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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 6 May 1947

Vol. 105 No. 16

Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed).

Before the adjournment I was dealing with the various aspects of the Lands Department. The summary of the work of the Land Commission is very shortly put here. It says that 9,920 acres is the amount acquired during the year and that an area of 14,132 acres was distributed among 808 allottees, and so on. Paragraph seven says:—

"The foregoing figures for land distribution do not include the allotments made to new allottees on land recovered from unsatisfactory allottees. The inclusion of such reallotments might also prove misleading. During the year ended 31st March, 1946, 282 acres taken up from unsatisfactory allottees were reallotted to 31 new allottees. It is regrettable that such action is necessary but it is imperative in the national interest to insist on the proper use of allotments which have been provided for the beneficiaries at considerable expense to the general taxpayer. New legislation was sponsored to make better provision for dealing with unsatisfactory allottees and the systematic inspection of allotments continued during the year under review. The enactment of the Land Act, 1946, has clarified the legal position, and we shall continue to take every action possible to ensure the proper use of allotments by all allottees."

I was in entire disagreement with that Act and I am more so to-day now that I see the Act functioning. I stated at the time that it should be the duty of the Irish Land Commission to increase uneconomic holdings to an economic size. I will speak later about the size. They have fixed the level at £10. They do their best to bring every holding up to £10 valuation. Surely there is sufficient land available to do so. Two hundred and eighty-two acres were taken from unsatisfactory allottees and given to 31 new allottees. I think that the Land Commission officials and inspectors would be far better and more gainfully occupied if instead of engaging in the work of inspecting allotments to see how they are being worked, they took steps to acquire land that is available in abundance all over the country and re-allot that.

I hold that it is not the person with the uneconomic holding who gets the additional plot of land to bring it up to an economic size—it is the original holding that gets it. Once an addition or an allotment is given to an uneconomic holding to bring it up to a certain level it is wrong under any circumstances to take that back. The reason is quite obvious. It is quite plain to anybody that there will be, as referred to here in this report, unsatisfactory allottees. There will be people who get allotments and who will not work them as we would like to see them being worked. What is the position? An unsatisfactory allottee has an allotment taken from him. Say a man with a poor law valuation of £4 gets an allotment of £6 valuation, thereby bringing his total holding up to £10. He does not work that allotment as we would like to see him working it and it is taken from him. If he is a careless or a lazy man or a good-fornothing, not alone will the allotment be taken from him, but the original holding will also go from him in time. When that holding is put up for sale it is bought by somebody else who then looks for an addition to it in the locality, but no addition is available, thereby creating a further problem in that particular case.

In nearly all the cases I know of where people were threatened with having their allotment resumed they are widows or people who are temporarily incapacitated through sickness or through some other cause beyond their control. Surely it is not the duty of a responsible Department of State to take allotments from these people. Several people of that kind all over my county have been notified this year that they must work their allotments properly. I disagree with this method of officials saying whether land is worked properly or not. Let me state clearly that they are not qualified to judge whether it is being worked properly or not. The fact that an unfortunate allottee has to let his allotment in conacre, take in grazing cattle or sell meadow or crops off it is no indication that the land is being worked badly. If it is, I should like to hear the explanation of how it is.

In many cases, you take the addition, as it is commonly known in the West, away from the person, or you threaten that if the person does not work it properly it will be taken back from him. In 99 out of 100 cases, the original holding on which the person resides is vested in him. When the Land Commission inspector says: "You are not to let the addition in conacre; you are not to let the grazing of it; you are not to take in the grazing stock; and you are not to sell the crops," these people at once transfer their activities to the addition. In order to relieve financial pressure, they let the holding which is vested in them, over which the Land Commiscatio sion have no authority, thereby exploding the whole purpose of the Act.

The Act is wrong, in any case. It is an absolute waste of time and public money to send inspectors to see if people are working their allotments. If the person is not a good farmer it is only a matter of time until he will have to sell it through his negligence or misfortune. Some person who had gone to England or America or acquired money at home will buy the holding. It is ridiculous to take the addition away from the holding and expect people to buy the original holding which needed an addition to it. Such people will immediately look for an addition of land because the holding is uneconomic without the addition. I want to emphasise that it is the holding should get the addition and not the owner of the land. The addition should go with the holding. I am equally emphatic that no sub-division of a holding under a certain size should be allowed. Otherwise we will be reverting back to the conditions that existed under the landlord system, whereby holdings were sub-divided and sub-divided until they became a lot of strips like a patchwork counterpane.

The Taoiseach recently, in Navan, stated that 25 acres of land was sufficient for a holding. That may be Fianna Fáil policy, but it is the first time I have heard it announced by any Minister or by the Taoiseach that 25 acres is sufficient. Would the Taoiseach or the Minister or any Fianna Fáil Deputy say that he can live on 25 acres with the present cost of living and the present income from such a holding? A man would require 35 statute acres of arable land at the very least, plus some other land. I know it is not possible, particularly in the case of estates that are going through the process of being subdivided by the Land Commission, to give a holding of 35 statute acres of arable land in all cases. There will be bad land on every estate and some of the bad land must go with the good. I hold that a man wants 20 Irish acres or 35 statute acres to make a decent holding at the present time. Firstly, the £10 valuation, which is taken as a basis, is too low. Secondly, it is misleading because, as I have stated before, it is quite clear that when the valuation of this country was being made by Sir Richard Griffiths almost 100 years ago the land was not valued evenly. A given acreage of land capable of giving a certain yield of crops, in one district is valued much higher than similar land in another district. We know that the valuers at that time were tampered with by the landlords for their own purposes. At a commission of inquiry on this subject, several of these valuers admitted that they were tampered with and influenced to increase the valuation on certain estates, so that the owner would be qualified for membership of the grand jury or other benefits like that. Valuation is not a proper or fair basis to take in the matter of allotting holdings. I know land comprising half a parish which was valued at about £1 2s. per statute acre. The same quality of land, or even better land, in my locality is valued at about 11/- or 12/- per statute acre. Twenty-five acres of land might mean anything. When he said that 25 acres made a good holding, did the Taoiseach mean 25 acres in Connemara or 25 acres east of the Shannon?

I say that a man wants 35 acres of good land. If there is waste land which must be attached to the holding, it should be brought up to about 40 acres at the very least. Anything less than 35 statute acres of arable land is inadequate. It is only creating a further problem for some Government in the future. Arising out of land agitation in my county, Deputies on both sides of the House have tried both in the House and outside of it to make political capital by stating that this Party are opposed to free sale and fixity of tenure. I should like to make the position clear, and I think this is a suitable opportunity to do so. I want to make it perfectly clear that, not alone are we not opposed to free sale and fixity of tenure, but that it would not be good for any person or Party or Government to propose to interfere in the slightest with either free sale or fixity of tenure. There was too high a price paid for both of these things by our forefathers to yield them up easily. Any Party or anybody who propose to interfere with either of them will meet with a very warm reception from the small farmer, the medium farmer, or the big farmer. I want everybody to understand that clearly.

There was land agitation in Mayo and there will be until the Land Commission do their work. That land agitation amounts to nothing more than that we want the legislation already passed by this House, but which has been left gathering dust in the pigeon holes, to be put into operation. The people want that. When the Party of which the Minister is a member was trying to get into power one of the main points in their programme was the settlement of the land question.

In my county there are 23,400 land-holders under £10 valuation, the class of people to whom Deputy Corry referred to as "hen-roosters"—a striking and a nice comment from a member of a Government that secured a majority in every one of the five countries of Cannaught as well as in Kerry, Clare, Donegal and other congested areas on that very subject. "Hen-roosters"! It is well to know the Fianna Fáil outlook. When two members of my Party tried to get the Land Commission to do their duty—and let it be clearly understood they tried to do this before there was a question of that land being put up for sale—the Government reply was to stuff them into gaol for a month, a thing that has not taken place in the case of any member of this House, for what I might call legitimate action, ever since the formation of the House.

It is just as well to go over the details of that case. A farm known as Cottage Farm was put up for sale on the 16th October last. In June, July and September, before it was ever mooted that the land was being put up for sale a solicitor on behalf of the surrounding tenants, together with Deputies Cafferky and Commons, requested the Land Commission to take action. All the action they took was to write saying that the matter was receiving attention. The farm was put up for sale. There were protests against the Land Commission not doing their duty—not against the sale of the land or against the right of free sale. The net result was that two Deputies were stuffed into gaol for a month.

That land has since been sold. The Land Commission know as well as I do that the moment a farm passes from a person who is not working it into the hands particularly of a married man who knows how to work it, the difficulty of acquiring that land is increased a hundredfold. They refused to take action and some time later they wrote to the solicitor saying that owing to action that had been taken they refused to proceed any further with the matter. What kind of policy is that?

We have several Land Acts on the Statute Book of this House, and what are they there for if we do not put them into operation? The Minister goes through the sham of walking in here every year and asking for money to deal with the biggest problem in the State. National drainage or other problems would not take half or quarter or one-tenth of the money that the land question would take if it were to be properly solved.

Are we to leave 23,400 people in Mayo, not to speak of people in other parts of the country, to eke out an existence on holdings with such low valuations? They are to live there, get married and rear their children for export. Is that the Government policy? So far as I can see, that is it. The population of County Mayo dropped, between 1936 and 1946, from 161,000 odd to 148,000—13,000 less in one county in ten years. Perhaps there is method in Fianna Fáil madness. If another 13,000 leave the county in the next ten years the land question there will settle itself. There will be plenty of land for everybody. Weed out the people and the land question will settle itself. Land will go a-begging, because there will be nobody to take it.

Is that the road we are treading? Are these the fine ideals that the men in 1916 and in later years went out and fought for? Is that the freedom for which we struggled? Is the export of human beings to go on because no attempt will be made to solve the land problem? Instead of asking £1,140,000 it would be far better business if the Minister asked for £7,000,000 and kept doing so for the next eight or ten years. Then an end of the problem would be in sight.

In paragraph 10 of the Report of the Irish Land Commissioners there is one very interesting sentence. The paragraph starts off by referring to the number of holdings vested, and it continues:

"As there is not nearly enough untenanted land available in the congested districts, the improvement or enlargement of these holdings can be affected only by the resumption of some of them and the migration of tenants from others, making the resumed and vacated lands available for the enlargement of adjacent uneconomic holdings. The process of resale of the remaining Congested Districts' Board estates is thus very difficult and tedious and delay in the rearrangement of `rundale' holdings is frequently caused by the unwillingness of tenants to accept the Land Commission's proposals for `striping' the scattered plots into composite holdings."

Is that a new departure in policy—that improvement or enlargement of holdings can be effected only by the resumption of some of them and the migration of tenants from others?

Two years ago I asked the Minister for Lands would he consider the acquisition in certain villages of holdings which had become derelict. When I was a schoolboy I knew villages containing 11 or 12 families and to-day there are only four or five families there. Their holdings are held by somebody in the locality and their houses are tumbled down. I admit it is not a very easy problem to solve. There will be rights claimed and a thousand and one other difficulties placed in the way of the Land Commission. I asked that question in the Dáil and the Minister refused point blank to resume holdings that had reverted or that had fallen to the ownership of people no longer resident here, people who emigrated to England or the United States and who did not intend to come back to resume the five or ten-acre holding. It would not mean a hardship to anybody to resume those holdings. The owners are away and they will scarcely come back. The acquisition of these holdings will not entail any hardship.

The Minister's reply was a very funny one. He said he would not do anything of the kind, and he seemed to be afraid of doing so because, as he stated, "Deputy Dillon would refer to that as grabbing". That would be just about two years ago and I remember the words distinctly. There is no need for me to refer to the debate; the Minister could look it up if he wishes. But what did he mean by that? If you are to settle the land question you must take land from somebody; you cannot simply reclaim hundreds of acres in the Atlantic and plant people there. If holdings are left by childless or old people who have no descendants and no relatives living nearer than England or America, I do not see what is wrong in acquiring them. If there is any reasonable explanation to the contrary I will be quite satisfied.

We must acquire land from somebody, or else we might as well abolish the Land Commission and let the Minister resign. The duty of the Land Commission is to make every uneconomic holding economic. We have people living on three or four acres with a valuation of £2 or £3. We have one Government Department paying them the dole and another Government Department looking after social welfare, while the Department of Industry and Commerce fails to provide them with suitable or gainful employment. Is that not the cause of the whole trouble?

The Deputy talks about acquisition——

What is the reason for not acquiring these lands?

Deputies must address the Chair. They must not carry on a conversation across the floor.

Deputy Fagan has raised a very interesting point but he has not cleared my mind on the subject. If there is a derelict holding of seven or eight acres or more, the owner of which has been in the United States for many years, what is the difference between acquiring that land and acquiring a farm of 100, 500 or 1,000 acres, the owner of which is actually living on the land? We must acquire land from somebody and there is plenty of legislation passed by this House to settle the question. The whole trouble is that the Minister for Lands does not demand each year a sum adequate to deal with the question.

It strikes me very forcibly that the Minister for Lands is not as forceful in making his demands as the Minister for Lands each year at the appropriate time, as the Minister for Defence or the Minister for Industry and Commerce in putting forward demands for their Departments. I wonder is the failure to deal with this question with sufficient speed due to that inactivity of the Minister for Lands? I wonder is he taking his office in a too lack-adaisical fashion, in not demanding sufficient money for his Department? At the present rate of progress, the Land Commission would not have the land question settled for the next 120 years. That is a very glaring state of affairs for a responsible Government Department. They seem to be in the position of a person with his hands tied behind his back.

I raised a question here to-day about an estate in the Newport area. I decided at that time not to give the facts, but I think it better now to give a full statement to the Minister of what exactly has happened because many people in this country are very hazy about the land question and the trouble in the congested areas. There are 28 holdings on the Stanuell estate in the Newport area. All of them are in rundale, split up into patches of about four yards wide by 25 yards long. One tenant with a valuation of £3 has his holding split up into 35 such patches without any fence between them. Others are split up to nine or ten patches without any fence. The housing is of the most primitive kind. The houses were crected in 1847 at the time of the great evictions. There were wholesale evictions in that area prior to the famine and the houses subsequently built were hastily erected. Not-withstanding that, the fact that the Congested Districts Board was set up specially to deal with such areas, and that the Land Commission has been in existence since 1923, the people in these areas are living in the same conditions as in the days of their great grand-fathers. The Minister's reply to my question to-day was that a major question of drainage was involved, and by that excuse he sought to shift the blame for the continuance of these conditions over to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance who is in charge of the Board of Works. I shall not accept an excuse of that kind. The Government has at its disposal machinery for dealing with all these problems, and if they are unable to solve it, some other Government will do so.

Perhaps I might quote further from a letter which I have received from a man named William Chambers, who has had considerable correspondence with the Minister's Department in reference to conditions in this area. He, of course, got the usual replies, that the matter was receiving attention. In this letter he states:

"Most of these houses were erected hastily in 1846 and 1847 after the great evictions. In eight of these houses, several people have died with tuberculosis—as many as four in each of a few houses. I pointed this out to the Land Commission without avail. Most of the tillage land is submerged at times by flooding, owing to the old river not having been cleaned for years and to its being overgrown with weeds and trees. Some tenants have lost their entire potato crop, not even being able to save seed for the spring."

The fact remains that there are about 30 cottages on this estate, which were hastily erected 100 years ago. They are thatched cottages, pitched together in a rough-and-tumble way, five or six houses in close proximity. The people are living under most unsatisfactory conditions, and surely the Land Commission should not turn a deaf ear to their grievances.

There is also the case of the Peyton Estate, outside Castlebar, which I have raised every year on this Vote and many times during the year by way of question, where the holdings are also held on the rundale system. On one occasion the Minister told me that offers were made to migrate tenants from this estate to holdings in other counties and that some of the tenants accepted while others refused, but I think that if any reasonable effort were made to deal with that estate the grievances of the tenants would have been settled long ago. I have also drawn the Minister's attention on several occasions to the condition of the tenants in Tooreen, a district a few miles from Ballinrobe, where a large number of tenants are huddled together, also on the rundale system. The houses are crowded in the most congested and unhealthy way. Again, in the Louisburg and Westport areas, there are 41 tenants living on mountain land on the O'Dowd and O'Moore Estates, the highest valuation being £3. The whole problem resolves itself into a question of whether the Minister is going to tackle the land question seriously.

A sum of £1,400,000 is a miserable sum to provide for this purpose. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Defence would not be satisfied with a miserable provision of that sort. The Minister for Defence is asking for £5,000,000 for an Army, when every person in the country knows that an Army costing no more than £2,000,000 or £2,500,000 would be quite adequate to meet our needs now that the emergency has passed.

The Government seems to be determined to squander money in every direction except in the right direction, and if any Deputy attempts to raise his voice he is shouted down by the Fianna Fáil Party. They have taken even the stronger action of ramming Deputies into jail when they think that is necessary. How long is that going to go on? From a summary of the Department's activities, so far as I can see, they have purchased approximately 10,000 acres, they have allotted 14,000 and they have vested 10,000 holdings while they have taken over 282 acres under the 1946 Act. I think the Minister should seriously consider a complete overhaul in the Department. He should also consider consolidating all the Land Acts into one piece of legislation. Having to go back to Land Acts of 1881, and those of subsequent years, is only confusing the Land Commission and the public generally. I do not believe there is a legal man in the State at the present day who is a complete master of land law, and I would consider any Deputy in this House very presumptuous if he said that he was master of the various Land Acts as they stand at present. All these outstanding questions must be tackled by the Minister, and if the present Government will not deal with them some other Government will be elected which will. We have had 25 years of self-government and during that period we have gone a long way to prove the old cry of the British that the Irish people were not fit to govern themselves. We definitely have not made much progress in the direction of solving the land question. Roughly 121 new houses have been built. Five migrants were migrated out of Mayo last year out of 23,400.

I want to refer now to the matter which was referred to already by Deputy Hughes—the matter of lands held by the Land Commission, the length of time they hold them before sub-dividing them and the manner in which the Land Commission by their carelessness are allowing these lands to get into a state in which they are practically useless to those who will get them when the Land Commission have finished with them. One farm beside me which was sub-divided during the past year was purchased from the original owner in 1920. It was allotted in 1946 after 26 years in the ownership of the Land Commission. When it was taken over from the original owner, it was clean. There was not a quarter-rood of waste or scrub on it, but, when the Land Commission came to allot it, the first thing they had to do was to put men in to cut a pathway through the blackthorn and hazel which had practically overrun the farm. A precious lot of use that land is to the allottees!

In other cases, they give land out in conacre for tillage—the general tillage rotation is grain, roots and grain again, with grass seed—without insisting that farmyard manure be put on the land, with the result that three tillage crops are taken off the land in nearly all cases, to my knowledge. Two or three years after, that land is given to allottees and it is little better than a piece of the Sahara Desert. It has been robbed of all its fertility and requires ten or 15 years to regain its fertility again. If the Land Commission decide to take the land from them, they come to the conclusion that they are not working it right, when possession of such a piece of land is a drag on the allottee because it means robbing the home holding to enrich it. The Minister should see to it that lands held by the Land Commission are divided at once. There is no authority in law, in my opinion, for the Land Commission acquiring a farm and holding it for 26 years before subdividing it. Our forefathers had very little business running the landlords out of the country if it was merely for the sake of handing the land over to one landlord, the Minister, as is the position at present.

In some townlands or villages, when the Land Commission go in to settle the land question, they seem to antagonise the people in some way. I have received numerous complaints to that effect, and the net result is that the majority of the people in these areas will not agree to the Land Commission proposals for finishing off the land question. I have many complaints from one particular village. There are 22 families living there and the total valuation is about £98. There were formerly over 40 living there, but some have died and their lands have become derelict, and others have been migrated, and now these 22 people are asked to agree to a final settlement on the basis of the division of £98 worth of land between them, less than £5 valuation each. What I suggest should be done is that, no matter what the cost, a sufficient number of people should be migrated out of these villages, so that, in these mountainous districts, a valuation of at least £10 will be given to those left behind, with decent houses, decent roads and proper sanitary accommodation in the houses. They are entitled to that.

I could name townland after townland, particularly in the western part of the county, where 20 families and over are living, some of them with half an acre of land which is alleged to be arable by inspectors of the Department of Agriculture for tillage purposes. It is no more than ground on the surface of a bog which has been brought into some degree of kindness by successive generations of labour and drainage. Something must be done about all this question, and, if this Government is not prepared to do it, some other Government must do it. Absolutely no attempt is being made to handle it or to face up to the responsibilities in the matter.

There is a vast amount of land in Mayo suitable for acquisition if the officials of the Land Commission would only go the right way about acquiring it. Vast numbers of holdings are falling derelict, and I have written thousands of letter to the Minister asking for the acquisition of holdings in respect of which people are quite willing to sign an agreement to the effect that, although the acquisition of these lands will not bring them up to a £10 valuation, they will not make further demands on the Land Commission in the matter of land settlement.

In one case, a single man died whose nearest relatives were second cousins living in the United States. That holding, if acquired and sub-divided amongst three neighbours, would bring each of them up to about £10 valuation, but the relatives in the United States, without coming home, put the land up for sale. It passed into the hands of a man who is working it well, and perhaps better than the previous owner worked it, but nevertheless, I hold that the Land Commission should purchase such land under the auctioneer's hammer, if necessary, and divide it when there is no other land available in the immediate locality.

I do not see why the Land Commission could not go into the open market and purchase land in certain instances, if they want it. The Minister may say that there would be bogus bidders at such a sale. There may be, but even the private purchaser has to face that possibility. The Minister may say, further, that he has no precedent for such an action, but I say he has. Officials of the Department of Agriculture attend pedigree stock sales all over the country and purchase under the auctioneer's hammer against the private buyer. They buy all the premium bulls they want against the private buyer at Ballsbridge, Carrick-on-Shannon, Cork, Limerick and Tralee, and there must be other precedents and examples in the other Government Departments.

In many cases, the price paid for land by the Land Commission represents little better than confiscation, a fact which is driving people to hold land rather than offer it to the Land Commission. If the Minister went about his job properly, he would be offered more land than he has money in this Vote to purchase. I have asked on a few occasions that farms be acquired, the owners having requested me to approach the Land Commission with a view to getting them taken over, but the Land Commission have refused to do so even though there was no danger of the lands being left on their hands. In such cases, although the owner was willing to hand over to the Land Commission and the people in the locality were willing to take it off the hands of the Land Commission, within a month, or within a week, if necessary, the Land Commission refused to take over the land.

I find myself substantially in agreement with Deputy Blowick, particularly in his inquisitiveness as to the reason for the masterly inactivity of the Minister's Department in recent times in carrying out the oft-proclaimed policy of the Government in proceeding with land division. The Minister should tell the House the reason for that inactivity or the alternative to that policy of land division, if the Government have abandoned such policy. The people are entitled to be told where we are going. If the Government have decided to abandon land division for all time, the people should be told that and they should be told the Government's alternative. The policy adopted recently—or lack of policy—amounts to abandonment. That has caused a great deal of disquiet throughout the country, and it has caused Deputies from different parts much annoyance, because nobody can tell what is going to happen. In the pre-war years, a very considerable advance was made in the division of lands. I do not agree with Deputy Blowick that we should have a consolidation of the land laws. The Department has all the power it requires if it wants to continue the work at which it was engaged up to the time of the war. For the temporary abandonment of the policy of land division at the time of the emergency, there was some justification. The dispersal of staffs in other directions and the uncertainty which prevailed would constitute justification for a halt in land division. That time has passed and people are wondering when we are to have a reversion to the original policy.

Are we to be told that it is owing to the high price of land that the policy has ended, that the Land Commission cannot afford to buy land at prevailing prices and give it to tenants because, at the price which they would have to pay, it would be uneconomic? Deputy Dillon was very hot on such subjects on the Vote for the Minister for Justice. I am sufficiently old-fashioned to hold that we should persist in land division. Like Deputy Blowick, I do not want land to be taken at a confiscation price. I want a fair price to be paid for the land. I see private individuals jumping into the market and buying every farm that offers. Some of these people are without knowledge of husbandry or agriculture.

How are they to make it pay if, when bought by the Land Commission and divided amongst people with a good knowledge of tillage and agriculture, it could not be made pay? In recent times, in my county, the Land Commission have been written to inquiring "what about these lands" and "what about those lands"? But the Land Commission are not doing anything. Deputy Blowick spoke about lands held in America. I can quote a classic instance in my own county. I refer to 130 acres on the Gaffney Estate, near Rathkeale. The owner of that estate, a gentleman named Gaffney, has been living in America for many years. Fifteen persons were enjoying the letting of that land. The joker in America decided to sell the land and instructed a solicitor at Rathkeale to do so. The Land Commission were not interested and, before the sale took place, one man came along and bought the place privately. He was one of the 15 to whom I have referred. He had two farms of his own and, I am told, has 60 acres outside. These smallholders had the grazing of the hay of these lands for 17 years and never failed to till their quote during the emergency period. The result will be that we shall be at the loss of 30 milch cows. In recent years, the people have seen three estates going in this area and this is the last chance. If the land is not taken by the Land Commission, the people see no hope of obtaining land. That was, obviously, a case in which the Land Commission ought to have intervened. There was every justification for intervention. The land was suitable for division. It was easy of access. The public road runs through it. Fifteen people were being accommodated on it and one of them gets it now to the exclusion of the other 14. That should have been a matter of interest to the Land Commission. Whatever price was paid by that gentleman could easily have been paid by the Land Commission and repaid by the tenants, on division.

The position is not confined to the County Limerick. I know of cases in the Minister's own constituency. There are similar cases in north Cork and in south Limerick, around Kilmallock, with which the Minister should be conversant. There seems to be a definitely laid down policy of "go slow". The Minister should tell us whether we are to get back to land division or not. Deputy Blowick referred to the activities of the Land Commission in resuming land from people who have failed to work it according to the principles of good husbandry. Two hundred and eighty-two acres were taken up for that reason. That is hardly sufficient activity to justify the officials of the Land Commission. With Deputy Blowick, I think that these officials would be much better employed operating on the estates in which the Land Commission were interested before the emergency. The division of these lands and the establishment of families upon them is the best method of giving people a rooted interest in the country. They should be given a chance of bringing up their families in decency instead of going off in the emigrant ship. I shall not enter into a discussion of the question of the right size of holdings. That, I should say, would depend on the soil of the different countries. Deputy Blowick objects to holdings of 25 acres. He may be right or he may be wrong but 25 acres in Connemara would not be equivalent to 25 acres in Limerick. The people should be given economic holdings. The people to whom I referred were making a living on the Gaffney estate out of 130 acres. They, probably, had a few acres of their own. With the 130 acres, these 15 people were able to keep going for 17 years. The taking of this land from them means that they are placed in a completely uneconomic position. They are also left without hope of obtaining any land in the district.

As I often mentioned when speaking on this Vote in past years, I object to some of the rules and regulations governing the carrying out of land division, particularly the rules relating to distance from the estate in question. Manifest hardships have been imposed because of the too narrow interpretation of that rule. I know of the case of a very hard-working man in County Limerick. He worked for three or four farmers around. He was ruled out of an allotment of land because, by taking a tape and measuring the road, he was proved to be five-eights of a mile from the place where the land was available. He could fling a stone from the place where he lived to the land in question but, as measured by the inspector, he was five-eighths of a mile distant and was ruled out. He never got a chance of obtaining an alternative holding because he would then be 20 or 30 miles away. All the inspectors admitted that his was a most deserving case but he was ruled out by the regulations. Three farms or estates have gone since there but he did not get any holding. In every part of my county, land is waiting for division. We have not got quarter way with the estates marked out for division and I want to know from the Minister when he intends to get back to the policy of division or if he is going to abandon it. Something has got to be done because a number of people have to make up their minds as to where they are going.

The Land Commission took steps to ensure that allottees would use their allotments according to the rules of good husbandry. There was inspection of these holdings. But there is no inspection when private persons come to buy land. Drapers, grocers, watch makers and others may buy lands and the Land Commission is not interested. Surely the Land Commission have a bigger responsibility than looking after allottees. They are responsible for dealing with the land question. The land question has not been settled. Can they afford, under cover of the emergency, to go fast asleep and allow every estate to be bought by persons who have no interest in tillage development? The only people who are being chased and pursued are the unfortunate allottees who, as Deputy Blowick said, got holdings which, in some cases, were too small and who had no finance to work them. Their holdings are resumed.

I know of cases quite recently in which hard-working men were not able to purchase sufficient stock for their land and it was resumed from them. Why not take off the watch-dogs of the Land Commission and get on to the people who never did anything at all, but who acted as ranchers? The hard-working men should get a fair crack of the whip and should be given some financial assistance. The people who are employed on the estates are supposed to have the first claim to a holding. That was perfectly right and equitable, but if those men are given a reasonable holding and have no money to stock and equip it, how can they escape the penalty of being accused of not using proper methods of husbandry? In the absence of machinery and finance, they are bound, in the first instance, after two or three years, to make lettings of that land in order to get something in to buy some stock. I know that the Land Commission, in many cases to my knowledge, were not too hard on that type of case, but there were exceptions where they were very hard. These people are not welcome any more to take work on the county roads, as the labourers do not want them and say: "You are a farmer now, go and live on your land." How can such a man live, when he has no money and has lost his employment? What is he going to do? I suggest that there should be some financial provision to enable them to stock the land. Then they could be let start off from scratch and prove their ability, and if they were good agriculturists for their bosses, they will be good agriculturists for themselves.

However, there is not much use in dealing with that until the main question is answered. Let us hear from the Minister definitely whether he is going to get on with land division or not. If he is, then how soon can we expect a resumption; and if he is not, what in the name of commonsense is keeping the Land Commission there at all? It would not require a tithe of the staffs to deal with the collection branch and the punishing of people defaulting in husbandry. The main concern of the Land Commission is land acquisition and division, and I hope the Minister will be able to tell us when he is going to get back again to that track; and if not, I hope he will tell us what he is going to do instead, and if there is nothing else, then how soon he is going to disband the Land Commission and get rid of it.

From the tone of the debate in the last hour, I am afraid the Minister is going to have a busy time in the coming year. I can understand that the Land Commission had to ease off during the emergency. In the first place, they could not buy the land at the prices going, as if they bought at those prices they would have to give it to the tenants at rents they would not be able to pay. Now that the emergency has passed and that prices are coming back to normal I agree that the Land Commission should take over the resumption of division and bring it to its normal conclusion. There was a time in my constituency when I and others shouted just like Deputies Blowick, Cafferky and Commons in the west of Ireland. I thought the division of land was the beginning and end of all the prosperity and comfort for the country, but I have had many disillusionments since then. I found the economic problems created since have almost outdone the good the Land Commission should have done.

Our country is going through an economic change which may not be very good in general. The division of the Midlands into small uneconomic patches will have repercussions all over the west of Ireland. The western Deputies have got very keen on land division. More power to them. Of course, it is the best political issue as if one is making a clamour to divide the land, the people will always be with him. If Meath and Westmeath are divided into small patches, the western seaboard will die out and not alone will people emigrate by hundreds and thousands but they will have to fly by tens of thousands. The small struggling farmers of the west and south of Ireland lived by the prosperity of the Midland farmers, relying on the cash that went down from Meath, Westmeath and Kildare to purchase the stock—sheep, store cattle and strong cattle, and even the calves. We will have to think seriously whether we are going to do good or bad by land division.

The first thing is to ease off on the type of land division in my county. It has done a vast amount of harm, by dividing Meath up into small uneconomic patches of 22 to 26 acres. I am speaking for the whole of Meath, including the migrants. A bad job has been made of land division in County Meath, including Rathcairne and Gibbstown. You have large families of six, seven and eight in these holdings of 22 acres. Some of these sons and daughters are married. In one household, you have three or four families and it is absolutely congested. I know of one case near myself, where a labourer has a cottage and in a room six feet by eight feet there are eight children with their parents, while in another room there is father, mother, son and daughter, at another end of the house.

I would ask the Minister to make a review before he starts off again, as if he keeps going on the present policy, not alone will there be slums in the West but there will be slums in the Midlands, too. At the present moment, Rathcairne colony and Gibbstown colony are definitely slums. I am speaking for the migrants and to a man they will say what I am saying. I ask the Minister not to listen too much to the clamour in the West about shoving people to the Midlands. I admit there is room. There is room if we make economic patches, but there is no room for hundreds and thousands to make uneconomic slums. That would create the same problem, since, when all the holdings would be vested there would be a complete sell-out and the strongest man would buy, and that would start the ranches over again.

The national outlook should be predominant for the whole of us. There is much good work to be done still and in my county there is a fair amount of land which could be taken over and divided. I know it could not have been done during the war, as it would have been too costly and the rents would have been too high. We cannot blame the Minister for that, as if the land were bought at a certain price, a rent would have to be put on accordingly.

I want to see a balanced nation of thrifty, economic farmers. In my county, there are estates of 500, 600 and 1,000 acres. That should not be, 25 years after getting national freedom. Any man could live comfortably and be wealthy and have a good life on 300 acres. The maximum size of a farm in any place should not be more than 300 acres. If a man works that much as it should be worked, he can make a great living out of it. We do not want vast estates of 1,000 acres while we have people flocking out of the country or trying to make ends meet in very miserable surroundings.

Many of the big estates in the County Meath could be tailed down. I do not want to see men who have been there for years, or their families, cleared out. I want to see them remain in their old homesteads, but at the same time I think that 300 acres should be enough for any man. If the Minister would tackle that problem an immense amount of good could be done. As regards many estates, I did not like the way in which, in the past, the Land Commission seemed to work hand-in-hand with certain large wealthy farmers in the County Meath. Tracts of land were taken off these men, but these comprised swampy land on which there was nothing but rushes and sedge. That was what the unfortunate in-coming tenants got. The landowner was allowed to keep the cream for himself. The swampy land was handed out to the unfortunate tenants at a big rent, and that is what many men have to try and live on to-day. They are simply hewers of wood and drawers of water, trying to clean the dirt off that land. The owners got a damn good bargain and the unfortunate tenants a very bad one.

I am glad to see that the Land Commission are speeding up the vesting of holdings. If they would speed up the vesting of all the holdings allotted during the last ten or 15 years they could then concentrate on the work of new land division. I hope that in the future they will be able to plan their work better than they did in the past. A lot of the land division carried out by the Department that I have seen was very badly done. Many farms taken over were divided up in long, scraggy strips. The result is that in many cases there is not a drop of water on perhaps four or five fields near the house, so that the unfortunate tenants have to be drawing it from one field to another all the year round. The Land Commission should see that estates are properly divided, so that a man would have a water supply on his holding, even though that might mean giving ten acres more to his neighbour. The Land Commission, however, are not able to get away from their policy of 25 statute acres for each man, so that the divisions are a sort of patch-quilt affair. I do not believe there is a supply of water on more than 50 per cent. of these allotments.

The Land Commission should also have made proper roads into estates when dividing them. They should, first of all, have consulted the county engineer. I know that after five or six years these roads get into such a very bad condition that the county council, even though it is anxious to do so, cannot take them over. It is anxious to help the unfortunate tenants, but the position is as I have stated it. I know, of course, that the making of some roads was reasonably well done, but after four or five years they show the effects of wear and tear. Many of them are just quagmires. The wheels of a car will sink in them as far as the axle. It is impossible to take a threshing set over them. You have gates, and piers on some of them, and generally speaking they are in such a bad condition that the county council cannot take them over. The problem created there is a colossal one, and is a matter that should be attended to.

In the old days the roads that were made were crooked because the big gentry who owned them would not allow the public bodies of that time to go through their estates and make a decent road. Some of the roads that I refer to are just a cul-de-sac. They lead to nowhere and consequently cannot be taken over by the county council. In the future, the Land Commission should consult the county engineer, and if the roads are properly made the county council will willingly take them over. The present roads are too narrow and too crooked. No proper foundations were made. You find big junks of stones on them, and in a period of bad weather a lot of old muck comes up and renders them impassable. The Land Commission should see that a proper foundation is made when laying a new road. If there was a good layer of rough gravel and a top layer of fine gravel the roads would last for a long time.

The provision of pumps is another problem. The Land Commission, in their unwisdom, provide a pump that serves three or four tenants. I think that if you give a man 25 acres of land, a house and a shed that he is also entitled to have a pump in his yard. As it is, the wife or the children of some of those tenants have to carry water over a distance of a quarter of a mile. Even as it is, the pumps provided are not in working order for more than six or eight months in the year. I hope the Minister will do what I suggest and provide a pump for each tenant. I also suggest to him that, when he brings up Westerners to the County Meath, he should give the Meath men who get parcels of land as good a chance as he gives to the others. We do not want any friction between the two. I have always stood for the Meath man as against the Westerners, but at the same time we want to see friendship and harmony between both peoples. I must say that very many of the migrants have proved themselves to be good tenants. They are hard workers, they are thrifty and go ahead. At the same time, I am satisfied that they got a far better "do" than the Meath men who were given land. I know many men who were herds on estates in the County Meath and what they got was the tail-end of an estate.

The Land Commission refused in some cases to put up a pair of piers or a gate for them. The Meath men should get the same facilities as the migrants. That is a thing which has been a cause of contention between the local people and the migrants. It has soured a good many local farmers when they saw that their neighbours were not getting as good treatment as the migrants. I am not saying that the treatment the local people are getting now is as bad as it was ten years ago. At the same time, there is room for improvement.

There is another point in connection with some of those farms in the County Meath. New houses that were built on them eight or ten years ago have not yet been allotted to anybody. The grass is growing around the doors, and even the doors themselves are getting rotten. The houses are in bad condition because there has never been a fire in one of them. When a question is asked about them we are told that migrants are coming up. I wonder where the migrants are coming from? Is it the intention to bring people from America? These houses have been provided by the taxpayers and it is not fair that they should be allowed to get into such a bad state of disrepair. The windows in some of them are broken and doors are cracked. The land is let on the 11-months' system. Crops are being taken out of the same field year after year. It is not a crop but scutch. It is quite a waste to be putting wheat seed or seed oats into the land on these plots because it is not capable of producing a crop. The whole thing is a shame and a disgrace.

The future policy of the Land Commission should be to select the right type of tenant. The majority of the present tenants are fairly good, but then quite a number of them are very bad. They are so bad that one would imagine they were picked by a blind man. Even though they are bad, I do not want to see them thrown out on the road. I know they are a problem for the Land Commission. They are in these holdings now, they have reared families, but I am afraid that a number of them are never going to be of any real use.

It may not be their fault. Maybe they were never any good but now they have large families and are often in bad circumstances. Leave them there and vest their holdings as soon as you can so as to give them a chance of selling out. They will be no use there. The Minister has power to keep certain people from buying it but he should allow small farmers to buy such holdings. There are many small farmers' sons who would buy such holdings and would give a good price for them. There should be a scheme in land division of allocating three or four farms, where an estate is being divided into 10 or 12 farms, to people who are able to put up some money. It would be an incentive to a man with £300 or £400. He would not be able to pay £1,500 for a small holding but might be able to put up £300. The Land Commission could give such a person a chance by accepting £300 as part payment. I guarantee that such a person would be most successful because he would have put his whole earnings into the farm and would work it. I ask the Minister to consider that suggestion as one worthy of consideration.

In County Meath and other Midland counties there is a number of Army officers and some old sergeants who have retired in the last few years. These men have been 22 and 23 years in the Army and have given loyal and valuable service to the nation. They are only 50 or 45 years of age on retiring and they do not know what to do or where to go. A good many of them have old I.R.A. and Army pensions. Most of them have young families. The nation owes something to these men.

There is a vast number of Land Commission holdings, some of them having new houses on them, that could be given to these people. The Minister, as an old colleague of mine, would be sympathetic with such a scheme. I know that some of them are trying to get out of the country because there is nothing here for them. There is not the slightest hope for a man like that of being able to buy a farm. People from across the water are buying up all the land that is worth while in County Meath. Any estate that is for sale at the present moment does not reach the auction rooms. It is bought underhand. They are buying not merely one farm, but three or four farms. I know that in County Meath vast estates have been recreated in the last two or three years by one man buying up three, four or five farms of from 100 to 300 acres and combining them as a stud farm, in some cases, or as a ranch in other cases. I know that under the ordinary laws the Land Commission could not stop that, but I want the Land Commission to keep their eye on it and to let those people know that the Land Commission policy must be pursued to its logical conclusion, that is, the division of land in as reasonable a way as possible to put the greatest number of people to live on the land in an economic manner, and that this land will be acquired at a future date. It would be acquired if we had a national Government in power. It would have to be acquired. If it is not acquired, the people will not stand for it and there will be the old trouble of driving cattle and breaking gates. We do not want that, but it will happen. The Irish people will not stand for this. The whole struggle for Irish freedom was to put the people back on the land and that is still in our minds. We are proud of the fact that we took part in the struggle. I would ask the Minister to see to it that County Meath will not revert into big ranches. The Land Commission policy of dividing up ranches into small holdings—too small —must not be defeated by people from England and Europe coming in and buying up three and four big farms and combining them in a big estate. That is very wrong in a country where there is such a land problem.

We hear western Deputies clamouring for the migration of the western people to the Midlands. They are right to do it. I suppose they have their problems. I hope that the Land Commission have had a general review of the position and intend in the next two or three years to complete land division. Twenty-five years of native government is far too long for the carrying out of land division. The first four or five years of national emergency, from 1921 to 1925, may be excluded, but from 1925 to 1935 land division should have been completed. We see the way in which land division is being completed in Poland and other countries. Hordes of strangers are going in and tearing up the land and that is the end of it. We do not want that here but land division could have been done reasonably and decently in a national way.

In future I would ask the Minister to give an economic price when he is acquiring land. There is no use in confiscating land. We will not stand for it. I will be asked, how can we pay such a price for land? The only way is to extend the period of repayment. If it is a 60-year term, make it 120 years and let posterity pay for it. Even make it a 200-year term. Let the man from whom you are taking the land get a fair crack of the whip. That is only reasonable. I have been saying this for the past ten years. We have to make the same speech every year and I regret the necessity for it. Does forestry come under this Vote?

It is being taken separately. I do not think it has been discussed on this Vote.

I will deal with it on the other Vote. I am satisfied that land division has justified itself and has had good results. We will want to be very careful to see that our economy is not changed overnight. Our economy is bound to change as you change from a system of big farms to a system of small farms. The economy of our country is linked up with the system of the Midlands buying from the West and the South. It was a balanced economy. Live stock from the hills and mountains of the South and West found their way to Meath, Kildare and Westmeath and were finished there for the Dublin or the British markets.

That is how the export trade was created and that is the way we want to see it. The land of Meath is different from the land of the West. I know it is very fertile, but it is a rotten soil for tillage, as any migrant will admit. It is a hard rugged soil that will not produce good crops. In one year in ten you may get a good crop of oats in the heavy lands of Meath, but if the season is bad, the crops go down before they are ripe and two-thirds of the crop is lost. You require a grazing policy in Meath. That may be hateful to anybody who ever shouted about land division or talked of the cattle for the road and the land for the people. But I am satisfied that if our economy were properly worked out and if Meath, or those parts of Meath that cannot be tilled economically, were left as the grazing farm of Ireland, an immense amount of good would be done. The people of Meath would be quite prepared to pay a subsidy to the farmers of Louth, Carlow and Wexford, which are traditionally tillage counties, to carry on the tillage so as to give them a chance of carrying on grazing. Grazing is the proper policy for land of that type and it is going against nature to try to force a position which will not work.

We could not have expected the Land Commission to carry on land division for the last five or six years but I do expect them to complete it at the earliest possible moment. I ask the Minister to maintain a happy balance between the migrants and the Meath people. There has been tried out in Meath what would not be tried out in any other county because it was known that the soft people are there. The Government would not try out a migration policy in Cork. If they had, I know who would lead the van—the Minister himself—to see that justice was done to his own Cork people first. I want to see justice done equally between us all.

Let the Minister take the first trip he can to Meath, visit the Rathcairne colony and the Gibbstown colony, and ask the migrants are they satisfied with the allocation of land that they have received. I know what the answer will be—"Indeed we are not and is there no hope of another ranch near us being divided in order to give us free grazing?" That is the first thing he would be told. I would ask the Minister to come down with me to the County Meath and see for himself, although if he sits in the same car with me he may get a hot reception because some of them do not take very well to me because I generally speak out the truth without any veneer. What I do like about the migration scheme is that the Minister drew the migrants mostly from Clare and Kerry. The Minister did not get some of the stronger farmers from Mayo. The men from Mayo, Kerry, Clare came up to fairly big holdings—45 statute acres, good two storey houses, and a shed with a loft in it. It is the best work of the Land Commission. I hope we will have more of it. If we are going to have migrants from Mayo and Clare let us bring up fairly strong men. Then we will not have slums. We will be doing good work and work which will bring a blessing on the nation. There is no sense in bringing men with six, seven or eight of a family straggling after them and planting them on a few statute acres of land. At first everything is grand—a lovely painted house, smoke coming out of the chimney, a bag of flour in the corner. They sometimes find three or four gangers and workmen making a path for them. They come with happy faces, blessing de Valera and the Minister for Lands, saying: "Isn't it grand that we are being brought from the slums in the West to full and plenty in Meath." But when they are there for two or three years they find things are the reverse.

In the west of Ireland they had eight or ten acres of land for which they paid about £1 a year; they had grazing on a mountain for a few Kerry cattle which cost nothing—a few pounds a year paid for it all. In Meath, the rent collector takes £12 a half-year. The Land Commission send an annuity paper. They have to pay £35-£40 annuity every year. It opens their eyes. Then there are generally a few curses instead of blessings on de Valera because things are not what they thought they would be. The Land Commission inspector told them that all they would have to do would be to stand at the hall-door and watch the grass grow. I know a man, and the Land Commission inspector told him that if he threw out a fork at the hall-door 300 yards away and came out the next morning he would not see that fork. That unfortunate man got a bad farm, and I know that if he threw out the fork at the hall-door and was looking for six months he would see it there because the grass never grew.

I think the Minister has his hands full. There will be no smile on his face by the time he has done with the matter. He is doing good work if he carries on with it.

Listening to this debate, everyone will agree that the Minister certainly has his hands full. Everyone will agree that the Minister's soul is being tested at the waters of contradiction because in this debate on Lands year after year we have a number of contradictory statements and contradictory suggestions, even made, in many cases, by the one speaker. On one matter at least to-day most speakers were agreed, and that is that the Land Commission should define now and for all time what their future policy is in regard to land division. The Land Commission have had six or seven years in which to sit down and think over this whole problem. They have had six or seven years in which to review the results of the past 20 or 30 years of land division in this country and they ought now to be able to come to some definite conclusion as to whether the lines upon which they are proceeding at present are right or wrong.

If the lines on which they are proceeding are right then they should have no hesitation in going forward, but if they have been proceeding on wrong lines they should have no hesitation whatever now, regardless of what vested interests may have been established or on whose corns they may walk, in reversing their policy. I was very pleased to hear Deputy Blowick say to-night that he stands for security of tenure for farmers. The land question was fought out bitterly 50 years ago, and it was settled on the basis of the farmer being made the absolute owner of his farm. That was the foundation upon which landlordism was abolished and peace restored in agricultural Ireland. It is absolutely essential that that security of tenure is preserved and whatever activities the Land Commission so overtake they must not, under any circumstances, weaken the farmer's sense of security in his holding. If the farmer is placed in a position by the activity of the Land Commission that he cannot look forward to possessing his farm for his lifetime and passing it on to his family then all progress in agriculture will come to an end. There will be no incentive to the farmer to improve his fences, to improve field drainage, or to improve the fertility of his soil. The farmer will simply become a bird of passage. He will become just as a civil servant—an official of the State.

We must make up our minds if we are going to preserve the system which was established 50 years ago, the system which was known as "peasant proprietorship", that is, ownership of the land by the people who were working on it and occupying it. If we are going to preserve that system we have got to be very careful as to the lines on which the Land Commission is to proceed. Deputy Blowick referred to the fact that 74 per cent. of the holdings of this country comprise something about 3,000,000 acres, whereas the remaining 26 per cent. of the holdings occupy 9,000,000 acres. He pointed out that disparity in the size of agricultural holdings as a reason for a very drastic and far-reaching scheme of land settlement.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair

It is interesting to compare the size of our holdings with the size of holdings in other progressive agricultural countries. We have frequently had Denmark cited to us as a country where land is very intensively worked, much more intensively worked than here. We have it on absolutely reliable authority that the output of the land in Denmark is 50 per cent. higher than the output of the land in this country, and I think that is a moderate estimate. On comparing the size of holdings here with the size of holdings in Denmark, I find that there is very little difference between them. You have practically the same percentage of small holdings, the same percentage of medium-sized holdings, and the same percentage of large holdings. It seems to me that variety is good in every walk of life and variety seems to have worked fairly well in Denmark. Small farmers have worked their farms very intensively and, apparently, the larger farmers also have worked their farms intensively. Therefore, the problem of increasing agricultural output does not appear to be capable of solution by the mere redistribution of land.

I know that there is a big political driving force behind the agitation for the redistribution of land. There are more voters with small holdings than with big holdings and any wide-awake Deputy or would-be Deputy would naturally be inclined to play up to the largest number of voters. We know that the Fianna Fáil Party, particularly in the early stages of their growth, concentrated upon this agitation for land division. They took a very simple line of approach. They divided the people of this country into ranchers and working farmers. Everybody who joined the Fianna Fáil organisation, whether he was a large farmer or a small farmer, was classified as a working farmer, and every farmer who did not join the Fianna Fáil organisation was branded as a rancher even though he might have only ten or 20 acres of land. These were good political tactics, but bad national policy and bad land policy.

It is very easy to stir up the fires of greed and covetousness amongst smallholders. It is very easy to say to Paddy Murphy: "You have only 15 acres while Mr. P.J. Murphy down the road has 90 acres." That is good political propaganda. But you might as well say: "Why should Mr. James Murphy have a big grocery and provision store with a turn-over of £30,000 a year when poor Jimmy Murphy has only a little huckster's shop with a turn-over of a few hundred a year?" In following that line of argument you are appealing to a very natural instinct in people with small means. It is easy to buy political support and to win votes by offering your supporters slices of your opponent's land. That was the policy pursued by Fianna Fáil for many years and that is the policy which, I think, the Minister is trying to damp down.

I know that the Minister for Lands did approach representatives of the Clann na Talmhan Party in the West and asked them to ease off with this agitation for land division, that it would only make trouble. But he and his Party had a right to think of that when they were sowing their wild oats in Connaught. It is a fine thing to sow wild oats, but they have the unfortunate habit of growing and producing another crop of oats much wilder still. I am afraid that the troubles which the Minister is experiencing, particularly in the West, are a direct result of the policy which he and his colleagues inaugurated for purely Party advantage. I know that even in the Leinster counties branches of Fianna Fáil were established solely on the promise that every active member of an established branch would get a division of land. That is a policy which must be brought to an end and which must not be reinaugurated by some other Party following in the footsteps of Fianna Fáil. There is no use in getting rid of the Fianna Fáil Party, with all their corruption, if they are to be replaced by a Party which follows exactly the same tactics.

I would say to the Minister and to the Land Commission that the question of Party advantage must be left completely out of land division. The Minister said on one historic occasion that, other things being equal, a supporter of the Government Party would get a farm in preference to a supporter of any other Party. That was a clear indication of the Minister's mind on the matter. I think that on that particular matter the Minister was much more honest than many of his colleagues and many of the members of his Party and I give him credit for that; but it is bad policy, bad for the Land Commission, bad for the land and bad for the future of agriculture. The Minister is entitled to ask along what lines we suggest the land settlement policy should continue in the future. First of all, I believe that compulsion must be withdrawn. Compulsory acquisition and resumption of land has been tried out over a long period and has failed. I believe that the Land Commission would get more land than they are able to handle by voluntary acquisition, by going into the open market and buying the land just as the speculators do to whom Deputy Giles referred. I know one farmer with a large out-farm which he finds he is unable to work efficiently and productively and he has been offering it to the Land Commission for the last seven or eight years, and although there are a number of smallholders in the district who would benefit by its division, the Land Commission have not moved in the matter yet.

If the Land Commission had their representative at every sale where a farm suitable for division is put on the market, they would get plenty of land in every county and they would get it at a reasonable price, unless during very abnormal times. The value of land rises and falls and, if acquisition is to be purely voluntary, if the Land Commission are to buy in the open market, I suppose the position will be that when the value of land is low, they will buy more than when it is high. That is as it should be. There is nothing wrong with that. But, generally speaking, no farmer will invite the Land Commission to acquire his holding because he knows when the Land Commission come in they will take years to reach finality. Inspectors will come to inspect the holding and others will inspect the potential applicants and the farmer will be sick and weary before any definite move is made. In addition, if the farmer does not agree to the price the Land Commission offer, they can acquire his holding compulsorily.

Abandon your compulsory powers and the farmer will meet you. Abandon compulsory powers and act promptly when land is offered to you and the farmer will meet you. You will get all the land you can deal with in an efficient manner. That is the alternative to making the land a source of violent agitation, and making it a pawn in political Party conflict. As long as the Land Commission have these compulsory powers, it is open to any politician, no matter to what Party he belongs, to say: "I will get the land taken off Mr. So-and-so and given to you if you support me." That has been done in every constituency and it will continue as long as the Land Commission have these compulsory powers.

Abandon those powers and you will get back to something more normal in the relationship between one farmer and another and between the farmers and the Land Commission. In addition to getting more complete holdings offered to them by farmers when they proceed to acquire them in a voluntary way, I believe many large farmers in years to come will be prepared to offer portion of their farms to the Land Commission. Farming will be a more difficult occupation in the future. Labour will be more difficult to obtain and will certainly be more expensive and many large farmers will find that they cannot manage. They have not, perhaps, family help of their own or perhaps the health to look after a very large farm themselves, and they will ask the Land Commission to buy a portion of their holding and in that way a great deal of land will be made available to the Land Commission to assist smallholders and, in some cases, landless men.

The question is sometimes asked as to what extent the Land Commission should assist, out of public funds, new holders coming in on land. Deputy Dillon raised that matter on another Estimate. He said that the Land Commission, having purchased land, sell it at half the purchase price to incoming tenants. I do not think that is true, because, in reply to a question that I put with regard to one holding, I found that it was purchased for £3,553 and sold to the incoming tenants for £3,308. I am puzzled to know whether, after being sold to the incoming tenants at £3,308, the purchase price was reduced by 50 per cent. as in the case of other annuitants. I would like the Minister to indicate the position in that connection.

I hold that the policy of the Land Commission should be to act as an honest broker between the man who has land to sell and the man who wants to buy land but who, without the aid of the Land Commission, would be unable to do so. For example, there are a number of uneconomic holders in an area. A large farm is put up for sale. The uneconomic holders would be unable to buy it and divide it among themselves. The Land Commission could purchase that holding and divide it, but there should be no particular advantages to the uneconomic holders unless that they would be enabled to purchase the land because, if those allottees were to be given the land at any price drastically below the purchase price, they would get an unfair advantage over a smallholder who might happen to purchase a piece of land so as to make his holding economic. There must be absolute equity as between one farmer and another, as between the man who sells and the man who buys, as between the man who gets an allocation of land and the man who purchases land out of his own resources. Absolute justice and fair play are all that are required.

If, as Deputy Giles very rightly pointed out, the repayment of purchase money would be too high if spread over 60 or 68 years, there is no reason why the repayment period could not be extended so as to ensure that the smallholder coming in on the land would get it at a reasonable rent. That is all that could be expected from the Land Commission—that they would act as honest brokers, purchase the land and sell it to the smallholder on the easy payment system. If they followed that line, they would escape a lot of the entanglements in which they have involved themselves.

They have represented to the public, and I think it is true in many cases, though not in all, that they are giving a free gift of land to allottees. Thus you have fierce competition between rival applicants and a good deal of jealousy and bitter agitation. That is a thing which ought to be eliminated from land settlement. Land settlement should be a powerful judicial function performed in a cool, detached atmosphere, far removed from any bitter conflict or any strife. The Land Commission in deciding between one applicant and another, in deciding whether to purchase a holding or not, should act in an absolutely judicial manner, and under no circumstances should they allow themselves to be influenced by local agitation, because if we once establish a position in which the Land Commission can be forced to acquire a holding, or forced to give it to one set of applicants through threats of violence or strife, then Land Commission operations will become absolutely impossible in this country.

Once the people see that the Land Commission can be intimidated or can be driven, they will continue to drive them. The Irish people are a fairly intelligent people in matters of that kind and if they find that a certain policy succeeds, if they find that illegal action and violence were successful in forcing the hands of the Land Commission, then you will have the country plunged into a state of agrarian strife, north, south, east and west. It is time for the Minister who is responsible for this whole policy to sit down and weigh the situation carefully. There is no use in ploughing the sands, in dividing and re-dividing land. There is no use in listening to people who talk about one man having a small holding and another man having a much larger holding. If you divided all the land equally between all agricultural holders at the present time, each man would have only a very small holding and you would not have settled the question then because, in the course of 20 or 30 years, some men would sell their holdings and other landholders would buy them up and inequality as between one holding and another would reassert itself.

I mentioned in this House on a previous occasion a case in my constituency where an agricultural holding or rather I should say an estate because it was held by a landlord, was acquired by the Land Commission and divided. Three new holdings were created, houses were built, fences were erected and roads were made. In the course of the 30 years that have since elapsed—as a matter of fact in a much shorter time—one man who was not residing in this country had purchased the three holdings and merged them into one. The fences that were erected by the Land Commission have crumbled away and even the houses that were built by the Land Commission have fallen. I want to know have the Land Commission considered that aspect of the question? Have they considered that in many cases, just as in this particular case, they may be only ploughing the sands? They may be creating new small holdings, which will last only for a few years and subsequently be merged into larger holdings.

From every point of view land tenure in this and every other country is an extremely serious question. It is a fundamental question inasmuch as any weakening of individual ownership in regard to land would mean inevitably the destruction of private ownership in this country. If you have not the right to own a piece of land, to hold it for your lifetime, to sell it or to pass it on to your descendants or successors, then you are just a slave. The country in which private land ownership is abolished becomes inevitably a slave country. The ownership of house property in the towns, the ownership of shops and business houses, the ownership of private houses in our urban areas, would all eventually cease so that it is a fundamental question whether we are to preserve private ownership or abolish it. It is a question for the solution of which the Minister and the Land Commission must take responsibility.

While the actions of the Land Commission up to the present have not to any great extent weakened security of tenure in this country, notwithstanding the fact that the Land Commission have absolute power to acquire land anywhere, they have to proceed very cautiously in regard to acquisition. There is an old saying that great bodies move slowly but it is equally true that great bodies, once set in motion, can move very quickly and it may be that these words apply with particular force to a great body moving quickly as against a small body. Thus, if the Land Commission allow themselves to be forced by agitation into a policy of ruthless sub-division of land with a view to making all holdings of nearly equal size, they will have set on foot a movement which no power in this country can bring to a standstill. If all the agricultural holdings in this country were to be made of equal size, I do not know what the average-sized holding would be but it would not be a very large holding. Whatever it would be, one of the effects of that policy would be to deprive 130,000 agricultural labourers of their means of employment. Then, again, you would have set on foot another violent agitation by over 100,000 agricultural labourers, who, by reason of the wholesale division of land, would find themselves unable to obtain employment. These men again would commence an agitation to obtain holdings for themselves, and, if they were sufficiently strong, there would have to be another sub-division of holdings so that the policy would go on indefinitely.

That is why I say the Land Commission should proceed cautiously. That is why it is desirable, at least, in order to safeguard the principle of security of tenure, that they should divest themselves, as far as possible, of the right to acquire land compulsorily. Having done so, they will have much greater freedom in dealing with farmers for the purchase of land, because it must be remembered that they have no one now to deal with but farmers. The landlords were abolished years ago, and it is a question of dealing with farmers, large or small, and acquiring their holdings by agreement. It is not a question which is confined exclusively to the acquisition of very large holdings.

As Deputy Blowick and other Deputies have pointed out, there are many semi-derelict, small holdings which the Land Commission could acquire, and there is now a new problem arising in many parts of the country, that is, that, owing to the deterioration of accommodation roads and laneways, the people are getting away from the little holding a long distance from the road. I know there are many small holdings a long distance from roads which have been acquired by other bigger farmers, purely as outfarms, as grazing accommodation, and I think it is tragic to see these little homesteads disappear. If there is anything of a drastic nature in regard to interference with private ownership which the Land Commission or the State should do, it is, in my opinion, the prevention of the destruction of an existing homestead. Where a farmer who has an uneconomic holding buys a holding upon which there are a house and out-offices, he should not be allowed to let the house and out-offices fall. It is bad from a social point of view and from a national point of view.

We ought to see that we have fewer and fewer of the roofless houses and gaping walls that one sees all over the country. That is one suggestion I would make. Let the Land Commission deal with the people as a business firm in a business-like way; let them buy land in a business-like way and deal with the people in a business-like way and let them not spend years and years deciding whether to acquire a holding or not. If they make up their minds to acquire a holding, let them acquire it quickly and conclude the purchase speedily, and let them not keep an unfortunate man in suspense for years after he approaches them with an offer of land.

I have on a few occasions drawn the Minister's attention to the fact that, where land is divided, the accommodation roads provided are scarcely ever completely satisfactory, but there is an even greater evil, that is, that the boundary fences provided by the Land Commission are hopelessly unsatisfactory. I know that it is not so easy in every district to get people who are skilled in the erection of earth fences, but one thing which the Minister and the Land Commission should insist upon is the establishment of a proper, hedge of whitethorn on every boundary fence. It is absolutely ridiculous to see through the country bare wall fences standing as monuments to the Land Commission's inefficiency in sub-dividing land, and they are to be seen everywhere. The Minister tells me that in these cases they supply quicks. They do, but, in nine cases out of ten, they do not grow, and there must be some inefficiency there, because, if whitethorn quicks are properly sown at the proper time, they will always grow. There may be failures, because of adverse weather, in one or two cases, but, where that happens, they should be replaced. That is one absolutely essential consideration in the improvement of estates.

There is no use in taking over an estate, sub-dividing it and leaving it in a worse condition than that in which you found it. Inevitably, if a farm is not properly fenced, it is in a worse condition than that in which you found it, because the whole system of economic and efficient husbandry depends on proper fences for live stock. If you cannot keep sheep and cattle from trespassing on a tillage crop, it is hopeless to sow the crop, and you are simply creating another desert because you are creating a position in which you will have a number—one or more, and perhaps a large number—of inefficient farmers. Good fencing is essential to efficient farming. Every old farmer recognises that, and, in the old days, hard-working, industrious farmers always sought not only to repair their earth fences but to plant on them proper hedgerows. If the Minister is wise, he will accept the advice I have offered to him; if he is unwise, he will continue to muddle along as he and as his predecessors have been muddling for the past 30 years.

There has been a considerable amount of criticism of the Land Commission with regard to their lack of progress in the vesting of holdings, and I should like to ask the Minister how the progress made during the past 25 years, since the establishment of the State, compares with the progress made prior to the establishment of the State. I am reliably informed—I have not got any statistics to help me out in the matter—that the revesting of land under the pre-1923 Land Acts was much more speedy than the revesting under that Act. I do not know how much truth there is in that, but I should like to have a comparison of the figures of progress for the years prior to the establishment of the State and after. It seems ridiculous that it should take so long to give a man a certificate of ownership of his land, and I think this certificate of ownership is a very important document. I do not agree with Deputy Blowick that it is not important to the very small holder. It is just as important to the man with one, two or three acres as it is to the man with 100 acres. The farmer should have a legal document in his possession certifying that he is the undisputed owner of his property and that nobody has any right to take it from him, and that should apply whether the holding is large or small. I know that there can never be such a thing as absolute security of tenure, but at least land should only be taken from a farmer by special legislation for definite specific purposes. We know that it has been necessary to take land for hydro-electric schemes, and occasionally by local authorities for the provision of housing.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
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