The first thing I should do is to make an explanation or apology for my short opening speech. Unfortunately, I was a bit pressed for time and could not open with a full explanation, but I hope it is not too late to make amends now. The debate covered a wide range and I appreciate the attitude taken by most Deputies. On the whole, it has been very helpful, though in some cases Deputies were a little critical, or bitter, perhaps. Some of the criticism was uninformed and it is a pity the Deputies concerned would not inquire a little bit more into the working of a Department before they take it upon themselves to utter scathing criticism which may, or may not, be well founded and which they are not in a position to defend. It is a pleasure and of great assistance to any Minister to get helpful criticism, but it is very tiresome to listen to criticism that sometimes is little better than vulgar abuse of the Minister or his officials or the Department in general.
Many points have been raised and I feel very pleased with the tone of the debate all over the House. It indicated clearly to me that the general desire now is to tackle a problem which should have been tackled many years ago, that is, to make the principal work of the Land Commission the relief of congestion. I did not hear anyone from any side of the House condemning that. I made it quite clear last year, and on a few occasions since last May, that I would like to see the Land Commission go ahead on those lines. I have directed the policy to that end, that the principal work should be the relief of congestion, in the last 12 months.
Some Deputies have said the Land Commission was formed to relieve congestion and divide land. That is not the case. The main function of the Land Commission when it was formed was to make each landholder—big, middle or small—owner of his holding. That was the problem they took over. The relief of congestion, rundale, congested holdings, migration of tenants, and so on, was secondary to the big problem of making every tenant farmer in the Twenty-Six Counties the owner of his holding. That work is proceeding very rapidly at present and I am anxious to see it completed as soon as possible. It is a work that is little appreciated, because it is not known. The difficulties of vesting the land in the tenants is not known and, to be fair, it could not be known to Deputies unless they come to the Department and inquire. Even then, a superficial glance can give no idea of the work the officials are doing.
I might mention now, that 15,000 holdings or parcels were vested last year. That in itself was a big task, leaving aside the work of the outdoor staff in inspecting farms for acquisition, preparing rearrangement schemes and dealing with rearrangement of tenants and rundale estates. The work of revesting means giving a man ownership of his land, which ownership the Land Commission has held up to that moment. When that tenant has been revested, every outline of his holding is clearly defined. Every detail of every right of way, of fishing rights and so on, is clearly shown and that is sent to the Land Registry Office. The inspector's outdoor staff must scrutinise these holdings and sometimes they are held up by objections. A farmer may want some improvement done or think he has a certain right he wants cleared up. He generally lodges an objection and that holds the work up. Several Deputies mentioned the fact that vesting was slow. I intend to go very fully into that matter, because that side of the debate has brought home to me the whole history of the Land Commission since its inception, the work it has been doing since and some of the difficulties it has encountered.
There were many points raised by Deputies and I propose to deal with these first. If I did not make it clear last year, or if any Deputy is still in doubt—the work of the Land Commission is the relief of congestion. That embodies a lot of things. It means that the Land Commission has to acquire a sufficient amount of land and on that point a certain amount of doubt has been thrown on the acreage divided last year. The relief of congestion and the division of land seem to go side by side, but they are, in reality, two different questions. I see my predecessor in office here, and his Party—not at the time he was Minister—went in for land division on a pretty big scale, as opposed to the relief of congestion. I repeat what I said last year, that I am sorry that more of that land, when it was available then, was not turned over for the relief of congestion, particularly for the bringing of migrants out of congested areas.
There is no other way to relieve congestion in many cases, because, where congestion exists, very few large farms now exist. You could count all the farms worth acquiring in any of the congested areas on the fingers of one hand and these farms, even if we got them, would relieve only a very small amount of congestion. The nett result is that, if we are to relieve congestion on a big scale, we must bring out a pretty large number of the smaller type of migrants, so that enough land will be left to give middling-sized holdings to those who remain. I am glad that the House—both Parties in the Government and in the Opposition—agrees that the relief of congestion should come first and from my experience both as a Minister for the 12 or 13 months I have been in the post and as one who comes from a congested county, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that that is the best work being done by any Department of State, even though the particular Department of which I am in charge is the most maligned and abused Department of State.
Everybody seems to have a blow at it in passing, both in the Dáil and outside it. Nevertheless, the work the Land Commission is doing, is about to do and, I may say, is anxious to do, is work which is equally as good as the the work done by any other Department at present.
I told the House last year that congestion and groups of small uneconomic holdings are an evil handed down to us —no Party or member in the Dáil is responsible for it. It is something that belongs to the fairly distant past. Now that we have self-government, it is one evil that we cannot afford to overlook and neither I nor the Government has any desire to sidestep it or to evade our responsibilities in the matter. If we did, we would be a very worthless lot and would not be worthy of the confidence of the people for one moment. I expected that some Deputies would be more critical because 12 months have elapsed and the Land Commission has not much to show for its year's work, beyond the 20,000 acres divided, a little of which was in our hands but a good proportion of which was acquired during the past year. Deputy Moran commented on the fact that there were no migrants brought out of County Mayo. I regard that as cheap, petty political stuff which was not in the least helpful and contributed nothing to the debate.
Everybody knows that the acquiring of land is a very slow process. Sometimes it works our fairly easily, but at present, particularly in view of the high prices of agricultural produce, land-owners contest every inch of the way with the Land Commission and make the acquisition and resumption of land as slow as they possibly can. The blame falls on the Land Commission, but the blame should not, in reality, fall on the Land Commission, because we have to make up our minds whether we are to outrage and violate some of the laws laid down for which Davitt, Dillon and Parnell fought in days gone by, and if we want the Land Commission to go faster, we must make up our minds once and for all whether we will violate and outrage the principles which these men laid down—free sale, right of private ownership and so on.
On that question, some Deputies say that they are sick of and fed up with the Land Commission. I invite any Deputy who sees any flaw in the present legislation governing the Land Commission to put down a motion or to do as Deputy Corry, Deputy Cogan and other Deputies did, that is, to table a private Bill, and I will give them a free vote of the House. I do not want to claim that I am an expert on land law, or that my word is the last word, that my word is right, whether it is right or wrong. I want the majority of the House to decide and I am completely in the hands of the House. If any group of Deputies get together and decide that new legislation is necessary, let them introduce a private Bill, but I want to utter this word of warning. I have examined this question from top to bottom, and, before they do so, I advise them to examine it very carefully, and particularly, if they come from rural constituencies, to consult their constituents, the more broad-minded ones.
I am, as I say, in the hands of the House, and so is the Government, and I do not say that everything I put forward or know about land law, the working of the Land Commission and the various promlems confronting it, is the last word. I am only a human being like any other Deputy, and any other Deputy's opinion may be as good as, if not better than, mine. The Chair is available and there is the General Office to help a private Deputy to frame the necessary Bill or motion, and, personally, I would welcome it, but the legislation as it stands, in my opinion, is quite sufficient for the Land Commission to go ahead with its work. I want to say that I am quite satisfied with the progress the Land Commission made from the time when they had their backs to the wall this time last year or a little earlier. I am very satisfied and pleased with the progress they have made and I want to pay that tribute to the officials, because they started from nothing, with a good proportion of their staff lent to other Departments.
I think it was Deputy Moran and the Leader of the Opposition who said that the staff is now back. I did not get back all the good, experienced men who were taken away in the early years of the emergency and lent to the Department of Agriculture to enforce the compulsory tillage regulations which the Minister had to impose, or saw fit to impose, at that time. I did not get them all back. I had to try to replace them with new staff and, even though the new staff is the best in the world, they cannot be expected to know all the ropes, to be good officials.
When they go down the country— they are mainly outdoor inspectors— they cannot be expected to know as much as the inspector who has been going around amongst the people for three, four or five years. The result is that new staff not alone are not a help for the first six, 12 or 18 months, but they are a drag on the older inspectors who have to go along with them and more or less teach them and direct them in the usages of land law and in meeting people in different counties and becoming acquainted with many things which are perfectly new to them.
Taking everything into account, I think the Land Commission has done a very good year's work. In my opening speech, I did not start praising them and I did not give Deputies very much opportunity to say whether we had done a good year's work or a bad year's work, but I suggest that criticism of the type which suggests that the Land Commission should be abolished is foolish, thoughtless talk. If the Land Commission is abolished, is it proposed to leave congestion as it is? Is it proposed to wipe out the Land Commission and turn the annuity collecting Department over to the Department of Finance and to forget about the congests? Is that the idea, or is it proposed to give the judicial powers at present enjoyed, and rightly enjoyed, by the Land Commission into the hands of (1) some civil servant; (2) some public person, or (3) the Minister. I, as Minister, will not take these powers—I do not want them. I know that my predecessor in office did not want them and would not take them. No one man, and particularly a Minister, could take them because he could not discharge these duties properly. A permanent official might be able to do it but not a Minister or public representative in this House. Secondly, in my opinion, it would not be a right thing to do. Three powers must be given: the power to acquire land, the power to fix the price for that land and the power to allot the land. You must give these three powers for that particular type of work into the hands of somebody with judicial status, of judicial level; at least, somebody whom we can trust.
It has been said that sometimes wrong things happen. They do. There has been a great deal of talk about the crop of bad user cases coming up now and the Land Commission is blamed for that. The Land Commission should not be blamed for that. The Land Commission are there to implement the policy of whatever Government is in power for the time being. I want that to be clearly understood. The Land Commission are there to carry out whatever policy the Government of the day, through their Minister for Lands, tells them to put into operation and if men who had not proper experience of working land to the fullest got land in the past, the Land Commission are not to blame. I want to say, without any bitterness and without wishing to score politically, that it was done, perhaps, in a burst of enthusiasm by the last Government in their early days. Nevertheless it has resulted in the fact that the Land Commission are blamed for what the last Government should be blamed. If I as Minister for Lands told the Secretary to the Commissioners in the morning that they are to give land only to redheaded men, or to give land only to men with turned-up noses, they would have to give land only to such men and to no other men and they could be immediately dismissed if they deviated from that by one iota. That is what happened in the past. The blame leveled at the Land Commission is unfair. It should not have been levelled. It was not their fault. They were good civil servants and good civil servants' duty, as I understand it, is to put the policy of the Government for the time into operation regardless of whether it is right of wrong. It is also their duty, if they find a Minister or the Government perhaps going a little bit off the beaten track, to give them the benefit of their past experience. Otherwise, if a Minister puts his foot down and says "You will do a certain job in a certain way," the good civil servant will say no more but will go and do it in that way.
The Leader of the Opposition, Deputy de Valera, raised a very important matter, the question of the pool of land available for the relief of congestion. He mentioned 500,000 acres at one stage and 1,000,000 acres at the other stage. I am sorry he is not in the House because I would like to know where that 500,000 acres is. I am after it if I can find it. I want the House, particularly younger Deputies who are perhaps more critical of me than some of the older and more mature members of the House, to tell me where that 500,000 acres is.
Is it not a fact that, under the present land law, a farm of land that could be taken by the State a year or two or three ago may not be taken now according to the way it is being used? Similarly, a farm that could not be touched by the Land Commission one, two, three or four years ago may become available now for the simple fact that it was well used then and is badly used to-day and the Land Commission can step in and take it over. The result is that even a very close survey will not reveal what land is available for acquisition or resumption. The figure for the amount of land available at any one time is always very fluid. Nevertheless, while men are men there will be farms badly used and while the law of this land is that the Land Commission can take over land that is being badly used or that is non-residental there will always be a pool of land available to the Land Commission for the relief of congestion.
Deputy de Valera said, quite correctly, that while the big farms remain —I think the words he used were, while the few big farms remain—they should be used for the relief of congestion. I agree fully with him. On that point I would ask all Deputies. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Clann na Talmhan, Clann na Poblachta, Labour and Independents to give me assistance. Deputy Giles, Deputy Fagan and, of course, nearly all Deputies from Midland counties, including Deputy O'Rourke of Roscommon, threw out the hint that they do not like to see migrants coming into their counties. Apparently, they would like to see the land given to the landless men and every possible person in their own constituencies. From a political point of view, it is very hard to blame them, but a Minister has responsibility, not for a particular county, area or constituency, but for the Twenty-Six Counties and, if he is to take the interest that he ought to take, every single person within the Twenty-Six Counties is under his charge.
The problem of congestion is, perhaps, heaviest in Counties Donegal to Kerry along the West coast, including Leitrim and portion of Sligo. That is not to say that there is not congestion in other counties. I would ask the co-operation and assistance of Deputies in this matter. If they want to see an end to the congestion problem within a reasonable space of time, when a farm is taken up in a county where there is not much congestion in the locality, as soon as the local needs are satisfied, they must, and should leave the rest of the land to the Land Commission to use their own discretion in taking migrants from any part of the country and putting them into that particular place as soon as they build houses for them. I believe that Deputies from all constituencies are genuinely anxious to see an end to the congestion question and, if they want to assist me, they can do so. The very moment it is known that the Land Commission is about to bring migrants from a different part of the same county or, perhaps, from a county 50 to 100 miles away, agitation rises up in the locality. It is there that a Deputy can help me by frowning on it. His duty, then, is to say to these people: "Do you know of any local small-holder who has been by-passed and who should have got an addition to his holding out of that farm?" If every small-holder within a reasonable distance has been satisfied and if there are half a dozen holdings left over, the Deputy should say to the people: "The needs of the people of the locality have been satisfied and given first priority. and you must leave the rest to the Land Commission for the relief of congestion elsewhere. If migrants are brought from Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Clare or Kerry, they are Irishmen just as we are and it should also be borne in mind that these people are taxpayers just as the people in the particular area are taxpayers."
In my opinion, a survey will not reveal the exact amount of land available at any one time, for the reason I have stated, that the present legislation allows the Land Commission to take land if it is non-residential or is not being worked according to proper methods of husbandry. The compulsory tillage regulations produced the strangest thing imaginable. Hundreds of thousands of acres that were available before the war are not available now. It may be that pressure from inspectors, the fact that the nation was in danger and that all political Parties and all sects joined to ask the farmers to produce the necessary food for the nation when supplies were cut off from abroad, woke the owners to a little sense of their civic duty and they turned out good farmers. The result is that many farms that were available before the emergency are not available now. But, on the other hand, many farms that were not available before the emergency are being taken up now. That is the situation as briefly as I can put it.
Deputy O'Grady said that he would like to see drastic measures taken to enforce rearrangement. I hope to deal with that in a new Bill that is in course of preparation, because I think it is too bad that when the Land Commission inspector has been a month or two or three trying to rearrange a townland or a slice of a badly congested estate, one or two of the extra smart people in the locality want a better slice of whatever is going than their neighbours and decide to be obstinate and obstruct and hold up a scheme. I know of a case where one man held up a scheme which would affect himself and 15 other neighbours. Their valuation would be increased from 33/- to £8 and they would have got out-offices, roads and dwellings. A vast sum of money was to be spent on the estate and yet one man held up the scheme. I cannot use compulsory powers against such a man, but I hope to be able to deal with that kind of obstructor in a way which I hope to bring into the new Bill.
There have been demands from very many Deputies regarding cow-parks and plots for small towns. We would like to meet these people and are anxious to meet them, but experience in the past has shown that where cow-parks or sportsfields have been supplied care has not been taken of them. The rents were not paid after the Land Commission going to the trouble to provide them. We take them back when the people of a town or village have got such an amenity and do not appreciate it and that is the best we can do.
Deputy Captain Giles mentioned the fact that men were getting holdings from the Land Commission because they alleged that they were old I.R.A. men but we are not so easily taken in as that. We demand that a man have a certificate from the Department of Defence before giving him a holding, but if a genuine I.R.A. man comes along we are only too anxious to give him a helping hand and to appreciate what he had done for his country. We will not turn him down, but we will not allow any bogus I.R.A. men to walk in and take holdings.
There has been a great deal of talk on all sides of the House raising the matter of the implementation of the 1946 Act, particularly that part of it which deals with user cases. I still stand to-day by what I said when that Bill was going through this House, that when an addition or an enlargement to an uneconomic holding is given it should not be interfered with. I still hold that idea but such cases are not to be confused with cases of those gentlemen who got holdings from the State, holdings fully equipped with a dwelling-house and out-offices, and did not think it worth their while to use it or did not even think it worth their while to let it to some neighbour who would appreciate it and keep it in trim. Those people will be pursued ruthlessly and will receive no quarter. In the case of an addition or enlargement to an uneconomic holding I hold, as I held when the 1946 Act was going through this House, that they belong to the parent holding to which they are given rather than to the holder. In fact I have travelled so far along those lines that I have asked the Land Commission to consider some means of vesting them with the parent holding immediately they are allotted. That is a serious advance, I know, but it is an advance which we are prepared to make.
As I said a few moments ago, there are a number of bad user cases and definitely that fact is the fault of the Government who directed the policy of the Land Commission in those days rather than the fault of the Land Commission itself. I do not want to whitewash the Land Commission. Perhaps they have faults, but they are human just like we are ourselves. Their job however, is to put into action the policy of whatever Government is in power for the time being. In that regard they are not responsible for the fact that bad men are chosen for land no more than they are responsible for the size of the holdings as that was determined for them. They are responsible if I tell them to-morrow morning that I do not agree with the size of the holdings which have been given out up to the present time or if I think that holdings of 40 acres should be given instead of holdings of 18 acres, 20 acres or 25 acres. The Land Commission is not responsible because they must do what I tell them as the mouthpiece of the Government. If in years to come the idea of 40-acre holdings turns out to be wrong, if they are too big or if they are too small, I do not see why Deputies should come along into this House and blame the Land Commission. I do not say that for the sake of politics or of scoring over the Opposition, but I say it because so much abuse has been levelled at the Land Commission in the wrong that somebody has to stand up here between them and those bricks which have been wrongly thrown at them and turn the bricks in the right direction.
All that abuse which the Land Commission has got brings me down to the fact that I would like to give the House a short review of what this much maligned Department has done under three different Governments and, I think, 13 different Dáils. When this State was established and when the Treaty came along in 1921, what was the position of land tenure and land occupation in this country? The Congested Districts Board was doing its own work in certain well-defined areas while the Estates Commissioners and the Land Commission were doing their work outside the Congested Districts Board's area. Even on the day that Treaty was signed over 9,000 estates were held by landlords covering a total area of more than 3,000,000 acres with 107,000 tenants. Those tenants were still in the position their forefathers were in of paying rent without ever being able to buy out their holdings as a tenant buys them out to-day every gale he pays in June and December.
The first Irish Government came into operation and tackled the job in a hard and manful way. They tackled the big task confronting them. The Land Commission, the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board had done excellent work in their own day but they had only nibbled at the problem and barely faced up to their work in most areas. There were at the time over 9,000 landlords, with 107,000 tenants, covering a total area of about 3,000,000 acres or practically a third of the arable land of this country. The first thing that was done by the new Government was to pass an Act here abolishing by one stroke of the pen the Congested Districts Board, the Estates Commissioners and establishing the Irish Land Commission as we know it now. They handed over all the powers, all the property and all the moneys of the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board to the reconstituted Irish Land Commission. Following close on the heels of that famous Act of 1923, which is quoted so often here, an Act was passed in, I think, the fall of that year which swept their estates from those 9,000 landlords into the lap of the Irish Land Commission. The tenants started paying rent to the Irish Land Commission and the work of vesting the individual holders proceeded. Years went on and the work was slow because the landlords were sometimes absentee landlords and sometimes an estate agent was left in charge of the estate. by them who did not know the estate. Maps that were handed over to the Land Commission by the agents were sometimes incorrect, and in some cases they furnished lists of tenants which, when they were checked up by inspectors of the Land Commission, were found to be faulty. When the Survey Branch of the Land Commission tried to get a picture of the estate before paying the landlord they found that there was little truth in them or that the picture given in them did not convey accurately the boundaries of the estate, the rights of the tenants and sub-tenants, or the boundaries of the individual holdings. In 1931 it was realised that a new Land Act was necessary to complete the compulsory vesting and the handling over of the ownership in one sweep of all the remaining landlords.
In 1931, let me tell the House, there were still over 5,000 landlords in possession of these estates or drawing a payment in lieu of rent through the Irish Land Commission and covering about 80,000 tenancies. From 1923 to 1931 the tenants were paying 75 per cent. of the former rent they were paying to the landlord. The 1923 Act reduced by 25 per cent. the rent until each individual estate was vested by the Irish Land Commission. The 1933 Act was the next big step. It was passed by the Fianna Fáil Government and it covered a lot of irregularities which arose in the previous ten years. As time goes on, legislation develops flaws and these have to be remedied, which is what we do in this House every month and every year.
I think that instead of firing uninformed abuse at the heads of the Land Commission we should realise what they have done in the quarter-century period since this State was established. They have not done so badly. It must be remembered that during that time they have purchased 3,000,000 acres of tenanted land from the landlords and 1,000,000 acres of untenanted land for the purpose of additions, enlargements, accommodation plots and new holdings. They have allotted in all about 62,000 parcels during that time. They have provided 15,000 absolutely new holdings in that time. A good deal of these would be migrant holdings and they would not represent an increase in the actual number of holdings that existed in the State at the time when it was handed over. They provided accommodation and bog plots in another 8,000 cases. During that time they have vested or placed on an annuity basis all the holdings in this country which remained unpurchased in 1923. The holdings that now remain to be revested in the tenants are, in the main, those which require rearrangement and revesting. They have given to the tenants of this country a title which is unique in any country in the world and which is the soundest title to property in any country.
In other words, the Government of this State, the Irish Republic as it is now, hands over to the farmer on the day the property is vested, a title in which the boundaries and every other details are clearly set out. All that entails a lot of work which is not realised. Deputies then come along and say that the Land Commission is slow, that it is lazy, that it is archaic and so forth. They have done a vast amount of most useful work in this country. It should not be forgotten that their first and principal object was the handing over of ownership of the land of this country to the people—in other words, the handing over of ownership of the land of Ireland to the people of Ireland. That is what the Land Commission have done during the last 25 years; 1,000,000 acres of untenanted land purchased, divided and distributed amongst 62,000 allottees; 15,000 absolutely new holdings created; 38,000 enlargements of uneconomic holdings and some 8,000 accommodation and turbary plots—small plots to cottiers and to school teachers, etc., so as to enable them to keep a cow. In the meantime, they have vested and surveyed a great portion of the holdings taken over in 1923. There are still about 90,000 holdings and allotments to be vested in this country. This year we vested 15,000. Next year, I am afraid, the figure will be less, because the easier ones were taken first and the hardest, that is the rundale cases, were left. There are roughly 40,000 of these difficult cases in the Twenty-Six Counties which will need to be rearranged and enlarged. My rough guess is that it will take 8,000 new holdings yet, along with what has already been provided out of the 15,000 allotted in the last 25 years, before the end of congestion is in sight. There is no use in minimising or trying to make light of the magnitude of the work. It will take every bit of 500,000 acres of purchased land even yet to relieve congestion.
There has been a bit of fun made of the fact that 20,000 or 25,000 acres per year is very slow and that we should aim at something like 100,000. I am sure that my predecessor in office, Deputy Moylan, will not ask the Land Commission to take on a 100,000-acre programme after the experience his Government had of that for one or two years—I think that was as long as it lasted. If they should, it would be a very bad job for this country. It would go a long way towards upsetting the smooth working of the Land Commission. I am afraid that if any Government does indulge in the dividing of 100,000 acres per year, as distinct from the amount of land that will be taken up with the relief of congestion, the Land Commission will be set back again and there will be a great deal of grumbling in this House about the slowness of the Land Commission, and so forth. I say that the Land Commission are working full steam ahead. Perhaps their work is slow. Nevertheless, I think that we can proceed this year and divide a reasonable amount of land although I shall not make any promise or tie myself to any figure in that respect. I suppose we have 45,000 acres of land at the present time for which proceedings are instituted but I cannot say nor can the Land Commission say how much of that land will be acquired and resumed. Every case is examined and if an objection is raised the question can be brought before the Land Commission Court. If the objector can substantiate his objection he is not interfered with but if he cannot do so the Land Commission takes his land. The acquisition of land must go on while the relief of congestion remains to be settled and it will go on while that problem remains. At the same time we do not want to upset the sound title the Land Commission is giving to those they are vesting every day.
Deputy Commons is concerned about County Mayo. So am I. So is Deputy Moran. However, I think both Deputy Commons and myself can go easy. Deputy Moran has discovered a new method of coming to the relief of congestion in County Mayo. He has discovered two estates and this horrible Minister for Lands who is at the wheel now is a real bad scoundrel. If Deputy Moran gets his way and can succeed in getting the Land Commission to take over these two estates I can assure Deputy Commons and Deputy R. Walsh that there will no longer be land trouble in County Mayo. One of these estates is the Mary Conway holding at Cloonlara which comprises 7½ acres. Mind you, when that estate is divided we may have to acquire some of it back again because there may be too much land in it.
