hope of these people being able to hold on because the amount of land that is consumed by a couple of horses and a pony, especially on a 21-acre or 25-acre farm, is so much that they cannot make the place economic. These people keep horses and carts in the hope that they will get outside work from the county council, as there is a good deal of work at the present time in connection with bogs and so on, but later on, when the pressure comes, they will find that the amount of live stock and the forage necessary to keep them will become unbearable. One of the Deputies, from the County Kildare, I think, referred to the expenditure on the improvement of estates. It is a pity that the expenditure under that sub-head should be reduced. I do not know how far the Vote for the Department of Agriculture —under the heading of land reclamation schemes—would come in there, but the two Votes would seem to be making provision for the same kind of work. I do not see why there should not be co-operation between the two Departments and have the two schemes carried out under the one heading. It is certainly desirable that a little more money should be spent on that class of work. The two schemes are, I think, related, and if a little more money were to be spent by one Department or the other it would be of the utmost possible advantage. I have had a great number of applications from people who at one time were not ready to come in under those schemes. They seem to prefer the scheme administered by the Land Commission, for one thing because the applicant has more control over the work done.
We occasionally get migrants from one part of County Meath to another part of it when there is an exchange of holdings. We find that the opportunities and advantages that they get are much less than the advantages and opportunities given to migrants from other counties. The result is to create bad blood. I know it is not meant that way, but that is almost certain to be the result. My advice is to give all a fair chance and let the best horse jump the ditch. There was, of course, the Rathcarne case which was unavoidable. Those men were not farmers but fisher-folk with no knowledge of farming, good or bad, and, of course, they had to get some assistance. In my opinion they took advantage of the assistance that was given to them, and did well. The only good farming that I saw was that carried out there by migrants who belonged to Meath, although they were not given the same advantages as the other people and suffered, in a slight degree, because of that. So as to give fair play to all and, thereby, not encourage bad blood, I think all these migrants should be treated alike.
I join with Deputy Corry in deploring the go slow policy of the Land Commission in the division of land which, after all, is the main function of the Department under the control of the Minister. Even though we are living in an emergency period that, I suggest, in no way warrants this go slow policy. In fact, one may say that the Department has almost come to a dead stop in the division of land. That, I think, is pretty well reflected in the Estimate before us. The constituency that I represent may, I think, be regarded as the Cinderella amongst the counties so far as the division of land is concerned. At one time there did appear to be some prospect that the division of estates there would go ahead, but lands that were on the point of division are still, I regret to say, in the position of Mahomet's coffin. Since the Department has not announced that it proposes to abandon the division of land altogether, it ought, I suggest, give some evidence of activity and show that it is still alive.
I have in mind several estates in the County Limerick that should be divided up. There is one notable one which was the subject of agitation for many years. After a good deal of activity on the part of the Land Commission, it did succeed in securing it for division. But, as soon as the opposition offered by the owner was overcome, the Land Commission itself put an obstacle in its own way. For a long time, to spite the many deserving applicants in the locality, the owner had held on to these lands. He got a further lease of life on the specious pretext that he could not remove his stock. I think the only stock on the land was snipe. For some reason or another no progress whatever is being made in the division of land in the County Limerick. I suggest that it is the most useful work the Department could be engaged on at the present time, far more useful, I should say, than some of the activities to which the Department's inspectors and officials have been diverted. Nothing could be more useful than the division of these big estates and the planting of our people on reasonably sized holdings. That, to my mind, is the true way to prevent the regrettable emigration that is taking place all over the country at the moment. It is work, too, that would be productive of the very best results. I would appeal to the Minister to accelerate the division of lands already in hands. Otherwise, the machinery of the Department will get completely crocked up from rust.
I desire to associate myself with what other Deputies have said about the division of the estate near Emly, in the County Tipperary. It is not necessary for me to go into details of that case because they have already been given to the House. I have had the advantage of being on the spot and of learning for myself what the true position there is. I listened to, and afterwards read carefully, the voluminous replies which the Minister gave to the questions that were addressed to him by the Tipperary Deputies. The Minister appeared to be so confident of himself that right was on his side that he had nothing to withdraw or regret, but the people in the Emly district feel that right is on their side, and that they have an unanswerable case. They want to know why they should not get more land when land is being divided in that parish, and why the Minister should select that estate for dumping in there, to the almost complete exclusion of the locals, an excessive number of migrants. They put forward the names of suitable applicants, with their qualifications—uneconomic holders, landless men, Old I.R.A. men and others. They asked, through a big meeting that was attended by T.D.s of every colour, that a deputation be received by the Minister. The inspectors and officials of the Land Commission certainly try to do their best. I yield to no one in my admiration for them, but then no one is infallible. Whether or not a mistake has been made in that case, I think that the action taken subsequent to the division of land was even more deplorable than its actual division.
I have been informed that the Minister has refused to receive a deputation on this matter. If that is not the case, the Minister will have an opportunity of saying so. I heard it publicly proclaimed from the platform in Emly that not only had the Minister refused to receive a deputation, but that he subsequently attempted to decide on the sort of deputation he would receive; that it would be a selective deputation, and that he would receive the parish priest but not the curate. If that is so, it is a very serious position. The Minister will have an opportunity of saying whether it is so or not. The division of this estate has had many reactions not only in Emly but in my constituency where a number of workers have been deprived of benefit at the labour exchange for refusing to work on the rebuilding of fences which had been torn down. What occurred must seem to the Department to be a cure for epilepsy, since one man, suffering from the disease, who would not be given work by the Land Commission in the first instance, was, in the following week, when the row started, called upon to go to work, his epilepsy notwithstanding; on refusing to go, he was struck off by the labour exchange. One may suppose that, following that, there will shortly be a deputation of epileptics going there.
I want to say to the Minister that, if the statement that he attempted to select the type of deputation he would receive to discuss the matter with him be true, his action is indefensible. The people of Emly ought at least to get the opportunity of presenting their case to him. If he feels that his attitude on the matter is right, then he ought to have no hesitation in meeting the deputation. But he surely ought not attempt to select the deputation himself or try to divide the parish priest and the curate. Suppose this matter had to be decided at Westminster, I do not think the people there would attempt to do anything like that. In the interests of peace and harmony among the people the Minister should receive the deputation. The division of this estate has given rise to a lot of unrest and disquiet in the hitherto peaceful district of Emly.
I make no apology for butting in and asking the Minister to reconsider his attitude in the matter and meet the deputation and listen to their arguments. He can then put up his arguments to them and, if he can convince the House, he ought to be able to convince these people as to whether a mistake has been made or not. If a mistake has been made, nobody ought to be too big to admit it. If he can prove to the satisfaction of the deputation that no mistake has been made, that the proper people have been put on this land, then there is something to be said for it. The case of the Land Commission does not appear to be too strong in that respect, because, having brought in a number of migrants on this estate, they proceeded with undue haste to divide the other estate beside it and were not able to give title to the in-coming tenants. They gave them some kind of occupying lease until they could finish the job of getting the title completed. There seems to be something peculiar about this division of land. The people of the district have made a case which ought to be heard by the Minister from a deputation of their own selection. They should be let present their case so as to try to get over the present unfortunate position which has created such unrest and restore the old harmonious relations which have been a feature of that side of the country for many years.
Mr. Brennan
From the discussion here this evening, one thing is quite evident, and that is that no Deputy seems to be satisfied—I think the Minister himself is not satisfied, and I am sure the country is not satisfied— as to what is really an economic unit in the division of land. We have had a great many complaints—I have made complaints myself which I repeat today—about supposed farms of land of between 18 and 20 statute acres being given to people as an economic unit. Immediately these people are installed on the land they are looking for work on the roads or with their neighbours. That is happening all over the country where the land is of mediocre quality. Deputy Hughes suggested, and it was evident from what Deputy O'Reilly said that he was on the same track, that the present period of inactivity in the Land Commission ought to be used to take stock of the present position. What steps the Minister would take in that matter I do not know, but there are in this country men of very wide experience, some of whom have been connected with the Land Commission in the past, and some of whom are at present connected with it, who would be able to give the Minister information as to the success or failure of the Land Commission's efforts in that matter. Deputy O'Reilly drew the attention of the Minister to the fact that some of these people made good and some of them did not make good. Of course, you will always have the thrifty and the unthrifty.
Notwithstanding that, I think, if we are to have further land division in any kind of post-war period, we ought to have first-hand information as to how far our efforts have been successful in the past. It is evident in very many parts of the country that people living on farms are not able to get on for some reason or another. It is not the case that they are always unthrifty. There are other reasons for it. Perhaps the farms are not sufficiently large. You will find that land of medium quality may be doled out in smaller portions than land of prime quality. I know land of prime quality in Roscommon that is not responsive to tillage and will not give a decent tillage crop. It will, however, feed live stock. In that case you must have a little more land in order to make a living out of it. I think that some kind of inquiry should be made by the Minister. He has plenty of people to draw upon who will give him a picture of what is happening and what success has attended the efforts of the Land Commission in the past.
Many compliments have been paid by Deputies to the officials of the Land Commission for the manner in which they meet Deputies and other people who make representations to them. I endorse these compliments. I think these officials have gone very much out of their way to meet everybody. But I should like to draw the Minister's attention to one matter. He has referred to it himself, but he has apparently missed the point. In his statement he mentioned that land annuities were in arrears because of foot-and-mouth disease. It is a great pity the Minister or the Department did not take cognisance of that when they should have done so. I met people in the town of Roscommon who came in to pay annuities who had not sold a beast or could not offer a beast for sale from the month of February until the following November because there were no fairs. They would not have the price of a bag of flour if they had to buy it out of the sale of stock. They had not the money to pay the annuities. Instead of the Land Commission taking cognisance of that, they sent down these people's accounts to the sheriff, with the result that these people had to pay costs as well as the amount due. That is a situation which should never have been allowed to arise. Everybody was aware that the farmers were held up for cash at that time. I have met people who were very angry that they should have been treated in that way, people who were never a day late in the payment of their annuities before. They were held up because they had no money, but, nevertheless, the Land Commission put this additional cost on them.
I should also like to draw the Minister's attention to a matter concerning estates which have been purchased by the Land Commission which included low-lying and bog lands. Formerly the tenants of these lands had drains made for them periodically by the landlords. When the Land Commission took over these estates I am informed that they retained a certain amount of money from the landlord to meet certain emergencies. They neglected, however, to make any drains for the tenants. Much of the land and of the turbary which was originally kept in good condition by the landlord has been neglected by the Land Commission and has got into a very sad condition indeed. The occupiers have been endeavouring to get the county council and those in charge of the turf scheme to drain the lands for them. There is very great difficulty in doing that. As I say, I understand that in many cases the Land Commission have held back certain moneys which, to my mind, ought to be devoted to that purpose. The way in which some of these people were treated is a crying scandal. They were accustomed to having drains made for them. It was a very expensive thing to do. Now the land and the turf banks have become waterlogged.
Deputy Corry and Deputy Hughes referred to the question of derelict farms. It is always a puzzle to me how these farms are left derelict. I do not know of any such derelict farms in my county on which rates and annuities have not been paid. If they exist anywhere there must be somebody at fault besides the Land Commission. I think it is possible for the county council to collect rates on any farm-Surely there must be somebody using these farms. I do not understand how they can be left derelict. Neither did I understand Deputy Corry when he complained that the Land Commission is eating up the fertility of these farms by tillage operations at present, so that by the time they are finished the farms will be no good to the incoming tenants. Deputy Corry's complaint appeared to be that the Land Commission had not divided these lands some years ago. Even if they had divided them, the John Browns and the Jim Greens who got the land would have to do the same quota of tillage as the Land Commission, and they would have to do it without any manures. Therefore I do not think there is very much in that complaint. If Deputy Corry thinks there would be a fortune in tillage for the John Browns and the Jim Greens, surely there ought to be a fortune in it also for the Land Commission. If the Land Commission is at present taking the fertility out of the soil, so would the John Browns and the Jim Greens if they were tilling it. We are all doing it, and have to do it.
There is another very small matter to which I would like to direct the Minister's attention. The Land Commission have effected divisions of land in various places all over the country. They have allotted farms to people, some of them landless men, and have allotted a certain amount of money for the building of houses. The sum of money allotted would not be accepted by any contractor for the building of a house and out-offices, but the Land Commission has sat tight and said: "We will not advance any more money." There the lands are, and there the man is still waiting for his house, and he has neither one nor the other. There does not appear to be any sense in the Land Commission rigidly adhering to that fixed sum of £260 or £280, I think, to build a house, when the cost of materials has gone up. Mind you, it is not that the materials cannot be got, because a complaint has been made to me by people who could get the materials but they could not get anyone to build a house and barn at the figure allotted by the Land Commission. Still the Land Commission will not budge an inch. I know one man who has wanted to get married for the last three years, but he cannot get a house built. I know another man who is married and living in his father's house, because the Land Commission will not advance another £20 or so to build his own house. I think that is a state of affairs which ought not to exist, and I should like if the Minister would look into it. The number of cases is not very considerable, but a very great injustice is being inflicted in those cases. I am sure if the Minister would look into the matter he would find that there is not any great expenditure involved. I hope he will look into it.
On previous occasions I have referred here to the question of derelict holdings. I am sorry to say that very little has been done to remedy that evil. The last speaker could not understand why those derelict holdings are not contributing their share to rates and annuities. I can assure him that in part of my constituency they are not doing so. We have large tracts of land, 300 or 400-acre farms, derelict. They are an eyesore in the countryside. The fences are going into disrepair and the fact is that they are a source of hardship and worry to the adjoining landowners. They are a complete loss to the local authorities. No rates are being paid and no annuities are being paid. In fact, in some cases where the fences have fallen into disrepair and seizures have taken place, the adjoining landowners have suffered considerably as a result. In recent times, since the operation of the Compulsory Tillage Order, the Department of Agriculture has entered on some of those holdings and tilled the quota of arable land, a small percentage in most cases. I do not see why something could not be done by the Land Commission to have the remainder of those holdings taken over and let for grazing purposes, or for some purpose at any rate. In that way, the rates and annuities would at least be met, and the hardship and danger to adjoining landowners would be removed. I am sure that at least in the districts I have in mind such a scheme would be feasible, and the owners of those derelict holdings would be only too pleased with it.
Reference has been made here by previous speakers to the dispute over the recent division of the Emly lands. Land division is a matter that rarely gives 100 per cent. satisfaction. I have scarcely ever heard of a scheme with which somebody was not dissatisfied. This Emly case, however, is different. In most cases, you have one or two individuals dissatisfied and disgruntled —I suppose that is only natural—but in the Emly case there were protests from the whole parish. Priests and people, professional men, and people of all shades of political and religious beliefs, united in protest. I do not want to go into the pros and cons of the matter; enough has already been said. Neither do I want to set myself up as judge and jury in the case, but I think it is one which calls for the closest investigation. I hope the Minister will not adopt the attitude that the officials of his Department should be immune from criticism, or that they are infallible. As I said, in this case the whole parish united in protest. A complete deadlock has been created, and work has been suspended. I think that is a very serious matter at the moment. I feel that if there is one thing which the officials of any Government Department should try to avoid it is the creation of agrarian trouble in any locality. I think the officials of the Land Commission particularly should go all out to avoid any trouble of that kind, because it means that the lands are not worked, and a very awkward situation is created for the people immediately concerned. In this case, the people who were being allotted the land were led to believe that there was no opposition. Perhaps I should not say they were led to believe that, but they had heard of no opposition to their coming in to the Emly lands.
In one particular case, the allottee who was being given lands in Emly in exchange for his old holding, on hearing of the local protests went immediately to the Land Commission officials and told them that he would not go in under those conditions; that he would not take the lands unless he had the consent of the people of Emly. The Land Commission officials told him that he had already surrendered his home place, and that he could go in and work the Emly holding if he wished. The result was that when he came home he found the employees of the Land Commission already at work building fences on his home holding. If the case had been as above board as they claimed it to be, what was the need for this rush? In all other cases where I have heard of lands being exchanged, the new holding was prepared and the new home was built and ready to be occupied before the old place was touched. In this particular case, before one stone was put upon another in the new home, the old place was being taken over and fenced for division. The rush seems to indicate that there was some difficulty there and that the intention of the Land Commission officials was that this scheme should go through. It was, so far as I could see, a case of besting.
There is no use in discussing this at length. I think enough has been said already, but I should like to join my voice to what has been said by other Deputies. They appealed to the Minister to have this matter personally investigated, investigated as closely as possible, because undoubtedly a deadlock has been created. It will serve no useful purpose to adopt a strong attitude, to adopt the attitude that the scheme must go through without any explanation and regardless of the opinions of the body of the people. I think it is a mistake for the Minister or anybody to claim that the officials of the Land Commission are beyond reproach. We have found in a great many cases—it happened in my county —that schemes were prepared, lands were allotted and in a very short time, in fact inside a week or two, we saw those lands being advertised for letting. That should not be the policy of the Land Commission and the inspectors responsible for that should be brought to book.
That has happened in many instances. I might mention the Ireland estate in the northern end of the county. This estate was the subject of agitation for a number of years, and finally it came to the stage that everything was put right. The land came into the possession of the Land Commission and a scheme was prepared. After a considerable time, and I dare say much expense, we found that when it came to putting the scheme into operation, two or three people who were being given exchanges changed their minds at the last moment. A couple of allotments were made out, but two or three people to whom it was proposed to give exchanges altered their minds. The result was that that end of the scheme had to be scrapped, and over 100 acres of the estate are left in the hands of the Land Commission this year. That is very unfair to the local people. I have a fairly intimate knowledge of the locality, and, so far as my opinion goes, there are suitable applicants in the immediate vicinity. How is it their claims have not been considered? I think the inspectors who prepared that scheme should be held responsible. It is very unfair to the people who were applicants, who, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, were suitable applicants.
I think the administration in connection with that estate calls for careful investigation. It would be a grave mistake for the Minister or anybody to defend every action of the Land Commission officials. Anybody who has taken an interest in land division cannot truthfully say that any scheme has been 100 per cent. satisfactory. You will always have somebody dissatisfied. I believe that unless there is a genuine grievance, unless there is something seriously wrong in a scheme, you will not have a general outcry or such a unanimous protest as we have had in the Emly case. I hope the Minister will be in a position to tell us that there is a prospect of some way out of the present deadlock, and I hope something also will be done in connection with the Ireland estate, which has been the subject of so much agitation over the last few years. I trust that the scheme on that estate will soon be satisfactorily completed and the land made available for allotment.
I want to join with other Deputies in encouraging the Minister and the Land Commission to speed up the division of estates that have been acquired, so far as I am aware, a considerable time ago. I know of at least six cases in my constituency where I was left under the impression that the land would be divided this spring. If the land had been divided and handed to suitable applicants in the early part of the year a greater area would be put under wheat and other crops and in that way it would help to make up the food quota required by our people in this critical year. I hope that as regards the lands I have in mind there will be no doubt about their division before the end of this year. I should like the Minister and the Land Commission to inquire into cases in Leix and Offaly where lands have already been acquired, to ascertain why those lands have not been divided and to do all they can to have them divided before the end of the year.
I should like to mention also the undesirability of bringing migrants into districts where a small area of land is being divided and where there is a large number of uneconomic holders, cottage tenants and landless men. If my advice is worth anything, I would discourage the Minister and the Land Commission bringing people from outside districts in cases where there is only a small area of land to be divided and where there is a large number of suitable local applicants. I know of cases where that has been done and there has been a considerable amount of jealousy and trouble. I can quite understand that policy, and even subscribe to it, in the division of estates where there is a large amount of land involved and where there is not the necessary number of suitable persons living in the vicinity.
I was questioned about a case of this kind on Sunday last when I met the parish priest in a portion of my constituency. He asked me if it was true that the Land Commission were proposing to give people from outside holdings on a farm of less than 200 acres. In this particular area I have not interfered directly in the matter of land division. I did raise the question of the delay in acquiring the land, because this particular farm has been the subject of discussion for the last 15 years. I admit that it is a farm that has caused a considerable amount of trouble. The owner of the land took advantage of every Land Act he possibly could use in order to hold up the commissioners from acquiring the property, but finally they acquired it and now that land is about to be divided. I thought it would be divided in the spring of this year. The parish priest has been led to believe that people are likely to be brought in from outside. That is a ridiculous thing to do in the case of a farm of less than 200 acres, where you have a nest of uneconomic holders, landless men and cottage tenants.
I advise the Minister in cases of that sort not to adopt that policy. I know of cases in my constituency where people were brought from outside areas and there was no trouble caused by the local people, simply because there was a sufficiently large area to be divided, and all suitable applicants in the locality were provided for before the outsiders were brought in. I know also of cases similar to those mentioned by Deputy Brennan, where land was given to deserving applicants. I know also of one bad case where the individual was not given anything like the amount of money that would encourage a contractor to build a house.
There is a considerable reduction, as the Minister knows—probably to his own dissatisfaction—in the amount of money provided this year for the improvement of estates. There is a saving of £128,600 under the sub-head for the improvement of estates. I would like to see as much money as possible provided under that sub-head, because in any of the cases that I know of it has been very usefully spent.
Seeing that the Minister is still left with £350,000 for the purpose of improving estates, erecting houses, fencing lands and work of that kind, I think he should ask the commissioners to review decisions of the type mentioned by Deputy Brennan. There is a considerable increase in the cost of material. In some cases, material for erecting houses cannot be found. It is not right for the Land Commission to refuse to provide deserving applicants—and they must have been deserving since they got the land— with houses. It is not fair to leave single men who got holdings and who are able to work them without suitable housing accommodation and to put them in the awkward position of being unable to marry the girl of their choice and thus get somebody to help them to work the land better, perhaps, than they could do it themselves. I know one man who has been waiting for six years for a house and who has to travel three miles to the holding which he got from the Land Commission to do his day's work. I ask the Minister to review the limited number of cases of that kind on the files of the Land Commission and to increase the grants to such extent as will enable the contractors to build houses for the deserving applicants who got those holdings.
I do not think that there is any good reason why the Land Commission should not go ahead with the acquisition of land to a greater extent than they have been doing. I suppose the reason why the Land Commission and the Government suspended activity in connection with the purchase of land is that they had the impression that the price of land would jump up as it did in the last European war. The price has not jumped up as it did in the 1914-1918 war. If the Land Commission and the Government insist on sticking to that policy, there is no reason why they should not carry out the necessary preliminary work associated with the acquisition of land. At the end of the war, when they might be in a better position to purchase land, they could go in more quickly, acquire those lands and hand them over to those best entitled to them in the locality.
The Estimate shows a very small reduction. I suppose I am to take it that the large number of officials transferred from the Land Commission to other Departments to deal with emergency matters are still on the pay-roll of the Land Commission. The reduction is only £130,000. I take it that the net reduction is mainly accounted for by the reduction in the Vote for the improvement of estates. The reduction in respect of salaries, travelling expenses and incidental expenses is only about £8,000. I take it that the large number of Land Commission officials on loan to other Departments for the period of the emergency are still on the pay-roll of the Land Commission. I hope that the Minister will deal with the question of bringing in outsiders in cases where the acreage of land to be divided is very limited and small and that he will also deal with this minor matter—it is, nevertheless, a matter of great importance to the small number of individuals concerned—of providing suitable housing to enable tenants to work to better advantage the holdings with which they have been supplied by the Land Commission.
It is sometimes wise, when you are bringing pressure upon a Department and you do not succeed, to resort to the old adage, "Try, try, try again." I have been bringing pressure upon the Minister in this House for a considerable time with reference to a small townland in my constituency in which there is, in my opinion, a very real grievance. I put down two questions to the Minister with reference to that townland and I got very unsatisfactory answers. I am going to try again and I am going to threaten the Minister that, unless I succeed in the very moderate and sensible request that I am putting to him, I am going to keep hammering at him as often as you, a Chinn Comhairle, will permit me. The facts are: There is a small townland called Twanyagry on an estate called the Crotty estate in County Mayo. It is a wretched little townland. In the whole of County Mayo, I venture to say, there is not a more congested townland than Twanyagry. The land is not held in rundale; it is held in severalty. There are about ten tenants in this townland. This matter is not coming as a surprise to the Minister because I put two questions to him on the subject. The request of the tenants is extremely moderate and I cannot see why it should not be granted. They are tenants in common and they pay a joint rent of about £12 a year. Since they are tenants in common, his proportion and share of that rent will not be taken from any one tenant. The whole ten must have their 30/- or £2, or whatever their proportion of the rent is, at the same time. They must all go in to the agent together and they must all pay on the one demand note. Otherwise, the rent will not be accepted.
As I have said, the land is held in severalty and the amount of rent they pay inter se is definitely fixed. All they ask is that the tenancy in common, under which they hold from the landlord, be severed and that each be made a direct tenant to the Land Commission. That could be done by a single stroke of the pen, with the consent of these persons. Surely, there could not be a more moderate request than that. The Minister has left and so I ask the Parliamentary Secretary why the Land Commission will not comply with this request. There is no legal or physical difficulty in the way. For the past eight or ten years, these people have been putting forward that moderate request and they were told that it was being considered by another branch of the Department. Nothing eventuated. This year, they had determined to go on strike. They said they would not pay unless they got this small reform carried out. They came to me. I urged them as strongly as I could to pay this time and I practically told them that, in my opinion, there would be no difficulty in getting the Land Commission to do what could be done in five minutes by a stroke of the pen. For some reason which I cannot understand, the Land Commission will not do as they ask. I am not putting forward this request in any hostile spirit, but I do think that these people have a very genuine grievance. I do not know a more congested townland in the whole County of Mayo. It has been in the possession of the Land Commission for the last 25 years. Pending the time it will be dealt with and the congestion relieved in that townland, surely they might be made tenants direct to the Land Commission? The place is held in the name of two of them, but they are all anxious that they should pay direct. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary, or the Minister if he is replying, what is behind the refusal of the Land Commission to that very moderate request?
Passing away from that, there is one other matter which causes me a considerable amount of worry in my constituency, and that is the question of the division of bogs. Of course, in a good deal of South Mayo, especially around the Kilmaine area, south of Ballinrobe, there is a comparatively small amount of bog, and people have to travel a long distance to get to it. The bogs have been divided to a certain extent, but there is a good deal of conacre still. It seems to me that the division of bogs is always made about the month of May or sometimes even in the month of June. That is the beginning of the turf-cutting season. I would suggest to the Land Commission that, instead of sending round an engineer to divide bogs in Kilmaine at a time when what an old priest in my neighbourhood used to call "the turf fever" had seized the people, it would be much better to divide the turbary in October or November when there is no rush or hurry. If there are then any complaints about the division, things are not left to the flurry of the last minute. I am suggesting that as an administrative reform. There may be some reason, of course, why the Land Commission do leave it to the last minute. I merely make the suggestion that it would be much easier for themselves in carrying out the work if they divided these bogs in what I would call the non-turbary season.
We heard a certain amount of talk this evening about derelict farms. Deputy Corry, of course, is what one might call a rhetorician and one does not always take what a rhetorician says completely at its face value but Deputy Ryan seemed to talk as if there were derelict farms somewhere in Tipperary also. Deputy Corry was very strong in suggesting that there were derelict farms in County Cork. It seems to me absolutely impossible to understand that there should be any land lying unstocked, untilled and perfectly derelict in Ireland at the present moment. I must say that I found it desperately hard to think that Deputy Corry was quite serious in saying that. If there is land lying derelict in Cork for years unstocked, untilled and paying no rates, why on God's earth has not the Land Commission taken it up, because, no matter whether it is good or bad land, the Land Commission will have absolutely no difficulty in getting persons to take it. Let them give it to people from my constituency and I think we can guarantee that we will populate the whole of County Cork. Certainly we could easily populate any derelict farms there are in Cork or Tipperary. It is astonishing to me that there should be any derelict farms. I think it would be well if the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary would let us know where these derelict farms are because it is very hard to believe that there are any.
We have had a discussion, which we very frequently have heard before in this House, as to what is the size of an economic holding. That is a thing that it is absolutely impossible for anybody to lay down because the size of an economic holding will entirely depend upon the standard of living of the person who is occupying the holding. I do not know if anybody here is old enough to remember the beginning of the work of the Congested Districts Board which first started the enlargement of holdings. The cry then was: "The land for the people and the road for the bullocks." It was generally thought that by distributing the large grass farms in the congested counties, we would have a very large increase in the rural population and a very considerable decrease in the bullock population. The thing which, according to statistics, has really happened has been that since the commencement of the breaking up of the grass farms, the agricultural population has actually dropped and another curious thing, again according to the published statistics, is that the cattle population has actually increased. That shows how little one can prophesy what is going to happen from any reform. If you come to examine it, you will find that what really happened was that the number of houses was not increased. There were 20 houses, let us say, in a congested village and a large grazing farm beside it also with a residence. The grazing tenant was moved away and the 20 people got the grazing farm. There were then 20 houses instead of the 21 that had been there before, and in consequence there was not any greater number of persons living in the place. What did happen, and where the reform actually worked out as a tremendous benefit to the country, was that the standard of living of the persons who got enlargement to their holdings, was completely raised, but you have not got more people living in the congested areas on the land than you had before the land was broken up. You have actually a smaller number, but you have them living in a degree of comfort and on a standard of living which was undreamt of before the work of breaking up the grass farms was embarked upon. Therefore, when I hear these statements that you can increase the rural population of this country, I personally must say that I cannot see how it can be done unless you lower again the standard of living and make the holdings smaller.
It seems to me—at any rate, in my constituency—that living in the standard of comfort which there obtains, a £10 valuation is an economic holding and that men can make their living upon it. I sincerely would like very much to see no man in the County Mayo with a holding under £10 valuation, but there is not enough land there. It would take almost another county to bring about that reform. Deputies who talk about 20 acres not being an economic holding are perfectly unaware that more than half—I have not got statistics, but I believe that would be right—or certainly a third of the holdings in Mayo would be under the £10 valuation. Some of them would be right down to £2 and £3 and, in places where the land has been broken up and the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board has dealt with the holdings, they have had to leave holdings of £2, £3 and £4 valuation, and in those cases they did not make a living out of it. They went as migratory labourers to England, as there was no accommodation at home. I wish that everybody in the county had a farm of £10 valuation, but to say that no holding should be given out in any part of the country under a £20 valuation is, to anyone who knows the West of Ireland, absurd.
I do not venture to say what a man can make a living on in the midland counties, as I do not know how much a man needs, or if he would have the same industry as people on the West of Ireland seaboard. A very prominent ex-official of the Land Commission, who was responsible for the breaking up and redistribution of a great deal of land, told me some time ago that he was delighted by the way the Mayo and Galway people work their lands and the magnificent job they had made out of their new buildings, how they had improved them and worked them and how prosperous they had got. It was a delight to him to see how they had taken advantage of the land given to them. He said there were other parts of the country where land had been given out and he had seen it in a very much worse condition than when it was given out, and these were largely the midland counties.
I know that certain persons from my constituency have been moved up to farms in other parts of the country, some of them to an old demesne broken up in the vicinity of Naas. I know where they come from; I know a couple of the families personally; and I would give an undertaking that, if anyone comes to that townland near Naas where those people are working —I heard its name but I have forgotten it; possibly the Parliamentary Secretary knows it; the demesne was broken up about six months ago—in ten years' time, they will see that those people have made an extremely good living on the farm and that there will not be a better farmed bit of land in County Kildare than the farming which these people are doing. I think they will find that they will be extremely prosperous and that though their holdings may be under 20 acres, it will afford them a very good living indeed and they will be very well able to work them.
Though it is theory on my part, not having the actual experience, I believe that a lot of the comparative failure of small farms in the midlands is due to their having been given out to persons who had been labourers. The labourer, when he is given land, is not as well able to work it as the small farmer. Labourers for many generations have been used to receiving orders from their employers; they have not thought or acted for themselves; whereas the small farmer has to think for himself. It is always his own hay; he has to decide everything, and, therefore, when he gets land he is able to work it without thinking of what anybody else would do. The labourer, who has always been in the habit of receiving orders, on becoming his own master, does not accustom himself to the management of the farm as quickly as the person who has had experience.
For years my practice in my own county, in engaging my workmen, has been to take men who were sons of smallholders in my neighbourhood, who had been trained by their fathers to work hard. I never took anybody who had done any work for the Congested Districts Board or the Land Commission or on the roads, because there they had been trained just to do as little as would please the ganger, and they would get into that habit with me. If I took a boy on who had always worked with his father, he would work just as hard as if he were with his father. I could trust him to work without any supervision. It never was a case of "your oats" or "your potatoes"; it was always "our oats" and "our potatoes". They became part of the establishment. Applying that same principle to the breaking up of farms, I think it will be found that in the midlands the persons who have always been working for themselves, and have been trained to work for themselves, will work their new holdings much better than those who have been labourers all their lives, and who have been working just to please the master's eye and no more.
I have spoken at greater length than I intended on this discussion, but there is not very much really on the main point, as this year is one in which the Land Commission officials, some having gone to other Departments, are to a certain extent marking time. I put again the view put forward by my colleague, Deputy Brennan, that it would be a very good time for the Land Commission to see how far their work up to the present has succeeded, and in what directions it has not succeeded so well, and then work out a general principle. If there are to be different sizes of holdings in different counties, that should be worked out and known. There should be some finality to the acquisition of land. I do not mean that it all should be acquired, but there should be a general proposition laid down that no further land should be acquired. I am very much afraid that land will deteriorate. People who are afraid their land may be acquired will let it, but they will not spend any money on its improvement. In fact, they will let it go bad. The one thing that really makes for the improvement of land and causes money and labour to be put into it, is the certainty that the landowner himself will profit as a result of his labours.
I do not agree with Deputy Davin at all that the slowing down of the Land Commission in acquiring land was in any way due to a possible rise in the price of land because, I think, if Deputy Davin knew anything about the price of land, he would know that the one thing that does not matter when the Land Commission acquires land is the market value. That is the one thing that is not looked into at all. What is looked into is what can a tenant pay as an economic rent. That is the one thing which is looked into. In theory it is not. In theory I know it ought to be what it is worth to the owner and not what it is worth to the Land Commission but I think if the Parliamentary Secretary makes inquiry he will find that it works out at what it is worth to the Land Commission. That is the only test that is applied. The market value has nothing on earth to do with it.
I could say many things on behalf of the Land Commission, in praise of their activities, and at the same time I could make some adverse criticism. Land acquisition, from 1936 to 1939, was, in my opinion, rather disappointing. In the course of 1939, however, the emergency occurred and it was decided by the Government to curtail the activities of the Land Commission. Whether that was a wise decision or not, I am not capable of judging but I could express an opinion. I believe Land Commission activities should not have been curtailed to the extent that they have been. At the present time it would seem that there is going to be an almost complete deadlock in that respect.
There is a number of special cases where land acquisition proceedings have been pending, and, if not actually instituted, at least the intention was there of acquiring land for the relief of congestion in the immediate vicinity. I do not like to mention specific cases, but I feel that there is one case in point in my constituency that I should bring to the Minister's notice. About the year 1929, the Land Commission took over an estate known as the O'Neill Segrave estate, in the parish of Ballymacaward. There were five tenants just across the road from that particular estate, and the Land Commission inspector who was preparing the scheme told them that it would be more convenient for them to wait a short while until they would take over sufficient land adjoining their holdings, when they would be increased. That adjoining land is on the estate of Denis St. George Daly (Record No. S. 3736), held by the representatives of William Burke, and containing 323 acres. Of that, it was proposed to resume 61 acres for the relief of the five congested tenants. A notice appeared in Iris Oifigiuil in November, 1935, of the intention of the Land Commission to resume that portion of the holding. That was substituted by another notice on the 4th February, 1941. Although I believe a tentative scheme was prepared and lodged with the Land Commission almost 13 years ago, that land is still held up. There are five or six families living under the economic valuation limit, left in that position, who were denied land on their own estate when it was being divided. The people to whom I am referring have never earned a penny of State money. They have worked their own small holdings, and at all times have taken conacre for tillage, paying from £7 to £9 an acre, and going a distance of from seven to eight miles to that tillage.
I understand that some objection was raised to the acquisition of this land or its resumption by the Land Commission, that it is not a question of price, but that it is something in connection with the right-of-way. I believe it is a small matter. In a special case of that kind—and I am sure there is a number of others— acquisition proceedings should go on. There should be some give and take in the matter so that these people may be given a chance, especially in these times, of carrying on their work. At present their work is not as profitable to them, because they have to take land from other people, as it would be if they were working on their own holdings. I would ask the Minister to take special notice of cases like that.
As regards acquisition in general, perhaps it would not be very wise to go in for it on a large scale for the duration of the emergency. I believe it would be just as well to drop it if decisions in the Land Court were to be influenced by existing circumstances as they seem to have been recently. We are asked down the country by small tenants how it is that they are considered to have economic holdings, with a valuation of £10 and an acreage of from seven to 12, when the Land Commission Court holds that a 2,000 acre farm in the midlands is an uneconomic holding for an individual. That is one of the questions that have been asked. At the same time, I quite see that there are difficulties. Consequently, I think that, except in special cases, it might be just as well to drop the acquisition of holdings altogether.
Last year Land Commission inspectors inspected bogs all over the country with a view to carrying out improvement schemes which would enable them to be worked properly. I believe that reports have been submitted but in recent months I have not heard anything further about it. There is no indication in many instances that the improvement works are to be carried out. I think it would be very wise if the Minister and the Land Commission would see that they are carried out and to make sure that these cases are not pigeon-holed indefinitely. If there is one thing that the Land Commission has done with advantage, it is not merely the acquisition and division of land but the amount of employment that was given, in the winter months of each year, to the rural population in any area of the west of Ireland. I believe that as far as improvements on bogs are concerned the Land Commission outdoor staff, with their experience, are the most capable people to carry out such work, and while I know that it would not be possible during the turf-cutting period to go into that kind of business, in the non-cutting period, from October to March, I think it would be very well to go on with that work so that the bogs might be put in a proper state because, undoubtedly, during a period of 30 years, practically nothing has been done with regard to improvement of the bogs. Bogs were just marked out, drains were marked out, and bog roads were marked out, but nothing further was done, with the result that no turf cutting could be done and no use could be made of these bogs at all. I think that in connection with the bogs that have been taken over, and which have lain there unworked for a considerable number of years, the Land Commission should go ahead with the schemes that were prepared and submitted last year.
There is another thing in that connection which I should like to point out to the Minister. Perhaps it has been remedied already. I am referring to cases where the written consent of tenants has to be got to go ahead with work on schemes. It takes a considerable amount of time to prepare a scheme, and it seems to be a strange thing, when that scheme has been submitted to and approved by the Land Commission, and when the inspector has come along and spent a week or perhaps a fortnight going from one tenant to the other asking for their written consent, that it cannot be gone on with because some particular tenant or tenants will not consent. Now, if the Government have the right to ration our food, and take other kinds of action, in the interests of the community, I think they should have the same right to deal with individuals who hold up cases of this kind. It certainly is an unfortunate thing that, because certain individuals will not give their consent, worth-while schemes cannot be gone on with, and schemes that would be of general benefit. If that matter has not been remedied already, I am sure it would be well worth while trying to remedy it by means of an Emergency Powers Order.
Another case that I should like to bring to the Minister's attention is in connection with a bog near Ballinasloe. A number of people had been getting yearly turbary from the landlord before the Land Commission took over the bog concerned, but there were seven or eight tenants on one particular portion of the bog, which is more or less isolated. They had been cutting turf there for a number of years, and they had actually started cutting operations this year when the Land Commission inspector in charge of the scheme told them that that was part of the turbary allotment, and I believe he actually got them to sign some preliminary agreement. He came along, however, a couple of days afterwards, and told them that he could not allow them to cut any turf there as the Grand Canal Company was claiming a right to 150 yards in depth alongside the canal. Now, this part stands on its own, the bog is cut away from it on all sides, and the people believe that if they could continue to cut, the bog would be cut out in 15 years' time. The Grand Canal Company asserted their rights and demanded this privilege when the Land Commission took over the bog, but I hold that if the landlord had held on to the estate all the time, the company would not raise any objection at all and these people would be permitted to carry on till they had cut out the bog.
I think, therefore, that the Land Commission should have insisted on the rights of the tenants when the bog was being taken over. The position now, probably, is that the turf banks these people will get in substitution will be very far away from them. I should like the Minister to look into that matter and to see, if possible, that those people will be left with turbary until the bog is cut out. If these people are allowed to continue cutting, they will be able to finish it in a few years' time, and there will be no danger whatsoever to the Grand Canal Company. I believe that they would never have thought of any danger at all were it not for the fact that the Land Commission had taken over the bog.
A number of speeches were made here this evening in connection with some trouble in Tipperary in connection with the division of land. I do not like to butt in on the affairs of an outside constituency, or to mention them at all, but the very same thing might crop up in my part of County Galway, and if the Land Commission is to give way on questions of that kind it will lead to all kinds of trouble in connection with the question of migration. If Deputies, of all Parties can come along and allow themselves to be pushed by the crowd into saying that land should only be divided in the parochial way, then the sooner we forget about migration the better, and the sooner we forget about the acquisition and division of land the better also. There may be grievances, but certainly none was stated here this evening other than that they objected to the migrants. They did not say anything about local congestion or anything of that sort. If they had, there would be some reason in their arguments. Somebody also made a case as to why the Minister did not receive a deputation.
I hold that the only deputations the Minister should receive are from the elected representatives of the people who have to go before the people periodically and render an account of their stewardship. If there are to be deputations to the Minister over the division of land, you will have deputations every other day, and, despite the lack of transport facilities, the Minister will have them queueing up in Merrion Street trying to get to see him. I think that the sooner we in this House stand by the Minister and the Land Commission in matters of that kind, the better it will be. It is just as much against my own interest as that of anybody else to say what I have said, because I come from a part of County Galway where there is a lot of undivided land and a great many uneconomic holdings, but fair play is fair play.
Another matter I should like to put to the Minister, and I hope he will take note of it. It was mentioned here this evening already, by Deputy Davin, I think, and perhaps by some others. It was in connection with local congests, and the Deputy said that landless men should be given consideration also. We were informed by the Land Commission that landless men have been cut out altogether. I want to say that if that is to apply at all it should apply generally to the whole of the country. We have old I.R.A. men and sons of I.R.A men in the west of Ireland also, and I think it would be very unfair if that were to apply only to the west of Ireland. If it is a policy that has been considered and decided upon, then it should not apply to one particular part of the country more than another.
In conclusion, I wish to say that I think the Land Commission should carry on with outdoor staffs so far as is humanly possible. If they were to dispense with the men they have, and these men were to be replaced by others from some other Department, without the experience of the Land Commission men, I think it would be a very bad thing. I think that the Land Commission men should be kept on for work on bog improvements, the acquisition and division of land, and matters of that kind, because the Land Commission is the Department that is most capable of dealing with them.
I just want to make a reference to a matter which has been raised by many Deputies in this House, and that was in connection with the acquisition and division of the Ryan estate at Emly, County Tipperary. The last speaker, Deputy Beegan, made some reference to that particular matter, although he pointed out that it did not concern his own constituency and, accordingly, I think it might also be reported that it is not in my county. I live as near to the estate as practically any other Deputy, and I am probably more familiar with the Ryan lands than any other Deputy. I want to say straight out, in passing, that it has never been my policy to criticise the officials of the Land Commission when they actually divide an estate. I do not think I have ever done so in this House, or that I ever criticised them even before they had divided an estate. I think I have given them less trouble than any other Deputy. I do believe, however, that some mistake in policy has been made in regard to the division of this particular estate. I have always advocated the provision of somewhat larger holdings for incoming tenants or allottees than have usually been given to them, and held that a holding of eight or ten acres is altogether too small, and the policy of the Land Commission should be to give larger holdings.
If the settled policy of the Land Commission was in that direction, or even advanced beyond it, I would not be criticising it very much, but in the division of this particular estate the Land Commission has gone much further than what one would have expected in the provision of large holdings for particular individuals. I am not making any grievance of that. I think that if you are giving a holding you might as well give a good one as a small one because, probably, it will eventually react to the benefit of the State. If the policy of the Land Commission was such that they intended to take up this estate and divide it into three or four large divisions, to be given to migrants, well and good. There would have been no grievance in the locality if that was the settled policy of the Land Commission. But, generally, when estates are to be divided, the first intimation comes to the local people. They make a demand for the division of certain lands. The Land Commission sends an inspector down to see whether there is a necessity for the division or not. That, I think, is the general procedure, and that is what occurred in regard to the Ryan estate. It originated in this way: that there were, I think, some local demands for its division. The Land Commission adopted its usual procedure by sending an inspector or two down to inspect the estate. Finally, the Land Commission took it over from the Ryan family and proceeded to prepare a scheme for its division. Now, as I have said, I would have no objection if the policy of the Land Commission was to divide the estate into large farms and were going to put migrants into those large farms. It did not do that, but led the unfortunate local people to believe that they were going to get this land. Its official interviewed numerous people on the Tipperary side, as well as in my constituency, which is contiguous to the estate. The estate is in Tipperary and is being administered from the Land Commission office in Thurles. There were numerous applications from people on the Limerick side. They also were interviewed in the village, which is close to my own place and which is only a mile and a half or two miles from the estate. The inspectors came down and interviewed a stream of applicants. Some of them might have been bad applicants. You had applicants who might be described as belonging to different categories, such as uneconomic holders, landless men, men with political records and so on. When you are considering applicants, in the division of an estate, I believe myself that the best type of man to give land to is the uneconomic holder, and you had numbers of that type of men in that district, men with small farms who year after year have gone into the market to take other lands to provide hay and root crops for their stock.
If the policy of the Land Commission in the division of this estate was to take over the land for another purpose, well and good, but it had no right whatever, any more than any other Department of State or any other constitution outside of politics would have the right, to mislead people, and the people were misled in this case. The local uneconomic holders, the local landless men, and the local men with political records, were all led to believe that they were going to be in the rush for those lands, and nearly all of them were interviewed by Land Commission officials. If it was not the intention of the Land Commission to consider the applications of some of those people, it was a waste of public money to have the officials going to different villages, interviewing those men and making inquiries as to whether or not they would make good tenants for those lands. That is the position as it appears to me. I think there was a mistake made, and that it would be just as well for the Department to own up that it did make a mistake. I say that because I have always hesitated to criticise the Department once it had done what it thought was its duty. I do not think that I have ever in this House criticised it for the manner in which it carried out land division in my county, even in the case of estates in which I was particularly interested. I do not think that I have ever before made any reference whatever to the action of the Department as to the manner in which it has selected applicants for land, but I do think that in this case the Land Commission officials have made a mistake and that the Minister ought really not to stand over it.
As Deputies have said, there are now, and always will be in the future, differences of opinion about those in a district who get land free, as happens in these cases where the allottees get the land without any money being paid over. People will be disappointed because there is not land enough to provide land for all who put in applications. For that reason, it would not be fair to criticise the Department because it cannot please everybody, but in this particular case it proceeded on the policy of pleasing nobody.
As I have said, the officials interviewed all the applicants in Tipperary, as well as those contiguous to the estate in the County Limerick, and so far as I know, not one single one of them was considered. It is no wonder, therefore, that the local people want to know the reason why. I probably have stronger views on the direction that land division should take than any other Deputy, and I want to say that I was flabbergasted when I heard that four migrants were brought in and given large allotments of this estate. I am not saying anything against the particular migrants. I do not know any of them. They may, possibly, be the best selection that could be made, but what I am criticising is the action of the Department in having led the local people to believe, the people who, possibly, in the first instance drew the attention of the Land Commission to the desirability of acquiring those lands, that they were going to be considered for allotments on the estate when, in fact, there does not appear to have been any intention to give them any consideration whatsoever. It does not do any good in a locality to create dissension among the people. In this particular instance, I regret to say that there is very much dissatisfaction at what has occurred.
There is an upsetting of the plans of the Land Commission. That is not good for the country. Agitations of that kind are very dangerous for the country. I think any Deputy would find it very hard to lend his support to any such thing. There have been instances in my county where I have been asked to take part in such agitations. I have always consistently refused, and I hope I shall always refuse to lend my aid to any persistent attempts of that sort.
But I would say honestly and sincerely to the Minister, as one who has a full knowledge of all the facts and possibly more knowledge of these lands than any Deputy who has spoken, that a mistake has been made in the division of these particular lands and that it would not do anybody any harm if the Minister decided even now to have a further investigation made of the whole matter in order to see if some arrangement could not be come to in order to do away with the present agitation. It looks to me as if the land will be allowed to remain idle because it appears that the migrants who have been given the land have no intention of coming there; at least that is what I have heard. I have not been near the place for some time, but I heard that they are not going to take possession, so that the last state of affairs will be worse than the first. I believe that the fault lay originally with the Land Commission in leading these unfortunate people to believe that they would get land there when in fact there was no intention of giving it to them. I should like to add my appeal to the appeals made by other Deputies, principally from Tipperary, to the Minister to reinvestigate the whole matter. It is a matter from which I know I will not get any particular kudos one way or the other. It does not bother me whether I will or not. It never bothered me whether I would get praise or blame in the matter. But I feel that it is my duty, as one knowing the position with regard to this particular estate, to join in the appeal made by the Deputies from Tipperary.
There is just one other matter that has been spoken of in this debate to which I should like to refer and that is in reference to fences on these divided lands. I think I have spoken oftener on that subject than any other Deputy. For many years in the debate on this Vote I have drawn the atten- tion of the Minister to that particular matter of the fences. As Deputy O'Reilly and other Deputies said, there are always disputes between the tenants on divided estates as to the boundary fences, and it is no wonder that there should be. The sort of fence put up by the Land Commission on these lands, and indeed by the Department of Local Government in connection with labourers' cottages, is a monstrosity. Any ordinary farmer who had money to spend in building a fence would be ashamed to put up such a fence as the Land Commission and the Local Government Department put up. They are only narrow little banks which could not possibly withstand cattle for any time without being knocked down. I have always maintained that when land is being divided or cottages being built for labourers the first thing that ought to be done is to see that good fences are provided. It is impossible at present to build the huge fences which generally divide lands. Of course a bank could be provided which could be faced with stone. That perhaps would be a costly and rather difficult matter also. There is, however, an alternative and that is the building of a concrete wall. In normal times a narrow concrete wall would not cost as much as it would now, but even now it could be put up at probably the same expense as the narrow bank which the Land Commission and the Local Government Department put up as a boundary fence. It would have two advantages. In the first place, it would be permanent and, in the second place, there would not be such a wastage of land as there is at present with the banks they are building and the dykes on both sides. As I say, that is a matter which I have often raised in this House, and I am glad that other Deputies have raised it this evening. Even now I think it would be worth while for the Land Commission to consider the provision of suitable boundary fences between allotments of land in the division of estates.
I can understand the Government making an Order at the beginning of the emergency to suspend the acquisition of land, although I must say that my constituency has suffered as a result of it. It is a constituency in which, in the eastern portion at all events, there is a considerable amount of land to be divided, while in the western portion there is a great deal of congestion. Activities in regard to the acquisition of land were practically suspended there. What I object to is the Land Commission, after a period of two years, picking out one or two cases in which they had originally decided to acquire land for the relief of congestion and allowing these decisions to be reversed. These were cases which I brought to the Minister's attention by way of questions some time ago, and as to which I got no satisfaction in the replies he gave. I understand, of course, that anybody whose land is to be acquired has the right of appeal. In these two cases, one in Headford district and the other in the western part of Connemara, consents had been given. I am satisfied that the owners of them knew they had a very poor case. But, when the flaw in the 1933 Act was discovered, these were withdrawn. Why these two cases should have been picked out afterwards for the appeal tribunal I do not know.
The charge I make against the Land Commission is that they made no effort, so far as I can see, to make a case before the tribunal for the acquisition of these lands. One of them is a glaring case in which, as I pointed out when asking the question, there were 18 people with only 60 acres of land between them living on the fringe of these lands. Several statements, which have been characterised as entirely false by the local people when speaking to me about the matter subsequently, were allowed to go unchallenged by the Land Commission. One of them, for instance, was that the farm was required for the production of milk. The local people tell me that a pint of milk was never produced on these lands within living memory. That statement was not challenged when it was made. Several other statements were not challenged. Apparently, no case was made to back up the decision which the Land Commission had taken previously. On the contrary, the commissioners who heard the case congratulated the other side on the very fine case they had put up. If the commissioners who tried the case read some of the letters I got subsequently they might change their minds. The peculiar thing is that under the Land Acts it is only the owner who has the right to make a case. Therefore the people concerned in this case, who were the descendants of evicted tenants, had no right to put up their case. These decisions are given on ex-parte evidence. I charge the Land Commission with allowing the decision of the Government not to proceed with acquisition proceedings during the period of emergency to be abused. Owing to the war there has been a complete cessation of political activity. The Fianna Fáil clubs and the Fine Gael clubs and the other channels through which the views of the people found their way to the Government Departments have practically ceased to function. At all events the driving force behind the ordinary political activities is now directed into the unity movement.
I say that that situation was taken advantage of with the connivance of the Land Commission. I think that those were unfortunate decisions. In my opinion they are only putting off the evil day, and piling up trouble for some other people to deal with. I am afraid, from the discussions that have taken place about the division of land in another part of the country, that any attempt to regard the available land here as a pool from which uneconomic tenants could be supplied with new holdings or extensions will fall to the ground. From my experience of mistakes made by the Land Commission in regard to divisions of land, and their absolutely recalcitrant attitude when those mistakes were brought home to them, I do not believe that the people who want the Land Commission to change its mind about the decisions already taken in the Tipperary case will succeed. I will be very interested in the result of the Tipperary case. If those people succeeded in that case, it would be a guide to me and to others like me as to how to proceed in the future.
And it would destroy the Land Commission.
I believe it would. However, as I said, I will be very interested in the result. My experience of the Land Commission is that, where they have made a mistake, they simply sit tight and say nothing; they will not commit themselves. I have made representations on my own in a few cases, without any publicity. There were no public meetings and no deputations, and there would have been no loss of prestige to the Land Commission in the way I went about it, but it was of no avail. I realise that we are at a disadvantage in speaking about the acquisition and distribution of land here. Like Deputy Bennett, I am interested only in the acquisition of it. In the main, I think the Land Commission distributes the land fairly and well, and I do not think the Minister or the Land Commission has ever had much trouble from me on that matter. I have given them a good deal of trouble during my period here about the acquisition of land, and I consider that the results in my constituency have been very poor.
As the Minister for Lands knows, there are lands in the Clonbur district which, for the last ten years, we have been asking him to acquire, and also in Caherlistrane, Headford, Corrandulla, Oranmore and Maree districts, where there has been agitation recently. People down there are paying £7 or £8 and up to £11 for conacre, and travelling five or six miles to till it. Some people on small holdings have been paying up to £40 a year for artificial manure. In Connemara, people have been squatting on the commonage and making land of it. Surely those people should be facilitated by the Land Commission in the matter of land distribution. I do not know what the Land Commission is thinking about. In my opinion, the people have shown a great deal of patience and a great deal of obedience to the Government's wishes and the Government's orders. As I said, we are at a disadvantage in speaking on this question of acquisition here, because we have always been told that the Minister has no function in the matter—that it is entirely reserved to the Land Commission. That is a situation which you cannot get the average man down the country to understand. His view is that, where the Land Commission are remiss, or where they do not give effect to what is not merely the Fianna Fáil policy, but the national policy of putting people on the land, surely the Minister and the Government have some power to intervene and see that effect is given to the national will in the matter. I do not wish to embarrass the Minister in any way in this regard, but at all events it is much better to embarrass the Minister and the Land Commission than to have a much greater evil overlooked.
I do not think that I need any further evidence of the condemnation of the policy of the Land Commission than the statement we have just listened to from Deputy Bartley. That is the basis of the arguments that I wanted to put before the House with regard to the inactivity of the Land Commission. The land policy of the Government was one of the most important planks in their programme as originally enunciated. A good many planks in their programme have been thrown overboard, but I think the greatest failure in their programme is in regard to land policy. Like Deputy Bartley and, I think, my colleague, Deputy Corry, I must say that land division in my constituency has practically ceased. There is a number of estates on hand there, and those have been let out in conacre. I think I need not go into the disasters that were pointed out with regard to the continual letting of land in conacre by the Land Commission. I am sure the Minister will readily understand that that policy can be taken too far. For the past three or four years there has been a definite slowing down in the division of land. That has been particularly noticeable during the past 12 months. The emergency situation has been put forward as the reason for that slowing down and for the development of the conacre system. If any other reason can be advanced for the slowing down of land division, I should like to hear it, because, to my mind, that policy of putting people on the land should rather be intensified during this emergency. If the Land Commission had been alive to their responsibility, the position in the constituency which I represent would not be as it is to-day. From other parts of the House we have heard of a similar position in other constituencies. Apparently, the general position is that the Land Commission has ceased to divide land. I should like to know whether it is the settled policy of the Land Commission to continue the conacre system until the emergency has passed. In addition, I do not think there has been any great development with regard to the acquisition of land. As I travel by train up to Dublin and back, I can see hundreds of acres lying fallow on both sides of the railway line, and I often wonder what is the purpose of that unless it is to fatten cattle and sheep for export to Britain. That was not the purpose envisaged by the present Government when they enunciated their land policy in 1932, which met with general approval from the people of this country. Have they departed from that policy now, and are we to go back to grass and the conacre system as the settled policy of the Land Commission?
During this discussion there have been references to co-operative farming, and I am very glad that we have had some converts to that idea. Deputy Hughes approved very much of the idea of co-operative farming, and it was also supported from the Government Benches. Year after year on this debate, the suggestion has been made to the Minister that an experiment in that direction might be tried. There is a definite call for it now from all parts of the House. We had Deputy Hughes to-day lauding the idea of co-operative farming and suggesting that the Minister should follow the experiments undertaken in Britain as an example of what can be done in a co-operative way. We had Deputy O'Reilly on the Government Benches following along the same line. I do not know what objection can be offered to it. There used to be some kind of objection put forward from the point of view of general policy, but so far as I can judge from the expressions of opinion here, I think all Parties are agreed that it would be well worth while trying an experiment on those lines. Deputy Hickey mentioned the matter here last night, and he also referred to it on previous occasions. Now it is being taken up by Deputies in other parts of the House, and I suggest it has met with the approval of all Parties. Perhaps it is a suggestion that the Minister might adopt if he finds he cannot make progress in the matter of land division, or if there is any difficulty in the way of carrying out the original land policy.
We are told the Land Commission has been deprived of a very big portion of its staff. I think that is definitely a retrograde step. I know that in the Land Commission section in Cork there are very few officials to deal with the work and they are hampered for that reason. Why there should be such a depletion of the Land Commission staff passes my comprehension. One would think that during this emergency the activities of the Land Commission should be carried out to the fullest extent. So far as the policy of putting people on the land is concerned, it is obvious that there is still great interest in the division of land and that people are very anxious to get land. That was evident in the case that was cited from Tipperary. I would regard it as an offset to the general economic depression, and in that sense I think it could be usefully implemented by the Government.
I should like to know how many cottier tenants have been allotted holdings during the past four or five years. There appears to be an objection to giving land to cottier tenants. The very fact of being a cottier tenant is sufficient to deprive an applicant of any consideration in the matter of land division. My information is that the cottier tenants who have got land have proved to be very suitable allottees and they have made good use of their holdings. I think more consideration should be given to cottiers who are anxious to improve their position and who have given evidence of their desire to stay on the land and work it to its full extent.
Reference was made to the size of allotments. It is generally agreed, I think, that the usual allotment of 25 or 30 acres is not sufficient to make an economic unit. In that connection I have seen a very interesting paper read by Mr. Murphy, a lecturer in dairying accountancy in University College, Cork. The paper was read before the Statistical Society on the 24th April and it gives the results of Mr. Murphy's survey of 61 farms in West Cork. Those farms range in size from ten or 20 acres to 40 or 50 acres. I think I could sum up the result of the experiment by saying that the small holdings were definitely uneconomic, but when it came to the 40 or 50-acre farms there was evidence to show that there was a pretty good living to be made on those farms. The allotments made by the Land Commission do not come within the category of 40 or 50-acre farms. They are more on the lower side. If we take this survey of Mr. Murphy as evidence of what would constitute an economic holding, we can say that the Land Commission allotments are not economic. I recommend a perusal of that paper by the Minister and his officials. It covers every item of income and expenditure in connection with such a farm and the summing up is clear, concise and very definite.
There is an item in the Estimate relating to the improvement of estates, and it shows a decrease of £128,000. To my mind that is a rather startling admission of the inactivity of the Land Commission, of their desire, as it were, to close up shop altogether. Surely there was a good deal of employment given in the improvement of estates, and there was a useful return for the money expended. Why was there such a substantial decrease? The whole policy of the Land Commission seems to be to mark time until the emergency has passed. I believe that is fatal. Deputies who have had a long experience of farming have pointed out that the practice of letting conacre is not good for the land and will affect the subsequent division of estates. There should be a definite progressive policy and there should not be any slowing down in the activities of the Land Commission. There is a very noticeable slowing down, especially in our part of the country. I should like to have the Minister's views on these points.
Might I intervene in this terrible dispute over the lands at Emly? I intend to take an entirely different line from that taken by Deputies who have spoken on this matter, and I do not mind whether they are Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Deputies. The only Department that appears to be criticised by Deputies on the Government Benches is the Department of Lands, and that is because there is more interest taken in the division of land by the back benchers of the Fianna Fáil Party than there is in anything else introduced in the House. On this Estimate we get the type of speech that was made to-day by Deputy Martin Ryan, in which he warned the Minister that it would be a very dangerous thing if it got out that the officials of the Land Commission could not be criticised. That is sheer nonsense, and I am afraid that Deputy Bennett, on these benches, spoke nonsense to an equal degree when he said that inspectors went into a village and, after interviewing the applicants, they misled them into thinking that they were going to get the land. Judging by the attitude of some Tipperary Deputies, it would seem to me that the people who misled the local applicants must have been the Deputies themselves.
Nonsense; you do not know what you are talking about.
Certain Tipperary Deputies spoke here to-day, and I suggest that no Government Department can function properly, and the Land Commission certainly will not be able to function properly, if the type of argument we heard here is allowed to influence their decisions.
I have had experience of land division through the Land Commission inspectors and I found them first class. They may be completely wrong in this case, but surely the line for Deputies to pursue, no matter to what Party they belong, is not to come into the House and practically engage in threatening. That is not the way to deal with the situation. Deputy Bartley was interested to know what the Land Commission would do in this particular case because, if they gave in to this particular pressure, it would be of great interest to himself and other Deputies, who would know how to approach the Land Commission in future. It does not matter what interest any Deputy has in the question; the attitude to the whole matter is entirely wrong. I do not care what the facts or what the merits of the dispute are. If the Land Commission inspectors are wrong—and, apparently, they are wrong, judging by the statements of the Tipperary and Limerick Deputies——
And Labour Deputies.
If the situation is as bad as they represent it—and there are two sides to every story—surely the attitude should not be to warn the Minister that he must not stand up for his own officials? That is the type of argument to which I am objecting. If the Minister were to give way to that type of argument or pressure, he would not be fit to be Minister; I do not care from what side the pressure comes. My opinion is that the Land Commission would do far better work than it ever did if no Deputy was ever allowed within five miles of a Land Commission inspector.
If it comes to a scrap between professional people and officials, on the one hand, and the ordinary working people on the other hand, I know who will win.
Ninety per cent. of the trouble over the division of land is caused by the fact that 200 or 300 applicants are looking for farms on an estate on which only 17 or 18 persons can be settled, and that everyone of these 300 is left under the impression that he is one of the men who are going to get the land.
Do you know the facts at all?
The Deputy is——
The Deputy is quite entitled to express his view, as much entitled as were those who have already intervened and who now attempt to do so irregularly by interruption.
I do not care whether the inspectors were right or wrong; I object to the line of argument that the Minister must now, because of the pressure brought upon him by Deputies, reverse a decision simply because they demand it.
If the merits of the case required it, would not that be the right thing to do?
It is not right to take up the attitude: "We do not believe the Land Commission or the Minister will give in but, if they do, we will make them give in in the next case too." That type of attitude makes anybody shudder to think of what the people who used it would do if they had anything to do with land division. My heart bled for Deputy Corry, who said that, since 1927, he had been raising a particular point and that nothing had been done about it. That is terrible. For four years under the last Government and for ten years under the present Government, he has been complaining about derelict holdings in south-east Cork. Deputy Corry said last year that there was a vast amount of rates due to Cork County Council on these derelict holdings, and that they were still unpaid.
Quite true.
One would think that members of the local authority would do a little more about it than complain here. Is it not quite possible for Cork County Council to sell those holdings if a considerable amount of rates is due?
No.
If Cork County Council are owed a considerable amount of rates, which they cannot recover by seizure, they can register a judgment mortgage and get an order for sale, if that is the only means of recovering the rates. I am quite certain that, if some of those derelict holdings were put up by Cork County Council, they would sell very easily.
What about the annuities?
Time and again, the Land Commission have sold lands merely for the amount of the unpaid annuities and have given a clear title. There does not seem to be any difficulty in dealing with a matter of this kind except, perhaps, the local authority want to suggest that the fault is with the Land Commission while the Land Commission would, probably, contend that the fault was with the local authority. I was glad that Deputy Beegan made one point regarding the use of the compulsory powers vested in the Land Commission when a road is being made. It is a terrible scandal to find one man holding up an entire scheme by refusing to give his consent. I think that the best method of dealing with a situation like that is by the Land Commission utilising the compulsory powers they already have. I know of one case in my own district where a road vital to the opening up of a bog area was being dealt with. There was a particularly bad bend and one farmer refused point blank to give his consent to any interference with his property. After an age of negotiation, in which the local clergy and others were interested, this man gave his consent in return for a payment of £15. Where a man holds up a job which would be of great benefit to his neighbours, I would as soon see him fined £15 as receiving £15.
I was surprised at the complaint of Deputy Hurley regarding the cottier tenants because, in the case of two estates divided close to my area, the cottier tenants were fairly treated. I have not heard any complaints on that score. As regards the question of building, complaints have been made to me by two persons who are tired writing and talking to Land Commission inspectors in respect of an exchange holding and another holding on an estate near Banteer. The difficulty is housing accommodation. Lack of this is preventing occupation. I cannot understand why house accommodation has not been provided except it is that no local contractor would take the job. Down there a local contractor who came to the assistance of the Land Commission after the commencement of the war and finished a scheme left by another contractor in which the walls had been built but were without roofs, made a very reasonable claim for extras but he is still waiting to hear from the Land Commission as to whether he will be allowed them or not. Deputy Brennan said that one reason why houses were not being built was that the Land Commission were laying down a rigid figure at which people would not contract. I think that that is so. The figure is not at all reasonable as compared with the competitive figure for ordinary building.
Some Deputies seem to think that it would be well to use the poor law valuation as the test of an economic holding. A figure of £20 poor law valuation was mentioned. That would be a very bad system. The original valuation of land goes far back. In many places, the present value does not correspond with the original valuation. Everybody knows that some townlands are valued out of all proportion to what they should be. Possibly because they were not farmed to the best advantage, the value of these lands does not correspond with the poor law valuation. In other places, you find lands with a comparatively low valuation on which great improvements have been made by the industry of the people who own them. To say that a holding has a valuation of £20 would mean nothing at all. It would be a loose, rule-of-thumb method to fix £20 poor law valuation as the test of an economic holding.
I think that Deputy Hurley was a bit low in his estimate of Professor Murphy's figure as to what he considered an economic holding. I think in his survey he covered farms of from 10 to 150 acres. I distinctly remember last year being at a lecture given by Professor Murphy, and I do not think he suggested that a farm of from 40 to 50 acres was economic. At least he made the point that while you can get a living out of a holding of that size, you cannot get what everybody else in business or in a profession looks for, a return on the capital invested. He suggested that it would take a much larger farm to give a return of that kind. He treated the figures in this way. He capitalised the value of the farm and pointed out that if that money were invested in a business, anybody would look for a reasonable return on the capital in addition to getting a living out of it. I think he pointed out that it would take a much higher acreage than 40 or 50 to give such a return. I think the acreage was much nearer to 70 or 80. He pointed out that a farm should be at least that size if the farmer were to get any reasonable return on the capital invested.
Deputy Hurley put his finger on the cause of the whole trouble by asking if the allotments made by the Land Commission are not economic, what is the alternative? If you are going to give successful applicants 75 acres, there will not be enough land to go round. You may put a number of people into good houses and enable them to live on a certain standard of comfort on these small holdings of 25 or 30 acres, but the real trouble is that there is not enough land to go round to satisfy all the people who want it. There are more people looking for land than there is land to divide. With regard to the dispute in County Tipperary, which was mentioned, I have no interest in the merits or demerits of it, but I feel that the attitude that was taken up in this House by certain Deputies—I may have got a wrong impression of it—was that it would be wrong for the Minister to stand over the decision of his officials. As I say, I am not interested in the merits, but I think it would be an equally wrong thing if the Minister were to interfere with the decisions of his officials without grave reason. To my knowledge there is no Department which is subject to more criticism than the Land Commission, but I do not like the attitude which has been taken up by some Deputies, because if that attitude were to develop in general as Deputy Bartley indicated it would merely mean that the Minister would have to review the decisions of his officials in other cases as well. From my experience of them, I feel that the Land Commission inspectors generally act fairly and that the least interference there is with them from outside sources the better.
I should like to ask the Minister to take the House more into his confidence in connection with this Estimate and with regard to his views about the future of land division in relation to the general problem of agriculture. All of us in this House believe that derelict land should be divided, that land on which there is no employment whatever and which is merely used as a kind of paddock, should be divided amongst people who will use it properly. It is quite obvious listening to the speeches to-night that many Deputies on both sides of the House are beginning to wonder whether the machine of the Land Commission is operating to the best advantage of the country from the production point of view and whether we ought not to reconsider how we are going to carry on future land division in relation to the future of agriculture in this country.
I should like to find out from the Minister whether, for example, there have been any recent discussions on the question of what is an economic holding, whether the views of the Land Commission and the views of the Minister have, perhaps, changed in that regard because of changing world circumstances. I should like to find out on what the present figure of 25 acres is based. Is it based on the idea of doing the largest possible amount of good in very difficult circumstances, seeing that there is an insufficient amount of land to satisfy a very large number of people or is the 25-acre unit derived from the evolution of the Land Commission as a body which was set up to right an historic wrong, to satisfy the overwhelming opinion of the people that large grazing farms should be divided?
There is no question that there is nothing more democratic than the operation of the Land Commission. There is an overwhelming demand in every area for the division of land where there is not very clear evidence of large-scale employment on these lands or where there are derelict lands. I wonder, however, whether the country is aware of the general changes which have taken place in those countries with which we have to compete on the British market, whether perhaps the Land Commission is not too isolated from the point of agriculture to be efficient in operation? Is it right in present circumstances for one Government Department to concern itself purely with land settlement and to have no direct connection with another Department whose object is to increase the productivity of the land? Is it not time to consider a much greater degree of co-ordination between the two Departments? It is quite obvious from the study of statistics, that the medium-sized farm is the most economic, and is the one that produces the best results, but there is no suggestion that it would be wise to leave very large farms which would give very little employment in the hands of their present owners.
Equally, it seems to me that the Land Commission does not, perhaps, go far enough, that having created smaller units, something should be done to make the result of land division fully effective. Something of this kind was evidently in the mind of the Minister for Agriculture when he spoke some time ago at the inaugural session of the Dairy Science Society, University College, Cork. These were the words he used:
"From the point of view of the size of holdings, already not more than one-third of the farms of this country are above the economic level. There are almost 100,000 agricultural labourers in the State. They and their families depend on these larger-sized farms for a living. Suppose, for example, these farms were all sub-divided into economic holdings and that agricultural labourers were all made peasant proprietors, I am doubtful if there would be much land left over to satisfy the needs of uneconomic holders or landless men."
He went on to say, in another part of the speech, that the division of land by itself would not be able to solve the problem of emigration. That makes me repeat to the Minister a statement which I made before and which, I understand, has been made by other Deputies, that the Minister should arrange for the Land Commission to make an inquiry into the results of land division, not in areas necessarily such as in Connemara or Mayo, where a very acute problem may present itself, but in the more intermediate areas where large estates were divided and went to uneconomic land owners. Has any examination been made of the increased productivity in the areas in question? It would be very interesting if we could take one example of land division in different parts of the country and see the figures for emigration, cattle population, total area under tillage; the condition of the land, the fences, water courses, drains and pasture; whether there was a decrease in the number of unemployed in the winter months; and the proportion of land let by the new holders, on the 11-months' basis to other people in the neighbourhood.
I believe that the result of such an inquiry would be very enlightening. It would show good and bad results— places where undoubtedly very reassuring figures would apply and others where one would wonder whether the Land Commission was working sufficiently to bring about an increased productivity per acre, which seemed to me to be the central part of our national policy. Everybody in this House, including the Minister for Agriculture, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, believes that one of the primary objects of this nation should be to increase the output per acre on every farm and to reduce the cost of production as far as possible. Therefore, I suggest that, since we already have spent over £16,000,000, I think, in dividing land, which is not paid in the form of annuities returned to the State, but paid by the taxpayer at large, we should consider spending even more on that, if we could make land division really effective by so doing.
It is time to take stock of the whole position. We are faced with the hard fact that there is no country in the world competing with us on the British market which does not go in for intensive co-operation if the farms are small, or for a big farm policy. I would ask the Minister whether he has considered that question. One cannot possibly change the policy of the Land Commission in a short time. It is utterly futile to talk about co-operation as though it were easily inaugurated in this country, because the whole tradition of the country has been against it. From the point of view of a long-term policy of ten years' development, would the Minister give us his views as to whether there is something special and unique about this country as an agricultural producer, which enables us to escape from the inevitable conclusions to be drawn from the behaviour of every country which competes with us on the British market? I know absolutely no country where there is not either high-grade mechanical farming with farms of an average of 200 acres, as in New Zealand, or where there is not the most elaborate system of co-operative production and distribution of foodstuffs, in small farm countries such as Denmark. Can we go on indefinitely postponing that issue? Is there something specially productive in our land, or is our land so fertile that we can afford to take neither example to heart, but afford to go on neglecting this extraordinary fact, to which, so far as I know, we are no exception?
For example, take the case of England, where there has only recently been any kind of agricultural revival, where there is a mixture of small and large farms, and where farms are definitely getting bigger all the time. Obviously, it is impossible to carry out that in this country, as it would be against our whole political and economic policy. Therefore, we must face the other alternative—the development of co-operation. There is no use in getting up and talking idly about co-operation. It is an enormous problem. It would take five or ten years to produce even the groundwork for co-operative enterprise. If Deputies in this House agree with my general conception of agricultural development, that it must be on one of those two bases, it is at least time that we were told that was the case and that we had to face one of those alternatives in the future.
There may be very good first results from dividing land. Unquestionably, the land is improved as a result. Derelict farms are beginning to yield crops and bring prosperity to the people who took them over, but I would say that something more is needed as well. After this war we will have to compete, in respect of a land where the farms are small, with countries where farming is carried out on an industrial basis, as in England, New Zealand and Denmark, where electric current is used for every purpose and where the amount of machinery would prove utterly uneconomic to use, unless used by farmers covering a wide acreage, either co-operatively or individually, with farming where all sorts of new machinery is available for repairing drains quickly, where it is used on a huge scale and with good effect and where rotational grazing is carried out on an extensive scale. All these are factors which it would be impossible to bring about on a small-farm economy except on the co-operative system. The number of agricultural machines in countries competing with us has increased tenfold, I suppose, compared with this country, in the last ten years. The whole basis of mechanical production on the farms must be on the co-operative or large-farm basis. I see no alternative. I do see emigration continuing, and it is likely to continue.
The Land Commission has gone far, in my opinion, in improving the lives of our people, but a great deal more needs to be done. For example, one might take the question of a whole estate to be divided among uneconomic land owners. The Land Commission carries out a certain degree of land improvement, but does it go far enough, from the point of view of agriculture? People are given a great deal of help in acquiring new land. Why not give them further help and put the land in an economic position, by repairing the field drainage where it has broken down? What is the argument behind that? I know it would cost a great deal more but, from the point of view of the general conception of economics, it would be making quite sure that, if you put into the pool, you will get as much out of it in the end. Is the Minister quite satisfied that we are preparing land for land division according to modern methods? Should he not consider that, when land is divided, the farmer should be helped to improve the actual pasture or soil? What is the use of giving to a farmer a mass of clotted pasture land, with inferior grasses, unless one can be quite certain that he has equipment and capital to improve that land and make it equal to the finest land in the district, according to the soil available?
I want to make it quite clear that I cannot attempt to provide the answers. I do not think any Deputy here could get up and formulate a scheme for the immediate improvement of the Land Commission in relation to the modern world, or for the immediate development of co-operation. All I am asking is that we should take stock of the position and see whether this problem may not be considered with others in relation to post-war development.
If you know the end, you can devise the means.
As I said before, I am fully aware of all the difficulties involved. An immense amount of good has been done all over Ireland by the Land Commission in dividing up land, but, to my mind, the Land Commission is too much a legal body and too much concerned with artificial division of land into a given area, a given number of units, and a certain amount of preliminary improvement of the land, and is not sufficiently concerned with what is to be done with the land afterwards, with the output per acre derived from the newly-divided land, and the reduction of costs in connection therewith.
There are a few outstanding cases in my constituency to which I wish to draw the attention of the Minister. The first one is in Crossboyne. There is a farm there containing 400 acres which was acquired by the Land Commission in 1924 for the relief of congestion. It was handed over very shortly afterwards to a grazier, and has been in the hands of that grazier since. Just beside this farm, in the townland of Kilscoghagh, on the Ward estate there are 12 tenants whose valuation is under £3 each. A petition was sent to the Land Commission on several occasions to have that land divided. Up to the present very little has been done. Every time a question is asked in connection with it, an inspector is sent down, who goes around the district, takes the names of prospective allottees—which, I suppose, has been done half a dozen times at least—and that is all that is heard of it. Eighty acres of that farm were taken over on a yearly basis by those people that I referred to, about five years ago, and still that land has not been divided. I want to press very strongly on the Minister the urgency of the necessity for the acquisition of land in certain cases where acute congestion exists.
The next case in the district is the case of the Oranmore and Browne estate, Castlemacgarrett, Claremorris, which contains over 1,500 acres. It has been let in grazing for the past 20 years. Acute congestion exists in the vicinity of that estate in the electoral divisions of Ballindine, Caraun, Crossboyne, Kilvine and Claremorris. There are over 150 tenants whose valuation is under £5 each. They have also sent up petitions and memorials but nothing has been done, and it seems as if nothing ever will be done. The Civic Guards have to be there nightly to prevent the driving of cattle, and so forth, that occurs periodically on that estate.
There is also in the district, in the parish of Kilmovee, the Jordan estate, on which there is a farm of land that was taken over by a Mr. Gallagher, about six or seven years ago. The tenants of the district are all under £5 valuation. There are 26 of them, I understand. As far as I know, the Land Commission simply served a notice of resumption on Mr. Gallagher and did not proceed any further. I raised the question several times, but the usual thing happened: an inspector was sent down who took the valuation of the people of the district, and so on, and nothing further was done.
Nearer Claremorris, in the townland of Ranahard, on the Blake estate, there are 12 tenants whose valuations are under £3. There are very large tracts of land in the hands of the Land Commission, which have been in the hands of the Land Commission for a number of years. Still, they have not come to the relief of those people. They have done nothing for them. In the parish of Knock there are several holdings, the owners of which are either in England or America. Petitions have been sent in asking that these lands be taken over for the purpose of relieving congestion in the neighbourhood. Nothing has been done. In the parish of Aghamore there are 500 acres. The Land Commission have inspected them and sent the usual notice, but it went no further.
Acute congestion exists in all these cases and some steps should be taken by the Land Commission to have the land taken over and divided amongst people who will look after it and till it properly.
With regard to the division of land, I was told, in reply to a question here about a year ago, that the Land Commission had 4,500 acres of land on hands in the County of Mayo. I do not suppose any of that land has been divided since. I think all that land should be divided. There is no great necessity for building houses on it. All that is required is simply to give it to the people in the vicinity whose valuations justify their getting it— valuations under £10. In the County Mayo there are 30,000 farmers. 20,000 have a valuation of under £10; 10,000 have a valuation of under £5. If the lands that I suggest should be acquired were divided amongst them it would give some relief.
As far as migration is concerned, the number of tenants that have been migrated from Mayo and Galway to the Midlands is, roughly speaking, 90. That is all that have been migrated. Of course, a great deal has been said about the fact that they have not got enough land in the midlands. I thoroughly agree with Deputy Giles that 20 acres is not sufficient for people living in the midlands. What may be sufficient in Mayo is not sufficient there. If it is at all possible, when there is plenty of land in the hands of the Land Commission, they certainly should give larger holdings so that they would be economic.
We have had a great deal of applications recently from tenants who have no bog. We have sent them on to the Land Commission and, of course, have received the usual reply. There is a particular bog in the townland of Carras, along Carras Lake, containing 100 acres of splendid bog. There are over 30 persons living within half a mile of that bog who have no bog, only conacre turf which they have had for the last few years, but which they cannot get now from the people who used to supply them with conacre bog. I would ask the Minister to have the matter looked into with a view to the acquisition of that bog. Probably the bog is being acquired by the Land Commission at the moment. It is in the Fitzpatrick and Nolan estates, on both sides of Carras Lake.
There are 500 acres of bog in Castlemacgarrett. Part of that bog was let in years gone by to tenants in conacre, but in the past five years the owner has taken the bog from the people who used to cut turf there and has made some sort of pretence of afforestation there. I am told that the only afforestation that was carried out there was that five men worked there for one week and planted laurel in the bog. I would ask the Minister to have the matter looked into at the earliest opportunity and, if possible, have the bog made available to the people in the district who want bog. There are over 50 persons there who have no turbary of their own at present, who are constantly writing to the Land Commission to provide turbary for them.
It strikes me that most of the Deputies who have spoken on this Estimate, with the exception of those from Connaught, understand very little about the problem of congestion as we know it in the West of Ireland. We have arguments, for instance, as to what size the holdings should be. We had some Deputies saying that the size of the holdings should be based on the valuation, or something like that, but, in the West of Ireland, we know that for a long time the policy of the Land Commission has been to bring uneconomic holdings up to a £10 valuation. Whatever might be said about the Meath men, and others, in connection with their criticism of the migrants who have been brought up there, we feel that if all congested tenants in the West of Ireland, particularly in Galway and Mayo, were brought up to the £10 valuation, they would be able to make out a fairly good living. Where any of them have already been brought up to that valuation, I think it would be a very good argument to use to the people of Meath and the others who have been criticising the migrants, if we could only bring them down and show them how these people are working their holdings and the number of families that are maintained on them. We hear the criticism of the migrant that goes up to Meath with a large family of, perhaps, ten or 12 children, that when these children grow up to manhood the question will arise as to how they are still to be maintained on the same holding. Of course, there is supposed to be a joke and a kind of way of saying that the migrants are jolly good fellows, while at the same time it is sticking a knife in their backs.
There is also the question of the landless men. In the areas where there is plenty of land, such as Meath, Tipperary, and other such counties, they still fight on to give land to landless men, and it was mentioned here by some of the Western Deputies that if it came to a question of giving land to landless men, we in the West are certainly as much entitled as any other part of the country to have land given to landless men. There are landless men in the West of Ireland and, from many points of view, and particularly having regard to their national record, if those things were to be taken into consideration, as well as their ability to work a holding, their claims, in my opinion, would compare favourably with those of people in any other part of the country, but our case is not for landless men: our case, and the case made by most Deputies who are really honest about the matter—and certainly Deputies from the West of Ireland—is the case that before you put in more people on small holdings you should make a special effort to see that all the holdings that are under £10 or £12 valuation, at this particular time, should be brought up to the £12 valuation or higher, if possible. We understand, however, that there is not enough land to do that and at the same time provide land for the landless men.
I have been travelling through the country now for the last five or six months, and a number of things have been brought to my notice. One of the things that have been brought to my notice day after day is the fact that people with 70, 80, or even 100 acres of land or over, not having done the required amount of tillage, are brought into court and there is only some little, petty fine imposed on them, which does not mean anything to them. In my opinion, the only way for the Land Commission to deal with such people would be to earmark every man who is not tilling his land. The land of Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland and it is there to feed the people of Ireland, and if these people will not do their duty the Land Commission should earmark them with a view to taking over their holdings as soon as this crisis has passed. In that connection, I regret one decision that has been taken as a result of the present emergency, and that is the decision of the Land Commission not to take over any more land during the emergency. I am sorry, from many points of view, that that has happened because, first of all, during the past few years we have had difficulties in connection with the acquisition of certain lands, and special Acts had to be passed to deal with the situation. The Land Commission found that they were held up in the acquisition and division of certain lands, and our people had been anxiously waiting for something to be done. We had hoped, therefore, that when the last Land Act was passed there would be a speed-up in the acquisition and division of land, but unfortunately, so far as I am concerned, at any rate, that has been set aside until this emergency has passed. I think that is regrettable.
Now, a number of things were referred to by other Deputies. One was the case that was made very definitely by Deputy Beegan, referring to estates that were taken over by the Land Commission five or ten years ago—some of them even as far back as 20 years ago. A certain amount of work was done in connection with these lands by the Land Commission: they showed the people their bogs, marked out where bog roads were to be made, gave the people their turbary, and so on, but the roads were never made into the bogs, and drains were never made either, and the result has been that the unfortunate people concerned have to take a bog elsewhere from a neighbour while their own bog is lying idle. I think that that is nothing short of a disgrace, and it is certainly a thing that should be remedied as soon as Land Commission activities are resumed. As a matter of fact, at this particular time, I think that the making of bog roads and drains is most important, and that whatever organisation or staff is left in the Land Commission should start to deal with that problem and get it settled to the satisfaction of all concerned. Time and again, we have been raising this question with the Land Commission, and always they say: "Well, the tenants are now vested, and we have no further hand, act or part in the matter", and so on. At the same time, lots of money can be found for other things, and, if the advice that we have been giving here for a number of years had been taken, a lot of this work would have been done and the bogs would now be ready for the people to start work on them.
Could not these roads and drains be made under the minor relief work schemes?
They could be made in certain areas where there is a certain number of people drawing the dole, but in areas where that condition does not exist, they cannot be done under the minor relief schemes. When you go to the Land Commission they tell you that it is a matter for the Board of Works, and when you go to the Board of Works they tell you that there are only so many people on the dole and that they cannot do anything about it. At any rate, the bogs are there, not being worked, although some of them probably are the best in the country and would be most productive if only proper drains and roads were made.
I have another great grievance with the Land Commission, and I think it is a matter that should be reconsidered even during this emergency period, and that is the question of where, in the West of Ireland—and, mind you, there are still very big holdings in the West of Ireland—there is a very large farm and it is put up for public auction. It is true, of course, that in these cases, if the Land Commission steps in to take over the land, the owner can object on a question of price, but the Land Commission, instead of taking over and trying to solve the problem that is there, allows those farms to be sold to private individuals. There is one case out of many that comes to my mind. It is property at Massamore. The lands are situated outside of Tuam. They consist of about 320 acres and have been sold, I understand, for £2,500. I do not think that would be an unreasonable price for the Land Commission to pay, because they could dispose of the house, with 40 or 50 acres of land, which would probably fetch in or around £1,000. The remainder of the land would be available for distribution amongst the people there who so badly need it. That could be done without having any walls broken down or, in fact, any of the other things done that Deputies from other constituencies have been talking about on this Vote.
Cases of that kind occurred before ever the emergency started. Time and again we have brought farms of that character to the notice of the Land Commission, urging on them to acquire them for distribution. Invariably the answer we get is that even if Mr. A., the owner, sells to Mr. B., they can acquire the lands from Mr. B. just as well as they could from Mr. A. if they come to a decision to take them over. But what actually happens is that when they proceed to take over the lands from Mr. B., they usually find themselves faced with legal difficulties, and in many cases men in this position succeed in retaining the holding, whereas if they had proceeded in the first instance to take the land from Mr. A., he could make no objection except on the question of price. That, in my opinion, is a mistake that the Land Commission has always made, and is still making.
We have a number of those holdings in our county, and if the Land Commission were to acquire them they would go a long way to solve our land problem. One of our biggest grievances is that the Land Commission cannot be got to make up its mind to step in and acquire such lands. By action of that kind they would not be doing an injury to anybody because the owner always has the option of fighting for his price. The owner of these lands would probably get as good a price from the Land Commission—he might perhaps get a better price—as he would get from some people who are buying those big farms at the present time. There are very few people in the West of Ireland who would be able to buy a 320-acre holding. You might perhaps get a shopkeeper or someone of that sort to buy one of these farms as an investment. Deputy Hughes very rightly pointed out that there are such men buying big farms as an investment, but when the war is over all that is going to create a bigger land problem than we have at the moment.
I was dealing earlier with the question of making bog roads. I had in mind the O'Reilly estate in the parish of Dunmore, County Galway. This estate was purchased by the tenants. For one part they paid £4,000. The Land Commission came to their assistance and, having paid another £4,000, entered into possession and striped out the land, each man having to make his own fences. The Land Commission gave about £220 for making a road through the estate, and that is about the only money that was expended there. They allocated a further £250 for the making of another road that the county council had made in the meantime. The £250 was, in consequence, not expended by the Land Commission, but when the tenants were given their allotments of turbary they found that the bog road had not been made. The tenants have time and again appealed to the Land Commission about that, but nothing has been done. Another matter that needs to be attended to is that when the Land Commission take over a holding they very often keep it in their hands for a long time. There are cases where they might migrate people which is quite a different problem. Cases like this occur. They may migrate, say, four people out of a village and intend to take four more. The holdings of those eight people, when divided up, will probably help to solve the congestion problem in that village, but what very often happens is that you will have everybody fighting for a share of the first four holdings that were acquired.
In regard to the taking over of farms, there is one that I have taken up time and time again at the Land Commission offices in Castlerea. It is situate at Gortaleam, in the parish of Dunmore, Co. Galway, and belongs to the Dominican Fathers. The tenants bought portion of this land and the Land Commission another portion, but before the lands could be divided the consent of each tenant had to be obtained. Apparently, because there are a few cranks in the place who objected, nothing has been done in the matter of having those lands divided up. That has been going on for three years and the division is still held up. The case was submitted by the Land Commission offices in Castlerea to headquarters in Dublin. A scheme was already prepared for the division of the land, the Land Commission intimating that they would use their compulsory powers, acquire whatever rights some of those people claimed to have, and deal with the estate as a whole. That, as I have said, has been going on for three years, but the people are still without the land. Some fences have been made, but the people cannot enter on the land. I do not know why the Land Commission should allow a delay such as that to occur, or why the division of this land should be held up by a number of small tenants. If it were a 500-acre holding and the owner objected, the case could go to the courts and be finished in a short time. To any commonsense individual what has happened in that case should not be allowed. When the Land Commission take a scheme in hand they should go ahead and finish it. That should be the policy. I hope the Land Commission will look into the case of this particular farm and have the land made available for the people concerned. If they are given possession they are quite prepared to help in the production of food for the people of the country, and that is an urgent problem now since food may be very scarce next year.
My reason for intervening in the debate arises from a statement made by the last Deputy. It is a statement that I could not allow to go unchallenged. I am particularly interested in the fact that quite a large number of Deputies have arrived at the opinion in 1942 that the Department has been wrong in the policy it has been pursuing of giving farms to allottees up and down the country. It is rather late in the day that that has dawned on some Deputies. The Deputy who has just sat down, and others have in their speeches through the country made a good many kudos out of this land question. That stood them well for the time being. They could, at least, tell the people that they had got them farms somewhere, and were going to get them more, quite irrespective of the kind of farms they were.
The Deputies in the West of Ireland are not as bousy as the ones in Donegal.
I am not giving way to the Deputy, and he should take his medicine. It was nothing new for him to tell us that a family in the West of Ireland could do quite well on a £10 valuation holding. But there is a very big difference between a £10 valuation holding in Donegal, Galway, Mayo or Clare and a holding of the same valuation in Meath or Westmeath. Apparently it has never dawned on Deputies to sit down and think of this problem. As to the outgoings of a 20-acre farm in County Meath, the valuation would be from £40 to £44, and the rates would be based on that. You have to take that, we will say, out of two cows, two calves, and half a dozen sheep, leaving some land for oats, turnips, wheat, barley and some meadow and some grass. Three cows are the maximum you can put on that land. The produce of these would be three animals to be sold annually. If these are sold at £12 each, the total is £36. Then assume that there are half a dozen lambs sold at £2 each—I am putting a good price on them as I want to make the most of the case that can be made for this farm—you get a sum of about £50 for the stock reared. Owing to the area of the land, after feeding the animals and the family there is nothing left to sell except perhaps a barrel or two of wheat. That is only a nominal sum which might buy a couple of pairs of boots. From these figures we can see at once the problem which we have created down there. For years I have been endeavouring to impress on the House that if we intend to do something for these poor people we should do it properly. I was interested to hear from Deputy Hurley and Deputy Linehan about the lecture delivered by Professor Murphy of Cork University, because I take a very keen interest in this matter. I am looking for information on it, trying to arrive at the area of land you can give a man and then say to him: "We have given you ample land out of which you will be able to maintain your family." I am seeking information on that because the policy of the Department has been against giving a larger holding. The preponderance of theoretical opinion is against the policy of the Department. However, I am not going to pursue that further now.
Reference has been made, as it was made before in this House, to land being acquired by certain people apparently from the City of Dublin. I do not know whether the Minister was here when the matter was raised before. It was not raised on the Land Commission Vote but in connection with some other matter. It was stated that non-nationals were investing money in land in this country. I think it would be wise for the Minister to give notice in some form or another to all and sundry that if anything like that is taking place he would deal with it drastically; that we were not going to allow a new system of landlordism to grow up in this country. I expect the Minister took note of this matter, and I should like to hear his views about it.
Deputy Killilea spoke about the people who did not till their land. Of course I have no sympathy for those people. But he challenged a fundamental principle when he said that the land of this country belonged to the people of Ireland. The land of this country, of course, belongs to the people of Ireland in so far as it belongs to the tenant farmers; it does not belong to the people generally. In an emergency of course, the Government can exercise certain rights, but these do not lessen the right of the tenant farmers to the land. That must be stated here, and I take this opportunity to state it in view of the statement made by the Deputy. It was a wild, loose statement. I expect that is the kind of statement that is made to arouse the passions of poor landless men in his area in order to get votes. I think it is unworthy of anyone who claims to be a public man to make a statement of that kind in order to arouse the passions of the people.
I do not think the Deputy had that in mind.
That is what he said and I cannot allow it to go unchallenged. There are a lot of other matters to which I should like to refer arising out of what has been said this evening but I shall not refer to them now.
I move to report progress.