Last night, I tried to deal with this Estimate as objectively as possible. In what I believed was a realistic manner, I pointed out that the Land Commission was now an independent, judicial body. I also pointed out the impropriety of having the Minister charged with responsibility for the control and direction of the Land Commission, as was the case prior to the passing of the 1933 Land Act. I referred to the activities of the Land Commission from the year 1933 to the year 1940 and the rapid rate at which they proceeded to acquire and divide land. I explained how that progress was retarded by circumstances arising from the war. I pointed out the difficulties regarding the inflated price of land and what it would mean to the incoming tenants and to the community in the light of experience gained by what happened after the passing of the 1923 Act. I could go further and refer to the experience in respect of estates taken over by committees during 1920-21. I dealt fairly fully with that matter and came to the congested problem, which, for us, Deputies in the West, is a very acute problem. With the exception of unemployment, I think that is the biggest problem confronting us. I want to make quite clear that, in dealing with the problem as I did, it was not my intention to score off members of the Opposition, in particular Clann na Talmhan, because I realise that they are sincere in their attitude on this whole matter.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed).
Thanks.
And I sympathise with them in it. At the same time, I should like the matter to be approached in the light of existing circumstances. Members of that Party should picture themselves on the Government Benches, facing the problems which they would have to face. They would, probably, then be in a better position to understand the complexities and the difficulties of this problem.
I stated here last night, and I say again, that the congested problem, as we know it in the West, can never be solved by land division alone. It will take something much wider and bigger than land division to solve that problem. That is why I mentioned that I was in agreement with the speakers who said it was a mistake to abolish the Congested Districts Board. I am of the same opinion still. I believe that the congested problem will have to be tackled in a big way and that a body somewhat similar to the Congested Districts Board should be set up to give that problem whole-time attention. They should ascertain, in the first place, all the difficulties of the problem and then set out to have them removed or eased. Many factors will have to be taken into consideration and a considerable amount of money will have to be expended. The real difficulty, so far as the congested problem on the western seaboard and for 50 miles inland is concerned, is that the industries are on the wrong side of the country. If we could bring the industries nearer to these people, the congested problem would not be so acute.
Deputy Blowick said there were 23,000 congests in Mayo. I believe there are around 17,000 in Galway. If three out of every four of these—assuming that sufficient land was available in the Midlands to enable them to get a standard holding—were taken out and given land, the remaining one, although his holding would be very greatly increased, would still not have the standard of living which the present generation demands. I consequently think that the matters of fishing, expansion of horticulture and agriculture, and so far as possible the establishment of industry and the provision of a good transport service are all matters— which, of course, cannot be tackled now —which any body set up to deal with this problem would have to take into consideration.
I have mentioned the matter of bog development. I do not fully agree with my colleague, Deputy Brennan, regarding the fine things which the Land Commission have done in that regard. I know they have made considerable progress, but I hold that there is no organisation more capable of, or better fitted for, developing the bogs of the country, and particularly the bogs in the possession of the Land Commission, than the Land Commission, if they would only apply themselves to the task. They have done a considerable amount of work in that respect, but I know a number of cases where they carried out drainage on bogs and where they created, as a result, another problem. The same applies to the county councils. They let the water out and did not follow it sufficiently far, with the result that, when the water flowed out so strongly, it brought with it mud and slush and clogged up the main outlet for a distance of two or three miles, and in certain districts I know where that work was carried out the bed of the river is now as high as the land and crops have been ruined as a result, and land which was good agricultural land before that drainage was carried out cannot now be used for agricultural purposes.
I also mentioned housing, and I believe that the grants which are given are totally inadequate to build suitable houses and out-offices and would need to be considerably increased. I have reminded the Minister of what I term the very callous attitude of the Land Commission in respect of people who, years ago, were allotted holdings and given to understand that they would get grants and advances to enable them to put up suitable houses and out-offices, but who, because of some hitch in the arrangements—in one case, due to the fact that the inspector who dealt with the estate, the O'Connor-Nolan estate at Adrigoole, near Kiltormer, died— did not get the grants or advances. A few people were given assistance by way of grants and advances and these were not nearly as badly off in the matter of houses as those who failed to get them. The people who were left out and to continue to make application to the Land Commission now get the reply that the Land Commission is not prepared to accede to their applications, but that it is open to them to make application to the Department of Local Government under the Housing Acts. I hold that it is very callous of the Land Commission to treat these people in that way and I trust the Minister will have the matter brought to the notice of his officials.
There is also the question of giving exchange holdings to people and migrating them a distance of two, five, or even ten miles. A few instances of this have occurred in my area. The holding was pointed out to a man and he signed some kind of preliminary purchase agreement. A house and out-offices were built for him and he went into the house to live, being allowed to retain his own holding, and, after two years in the new holding, he went back to his old holding, completely upsetting the calculations of the Land Commission in their preparation of the scheme. That has happened in at least two or three cases in East Galway and it is something which should not be allowed to occur again. If a man is prepared to migrate, all the conditions should be made available to him—the annuity he will have to pay and the valuation of the holding and the buildings so that he will sign the purchase agreement with his eyes open. The purchase agreement should be definite and there should be no allowing a man to go back on it. I believe the Land Commission are aware of this position already. They understand what is implied and they know the great trouble it has caused them and they are not likely to have any other cases of the kind.
Deputy Brennan last night made an appeal on behalf of the junior inspectors recruited on a temporary basis and he said that where they had given two years' satisfactory service they should be established. A period of two years might be too short, but I think that they should be established after five years. There is another type of official a step lower down, the ganger and supervising ganger, many of whom have given good service to the Land Commission and to the allottees because of the very practical way in which they have the work carried out. They are in the same position to-day as they were in when they first started. They are not established and many of them are married men with families. If they die, there is nothing for their dependents but a widow's or orphan's pension or some assistance of that kind. The wages of men who have given such good service should now be stabilised, just as the wages of other employees of various Government Departments and local authorities have been stabilised, and some arrangement on the lines of a new Bill which has been submitted to the House in regard to the servants of local authorities should apply to them whether it be on a contributory basis or not. Certainly I hold that they are entitled to some consideration and should be brought into a scheme of that kind, so that when their term of service is finished they will have something to look to other than the old age pension or such assistance. I know many of them who were very helpful to the young inspectors when they came out first. They were the men who gave them the practical line on matters they had to deal with. The inspectors had the theoretical idea all right, but it was these men I mentioned who gave them the practical outlook as to the best and most economic way to carry out the work. I am making this appeal to the Minister on their behalf to have them taken into consideration.
I am glad to see such an interest taken in the division of land. I believe that, although the general object of land division is the relief of congestion, the real object should be to increase production. To do that efficiently the Land Commission will have to change a great deal of its policy. As far as the figures prove, although we have divided a great deal of land we do not seem to have increased agricultural production and, consequently, that very important object does not seem to have been attained. That is due very largely to the fact that in the building of houses and in the draining of land a great number of mistakes were made. Small farms certainly cannot produce an exportable commodity, with the exception of bacon and eggs. I have not yet noticed in any houses built by the Land Commission any suitable pig houses, nor have they erected any sort of a loft or storage for grain.
There are, of course, a few places where such lofts were erected and for the expenditure of very little money that could have been done everywhere. The result is that, in a great number of Land Commission farms, people are almost helpless. They are unable to store their grain and they have no shelter of any description. In most cases there is no provision at all for water, with the exception of rain water or river water. At very little cost that could have been done. Then there is the other class, the main class which the Land Commission hopes to relieve, that is, the congested holders. Many of those people who got additions of land are still left in the old mud-wall cabins owing to certain rules and regulations under which new houses could not be erected. As a result, all over County Meath, and, I am sure, other counties too, you have these eye-sores. None of these people could produce efficiently or effectively, and there is that handicap on production.
The vesting orders are certainly being carried out and very many questions are being asked of Deputies back and forward on certain estates, as to why some tenants are vested and others are not. I take it that the vesting is the turning point and is a sort of examination as to whether the tenant has made any progress or not. It is possible that when the Land Commission inspectors report "no progress" the tenant will not be vested for some time. As soon as they become vested, they will have a test made and the tenants will produce the test themselves by either selling their farms or remaining on them. When that stage is reached and they start to sell, we will be able to judge more or less what tenants have been efficient, what tenants have been unfortunate and what tenants needed a change. It is only about then that we shall know more fully and completely what results the Land Commission's activities have produced.
It is nearly impossible for tenants under present conditions to produce good results. They have only very little accommodation round their holdings and the production of manure is nearly impossible. They are very small holdings. In County Meath we have a number of colonies, such as Rathcarne, Lambay and Gibbstown and another big colony on the Allenstown estate. I want to say here and now that these colonies have made very considerable progress and have contributed very largely to the improvement of food supplies. They have done that under rather severe handicaps, notwithstanding that in some cases they got certain grants for a few years after they came. They have practically no accommodation around their houses. That was one of the mistakes the Land Commission made—they invested a good deal of money in land division and it is a pity they could not have gone a little further and completed the job and given these tenants an opportunity of keeping their land fertile and consequently increasing production.
Long ago on the Continent, when the people of Middle Europe and Central Europe were emerging from feudalism, there was land division there. Those holdings were something like nine acres or less. The tenants were granted free sale and were able to sell their holdings without any formal process of vesting such as we have here. Only one condition was put on the sale of the holding and it was that the holding had to have a certain amount of manure ready to put on the land and a certain amount of manure in the soil. Otherwise, the sale of the land was not allowed. That ensured fertility and ensured that the land would be kept in good order. Unfortunately, that is not to be noticed in quite a number of these farms that I see after being divided and it is certainly absent in most of the small uneconomic holdings that were enlarged, principally due to the fact that there were no houses on those farms. I hope that the Land Commission will consider that point. It does not mean a much larger expenditure. All it means is a plan and a judgment to see that the houses are proper for the production for which those farms are suitable. Under the present circumstances, I believe the tenants are handicapped and have a grievance.
The Land Commission should also consider the type of production. The Minister for Finance seems to have used his judgment very rightly and indicated the object quite clearly in his reference in the Budget to the provision of artificial farms on small holdings. All over the world the practice is to grow quite a lot of valuable food under glass. These small farms could be made much more productive and give a larger income if some system were adopted whereby they would be able to get houses at a reasonable price on the credit basis in which tomatoes and other things could be grown. We have now reached the stage of high scientific development in agriculture, and I think we should always keep that in view. We should get away from the stereotyped methods which the Land Commission have set up all over the country, under which there is no great incentive for the people to work and indeed no great opportunities for them to do so.
There is then the question of water. I think that in Rathcarne and Lambay there are about 60 families and only two pumps to supply their needs. The distance from one colony to the other is roughly about three miles. That will give Deputies an idea of what the position in that district is, due to the want of water. Water is fundamental to everything. Unless there is a good supply of it work cannot be carried out on a farm. I would ask the Minister to take a special note of that and see that an ample supply of water is provided. There are quite a number of other farms scattered through the county which are suffering from the effects of grave mistakes made by the Land Commission. Large fields were taken and divided into farms. It never appears to have struck the inspectors of the Land Commission, although they had been warned about it on many occasions, that these large fields were due to the fact that there was a great scarcity of water. They pass no remarks on that position with the result that the land was divided and some of the holdings created are still without a water supply. Quite a number of farms in the County Meath have no water supply. Even though repeated complaints were made to the Land Commission they did nothing about it and the position remains as I have described it.
In the case of an estate outside Trim, three or four pumps were erected, but after a few years it was found that the water supply from them was dangerous. On examination the water was found to be contaminated, so that the county medical officer of health had to order the pumps to be closed. It was known for years and years that there was no water on any of those large fields which were selected for division. The water supply from the pumps was bad. The only good water in that area was that which was got from the wells. The Land Commission closed up all the wells and put down pumps, and as I say the water from the pumps soon became dangerous. We have quite a lot of that sort of thing. It impedes production very much. It also means that a lot of a farmer's time is occupied in taking his stock to water, and as well creates a lot of trouble amongst his neighbours. I would appeal to the Minister to bring these facts to the notice of the Land Commission and see what can be done in order to provide a proper water supply.
There is then the question of roads and drainage. When farms are divided the Land Commission makes roads through them. They make gates leading on to the roads and build bridges to enable the people to reach the roads. In doing so they forget to put eyes in the bridges, with the result that the public roads are now flooded. The county council can do nothing except to take action against the tenants. I understand it cannot take action against the Land Commission. That is a pity, because I think these foolish mistakes should not have been made.
Deputy Beegan referred to the prevalence of fluke in his area. It is also very prevalent in the County Meath, due to the fact that the land is not properly drained. The Land Commission made no great effort to drain the land. They made new ditches and new fences, but when the ditches get water-logged there is no exit left for the water to escape. Consequently, it flows out on the land and creates large pools of water which become infested with the bacteria that causes fluke. The disease is on the increase, and is causing quite an amount of loss and damage. Steps should be taken to prevent that occurring. When new ditches are made across fields an exit should be left for the water to escape. The thing should be done intelligently so as to prevent the water lodging on the land.
In conclusion, I hope the Land Commission will soon be able to resume its activities. There is still a demand for the division of land. I suppose the peculiar times we are living in make that demand particularly strong now. I believe that when people get a farm of land, if an intelligent view were taken of what they were going to produce on it, and if they were given facilities to do so, land division would be a success. That would stimulate increased production. The Minister for Finance pointed out the other day that we cannot have increased social services unless we get increased production. Neither can we have increases in wages unless we get increased production. We have reached the point now when, so far as the community is concerned, there must be a standstill unless we are able to increase production. The Land Commission have quite a lot to do with that. They have created thousands of new tenants. In many cases these tenants have been handicapped, but in my opinion if a little more thought were exercised, and if there was some more expenditure, I believe that most of those tenants would be enabled to carry on and would be put in a position to add to the general pool of production.
I want to raise the question of the wages paid to employees of the Department. Their wages are supposed to be based on the agricultural rate, but in reality they are not getting that because the men in the Forestry Department are cut for broken time.
There is a Vote for the forestry branch, and there can be a separate discussion on it.
I understand the Minister for Lands has responsibility for these employees.
The next Vote is for forestry, and the Deputy will be in order in speaking of forestry employees on it.
The Department of Lands is tearing down some big mansions in the County Wexford. The work is being done by individuals from this city. The material is taken away and we are left with these derelict sites. Those people should not be allowed to come into the county to demolish fine buildings to make profits for themselves. The Department should stop that. I had a question down in 1944 about a fine mansion situate outside Enniscorthy which was torn down. The Minister in reply told me that he had no control over houses standing in a demesne. There is plenty of land still to be divided. A Deputy from Galway last night gave a list of all the land that has been divided in Galway. Some of the best farmers in the country are in County Wexford. They have very small holdings and could do with extra land.
They are not as good as ours.
We are a model county. We till more in Wexford than is tilled in the rest of the Twenty-Six Counties. Only for the Wexford farmers there would be many farmers in other counties short of food. That is an honour that we have. Thank God we are not regarded as graziers. There are too many inspectors from the Minister's Department going around the country. On Sunday after church we see all these young fellows going around telling the best farmers in the county how they should sow and where they should sow. The only thing that I am asking the Minister to do is to provide extra land where small farmers' holdings are adjacent to big demesnes and where the owner of the demesne is letting the land in conacre and will do nothing himself. These people should be made either to till or to get out because if it were not for their neighbours who have to pay big prices for conacre, these very people would be charged by the Department of Agriculture for not tilling their quota. If the small farmer is a bit late in tilling, the inspector is immediately down to see why he has not tilled. There is still the big landlord in this country looking for some small farmer to take five or six acres. Unfortunately, the small farmer has to take that land in conacre because otherwise he would be unable to rear his family. If it were not for the small farmer, there would not be a plough brought into some of these fields. If division of land is to be carried out, the small farmer should be considered. The small farmer should not be asked to carry on his shoulders what should be the responsibility of the big rancher. All that the big ranchers want to do is to set the land in grass or tillage so that they can float around and not bother about employing labour. They do not want to pay anybody because they know some other farmer will have to do it, leaving them free to go to Leopardstown races and Baldoyle races in their big motor cars, while the boys down in County Wexford till the land. That is what is happening every day. The small man is handicapped. The inspector visits him if he is a day late with his tillage. There is a certain section of the people that the inspector never goes near, whether it is through political influence or otherwise. We all know that the farmers have done great work during the emergency. They faced up to every task they were asked to perform. Now what is their reward? They are not allowed by the present Minister to cut down a tree. You can talk about planting trees.
On the next Vote, Deputy.
All right, Sir. The Minister for Lands should be in earnest. There is no use in talking here year after year when the small farmer is left in the same position. I have received many letters from them asking me to make representations to the Minister to get extra land where division was taking place in certain areas. The people who really wanted the land did not get it. If land division is being carried out, the small man of ten to 15 acres should be considered, rather than the bigger man who, through political influence or otherwise, may look for a share. I hope the Minister will carry out that suggestion so that land will be given to the most deserving cases. If he does that, there will be no one grousing about land. Land is causing an awful war in some parts of this country. All we ask is that it should be divided fairly. That is all the small farmers want. Give them a bit of land when it is going. Do not give it to the well-to-do.
Just because year after year Deputies on this side of the House show their appreciation of the work that is being done by the Land Commission throughout the country, people on the opposite side, particularly in the Clann na Talmhan Benches, try to switch that to convey an impression outside that Fianna Fáil Deputies are not pressing the Land Commission as they should and that if they were pressing the Land Commission much more would be done. From this side of the House our criticism has always been honest, and when we see any particular Department doing good work we show our recognition of it.
Of course, I know the effect many of the speeches of Clann na Talmhan have throughout the country. It is not a good effect. It is one thing to press the Land Commission to divide land and another to frighten people out of their boots to hold land. I am afraid that is what is happening. There are many things to be considered in suggesting to the Land Commission lands that should be acquired. I do not think anyone wants to deprive any man of his holding if he is making a livelihood from the pursuit of agriculture. What we generally get after is a derelict farm or a non-residential farm. In so far as that particular type of farm is concerned, if it is in a congested area or in an area that is suitable for migrants, I can assure Clann na Talmhan that before they came here and since the first time most of us came here these cases have been put forward to the Land Commission. I have been for more than 20 years pressing the Land Commission in respect of such lands. It is as a result of the pressure we have been putting on the Land Commission that the list of work carried out that Deputy Beegan read last night has been accomplished.
We are all, I think, agreed that there is no way of purchasing land except by law. This thing of rushing people into the belief that certain things can be done before the law can take its course is altogether wrong. I am afraid that is what is happening as far as Clann na Talmhan are concerned.
You are worrying a lot about us.
I am in so far as I know that instead of helping the Land Commission to make progress and speed, you are holding them back. Your attitude is holding them back. It is not a helpful attitude and cannot be helpful.
Congests in Mayo think differently.
If the Deputies would address the Chair, there would be less acrimony, possibly.
If you want to speed up land division it is through the Land Commission you will get results, and nowhere else. That is why we have been consistently pressing the Land Commission—despite any statements that have been made by the people in opposition to us. That is where we have been putting pressure for years and years and where we will continue to exert pressure. It is only from there we can hope to get results.
I agree with Deputy Donnellan in a number of things he said yesterday evening. There are men who have offered lands to the Land Commission. He mentioned a case of Edward V.A. Costello. About two years ago I put forward that case. I got this man to write to the Land Commission offering them his lands. I called to the Land Commission several times asking them to have inspection carried out to see what could be done. As yet, unfortunately, nothing has been done. There are many such cases. I know of other cases where the same thing happened. There is a case at Caherlistrane; there is a case at Lettermore; there are lands owned by a man named McDonald; there is the St. George and Brown Grove estate.
Both Deputy Walsh and myself went to the Land Commission after the offer was made by the owner and we asked the Land Commission to deal with the matter immediately as the area is a congested area. No progress has been made in the matter yet. There are several such farms. That is my only grievance with the Land Commission. I say that the Land Commission is lazy about this matter and that it is not pushing as it should push. If migration in the West is to be solved to any reasonable extent it can only be solved, firstly, by taking over lands, where possible, and secondly, by migrating the larger landholders to the Midlands or somewhere else. That is the only economical way of doing things and it must be faced from that point of view. I cannot understand why no action is taken when a man makes an offer to the Land Commission that he is prepared to leave 200 acres and take a farm somewhere else. Mr. Costello is quite prepared to take a reasonably-sized holding not at all as big as the one he is giving up provided he gets a house and out-offices on it. There is no house on the land he is giving up. There is in the vicinity of Creggs, County Galway, an enormous area of land available, but the Land Commission have only been toying with the matter. I cannot see why they do not make some progress and why people are left to starve in one area, whereas people within a couple of miles of them are living in luxury. I suppose no portion of Mayo or Connemara can compare with the north Galway area for congestion. The area from Ballymoe to Caherlistrane and from Newbridge to Irishtown is probably the most congested area in Ireland. How people have managed to make a living there or stick there is something nobody can understand. The number of large farms in that area is not at all as big as in my colleague, Deputy Beegan's, area. They are different counties altogether. The congestion in my area is enormous.
If the bigger landholder offers land to the Land Commission the Land Commission should immediately step in and seek to bargain with the owner for, if they do not, there will be rows in other places similar to those created in County Mayo. If the Land Commission is more speedy many of these rows can be avoided. There is the further grievance that where land has been taken over the employees on the particular farm get first preference. I am afraid that is not a wise policy. I think the only way to solve that problem is to give monetary compensation to those employees. There is very little use in putting an employee into a holding of land if he has not the capital to work it. If the employees were to get reasonable monetary compensation I think they would prefer it at all times to the holding of land when, as I say, they are not in a position to work it. Of course if a man is in a financial position to work a holding it is quite a different matter.
I wish to refer to the question of turbary in the same area. I can safely say that there is an enormous amount of turbary available there. Is not it strange to find that as yet there are scores and scores of people there who have not got turbary for themselves? I have a particular spot in mind—it is a place on an estate outside Glenamaddy. I have been asking the Land Commission to divide it out to the people. They will produce the turf. If turf is to be produced at all the best and the most economical way is to give the individual his own piece of turbary and he and his family will produce the turf at an economical rate, and plenty of it at that. If he has not got the turf his family will have to go somewhere else, but if he has they are quite prepared to stay at home and produce it. The Land Commission should not be slow to divide bogs where there are small farmers with pretty large families prepared to work and produce the turf. That has been proved in the Ballymoe area and in parts of the Glenamaddy area where turbary is available.
If the Minister took the precaution of looking into the running of the Tuam Beet Factory he would find that the turf supplied from the Glenamaddy area amounts to thousands and thousands of tons. All the turf that is supplied from there is a very small amount of what could be and would be supplied if the Land Commission divided the bog and gave the people an opportunity of doing more by way of turf production. I find that every day of the week a number of people on the Kirwan estate outside Tuam are fighting because the Land Commission began a job which they never finished. There is a bog there and one person says he owns a particular part of it and another person says that he owns it. I asked the Land Commission to send down an inspector to inquire into and settle the matter. That would have solved the whole problem but nothing has been done and rows are going on there day after day. I think that when a Deputy puts a case to the Land Commission serious notice should be taken of it and an inspector should be sent to inquire into it. There are plenty of inspectors and there is not enough work for them at the moment. I had to ask here on the 3rd July last for at least the second time a question referring to turbary on the Deering estate at Clonkeen, Dunmore, and on the Logan and O'Beirne estates. The Land Commission own the bog. Half the turbary is on the Roscommon side of the border and the other half is on the Galway side. I have asked the Land Commission to make some progress towards dividing the land but nothing has yet been done.
I wish to make a few remarks on the subject of improvements. When the Land Commission step in and divide a farm they have the happy knack of making a road about 12 feet wide. That was all right in the days gone by but nowadays we have developed a beet industry and other things. The result is that on all those roads there is lorry traffic. If two lorries happen to meet on any of those Land Commission roads one has to back back to some gateway in order to let the other pass by. It would not cost very much extra to build the road 16 feet, 17 feet, 20 feet or even 25 feet wide. It is the fences which cost the money—moving them a yard back makes no difference. In later years they are the cause of disputes. When the county council comes to take these roads over the council engineers say that they will have to move the fence to make the width 25 feet from fence to fence. The person on one side of the road will say that he will not give the land and the person on the other side will not give the land either. The result is that there is a problem created which could have been solved by the Land Commission at the commencement and which causes all sorts of unpleasantness, as well as leaving the work badly done.
The next thing is this question of drainage. I have for years been making representations with regard to a particular drain. I mention it as an example of some of the things that have been done by the Land Commission in a slipshod way. There is a drain from a place called Newtown which runs through the French estate on to Castlefrench and over to two bogs in Cornantymore. When the Land Commission took over the land on the French estate some years ago they proceeded to do some work on the drain. All they did, however, was to pull something out of it here and there when an extra £100 would have made a decent drain.
The position now is that the original land of the people in that locality is no use to them and some of the additional land that they got is no use to them either because it is completely flooded. I have being going from Department to Department about that drain. The Board of Works say that they cannot undertake the work as a minor relief scheme as there are no unemployed in the area. There is no turbary to justify a grant from the Board of Works for a turbary drainage scheme. It so happens that it runs along the side of the road for about a quarter of a mile or so, which makes it uneconomic for the people to avail of the rural improvements scheme. The only thing now is for the Land Commission to come along, as they did not do the job well before, and make some effort to finish the job out of some of the minor relief scheme money. It is in a most disgraceful condition and I wish the Minister to take note of it and try to do something in the matter. The people cannot get across the road now and the lands are all flooded and in a deplorable condition.
The next thing I want to mention is the lands that the Land Commission have taken over for a number of years and which have not been divided. I have here a list of official communications I got from the Land Commission. There is the Rabbitt estate at Croghill of 121 acres which was taken over. Notification of it was sent to me on 12th November, 1945, but nothing has been done since. There is land belonging to O'Brien and Costello in the same vicinity which was taken over about the same time and nothing has been done yet. There is land at Corralea consisting of 90 acres, 28 perches, which was also taken over and has not been divided yet. Then there are the lands of William Lynskey at Mullagh, notification of the acquisition of which was published in Irish Oifigiúil on 26th July, 1946, record No. S.8917. I have a number of others but I will not bother reading them. Why is not some progress being made by the Land Commission in regard to these lands? The Land Commission have gangers here and there who have been paid off for a long time and who are anxious to get work. Why do not the Land Commission proceed to do something about these lands and have them divided?
Why is it that when the Land Commission migrate families out of a village they give the lands to people living three or four miles from that village? When families like that are migrated, it is understood that that is done for the purpose of making the small holdings in the locality more economic. Why should not the people in the locality, who are prepared to pay for a letting of these lands while the Land Commission are making up their minds as to how they should be divided, get a letting of these lands and have a chance of working them? In a place called Rushestown four or five families were migrated and the lands were given to people living miles away. These things could be easily remedied so as to satisfy the people who are waiting for the lands to be divided. I hope the Land Commission will take serious notice of these things I have mentioned and take steps to see that things are done in a more reasonable manner. It is easy to satisfy the people provided they see that the Land Commission are inclined to do the job in the right way. If the Land Commission do not make obstacles for people I do not believe the people will make obstacles for the Land Commission. They will be helpful if they are met in a reasonable way.
I should like to put before the Minister one or two aspects of the position as it appears to me. Some years ago, before the constituencies were altered, I represented many hundreds of farmers in this Dáil. I had experience of successive Ministers for Lands and I must pay this tribute to the present Minister, that on any occasion on which I had to approach him on matters connected with lands I found him always readily accessible and invariably most fair. Some people, Deputies especially, appear to forget the many difficulties that confront the Minister at present. We know that he is short of staff and that he is making great efforts to ease the position generally in his Department. It has been proved by figures submitted to the Dáil during the past few weeks that vesting has been considerably speeded up during his tenure of office.
The principal reason that brought me to my feet is that I should like the Minister, if not now, at least on some convenient or early date, to give to the House, and to the people through this House, some idea of the land at present available, and potentially available for distribution. Within the last half-hour or so I heard a reference to the big ranchers, not by Deputy Killilea, who I must say made a most sensible contribution to this debate. We must get some definition in this House of what is meant by a big rancher. I heard a Deputy talk about the big ranchers in County Wexford. I should like to know where are the big ranches in County Wexford?
I will tell you.
This is a matter for the Minister and his Department. The word "rancher" will have to be defined for Deputies and the people of the country who are interested in land division and who are interested also in the three F's, in fixity of tenure for the man whose great-grandfather, possibly, was in possession of the lands. We cannot deny, if we want to face up to the facts, that there is a tendency now to regard a man with 40 or 50 acres as a rancher if he is not popular in the locality. And it is very easy to become unpopular in a rural area. It may occur from various causes. It may be that a man might be the wrong colour in politics, or he might be the wrong colour in religion. That frequently happens, and we cannot deny it.
I would like the Minister, through his able assistants in the Department of Lands, to give the Dáil, at some future date, an idea of the area of land capable of division. I quite understand that certain processes of law must be gone through before land is divided and given to the various allottees. The Minister on occasions has explained that position when asked why the land of Mr. A., Mr. B., or Mr. C. is not divided. He has pointed out all the difficulties that stand in the way. This is a constitutional Assembly and there are laws to guide us. It is the Dáil that makes those laws as occasion demands, and these laws must be obeyed. If I want possession of property, I must go through the ordinary processes of law, and the Land Commission have no more power than I to acquire land unless they have the right to do so by purchasing the land outright, or in other circumstances which may satisfy the Land Commission in the taking over of certain lands.
A good deal of uneasiness has been caused, and is still present, in the minds of many people who are farming. Many farmers are getting uneasy because of certain statements made in the Dáil and outside. I was glad to see quite recently that a member of Clann na Talmhan stated very directly that he was not in favour of confiscation, and he did not believe, if a man was employing labour and had 200 or 300 acres of land, in confiscating his property. That is all right, but I do not see any great virtue in that. Of course, I congratulate the Deputy on his statement, but I do not think that he or I or any man should claim a virtue for acting in that manner. We believe in justice and equity or we do not. The uneasiness in the country has been largely created by the silly, foolish speeches of people who talk about dividing holdings of 30, 40 or 60 acres.
I would like the Minister to go further than the publication of figures with regard to the number of acres, present and potential, that can be made available for landless men. I would like his Department, through its advisers, to let us know what is considered an economic holding for any allottee. We all know that 30 acres of good land in any district would be equal to 900 acres of bad land in any other part of the country. It would create a good impression in the country if we had an authoritative statement from the Land Commission, through the Minister, as to what would be considered an economic holding for a man with a wife and one or two children. I know cases where land was given to allottees and they could not make it pay. The Land Commission should re-acquire that land.
If the statement I ask for is made in the House, it will tend to ease the minds of a lot of people who are rather agitated because of certain statements made here by irresponsible Deputies. The Minister should let us know the intention of the Land Commission with regard to some properties. I know it is not his intention to confiscate any property, but it would be well to make it clear that the Minister and the Department would oppose any attempt to confiscate. The very mention of that in this House is, in my view, a highly immoral thing. It disturbs and creates great uneasiness in the minds of hardworking, industrious farmers who feel that when publicity is given to this kind of propaganda it might spread, the same as other evil doctrines have spread. We should have a specific statement from the Minister as to what he considers an economic holding and how far the Land Commission are able to meet the demands of landless men.
I hope when the Minister makes this statement that it will be in no uncertain or ambiguous language. From what I know of the Minister, he is very rarely ambiguous. We should have a statement as to how the Land Commission stand in relation to good farmers who do their job well and who have helped to save this country from starvation.
One thing that struck me throughout the debate was that all Deputies acknowledge and grasp the significance of the congested problem in the West and in other parts of the country. I would go so far as to say that it is really the kernel of the whole land question and until that problem is solved, or at least until a good attempt is made to solve it and to bring about something like an economic standard of life in the congested areas, then it is useless to talk of any other scheme of land distribution.
I have no hesitation in saying that all this talk about giving land to landless men should be dropped here and now until the congested problem is settled. I cannot understand the speakers who declare that 25 acres of arable land are not enough. I do not mean to say that it is too much and that it would not be better to give more. It would certainly be better. But you have to cut your cloth according to your measure. Deputy Blowick mentioned that in the County Mayo alone there are well over 20,000 landholders below £10 valuation. If any Deputy will go down to the Library and get a copy of what is known as the Report of the Derating Commission, he will get the facts relating to the valuation of holdings in each county, and he will find that not alone in County Mayo, but in every one of the Twenty-Six Counties there are hundreds and thousands of people below £10 valuation.
Is it not ridiculous for Deputies to get up here and talk about giving 35 acres or more than 35 acres to every one of those congests, because in my opinion no matter whether a congest lives in Mayo, Wexford or Meath, he is still a congest and he is entitled to consideration and sympathetic treatment? An announcement was made the other day in the Budget that certain proposals were being introduced to promote development in the congested areas but until this problem is tackled at the land end and a sincere and honest attempt, as I have said, made to solve it, any proposal regarding any other class of development or relief for these congested areas will fall to the ground. The people will have no enthusiasm for it; they will be actually suspicious of it because they will be under the impression that the work is being started for the purpose, as it were, of stereotyping congestion for all time and leaving them there in these rural slums, and they are rural slums of a very bad type.
It is very hard to come to a fair judgment in regard to the question of the price of land. It is particularly hard on people whose land is acquired by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion—some of them, I may say, in the West and most of them quite small people—when they know to their own personal knowledge that if they put that land up for public auction in the ordinary way, they would get considerably more than they will get from the Land Commission. It is very hard on them when the Land Commission come along and take the land at a certain price fixed by the Land Commission. I do say in all sincerity that some means should be adopted to bridge the difference. In the old Acts, for instance in the 1903 Act, for the purpose of inducing landlords to sell, there was what was called a bonus. There was a bonus for three years' purchase offered to landlords to induce them to sell so that if some similar scheme were adopted now it would not be unprecedented.
I think that some such scheme should now be adopted for the purpose of inducing people who have land in the congested areas or in the vicinity of congested areas, willingly to surrender that land to the Land Commission for the purpose of relieving congestion. We must realise that there is only a certain area of land of a particular size available for distribution and that any additional calls on that land are going to jeopardise the solution of this appalling problem of congestion which overshadows in my opinion every other problem connected with the land question in this country. A lot of work is being done by the Land Commission; it is not as much as we should like to see or as much as we think should be done, but it is wrong to get up in this House and say that the Land Commission are doing nothing. They have, under difficult conditions in the past six or seven years, done a considerable amount of work even in County Mayo.
When I hear talk of emigration I oftentimes stop to think what are the motives behind it. What do these people propose to do to stop emigration? Why is all this talk about emigration started and maintained by certain people? Oftentimes I get very suspicious of it and it strikes me that it is another effort by certain elements in this country to get cheap labour. In other words, there are certain girls who unfortunately have to leave the country. I would prefer to see them not going but I certainly would not take any steps to compel them to stay when I know these girls are getting £50, £60 or even £100 a year each in jobs across the water while in similar jobs in this country, they might get £20 each. The same thing applies to men. I think that when any class of development works is started by the Land Commission or any other public body in the country, the basis of these works should be the payment of a decent wage. You are not going to get a decent output on such works until that principle is accepted and recognised. I would appeal to the Minister to see that it is recognised. My experience of the Minister has been similar to that of Deputy Anthony, that in regard to anything about which I have gone to meet him, that was reasonable, sane and commonsense, he tried to meet me and went out of his way to do what he could to help me.
We know that a very large number of the Land Commission staff were transferred to the staff of the Department of Agriculture for the purpose of enforcing the tillage regulations during the emergency. We know also that building materials were not available during the emergency. We know further that at the present time land, especially in the West, is going at a fictitious price, far beyond its value. Those of us who are old enough to remember another crisis, similar to that which we are now passing, namely the crisis which occurred after the first world war, know what then happened. They will remember that an Act had to be brought into this House called the Committee Estates Act to solve the problem that arose after the first world war, a crisis brought about by the fact that a number of foolish people throughout the country gave a price for land three times as much as it was worth. When the inevitable slump came and the price of agricultural stock and produce fell, these people were not able to meet their commitments and the then Minister for Agriculture, the late Mr. Hogan, had to introduce an Act into this House to bring them relief. I do not think anybody, no matter what Party he belongs to, wants a similar thing to occur again. While saying that, I do think that the whole question of the price of land should be studied. I want to be fair to every party in the transaction—to the owner of the land who is selling it to the Land Commission, and to the tenant or small holder who will get portion of the land when it is divided by the Land Commission. He should not be asked to carry a burden he will not be able to bear.
I would impress on the Minister the urgency of that problem. I thoroughly agree with the people who say that, if anything in the nature of a fair solution can be obtained, it should be availed of. There are many people—I know some of them myself—who would sell their land to the Land Commission without any compunction whatever. But it is very hard to ask those people to sacrifice £500 or £600. I have spoken to some of them and they ask: "Why should we, apart from any other section of the community, be asked to make this sacrifice?" As I have said, you cannot place a burden on the incoming tenant which he will be unable to bear. Therefore, there is a case for the State bridging the difference.
I ask the Minister to pay very close attention to that problem. The Minister and members of this House should remember one thing about County Mayo—that we did begin the land struggle. I could claim, without boasting, that we carried that land struggle to success. We were the principal means of smashing landlordism, not that I claim that we were a bit superior to the people of other counties but that the problem of the land was much more urgent and more intense in the County Mayo than in any other county. To-day, we still have 20,000 families below an economic standard. The members of these families could not exist unless they emigrated for the best part of a year and earned a few pounds to keep them in homes which are really only temporary places of shelter to which they can go for a couple of months in the winter. Those who get up and say in this House that we, in the County Mayo and the western congested areas, are kicking up too much of a row about this problem of the land might not be very content or very satisfied if they were asked to live under the same conditions.
I doubt very much that they would be half as content or satisfied as the Mayo people are. I doubt very much that they would take things as quietly as the Mayo people take them. If the people of Mayo see a real, genuine, sincere, honest effort being made by the Land Commission officials to help them in connection with this question of the land, you can take it from me you will have no trouble in County Mayo, and there will be no need to worry about the peace being broken there by anybody.
If any scheme is started of so-called economic development, apart from the land, it will have only, in my opinion, an irritating effect. The key of the whole problem is the land and the question of the land must go ahead side by side with anything in the nature of economic development. That economic development may take the form set out in this year's Budget or may take the form of big industrial undertakings. However, I do not expect that either native or foreign industrialists will go far from what they consider the big centres of distribution. Therefore, we are back again, so far as counties like Mayo are concerned, on the one asset we have—the land. I do not agree with the speakers who say that thousands and thousands of acres are available in Mayo. They are not. The congestion problem within Mayo will not be solved within Mayo. A considerable number of congests will have to be taken out of Mayo into other counties. My own opinion of the amount of land available is that the logical thing to do, if it is to be solved, is to set a certain standard of the amount of land that any individual citizen can have. It is only three or four days since it was stated in the newspapers that the Government of Czecho-Slovakia had laid down by Act of Parliament that no citizen would be allowed to have more than 125 acres.
I do not say we should adopt such a standard but it is a standard. Such a system prevails in Denmark, I understand, and also in Belgium. I do not think that you are going to solve this problem of congestion in any other way. If you do commence, you will reach the point at which, under the present system, your pool of land will be exhausted and you will still be far from having solved the problem. I speak for myself when I say that that is the only solution and that it will, eventually, have to be faced—that a citizen of this State can have only a certain maximum amount of land.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.
I have a few observations to make on this Vote. Incidentally, I want to stake my claim on behalf of the economic holders of County Louth. We hear a great deal of complaint—and justly so—from the Mayo Deputies with regard to the non-division of land. I want to remind the Minister that, in County Louth, we have a very substantial number of uneconomic holders who never seem to get any consideration from the Land Commission. I do not propose to discuss this question from the parish-pump point of view. I view it from the national standpoint rather than from the county or parish standpoint. In my opinion, the survival of this nation, its progress and prosperity, depend entirely upon the true agricultural use of the land and its equitable distribution amongst the people. What the economic system inherited here and, I am sorry to say, fostered for a period of 10 years under a native Government, has meant to the people in the question of non-division of land and unemployment in the rural areas has been dealt with too often and too widely to merit any comment from me here this evening. I must remind the House that this Government has had to redeem these 10 wasted years of golden opportunity in order to get the machinery for the division of land going.
We should like to hear a little more about that—about the ten wasted years, when we had too much butter, bacon and beef.
I ask Deputy Morrissey to tell us what was the amount of land division carried out during those ten years.
The ten years when we had plenty of butter, bacon and beef.
I will tell Deputy Morrissey the Fianna Fáil achievement in the matter of land division from March, 1933, to March, 1946. It amounted to no less than 600,000 acres.
And two ounces of butter.
I would remind Deputy Commons that Mayo is not the only county in Ireland and that other counties are entitled to equal consideration. I do not want to be taken as casting any aspersion on County Mayo, as, unfortunately, was done by a Deputy of this Party on another occasion when he referred to the people there as "hen roosters", and I want to dissociate myself from that remark. In the past, all efforts to ameliorate conditions in rural Ireland failed simply because we left untouched the economic system which was imposed on us by the conqueror. That is, in my opinion, the kernel of the trouble of land division, and until it is faced up to in a broad national way and until the Minister makes up his mind that he will have an inventory made of all the land available for distribution, that trouble will continue. I think the time has come when the House should set a definite limit to the time when that land will be distributed. That, to my mind, is a means of solving the land problem.
I have some statistics here which I propose to refer to relating to a period little more than 100 years ago with regard to the export of agricultural produce from the land of Drogheda and district. They are figures which will scarcely be believed. In the year 1835, there was exported from the Port of Drogheda no less than £766,027 worth of land produce and we imported into that port in the same year £229,854 worth of goods, leaving a credit trade balance to the Port of Drogheda alone of £536,173. These are incontrovertible extracts from the records of the Drogheda Harbour Board. We exported 126,380 loads of oatmeal and it took an average of two barrels to produce a load of oatmeal, each of 20 stones, so that it represented 250,000 barrels of oats. We exported 420,500 bushels of wheat, 37,000 sacks of flour, 22,000 barrels of oats, 3,000 barrels of peas, 13,000 crates of eggs, 6,000 firkins of butter and 5,000 barrels of ale from the Drogheda brewery, all from the produce of land in the district.
These statistics are very interesting but can the Deputy relate them to the present Estimate?
I relate them in this way, that the decline in these industries has been caused by the policy of amalgamating a large number of small holdings into big holdings, thereby reducing the population of these districts. At that particular period, we had no less than 5,000 tons of locally-owned shipping, manned by the farmers and farmers' sons who worked their farms through the summer months and did their sailing in the matter of the export of these commodities in the winter months. I am bringing these matters to the attention of the Minister, in order that——
The Deputy must not blame the present Minister.
I am not blaming the Minister. I am citing these particulars in the hope that the Minister will give some consideration to these districts and will see that land will be divided there, in order that we may have an opportunity of re-establishing these families on the land. They will then be available for the development of such industries as these.
My friend and namesake, Deputy Walsh, made reference to Czecho-slovakia. I can give the House a few examples of how they do business in other countries. In Rumania, it took six years to divide 14,680,000 acres of land, and, in this country, it took the Land Commission and the old Congested Districts Board 42 years to divide 1,280,000 acres. That is the contrast, and it is worth looking outside this State to see how people in other countries conduct their business and to learn something from them. I mention these particulars in the hope that the Minister will consider making a change in the Land Commission and will get them to speed up the division of land in order that the people of Ireland may be rehabilitated on the land of Ireland for the benefit of the nation as a whole.
This debate is entirely different from the debates on other Estimates. On the other Estimates, somebody on the Government Benches at least says a kind word for the Minister and his Department, but nobody on any side of the House has any use for the Land Commission. A few Fianna Fáil Deputies, of course, with a certain amount of Party loyalty, will praise the Land Commission with faint damns, but that is as far as they will go. Deputy O'Reilly said a very interesting thing when he said he was very glad to see such a great interest in land division. That does seem to be the interest of Deputies, and not the work of the Land Commission. Let me say, no matter how it is interpreted, that, so far as land division as such is concerned, I am not a bit interested. I am interested in land division only in so far as it is concerned with the relief of congestion, and not otherwise.
Deputy O'Reilly talked about the large fields in County Meath with no water and said the Land Commission might have taken some intelligent view in regard to why those fields were there. He seems to be very lacking in knowledge of the history of his own county. Deputy Killilea said a very interesting thing. He referred to the number of estates which were mentioned last night by Deputy Beegan and said that, owing to the constant pressure on the commission by Fianna Fáil and other Deputies, all these estates were divided. That is not correct. If the Land Commission has to be goaded by the members of any Party to do its plain duty, for which it was organised, then it ought to be abolished immediately.
The debate ranged a good deal further than Czechoslovakia, of course, and it would be very difficult for me to make any coherent speech in regard to the general drift of the debate, so I will have to follow it piecemeal and try to enlighten the Deputies, as far as they will permit me, in regard to my views on the various matters they have raised. May I say that there was one kind word said about the Minister, but I suppose that was clannishness—it was said by Deputy Anthony. Deputy Hughes opened the debate by talking about a motion that he placed before the House last September. I was hopeful that, as a result of that motion, which was on the Order Paper for a long time and to which Deputy Hughes had plenty of time to give consideration, we would have had some real view in regard to the work of the Land Commission. He raised it again in this debate, but when he discussed the motion the only thing he had to say for it was: "This motion speaks for itself." As no case was made for the motion at that time, there was no need for any criticism of mine and no need for discussing it and, therefore, there was no particular use in raising it on this Estimate. However, he did make a statement of which I must take cognisance, that is, that the Land Commission relentlessly pursued the annuitants. There is no truth in that statement.
When I came to the Land Commission four years ago, £1,500,000 was owed to the Land Commission by way of instalments of annuities and I was most anxious, for the benefit of the taxpayer, that that money legally due should be collected. I was irritated with the Land Commission because of what I considered to be their over-tolerant and easy-going attitude with the annuitants. I urged them to bring greater pressure on the annuitants; but I was wrong—the tolerant, kindly methods of the Land Commission have produced the position you have to-day, that only 1 per cent. of the annuities are not collected. The Land Commission is not a rack-renting landlord, no matter what has been said against it in this House. It is a benevolent Department of State, keenly interested in the difficulties of the people, inclined to help them at every turn and doing so everywhere throughout the country.
Deputy Blowick objected, quite rightly, to sub-division; but, illogical as usual, he pursued the question and demanded sub-letting by allottees who had got enlargements of their holdings. There is a really good reason why a landless man getting an allotment should be treated patiently for a few years. He may not have the equipment to utilise the holding. But there is very little need to treat a man who gets an enlargement of his holding in that way, as he has a going concern and has been given the piece of land to make his holding economic, and the practice of sub-letting is actually sub-division.
I think it was Deputy Davin who raised the question of the treatment of allottees, the rough deal they have been given under the 1946 Act. Deputy Keyes raised the question of allottees who are employees on estates. The Land Act of 1946 has justified itself. There was an evil condition, evil within limits, and the Land Commission definitely had to take cognisance of it and utilise the 1946 Land Act passed here by the Dáil to try to bring about a better condition. At the time that Act was passed, I gave an undertaking that we would be very chary in going the full distance in putting the Act into effect. We have been so, but the result has been that there is a tremendous improvement among those allottees who were unsatisfactory up to then.
With regard to allottees, Deputy Morrissey said—and I hope everybody in the House will take notice of what he said—that the officials of the Land Commission should not be interfered with by Deputies. The less interference there is by Deputies or people outside, the better for everybody and the better for the country.
Deputy Heskin was very quick on the draw to-day at Question Time regarding the provision of petrol for lorries. If there is any truth in the Minister for Justice's statement that we might have a general election——
Mr. Morrissey
There is no truth in that, anyway.
However, Deputy Heskin was making ready for anything that might happen. Of course, there is a by-election. He was wide-awake regarding petrol, but seemed to be curiously unaware of the existence of the Commissioners of the Land Commission. I know that there are in the Comeraghs deep, misty iargcúlta valleys almost as deep and strange as the valleys of the Adirondacks, but I never knew we had a native Rip Van Winkle. It was a good thing that Deputy Commons woke up Deputy Heskin by quoting Section 6 of the Land Act, 1933, to inform him, even at this late hour, that there was such a body specially selected for the purpose of nominating the allottees for farms of land. Deputy Commons himself seemed to be surprised about Section 6 of the 1933 Land Act.
Deputy Commons preceded his reading of the section by saying that the Minister is a peculiar man. "We are ruined, Sir, by cheap Chinese labour." Deputy Commons is the original heathen Chinee, because if there was any peculiarity it was completely in the Deputy himself. There could be no fair division of land: there could be no real dealing with the matters covered by Section 6 of the Land Act of 1933, if you had not a judicial body of the nature of the commissioners. If the Minister attempted to handle matters, which are excepted matters under Section 6 of the Land Act of 1933, then it would be time to abolish the Land Commission.
Deputy Heskin came again to the attack on the question of embankments. Sometimes when a Government, most anxious for the welfare of the people, carries out certain work in any particular district it is regarded as a precedent for the carrying out of further works in which neither the Government nor any Department of State has any responsibility. Certain very valuable works were carried out by the Government through the agency of the Land Commission in County Waterford on embankments. That is because these were particular and special cases, but the Land Commission has no responsibility for the upkeep of embankments. Deputy Heskin talked about tenants, but there are no tenants. The Land Commission has no tenants. It deals with the owners of land who are paying instalments on the original sum issued to them by the Land Commission, or through its agency, for the purchase of their holdings, but they are not tenants. The Land Commission is not a landlord and has no landlord's commitments. There are certain trust funds, of course, and these should be put into the hands of local trustees if local trustees can be found with sufficient competence and initiative to take them over. In default of finding these, the Land Commission has handled these trust funds, and has made them available to the people.
Deputy Donnellan also referred to tenant farmers. I want to stress the point again that there are no tenants. They are owners. Deputy Giles talked about the Gaeltacht slums in the County Meath. I have had a recent report on the Gaeltacht colonies in the County Meath, and I am quite satisfied that these colonies have entirely justified themselves. There is a most minor percentage of failure amongst the colonists there, and, instead of slums, I think that we have, out of all wonder, created happiness and prosperity for those people.
Deputy Giles also spoke about the fact that the landlords parted with the worst of their land to the Land Commission for distribution amongst farmers. There may be some truth in that. It has been my experience, wherever I have seen an acre of land given to a cottier by a farmer, that the farmer himself has done his best to give the worst acre to the cottier. That is only human nature. The Deputy spoke of the number of houses that are going into decay in the County Meath waiting for migrants. There is only one house in the County Meath, built for a migrant, that is unoccupied, and that house will be occupied immediately. It has not deteriorated in any way. There are 46 unoccupied houses that have been given to Meath men, and the 1946 Act has had to be put into operation, and will be more forcibly put into operation, unless these people occupy the houses and till the land.
Deputy O'Reilly has been making pleas for helpless people. Deputy Commons last night made the statement that the personality of the man made an economic holding. I believe that is true. If a man is not in some way up and doing, if he has to be helped at every hand's turn, then that man is hopeless and should not be on the land. Deputy Morrissey referred to roads and so did Deputy Hilliard, I think. Deputy Hilliard amazed me with the estimate he gave of the amount that would be necessary to bring the roads up to county road standard. I remember, many years ago, two county councillors in County Cork putting their case before the electorate.
A heckler at one meeting said to one of the gentlemen: "Now, sir, your opponent says that if he is elected he will get our particular road tarred. What will you do?" The county councillor replied: "I will get it feathered." It seems to me that something would be feathered if all the money that Deputy Hilliard talked about were needed for these Land Commission roads. We in the Land Commission do not propose at any time to make the roads into farms up to county road standard. I am surprised, knowing as I do the roads of access into farms in the County Cork—roads that are there for many years. I know that really good roads are made by the Land Commission and that they are left in good condition. They are not, however, county roads. They belong to the allottees, and it is their particular job to keep them in repair in the same way as the farmers in the County Cork have to keep the boreens leading to their homes and farms in repair.
There is, of course, the demand that these roads, where they are a cul-desac, shall be driven through by the Land Commission until they give access from one county road to another, and instead of being private roads become public roads. I think it is quite possible, in view of changing conditions and of the need for heavier machinery, machinery of a wider build, that we will have to improve somewhat the roads made by the Land Commission. We will certainly have to widen them a good deal, but I do not think it would be reasonable on the part of any Deputy to ask us to make roads of county road standard. It cannot be done.
Deputy Davin spoke about building contracts. The Deputy need not ask me questions about the advertising of contracts. All building contracts are advertised in the newspapers, and each one contains the fair wages clause. The only argument which Deputy Davin or his colleagues in the Labour movement ever had was that there should be the fair wages clause in contracts. Naturally, conditions are different in the country, so that the trade union rate applicable in Dublin is not paid in the country. That is what Deputy Davin wants.
No, the local trade union rate.
A very interesting thing was said by Deputy Davin. It was that there were no threats in Leix.
Yes, in one case.
Deputy Flanagan, by the force of his oratory, worked wonders down there and not by any threats. From whatever side of the House threats will come they will make no difference to the Land Commission. Deputy Killilea said a while ago that if certain things are not done in Galway we will have the same kind of row you had in Mayo. If Deputy Killilea wants a month in the second division I have no objection to a justice obliging him, but any kind of threat by Deputy Killilea or by Deputy Flanagan or by anyone else will have no effect on the Land Commission. Deputy Davin, in his mild way, gets up and says there was no threat.
As far as I am aware.
Not a shadow of a threat. We have seen the letter in the Land Commission file written by Deputy Flanagan to the auctioneers who were selling the land. We know all about it. There was no threat— ah, no.
Have you got the letter?
The land was very likely to be sold, was it not? Deputy Commons, on whose speech I congratulate him—it was very interesting—did say, and I repeat, that the personality of the man often makes the holding economic. If a man is worth while, he can do things that a man of less character cannot do. He more or less misunderstood me—I would not say he misinterpreted me, of course. I think a man who buys a farm of land for himself is, ordinarily speaking, a better man than one who has to be helped by any State Department. I think that, and I also think this, that the multiplication of farms in the hands of any particular individual is an evil thing. In making both statements I am quite logical. Deputy Commons will get more tolerant as he grows older.
Like yourself, Sir.
And I do not think that in ten years' time he will disagree with the judgment of the Castlebar court. The court in Castlebar decided that because an old man was 75 years of age it was not worth while moving him, that it was just as well to let him live in peace until he died. I think it was a wise decision. I think anything else would be a wrong decision.
What about his son, who is 25 years of age?
Deputy Commons referred me to Gone with the Wind. I did not read the book. I could not read it. It is too long. But, if he quoted correctly, Miss Mitchell, the author, did not know what she was talking about. Being an American, the library of Congress is open to her and the records of the dust bowl were very near her at the time and the statement was as wrong as the devil. I will give Deputy Commons a little book which will enlighten him on that particular matter.
Deputy Keyes said that everywhere in County Limerick there was any amount of land available for division. I know County Limerick I think a good deal better than Deputy Keyes knows it. Deputy Blowick said there were lots of land available everywhere. The pool of land for division has grown incredibly small. There is not land available everywhere for division, and we must try to preserve the pool of land that is there for the relief of congestion and not for the creation of further new farmers. Deputy Blowick, in speaking of the amount of land that was available, talked about derelict holdings and referred to a statement of mine in regard to grabbing. If a man lives in another country and if his near relatives live on his farm, and if they are working that farm satisfactorily, I think it would be grabbing to take it from them. I think it would be altogether wrong.
If they are not living on the farm?
But there are many derelict holdings here and there throughout the country, and I think one reason that we cannot handle those holdings properly is lack of clarity in title and matters of that sort. I have always held that the way to deal with these is to create in this country the office of a public trustee who would take over such derelict property, who could give title, and thus cut out a good deal of the difficulties that exist at the moment. These derelict holdings should not be left in existence.
Deputy Cogan would abolish all the compulsory powers the Land Commission has and would have the Land Commission go into the open market to purchase land. I am not surprised that Deputy Cogan and Deputy Donnellan have parted. A couple of years ago Deputy Cogan was very wroth with me when I asked him how many Clann na Talmhan Parties there were.
One, all the time.
Only one.
Small, but true.
There are many limits placed on the Land Commission in regard to acquisition. Deputy Commons was quite right, we have a very limited power in regard to acquisition. We can take only certain types of land. In summing up in this particular discussion I hope to deal fully with that. But we did gain something as a result of the debate. We had the Treston estate. Deputy Blowick comes into the House and he makes a most illogical defence of Deputy Cafferky's and Deputy Commons's action in County Mayo and it all leads up to an apologia —we are in favour of free sale and fixity of tenure. The whole trend of Deputy Blowick's speech was an apology for the action of his colleagues and I thought there would be another split. It looked like atomic fission to me. But Deputy Cafferky came in and, instead of refuting his leader, he kicked off by saying "Deputy Blowick has made a most statesmanlike speech"— another apology. Then Deputy Beirne —one would think that he should be in Deputy Cogan's Party, he was so conservative—carried on with a further apology for Deputy Cafferky and Deputy Commons. Well, that was bad, but Deputy Commons came along himself and added further fire to it and, finally, we had Deputy Donnellan, of the Celtic blood, giving us a most abject apology in regard to the action of Deputy Commons and Deputy Cafferky.
That is your imagination.
Not at all.
Come into Mayo.
I thought Deputy Commons's and Deputy Cafferky's action was unwise because I attributed to them a certain motive but maybe I was wrong and that thing came into my mind when I heard Deputy Cogan. Deputy Cogan talked so long and so dully on the subject that it began to dawn on me that maybe after all, in the sad conclaves of the Clann na Talmhan Party, two energetic young men like Deputy Cafferky and Deputy Commons had got completely fed up with his dull preaching and decided that anything was better than having Deputy Cogan in the Party. They knew that, with his dull Pecksniffian respectability, he could not be associated with jailbirds, even synthetic jailbirds of the second division, and they decided on the final expedient of going to jail in County Sligo so as to drive Deputy Cogan out of the Clann na Talmhan Party. I can think of nothing else.
A damn good tale.
Deputy Cogan has been in many Parties. He is rather an unprogressive pilgrim, and in his pathetic and peripatetic way he has been the Jonah of all Parties—I am afraid of this new Party too. About 1904 we had a Russo-Japanese war, and I remember that at that time a very rigid censorship was placed on war correspondents. I remember reading a story by O. Henry in an American magazine, a story called "The Code," in which he described the method whereby an American war correspondent evaded the attentions of the censor.
His method was to use the adjective usually associated in newspaper English with a particular noun. For instance, if he were talking about a Deputy of the Clann na Talmhan Party he would say "unfortunate", he would call a certain Party here "defunct". Deputy Commons would agree with me about the new Party and say "stillborn". Adjectives have a certain affinity over nouns. A Garda sergeant might be called "officious" A workman, "lazy". A lawyer, "time serving".
Mr. Morrissey
A fox.
Some nouns have to have several adjectives to describe them. A civil servant is "inefficient"—he is also "discourteous". A Minister——
Mr. Morrissey
Now, now, Parliamentary !
——"incompetent" and "corrupt".
"Provocative".
But it is only when you come to describe the Minister for Lands that you really start pinning up the ribbons of the medals for national disservice. The Minister for Lands is "stubborn, stupid, lazy, ignorant, incompetent, inefficient and corrupt". All these adjectives were used by Deputy Cafferky to describe the Minister for Lands. Anything he omitted was supplied by Deputy Commons and, even though he had left the Party, Deputy Cogan weighed in with a few. Sir, I cannot very well, because of certain regulations in this House, answer, in any fashion, these Parties. We will leave O. Henry and go to another American author since Deputy Commons is familiar with them. Mark Twain described certain people as experienced, ingenious and often quite picturesque liars.
Mark Twain said it.
I have always thought that as political tacticians the Fine Gael Party is out on its own—that they are the worst in the world.
You beat them!
You beat them!
You have swept the laurels from them. Clann na Talmhan is far worse.
They were brought up in a bad school.
We all make mistakes and, even if Deputy Cafferky and Deputy Commons have made mistakes, they will get over them.
There is no mistake.
All members of the Party apologised for the action of Deputy Cafferky and Deputy Commons. A Party can make mistakes, but it might apologise itself out of existence.
Mr. Morrissey
That is one mistake the Fianna Fáil Party never made.
You said a mouthful! Fianna Fáil goes right ahead. That is the only way to make progress.
Mr. Morrissey
Right or wrong you remain steady.
Reference was made to annuity redemption. The price of the annuity redemption is governed by the current price of land stock which fluctuates and, therefore, it is quite possible that at the present moment annuity redemptions are a little higher than normal. Then along comes the old guard, the self-sufficient and comradely Fianna Fáil Party! Deputy O'Rourke says that nothing has been done in Roscommon. He attacks the Minister and the Land Commission with just as much vehemence as any member of the opposing Parties.
A general election is in sight.
I do not think so. In the past six years the Land Commission has spent £173,000 doing nothing in Roscommon. In the meanwhile, while doing nothing, they divided 2,400 acres of land in Roscommon in the last four years. 13,000 acres in Roscommon are in sight for division, and 8,000 further acres have been reported on. I would not mind what Deputy Cafferky says. Deputy Cafferky stands up, waves his arms, and yells at me like a slightly demented minor prophet, but he follows the same lines as Deputy O'Rourke. Maybe in a year or two there will be a coalition with Fianna Fáil.
It seems like it.
He says nothing has been done about land division in Mayo. In the last ten years 30,000 acres were divided. In the past six years £200,000 was spent there. In the past four years 5,000 acres were divided. Deputy Cafferky said: "Only by agitation is anything done by the Land Commission." It is about time Deputies got over that. It is about time Deputy Killilea got down to the idea that the pressure of any particular Deputy or Party is not going to get results from the Land Commission. We want the co-operation of Deputies. We want the advice of Deputies but no pressure or agitation will move the Land Commission at any faster pace than they can go. Deputy Commons wants a more progressive system of land acquisition. I should like if, at some time, he would give us some notes on that matter, because I do not see how you are going to have it.
I would love to enlighten you.
He does say that the Land Commission in its activities is very much circumscribed. That is correct in regard to the acquisition of land. He suggests a large loan. Deputies of Clann na Talmhan have argued that it is lack of money that is preventing the work of the Land Commission being carried out. Deputy Blowick made a great discovery last year when he suggested that, if we held the land annuities for six years, we would have enough money, and he repeated that. There is nothing to the argument. If carrying out the work which the Land Commission has been organised to takes the amount that Deputies want spent on land division or acquisition, that money will be spent. The Minister for Finance last night said that no Minister for Lands was ever denied any money he needed for the development of forestry. That is correct. No Minister for Lands has ever had to ask the Minister for Finance for money for land acquisition or division or for the general work of the Land Commission that has not been made available to him.
If we examine the various points made in the debate, we might as well agree that they cancel each other out. There are different types of mind in regard to the work of the Land Commission. Deputy Commons wants a wider and swifter method. Deputy Cogan would circumscribe it much further. We had the question of price. The difficulty at present in land acquisition is due to the tremendous high price land has reached. That definitely has affected Land Commission activities, because in fixing the price of land the Land Commission must take the market value into consideration. But the use and the tenure of land are not matters of individual concern. They are matters of vital public interest.
In regard to the price of land, we must not allow the development in this country of the idea that land is a speculative commodity. It is a public resource and must be governed by that particular condition. The ultimate, final and complete owners of the land are the community, and that does not preclude fixity of tenure. But fixity of tenure must never be interpreted to affect the public interest adversely. The Land Commission are circumscribed in regard to the powers for the acquisition of land. Any man who is working his land reasonably cannot be touched by the Land Commission.
Deputies and Senators have argued that the Land Commission inspectors are those who have to say whether land has been properly worked or not. That is only partly true, because, whatever lack of public opinion we may have in this country, we certainly have no lack of public opinion in regard to land. Public opinion is a very strong force, and no inspector, no commissioner, and no Department, can run counter to public opinion. The Deputies from County Mayo know well of particular cases where the Land Commission applied every legal method of acquiring land and have failed because the law does not permit them.
That is not the public opinion of Mayo. You are going contrary to public opinion in Mayo.
There was some talk about the standard holding. I have learned that the standard holding, as we know it, was devised by experienced inspectors of the Land Commission after discussion with the Department of Agriculture. But I have my own personal idea that we should have a general standard which would take all local circumstances and all changing conditions into account and that we should not be bound by a particular standard applicable everywhere. I think there is need to change that. I think that Deputies would do well to examine page 93 of the report on agricultural policy referred to by Deputy Blowick and have a look at the size of holdings, or find them in the Land Commission reports. We must have some cognisance of tenure patterns. We will have, of course, farms of varying sizes. That is correct. But I think we should have a greater percentage of farms ranging between 30 and 100 acres. At present, I think, about 40 per cent. of the holdings in the country range between 30 and 100 acres. I think we should have more. I think that if we are to preserve on the land as the most stable element of our population, the people who live on it, there must be a more definite control of tenure problems, that we must more rigidly control sub-division and consolidation. Deputy Cogan mentioned three farms in County Wicklow that were divided, sold and consolidated. We cannot for ever pursue the vicious circle of acquisition, division, sale and consolidation. We cannot for ever be doing with one hand and undoing with the other. There must be more rigid control, I think, of sub-division and consolidation with a view to having a major percentage of our holdings ranging between particular limits.
The Land Commission was set up, not for the purpose of land division, but to transfer the ownership from the landlords to the tenants. In the operations of the Land Commission, 221,000 holdings have been vested, full ownership being transferred from the landlord to the tenant. Under the 1923 Act and later Acts, 106,000 tenancies were admitted and 41,000 of these were vested; 65,000 yet remain to be vested, and 15,000 holdings remain unvested from the Congested Districts Board. As well as that, almost 2,000,000 acres have been acquired and divided. In the particular document Deputy Blowick referred to, we find that the total area mentioned is about 15,000,000 acres. A reasonable calculation of our arable pasture land is 12,000,000 acres, and out of that the Land Commission has, with its other commitments, divided 2,000,000 acres; and yet Deputy O'Rourke, Deputy Killilea and Deputy Beegan, and a number of Deputies on the other side of the House, say that nothing has been done by the Land Commission. If Deputies will study this particular table they will see there is a grave need to raise up the smaller man.
There have been statements that a small percentage of our people own a great amount of land. There are listed here holdings of over 200 acres, 7,949 of them, or 21.3 of the land of Ireland. In my own constituency I can recall at the moment five farms listed as agricultural holdings, each of them over 1,000 acres, and not one of them worth a damn. There is not a farm inside the 4,000 acres. Many of these large holdings are of that type and when people talk of farms of 1,000 acres and over, there really is not much to it.
The policy of the Land Commission must be to continue vesting to a conclusion. It must be a concentration as far as possible on the relief of congestion, particularly inside the congested area, and all other matters that the Land Commission have to consider and operate must be subject to these two matters, vesting and the relief of congestion.