Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 27 Jul 1923

Vol. 1 No. 34

LAND BILL, 1923—SECOND STAGE.

Motion made and question proposed:—"That this Bill be now read a second time."

EARL of MAYO

Before I address myself to the substance of this Motion I should like to congratulate the Minister for Agriculture on the way in which he carried this Bill through the Dáil. It is a most intricate and difficult Bill, and though I do not like to talk about myself I should like to say that I have read every word of the debates in the Dáil, and I congratulate the Minister on the manner in which he got through the extremely difficult task he had before him. I know perfectly well that he is versed in law, but with all that, and with all the experience I have had of Land Bills on the other side of the water, I can quite sympathise with him in the difficulties he had. At the outset I wish to say that I agree with the principle of the Bill, and the principle of the Bill is this: that those tenants and those landlords who have not bought and sold their property are, under this Bill, so to speak, if they do not come to terms, compelled to do so, and I hope that after the succession of Land Acts which we Irish land-owners —I believe landlord is a term of reproach now—have gone through, we are at last approaching finality.

These Land Bills have given rise to more heart burnings than anything else in this country. Now, this system of compulsory purchase, so to speak, and compulsory sale have been recognised on the other side by the Imperial Parliament as of the greatest importance. There was a Bill introduced in 1920—it did not become an Act, but we had to go through the whole of it at much trouble and expense—that was a compulsory measure, and I say that in the Bill before us now compulsion is necessary. The parties concerned can no longer stand haggling before the world. Compulsion, however, can be carried too far, injustice can, to some extent, be done to one party or the other. That is a point which will make itself manifest when we come into Committee upon this Bill. Amendments will be tabled and discussed, and I only mention that fact now in passing without going into any detail whatever.

Let me deal for one instant with what the land-owners will get under this Bill. The Bill provides for the acquisition, free of cost to the land-owners, of the land-owners' interest at a price varying from 15 to 16½ years' purchase of the gross rentals, and it gives the land-owners a permanent and undiminishable net income amounting from 67½ per cent. to 73 per cent. of their present gross rentals. That statement cannot be controverted by anyone, and I say, in passing, and I say to the Minister in charge of the Bill—and I know the other side somewhat, and know something in regard to land there—I think English land-owners would jump at these figures, especially under the present system of taxation which obtains in Great Britain and in this country. But I have something to say beyond this. I spoke of compulsion. There are powers given under this Bill to the Land Commission which require most careful scrutiny and most careful consideration by this Assembly. I am not going to deal in detail with these powers. The land-owners—and by landowners I also mean this body of people who are annuity-paying tenants under the 1903 Act—must realise that the Land Commission have absolute powers to take any land at any time and anywhere under this Bill. I doubt if this country as a whole fully realises this, and the sooner it does so the better. That should have our very careful consideration, and I have no doubt that it will be considered. I know the intricacies of Irish Land Bills only too well, and I think in the whole of the debates in the Dáil the Minister for Agriculture kept an even keel. He did not list to one side or to the other, but there is this to be remembered, he is addressing an agricultural constituency. The 26 counties of the Free State are practically an agricultural constituency. The cities that have industries are Dublin, Cork and Wexford, and they are situated upon our coast. A general election is pending, and I quite understand the pressure that can be brought to bear on the Minister when he finds himself faced with an election in which the majority of his constituents will be agriculturists in the truest sense of the word. That I quite understand. But on the whole, and taking the Bill as a whole, I must say that he has resisted to a great extent that pressure. The Bill will be dealt with in detail when Committee Stage is reached.

Allow me now to draw attention to a much broader question even than the Land Bill. I believe that some people in this country think that the millennium will have come when this Bill becomes law, and that they are going to have what land they like. Let me say this to the landowner, and I allude most particularly to those who gain their livelihood ostensibly by farming. Conditions have changed and changed with marvellous rapidity. We have compressed into two or three years what has taken centuries in some countries to accomplish. I allude now to the quick transmission of news from one corner of the world to another by wireless, by telephone, by cables, by aeroplanes, and every other quick transit means that has come upon us in the last few years. Let me give an instance. If Great Britain wants beef, ships can come quickly from the Argentine loaded; if France wants oats, Canada sends immediately; if Germany wants wheat, India and Egypt send at once. Now, let me draw my conclusion from that statement. The Irish farmer will have to compete with the farmers all over the world. Many of the farmers in different parts of the world farm on a huge scale. Farmers in this country will have to work and not waste their time in finding fault with others, and the labourers will have to work too. Let us make no mistake upon that score. It is no use one class abusing the other. You will have competition in cattle, you will have competition in corn, and you will have competition in dairy produce.

Now I have nearly concluded. I little dreamt some few years ago that I should be addressing my own countrymen in an Irish Seanad, in the Irish Free State, on an Irish Land Bill. It has come upon me so suddenly that it seems like a dream of the night. The generation now growing up think only of the Great War and the Rebellion in loose terms, in terms that we older men hardly understand. I suppose we shall hear, as I have heard it on the other side, "Bother the old war," and I suppose in this country, in a few years, the young people who are growing up will say, "oh, the rebellion, that was donkey's years ago." I have seen and taken part in many changes here. The Free State Government has won through. I always said they would. Any advice or help I can give them they are welcome to, experientia docet. And last, but not least, let me quote the words of a beautiful song that rings from one end of the English-speaking world to the other, a song which gives solace to the exile and comfort to those who seek their fortune in far distant lands. The words of the song are: “Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home.”

Sir JOHN KEANE

Unusual as it may seem, I would like to preface my remarks by a few words of personal explanation. The farmers of Ireland. more especially the farmers in my own county, did me the honour of electing me to a responsible position in their organisation. I also hold a responsible position on the Central Governing Body in that Union. I wish now to state clearly that, in the matter of this Land Bill, I have neither advised nor have I been consulted, nor have I attended any of the meetings of that body, either locally or at headquarters. Therefore, I am speaking entirely unconnected with that body. It may seem unnecessary to make this explanation, but uninformed people sometimes draw erroneous conclusions, and in the interests of the organisation and discipline, I think that my remarks are justified. This Bill has undoubtedly been received very favourably. The Minister, rightly so, in my humble opinion, has been congratulated from all sides on the skill, the tact, and the ability with which he has brought this Bill to its present stage. I, therefore, hope in no way, or in anything I say, to mar that happy atmosphere, but of course one has to approach this question with independent judgments, and so far as one is led to conclusions by reason and conviction, one has to state them. I am sure no member of the Seanad would wish to act otherwise, but one or two of my colleagues, whose opinion I highly value, have suggested to me that it is undesirable to do anything to introduce controversy into this debate.

But, on the other hand, if one feels that one has a responsible duty to perform, one has to do it. The fortunes of a large section of our countrymen for years to come, as well as the peace and progress of our country, depend very much and will turn on the treatment of its main industry, which is the land. The land question in Irish history, I need only mention this very briefly, has been one long record of struggle. I need not take the Seanad over the history of the matter, even if I were competent to do so, but since the Union there have been a number of recurrent, and frequently recurring, measures to try and settle this controversial subject.

This Bill probably marks the final stage of a definite cycle. The landlords, or the land owners as we know them, who came into being as the descendents, speaking generally, of the Tudor or Stuart period, are now, under this Bill, being finally dealt with. And here, in passing, I would remark that now it is probably considered a good thing to have reached this final stage, but in how far it is a good thing I do not know if other members share this same feeling. As one goes around the country one does come across feelings of regret, perhaps not articulate, but deep down in the hearts of many people. I do not want to elaborate this point, but I do further say, as a distinguished Senator on my right recently said—as a whole there are, no doubt, many exceptions—the landlord classes have been the expression of culture in our country, and, to that extent, I think we must all agree that many people in humble positions in life do agree and feel that their passing is a loss. That feeling may not be expressed in words, but a great poet has said: "The things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed." Now, unfortunately, this Irish question may resemble, or may find an analogy or parallel in the vegetable world. When any species is approaching the end of its life, nature provides it with the means for its own reproduction.

It forms a seed, and that seed in due course, under the generous influence of nature fructifies into the plant. I am afraid that these conditions are to be repeated, and that this Bill will not mark the end of agrarian unrest, that while one plant may die, a new plant will grow in its place, the offspring of the lusty parent. Now, to deal with the passing of the old order I have very little to say. I cannot endorse the exact language of some who described the price the landlords have received as just. Merciful it is, I will admit, and I also say it is as much as we could expect the present Government, situated as it is financially and otherwise, to give. It represents a substantial loss of income to many who can ill afford to bear it. There is a pledge the British Government gave, or there was a pledge which, I presume, still holds, that before the political question was finally disposed of, justice would be done to the landlords. There is yet time to redeem that pledge, and I believe honour demands that it should be redeemed by making, from non-Irish funds, the price more just than it has been to those being bought out.

With regard to the arrears, owners, I think, entertain different views to those they hold in the matter of price. While they feel that the Irish Government has done the best they could in difficult circumstances, they also feel that the conduct of the general body of unpurchased tenants has been unwarranted. It is admitted that old habits are hard to break. It must also be remembered that the Plan of Campaign, of which the recent outbreak is the lineal descendant, was launched at a time when conditions were different. Since that time rents have been much reduced by Government tribunals, which even the tenants will admit have not been biassed in favour of the owners. The refusal to pay rents follows on a period of agricultural prosperity, which is not only common knowledge, but is evidenced from the great increases in bank deposits, which must mainly come from the agricultural classes. While the landlords in England were able to increase their rents substantially during the war, the landlords in Ireland were possibly the only class in Ireland excluded from a share of the general prosperity. It is hard to say who has benefited by this reprehensible behaviour. The good name of the tenants and their reputation for honesty have been lowered, and the good name of the farmers generally has been discredited by this refusal to pay rent. Mortgagees and chargees dependent on their annuities from Irish estates have been brought to the brink of destitution. The Government itself has been put into the most difficult and uncalled for position by being pressed to withhold the execution of the law in favour of a certain section and a certain class. Labour had of necessity to submit to unemployment for the farmers' benefit. Generally the Government has been confronted in this matter by a position only less difficult to handle than that of Irregularism itself. Let us hope this Bill marks an end of this unpleasant episode.

Now, turning to the future of the Bill, I would ask the Seanad to try if possible to approach this matter in the spirit of judicial detachment. I once met a gentleman in the war who called himself a publicity expert, and he described this extraordinary science of publicity. I need not weary the Seanad with what he said about this subtle doctrine, but he said he doubted if there were more than very few people who, if you attack them the right way with publicity propaganda, you would not divert from a true sense of judgment. I suppose lawyers above all people, and Judges especially, are able to resist the suggestions that come from outside sources. But I think the ordinary person who does not have time to study or is not qualified to study documents and verify references, is in very grave danger of being quite unconsciously, with the best intentions, led to form erroneous ideas upon and wrong conclusions on any subject, especially that which has only hastily and only recently obtained prominence, like this actual Bill. The provisions of this Bill, which enable, in the Minister's own words, any land to be taken anywhere for the relief of congestion, deserve on our part the most careful consideration. Admittedly they are far-reaching. The Minister probably can correct me if I am wrong, but I doubt if any Statute Book in any country in the world contains proposals of so drastic a character as these. In Australia, where it was necessary to take, in the interest of the community, these big holdings, it was done in a different way by means of graduated taxation, but it was a just and efficient way. The full powers of land nationalisation are to be put into force under this Bill. By compulsion land can be taken. I admit that it has got to be distributed, and on redistribution its control passes from the Government. But the Government can take all the land, and to that extent I submit this Bill is a colourable imitation of nationalisation. Not that nationalisation may not be good; I do not say it is not, and I have no doubt it is supported. If the Seanad, on the whole, considers as a policy that land nationalisation is good, then this Bill deserves its support. Those who do not favour land nationalisation should logically oppose the measure. I am sure there are some such present, and for that reason I feel it my duty to enter a warning in respect of this Bill. Now, I want to examine the more particular aspect of what was meant by the relief of congestion. I am first going to examine it on the plain meaning of the word, on its bona fide and agreed interpretation. We need not go into details. Relief of congestion means the relief of congests—taking men who are congests and putting them into larger holdings, and thus making a larger number of economic holdings throughout the country. Now, it is necessary, before we adopt a virtual measure of land nationalisation, that we should realise how far we can go in that very much to be commended direction of giving everybody an economic holding. I hope to examine the figures of this more closely. We had evidence this morning before the Agricultural Commission of a gentleman who made a study of this subject, Colonel O'Callaghan Westropp.

Colonel O'Callaghan Westropp's evidence was to this effect: If you take all the land tenanted and untenanted over 100 acres east of the Shannon, and add to that all the land tenanted and untenanted over 50 acres west of the Shannon, the total of the two will not provide enough land to give every congest, under the old definition which is now swept away, an economic holding. So that is what it is worth. Senators can verify this. The references are difficult to find, but they can be got, and they are mainly to be found in the report of the Dudley Commission. If you take all the land over 100 acres, you would not be able to deal fully with this problem of congestion. And then what about the evicted tenants and the landless men and the congests outside of the congested districts? They ought to be dealt with in equity. You have to face the fact that on the one hand you can only partially relieve by these far-reaching powers bona fide congestion, and on the other hand you have the feeling of insecurity which any measure of compulsion like that must bring to an existing occupier. You must look at this thing in the terms of what powers are enacted. We all have perfect confidence that the present Government will not use those powers harshly, and that a Farmers' Government will not, perhaps, use those powers harshly. I do not wish to form the conclusion that a Labour Government will use those powers harshly, but I do suggest that a Government might come in that would use those powers harshly when they are there, and I can conceive people who wish to use those powers harshly—followers or disciples of Karl Marx—saying, when they are together in conference, “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad; when we come in, therefore, without firing a shot, we will have got all the powers the master himself would give us.” That is a serious matter, and I am open to correction if my interpretation is wrong. We must look at how this thing would operate by whom and when it is applied. That feeling, if it grows, must have a deleterious effect on work and development. It must tend to deter occupiers from putting their best energy and their savings back into the land. That has always been the trouble in this country—getting men to develop by fixing their money in their buildings, fencing, drainage, etc. That feeling of insecurity, which has always accompanied land tenure in this country, has militated against this intensive farming that we so much admire in other countries—Denmark, for example—and that we wish to have here. Grass farming, which is so rightly on general principles condemned, will and must continue so long as you have insecurity of tenure, which, I fear, is not relieved by the compulsory measures in this Bill.

Now I come to another aspect of this case. What is a congest? Hitherto I have assumed that a congest is what we all generally believe a congest to be. I understand there has never been any definition of what a congest is. It has been tried, and the effort failed. I think some of us are going to try again, on the Committee Stage, and we hope the Minister will sympathetically consider our attempts to define a congest, and to that extent to limit within safe grounds the operation of those compulsory powers. In my attempt to discover what a congest was, and what these compulsory powers mean, I naturally read the debates, and more especially the statements of the Minister. After all, that is the usual way. When you want to know what the Government mean, you read the Ministerial statements. I would not for a moment offend the laws of fair debate by taking the statements, made by anybody before he is a Minister and confronting him with them when he is a Minister; but I think it is quite fair to take what a Minister says a fortnight ago and hold him by those words. In the debate of the 4th July, on page 2795 of Hansard, the Minister is reported: "Further, go outside the congested areas. Let us take it the Land Commission buy 1,000 acres of land, and that the acreage is held under one title. They have to buy the whole of it. They are not going to buy two or three holdings out of it. They may require only 50 acres for congests. There may be one congest in the neighbourhood, and when he is dealt with the balance is all for landless men. Though they require the land compulsorily for the relief of congestion, they buy it because it is held under one title. It is just one estate and one farm. They buy it for the relief of congestion." Now, that is not mentioned once. I could give three extracts from Ministerial state ments, but I need not worry the Seanad with them. Those statements confirm my view and make us uneasy about the relief of congestion. In fact, if we take those words with their plain meaning, they mean this, that under the cloak of the relief of congestion you can acquire land and put one congest on it, and then you can let in all and sundry on it. I see nothing to prevent you going to the market-place in the city and taking any men you find there. They are landless men. You can put them in on the balance of the land you acquire—the land that, under the Statute, you claim to be taking only for the relief of congestion. It is for that reason I do suggest that these compulsory powers require the most careful consideration. This Bill has admittedly been hurried through, as more legislation has been hurried through, and it is our function to prevent undue haste. These measures are complicated, and the reason that men of experience and mature judgment were put on this Assembly was that they could pause and try to examine in a quasi-judicial sense, and prevent in a moment of haste a dangerous measure being enacted which might affect the wealth, production, and the security and prosperity of important classes in this country for years to come. It appears to me that if the interpretation of the Minister is correct, and the Bill is administered in the sense that I have indicated, instead of having, as in the past, class against class, you are very likely to have man against man, and that in the new order may be something even worse than the old. What we should do, and I am sure my brother Senators will agree, is to try, as far as we can through our laws, to bring about goodwill and good relations between all classes, and, if I may say so, to bring the principles of the Ten Commandments into the daily life of our people; to exclude from our laws any measures that do not make for the peace, progress, and prosperity of all classes.

Mr. T.W. BENNETT

I approach this Bill more or less from the same standpoint as the Senator who has just spoken. I do not speak for any Party, and in any criticism I may offer I shall try to maintain the detachment that Sir John Keane suggests should be applied to this Bill. I welcome the introduction of the Bill, and I believe it is a great attempt to perfect land purchase in this country. At the same time, compulsion is introduced for the first time, and that being an innovation, it must be justified on some ground. To my mind the acid test to apply to all such innovations is, are they justifiable on one or two grounds. I take it that we may take agriculture in this country to be an industry, and a basic industry. The acid test, to my mind, to apply to an innovation in regard to an industry is, will it sweeten social relations or will it increase production? In my opinion this Bill, if amended, and if given the consideration by this Seanad which it deserves, will do both. I believe it will sweeten social relations and will increase production. That the financial provisions are not such as could be desired, in justice to the landlords, for whom Sir John Keane pleads, I think, is due to the chaos and the ruin of the last year or two. Millions which might have been usefully applied to this measure have gone to the four winds of heaven, and I believe that the Minister, and the Government, approached the question from the only available attitude, and from the proper one. But while saying these things, I have to endorse the references which have been made to the dangers which to me appear to exist in this Bill. It will need, I will not say drastic, amendment, but it will need amendment, and I will endeavour to point out in a very few words the points where, to my detached mind, it needs amendment. There are three or four sections to which I would like particularly to allude. Section 9 refers to the period of annuity payment. It is indefinite. How long the payments will go on is not defined, and I think that, for the ordinary man, a definition would be useful. Section 19 alludes to the cost of the collections of arrears. The cost of the collections of arrears seems to be a very trifling thing, but I think, in justice to the class for whom these arrears are to be collected, a sum not exceeding, at any rate, the cost of these collections as they would arise in the ordinary course, should be stated, instead of leaving it to the decision of the Land Commission. In Section 29 we come to the question of the acquisition of land for congests. There I take issue regarding the ground on which lands may be acquired. We are told that they may only be acquired for the relief of congestion. I think they may be acquired for other grounds than the relief of congestion, and if you leave it open, a vast number of men in Ireland, farmers owning land which cost £3,000— and you cannot call them other than working farmers—will continue to have the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. They will have no security, and therefore I maintain that their farms will not be used in the interests of the community, but in their own interests. In order that these lands should be worked efficiently, and should be used in the interests of the nation, I believe that they should have security of tenure. Now, as the Bill is before us, I take it that until the appointed day every farmer in Ireland who owns land over £3,000 in value can have it taken from him. We are told that this will be only for the relief of congestion, but I think we ought to apply ourselves carefully to the section which defines it, and to the subsequent section. "Any holding in the beneficial occupation of a tenant who is, on the appointed day, the proprietor of lands for the purchase of which advances have been made under any of the Land Purchase Acts, and whether redeemed or not, if the total amount resulting from the addition to the standard price of the amount obtained by capitalising at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent. the original annuities payable on such advances, exceeds £3,000." Apparently from that a farm of £3,000 value is a retained farm. Then I will ask you to carry your minds on to Section 29. A farm of £3,000 value appears to be a retained farm. Section 29, then, gives power I take it, to the Land Commission. "The Land Commission shall have, and may exercise all or any of the powers exercisable by them as respects holdings on Estates vested in them, including powers of resumption of the whole or part of the holding, whether the holding is or is not part of an Estate or subject to a judicial rent; and in exercising the powers aforesaid shall have regard to the necessity of relieving congestion, the desirability of increasing the food supply of the country, and the manner in which the holdings have been used." There we have, apart from congests, other reasons for which the land may be appropriated. If ever land nationalisation was attempted, I believe this clause permits it and will create it. I do not quarrel with the desirability of nationalisation; I do not quarrel with the necessity for making smaller holdings, but I do quarrel with the fact that small farmers have no security, that at any time, in the Bill as it stands, they may have their lands wrested from them for any of these various purposes.

There is another section upon which I would like a little care and a little thought bestowed, and that is Section 43. It deals with water-courses and various things of that nature. To my mind, in a Bill of this kind, which goes to the root of land tenure in Ireland, which goes to the root of the economic progress of the farmer, it is essential that definition and a definite shape should be given to water-courses and to the need for keeping land clean and right. I look over the Bill, and what I see is: "The Land Commission shall have power to enter on any lands for the purposes of the cleansing, repair, maintenance or restoration of water-courses, drains, embankments, or other works, and to take such soil and materials therefrom and to do such things thereon as may be necessary for the said purposes. The Land Commission shall have power in their discretion to expend in or towards the reconstruction of any water-course, drain, embankment or other work such sum as at their request the Minister for Finance shall approve of and advance out of moneys to be provided by the Oireachtas, and so much of such sum as the Land Commission shall certify in that behalf shall be repayable by means of an annuity or annuities charged upon the land which the Land Commission certify to have been benefited by such expenditure." There you are giving into the hands of the Land Commission power, without in any way considering the interest of the immediate occupier, or without any inquiry, as far as I can see, as to the needs of the various farmers, or as to the benefits to be contributed to the various lands by any scheme. You are giving power to the Land Commission to go down on their own initiative, and go anywhere they like, to do anything they like, and, having done it, to apportion the cost as they like. I think that is a power that should not be given to the Land Commission, unless we are sure that deliberate inquiry has been made and deliberate evidence accepted as to the benefits or otherwise of that scheme. While on this matter I would like information from the Minister, when he is replying, as to whether the body which previously dealt with watercourses in Ireland before the Great War, which, I think, was the Agricultural Department, is merging into the Land Commission, and, if so, whether the function which was so usefully performed by that body—that is, the power of Inspectors to go on lands and compel the clearing of watercourses—might not be considered and embodied in this Bill instead of giving a roving mission to the Land Commission to do as it pleases. Section 67 is very brief, but, to my mind, the whole danger to every farmer in Ireland lies in it: "For the purpose of this Act the appointed day shall be such day or days as may be fixed by the Land Commission, and different days may be fixed for different provisions and different purposes of this Act, and for different holdings or groups of holdings and different parcels or groups of parcels of untenanted land." The appointed day is not a day; it may be to-morrow, it may be in five years, or ten years, or fifty years, and it may be never. Pending the appointed day, these powers I have endeavoured to outline are retained by this Government or subsequent Governments, and insecurity exists. I think we should apply ourselves to endeavour to consider whether it is wise for us to give this Government, or any Government, such unlimited powers as to hold up for all time the security which I maintain is essential, and allow them to continue the clause as enacted here without some definition. That is a fault, that many things in the Bill are so indefinite. I think in a case like this new people are treading where greater men failed, and yet I do not think we will fail. We have one of the old disputants here who harped on a note of hope. I, too, towards the end, will harp on a note of hope. The men who constructed this Land Bill, I believe, have done it nobly and have done it well, and laid good foundations, and if we here approach it in no sectional interest, but approach it, as Sir John Keane suggested, in a detached spirit, and try to aid them in making it better— if we apply ourselves to aid them in making it better, I hope they on their part will try to secure for the country the good which our united intelligence is capable of making, and hand down to those who come after us a system of tenure in Ireland which will react for the good of every industry. If this basic industry decays, all decays; if it lives, a better Ireland, to my mind, is sure to ensue.

Colonel MOORE

The Senators who have spoken have said a great deal better than I can what I was going to say. I fear, from the discussions that appear in the papers and that took place in the Dáil, that public consideration had been given only to one side of this Bill—the purchase and sale of holdings. This Bill is really divided roughly into two parts, one of which is for the purchase and sale of holdings, about which I will say nothing, because I recognise that the Minister has had the greatest possible difficulty in dealing with any such question. I told him at the time, I remember, that I did not think he would be able to deal with it, because of the state of the country. Two years ago the matter could have been easily settled; now it is very difficult, and he had to face a hard task. I do not agree with Senator the Earl of Mayo that this is a very generous measure at all. I agree with Senator Sir John Keane that it is a very unjust measure to landlords. Many of them will lose part of their income, and some will lose all their income.

The EARL of MAYO

I never said it was a generous measure for the landlords. I said that if these figures were proposed and passed on the other side of the water, that the English landlords would jump at them, or words to that effect.

Sir JOHN KEANE

I would like to make an explanation. The Senator said I stated this was an unjust measure. I have no recollection of saying so, and I do not think the shorthand note will confirm that statement by Senator Colonel Moore.

Colonel MOORE

I had that impression. I may have made a mistake, and I regret if I have misinterpreted the Senator.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

Perhaps, Senator, you had better speak for yourself.

Colonel MOORE

I am perfectly willing to apply the words I have said as my own opinion. To the landlords who are selling it is a very unjust measure, because not only do they lose part of their income 10, 20, or 30 per cent., but in many cases they lose all their income. Men had their rents reduced 30 per cent. the first time, then 20 per cent. again, and later another 10 per cent. and then 25 per cent.; now it sweeps away any margin left. and therefore they will be left beggars. I say that, but I am saying at the same time to the Minister who was faced with such a diffcult proposition, that I do not attribute to him, or to the Government, or to any body, or any individual, any intention to be unfair. I think he did his best on this subject, and I do not call that in question. I understood the Senators to say it was an unfair measure. I certainly think it unfair, and I think it necessary to say that I will not go into that question, I went rather fully into the other part, the taking of land. It is a very important part of this measure, and I do think that the Government were pressed into a very hard corner, and that the Minister was forced to bring in a Land Bill. Still, I think it is a pretty stiff measure to bring before a very unrepresentative Dáil at the very moment of its dissolution, but, as I say, it is possible he may have been obliged to do so. I think Senators and everybody in Ireland should recognise that this Bill confiscates all the land of Ireland. It confiscates the land of every man, whether he owns 10 or 10,000 acres, whether he is poor or rich. It is given into the hands of the Land Commission simply by declaration. It unsettles, in one sweep, all the settlements of land made in Ireland for the last 50 years. I think that is a very serious thing, and I think we must deal with the Bill recognising that. It may have to be done, but let us understand it, and not let us be told that it is altogether good. Up to now, since this measure was introduced here, the only person I can see who recognises this is Deputy Johnson. In the other House he did not make any mention of these matters until the Bill was well through, and then he stated that he hoped that all other properties in Ireland would be dealt with in like manner. I know that Deputy Hogan got up and said that he did not understand this point. After the statement made in the Seanad, I think many people will agree that Deputy Johnson was a far-seeing man, who recognised the far-reaching importance of this Bill, which nationalises all the land of Ireland, and is the first step towards nationalising everything else in Ireland. That may happen in the future, but let us understand that it is so.

I intended to quote some sections, but they have been already referred to and explained, so I will not take any time over them. I think we ought to look back on the history of this country and recognise that there have been more confiscations in Ireland than probably in any country in Europe. The Normans came here and proceeded to confiscate the land in the belief that it belonged to the King, and they took over large tracts of land. It was confiscated afterwards at various times by various Kings. Various confiscations were made by Elizabeth, and in the North James confiscated the best land. Cromwell came afterwards and left us only hell and Connaught. After that came the landlords, who confiscated all the property of the tenants and proceeded to use it for their own purposes. I recognise both sides in this matter. During the last fifty years we have been trying to change these matters, and there has been a series of agitations and land wars with the object of replacing the people on the land—people whose ancestors originally held the land. I, for one, have always been interested in that matter, and have been advocating it in every way, although in the part of the country where I live a person like me amongst the people became extremely unpopular, and I made a good many enemies by so doing. When we look upon this and compare it with all those confiscations, it must be said that this is the greatest confiscation of all. I must say that Cromwellism is nothing to Hoganism. At all events, Cromwell left us a bit of Connaught, but Hogan leaves us nothing anywhere, North or South. Of course, I know the Minister will say that this is all for the benefit of the people, and that all the other confiscators have been very bad people, but that he and his people, the Land Commission, are very good, as no doubt they are, and are doing this for a good purpose. Cromwell, however, said that, and also all the Kings who made confiscations said it— that it was for the benefit of the people. It would not pay people to say anything else. People said that the last war was for the benefit of everybody, but they changed their minds since. I am quite sure that I do not want to make any reflections on Deputy Hogan, who is a straightforward, honest Minister, trying to do his best, and who believes that what he is doing is to the benefit of the country. When I was young, a good many years ago now, I was a very enthusiastic land reformer. I am a very enthusiastic—perhaps I may say very fanatical —peasant proprietor at this moment. At that time I often propounded schemes. and I thought that if I was made dictator of Ireland I would take all the land and make a very good settlement of the problem. Deputy Hogan is still young and enthusiastic, and I think he intends to do the same, and I am quite sure he is very hopeful of doing right, but he will not always be here, and others who come after him may do things differently. I have learned from experience that, although all these things may be very good, you must have some consideration for law and justice, and if you try to sweep away these things altogether you lead to all sorts of trouble. I have lived in the West of Ireland among officials of the Congested Districts Board, and I have no great faith in them, but Ministers have, and they say that everything will be done for the best. Once officials get seated in the saddle they do all kinds of things most unjustly. I have seen large farms given to shopkeepers in districts where struggling people could not get an acre of land. I do not know what the reason was, but nobody could dispute it, because there was a Congested Districts Board, a powerful body. Such injustices will be done in the future by officials, as there is no one so hard hearted as they are. Landlords undoubtedly did horrible things in past times, but at all events they were human, and when they saw people in trouble they tried to help them. Officials sitting in Dublin do not, however, hear the cries of the widows and orphans and do not trouble about them. They see a name, and they wipe it out. I have great suspicion of officials of any sort. I know this country is going to be saddled with them, and they will ride straddle-legged over Ireland. The whole experience of the world is against these despotic powers. People of every country in the world have been struggling to set up laws against the despotic powers of Kings, officials, and everybody else. It is a mistake to think that these revolutions can be carried out without injustice. I am not for a moment saying that congestion must not be relieved. I have seen most horrible congestion in Ireland. I have seen horrible cabins on the side of roads made of mud. I have seen cabins in the middle of bogs almost surrounded by water, with people struggling for their lives.

I am not a person who is going to say that those people must not be removed at any cost to anybody, I do not care who it is, but I do not think that this Bill provides any safeguard against wholesale confiscation without reason and without sense. One of the reasons Deputy Hogan gave in the other House for taking away the land from people all over Ireland and making it subject to the Land Commission was that congests and others objected to being moved from their holdings. They lived there all their lives. They had poor, wretched houses, but, notwithstanding, they wished to live there as long as they could, or live close to them. Those are sentimental feelings which I feel as strong as anybody. But you have to consider the injustice of putting forward this Bill. A few years ago far-sighted farmers in Ireland jumped at the opportunity and bought out their holdings under the Wyndham Act; since then they have struggled to improve those holdings, and have built houses on them. They rejoiced that at last they got a hold on the land, and they thought that they and their families were going to live on those holdings for ever. A few congests do not want to leave their places, and for the sake of those congests, who, because they were advised not to accept terms from anybody, refused to buy their holdings, those people are to move out of their houses. They will be swept out of their nice houses, and those congests are to be put into their place. I think that wipes out all the security of the country. Those people who thought they had got security of tenure are wiped out with one stroke, and men without land are put in in their places. I do not believe there is any necessity for doing things in that way. I believe there ought to be a limit put on those things, and I welcome any amendments which will limit the powers in these matters. I know that the Congested Districts Board have got thousands of acres of grazing land, which can easily be divided up to relieve the congests. I know there are any number of demesnes all over Ireland which people do not want. They do not want to live in these houses any more; they cannot afford to or do not want to, and sometimes people have cleared out. These can be bought without any compulsion and given to congests. There are grazing lands all over the country owned by people who use those grazing lands, not for living on, but as a matter of business. To those people it is a pure matter of £ s.d. If those people are compensated they will be quite willing to sell them. This Bill when completed gives power to people in the congested districts to move out. At all events, in other Bills they were bound to pay a market price for land. Not now. The Land Commission goes down in an arbitrary way and fixes the price of land. I have seen officials of the Land Commission going out with a spade, and lifting up a sod, and saying. "That is worth so much an acre." In that way the land was valued. They may not have seen it before; it may be a swamp or splendid land. Things are done in a most unreasonable way. I think this breach of faith is a dreadful thing all over the country. There is no man in this country now who will be able to say his holding is his own. As a Deputy pointed out, there is no limit of time. At any time this Board can go down and say, "We want your land," and take it. They do not let a man appeal to any Judge. They say, "We want your land," and owing to the very fact of urging that the land becomes theirs automatically. Who is going to improve his land under such circumstances? Is anyone going to build a new house or new drains? The Commissioners seize the land, and can hand it over to someone else. Owing to that all confidence will be gone. The Minister brought forward in this Seanad some time ago a Bill for Reparations—one of the few honest, generous Bills I have seen dealing with landlords or tenants in my time. It was to repair the various houses that were burned down throughout the country. Is anyone in this Seanad going to rebuild under those circumstances? Not one. Is anyone going to spend a thousand pounds on those houses when the Land Commission can say, "Get out; this is my land," and hand it over to somebody else? Of course not. All confidence in the country will be gone unless this Bill is improved, and I think it will do more harm to this country than good. I am not saying anything against the Minister who brought it in, because I think he has a hard job, and will do his best to deal fairly with the subject.

Mr. BAGWELL

I think it is obvious to all of us that the Bill is bound to have the most profound effect on the future welfare of this country. The Seanad will have its responsibility for the form in which the Bill passes into law, and I think we should examine all its provisions very carefully, bearing in mind it is far more important than most Bills, because it is going to affect the whole life of the country. We should try to amend this Bill in such a way as to make it do as much good and as little harm as possible. As it stands, it seems to me the Bill is "contradictious,” if I may use the term. I think the Minister, if he were saying what the objects were, would not quarrel with my definition. It is a Bill ostensibly to remove contention, dispute and discontent, in the matter of land tenure, and to arrive at a greater degree of security, settlement and prosperity. Does the Bill in its present form attain those objects? In a great part it does aim at them, and would tend to secure them, although its terms are in many respects undeservedly hard on certain persons. It may be possible to amend that hardship before the Bill becomes law, but that portion of the Bill which deals with congestion, in my opinion, is calculated to completely undo everything the rest of the Bill may do in the matter of establishing greater contentment and security, and everything else we would like to see it do.

Security is the thing this country wants more than anything else. We have had enough of insecurity. Without security we cannot expect to get increased production and increased prosperity, which all of us would like to see. If the Bill passes in its present form, there will be no security for anybody in the matter of land. The economic side of the question ought to be very carefully examined. Is it not possible that the attempt to relieve congestion may not result in far worse congestion than you have ever had before? Congestion is a very difficult term to define strictly, and it can be defined in hundreds of different ways. Is this Bill going to make the country, as a producing agricultural country, more productive than it is now? I very much doubt that. The intentions of the Government may be most excellent, but, human nature being what it is, a great number of people will say that congestion must be relieved by taking land which belongs to somebody else and cutting it up into small units. The tendency will be to establish smaller and smaller units. Is that good for this country? I know that the small farmer owes an enormous debt to the big farmer, and that without the big farmer the small farmer could hardly prosper in this country—at least a great number of them could not. A great many of the small farmers sell lean cattle which they cannot fatten themselves to the big farmers, who fatten them. If all the farms are small, it will tend to be a case of people earning a precarious existence by taking in each other's washing. I do not think that the duty which the agricultural industry, as a whole, owes to the big farmer is fully realised. It is a point which has not been mentioned in debate yet, but we know that there has been a tremendous advance in this country in agriculture during my lifetime, and that has been largely due to the high-class farming which has been carried on by farmers who farm on a big scale. The tendency of this Bill will be to have very few such farms in a short time. Who is going to buy the high-class bulls or to make the experiments which result in improved methods? These things are now being done by people farming on a large scale, who very often lose a great deal of money through them. They are of great advantage to the small farmers. The tendency of this Bill, apart from all the points mentioned in connection with the wiping away of security, will be, in my opinion, economically to create congestion where it is intended to remove congestion. That is a point which we ought to consider seriously in Committee. For the rest, the intentions of the Bill are good. It is quite obvious that it introduces no new principle, because even compulsion has been in the air for a considerable time, and it is impracticable to view this question except with a measure of compulsion now. I think the Bill is capable of a great deal of improvement, and I think that, in Committee, we should endeavour to remove, as far as possible, as much of the Bill as is calculated to do harm, and to retain that which is calculated to produce contentment and a better state of affairs than we have at present.

The EARL of KERRY

I do not propose to follow Senators who have spoken in criticism of the financial clauses of the Bill, although I agree with a great deal of what has been said in that respect. I suppose the expropriated landowners must get what consolation they can from two well-known adages. I know many people will say that these landowners might have sold under former Acts when conditions were more favourable, and that it is a case of "the devil take the hindmost." The Minister, I am sure, will acquit me of saying anything personal when I use that expression. Another adage which meets the case very well is that "half a loaf is better than no bread," or if you take Senator Sir John Keane's figure and say sixty-seven per cent. of the loaf is better than no bread. That is very true to-day. I am sure that many landowners who have seen in recent times the prospect of no bread are to that extent grateful to the Government and to the Minister for bringing in this Bill and for getting it through the Dáil.

I wanted to speak on another, and perhaps minor, aspect of the Bill which has not yet been touched upon—that is, the matter of the disposition of sporting rights which is dealt with in Clause 44. They, of course, divide themselves under two heads of fishing and shooting rights. In what I am going to say I will ask the Seanad to look at the question not so much from the comparatively unimportant point of view of the individual, but from the point of view which, I think, is very important, of the preservation of fish and game birds in this country, both of which, I believe, are very important national assets, which, with good management, might be made even more important to the State in future. With regard to the fishing rights, under Clause 44 it is laid down that these rights will be vested in the Land Commission— taken over at a price. I do not think anyone can object to that under the circumstances. It is not stated in the Bill what the Land Commission propose to do with them, but I take it that the obvious intention is that the Land Commission would let them in the most advantageous manner possible.

I should like to put in a plea that in those cases where fishing rights have been taken over by the State, and then let, that the former owner of these rights should at all events be given a preference or a refusal of such rights. I say that not only from the point of view of the individual, who may have some just claim, but from the point of view of putting them in the hands of a responsible person who would be able to carry out the preservation of these rivers. From the same point of view I should like to suggest to the Minister that it would be advisable to let these fisheries as a whole. I ought to preface my remarks by saying that I have not got in view the big rivers of this country—the Shannon, the Suir, and the Blackwater—which I think are quite able to look after themselves. I have in view these smaller rivers, the rivers with which I am more familiar, in the West of Ireland—tiny little rivers which are extremely valuable, and when let alone, teem with salmon and other fish, but which are very easily interfered with, and very easily cleared out of the whole of their contents. That is what is going on to my own knowledge to-day. In many rivers in the neighbourhood of the Kenmare Estuary, with which many Senators are familiar, every fish is being extracted by means of nets, dynamite, or poison. It is really true that some rivers are entirely denuded of fish at present. If that goes on, anyone at all familiar with the breeding of salmon will bear me out when I say that sporting fish which come up a river to spawn are not able to spawn. There are no eggs, no fry, and no fish returning to the sea. In the course of time no more fish will come up these rivers, and the whole stock will be destroyed. It is, I think, a not unimportant matter. I daresay that many of the Senators are aware that at this moment in British Columbia, where supplies of salmon were thought to be inexhaustible, through lack of any Government control or any preservation salmon have diminished to such an extent that large numbers of people have been turned out of employment. The authorities in British Columbia have been reduced to getting advice from all quarters of the globe as to what they ought to do to restore these denuded fisheries. The same holds good to a limited extent in regard to the fisheries on lakes. I should like very much to know if the Minister will be able to inform the Seanad what the Government policy is with regard to fishing on lakes which are taken over under this Bill. Lakes, of course, cannot be, except under exceptional circumstances, netted or poisoned or dynamited. But it is possible, if general access were given to a lake, that anyone who happened to have a boat could make use of it, and the stock of fish would be very materially depleted in a short time.

Then I pass to the second part of the subject—the matter of shooting rights. Under the Bill I see that shooting rights on tenanted land are said to be of no appreciable value, and on that assumption I suppose they are to be vested in the tenant. I would like to ask the Minister if that includes shooting rights over bog and mountain. I take it that it does in most cases. In that part of Ireland with which I am familiar the holdings invariably run up to the top of the mountain, and include rough ground. Of course, the bogs are all divided up into turbary rights amongst different tenants. If that is so, I should say that those shooting rights are of appreciable value, because, as everyone who is familiar with that kind of ground knows, on the mountains there are a few, though not very many grouse. In the winter there are woodcock on the mountains and snipe in the bogs. If the right of shooting these birds is given over to all and sundry, it means, of course, that everyone who has a gun—and, unfortunately, there are at this moment a great many who have guns— would go out and dispose of any of these birds which happened to be on his own ground, with the result that they would, in the course of time, become extinct. I maintain that there are many, perhaps misguided persons like myself, who are willing to walk a great many miles a day on the chance of getting two or three woodcock and a snipe or two. There are a great many people who would go very far in order to enjoy that kind of rough shooting, as well as the air and the exercise which it entails, especially when it is in the midst of beautiful scenery. I am quite sure that as soon as real peace is restored you would get a very large influx of people who would live in the country—stay in hotels, or perhaps take little houses—if they were able to enjoy that kind of rough sport. If it is all handed over to the tenant who may purchase under this Bill, nobody in the end would be any the better off, as they would very soon exterminate what is left, and there would be nothing left to shoot at all. In that way another potential national asset, I think, would be destroyed. I hope to put down an amendment in this sense, but I should be very grateful if the Minister, when he on the debate, saw his way to let us know that the Government would look on such an amendment with a sympathetic eye, although of course, he could not commit himself to it until he has seen the amendment in print. I only desire to mention one other point, which follows what I am saying with regard to shooting rights. Is there any reason why the State should not take them over in the same way as they are taking over the fishing rights? I believe it has been done by the Congested Districts Board in certain parts of Ireland, and it has certainly prevailed in many parts of Europe. I believe it is so in France, and that the State there owns all the rights of shooting and sees to their preservation. The State lets out the shooting to those who wish to shoot, thereby making a considerable income. I think the subject is one worthy of the attention of the Government, and I hope they may be able to meet me and those who agree with me by accepting an amendment on the lines I have suggested.

Mr. IRWIN

I wish to support this Bill and to congratulate the Minister for Agriculture on the great effort he has made to settle this most difficult part of a most difficult question. A number of eminent statesmen have tried and failed to complete land purchase in Ireland, and it is fitting, and it is well, that it is left to a native Parliament, and a native Minister, to complete the task, and that he will do I am quite confident. This measure may be described, as it were, as a triangle. On the one side you have the tenant purchaser, and he is dealt with in as fair a manner as he possibly could be, having regard to all the circumstances. The Minister is making 70,000 tenant farmers peasant proprietors with reduction in their rents in the form of their annuities of something like 35 per cent. To the landlords he is giving between 67 and 73 per cent. of their gross income. Now, take their gross income, out of which they have to pay the cost of collection, legal expenses, agency fees, etc., and putting the good year with the bad, and basing the gross income upon a calculation like that, it may be said the landlords will get very near their net income. I would ask, is there any business man here to-day, or across the Channel, who would not dispose of his business freely and willingly if he could get practically his net income? Therefore, I think the Minister, if he has erred at all, has erred —or rather I will not say has erred, but has tilted the scale—on the side of the landlord.

Then, as to the bonus payable to the landlords of 10 per cent., that is the taxpayers' contribution. It is not a very heavy one. Underlying all these matters, there has been the grave and the bigger question of National credit, and the Minister has dealt fairly by all sides and has maintained national credit and national status. To complete land purchase, and to make, not by confiscation, but rather the reverse, every tenant farmer feel that he is a peasant proprietor with a direct interest in the State, is a great achievement. It brings contentment to 70,000 people who, during the last twenty years must have been discontented, looking at their neighbours who had purchased and got substantial reductions, paying annuities instead of their former rents. The Minister proposes not to create discontent, as some Senators have said, but rather to create content, and to finish, and to end, once and for all, this question that has been agitating and disturbing the public mind for many, many years. I think he has succeeded in doing that, and that is certainly a good achievement.

It has been asked who are the "congests?" Well, the "congests," how they come, and where they come from, are such historical facts that it is unnecessary for me to say why they are there, but we know they are not there of their own choice, and we know that if we got the choice they got, we would be there too. Congests are what may be described as skilled artisans ready to work, but not able to get the raw material. They are agriculturists endeavouring to carry out the occupation of agriculture but without land, and that they have been able to maintain themselves on the rocks and in the bogs, and to rear their families, is no small achievement. I doubt if there is any other peasantry in the world who could have achieved what they have done.

Now, let us take a skilled artisan, say, on the Clyde. If he said: "I am ready to work if you give me the raw material, I ask no wages, and I will work late and early, and the result of my work will be the fruits of my reward," what would be said? The congests in the West of Ireland ask for land. If you give it to them they will work in a skilled and husbandlike manner. The congests will produce food which will go in a great measure to enable this country to be self-sustaining, to be able to feed itself, to be self-reliant and economically sound. I hold that any money spent will not be spent in the sense that some might think it will be. Any money spent upon the congests will be invested in transferring them from the rocks and the bogs, to put them on good productive land which is practically lying waste. It will be money invested, and will repay this nation tenfold in the time to come. It is well known to those of us who are accustomed to farming that there is more money lost by farming on too big a scale than on too little a scale. It is also well known to us that farming at the present time and for the last two years, and perhaps for some time to come, has not been and is not going to be a paying concern. It cannot be held that it is confiscation to take an unsound and uneconomic business and to pay a good price for it. The Minister is not out as a Cromwell, as one Senator has said. He is, like a man in a fair helping to make a bargain between two friends, where the one man wants to sell and the other wants to buy, and he comes up and makes a fair and square deal between them. Can that be called confiscation? I say not. Now, the congests are skilled agriculturists. They are anxious and ready to work. It is inherent in their nature to have a distaste for any other kind of work, and is it not a mistake to try and put a square peg in a round hole? Is it not a proper thing to say to these fine peasantry, "Come on; we will give you good land; we will put you on land and in a position to work it; we will give you the necessary training; we will give you the necessary buildings, in order that you may produce food for yourselves, your family, and this nation"?

Another point made against the Bill is that there will not be land enough. That is not our fault. The Minister cannot help that, but as far as he can go he will acquire the land, and he and his successors, no matter who they may be, even if they come from the Labour benches here, can be trusted to be fair, because we have never gone in for confiscation at any period in this country. In connection with the price that has been paid to the landlords, there is just one point that I would like to mention. I said already that I thought the Minister had titled to the landlords' side. I would would like to see them accept bonds at 4 per cent., and to allow the remaining ½ per cent. to be added to the ¼ per cent. the peasant proprietors have to pay towards redemption; and therefore it would not be all lost to the landlords, because there would be a greater security by having an earlier redemption of the bonds.

The period, no doubt, might still be left at 67½ years, and that could be adjusted by giving decadal reductions to the tenants as was done by Mr. Balfour in his Act of 1896. Every ten years, for the first 30 years, the tenant purchasers got a reduction of fifteen per cent. on their annuities. I would put in this reservation, under this Bill, with a view to giving greater security to landlords, that it would be in the power of the Land Commission not to make the decadal reductions to tenant purchasers who had defaulted habitually in their payments. Arising out of this question, I would call attention to the fact that since 1870 there have been seven previous Land Acts to the present one. I daresay the number of tenant purchasers in this State, and under these various Acts, would be about 200,000. I think I would be correct in saying that the amount of money involved would be very close on £90,000,000. Taking the larger of the seven Acts which was the 1903 or Wyndham Act, the interest payable on the annuities under that Act was 3¼ per cent. Money was cheaper then than it is now. The rate under the other Acts was 2¾ per cent., and the sinking fund was ½ per cent. The period of redemption was 68 years, the same as under this Bill, though the sinking fund under this is but ¼ per cent., which shows again the good work the Minister has been doing. The point I want to make is this, that when the Wyndham Act was framed it was assumed that the earning capacity of the sinking fund would be the statutory rate that was paid by the tenant purchasers, which was 2¾ per cent. We know that the value of money has changed since then, and that it has gone up to 5 per cent. Therefore, it is but reasonable to assume that this sinking fund, which amounted to about half a million, has been earning 5 per cent., and not 2¾ per cent., as had been calculated at the time of the passing of the Act. Therefore, there must be a large accumulation in excess of the normal requirements that are provided for under the Act, due to the excess earning of the sinking fund, which, as I say, amounts to about half a million. Before the Minister completes his efforts in land purchase, I trust he will apply his energy and ability to investigating that matter, and see if it is possible to give decadal reductions to the tenant purchasers under the Wyndham Act of 1903, because if he is able to do that it will be a great boon to them in the present depressed state of agriculture. That sinking fund, I understand, was in the hands of the British Debt Commissioners, and the excess earnings of that fund were probably applied to the general fund of the Imperial revenue. I hope that the Minister will see that that fund, and all its earnings, will be applied to the relief of the tenant purchasers under the various Land Acts previously passed. It has been mentioned that there are no parties in the Seanad, but there are interests here that might reasonably and naturally be expected to look on one side of this question more than to the other. I would ask them to look at it, and I am sure they will, in the broad national sense, and that is that this Bill is founded on national lines and is founded on equity, because while some landlords think that they should have got a little more, there are some people who think that they should have got absolutely nothing. But the Minister and the Government have endeavoured to do the fair thing, and having done so, let us not be petty, let us not be trifling, and let us do the fair thing between all concerned in this great measure.

Mr. COUNIHAN

I desire to say a few words on this Bill. Several speakers this evening have lavished great praise on it, but I do not consider it a great measure for the country. I agree that there are some excellent provisions in it, and I think if the Government confined itself to legislating for the immediate needs of the moment, they would have a greater claim in retaining the confidence of the country, than they will have by forcing on this measure with all its clauses and all its details. Some people have urged that the way to remedy all the evils we have in this country is to split up the land. I do not agree with that theory. If we go back sixty or seventy years we will find, as compared with the present, that a greater percentage of the land in every county in Ireland was then occupied by small holdings. We must, therefore, naturally ask ourselves the question, what was the reason for the dispossession of all these small landholders? Some may say that it was due to the action of harsh landlords, but I say the explanation is that in great measure the tenants were not able to pay their rents because they could not live on the small holdings. At the present, the times are shaping towards the same set of circumstances as occurred sixty or seventy years ago. With the embargo removed on the admission of Canadian cattle into England, we could easily have a great depression in agriculture as far as the small farmers of this country are concerned. If the small farmers have not markets to dispose of their produce, of their raw material, they will soon be in a very bad way, and when the Land Commission look for annuities from them they will have none to get. I hold that the large farm is quite as essential to the country as a small farm, because it is the outlet for the small farm, and it is the educator, so to speak, of the small farm. Some people think that if all that were split up into small holdings that it will be heaven for those small holders, that it will be putting them into a sort of paradise. I do not agree with that. I know something about the lives of the small holders, I have lived amongst them all my life, and I know something of the drudgery and poverty and sufferings that necessitate that they slave all their lives away in one continual drudgery from daylight till dark. I do not think if their food were offered to a workman at present that he would be satisfied with it. There are several clauses in this Bill which savour very strongly of the doctrine of Karl Marx, and those clauses have spread consternation and panic among a certain class of tenant farmers in the country, and unless these clauses are amended very drastically in Committee they will lead the country into absolute chaos and ruin. There are other clauses which deal with the finance of the Bill, and which I do not intend to go into. I am not a financial expert. But one clause says they will allow no man to hold more than £3,000 worth of land. Now, we take a man with £15,000 worth of land. What will they do with him? They will leave him £3,000 worth of land to do what he likes with. They will take the other £12,000 and give him a third of the actual market value of that £12,000 worth, and they will give it to him in 4½ per cent. bonds. Goodness knows what they will be worth to him in a few years time. These are very extraordinary measures, and when I read the Bill I was considering whether I would vote for the absolute rejection of the measure. But on the assurance that it is a necessity, and in the hope that the Minister will consider our amendments favourably, I will vote for the Second Reading. I challenge the Minister for Agriculture, or any other member of the Government, to come forward and say to a man with £15,000 in the Bank, "we will give you £3,000 to do what you like with. We will take the other £12,000 and give it to whom we like, to men who have no money. We will give you an I.O.U. for £8,000 and and pay you in 4½ per cent. bonds." They will not do it, but what they are doing in this Bill is an absolute parallel to that. I am certain that a good many others want to speak on the Bill and I will not detain the Seanad longer.

Sir NUGENT EVERARD

I fully expected that before the Second Reading of the Bill we should have a speech from a farmer who had purchased the same as the last Senator had. I am not surprised. It will be discovered that the Land Commission will have extraordinary powers which the Minister for Agriculture made no pretence of concealing. "Any land anywhere." There is only one thing I have to say as to that, which I think may be a plausible explanation, that the State can take compulsorily any land anywhere for public purposes. There are certain Acts which give that power in the case of railways, for instance. You may say that is letting the Minister down very easily, and that it is his intention and the wish of the Government that there should not only be a complete transfer of land from the landlords to the tenants, but that even the tenant-purchaser who has too much land more land than is necessary to employ his capital on, should also be called upon for the benefit of the congests to surrender some of his land too. But, of course, the trouble is we do not know what a congest is. That has never been properly explained. I have seen a house in which six able-bodied sons assisted their father in working a small holding, and mending the roads.

Was that a case of congests? Certainly, I think if any family requires an enlarged holding the sons of that father do. He used them—I do not know whether it is fair to call them slaves—but it certainly was sweated labour, for all they got was their board and lodging, and a little pocket money. That family was congested. I think I should like to know, and I doubt if the Minister will object to tell us what definition he proposes to give of the word "congest." I know there are pockets of tenants forming a selvage on bogs in every county. Are they to be called congests? I would like that the Minister would explain. On the general principle of the Bill I can only say that there are three members of the Land Conference of 1903 present, and as one of them, I think I might say on their behalf, that you will find the strongest support for this Bill naturally from them. That is for the transfer of the land from the landlord to the tenant. We all hope to God we have heard the last of the word "landlord," and in future it will be landowner. I hope that the farmers of Ireland will pull together and work together for the prosperity of the country. But when we set out to find a way out by which this voluntary transfer could be accomplished, I recollect it was Mr. Wyndham who, in answer to some letter in the paper, said, "if the landlord and tenant come together and agree, it will be the duty of the Government to give legislative effect to their agreement." Well, we met and agreed. We recognised there was a gap between what the tenant could afford to give, and what the landlord could afford to take and live. You know what was the result. The Land Purchase Act of 1903 provided a sum from the public funds of, I think, £12,000,000. The country was overjoyed at the idea that the hatchet was buried in Ireland, and that peace once more was the result of the agreement on Land Purchase. I recollect John Morley, the Radical, and John Burns, the Super-Radical, getting up in the House and saying the agreement between the landlord and tenant in Ireland was worth £20,000,000 of a grant.

Wyndham had not the courage to ask for more than £12,000,000, and that sum did not do it. We have not had finality. We hope to have it now. I have heard people say: "it is the landlord's own fault; why did they not sell out under the 1903 or subsequent Acts?" I know many cases where it was not the landlord's fault at all. I know cases where the tenants were suspicious of the sort of landlord the Land Commission was going to be, and many of them said they would sooner live with the devil they knew than the devil they did not know. That generally occurred in the neighbourhood of a landlord's residence. As you know very well where the tenant and landlord got on well together there were different ways in which the landlord could help the tenant. In times of distress he was the tenant's friend. He did not press him and he did not exterminate him. In fact, I think one of the great injustices of this Bill is that it is assumed the collection of rent is a very expensive process. I know many estates on which they never had any legal proceedings for rent collection, and 5 per cent. was the utmost that the collection of rents cost. Of course, there were cases in which the agent had to complain to the landlord that collecting rents was not only a very expensive but a dangerous job. I do not think that to many of you the story will be new of how, when a notorious landlord received a letter of that kind from his agent, he remarked:—"You may tell my tenants that they will not intimidate me by shooting you." Of course that is speaking of times long past. As far as following on the same lines as the Wyndham Act is concerned, we recognise that on account of the present financial condition of the country it would be impossible. We know it could not be done. We believe the Government are doing their best. It is not a question of giving a bonus or making money go as far as possible to help the landlord. There are certain clauses in the Bill in which indirectly you could make it easier for the landlord. Take the question of the sale and re-purchase of his demesne. Why should they not introduce that? It is in the other Acts. If a man is mortgaged "up to the knocker," and if 15 years' purchase on his estates will not clear off his mortgages, what is he to do? He will have to sell his demesne and quit. There are some landlords—I see one or two of them here—who say that nothing will make them quit. I think it was De Velera, who is not a landlord, who said that nothing but a bullet would prevent him contesting Clare and founding a party for the economic regeneration and prosperity of Ireland. Nothing but a bullet would stop him, he says. At any rate, in the case of landlords who have lived here all their lives, they are quite prepared to say that nothing but a bullet would put them out of the country. In fact some of those have actually lost their houses; still, as in other periods and at other times of confiscation, the landlord clung to the old place, even when he did see strangers occupying his mansion-house. That little provision which is included in the Act of 1903 would save a good many and keep them in the country. They could, if they sold their demesnes and houses, be able to pay off the balance of those charges which, to use a common phrase, were ‘up to the knocker," and would be enabled to live in the country. There is one other matter. The untenanted land of the country should be utilised to provide an economic outlet for the farmers who are in congested districts. That was one of the recommendations of the Land Conference. That of course was under the supposition that when you change an uneconomic for an economic farm the congest in his new surroundings would be able to carry on an economic industry. Is agriculture at the present moment an economic industry? How will you remedy the state of agriculture by taking large farms and cutting them up? On those large farms there had been used modern machinery, but under this Bill, you strip those farms up and you will have on each holding a house erected, and everywhere you will have the occupants of those houses reverting to the scythe and the sickle. If it is the cost of labour that prevents farming paying on those large farms, those men who have reverted to the scythe and the sickle must be satisfied with an uneconomic wage. They and their families will have to be satisfied with that. What, I think, is rather a blot in this Bill is that it does not give any encouragement to the organisation of colonies such as, I suppose, would be brought on to some of our large ranches. I have seen those ranches, and I am sure my friends here have seen many of them that have been what we would call stripped. How were they used. I do not know whether it was the tenants could not buy a spade, but the land was still in grass. There are 1,000 acres of a grazing ranch which had been split up into, I do not know how many small holdings, still in grass. I know one case where a friend of mine used to take a thousand acres for grazing. The land was divided up and I said to him some time afterwards, "what are you doing for the land now." He said "I have still got it." I said "that could not be because it is divided up.""That may be" he said, "but the only difference to me is I have 19 landlords instead of one." That makes a farce of this idea of relieving congestion. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some idea of how he is going to deal with it. Will he deal with it systematically, by organising these colonies on co-operative principles, and enabling them by joint purchase to have this modern machinery? That is a point that I do not think the Minister made any reference to. In cases where Societies and Trustees have already acquired land there is power to advance money to them for the tillage of that land. But if they have to pay interest on the cost of the full equipment of a farm, including a homestead, I would like to know whether the cost of production would not rather exceed the market value of anything they produced if they paid the interest on all these charges and added the labour in producing the crop. We have been a long time discussing this Bill, and I would rather not detain you any longer, but there are ways, as I think we shall be able to show in Committee, in which you will be able to make it a just settlement, and one that, I hope, will remove from both farmer and landlord the fear that if they put a shilling into the land as a permanent improvement, that shilling may be lost when the land is acquired for other purposes.

Mr. J. McLOUGHLIN

I think I can approach this problem in a perfectly detached spirit, seeing that I am one of the landless men who belongs neither to the class of landlords or tenants, but to a section of the community which assisted materially and substantially the tenant-farmers of Ireland in their struggle to get rid of dual ownership. We have now to bear our share of the ten per cent. which the State has provided to bridge the difference between the landlord and tenant, and we have also to bear other costs incidental to the carrying out of this Bill. However, we accept these obligations cheerfully, in the hope that they will finally dispose of this great problem. As a business man I cordially support the Bill as a measure that does justice to both parties, and what is more it upholds the national honour in dealing with a class that a great many people have regarded, and perhaps have had some justification for regarding, as the enemies of popular progress and popular freedom. I am glad, therefore, that from the point of view of national honour the landlords are getting fair play and that they are not to be treated as a famous Irishman once suggested, that as the price of their land they should get the price of a ticket to Holyhead. I am glad that the Government have not listened to that policy, and that they have determined to treat the landlords with as much generosity as the finances of the country can permit, and that they will give them an invitation to become citizens of the Saorstát, and a guarantee of fair play, which is the common right of every citizen of the Free State, so that they will assist in building up a new State and have as much interest in it as the labourer, the business man and the farmer.

While I congratulate the Government on the manner in which they have tackled this great problem, I cannot help regretting that it has been left as a legacy for them to deal with, because I am sure that the Minister for Agriculture would not be too sorry if he had been allowed to escape the immortality of being the man to settle the Irish land question, and I am not sure that the failure to purchase under previous Acts is not more the fault of the tenants than it was of the landlords who refused to sell. Now that the Government have tackled the matter I think that anyone who examines this measure must come to the conclusion that they have done their best to act the part of the honest broker No doubt the landlords complain that they are taking a big slice off their income at a time when the purchasing value of money is little more than half what it was twenty years ago, and from some of the remarks made here this afternoon one would think that the landlords regarded this measure as revolutionary. I would point out to them that it is nothing of the kind, that it follows on the lines laid down in that great national treaty, the Land Conference of 1902, and I take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the members of that conference as having laid down a policy which, if it had been carried out, and had got fair play, would mean that we would not have been troubled with the problem we are now discussing. The landlords should remember that investments in land are not sacrosanct, that they are subject to depreciation like other investments, and as for confiscation, I do not think that the amount of land that will be confiscated will give any justification for calling it confiscation. The tenants, on the other hand say that the reduction that they are getting is not adequate, and figures are produced to show that tenants purchasing under this Bill will be much worse than the tenants who purchased under the Act of 1903. I remember when that Act was passing that figures were also produced to show that the tenants who were purchasing then were worse off than the tenants who had purchased under the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and the prophecy was also made that tenants who ventured to purchase under the Act of 1903 would, in a very few years, become bankrupt. I have yet to meet any of them who did become bankrupt. In the same way I hear representatives of the farmers saying that if they did not get forty per cent. instead of thirty-five per cent. bankruptcy will be the result. Well, there is no use arguing with them; you can only disbelieve them. I come from a part of Ireland which is very congested—the County Donegal—and the average rental of the unpurchased tenants there is not, I think, more than £6 or £7 a year. The difference between thirty-five per cent. and forty per cent. on that rental will make no material difference in the economic position of such a man. The rent does not matter at all. He is living on an uneconomic and unproductive patch, and if you were to give it to him for nothing, the effect on his income at the end of the year would not be much. It certainly will not turn the scale between misery and prosperity in his condition. The one hope that the Bill brings to such a man as this is the hope that his holding will be enlarged, that it will be made economic, and that he will be enabled to live with a little more prosperity and comfort. But what is more important to some than the rent is the question of the turbary, and I hope that the Government will see, in the case of estates where there is no turbary, that the tenants will be charged a reasonable price, because I have known instances where such tenants had to pay 30s. and £2 for the right of one man to cut turf. I hope that provision will be made in the Bill to redress this grievance, and I am sure that if the Bill is passed it will bring blessings to these congests and enable them to live happier and more prosperous lives.

Colonel Sir HUTCHESON POE

As one of a group who, more than twentyfive years ago, advocated land purchase when it was a very unpopular step to take amongst men of my class, and as one of those who had the honour, subsequently, of representing the landowners in the Conference which led to the passing of the Wyndham Act, I should like, if I might for a few moments, to deal with some points which have not been touched upon by other speakers. Before doing so I must heartily join in tributes of praise that have been given to the Government, and especially to the Minister for Agriculture, for having brought forward a Bill which, whether we agree with some of its provisions or not—and apparently there is a good deal of difference of opinion on that point—is, at any rate, I think, admitted by all to be a bold and conscientious endeavour to effect a settlement of a very difficult problem.

The land question, as we all know, has been one of the most fertile sources of trouble for the last hundred years, and it has estranged and embittered the relations between two classes of the community whose interests and well-being depend so much on their mutual cooperation and agreement. The Bill in its passage through the Lower House was subjected to very severe criticism, and a determined effort was made by the representatives of the tenants and the leaders of the Labour Party, who for the moment had formed an alliance to obtain material amendments to its principal clauses. It was claimed that the reduction of 35 per cent. to the tenants was totally inadequate, that the arrears of rent should be subjected to a reduction of at least 35 per cent. instead of 25 per cent, that the landowners were well paid at 13½ years' purchase, and that there was no occasion for the Government to tax the people to the extent of 10 per cent. so as to bring the purchase money up to 15 years. These contentions were supported by a mass of arguments, the greater number of which were totally irrelevant and were evidently influenced by the approach of the General Election rather than by the real merits of the case. The landowners, as was to be expected, were represented in a very unfavourable light; they found few advocates to champion their cause, and but for the firm stand taken by the Minister in charge of the Bill and some of his colleagues on their behalf they would have been still further despoiled. In this connection it seems to be quite forgotten that the landowner of to-day stands in a very different position from that which his predecessor occupied 50 years ago. At that time it was in his power to exact whatever rent he liked, to impose a fine when a new tenancy was created, to confiscate an outgoing tenant's improvements, to turn him out of his home as and when he pleased, and in many other little ways to interfere with his personal liberty of action. While I am far from admitting that such arbitrary and unreasonable powers were exercised by any considerable proportion of landlords— most of whom lived on perfectly friendly terms with their landlords—it is unfortunately true that there were instances to the contrary. The landowner, however, of that type is, I need hardly say, as extinct as the great Auk; his wings have been clipped by successive Acts of legislation, and he has been stripped of all his powers over the tenant, who for many years has enjoyed all the benefits of free sale, fixity of tenure, and a rent established by law, and which is at least 50 per cent. below that paid by his predecessors forty years ago.

In following the debates in the Dáil I was greatly struck by the fact that while few members of the Dáil had a good word to say for the present Bill scarcely a single objection was raised against the Wyndham Act of 1903. That Act has often been described as the most beneficent piece of legislation passed for Ireland during the last 100 years, and, I think, justly so, seeing that under it some 400,000 occupiers were converted into owners, on such favourable terms that in the twenty years which have since elapsed the purchase annuities have been paid with the greatest regularity; the number of tenants who, owing to default, have been dispossessed of their holdings have been almost negligible; while where tenants have exercised their right of sale the price they have received for their interest in the open market has in nearly every case exceeded the capital value of the annuity payable to the Land Commission. Where such satisfactory results have been obtained under what I would remind the Senate was a purely voluntary Act it might have been expected that under a Bill which bristles with compulsion the terms offered to both landowner and tenant should as far as possible have followed the lines of that Act. Against such a contention however it was urged that landowners who refused to sell under the Act of 1903 deserved no consideration, and that tenants now buying should be indemnified for the higher rent, which, owing to such a refusal, they had been called upon to pay during the last twenty years, and to meet this objection it is now provided that a second term tenant shall receive an abatement of 35 per cent. as against one of 25 per cent. which he would have received under the former Act. The grounds for such a contention are entirely fallacious, for anyone who has studied the question is well aware that for one landlord who refused to sell out of pure obstinacy—or if you so prefer it, out of pure devilment—hundreds were prevented from doing so by their encumbrances, by the financial breakdown of the Act of 1909, and in not a few instances, by the disinclination of the tenants themselves to purchase their holdings. There appears therefore no good grounds for giving the tenant a larger reduction than what obtained under the Act of 1903, more especially when this additional reduction can only be secured at the landowner's expense. That is the case for the tenants. A word now for the landlord. Under the Act of 1903, he received, inclusive of the bonus, an average of 25 years' purchase of the rent, a sum which at 3½ per cent., the then value of a trustee' security, gave him an income of £87 for every £100 rent; under the present Bill, he will only receive—inclusive of the 10 per cent. contribution by the State—15 years' purchase, yielding, at 4½, the interest payable on the Government Bonds, an income of £67, that is to say, a clear loss of £20, and this, be it remembered, on a compulsory sale.

The greatly reduced rent which the landlord has received for the last 20 years, has had one, and only one, countervailing advantage; it now stands in the nature of a debenture, and, hitherto, has been looked upon as a first-class security, upon which public bodies, charitable institutions, banks, and trustees and others, were prepared to invest their money. To impair the value of such a security, by compelling the owner to sell it, at a price which is far below what it would have realised, in the open market a few years ago, does not seem to be altogether equitable, but apart from this consideration, the transaction cannot but impair the credit of the State, and this, at the moment of all others, when it stands in need of all the financial assistance it can get. Owing to the tremendous burden cast on us by the madness of a section of our countrymen, the State is not in a position to lose anything she can gain.

Further than this, the landowner is heavily hit in the matter of arrears, for though in many cases he has received no rent for three years, he has had to meet his encumbrances, and other charges, all of which are enforceable at law, as best he could, and has probably had to borrow from the bank in order to meet them. Under this Bill he is now called upon to forego 25 per cent. of these arrears, quite regardless of the fact that, although, perhaps, in some cases, his tenants were unable to pay their rents, owing to the unsettled conditions of the country, the "No-Rent” Campaign, was, in the main, a protest against Non-Purchase, and an attempt to coerce the owner into selling at an impossible price.

The majority of the landowners whose properties are, as yet unsold, are, I fear, heavily encumbered, and, to such men this Bill will spell little less than ruin. In these circumstances, it can scarcely be expected that landowners generally, can show much enthusiasm for the Bill, or that they should not feel aggrieved at the treatment which has been meted out to them. That point has been proved.

While, I believe, that all fair-minded and reasonable men are prepared to admit that the depressed condition of agriculture, due primarily to the great cost of labour, high railway charges and low prices for produce, entitles the tenant to some consideration, and while they also fully recognise that the financial obligations imposed upon the Government by the criminal campaign of destruction waged against it by a large section of its own subjects, render it impossible that such generous terms as were provided by the Act of 1903 can now be given to either landlords or tenants, they fail to see why the entire sacrifice should be borne by the landlords, and not shared, as it should be, between the two parties.

I have now called attention to what may be called the salient features of the Bill, in so far as they effect landowners and tenants, and, in doing so, I trust I have presented the case in a fair and temperate manner.

Circumstanced as they are, the Government can I fear do little directly to improve the landowner's position but I think that the Government should do something to help the unfortunate class of landowners. I am quite sure from the manner in which the Minister has taken up our side that when the Bill goes into Committee he will meet us as far as he can in these directions.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I presume the Seanad would like to conclude the debate on the Second Reading this evening. In that view I hope Senators will recollect that they put a good many questions to the Minister, and, therefore, he will require substantial time to reply, if they are to be adequately replied to. Possibly after Senator Gogarty has spoken, the Seanad will allow the Minister to reply.

Colonel MOORE

Could we not adjourn until the next day?

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

The Seanad can do anything it wishes. I thought from the indication which the Seanad has given that it was anxious to conclude this Stage to-day. I think that was assented to from all quarters.

Mr. FARREN

Is it fair for members who have had an opportunity of expressing their opinions to say "hear, hear," before the debate has concluded?

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I see no unfairness in it.

Mr. FARREN

I think it is most unfair.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

You asked my opinion, and I have given it.

Mr. FARREN

And I have given you mine.

Sir HUTCHESON POE

May I suggest that we should adjourn now, so as to give an opportunity to other Senators who may not have spoken?

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I am in the hands of the Seanad.

Colonel MOORE

We could adjourn until Tuesday morning.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

No; it would be impossible. I wish the Seanad, even Senator Moore, would understand that my sole and only object is to convenience the Seanad, more particularly owing to the amount of business to be got through. Unless we dispose of this stage of this Bill now, or at least to-morrow, we will get into a hopeless state of congestion which even the Land Bill will not get us out of.

Colonel MOORE

We have months and months before us.

Dr. GOGARTY

I am sorry that the shadow of my oratory has provoked this discussion. I will not take up the time of the Seanad or the country very long. In trying to understand the Bill and render myself capable of discussing it, especially in regard to Section 44, I went to the Ministry of Fisheries, and failing to get the Minister, I found there a very intelligent gentleman who explained the section to me. During his explanation several important points arose, of which I think the country is unaware, attaching to fishery rights. I will not speak of sporting rights, because I do not want to pretend that I have a knowledge of sport. I found out to-day these two facts. The first is—that inland fisheries are more important than deep sea fisheries. The second is—that where the fisheries exist the rivers are more valuable than the land. When the Minister is considering this it would be well—because we cannot always assure ourselves of having such a rational Minister as we have at present in office in control of the Land Commission—to remember that under this Section all sporting rights are vested in the Land Commission, or can be sold at such a price as shall be fixed by the Land Commission. When one knows that the small owner with riparian rights can blackmail a whole fishery it shows the importance of the Land Commission's powers which are apparently completely discretionary. The immense value of the Irish Fisheries is apparently not realised, particularly as these are at the mercy of people through whose lands the rivers flow. Poaching has been very disastrous last year, and the fishing rights greatly disturbed. In Scotland, I understand, all fisheries are vested in the Crown, and in Ireland they will be vested in the Land Commission. The Land Commission will, I fear, overlap with the Ministry of Fisheries, and I would like when this Bill is being passed that we should have some clear notion—perhaps it would be an impertinence to say that the Fisheries' Ministry should be aware of the importance of the fisheries—as to the extent to which these fisheries will fall into the hands of small holders. Small holders have never proved themselves sportsmen, as the Ground Game Bill will show. It succeeded in destroying all the game in the country. If the fisheries are to be at the mercy of people with 30 or 40 yards of land abutting on rivers it means that one of our most important sources of revenue will be in the hands of men whose patriotism cannot be coerced, so to speak. Then arises the question of the attraction which these fisheries form to visitors, and the increase which they bring to the country's revenue. Scotland has not lost one iota of its nationality through the yearly invasion of visitors from England to enjoy its fisheries. I should like it to be shown, in a way satisfactory to us, in this much-discussed Bill that the value of inland fisheries will be realised, and that they will be vested in either the Fishery Ministry or the Land Commission in such a way that in any sub-division of the land, all these fisheries which are in congested districts shall not be interfered with. In the River Barrow the netting rights which were vested in the tenant had to be withdrawn owing to the destruction of the fish. The same thing may arise now. I ventilate the matter as I have not sounded the minds of other Ministers, as I say.

MINISTER for AGRICULTURE (Mr. Hogan)

I do not expect to be able to answer every point raised in this discussion. I am perfectly certain I will overlook some of them, but there are points which have been raised which, if I do overlook them, can be more properly dealt with in Committee. This Bill aims at the completion of Land Purchase. I am not sanguine enough to think it will settle the land question. I know it will not. The land question, in one form or another, will never be settled. The Bill aims at dealing with what we knew as the Land Question, dealing with the problem of Land Purchase as we knew it, and if it does that and does it in all the circumstances equitably, our purpose will have been achieved. I know also that Land Purchase is not going to bring about the millenium. I know that farmers cannot marry Land Purchase, and settle down and live happily ever after with it. Land Purchase is essentially to lay the foundations, but it is equally essential to build. It is because I know that, and because I know Land Purchase has got an artificial importance in this country that I want to have the difficulty out of the way so as to enable the country to concentrate on what is much more important, though the other thing is necessary, the organisation of the agricultural industry. There are a good many aspects to the question. Some of them are purely artificial; some of them have been swollen by interested parties and developed by interested parties, but there is the real problem there. It is with the real problem we are trying to deal, that is the relief of congestion. There seems to be a good lot of contention as to what we mean by congestion, what measures we propose to take to deal with it, and there seems to be an idea amongst some Senators that we are taking measures that are absolutely unheard of. In fact, I have been complimented by being called a Cromwell, and I have been referred to as an enthusiastic young man, and when listening to that I wondered whether I was enthusiastic or whether the Senators were utterly unaware of the provisions of previous Acts, and particularly of the Land Bill of 1920.

Colonel MOORE

Which did not pass.

Mr. HOGAN

For very good reasons of which Senator Moore is probably aware. The Home Rule Bill of 1920 did not pass either. I can defend the various measures set out in the Bill for dealing with the various aspects of the question by producing figures, but I think I would defend them more successfully by begging the question, and reminding the Seanad that this Bill bears extremely favourable comparison from the landowners' point of view with the Bill drafted by the Land Conference of 1918. The Land Conference of 1918, and especially the sub-committee of that conference that dealt with Land Purchase, was a conservative Committee. They were not young men in a hurry, enthusiastic young men, or budding Cromwells. They were a conservative committee.

The EARL of MAYO

Are you speaking of the Convention?

Mr. HOGAN

I am speaking of the Sub-Committee of the Convention. Probably most Senators know their names. Perhaps some of the Committee are here in the Seanad. It certainly was a conservative committee set up by a Conservative Government, and practically all the measures I have heard denounced here by some Senators as things absolutely unheard of are in that Bill prepared by that committee, and adopted by that conservative conference. That may be begging the question, but it is not a bad thing to depend on authorities which one respects, and I do suggest that the men who formed the sub-committee of that conference are men whom nobody in this Seanad would be likely to quarrel with

To come back to the details of the Bill. I have been asked what we mean by congestion by Senator Sir John Keane, who, probably, knows more about the Land Acts than I do. I do not know whether it has been suggested or not, but it has been implied that a congest might possibly be a landless man. There is no necessity for me to say that is not so, and that there is no warranty whatever in the Bill for that. I am not going to go through the Bill now to show that there is no such warranty, but anyone who has read the Bill must know that by no stretch of the imagination, or by no feat of interpretation, can it be decided that a congest as referred to in the Bill would be a landless man. There is no question about that. If Senators really think that there is some doubt I hope, if they quote the particular Sections which give them any authority for that, to be able to reassure them. I am asked then what is a congest. The question has been decided again and again by the Land Commission with just as much help, and with just as little help as I can give them in this Bill. Senators should remember that this is only an amending Bill, that it does not profess to codify the Land Laws. It sets out expressly in Section 75 that it is to be read as one with the previous Land Purchase Acts. Anything in previous Land Purchase Acts not repealed expressly in this Bill stands and holds good. The Section reads "This Act may be cited as the Land Act, 1923, and shall be construed as one with the Land Law Acts, the Land Purchase Acts, and the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts and may be cited with those Acts." The Bill is merely an amending Bill, and the question of what is a congest is not a question which at this hour of the day is going to cause any trouble to anybody— to any Judge or any Land Commissioner —because it is really not a new problem. The Congested Districts Board had a good working rule that a congest was a man whose valuation was under £10. That rule certainly did rough and ready justice, but, personally, I think it was an unfortunate rule. There are holdings of £10, £11 and £12 valuation that are really congested holdings by reason of the fact that there are particularly large houses, say, on them. Anybody who knows the country will know the reasons for modifications in a matter of that sort. On the other hand there are holdings under £10 which are not congested holdings. Any Land Commission Inspector or Official, even though he be of the character that Senator Colonel Moore gave him, will be able to say, without any danger of doing any hardship to anybody, what is a congested holding, with the help of this Bill and of the previous Land Purchase Acts. If any landowner is aggrieved by that definition he has an appeal to a High Court Judge on any question arising out of the Bill. No High Court Judge will have any difficulty in saying, when he hears the evidence on both sides, whether a tenant is a congest or not. It was pointed out that we are taking power in this Bill to take any land, of any kind, anywhere, for the relief of congestion and it was suggested that that was a monstrous thing to do, a most extraordinary thing to do, almost unheard of. The Land Bill of 1920, this Conservative Bill——

Colonel MOORE

It did not pass.

Mr. HOGAN

It did not pass for reasons which the Senator knows quite well. It was framed by a Conservative Committee. This Land Bill of 1920 gave us exactly the same powers, except, I will agree, in two important respects—one in regard to demesne land and the other in regard to purchased holdings. There is no real difference between the two Bills except in these respects. This was a Bill, as I say, prepared in 1920 at the behest of a Conservative Government in England, and adopted by a Conservative Sub-Committee which fairly represented the landowners of the country, and not by the very radical Karl Marx. Senators may say that the two respects I have mentioned, in which this Bill differs from the 1920 Bill, are two very important ones. They are, at least one of them is, important. It is a serious thing to go back and reopen the 1903 Act and 1909 Act sales. If we are to do it, I quite agree that we should be extremely specific in the Bill itself as to when we should do it, as to what exactly we should do, and how we are to do it. I do claim that we have been specific. I will read Section 24, which deals with the vesting of lands in the Land Commission on the appointed day. That section as it stands is —with a few minor differences, with which I think even Senators agree, be cause they have not referred to them— until you come to Sub-section (3), practically word for word taken from the 1920 Bill. It provides that all land, all tenancies, and all untenanted land in the congested districts counties, and such untenanted land outside the congested districts counties as is required for the relief of congestion or for facilitating a resale of tenanted land—and these are the very words of the 1920 Bill—shall vest in the Land Commission. Then it goes on to provide the exceptions—and the exceptions are the exceptions, with one or two very minor differences, which I need not go into, and which we can go into if the matter is raised in Committee—of the 1920 Bill, until we come to Sub-section (3), which reads as follows:—

"Notwithstanding anything contained in the foregoing sub-sections, where the Land Commission before the appointed day declare in the prescribed manner that any land wherever situated, hereinbefore excluded from the operation of this section (other than land which comes within the description in Clause (f) of Sub-section (2) of this section), is required for the purpose of relieving congestion, then such land shall vest in the Land Commission pursuant to this section.”

The effect of that proviso in its place in the section is this, that where the untenanted land—which, remember, is already vested in the Land Commission, vested automatically in the congested district counties, and vested compulsorily outside the congested districts counties— which is all the untenanted land in the neighbourhood which is already vested in the Land Commission, is insufficient for the relief of congestion, then the Land Commission may, for the relief of congestion but for no other purpose—"is required for the purpose of relieving congestion"; these are the words of the Act —take a demesne or part of a demesne, or they may take a purchased holding. So that we can only touch demesne land or land already purchased for one purpose specified in the Bill—the relief of congestion. We can only take it under the Bill when all other untenanted land is insufficient and inadequate.

Sir JOHN KEANE

Would the Minister give his interpretation of the words "relief of congestion"?

Mr. HOGAN

I tried to make the position clear as far as I could on that point. I pointed out that the relief of congestion could not by any stretch of the imagination, or by virtue of any words in the Bill, refer to landless men. I think the Senator, if he has read the Bill, must know that. Therefore it must refer to a tenant whose holding is uneconomic. If the Senator expects me to put down in the Bill a definite figure as to valuation or rent, or something like that, in regard to uneconomic holdings, I would certainly rather not agree to do so, as no figure would apply to all tenancies. If that is not the difficulty, I do not know what it is. This question of what is a congested tenant has been solved again and again by the Land Commission. Once you make it perfectly clear that it must be a tenant whose holding is uneconomic, then you narrow the field considerably. If it could be pointed out to me what is the difficulty, how I could be more specific on that point, I will be glad to be shown it. We are equally specific that it is only for the relief of congestion purchased holdings or demesnes can be taken.

Mr. BENNETT

May I ask what about Section 29?

Mr. HOGAN

We are dealing at the present moment with untenanted land, demesnes, and purchased holdings. I will come to the provisions in regard to tenanted land later on.

The EARL of MAYO

You stated that the common rule of the Land Commission was that a congest is a man whose holding is under £10 valuation.

Mr. HOGAN

Yes.

The EARL of MAYO

As far as I am concerned, I am perfectly satisfied with that.

Mr. HOGAN

That is so, but I am sure Senators will agree that if we are to deal with congestion at all, it is incorrect to draw hard and fast rules, and say a certain valuation and no more. There are holdings of £11 and £12 valuation that are congested, while on the other hand there are holdings of £8 and £9 which are not congested.

Mr. BENNETT

Section 24 deals with tenanted land. I think it is a very important point.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I think there must be a little confusion about that. Certainly on reading Section 24 it would seem to include tenanted as well as untenanted land. In other words, in Sub-section (3), Section 24, "any land wherever situated" apparently includes tenanted as well as untenanted land.

Mr. HOGAN

Certainly.

Mr. BENNETT

But Section 29 in-increases the power for other than congested districts.

Mr. HOGAN

That is quite true. The point I wish to make is that Section 29 to which Senator Bennett refers goes further in regard to tenanted land. I prefer to deal with that when I come to Section 29. As I say we are as specific as we can be. We provide that it can only be acquired for the relief of congestion, after the Land Commission decides—and of course they must prove that—that all other untenanted or tenanted land in the neighbourhood is inadequate for the purpose. We could not be more specific.

Sir NUGENT EVERARD

It must be in the district. I presume.

Mr. HOGAN

The Section reads:—"Subject to the provisions of this Act and notwithstanding anything contained in any other enactment, all tenanted land wherever situated and all untenanted land situated in any congested districts county and such untenanted land situated elsewhere as the Land Commission shall, before the appointed day, declare to be required for the purpose of relieving congestion or of facilitating the resale of tenanted land, shall by virtue of this Act vest in the Land Commission." That is to say, in the congested districts all untenanted land will vest. By untenanted land I mean land that is not demesne land—fee-simple untenanted land, will vest automatically. Outside congested districts counties untenanted land will be acquired compulsorily for the relief of congestion as required. The sequence will be that the Land Commission in dealing with the relief of congestion will acquire automatically all untenanted land in congested districts and any untenanted land outside congested districts counties which they may require.

Mr. BENNETT

Wherever situate, within or without?

Mr. HOGAN

There is a distinction. Under the Section as under the similar Section of the 1920 Bill, all untenanted land in congested district counties vests automatically.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

Senator Bennett has in view that under Section 24 all tenanted land, wherever situate is to vest in the Land Commission. That is his point, but there may be nothing in it.

Mr. HOGAN

Section 24 does provide that all tenanted land wherever situate vests in the Land Commission. The Sections that follow, Section 28 and 29, which deal with tenanted land say what the Land Commission is to do with tenanted land. It would prevent confusion if we left tenanted land until we come to deal with these Sections.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

It is not quite fair to be pressing the Minister in this way on this point. It may be very difficult for him when dealing with the general aspect of the Bill, to discuss every line in every Section. It is better to leave that for the Committee Stage.

Mr. HOGAN

I hope to come to the point that the Senator mentions in a moment. There are a number of points I will be unable to deal with until we come to the Committee Stage. The points raised in connection with this section are ones of principle that I would sooner deal with now. Section 24 deals with the vesting of land in the Land Commission. Tenanted land vests in them first, and, as Senator Barrington pointed out, Sections 28 and 29 deal with the powers of the Land Commission in regard to the disposition of tenanted land.

Under Section 24 untenanted land vests. Untenanted land in the congested districts vest automatically, and all untenanted land outside the congested districts counties vest as it is required by the Land Commission. These are exactly the provisions of the 1920 Bill. The section goes on to make certain exceptions in regard to certain land that cannot be acquired compulsorily; and then there is the proviso No. 3, which sets out that where the land is wanted for one particular purpose—that is to say, to relieve congestion—it may be taken compulsorily.

Colonel MOORE

Wherever situated?

Mr. HOGAN

Even if it belongs to one of the exceptions specified in Sub-section (2). The effect of that is the sequence is as follows: That tenanted land vests in the Land Commission; all untenanted land in the congested districts counties—that is, the province of Connaught, the counties of Donegal and Kerry, and part of Cork and Clare— vests, and vests not only compulsorily but automatically; and untenanted land outside the congested counties vests as it is required. When the Land Commission themselves have got all that land, they will try to deal with the relief of congestion, and if they find that the land they have acquired in that way is not sufficient to deal with congestion, then it is open to them to acquire compulsorily land set out and excepted in Sub-section (2), and that includes the demesne land and includes land already purchased.

Sir JOHN KEANE

Would the Minister say is his interpretation in this instance reinforced by the opinion of his law advisers?

Mr. HOGAN

Certainly. That is in every line of the Bill; but the Land Commission must show under Sub-Section (3) that they require this land for the relief of congestion.

EARL of MAYO

Show to whom?

Mr. HOGAN

To a judge if necessary.

Sir HUTCHESON POE

But you may not be in a position to know whether you require that untenanted land for three or four years?

Mr. HOGAN

That might be.

Sir HUTCHESON POE

The land may be vested in the Land Commission, and for four or five years it may not be required?

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

Order, order. I will not allow this kind of question and answer to the Minister across the floor of the House.

Mr. HOGAN

It is perfectly certain all the untenanted land in the congested districts counties will be required. That is the only land that will vest automatically.

Colonel MOORE

Does that include demesne land?

Mr. HOGAN

No, that does not vest except under Sub-section (2). If untenanted land, not being demesne land or belonging to any of these exceptions, is found insufficient for the relief of congestion, then demesne land may be taken. I may be right or wrong in that interpretation of the Bill. We can discuss it in Committee; but that is what the Bill means. The real question now is this: Is it right that where there is congestion, and where there is no other land except land already purchased or demesne land to relieve congestion, that we should have power to take that land compulsorily? We all know, I am sure, that congestion, apart altogether from the necessity of getting rid of the evil of dual ownership, is one of the big problems and one of the serious problems in connection with land purchase. You have thousands of tenants all over the Western seaboard, and to a lesser extent in other parts of Ireland, living upon holdings so small or so poor that they cannot live in decency and in comfort. They know no other way of living. They have been in that position, and their fathers before them; it is in their tradition; it is quite out of the question to ask them to change their methods of living now. That cancer is there, and you must deal with it. You can deal with it in time, or, as the English used to deal with other problems, too late. We believe that that problem must be settled. We believe we must make a genuine attempt to deal with congestion. We believe that it is a real cancer that you will always have. In the nature of the case and in the circumstances you will always have discontent, and serious discontent, while you have a state of affairs where there are thousands of small tenants of £4 and £5 valuation living on the verge and within sight of large ranches. We believe that question must be dealt with, and we believe it is our duty to make a bold attempt to deal with it. We believe we are justified in taking all the untenanted land, which I presume most Senators know the definition of—that is, fee-simple land which is not demesne land or home farm land. We believe also we are right in giving a discretion to the Land Commission, where other lands are not available, to go into demesne land and to take a certain proportion of demesne land if necessary for the relief of congestion. In the County of Mayo and the County of Leitrim and the County of Sligo you have cases like this: You have four, five, six, or more thousand acres of demesne, and no other land in the neighbourhood to relieve twenty or thirty congested tenants living upon the verge of it. We think, in a case like that, that the Land Commission should have power to take portion of that demesne, and we think there is no other way to solve it. We have made it perfectly certain in the Bill that the Land Commission cannot take demesne unless they are able to show they require it for the relief of congestion, and that untenanted land of any other kind is unavailable.

We believe that exactly the same thing applies to purchased land. You have in Galway and Mayo tenant purchasers who purchased five, six, or seven hundred acres of land, and who probably were future tenants two or three years before the 1903 Act was passed. In such cases where there are a certain number of "congests" in the neighbourhood whose holdings are £3 or £4 valuation, such congests must be dealt with and enabled to live in the country. We do think that the Land Commission should have power to take 100 acres or 200 acres of that 700 acres of land, if there is no other land in the neighbourhood, to relieve congestion. I have no illusions on this point. I know we are not going to solve the problem of congestion by this Bill. Congestion cannot be solved by any Land Purchase Bill. It will have to be, when all is said and done, settled outside a Land Purchase Bill. Its settlement will probably be helped by the development of the fishery industry on the Western seaboard and around Cork, but we think that we owe a duty to these tenants to make a fairly bold and comprehensive attempt to deal with the problem, and we have gone no further than the men who drafted the 1920 Bill, except to give the Land Commission power, where there is no other land available, to take demesne land or purchased holdings. These powers, of course, could be abused, but if the Land Commission are to have them at all we must give them a certain discretion. We could not lay down in an Act of Parliament at this stage the rules which would cover every case. The Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board had very wide powers under the 1909 Act. The circumstances of each case—the ordinary relationships between cause and effect and between classes of society, will always ensure that the Land Commission, or any public body in Ireland, could not go too far. But in any event I would like to know if Senators agree that the Land Commission must have a discretion in certain cases to take a demesne or portion of a demesne, or to take purchased holdings or a portion of purchased holdings. I would like to know how we could do it more effectively or more carefully than we have done it in the Bill.

Colonel MOORE

I have an amendment to that effect.

Mr. HOGAN

I know that Senator Colonel Moore could draft the sections in this Bill probably much better than they are drafted. With regard to tenanted land, Senator Sir John Keane stated that there was evidence produced to-day to show that there is not enough land in Ireland, or anything like enough, to deal with congestion. He professed to think that we were going to buy all this land for landless men, to the disadvantage of the congests. I would like him to show me any warranty in any section of the Bill for that.

Sir JOHN KEANE

I was referring at the time to the speeches which the Minister delivered in the other House.

Mr. HOGAN

What I said in the other House, I daresay, had reference to some particular point which was raised at the time. We can discuss at another time the speech which the Senator quoted here. But here is the Bill, and I ask to be shown any warranty in it for the contention, even on the Senator's own admission that there is not enough land in Ireland to deal with congestion, that we propose to deal with landless men to the disadvantage of congests. I pointed out in the other House, time after time, that the congests had the first claim and must have the first claim, and that it is only in the event of any land being left over in the hands of the Land Commission that the landless men would come in.

With regard to tenanted land, this vests in the Land Commission under Section 24, and under Section 28 all holdings, except holdings which are called retained holdings, vest in the tenant, and retained holdings are the holdings referred to in Sub-section 6 of Section 28. This sub-section reads:—

"This section shall not apply to (a) any holding in respect of which the standard price exceeds three thousand pounds; or (b) any holding in the beneficial occupation of a tenant who is on the appointed day the proprietor of lands for the purchase of which advances have been made under any of the Land Purchase Acts, and whether redeemed or not, if the total amount resulting from the addition to the standard price of the amount obtained by capitalising at the rate of four and three-quarters per cent. the original annuities payable on such advances, exceeds £3,000; or (c) any holding as respects which the Land Commission declare that it is not in the public interest that the holding shall be resold to the tenant as aforesaid, whether on the ground that the improvement of the holding is essential and practicable, or otherwise; or (d) any holding which in the opinion of the Land Commission ought to be retained for improvement or enlargement, or for utilisation in connection with the relief of congests; all which holdings are in this Act referred to as retained holdings."

Section 29, dealing with the powers of the Land Commission in regard to retained holdings, states:—"In the case of every holding retained by the Land Commission, the Land Commission shall have, and may exercise, all or any of the powers exercisable by them as respects holdings on estates vested in them, including powers of resumption of the whole or part of the holding, whether the holding is or is not part of an estate or subject to a judicial rent." That is to say, they may exercise all the powers which they have had under the previous Acts in regard to retained holdings, under Acts not passed by us, but passed years ago. The section then goes on to say: "And, in exercising the powers aforesaid, shall have regard to the necessity of relieving congestion, the desirability of increasing the food supply of the country, and the manner in which the holdings have been used." These words have been taken word for word from the Land Bill of 1920, which was based on the recommendations of the Conference held in the same year.

Mr. WESTROPP BENNETT

I will strongly object to such powers being given.

Mr. HOGAN

That, of course, is a matter for the Senator himself, but these are the powers given in regard to retained holdings. If I may say so, the reason for these very arbitrary powers in connection with tenanted land are as follows:—You must have power ultimately to deal with congestion; you must have power compulsorily to migrate large bodies of tenants. Senators may not have an adequate conception of the magnitude of the problem which congestion amounts to and of the necessity of dealing with it, and of the importance of getting rid at once and for all of this scandal of having thousands of small holdings on cutaway bogs in the congested districts counties which I have already mentioned. It is a problem that is a cancer in the body politic, and we have decided that it must be cured once and for all. We have decided that it must be settled now, and we do not mean to tinker with it as the English Parliament did in former days, but rather to follow the courageous example of the Conservatives who drafted the 1920 Bill. I use the word "Conservative" not in any deprecating sense, but specifically in answer to the argument that this was a Karl Marxian proposal that was never heard of before. The question is, are we going to make a decent, straightforward, courageous attempt to solve that problem that is a cancer on the body politic? This problem must be solved either now or, in the best British fashion, it may be too late and much more radical.

Mr. BENNETT

I would like to ask does not Section 29 give power for the acquiring of land for other purposes than the relief of congestion? I have no quarrel with the relief of congestion. I think it is necessary and it ought to be done. What I quarrel with is that under this section powers are given to justify the acquisition of land for other purposes than those of relieving congestion.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

May I suggest that anyone capable of reading can read that section for himself and interpret it in his own way. I should say that probably most people will interpret it in the way you are interpreting it; but it may be capable of another interpretation. This is not the stage for those points.

Mr. HOGAN

I should have explained and it would have saved a little confusion, that I did not say that the phrase "the desirability of increasing the food supply of the country" does not widen, in regard to tenanted land, to some extent the powers of the Land Commission. I merely explained that we took this word for word from the 1920 Bill, and that I am not wedded to that particular clause about the desirability of increasing the food supply of the country. I do not think it matters twopence one way or the other, because I know it was the intention of the people who drafted it to insert words that would give the Land Commission real power in regard to holdings for the relief of congestion. I do believe the Bill would be neither improved nor disimproved by leaving out those words; but that only refers to untenanted land. There is no such phrase in connection with demesne or purchased land, as Senators will see if they look at Section 24. What the men who drafted the 1920 Bill, and who thought it out, had really in mind was the necessity of relieving congestion and the necessity of arming the Land Commission with strong powers for the relief of congestion, and they were thinking to some extent of compulsory tillage.

If we are to relieve congestion in the West and elsewhere we must have the power to migrate large tenants. They are more suitable for migration than the smaller tenants, and in most cases the larger tenants would be willing to migrate. The issue for us now is whether we are to take those powers, whether we are to tinker with this question, or to make a real genuine attempt to solve it. I suggest to the Seanad that we can hardly do worse than a Committee back so far as that which sat in 1918, notwithstanding everything that has happened in the meantime. We cannot do worse. Senator Bagwell was of opinion that we were trying to perpetuate congestion, and he said that that would be the effect of the Bill. I cannot follow that reasoning. I do know we will not solve congestion. I know it is our duty to do as much as we can to solve it, but how these provisions are going to perpetuate it I cannot see. I do not think it is necessary for me to argue the advantages of land purchase as such, in spite of Senator Counihan's opinion. I do not think that Senators will disagree with the view that the division of land and the making of uneconomic holdings economic increases the national wealth, and does not only do a good turn for the landlord, but to the tenant and to the State as a whole.

Mr. COUNIHAN

I did not state that What I said was that breaking up the land to any great extent was not increasing the wealth of the nation.

Mr. HOGAN

I do not think, either, that it is seriously contended that we are perpetuating congestion by the provisions of this Bill. I think it was Senator Bagwell who gave it as his opinion that the large, efficient farmer, who was farming his land and producing the best live stock and using the most modern machinery, was going to disappear under this Bill. Again, I cannot find any warranty for that in the Bill. The limitation of advances is £3,000. The limitation under the 1920 Bill was £3,000, and £3,000 under this Bill will enable a man to purchase a bigger holding. The limitation under the 1909 Act was £5,000, and Senators can work out for themselves whether the difference is really as big as it appears.

Mr. BAGWELL

I should like to ask the Minister whether there is anything in the text of the Bill which would prevent the Bill being so administered as to reduce the size of farms in Ireland to, say, 10 acres? I suggest to him that it is all a question of administration. The Bill may be judiciously, fairly, and moderately administered, but is there anything in it to prevent it being unfairly or immoderately administered?

Mr. HOGAN

If the Bill is so drafted as to give the Land Commission complete and arbitrary powers, then this Bill should not be passed. Senator Bagwell asks if there is anything in the Bill to prevent the Land Commission cutting down holdings to any extent. He almost puts it this far, that no one shall have more than 100 acres, and any land over that may be taken. What powers are there in the Bill for the Land Commission to do that? The Land Commission can only take tenancies, purchased land, or demesne land for the relief of congestion—for one specific purpose only, and that is a serious limitation. The Land Commission must show to a High Court Judge, if the case is brought before him, as it may be by an interested party, that they are taking the land for the relief of congestion, and that they cannot get untenanted land of any other description. Now, with regard to the question of limitation, the limitation under the 1920 Bill was £3,000, and we are providing £3,000 under this Bill, and I say that is better than £3,000 under the 1920 Bill. We are also providing that the Land Commission shall have a discretion and may sell more than £3,000 worth. We give them a third course. After making a bigger advance than £3,000 in bonds, they will take into account the efficiency of the farmer with whom they are dealing. They will make bigger advances of £3,000, £4,000, or £5,000. They may advance a further sum; they may sell more land to any farmer provided the farmer pays the difference in cash, so that the Bill in this respect, with regard to limitations, is much better than the 1920 Bill. There are three courses. The Land Commission can sell £3,000 worth of land, and may sell more at their discretion, not specified, and after making a larger advance. If they think a particular farmer is the sort of farmer who should get more, they may then sell him more land, provided he finds the difference in cash. Most farmers will agree that this last provision is distinctly useful. They will agree that after the Land Commission may say, "We will advance £5,000 to such a farmer, as he is a good man; there is no congestion in the neighbourhood, and there is no reason why he should not get more." He might still have a thousand pounds worth of land which they may feel it would be unfair to pledge the credit of the State for, and they should be in a position to say: "If you pay for this in cash we will sell it to you." There are a great many of the bigger farmers who will be able to take advantage of that. But if Senators will compare the provisions of this Bill with those of former Acts, they will find that, to all intents and purposes, they are as good as the 1903 Act and better than the 1920 Bill. Senator Barrington asked me why we did not insert the period that it would take to repay the advance. Well, of course, that is simply a mathematical matter. In none of the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts was it stated, for the very good reason that it would be quite impossible at the beginning to say. It will depend upon the rate of interest. We can tell you the maximum time. The advance must be paid off in between sixty-six and sixty-seven years. That is a simple mathematical matter which any Senator can verify for himself. This has not been inserted in the Bill. The period has not been inserted in any previous Act, except the Ashbourne Act, and there is no reason to insert it in this. There are provisions which allow the Minister for Finance to redeem the bonds after thirty years. The costs of collection are not specified. It would be unfair to say that the costs will be four, three, or two per cent. Senators themselves will be able to judge that. It would be unfair to name a definite figure. It will cost more in one estate than in another, and it would be right that the Judicial Commissioner will be enabled to take the equities of each particular case into account. In the long run it is the fairest way. Now, with regard to the appointed day. I am asked why is there not an appointed day in this Bill. Would Senators suggest two, three, four, five, or six years? It will take at least three years to deal with the tenanted lands. The Act of 1903 was passed twenty years ago, and there are close on between three and six million pounds worth of sales pending under that Act. It would be a farce to put in an appointed day. You could not state the appointed day. The whole question was discussed again and again at conferences in 1918, and they inserted in the first draft of the Bill an appointed day of not less than three and not more than five years, but everyone knew, including the Land Commission, that the operations of the Bill could not be completed within that time. Everyone knew it was a farce, but it had to be done; and in the latter draft of the Bill they put in: "Provided it is not altered by his Majesty in Council." We could specify five years, "to be altered by the Executive Council," but that improves matters in no way I can see. The operations of this Bill will not be completed in five years. The operations of the 1903 Act are not completed yet. The security that you have under this Bill is the security that land can only be taken for the relief of congestion, that you must deal with untenanted land and this problem of congestion immediately, and that the real security is the condition of the country and the certainty that the Government of the day will be able to keep all operations in connection with land purchase within the four corners of that Bill, or whatever Bill you pass, and that there will be none of the sort of privateering that has been going on for the last year, and that we have been trying to deal with and have dealt with effectively. I do suggest to Senators that the passing of a Bill like that, dealing with the merits of the case, and dealing with them adequately, will do more to bring security to the ordinary farmers and the ordinary landowners (who, I hope, will live in the country in the future) than any provision like inserting appointed days, or any artificial provision of that sort, that would be put into the Bill. I can insert an appointed day, but you must put in a provision that it can be changed by the Executive Council, because it will have to be changed. It can go in, but it is not worth putting in.

With regard to fishing rights and sporting rights, sporting rights on untenanted lands are declared to be of no appreciable value. I have been asked by Senator the Earl of Kerry as to whether a mountain or bog is tenanted or untenanted land. Of course, that is a question of fact which I could not answer in any general way at the moment. I presume he is thinking of cases where tenants have certain rights of grazing over a mountain or bog, and that is not part of the holding, and that is not tenanted land. But I could not give a general answer to that question which would cover every case, but I know of my own experience that most of the mountain and bog lands over which rights of that kind exist are not tenanted land. I do not think that Senators will agree that sporting rights on untenanted lands are of any appreciable value. On the other hand, we look on sporting rights on tenanted lands as of appreciable value, and we are vesting them in the Land Commission. We will be able to pay a proper price for them, and lease them and develop them, or use them in any way which the Land Commission thinks fit.

What more can we do? I do not pretend for a moment that the Land Commission are going to keep these sporting rights afterwards, just as I do not believe they are going to keep the fishing rights; but this Bill deals with land purchase only. We decided, as a matter of policy, that sporting rights and fishing rights should be reserved. The proper Department for the moment to reserve them to is the Land Commission. It would be a matter for the Fisheries Department, or whatever other department may be set up afterwards in the Ministries Bill, that will allocate their functions and allocate fisheries to the proper department. But with regard to fishing rights, there is no legal Fishery Department. There will be. In the meantime we hold these fishing rights, and we are able to pay the full price for them. There will be a Fishery Department, and I presume these fishing rights would be handed over to this Department to be developed, and I would point out that there is a very great advantage in reserving them. It will mean that they can be developed, and if they are not developed the State will be to blame. It will mean that fishing rights in connection with land that has not been purchased, in connection with demesne land, will not be liable to suffer by the abuse of the fishing rights in connection with the land which has been purchased. If Senators are seriously interested in the development of fishing rights, both for purposes of sport and for purposes of industry, then I suggest that we could not do anything more effective than vest them in the State for the moment; and if they are not developed, well, the State is to blame; and if the Parliamentary representation of the whole country allows the State to neglect these important matters, I am afraid we cannot cure them. Senators Sir Nugent Everard and Sir Hutcheson Poe raised a question in regard to the purchase and resale of demesnes, and they pointed out that if a provision of that sort was inserted in the Bill it would be a great advantage to landowners. We have inserted a number of provisions in the Bill with a view, as far as possible, of relieving the position of the landowner who is heavily encumbered. We have gone as far as we really can go in that matter. I know it would be an advantage, from that particular point of view, to insert such a provision. Whether it would be good business from the point of view of the State credit is another question—a very important question. We have done a certain amount which people who are particular in regard to the financial credit of the State might say was bad business. We have provided that mortgages and the redemption value of superior and intervening interest encumbrances shall be paid in bonds. We have provided in the same section that the Judicial Commissioner, when estimating the redemption values of these superior and intervening interests and of these head rents, shall have regard to the price of the land out of which they issue. There are a number of details of that sort which I do not think I need go into now, which we have inserted in the Bill to do what we could to relieve encumbered landlords, but we are not prepared to go as far as that.

Colonel MOORE

I would like to ask the Minister if there is not a good deal of difference in the method of taking demesne and other lands, and in the payments? Formerly, I think, the practice was to give the market price. Now it is to be laid down that it is to be done by the Judicial Commissioner. Is that not a disadvantage compared with former Acts?

Mr. HOGAN

The provisions in the Bill in regard to the valuation of untenanted land are quite simple. The land is to be taken at a price which will be fair to the Land Commission and to the vendor. I think these are practically the words of the Bill. These are the very words of the 1920 Bill; and, apart from that, after examination I do not see how we could do it otherwise. It may be wrong to take property compulsorily at all. That may be argued; but if there is any real reason that untenanted land—I am not talking now of demesne land— may be taken compulsorily for the relief of congestion, then you are interfering seriously with the rights of property, and you are attempting a principle which carries you the distance which we have gone, and which the 1920 Bill would have gone. Sir Nugent Everard talks of organising tenants in co-operative colonies as a means of relieving congestion. One would like to think that that is possible, but I am afraid it is not. Tenants have been taught that they should own their lands individually. They only know ownership, and they only understand land held in that fashion. It may be that in later years we will be able to do something in that direction for tenants, but we have inserted a provision which will enable the Land Commission, in three or four or five years' time, if it is possible, and the people become more educated in that direction, to make advances for the purchase of land to bodies as well as individuals. It will be open at any time to any body of tenants, or any body of landless men, in a case where land is available, if they achieve any scheme that will hold water, to say to the Land Commission, "We will take this as a co-operative society, or as trustees." It is a matter for themselves. The machinery is there.

The EARL of MAYO

A farming community?

Mr. HOGAN

Bodies. Section 31 says: "Advances may be made to the following persons or bodies for the purchase by them from the Land Commission of parcels of land"; and then it goes on: "(f) Any other person or body to whom, in the opinion of the Land Commission, an advance ought to be made.”

Sir NUGENT EVERARD

That is very comprehensive.

Mr. HOGAN

It is exactly the same as the terms of previous Bills, with the exception of the insertion of the one very important word "body." It does not, from the landowner's point of view, widen it, but it certainly does from the point of view of the people who are getting it. If there is a possibility of holding land in some other form than individually, and if that possibility shows itself within the next two, three, or four years, and such bodies as trade unions think about it, then there is the machinery there for making an advance, not individually, but to a body, and that may be a potent factor in the relief of congestion afterwards when people begin to change their minds and to think of the organisation of agriculture. It may be found very useful in three, four, or five years' time, in dealing with the problem where you have a number of congests and very little land to relieve congestion.

Sir NUGENT EVERARD

I know the case of a labour colony which is now renting land and working it co-operatively. That is why I ask whether or not they could purchase, they being organised into a colony and being subtenants.

Mr. HOGAN

I have said it would be quite impossible at the present moment to offer a tenant his land any way except as a free owner, I am afraid, but later on, when agriculture becomes organised and the people begin to think about it, and to think about something besides land purchase, it will be possible to make advances, not to individuals, but to bodies, and it may be found that it may be one of the ways of making land go further. I think that these are practically the main points that have been raised. There are some other points which I can deal with more suitably in Committee.

Mr. BAGWELL

I would like to ask one more query. The Minister has explained to us that that part of the Bill which appears to some of us to be dangerous, the relief of congestion, and the importance of the relief of congestion, has bulked very largely in his mind and the minds of the Government. While it is, of course, a great effort, some of us think that if he attempts to relieve the disease it may be very much more widely spread. If the Minister could gives us some information at the Committee Stage as to how much land it would take to give every existing congest a holding of a certain valuation, we should be in a better position to judge what these powers really do mean. Of course, I know that if he does that he is in a sense defining a congest, but unless he does it, I do not see how this Seanad could know what the effect of this Bill and the working of it will be. There are many of us who think that it may spread congestion all over the country. That is my principal point. It may have the effect of making all the holdings too small.

Sir JOHN KEANE

On that point I do not want to say anything, except to ask that when the Minister is preparing the information, and having got the figure asked for by Senator Bagwell, would he also say how far untenanted and demesne land would go to meet that requirement?

Mr. HOGAN

I said already that there is no chance whatever that the problem of congestion will be solved under this Bill. None whatever, for a number of reasons, the principal being that congests will not migrate, and it will be only in rare cases, unfortunately, that the congests will migrate. But that does not absolve us from our duty to do what we can to deal with the problem. We have taken power to migrate the larger tenants compulsorily, we have taken power to take untenanted land compulsorily, and we have taken power to take even demesne land where necessary, compulsorily, but with all these powers we will not go near solving the whole problem of congestion. The position will be like this: there will be large demesnes and plenty of untenanted land in portions of Ireland where there is no congestion, and where no congests are going to or will go, and no matter what compulsory powers you put in the Bill you cannot evict congests, for it would mean evicting them. We have to deal with a number of difficulties inherent in human nature. We will not be able to go near dealing with them, and we will not by any means have exhausted the untenanted land of the country not to speak of the demesne land. The position will be under this Bill, as anyone who knows anything about Land Purchase knows, that after dealing with all the congests whom it can deal with, we will have taken a certain amount of demesne land and untenanted land, but we will have a large area of untenanted land over, not to speak of the demesne land.

Sir JOHN KEANE

I would ask the Minister could he give us some figures on which we can gauge the realities of the problem. He says nothing near enough. I think the Minister will agree what he says does not give a satisfactory impression.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

You cannot possibly expect him to produce these figures from his head.

Sir JOHN KEANE

I anticipated that point. I know it would take a considerable time to prepare these figures. I have been trying to get them. All I ask is when we go into Committee that he will have these figures, for if he has not the figures it may delay operations.

Mr. HOGAN

I will endeavour to have any figures available on that question. To get accurate figures on that question is very difficult. The figures produced at the Dudley commission were found by the next Commission to be wrong figures, and the figures produced at that next Commission were also found to be wrong. It is very hard to know whether there are any reliable figures on the question.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I suggest to the Senators that they will find very useful information on that subject in Thom's Statistics. Thom's Statistics give you the average size of the holdings, and the rentals, in the various provinces, and that in itself is a very large factor in going through this problem. You will find them for every county.

Sir JOHN KEANE

I have been working for two hours to-day at Thom's Statistics, and have not arrived at anything substantial.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

That might be because you did not think they would help you.

Mr. HOGAN

I can only promise to give whatever figures I have available on the Committee Stage. These, I think, are the main points dealt with by the various Senators. I think I have explained at least the main provisions of the Bill. We have approached this question from the point of view of dealing with a purely Irish problem, a dispute between two sections of Irishmen who are both entitled to fair play, a very embittered dispute, a dispute that has to be settled, and that by the admission of everybody has to be settled immediately. An attempt was made to settle it in 1920. Everyone will admit that the sooner it is settled the better. I do not want to see this problem suffering from the evil that every other problem in Ireland has suffered from—namely, being dealt with too late. We have endeavoured in this Bill to deal with the problem in all the circumstances equitably, and we have approached the subject entirely from that point of view.

Mr. LINEHAN

I want to ask the Minister a question relating to retained holdings and the power given to the Land Commission to resume portion of the holdings, if they think fit to do so. I want to know from him whether any Section of the Bill compels the Land Commission to give full compensation to the tenant for the land so resumed? I observe that reference is made to a section of a previous Act, Section 5 of the Land Law (Ireland), Act of 1881. I believe in that section it is stated that full compensation is to be paid; the words, "full compensation" appear in that section. I would rather that a definite section would be put into the Bill, whereby it would be provided the Land Commission should pay this full compensation to any tenant portion of whose holding was resumed. That would do away with the objection to a part of the Bill where some of the members of the Seanad thought that that confiscation was going to take place as regards the land of some tenants. I simply ask that question.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I am sure the Minister will give you the answer that that is really a Committee point, but perhaps he would prefer to answer it.

Mr. HOGAN

That is the answer.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

The motion is: "That the Land Bill be read a Second Time."

Agreed.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

With regard to Monday. I want the Seanad to tell me as far as possible what their wishes are. The original idea which seemed to meet with the approval of the Seanad was, that the Committee Stage of the Land Bill be taken on Monday, and the Committee Stage of the Public Safety (Emergency Powers) Bill be taken on Tuesday. Since then, owing to representations made to me by a number of members, the date for the Committee Stage of the Land Bill has been changed to Wednesday. Does the Seanad agree to that?

SENATORS

No.

Mr. BENNETT

I move that the Committee Stage be taken on Wednesday.

Mr. DOUGLAS

I have had a conference with the Ceann Comhairle in the Dáil, and without desiring to interfere, he said that they had arranged for a large amount of business next week, and had arranged their plans in view of the statement made that it would be taken on Monday.

Mr. McLOUGHLIN

I propose as a compromise that it be taken on Tuesday, and that the Committee stage of the Public Safety Bill be taken on Wednesday.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

Shall we fix the Committee stage of the Public Safety Bill for Monday and the Committee stage of the Land Bill for Tuesday?

Agreed.