Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 5 Jul 1923

Vol. 4 No. 3

THE DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - LAND BILL, 1923—THIRD STAGE RESUMED.

Mr. JOHNSON

I beg to move: "In Section 21, in Sub-section (2), to delete paragraph (b)”. The paragraph reads:—

"Any land which is not substantially agricultural or pastoral or partly agricultural and partly pastoral in character, or any land comprised in a holding the main object of the letting of which was for a residence."

The object of the amendment is to find out from the Minister what his intention is with regard to land which may be within the region of a town, for instance, which may be held to be building land, but which as a matter of fact is agricultural land. If such lands were acquired under the Bill, the Land Commission would be in a position either to re-sell it to the tenants—and this quite conceivably should be brought in under a special Bill—or they might retain it, and so secure for the State the unearned increment which otherwise might be appropriated by the owner. That is the good reason, I think, for urging that lands which may be said to be not strictly agricultural in the sense that is defined, but which, being held out of use, should be taken with a view, if it is brought into building purposes, that such increased value as the development of the town would give to that land should accrue rather to the Land Commission, that is the State, than to the present owner. The amendment is moved with a view to finding from the Minister whether such an amendment to the Bill is not within the plan that he has set out.

Mr. HOGAN

I think I can reassure Deputy Johnson on probably most matters which he has in mind in connection with this amendment. The fact that land is near a town or adjoins a town does not necessarily make it non-agricultural. Any tenancy, no matter how near a town, vests. It vests in the Land Commission, and afterwards in the tenant. The fact that a tenant is living in the town and is a trader or tradesman of any kind, or any man who has land on a future tenancy outside a town, does not make a difference. A future tenancy vests. That covers all the cases that the Deputy might be interested in, where people living in towns have agricultural lands outside the town they vest in the Land Commission and afterwards in the tenants. These are probably the bulk of the cases the Deputy has in mind. Of course, it is quite clear we should not buy non-agricultural land. That expression covers the town itself. We could not, for example, buy the market square or any sort of non-agricultural or non-pastural land. He raises another question of land which perhaps has potential value as building land, and he suggests that land should be acquired by the Land Commission because it has such a value. We need not agree to that for the moment. Anybody might hold 50 acres of land which he is farming as an ordinary farmer near the town. He is farming that as a good farmer should, but part of it may be valuable by reason of the fact that the town is extending in that direction. He owns the land. He paid for it the full price. He may have bought it as a fee simple, but the mere fact that the town or city is extending should not give the Land Commission the right to buy it out and take all the profits he might have gained by his good luck in having land there. Such an amendment as that would be injuring not only the large landowners, but the small landowners, both tenants and proprietors living near the town. There may be conceptions of the ownership of land which would contemplate that, no matter how a man owns land or no matter how he farms it, that he should not get any benefit that would accrue by reason of the fact that it happens to be in a position where a certain potential and additional value accrues to it by reason of the fact that the town is extending in that direction. We can argue that question for a long time, but we would never agree on it. This is hardly the time to argue such a question on a Bill like this, but in any case the possible effect is that you will have a small farmer having 50 acres or a landowner living near the town farming his land properly, and if it is his good luck that the land should become valuable by reason of the fact that the town is extending I do not see why the State should step in and take that land, no more than why the State should step in and take a house built in a particular part of the city towards which business is spreading and which is becoming more valuable.

Mr. JOHNSON

The Minister has made it clear that he does not support the view that the additional values of land created by the work of the community should become the property of that community. He throws over all the views of the older generation of land reformers, and says that the chance ownership of a piece of land near a town gives the owner all the advantages, no matter who may create the new values. Values that are to be created may be created through circumstances over which the holder has no control, but all that increased value is accruing to the agricultural holder. The position of land which is agricultural in practice, and perhaps might have been agricultural for a generation or two, near a small town or a large town would be affected by this amendment. If the Agricultural Commission thought that such land might some day possess a value as a building site, then it could not be brought in. I think that is the defect. I think the opportunity should be availed of in this Bill for the Land Commission to acquire such agricultural land, such land as is at present agricultural but may not be wholly agricultural. I would like to know whether grazings outside Dublin City, for instance, are ruled out by the provisions of the Bill as it stands. Take accommodation land, as they call it. Where near the smaller towns there are patches let out in plots for townsmen who are what one might call only conveniently more or less temporarily permanent or permanently temporal agricultural. They are temporary holdings for tillage purposes, and are going on from year to year. Apparently these are to be ruled out, and I think that is the defect. I think lands of this kind which are being held by the owners as agricultural land—so far as the owner is concerned it is only agricultural land, and it is only by the action of other people that it may at some future time become building land—should be brought within the confines of the Bill. I am sorry the Minister is not able to accept the amendment.

Mr. HOGAN

I venture to say the Deputy would be very much surprised if I agreed to it. He talks of chance owners. A man may have bought land and may have paid for it, and generally does, a very considerable sum by reason of the fact that it is near the town. He may have bought the chances, and bought them dear. We have got to take that into account. Further, if we do take up the land, what are we to do with it? If the land has a potential value as building ground, are we to take it up for building purposes? Surely it is not suggested that we ought to do that sort of thing under a Land Purchase Act. It is an interesting question as to whether the additional value of land by reason of circumstances over which the owner of the land has no control or responsibility should not be acquired for the State, and that question could be argued very nicely and properly on a Bill which provided for the taking up of land in the neighbourhood of towns for housing; but surely not under this Bill. If we took up such land we would have to build on it, and it could not be done. With regard to grazing outside towns, if there is a tenancy it vests in the tenant; if there is a subtenancy it vests in the sub-tenant.

We have ample power to make advances to trustees for the purpose of holding land near towns for forestry, tillage, plots, pasturage, and other purposes of that sort. We have ample powers under this Bill to do what the Deputy wants us to do, but we have not the power to take a letting for temporary convenience, and to make the man who would take that letting the tenant for the moment regardless of circumstances. We argued that question yesterday on another section. Deputy O'Connell wished to strike out Sub-section (3) of Section 20. I went into the reasons why we could not undertake anything in that respect. It would create far more hardship than do good.

Mr. HUGHES

If I understand correctly the effect of this amendment of Deputy Johnson's, he wishes to confiscate any property people may have convenient to towns and cities. I do not know if the Deputy understands what the amendment would mean in effect. I happen to know a little about the tenure of land around towns, and I do know that people who are, perhaps, unfortunate enough to hold land around towns have to pay very dearly for it. They have to pay an increased rent, and, if they were fortunate enough to get the Land Commission to fix a rent, there was always a proximity value which they had to pay, whether they liked it or not. If those people had the same facilities as people holding land 10 or 20 miles away from a town, there might be something in the Deputy's argument. As matters stand, it would be preposterous to have an amendment of that sort inserted in the Bill. I really think the Deputy has a misconception of what is meant by the amendment, and if he thinks it over properly he will not, I believe, insist on pressing it.

Mr. COLOHAN

On a point of explanation, I would like to ask the Minister if he would be prepared to take that part of the Curragh called the Little Curragh, situate north of the Great Southern and Western Railway line, and apportion it amongst the landless men in the towns of Newbridge and Kildare. There are about 200 or 300 acres there, and beyond serving as a gallop for racehorses and as a means of recreation for golfers, I do not see what use it is. It would meet a long-felt want if the land were divided amongst the landless men of Newbridge and Kildare.

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy is really asking me what is the scope of the Bill. The answer is Sections 20 to 26, Sections 28, 29, and 32, all of which we have in front of us. If he refers to those sections his question is answered.

Amendment put and negatived.

Professor THRIFT

I beg to move the following amendment standing in the name of Deputy FitzGibbon:—

In Sub-section (2) (b), line 12, to insert after the word “not” the words “at the date of the passing of this Act.”

I have not had an opportunity of speaking about this to the Deputy, but the amendment seems to me to be very reasonable, and one which just has the effect of making clear what is, I think, intended by the Bill. I am glad to say I am not a lawyer, but I think it might be contended that if some explanatory words were not added to the Bill, the term "is" would refer to the time when any particular case comes under discussion. What I think is meant is land at the time of the passing of the Act.

Professor MAGENNIS

I desire to support the amendment. Notwithstanding the pharisaical declaration of my friend, Deputy Thrift, thanking his God he is not a lawyer, it would have been some advantage to him, I think, in the present instance. The purpose of this amendment is to do justice to a particular class of land occupier who has been particularly badly hit by previous Acts. Unless this stipulation is put in, it is possible that leaseholders, lessees, in whose instrument granting the lease there are words constituting them tenants of mills, for example, and of similar holdings, would be shut out as they have been since the Acts of 1881, and shut out especially from the benefit of land purchase. Many of these holdings have completely changed; they have undergone a transformation through the alteration in the economic life of the country. The possession of a mill, for instance, upon one's land in most places outside of the immediate proximity of a city, and sometimes not even then, is the possession of a white elephant, or worse. A great deal of land which is declared in the lease to be not of an agricultural character, so as to bring it under the application of the Land Acts, has in the interval of years become of that type. Now, unless this stipulation is included in Sub-section (b)—“any land which is not at the time of the passing of this Act”—the benefit of the present land purchase would not be secured for that type of holder, because this section is a section vesting land in the Land Commission on an appointed day. The sub-section excludes from the application of that, land of this particular type. Consequently, if there be lessees working the land irrespective of what may be in their original instrument as agricultural holdings, then these holdings vest in the Land Commission from the appointed day, and those people then receive the benefits of the Act. The ground which Deputy Fitzgibbon's amendment covers is to a large extent that covered by a subsequent amendment by Deputy Gorey—“Provided also that, notwithstanding the description contained in any lease or other document, lands which have been used in a manner substantially agricultural or pastoral during the six years preceding the passing of this Act shall be deemed agricultural or pastoral land.” By the introduction of Deputy FitzGibbon's amendment it is not a question of deeming them at all. They are, by virtue of being substantially used as agricultural or pastoral holdings, to come under the vesting power of the Land Commission under this section. That is the great benefit which is secured.

Mr. HOGAN

I am accepting the amendment. The words are absolutely necessary. It is necessary to show that whether the lands are agricultural or pastoral, or whether they are not, is to be decided by reference to the present condition of the land. That is absolutely essential.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Mr. GOREY

I beg to move the following amendment:

In Sub-section (2) (b), line 15, to add after the word “residence” the words “provided, however, that where the Poor Law valuation of the land exceeds half the Poor Law valuation of the buildings, it shall be deemed that the main object of the letting was not for a residence: Provided also that notwithstanding the description contained in any lease or other document, lands which have been used in a manner substantially agricultural or pastoral during the six years preceding the passing of this Act shall be deemed agricultural or pastoral land.”

I do not know what the effect of the previous amendment will be on this, but this amendment was introduced to try and make more definite—to bring down to some definite level—what is meant by residential holding. This question of residential holdings will be a very contentious one-extremely contentious with regard to the working of this Act. Where there is a distinct understanding between the lessee and the lessor that the holding was a residential holding at the time of the letting, I and everybody else can understand that being distinctly a residential holding. Where there is no such understanding, that is where the object of the amendment comes in. I, and the people with me, think that where the Poor Law valuation of the land exceeds half the Poor Law valuation of the buildings and is farmed agriculturally, it ought to be considered an agricultural holding and should come under the terms of the Bill.

Mr. HOGAN

There are two parts to this amendment. The first tends to define the term "residential holding." Of course, I could not accept that definition.

Mr. GOREY

The first definition?

Mr. HOGAN

Yes, the first definition. Whether a holding is residential or not is purely a matter of fact; the Judge must find on the facts and on the evidence, and it would be fatal to the Bill to lay down a rigid line like that. It would probably do a grievous injustice. It would mean probably that where people had built fairly substantial houses, and had spent £5,000 or £6,000 on the building, and had then let to a tenant pending the time the son or the daughter, if she got married, would go into it, the yearly tenant would come in now and purchase, possibly at a price under the Act which would be far less than what the house was built for. That is quite possible under this amendment. I put it no farther than that. You cannot define those things in an Act of Parliament. Whether a holding is residential or not, or is let for the purpose of a residence or not, is a question of fact. Quite a good many considerations are bearing on it, and leave it open to the Land Commission, with an appeal to the Judicial Commissioner, to try the case and to do justice. If you do injustice under this Clause you do grave injustice. You put a man to perhaps five, six or ten thousand pounds expense, and you cannot afford to do any averaging on questions like that. The issues are too important for the individual, and it must be left to the Land Commission, and the Land Commission must be free to take all the relevant circumstances into consideration. With regard to the second part, the amendment I have just accepted covers it. "Any land which is not, at the date of the passing of this Act, substantially agricultural or pastoral does not vest." That is to say any land which, at the date of the passing of the Act, is substantially pastoral or agricultural vests. It vests in the Land Commission, and it is for the Land Commission to say whether they are going to regard the particular lessee as a tenant or merely a temporary tenant, and hence not entitled to purchase, or whether, even though they regard him as a tenant, they are not going to take away his tenancy and use the land for the relief of congestion, or, finally, whether they are not going to sell it back to the owner as essentially a case where there should be a re-sale to the owner. You must leave all these things to the Land Commission. It does not matter what is in a lease. It does not matter how long the lease is, or how short the lease is. The land vests in the Land Commission in the first instance, and when it does vest in the Land Commission then the Land Commission are entitled to advert to the lease to see what they are going to do with the land. If the Deputy's purpose is to ensure that the land shall vest in the Land Commission, then Deputy FitzGibbon's amendment makes it unnecessary. I am perfectly sure that the Deputy does not wish to interfere with cases in which the land was let on behalf of minors. Take the old case, where a letting is made for five or six years during minority——

Mr. GOREY

No; I did not mean to deal with that class of case.

Mr. HOGAN

If the Deputy's amendment were accepted containing the words "provided also that notwithstanding the description contained in any lease or document," it would be at least doubtful if the Land Commission would not be coerced to ignore any circumstances set out in the lease, and to vest it in this temporary tenant. I think the Deputy will find that the words which have been added do all he wants.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

Will the Minister give us an undertaking that the Land Commission, in deciding upon matters like this, will not be guided by the same conditions that guided them in these affairs in the past? We have had numerous instances of holdings which were ruled out as non-agricultural on account of the house being the principal part of the holding, and I do not know on what basis this was done. However, I know a great many cases of serious grievance where the holding was so ruled out. If, under the present Bill, the decision as to the nature of the land was to be arrived at in the same way serious injustice might be done. I hope that in whatever arrangement is made to decide these things the Land Commission will not be hampered by the conditions which prevented them doing justice in the past owing to some technical provisions contained in previous Land Acts.

LIAM de ROISTE

I would like to ask the Minister for Agriculture if he has taken into consideration the question of a mill holding with reference to this sub-section?

Mr. HOGAN

Let us take a specific case—a house, large or small, and twenty or thirty acres of land around it. Deputy McGoldrick wants to know on what principles the Land Commission will decide the question whether this is an agricultural or pastoral holding. I think that is his point. What we do here is decide that they will have regard to the state of the holding at the date of the passing of the Act. That is the first decision. If a holding was used twenty or thirty years ago for a different purpose, and was gradually allowed to drift into becoming an agricultural or pastoral holding, the Land Commission would not take cognisance of what the holding was ten or fifteen years ago—they might have to take two or three years into consideration—but would consider what the holding is now. Take the case, then, of the holding used twenty or thirty or forty years ago in connection with the working of a mill. At that time a mill was a valuable asset. Probably 75 per cent. of the income of the farm was the result of the working of the mill, and for that reason it was not substantially an agricultural holding. Since then mills have fallen into disuse. Probably it was decided in most of those cases—perhaps when the tenant was going into Court, or perhaps in a dispute over a marriage settlement—that ten or twenty years ago this was not an agricultural holding, and under the previous Acts that decision ruled the case. The Land Commission could not go behind it, although at the moment the holding is purely agricultural, because all the profits are derived from agricultural operations and not from the mill. Nevertheless, if the case went into Court heretofore, and the Judge was called upon to decide whether it was an agricultural holding or not, someone would get up and quote a previous decision on a mill holding, and that ended it. We altered that. We say that it is the condition of the holding at the passing of the Act which will decide the question. That is made as plain as the English language can make it in the Bill.

LAIM de ROISTE

The case I have in mind happens to be quite contrary to that which the Minister deals with. It is only a small parcel of land. Originally it was let as agricultural land, but the tenants of it used part of their residence as a mill and they developed a mill holding. I do not know how the Act will affect such a case. It is quite contrary to the case that the Minister has dealt with.

Mr. HOGAN

I wonder does the Dáil agree that, in deciding a case whether a holding is agricultural or pastoral, the decision should be taken with regard to the present condition of the holding?

DEPUTIES

Yes.

Mr. HOGAN

That is agreed. I assure Deputies that I could not put myself into the position of a Judge, with a Bar before him stating the pros and cons. and all the circumstances of a particular case, and decide whether such a case comes within the definition. I am asked by the Deputy as to whether some particular case which he has in his own mind, and which I have not got all the facts of, comes within the definition which we are all agreed is the right definition. I cannot do that.

Mr. GOREY

With regard to the first part of this amendment, I do agree that it might raise a barrier if accepted and passed in its present form. But with regard to the second part of the amendment dealing with documents, I have seen some of them, and they are very peculiar. Some of them have clauses excluding the holding from any benefit under any Act I have one of the documents here. This amendment was not meant to interfere with the rights of children or anything like that. I am satisfied that the previous amendment meets to a considerable extent the requirements of mine, and for that reason I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. O'CONNELL

I move Amendment 37:—

In Sub-section (2), paragraph (c), line 16, to insert after the word “is” the words “and has been for a period of not less than ten years before the passing of this Act.”

It has been the custom to exclude from the operations of the Land Acts in the past demesne lands and home farms, parks and gardens, and so forth. It is just possible—I believe there have been cases of it—that landlords with an intelligent anticipation of things to come will extend the area of their demesne or home farms in order to get the advantages of certain provisions in this Act. The object of the amendment is to provide that only demesne lands which have been so classified during the past ten years will come under the section.

Professor THRIFT

It does not seem to me that this is a very reasonable amendment. It is rather against what we have already agreed to in connection with the previous sub-section. I would like to suggest to the Minister whether it really would not be necessary after the word "is" in this section to insert the words "at the date of the passing of this Act." That seems to be required in the same way that it was required in a previous sub-section. I do not think that Deputy O'Connell's amendment is reasonable. I not like to make legislation retrospective. The Minister has already, during the debate on this Bill, drawn attention to the fact that when a definite figure is suggested a definite reason should be adduced for the selection of that figure. Ten is the figure suggested here. Ten is an arbitrary figure. It might as well be eleven or eight or nine. I do not like arbitrary figures of that kind, and I do not think the Minister does either. I hope that, instead of accepting this amendment the Minister will consider the advisability of adding the words that we added to the previous sub-section.

Mr. HOGAN

The clause, if amended, would read: "Any parcel of untenanted land which is and has been for a period of not less than ten years before the passing of this Act a demesne, home farm, park, garden, or pleasure ground, or any holding usually occupied by a person regularly employed on such demesne, home farm, park, garden, or pleasure ground." Applying this term of ten years to all these classes of land would give rise to a tremendous amount of litigation. I do not believe myself that it would make the slightest difference in regard to demesne land. It would probably affect home farms, gardens, pleasure grounds, and holdings usually occupied by a person regularly employed on such lands. It would probably make sufficient difference in these cases to create a lot of litigation. The Court would have to decide whether in fact certain lands had been parks or gardens or pleasure grounds, or holdings usually occupied by a person regularly employed in connection with these places for the past ten years. While it would do a certain amount of justice in some cases, it would do grave injustice in others. A home farm is a farm used in connection with the owner's house. It is a sort of glorified kitchen garden. The definition of home farm fills about twenty pages of Cherry. I do not propose to read it out. There is hardly any other expression there has been so much litigation about. There are hundreds of cases on the question. I shudder to think what would happen if we complicated the issue, so that the Judges would have to decide, not what they have always found tremendous difficulty in deciding—whether such a farm is a home farm at the moment— but whether such a farm has been a home farm for the past ten years. As I have said, there are at least twenty pages of cases in Cherry on the specific question, "Is such a farm a home farm at the moment." If Judges had to decide not alone whether this is a home farm at present, but whether it had been a home farm for the last ten years, it would certainly be a good job for the lawyers, but I do not think it would be to the advantage of anybody else. The same applies, I should say, to pleasure ground, and probably to a lesser extent to other things. I do not think it would make the slightest difference in practice. In the case of the demesne particularly, it would help to do the right thing in certain cases; it would do grave injustice in others. I can conceive a case where, let us say, a business man or a shopkeeper in a local town buys a house outside the town with ten acres of land, probably a division of 150 acres that was tenanted land five years ago, and he works it now as a home farm. It is a farm appertaining to and worked for the convenience of his residence, and not purely for profit. There may be no doubt about that case; it may be quite certain that seven or eight years ago it was not a home farm; now it is. It would be to that class of case this expression "home farm" relates. The man with a big demesne generally has not a home farm. His demesne is big enough. The demesne can be used, and is generally used, for purposes connected with his residence. He has his tillage inside it, he has his cows, and so on. A man with anything like a substantial demesne generally has not a home farm within the definition of the expression. "Home farm" is strictly a legal term. "Home farm" is a farm used by the landlord for the convenience of his residence and not worked purely for profit As I pointed out, there has been a tremendous amount of litigation in connection with the question. As a rule, it is not the big landowner who has a home farm. He has untenanted land outside the demesne, but that is not a home farm. It is generally the case of a small shopkeeper or retired business man—a man who, say, retires after forty years, buys a farm, and is now an ordinary farmer. It is not right to take up his land compulsorily, because it may have been untenanted land five years ago. I think Deputies will agree that there would be a great many cases where hardship would be done by this ten years' clause You have the proviso whereby wrongs would be righted: "Notwithstanding anything contained in the foregoing subsections, 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 (e) 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.”

Mr. JOHNSON

The intention of this amendment is more particularly to apply to demesnes. I was hoping that when the Minister was giving us the benefit of his experience in this matter he would have defined demesne, because, as far as I have been able to enquire, I have not been able to find any definition of the name. I also had the hope that Deputy McBride would have been able to come to our assistance in this case, which has been put forward in view of special representations that were made, and which were thought might be typical of other cases where outside Westport the Marquis of Sligo is alleged to have retained within recent years thousands of acres which are included now in what is known as his demesne. That is the case which is put forward. It may be a single exception. It may be typical of many cases. If it is, then it surely is unfair. Surely it is time to avoid by anticipation the effects of the Act. I do not think that the proviso (paragraph 3) would meet the case, because that only provides for the exception where the land may be required for the purposes of relieving congestion. I do not know whether the grievances expressed by the people in Westport district would be met by this proviso clause. Probably the Minister is familiar with the complaints that have been made. He may be able to say it is the only case in the country, and that he can find a way of meeting the Westport example. Perhaps the Minister would help us.

Mr. HOGAN

I have no hesitation in stating that not only have the Land Commission power to take that part of that demesne, but I know that they will require it for the relief of congestion. The Congested Districts Board have been for decades looking for that particular land.

Professor MAGENNIS

Perhaps Deputy O'Connell is remembering the "Deserted Village:

"... The man of wealth and pride,

Takes up a space that many poor supplied;

Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,

Space for his horses, equipage and hounds."

If we could redress the wrongs of past centuries by any legislation effected to-day it would be highly desirable. On the other hand, we may ourselves, as the Minister pointed out, by our haste to do good, create new wrongs. Suppose a case of a man who has bought and paid for land the price which the vendor demanded, and has bought it to secure greater privacy for his own house, or for some other purpose of convenience, would it be fair now, merely because within the last ten years this transaction took place, and what is now a pleasure ground or something of that nature was before under tillage, that it should be wrested away again from the legitimate purchaser? It is quite easy to put in this spirit of reform and humanity clauses which are directed to secure the humanitarian result, but when these come into another atmosphere less permeated by sentiment and spirituality, the prosaic, dingy Law court, Judges and lawyers, unfortunately, refuse to consider what was the intention of the Legislature. They say, "What are the words of the Act?" and they interpret these with the utmost rigidity. So, while I am absolutely with Deputy O'Connell in this matter, with particular reference to demesnes and pleasure grounds, I realise that the words of limitation which he puts in would not meet the case, even if ten years were made fifty years or one hundred years. It would not have the all-impressing character which would be necessary to effect his purpose. So it seems to me, since we cannot do everything which is desirable, since the unfortunate logic of life presses upon us, the fact that not every reform that ought to be made is feasible or capable of being made, and certainly not every reform of past wrongs, can be effected merely through the operation of one sub-clause in a Land Purchase Act, we had better not run the risk of doing evil in the spirit of good.

Mr. O'CONNELL

This amendment was intended chiefly to deal with demesne lands, and possibly was coloured to a large extent by what took place in this particular instance referred to by Deputy Johnson, but, in view of the very satisfactory statement that has been made by the Minister with regard to that particular estate, I do not intend to press the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Professor THRIFT

Would the Minister consider the desirability of inserting after the word "is" the words "at the date of the passing of this Act"?

Mr. HOGAN

I think the best thing we can do is just to leave it as it now stands. Let well enough alone.

Amendment 38, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. JOHNSON

The arguments that were adduced in favour of Amendment 34 need no be repeated, and I simply move Amendment 39: "To delete paragraph (d) in Sub-section (2).”

Mr. HOGAN

As the Deputy stated, we argued this question already.

Amendment put and declared lost.

Amendment 40: "In Sub-section (2)(e), line 27, to insert after the word “authority” the words “otherwise than as tenants thereof.”

PADRAIC O MAILLE

A Chinn Chomhairle, is maith liom an leas-rún so do chur os bhúr gcomhair agus is doigh liom go bhfuil sé an-tabhtach.

I wish to propose this amendment. I think it is a very necessary amendment, as far as many public authorities through the country are concerned. There are a large number of public bodies that hold plots or land around public buildings. If they do not hold those plots of land in fee-simple, if this amendment is not carried, they cannot purchase under the Act. I do not think there is any Deputy in the Dáil who would be opposed to this amendment. It would empower Boards of Guardians and hospitals to purchase under the Act. No further argument is necessary as to why this amendment should be adopted. I, therefore, ask the Dáil to pass it.

Mr. HOGAN

I accept that amendment.

Amendment put and agreed to.

LIAM de ROISTE

I move:—To add at the end of Sub-section (2) (e), line 30, page 8, the following:—“Provided that such exception shall not apply to land of which the former tenant or his representative applies for reinstatement, and such application is approved by the Land Commission after investigation in the prescribed manner.”

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

In this amendment does Deputy de Roiste include Sub-section (2), or merely Sub-section (2), paragraph (e)?

LIAM de ROISTE

The whole Sub-section.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Then it should read: "Provided that this Sub-section shall not apply," etc.

LIAM de ROISTE

Yes. This is another effort to try to get the Land Commission Court to deal with the cases of evicted tenants generally. As far as I read, the general purpose of the Bill is that the Land Commission is given power to deal with land for the purpose of the relief of congestion, which everybody believes is a most desirable purpose within the congested districts to deal with the cases of evicted tenants. The purpose of this is to enable the Land Commission to deal with evicted tenants in other cases as well. As I said, I make no appeal whatever to sentiment, because it is a case of justice where there are good claims that persons be reinstated in their former holdings, and therefore it seems to me there is no reason why the Land Commission should not have powers to investigate such cases, and if the cases are just, reasonable and fair ones, the Land Commission should have power to reinstate the evicted persons upon their holdings. That is the purpose of this and of the amendment I previously proposed. There was an argument put forward that it was giving too much power to the Land Commission to investigate those cases or to disturb persons now on the land. But that argument would equally apply to the other purposes for which the Bill is intended— for the relief of congestion. We are giving power to the Land Commission to disturb people for certain purposes. I maintain there is no reason why we should not give power to them to give justice to people who made possible the previous Land Acts and made possible the placing on the soil within certain limits of congests and other classes, such as landless men.

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy should not jump to the conclusion that evicted tenants are all to be reinstated. A great many of them—the greater percentage of them—have been reinstated, and there will be ample power within the four corners of this Bill to reinstate without taking over land which is not substantially agricultural. The amendment asks us to take up land which is not substantially agricultural or pastural land, such as land in the City of Dublin and land in the towns through the country. Paragraph (c) mentions any parcel of untenanted land which forms a demesne, home farm, park, garden, or pleasure ground. Since 1881 there has not been one holding cleared for the purpose of being made into a demesne, nor one present tenancy. We are to take up land for the relief of such evicted tenants to whom the Land Commission may advance money. But it is quite possible that if an evicted tenant was never evicted, and if he was using his holding at the present moment, that we would be taking that holding from him for the relief of congestion and migrating him elsewhere. Therefore we cannot admit the principle that because he is an evicted tenant we must put him back. That is common-sense.

LIAM de ROISTE

The comment upon that is that it may be common-sense, but it means taking advantage of this Bill and displacing a man who is entitled to land in order to put somebody else in his place. With regard to the comment that the amendment deals with A, B, C, D, and so on, Sub-section 3 gives power to the Land Commission to deal with any land, notwithstanding anything done in the foregoing sub-sections. It does give potential power to the Land Commission to deal with any land for a purpose such as the relief of congestion. Therefore I maintain that the Land Commission should be given the same power for the reinstatement of the evicted tenants.

Amendment put and declared lost.

LIAM de ROISTE

I called for a division.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I did not hear that. We had this question arising before. If a Deputy cannot make himself sufficiently clear when calling for a division, and the motion is declared lost or carried, the matter cannot be reopened.

LIAM de ROISTE

Excuse me, I did not hear yourself.

CATHAL O'SHANNON

Deputy de Roiste did call for a division. I heard him.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I am not disputing that; but I did not hear him.

LIAM de ROISTE

I did not hear half of what you said.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

There is a method of remedying that, perhaps.

Amendment 42: In Sub-Section (3), line 37, to insert after the word "congestion" the words "or for the development of agriculture, or otherwise in the public interest."

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Amendment 42 would have the same effect as Amendment 33, which has been negatived. It is not moved therefore.

Amendment not moved.

Mr. GOREY

I beg to move:—

"To add after Sub-section (4) a new Sub-section as follows:—‘For the purposes of this Section, the County of Cavan shall be deemed to be a Congested Districts County.'"

I move this amendment on behalf of a county which has one of the smallest average tenancy valuations in any county in Ireland. I think the average valuation is about £8. There is a big agricultural population, and I do not see any reason why it should not be put on the same footing as Donegal, Galway, and the other counties. It has been sent down here to me from Cavan to propose it. I am sure Deputy Milroy. who is just rising, will support this amendment.

Mr. MILROY

Deputy Gorey always reminds me of a blend of Ancient Pistol and Don Quixote. He makes a terrific noise which means nothing. He is tilting, like Don Quixote, at windmills. This is one of his windmills. It is quite clear that the Deputy knows very little about this matter. Otherwise we would have been treated to a much longer and much more frantic discourse. I want to know exactly what this means.

Mr. GOREY

It means what it says.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

A very remarkable thing that.

Mr. MILROY

I do not think so; there is more in this than meets the eye.

Mr. GOREY

Let us have it.

Mr. MILROY

The Deputy in his amendment asks that Cavan should be scheduled as a Congested Districts County. I want to know for what purpose. Is it considered by him that this is a speedier way to relieve congestion in Cavan? There is no question whatever about the fact of the serious aspect which congestion presents in this agricultural problem, probably vital and more important than even the price or annuity. This amendment, if carried, would not add to the powers that you are to bring into being one scrap more power of relieving congestion than the Bill already gives.

Mr. GOREY

Why object to it, then?

Mr. MILROY

Why object to it? The people of Cavan are very sensible people. They have shown that by electing me The people of Cavan know what they want, and know what they do not want. One of the things they do not want is to be made the raw material of one of Deputy Gorey's electioneering stunts. That is what is behind it. I happen to be one of the representatives of Cavan. I got a copy from the Secretary of the Farmers' Union to-day of this amendment, but not a single scrap of information as to the grounds on which it was passed. I got this amendment the day it was to be moved. What was the idea of that? If the people in Cavan wished that this matter should be brought before the Dáil, their representative was the proper person to do so. I was never consulted on the matter, and neither was I acquainted with it. Simply I was furnished with a bare amendment to-day and told to toe the line and follow Deputy Gorey. I am not going to follow Deputy Gorey, and I am not going to allow the County Cavan to be made an electioneering platform for Deputy Gorey in this Dáil. I have a few more pearls to throw before Deputy Gorey. The Bill gives every scrap of power necessary to deal with congestion in Cavan and elsewhere. As Deputy Gorey is so keen for the relief of congestion, would he be willing to part with a few of his own large acres to relieve this congestion?

Mr. GOREY

I have enough of my own congests.

Mr. MILROY

I have based my reasons as to how to deal with congestion, and before I sit down I want to ask the Minister if my interpretation is a correct one, for, after all, he is the man responsible for the interpretation of this Bill, and I want to ask him to give me guarantees that what I have said is correct, that there is within this Bill, as already drafted, the power to deal fully and successfully with the congestion in Cavan. After all, the main thing is not the question of scheduling districts as congested areas, but rather the question of solving congestion. The problem of congestion, too, is not going to be affected by indulging in political stunts here or elsewhere.

Mr. GOREY

I heard great applause with respect to the reference to political stunts. Coming from Deputy Milroy, that certainly is very refreshing. This amendment was sent down to me from Cavan, and has been put up by me, and to my great astonishment I heard to-day publicly, and yesterday privately, that this was an election stunt. If this amendment is wrong, it has not been pointed out what is wrong about it, and why it is a political stunt.

Mr. MILROY

It is superfluous.

Mr. GOREY

What is the objection to it, then?

Mr. MILROY

The amendment is unnecessary.

Mr. GOREY

Because it is unnecessary it is a political stunt. I thought that the Deputy stood up here to give us some explanation of the amendment. He has not done that. He stood up to tell us what the amendment was, and sat down without doing so. The only thing he has made clear is that it is an electioneering stunt. I do not see what bearing it has on an election. I would be very happy to hear it, but so far I have not heard the explanation. Would the Deputy please tell us what it means?

Mr. MILROY

I shall. This amendment was put forward in the expectation that I would vote against it, and therefore become unpopular with my constituents in Cavan. I am going to vote against it, and face that unpopularity.

Mr. WILSON

The question really at issue is, does congestion exist in Cavan, and would the constituents of Deputy Milroy be benefitted by having Cavan scheduled as a congested area? It is not a question of whether it is an election stunt or not, or whether he is to represent Cavan. The real question at issue is whether the constituents of Deputy Milroy in Cavan would be benefitted by the amendment.

Mr. HOGAN

That is the real question, and the answer is they would not. As every Deputy in the Dáil knows, adding Cavan to the congested districts counties would not give us the smallest scrap of additional power for the relief of congestion which we have not got already. By the powers we have already we can take every perch of untenanted land in Cavan for the relief of congests, and we cannot do more. We have that power, even though it is not a congested county. If it were made a congested county it would not make the slightest difference.

Mr. GOREY

Will it not give you quicker machinery and more expedition? Is not that a difference?

Mr. HOGAN

The objection is that the amendment is superfluous, and it is an extraordinary thing that we should reach Clause 21 without knowing the terms in it.

Mr. GOREY

The question, then, may be asked: Why were there congested areas for any of the counties? Why is there a distinction in the Bill? Several counties in Ireland were scheduled as congested areas. The valuation is quoted. This county of Cavan comes down to the same rateable value as the other counties in the schedule. They come down to a smaller farming area. What, then, is the objection? One effect of being scheduled as a congested area is it will give you quicker machinery and more expedition. Will not that be in favour of getting the county schedules?

Mr. HOGAN

No.

Mr. GOREY

Why?

Mr. HOGAN

When you sit down I will tell you.

Mr. GOREY

We have not been answered that, and the answer has been kept to the last. Will not the date be an earlier date, and will it not be definite? I cannot follow Deputy Milroy at all. The bald assertion that it is a political stunt is the only thing that is clear. Judging from the look of the Deputy, it certainly is the only thing that is clear.

Mr. HOGAN

It is not at all necessary or essential, or does not follow from the Bill, that the land in the congested county should be taken first. Whatever land is convenient will be taken first. We found the Congested Districts Board there and left it there. These districts were explored, and it has been found that all the land available in those districts will be necessary. Hence we acquired them as a matter of course. One should be clear on that point. We are yet to explore all the other counties, and we are taking full powers to take any land we require to take in County Cavan when we have our explorations completed.

Mr. WILSON

The Bill provides that all untenanted land in the congested districts taken, and any other untenanted land which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, will be required before a certain date, has to be declared before an appointed date. Would it not be better if this particular congested area were scheduled? You would have all untenanted land in Cavan ready for parcelling out among the people who require it. Would not that be an advantage to the Bill, would it not help along this burning question of congestion, and would it not place the Minister for Agriculture, or the man in charge of the Land Commission, in a better position to have it decided then and there, that all the untenanted lands in Cavan were ready for parcelling?

Mr. HOGAN

It was intended to take up untenanted land in the County Cavan before any other untenanted land in Ireland, and that is the real reason why I am resisting this amendment.

Mr. WILSON

You did not say that.

Mr. MILROY

Why not schedule Kilkenny and Wicklow as congested districts?

Mr. GOREY

They are not congested.

PADRAIC O MAILLE

I think that instead of adding additional congested counties, we should move to abolish congestion in all counties. I do not see the object of this amendment at all, because in the Bill, as the Minister for Agriculture has stated, all untenanted land can be taken up for distribution amongst the tenants, and I thoroughly agree with the attitude taken up by Deputy Milroy towards this question. It is not improving the position of the unpurchased tenants in Cavan a single bit. Their cases can be dealt with equally well under the provisions of the Bill as if this amendment were adopted. I think the amendment is altogether unnecessary, and that it should not be adopted.

Mr. DOYLE

There was nothing at all to prevent Deputy O Maille, if he thought to wipe out congestion in its entirety, to put in an amendment to that effect, but he has not done so. He now states that it should be done, and I hope it will come on on the Report Stage.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 18; Níl, 35.

Tá

• Donchadh Ó Guaire.
• Seán Ó Dunnín.
• Domhnall Ó Mocháin.
• Tomas de Nógla.
• Darghal Figes.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Seán Ó Ruanaidh.
• Liam Ó Briain.
• Tomás Ó Conaill.
• Aodh Ó Cúlacháin.
• Sémus Éabhróid.
• Risteárd Mac Liam.
• Cathal Ó Seanáin.
• Domhnall Ó Broin.
• Domhnall Ó Muirgheasa.
• Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
• Micheál Ó Dubhghaill.
• Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin.

Níl

• Gearóid Ó Súileabháin.
• Uaitéar Mac Cumhaill.
• Seán Ó Maolruaidh.
• Micheál Ó hAonghusa.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
• Seosamh Mac Suibhne.
• Peadar Mac a' Bháird.
• Seoirse Ghabhain Uí Dhubhthaigh.
• Seán Mac Garaidh.
• Micheál de Staineas.
• Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
• Éarnán Altún.
• Sir Séamus Craig.
• Liam Thrift.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Pádraig Ó hÓgáin.
• Pádraic Ó Máille.
• Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
• Fionán Ó Loingsigh.
• Séamus Ó Cruadhlaoich.
• Croistóir Ó Broin.
• Caoimhghin Ó hUigín.
• Proinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus Ó Dóláin.
• Aindriú Ó Láimbhín.
• Proinsias Mag Aonghusa.
• Eamon Ó Dúgáin.
• Peadar Ó hAodha.
• Séamus Ó Murchadha.
• Liam Mac Sioghaird.
• Tomás Ó Domhnall.
• Earnán de Blahgd.
• Uinseann de Faoite.
• Séamus de Burca.
• Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde.

Amendment declared lost.

Motion made and question put: "That Section 21 as amended stand part of the Bill."

Agreed.

SECTION 22.

(1) As respects tenanted land the price of each holding shall be a capital sum, hereinafter called "the standard price," of such amount that interest thereon at the rate of 4¾ per cent. per annum will be equal to the standard purchase annuity for the holding as ascertained in accordance with the first schedule to this Act together with a contribution by the State to the price calculated at 10 per cent. on, and added to, the standard price.

(2) As regards intenanted land the price shall, in default of agreement, be such an amount as may be fixed by the Land Commission (other than the Judicial Commissioner), or by the Judicial Commissioner on appeal from the Land Commission, and in fixing such sum regard shall be had to the fair value of the land to the Land Commission and the owner respectively.

Mr. JOHNSON

I move: In Sub-Section (1) to delete the words "together with a contribution by the State to the price, calculated at 10 per cent. on, and added to, the standard price." The matter dealt with in this amendment was discussed to some extent on the Resolution, and I suppose it will be considered waste of time to go very far into the discussion a second time. But I think it necessary to re-state shortly the objections to adding 10 per cent. for the benefit of the landlords. I think it was Deputy Magennis who tried to draw comparison between the bonus to the landlords and State contribution to the Unemployment Fund, and his friends of the Freeman's Journal took the cue and asked were we prepared to agree to the cancellation of the Unemployment Fund, as we demanded the cancellation of this bonus to the landlord. On the same terms we are. If the unemployment Fund, as we demanded the cancellation of this bonus to the landlord. On the same terms we are. If the unemployed workman, as I said, wishes to be put in as good a position as the unemployed landlord, then it would be a very fair exchange for the abolition of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The proposal of this Bill is to relieve the present landlords of their responsibilities as administrators of their estates, and they are to be recompensed for that disemployment by a payment in perpetuity of 65 per cent. of their present income from the land. I think they are making a very good bargain, and that they are being treated very generously, and if it could be afforded to every other citizen who was compulsorily disemployed then I would have no objection to giving the same kind of treatment to landlords. Unless we are thinking of the landlord as doing something for the rent he is drawing we can only think of him as having had a privilege conferred by the law which allows him to draw from the producer of wealth from the soil the annual toll of privately-imposed taxes. If that is the position, if that is the privilege, and it is that privilege which is being purchased from him by the State, then I repeat, what I said the other day, that what is being considered by the promoters of the Bill to be a fair sum to be paid annually for a number of years by the occupier should be the sum which is to be paid over to the landlord, and no more.

If, on the other hand, we are to conceive of the landlord as having given something in exchange for his rental, if, in fact, he has been a useful citizen, and is fulfilling useful functions as a landlord, but that you no longer require his services, then he is in the position of an employed man who has lost his job, and it is not usual to pay to an employed man who has lost his job 65 per cent., plus something as compensation, in perpetuity. I do not know whether anyone will say in this Dáil I should the landlord has fulfilled a useful function and that his payment by way of rent is payment for services rendered. If there is such a one in the Dáil I should like to hear his defence of the landlord, and some explanation of what his service is. On the other hand, if he has not given any service, if this thing we are buying is merely the legal right to draw rent, then again I contend that the figure which has been deemed to be a fair charge upon the working occupier should not be exceeded in the payment to the landlord. The small sum, which was described as round about £40,000 or £50,000 a year, if that is an accurate estimate of the amount that will be called for, might do very much better service, and might be very much more usefully expended for the next generation or two than by paying it over to the landlords, even though those landlords may be people in America who invested money or may be charitable institutions or any public bodies. They took the risk with the purchase; they knew the position of Irish land; they knew the probabilities in regard to land purchase; they knew that there was a risk, and they had no right even to expect that the State would add to what the tenant might be deemed to be capable of paying. Notwithstanding all that was said upon the Resolution empowering this money to be paid, I still contend that there is no case, no satisfactory case, put forward to make a charge upon the State of this 10 per cent. to be added to the standard price, and I therefore move the deletion of these words: "together with the contribution by the State to the price, calculated at 10 per cent., to be added to the standard price."

Mr. SEARS

It has been said several times during this debate that this Bill is in the nature of a bargain——

Mr. JOHNSON

Between whom?

Mr. SEARS

The Minister for Agriculture has been congratulated upon striking a happy medium between the terms asked for on the one side and the other. If I mistake not, Deputy Johnson, himself, on the last day admitted it was in the nature of a bargain and that being so, it is waste of time to trouble the Dáil with disquisitions on first principles. Now, anyone considering the completion of Land Purchase in Ireland would certainly have that consideration governed by what took place under the former Purchase Acts. Under the 1903 Act there was a bonus. There was a considerable amount of money sanctioned by the State and approved by the people generally and by all classes of taxpayers, as a useful and necessary gift, in the phrase used then "to bridge the gap." Now we have argued on the tenants' side that the policy of 1903 should be continued and should be carried out to completion, and if we argued that on the tenants' side, as it not fair that the policy pursued under the 1903 Act on the landlords' side should also be carried to completion? Is there no necessity for a bonus under this Act? Now, take £100 rental; under the 1903 Act the average price paid for that was £2,585. Under this Act the tenant is only giving the landlord for the purchase of £100 rental £1,360, and, with the addition of the bonus, that only comes to £1,580 or £1,570, I am not quite certain. Certainly if you compare the price £2,585 with the figure £1,580, you must admit there is a great disparity. If there was a bonus necessary in 1903 to make the 1903 Act function, then much more so is a bonus necessary under this Act, and if the principle was fair in 1903, and was sanctioned by the Nation, what reason is there now for objecting to it? I say there is no reason. We are in justice bound to it. There is a national consideration—to heal a great wound and to bring a long quarrel to an end. All classes are interested in bringing that quarrel to an end. Even the humblest worker in Ireland, whether a worker in the town or in the country, is vitally interested in this question, and he is vitally interested in seeing peace established. It means a better chance for the future for him to have this Act passed, and passed as satisfactorily as possible. I cannot imagine the humblest agricultural labourer in the country, seeing the landlords and tenants about to come to an arrangement, and, then, seeing Deputy Johnson coming on the scene striving to break up the bargain, to drive them asunder again, trying to delay the completion of this arrangement suggested by the Minister for Agriculture in this Bill. I cannot imagine him saying that Deputy Johnson was speaking for him.

I think we should take the Bill as a whole; it is a fair bargain. It follows on the lines of the Act of 1903, and it makes a very good attempt to do justice to both sides, as far as justice can be done. We would all agree with Deputy Johnson if we were dealing with virgin soil and could wipe away all the old claims, all those claims and all those precedents and rights which have accumulated, and which cannot be wiped out so easily. I think this Bill makes a fair attempt at justice and this amendment should not be accepted, as it would destroy the Bill and throw us back into the melting pot and defeat the intentions of all sides.

CATHAL O'SHANNON

I think Deputy Sears will find that when the agricultural labourer makes himself vocal he will be found voting with Deputy Johnson, particularly as regards this amendment. The analogy between the 1903 Act and this Act does not stand at all. I am sure Deputy Sears knows perfectly well that there was not the unanimous sanction of the nation, or even of the taxpayers of Ireland, in 1903 to the bonus to the landlords. The conditions then were quite different to what they are now. In the first place, it was the British Parliament that brought in that voluntary purchase and sale Act. The credit behind it was not merely Irish, but British. That brings me to the question of the credit behind this particular Act, but I am not going to deal with that now. A good many people in Ireland were fooled into the belief that it was the British who in the long run were actually paying for the purchase of the Irish tenancies. That, of course, was not true. This, on the other hand is an Irish Parliament which is dealing with an Irish problem. The money involved is Irish money, and nobody, as Deputy Johnson says, in this Dáil, whatever about other places, will get up and say that the landlords, as a class, did real service to the nation in the past, or, as a matter of fact, fulfilled the duties that were fulfilled by landlords in other countries. They did not do that, and they have not done anything that makes them deserving of special treatment in this case, even in the small matter of improvements. It is notorious that, whereas English landlords looked after the improvements on the holdings of their tenants, and in many cases helped to capitalise their tenancies, there is not anything like that in the records of landlordism in Ireland. With the exception of a few who used to be called good and decent landlords, there is nothing creditable, decent, or serviceable in the whole record of landlordism in Ireland. If there was there might be something to be said for this bonus. Deputy Megennis and some others the other day advanced a rather ingenious theory that this 10 per cent. is really not in relief of the landlord at all, but in relief of the tenant; that the position of the tenants is so bad that they are not able to pay a fair price to the landlord, and because of that the community as a whole must make up what the tenants cannot pay. Apply that—and it is a logical thing for any man to do—apply the principle anyway generally and you will find that the Minister for Finance, at all events, will not be prepared to carry out that theory in other respects. You have certain disputes at the moment. There is one, for instance, in Waterford, where farmers say that they are not in a position to meet the demands that are made upon them by certain of their employees. If that is the case, why, then, should the Ministry of Finance not come along and put down what the farmers are not able to pay their employees. It will be said, I suppose, "Oh, in that case it is the labourers who are concerned, but in this case it is the landlords who are concerned, and that makes all the difference in the world." It is a surprising thing to me that Deputy Sears, above any man in the Dáil, should stand up in defence of the landlords. He knows better than I know, because he was in the movement at the time and I was not, that there was a good deal of dispute about the bonus under the 1903 Act, and he says this Act is merely to complete that. I do not think it is. It is an Act for the completion of land purchase, and in his really serious moments Deputy Sears would not, I think, agree that the 1903 Act was an Act such as an Irish Parliament, had there been an Irish Parliament at the time, would have passed. No, because there were other parties concerned; but now you have no parties concerned except three—the tenants, the landlords, and the Irish people. With Deputy Johnson, I object to pay the landlords out of the pockets of the Irish people.

Professor MAGENNIS

I am afraid I must disclaim the credit for affording Deputy Johnson a text upon which to hang a disquisition on property, on rights, and on the relation of the State with regard to both of these. It was not I who suggested this false parallel, as he called it, between the labourers and the land question.

Mr. JOHNSON

I am sorry if I made a mistake.

Professor MAGENNIS

There is really nothing to regret on the part of Deputy Johnson, although there may be something on my part. Some people have very peculiar notions with regard to property. A man rang up a pawnbroker between the hours of 12 midnight and 1 a.m., and when the pawnbroker at last appeared at the window the disturber of his peace asked, "What o'clock is it?" The pawnbroker said, "Did you take me out of bed merely for that?" and the other replied as well as he could, "Well, you have got my watch." Evidently some extraordinarily fantastic doctrine of the rights of man, the rights of a State, or the rights of people has got possession of Deputy Johnson's mind. We have in his speech, and in the speech of Deputy O'Shannon, all sorts of misleading analogies. I remember on a previous occasion Deputy Wilson and I crossed swords with regard to the imaginative character of the people and as to the desirability of training and developing the imagination. Imagination to-day runs riot in analogies. The first and most misleading of them is that by which a landlord is made to appear an employee who is now to be discharged. That is a delightful example of begging the question. Deputy Johnson is, of course, covertly formulating a doctrine which is one of the very latest put forward by a Law Professor in France, the substitution of the idea that rights are the corelative of duties, that rights are the corelative of functions, and only in so far as a man does some work for the community, has he any rights against the community, and that the measure of his right is the measure of the value of the functions which he discharges. Now, that may be a perfectly sound doctrine but it is not the doctrine that the world at large has accepted.

Mr. JOHNSON

It may be if we help it.

Professor MAGENNIS

Under cover of an amendment to the Land Purchase Act, to attempt the initiation of a new crusade is certainly not unambitious. There is such a thing as reasonable expectation. The doctrine of this has been already developed by Deputy Johnson himself. Therefore, I think I am right in regarding him as believing in it, for I am sure he would not teach any doctrine which he had not himself accepted. It is one of the foundations in all social intercourse in all steady institutions of society, that where a man is encouraged to entertain certain reasonable expectations in regard to life, it would be unjust, immoral, that is to say, to defeat these expectations. That no one knows better than Deputy Johnson, is the basis of a great many things that are the source of convenience in social life. For example, the whole law of estoppel is based upon it. If I permit a man to begin building a hotel on a piece of land, the title deeds of which are in my possession without his knowledge, and I look on and allow him to put up this huge fabric, I cannot then subsequently go into Court, having looked on and allowed him to do this thing; in technical jargon I am estopped. Suppose we were to take an analogy which has escaped the imagination of those Deputies, that landlordism was piracy——

Mr. O'CALLAGHAN

Hear, hear.

Professor MAGENNIS

I am delighted to know there is one member of the Labour Party who is not afraid to put it into explicit language. Suppose the pirate is retiring from business compulsorily——

Mr. O'CALLAGHAN

At the yardarm.

Professor MAGENNIS

Is society obliged to compensate him for the loss? Obviously not, because, in the opinion of all right-minded men, the trade in which he was engaged was anti-social and immoral. Now, it has not yet been accepted by any reasonable body of men that private property, more particularly private property in land, is immoral, and until the Irish people who, as Deputy O'Shannon rightly says, are those concerned in this transaction, and the only people concerned, have been convinced that property, which is a necessary appanage to the development of personality, is an immoral and unrighteous thing, a doctrinaire is not to come and make his peculiar doctrine an absolute bar to the solution of a great problem, which brings peace and security to the whole Nation. As Deputy O'Shannon is so keen about logic, let us have some logic; I mean let us have some of his peculiar brand of logic, namely, deduce conclusions that you have first of all made up your mind to draw, by arranging to have premises from which these conclusions can be drawn. That is the conception of logic to which I am referring. The nation owns the land——

Mr. O'CALLAGHAN

Hear, hear.

Professor MAGENNIS

When I quoted that a few days ago, Deputy Johnson said "hear, hear." Some of his henchmen say "hear, hear" again. Therefore, I am entitled to regard that as the accepted doctrine of the occupants of the benches on the left. Is there any meaning in ownership?

Mr. JOHNSON

Yes.

Professor MAGENNIS

Very good; what is it?

Mr. JOHNSON

Use.

Professor MAGENNIS

Control of the disposition and use; either ownership involves that; and if it does not involve that it is an idle word.

Mr. JOHNSON

Hear, hear. Ask the men behind you.

Professor MAGENNIS

The owners of the land are the Irish Nation, and in this Parliament, representative of them, they decide, for peace and future expansion, to convey to the tenant-occupier such control as is conventionally called ownership for the most beneficial use of the land, and, according to these Deputies, that is not legitimate.

Mr. JOHNSON

Who said that?

Professor MAGENNIS

Pardon me. I allowed you to develop your argument. It has become a set practice amongst the occupants of the benches on the left, from the moment I begin to speak until I sit down, to attempt to cultivate dialogue.

Mr. JOHNSON

On a point of explanation, I do not desire to interrupt the Deputy, or to prevent him developing his argument, but he has made a statement interpreting things we said which is certainly not correct.

Professor MAGENNIS

I am open to correction.

Mr. JOHNSON

I miss the point.

Professor MAGENNIS

It must be an exceptionally serious misrepresentation when it escapes the memory of the offended Deputy within the thousandth part of a second.

Mr. JOHNSON

If the Deputy will repeat it, I will question it.

Professor MAGENNIS

Very good. I was speaking about this 10 per cent. bonus being contributed by the State, and I had got thus far in the argument, that according to Deputy O'Shannon and Deputy Johnson the Nation is the owner of the land. According to Deputy O'Shannon nobody but the Irish people is concerned in this matter, which is dealing with the land that is theirs. I argued if that were so, any real exercise of ownership on the part of the Nation involved so dealing with the land as to secure the utmost production from it by way of benefit.

Mr. JOHNSON

Hear, hear.

Professor MAGENNIS

That was accepted by Deputy Johnson. I was invited to preach that doctrine to the Farmers' Party behind me—preach to those who already hold that, and have held nothing else but that for generations. I argued that when it becomes a question of the machinery by which this transfer of the lands to such men as would make the most of it for the benefit of the Nation as a totality, that this Parliament was entitled, in the name of the Irish Nation, whose legislative agent it is, to make such terms or such arrangements as render that feasible. Now, that is the stage at which I have arrived.

One of the obstacles to the feasibility of that arrangement is that there are other citizens in the Free State who hold a different doctrine with regard to the ownership of the soil and its disposition from what is generally entertained by the Irish people, that, as Deputy Sears put it, we are not in fact dealing with virgin soil, we are not, as I put it the other day, legislating in a vacuum. We are not theorists. We are dealing with facts as we find them, and as we find them we have a class of men who for centuries have been regarded as the land owners. Nobody ever declared that immoral. Many people have thought it undesirable and the sentiment of the Irish people, traditional and otherwise, is against it. Most progressive communities are in favour of peasant proprietorship, but the fundamental fact that we have to reckon with is that this class is the recognised—conventionally recognised —owner of the land. Unless an arrangement can be come to with that class, this Purchase Act becomes impossible. That is the situation as I envisage it. We could have no Land Purchase Bill without the condition precedent of an agreement with the landowners. That agreement was come to. I allege that as a fact. If it is not a fact it can be controverted. If it is a fact that an agreement was come to, and that that agreement is the basis of this proposed legislation, then what is the defence for a proposition that we who are always vocal with regard to the Gaelic tradition, the revival of our Gaelic past, and all the rest of it, that we should proceed to break covenants, to turn our back upon arrangements entered into, and to say—"Now, we are going to deal with this just as we please. We have a different view of proprietary rights from what you entertained, and what you have been accustomed to accept." In other words, what we are doing here is what practical men do. A man comes along and creates a nuisance by playing a barrel organ in front of my house when I want quiet. It is easier to pay him something to go round the corner—much easier——

Mr. O'CALLAGHAN

Bribery.

Professor MAGENNIS

Bribery; that is the word. It is easier to do that than to expostulate with him about rights, and to enter into a long disquisition showing that his is an unnecessary function, that a right-ordered community has no room for an Italian barrel organ player there, and that if there was need for recreative music we should have a Gaelic piper instead of a barrel organ player. It is much easier to come to an arrangement with him than to do that. That is what practical people do. The arrangement that is come to here is an arrangement to pay a 10 per cent. bonus. Deputy O'Shannon, whose party is so sensitive about a quotation from them not being verbatim, and so sensitive about the drawing of obvious conclusions from their own statements, put into my mouth a statement which I did not use. If it had supported any argument of his I could have forgiven him, but he simply makes the gratuitous statement. I declared that the proper way to look at the payment of a 10 per cent. bonus was that that was done in relief of the farmer. That is not the same thing as saying it is paying money which the farmer cannot pay. It means that the State is paying money in order to bring about agreement between two clashing interests, between two antagonistic demands, and as our interests is in the farmer and in the setting up of peasant proprietorship, naturally I consider that the money I am paying as a taxpayer, in this regard, is money paid for the sake of a settlement. If somebody chooses to prejudice the situation by saying it is the landlord walks away with it in his pocket, he is welcome to do so. There is hardly a single transaction in life that could not be parodied by anybody who would give his ingenuity to the purpose. It is a complete parody of this transaction to say that 10 per cent. is being extracted from the pockets of the Irish people to fill the pockets of the landlords who have exacted so much from us already. I grant the exaction, I grant the iniquity of the past but I am not dealing with the affairs of the past. I am dealing with the present as it shapes the future. The money has to be paid by the State for the advantage which accrues to the State from the bargain thus secured. That is the common sense of the thing. That is the equity of the thing.

Mr. JOHNSON

The statement of Deputy Magennis which I objected to—I was momentarily confused by his magnetic powers—was that we objected to the State transferring the land to such men as would make the best use of it. That I deny absolutely. We make no such objection in any shape or form. On the contrary, what we desire is to ensure that the State will transfer the land to those who will make the best use of it, and, if necessary, take it from those who refuse to make good use of it. So far as I am concerned, State ownership means the right and duty of the State to find the best means of making use of it, and I am prepared to admit even the claim that the best use that can be made of land in this period of history in Ireland is by peasant proprietorship. But there is not the slightest justification for the Deputy saying that we object to the State transferring the land to such men as would make the best use of it. The Deputy has said that this Land Purchase Bill would not have seen the light without an agreement with the landlords. Deputy Magennis may know more about these things than the Dáil. But the Dáil does not know that there has been any agreement with the landlords to pay 10 per cent. bonus over and above what the tenants can pay as annuity. No such agreement has seen the light and the Deputy is not justified in saying that this Land Bill would not have seen the light if there had not been previously an agreement with the landlords. So far as the public know, no such agreement was found possible.

Therefore the Bill was brought in in the way in which it has been brought in. So that there is no agreement with the landlords, and all the arguments of the Deputy regarding breach of covenants therefore fall to the ground. There has been no covenant. The Dáil, on behalf of the nation, has not yet made any covenant with the landlords to pay a ten per cent. bonus, or to add 10 per cent. to the price. Therefore, there is no breach of agreement or any throwing over of covenants by the acceptance of this amendment. So that part, too, of the Deputy's argument falls to the ground. The proposition is that the barrel organ player shall be removed. When the outraged resident with the musical ear, who is being disturbed, asks the barrel organ player to go away, and when the latter refuses calls a policeman, the policeman says "Please go away, here is 6d." The policeman has to pay the bonus to the barrel organ player. That is Professor Magennis's argument—that the disturbed resident who desires the barrel organ player to be sent to another neighbour shall be recompensed by the policeman. Deputy Magennis says there is such a thing as reasonable expectation, that because the landlords built upon a reasonable expectation it is not right of the Dáil to refuse to levy a tax of ten per cent. of the price upon the community. I want to know what grounds the landlords have for reasonably expecting that this 10 per cent. was to be put into this Bill? Not the slightest; not the semblance of a shadow of ground for reasonably expecting, or unreasonably expecting, or expecting in any degree, that this Section was to be put in the Bill.

Professor MAGENNIS

Of course not.

Mr. JOHNSON

The landlord contends that this is not a reasonable price that is being offered to him. Was the reasonable expectation something that the landlord says is reasonable? Is that the argument?

Professor MAGENNIS

No, of course not.

Mr. JOHNSON

Then it is not what the landlord expected to be reasonable that is the expectation which is to be satisfied. The reasonable expectation was an expectation that the landlord had in his mind. If not that, who had this expectation? I assert that the expectation may well have been that such sum as a tenant might reasonably be expected to be able to pay in the next fifty years should be the sum which the landlord might reasonably be expected to draw, but nothing more. Deputy Magennis talked about dissertations on private property. Private property was not thought to be immoral in Ireland. He went on to say that it was a necessary appanage of personality. I accept that proposition, and, with that definition, I am prepared to uphold private property to the uttermost. But I deny that any of these landlords' rights spoken of were necessary appanages of personality. It is simply a legal right to draw rent, which legal right is being interfered with by this Bill. To what extent is it to be interfered with? That is the whole question. There is no question of rights, no question of morality, it is a question of degree of interference. Then we come down to a practical question. What is the degree of interference? The proposal is that there should be a certain income guaranteed. The Ministry think that that income can only be made up by an annuity paid by the occupier, with the addition of 10 per cent. I deny that there is any necessity for the 10 per cent. There is no question or morality, no question of private property. No question of landlordism, as a matter of fact, enters into it in this respect at any rate. It is a question as to whether the extent of the interference with these property rights, with these legal rights to draw rent, is of such a nature that it cannot be met by the payment over of the sum drawn in annuities from the tenant. I say that that should be quite enough, and I am prepared to accept the view of the Minister that the amount that the tenants are able to pay, or are likely to be able to pay, is the amount which is embodied in the Bill. Consequently I deny the equity of adding this sum of 10 per cent., and I ask the Dáil to vote against the proposal in the Bill, and to vote for the amendment.

Professor MAGENNIS

Deputy Johnson is undoubtedly right in saying that if I attribute to him the declaration that he is opposed to peasant proprietary, then I am uttering what certainly is not true. But surely one so versed, so proficient in disputation as the Deputy, is aware that one may show the falsity of an adversary's position by drawing from the conclusions to which his argument commits him. The Deputy interrupted me, as I pointed out at the time, before I had developed my argument completely. I was engaged in showing that if he refused the 10 per cent. bonus then he put up a barrier to the settlement—in other words, he was opposing the transfer of the land to the tenant. I see no incompatability between these two things. All that I accuse Deputy Johnson of is inconsistency in argument. While he proclaims, and rightly so, that he is an advocate of such transfer of the land as secures the best usage of it, yet my contention is that if he were allowed his way, what he proposes to do would make it impossible to secure that best usage. As regards my argument about reasonable expectations, I thought it unnecessary to develop that in full and that the Deputy would see the application of it. But I have completely misled him. He thought that when I spoke of reasonable expectation it was a reasonable expectation on the part of the landlord of 10 per cent. That was not the application of it. I was arguing against the view—no matter how hostile one may be to landlordism as we knew it in Ireland—that landlordism and piracy were identifiable in any view of society. I pointed out that when men are allowed to engage, by the sense of the community, in an occupation generation after generation, that reasonable expectations are created. That is a wholly different thing. There are promises which a man may make and which are not enforcible in a court of law. There is no valuable consideration. Yet, in the law court of conscience they would be enforcible if there were any external sanction applicable. There is a reasonable expectation among men, in their intercourse from day to day with other men, that promises will be kept, although there is no legal sanction to enforce the keeping of the promises. I said that all our life, the life of intercourse, is based to a large extent upon the non-defeating of reasonable expectations which conduct and custom have created in a body of men. That is a different thing altogether from alleging that the landlords had a reasonable expectation created for them of receiving 10 per cent. I had no intention of suggesting any such thing. With regard to agreement, if I said anything that purported to declare that a specific agreement, a date and an hour for which could be given, was the basis of this Land Purchase Bill then I must withdraw it because it would be untrue. What I am referring to is the long line of negotiations of which we are all more or less cognisant—as regards myself, less cognisant—the long line of negotiations between landlord and tenant and various interveners between them. We know that before the Partition Act of 1920 there was an attempt at creating an understanding. We know—if we had no other authority we had the excellent authority of Deputy Gorey yesterday— that there were attempts at agreement, and we all know perfectly well that the attempt to reach something like perfect agreement antecedent to the introduction of this measure broke down. Deputy Gorey was one of the protagonists in the effort to reach agreement. I am not ignorant of all that. I am ignorant of a great many things, but I have a vague knowledge that that is the fact. Again let us not deal with things in a vacuum. It is enough for me that I deal with abstractions as a lecturer on metaphysics, but am I to be haunted with abstract discussions, spectres of the abstract, in every department of life? This position taken up by the landlord and that position taken up by the tenant, each of them has a history. All these have antecedents, and what they are can only be understood by considering them in relation to their antecedents. Take the whole concrete, complex as it is. Therefore I say, and I repeat it without fear of being contradicted, that no Land Purchase Bill capable of being put into intelligible words, and of being reasonably adopted by any reasonable body of men would be possible at all if it were not for these historical antecedents that have led up to and made the thing possible. That is a very different thing from alleging that there is something in the nature of a bargain—vague and indefinite, perhaps, but still something in the nature of a bargain. There is to great a tendency I say, with all respect to Deputy Johnson, to take the literal meaning of words without considering the context that gives them their colour and value. I am not going to repeat even by way of refutation of Deputy Johnson any doctrine about private property. The fact that we have to deal with is simpler than to come to a conclusion about private property. These landlords may be regarded as the enemy. Suppose we look upon them for convenience in that light. Although they are and will be I hope citizens of the Saorstát, let us call them the enemy. Now, in all disputes there are only three ways of reaching a conclusion. One is by war or by force, to use words that are not international in significance. Another is by law, the exercise of right reason, and the third is by one of the parties surrendering absolutely. That is to say, the dispute is settled by the dispute removing itself out of existence altogether. Neither of the disputants in the present case will resort to that easy solution, and consequently we have either to settle this dispute by force or by law. Force was tried from time to time. I am old enough to remember the moonlighters. I remember the land war. I also know that force was tried from the other side. I have read about the clearances of Westmeath, and I know what the plantings were in my own county. The time has arrived for compromise, for arrangement. "Compromise and barter," says Burke, "are the source of all the enjoyment in life.""We give and we take and we choose," he says, "rather to be happy citizens than to be subtle disputants." When that choice is forced upon me by my friends on my left, to be a happy citizen or the subtle disputant, I prefer to be the subtle disputant only in the lecture room.

Mr. JOHNSON

And we are the happy citizens.

Mr. HOGAN

I have nothing to add to what has been said. I want to point out, however, that we are not discussing price on this amendment. What we are discussing is whether a contribution should be paid or not. That has really got nothing to do with the question of price. Whether the price is big or small the same question arises. Deputy Johnson has altered his position from that which he took up on the discussion that took place on the Money Resolution. His position then was that if £1,500 was a fair price the tenant should pay the whole of it, and if £1,368 was a fair price then that is all that should be paid. I said that I accepted that position, and we need not, I repeat, now go into the question of price. It will come up later on the Schedule. What Deputy Johnson has forgotten is that we have got to borrow the money to pay the price. Assume, for the sake of argument, that £1,505 is a fair price. As I say we have to borrow the money at 4½ per cent. We could borrow it before at 2¾ or 3 per cent. We made up our minds that we would save the tenants from the consequences of dearer money, and that is why we pay this contribution. That is a very simple explanation, and it is the long and the short of it. The same argument would hold good whether the price were £1,368 or £1,500. We would be equally wrong and equally right in either case. What we did make up our minds to in any event, whatever the price was, we would save the tenant from the increase in the price of money that resulted from the European War.

There is not one single argument that existed in 1903 that could justify the bonus or what we call the bonus in 1903, and there is not one of these arguments now advanced. If the only arguments to justify the bonus were the arguments to justify it for 1903, then we would not have defended it. I am giving away on the point of bonuses. If the circumstances were the same, if the European War had never occurred, there would have been absolutely no reason whatever for the State paying a single penny, and Deputy Johnson's dilemma would have been unanswerable. There is only one argument in favour of this contribution which was not in existence in 1903, and which is in existence now notwithstanding all the arguments about 1903. That is that the European War has occurred and money has reached 4½ per cent., and having regard to the fact that the tenants were unlucky in not purchasing under the 1903 Act, and before the war broke out, we came to the conclusion that we would save them from the consequences of this dear money, and we paid them this bonus, and it is upon that basis that we are justifying it.

Amendment put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 11; Níl, 39.

Tá

• Tomás de Nógla.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Liam Ó Briain.
• Tomás Ó Conaill.
• Aodh Ó Cúlacháin.
• Séamus Éabhróid.
• Seán Ó Laidhin.
• Cathal Ó Seanáin.
• Domhnall Ó Muirgheasa.
• Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
• Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin.

Níl

• Donchadh Ó Guaire.
• Gearóid Ó Súileabháin.
• Uaitear Mac Cumhaill.
• Seán O Maolruaidh.
• Seán Ó Duinnín.
• Micheál Ó hAonghusa.
• Domhnall Ó Mocháin.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
• Seosamh Mac Suibhne.
• Peadar Mac a' Bháird.
• Seán Mac Garaidh.
• Micheál de Staineas.
• Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
• Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
• Earnán Altun.
• Sir Seamus Craig.
• Liam Thrift.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Pádraig Ó Máille.
• Páraic Ó Máille.
• Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
• Piaras Béaslaí.
• Fionán Ó Loingsigh.
• Séamus Ó Cruadhlaoich.
• Criostóir Ó Broin.
• Risteárd Mac Liam.
• Proinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus Ó Dóláin.
• Aindriú Ó Láimhín.
• Proinsias Mag Aonghusa.
• Éamon Ó Dugáin.
• Peadar Ó hAodha.
• Séamus Ó Murchadha.
• Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde.
• Laim Mac Sioghaird.
• Tomás Ó Domhnaill.
• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Uinseann de Faoite.
• Séamus de Burca.

Amendment declared lost.

Motion made and question put: "That Section 22 stand part of the Bill."

Agreed.

Mr. HOGAN

Before we pass away from Section 22 might I make a suggestion? It deals with price, and we have disposed of the only amendment on the paper to that particular Section. It refers, however, to the Schedule. There is an amendment 96 to the Schedule, and I would suggest for the consideration of the Dáil that the most suitable time to deal with that particular amendment would be now immediately following this discussion on the 10 per cent. so as to deal with the whole question of price together. I would suggest it would be the most convenient and suitable thing to dispose of this question of price and of all the amendments, and that all the amendments on price be taken at the same time. It would necessitate going on to the Schedule and dealing with Amendment 96. The Schedule, however, is referred to in the Section we are dealing with. Though it might be unusual it would be more convenient for the Deputies, and such a procedure would be more likely to get full consideration for the whole question of price than if we were to deal with one part of the question now and another later on. I suggest we should deal with the whole Section before we pass away from this.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is a procedure which is unusual, and if we were to take it I think we would need unanimity.

Mr. HOGAN

I realise that. We could only do it with the consent of the Dáil.

Mr. JOHNSON

I think that suggestion is a very sensible one and might be well made a regular practice where the Schedule is appertaining to a particular section only. The only doubt in my mind is whether there might possibly be further amendments allowable which have not yet been sent in and which might be considered desirable in the minds of the Deputies in the course of the discussion.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is to say, amendments to the Sections?

Mr. JOHNSON

To later sections, yes, or even to the Schedule.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Well, I can explain that. The amendments which have been circulated are the only amendments which I have accepted so far, and I have refused to accept certain amendments, including amendments from the Minister for Agriculture himself, so that there will not be any more amendments for this Stage. On the other hand, amendments may be moved later which will necessitate a further Committee Stage, but as far as this particular Committee Stage is concerned the only amendments to be moved are on the paper which is in the hands of Deputies. The Bill may be re-committed, either in whole or in part, later on, but as far as this Committee is concerned I think that all the amendments are on the paper.

Mr. HOGAN

In point of fact, I think everything points to the necessity for recommitting the Bill for the purpose of some amendments later on.

Mr. JOHNSON

I am not concerned so much with this Bill. I am rather concerned with the ruling, as to whether it ought to be taken as a precedent that when a Bill, which might be even longer than the Land Bill, is down for Committee Stage on a given date, all amendments should be in hand a certain number of days before the Committee Stage begins, where due notice, provided for in the Standing Orders, could be given, supposing there were a certain number of days before the actual section came under consideration. After all, the course of discussion in Committee might well suggest amendments to the later sections of the Bill, which amendments ought to be received while the Bill is in Committee.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is so. I think the strict interpretation of the Standing Order would be that amendments would be in time if they were received in time in relation to the day on which the particular section to which they referred would be before the Committee. But in this case the amendments were mostly to the first twenty sections, which were already down for a particular date. I did not like to confuse that matter by accepting amendments on the spot which were serious. There is actually provision in the Standing Orders for receiving amendments in Committee without notice and Deputies can, of course, avail of that, but with regard to this particular Bill there will be amendments which will necessitate its re-committal for their consideration. With regard to the precedent of considering the Schedule now, the matter that Deputy Johnson mentioned first, namely, whether it might not be a good thing always to take the Schedule immediately after the section in which reference is made to the Schedule, is one which I think should be considered by the Committee on Procedure with a view to making a recommendation if they thought fit. But with regard to the particular happening now on precedent is created beyond that by general consent we allow the Schedule to be taken after Section 22, in which it is mentioned.

Mr. GOREY

Am I to understand that when this Bill is re-committed to Committee we will have power to put up amendments to the particular sections already disposed of?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That would depend.

Mr. GOREY

What is re-committal for, then?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That would depend. The whole Bill might be re-committed, in which case we could go through the Bill again and amendments could be offered to every section, but the Bill might be re-committed with a view to considering certain sections which it is proposed to amend, and in that case only the sections which were re-committed could be reconsidered in Committee. If I understand Deputy Gorey's point aright I think this would suit his case. If, on Report, he tables amendments to certain sections, if, on Report, the Minister for Agriculture, or somebody for him, tables amendments to other sections, I think the Minister, while not being obliged, would actually in fact move that the Bill be re-committed to consider these amendments, and this would enable Deputy Gorey's amendments to be considered in Committee.

Mr. GOREY

Yes. There are a few amendments which have been already considered—two of them—but I think on reconsideration some amendments might be suggested.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

An amendment defeated in Committee cannot again be considered.

Mr. GOREY

But amendments to the same section can be?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Oh, yes.

Mr. GOREY

Of course, taking this question of prices out of its order does not affect us very much. I do not want to stand in the way of facilitating business if it is considered that this ought to come on now. Of course it takes us a little bit by surprise, because we did not expect it to be taken this evening, but I do not want to obstruct the business.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

It is agreed then to take Schedule 1 now.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair at this stage.

FIRST SCHEDULE.

STANDARD PURCHASE ANNUITY.

Part I.

Holdings subject to Judicial Rents.

The standlard purchase annuity shall in the case of each holding be an annuity of an amount equivalent to a percentage of the judicial rent payable in respect of the holding namely—

(a) in the case of rents fixed before the 16th August, 1911, 65 per cent.

(b) in the case of rents fixed after the 15th August, 1911, 70 per cent.

Part II.

Holdings subject to rents other than Judicial Rents.

1.—The standard purchase annuity in the case of every holding to which this part of this Schedule applies—

(a) Where the landlord and tenant so agree in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed time shall be the amount so agreed upon, and

(b) Where the landlord and tenant do not agree shall be such amount as shall be fixed by the Land Commission (other than the Judicial Commissioner), subpect to an appeal to the Judicial Commissioner whose decision shall be final.

2.—The annuity shall be fixed by the Land Commission on the report of their Inspector and without hearing in Court, regard being had to the nature and situation of the holding, the date of the commencement of the tenancy, the rent payable thereunder, and all the circumstances of the case.

3.—This part of this Schedule applies to every holding which (a) at the date of the passing of this Act is subject to a rent other than a judicial rent, and (b) vests, or will vest, as tenanted land in the Land Commission under this Act.

Amendment by

Mr. GOREY:-

"To delete Part I, and insert in lieu thereof the following:—

‘HOLDING SUBJECT TO JUDICIAL RENTS.'

The standard purchase annuity shall in the case of each holding be an annuity of an amount equivalent to 60 per cent. of the judicial rent payable in respect of the holding provided that:

(a) where the judicial rent payable in respect of the holding has been adjusted by agreement between the landlord and tenant, the average yearly rent actually paid by the tenant during the period of ten years, up to and including the gale day next preceding the passing of this Act, shall be deemed to be the judicial rent payable in respect of the holding, for the purpose of determining the standard purchase annuity as aforesaid, and

(b) where the judicial rent payable in respect of the holding has been fixed by agreement between the landlord and tenant on the reinstatement of the tenant in his holding after having been evicted, the Land Commission, on the application of the tenant, shall cause the holding to be inspected, and shall fix an annual sum upon the same principles as a judicial rent upon receiving the report of their Inspector and without hearing in Court, and such annual sum shall be deemed to be the judicial rent payable in respect of the holding for the purpose of determining the standard purchase annuity as aforesaid, and the decision of the Land Commission shall be subject to an appeal to the Judicial Commissioner, whose decision shall be final.

(c) where the tenant of any holding in respect of which judicial rent is payable shall apply to the Land Commission for an inspection of the holding, on the ground that the holding is inadequate security for the advance to be made in pursuance of the provisions of this Act. and the Land Commission are satisfied that reasonable ground exist for such application, the Land Commission shall cause such inspection to be made, and on the report of their Inspectors, and without a hearing in Court shall fix the standard purchase annuity in respect of such holding on the same basis and having regard to the circumstances specified in this Act as if the holding were subject to a rent other than a judicial rent, and the decisions of the Land Commission shall be subject to an appeal to the Judicial Commissioner, whose decision shall be final.”

Mr. GOREY

The amendment is to increase the standard reduction from 35 per cent. to 40 per cent. I think the chief things you require are reasons to prove that our contention is right. The Minister asked for some figures yesterday. We intend to make some comparisons that, we hope, will convince him that the price ought to be less than in the Bill. The question is the sale of land, and the value of land. We ought, I think, to take a parallel from the values of land in years gone by, from 1903, 1909, 1918, or 1920, when this question of land was under consideration, and was more or less the subject of agreement with the landlords in legislation, and we must, if we want to ascertain the value of land now, take a present day comparison and deal with the value at the time we are dealing with the case. There are reasons why sentiment makes Irish land more valuable than land in any other country. It is the only means of existence for the agricultural population; they have no other outlet; they have either to settle on the land or go away and the race is to die out. Men want to marry; they want a home and they want to settle down. The natural law urges them to find a home, and you cannot get behind that. Therefore the price of land in this country, what is known as the tenant's interest, brings more than its real value, and the price is not in proportion at all to the actual commercial value of the land. Let us take the nearest country to ourselves for a comparison. Take the sale of English farms, and in doing so, remember that we are measuring things on a standard different altogether from that which can be applied to this country. There is such a thing here as tenant interest and landlord interest. In England you have only the landlord's interest, and when they sell land they sell it absolutely in fee simple. English land in the open market is bringing about eleven years' purchase of the present rental. The holdings are much larger than in this country. There is no comparison at all——

Mr. HOGAN

What about the rentals?

Mr. GOREY

The rentals are larger in this country; slightly larger.

Mr. HOGAN

So I thought.

Mr. GOREY

The land is fallow in England this year. It is without tenants. They are waiting for somebody to go on and they cannot get them. There is no use in sneering at things at all.

Mr. HOGAN

On a point of order, I am not sneering.

Mr. GOREY

You know how sensitive I am.

Mr. HOGAN

I am quite happy at the prospect of large tracts of England waiting for landless men in Ireland to take them over for nothing.

Mr. GOREY

The Minister ought not to knock me off my balance. He did not need to interrupt at all, really. If we look at this thing from a commercial and sensible point of view, we must take into account what is done by the English landlord for the land. The English landlord undoubtedly has done much. Deputy O'Shannon speaking here this evening asked what has the Irish landlord done for the land, and he was answered truthfully—"nothing." In England you see farms of three or four or five hundred acres with valuable steadings. What relation do these steadings put up by the landlord bear to the value of the land; what could they be erected for to-day, and how would the value of the average English farm of three or four or five hundred acres compare with the value of the steadings of the land? What would it cost to put up these steadings, what is the value of them to the man who wants them; what would the average English farm come to if it were in Ireland; what would the fencing of the English farm be put up for, and what would its drainage be completed for? These are all valuable commercial assets that have been created by the landlord, and he is selling them at about 11 years' purchase, and is glad to get it, and glad to be relieved of the land at any price. What are the conditions in Ireland? We have small farmers, men with a few acres, men with a small valuation trying to eke a living out of a small patch of land, and these are the men who made the land, the buildings, fences and everything except the space on which the holdings are situated. They created by their labour, or by the lack of the landlord's labour, a tenant's interest in Ireland that is worth something in the open market. Any improvements the landlord ever did in Ireland were valued by the Land Commission, and put on to the tenant who had to pay for them. They were valued as against him. Anything that was done by the landlord was claimed by him, and a price was put on the land equal to the value of these improvements, and they were very few and far between, with the result that the landlord who did improve is now on the same level as the one who did nothing, because his improvement was valued as against the tenant. We are not told the real reason, but we are just told that the reason why the price of land should be the price in the Bill is to give the landlord fair play and justice. Now, if it is justice in England to sell land, the same class of land, or land of better quality and in a higher state of cultivation at a smaller price, why is it equity and justice to demand from a man almost twice the price for the same class of land? I have heard arguments in the Dáil, and I am beginning to think they count for more than the question of justice between the landlord and tenant, and that is the vested interests that have grown up. I think I heard in the Dáil from a semi-official of the Government party some reference to banks, charitable institutions, and other vested interests. Perhaps, it is in order to secure the full 100 per cent. value for the charitable institutions, banks, and other vested interests that this Bill was brought in. I think, probably it would be more in relation to justice had these institutions been put into the Bill than the talk of justice to the landlord or the tenant. I do not think we are asking too much. As a matter of fact we are asking too little; we have come down to a smaller point than has been authorised by our people, in these amendments; they have demanded and believed they ought to get much more. It may be said what is 10s. or £1 per year to the small man. I do not think that is a statesmanlike argument, or that it has anything to recommend it. 10s. or £1 is as much to the small man as £10 or £20 is to the bigger man, and that is no reason why this 10s. or £1 is nothing to the small man, and that the landlord should get more than he is entitled to for the commercial value of his land. It ought to be based on what the land could produce, what could be sold out of it, and what profit could be made out of it, and not on any other question. If it is not based on the value of its produce or its revenue it is not based on justice, and justice cannot be done if it is not based on the commercial value.

Mr. WILSON

The Minister is reserving all his artillery to the end. The case has been put up by Deputy Gorey that land in England situated in close proximity to the best markets in the world is fetching a comparatively cheaper price than the land in Ireland, based on its unimproved value. Land in England has a value produced by the landlord or landowner and the land in Ireland that we are buying is the land in a state of nature, and the improvements on the land in Ireland are improvements produced by the toil of the workers on the land. Leaving that aside I come to compare the terms of this particular Land Bill with the terms of the Land Bill of 1903. The Minister for Agriculture the other night asked us to get out our pencils quickly and calculate how much per cent. better this Bill was than the Bill of 1903. I intended to reply to him, but An Ceann Comhairle did not give me the opportunity, and I reserved my calculations until now. One of the contentions that the Minister set up was that you must take the average as half way between 1903 and 1923. These are the premises which the Minister has set up, and thus you take the average tenant who bought his land between 1903 and 1923, and you are to take the average reduction which that particular tenant got under the 1903 Act, and then on those premises he can prove that this particular Land Bill is ten per cent. better. Now, I want to see how this man will stand. Take a man who is on this side of the ditch paying £100 a year rental. Under the 1903 Act he would get 25 per cent. reduction, and he would pay off his annuities in 69½ years, so that the total sum he would pay at the end of that period would be £5,212 10s These were the premises which the Minister for Agriculture mentioned, and they were the terms mentioned by Lord Dunraven, that is, 25 per cent reduction, which would mean an annuity of £75, and that multiplied by 69½ years gives you the sum of £5,212 10s. Now, let us take the other man on the other side of the ditch waiting for this Bill to come along. He has paid a rental of £100 a year for 10 years past, which amounts to £1,000. Then he comes along to buy, and he pays £65 annuity for 68 years, which makes £4,420. He has already paid £1,000, so that his total is £5,420. Place that against the man who under the 1903 Act paid £5,212 and you will find that the man who buys under this Bill so far from being 10 percent. better than the 1903 Act man has actually paid £200 more remembering that he has paid £100 rental for 10 years past and that it takes £52 to redeem every £1 of rent. It takes £52 out of a man's sweat and toil to redeem £1 in this case, so you can see what a bargain it is that the tenant farmers of Ireland are getting. Now here is the reason why we ask for 40 per cent. If we get a reduction of 40 per cent. or 8s. in the £ under this Bill, then a man who did not buy under the 1903 Act, taking the figures I have previously given as a basis, would pay £132 less than the man who bought under the 1903 Act. If he only gets the reduction provided under the Bill he would pay £200 more than the 1903 man, but if he gets the 8/- he will pay £132 less. Is it too much to ask the Minister to make the price such, that we, who are here to-day legislating 68 years in advance, when we do not know what will happen, whether we shall have a Workers' Republic or not, should be put in a reasonable position by giving us the benefit of this reduction of 8/- in the £? You must remember that the times have changed. What was considered a fair standard of life, on a farm 20 years ago, will not be considered a fair standard to-day. We have got to look at the times in which our children are growing up, and we must remember that they require a better standard than was possible in the past. We must remember we live in a free country, and that we want to enjoy the benefits this Constitution brings. We will not live in poverty, and we do not think we are asking too much when we ask for £132 out of a purchase price of £5,212 by a reduction of 8/- in the £ now. I think that is a fair case. We all heard what was stated about the price of land in England. I had land myself in Africa and I sold it at 10/- an acre fee-simple, but here in Ireland we have to pay £52 to redeem £1 of rental, and not alone that but the State, has consented to spend £50,000 a year to do that. There fore if you think over what you are doing, and look at it from the point of view of giving justice to the citizens, I reckon you are overweighting justice on the side of a minority against justice that should be given to 350,000 people who will be affected under this Act.

Mr. JOHNSON

I support the amendment on somewhat different grounds. I want to supplement the argument of the last Deputy by the suggestion that the farmers of the country as Deputy Gorey has shown, are justified in expecting that the standard of living for the next generation will be higher than the standard of living in the past generation; that the people living upon the produce of the soil, whether tenant proprietors or labourers employed by tenant proprietors will live at a higher level generally in the future than in the past. If that is not to be so then there is very little virtue in the change here in national status. But if that is so, if we have a fair right to expect that the farmers and their families will live on a higher standard than their fathers then there will be, in succeeding revisions of judicial rentals, or there would be, a considerable reduction because there would be so much less available for rental, and one would imagine that with the new conception of the social standards the Commissioners who would be deciding future rentals, if they were to be revised, as under the old system, would take into account, and must take into account, not merely the profits derivable from the soil and market prices, but also the standards of life which become current, and which were due to the tenant or his labourers who were living upon the produce of the land.

Consequently there would be inevitably a smaller sum available annually for payment for the landlord. That is a reasonable expectation supposing there was no compulsory Purchase Bill and that, I submit, is good ground for looking for a considerable reduction in the amount which is to be paid in annuities, because it will all have to come out of the produce of the soil whether annuities or rental, and it is the balance from it that should be the balance after having provided a reasonable standard of life for those who work the soil, and only that balance, which should be available either for annuity or rental. Then we have to take into consideration also the new situation created by the War. I will take a lesson from Deputy Magennis's lecture, and recognise the facts that are round about us. I will recognise that there has been a war, and I submit that the memory of that fact leads us to this conclusion, not only that the standards of living demanded by the people have been improved and have been raised, but that the expectation of high prices for agricultural produce are not likely to be realised, and that the margin payable to landlords as rental or to the bond holders as annuities will be smaller henceforward than in the past. It is a fair expectation, looking at the future, and taking that expectation into account, the case for a larger reduction than that mentioned in the Bill is a sound one. The Minister told us yesterday that it was quite an easy matter for irresponsible people to make a claim for something higher, no matter how much or how little, than he had found practicable, and because it was easy, there was no need to justify it. There was some force in that. No doubt it is much easier for those who are not responsible to put forward a case, but it is their duty to put forward a case even if it is easier. It is their duty to point out that this imposition upon that very considerable section of the community who are occupiers of the soil, and even that smaller section of the community that will be effected by this Bill are not going to be in as good a position unless at the expense of their comfort, and at the expense of a reasonable standard of living in the future, to pay this annual sum to those possessing these bonds.

There has been no bargain. The demand that has been made on the part of the tenants is for a greater reduction than that which is offered. The case that is made for a greater reduction is based on the price of land in England, according to the arguments that have been adduced by Deputies Gorey and Wilson. There is a further argument, of reasonable expectation, that the amount available for distribution in the form of interest to bond holders or rentals to landlords will be smaller in the future than in the past. Let us bear in mind that the proposition in this Bill is to secure, for all time for the landlords against almost any risk, a settled income in exchange for what may be a problematical income in the succeeding generation. They are making a good exchange if the Bill passes even with the amendment proposed by Deputy Gorey, a very good exchange for something certain: the backing of the State against something problematical which would depend entirely upon the seasons, upon currency variations and upon the standards of life demanded by workmen and farmers against the general standard of life that exists in the country at present. I maintain that, we have a right to hope and expect that henceforth in this country the margin for unearned income will be smaller in the future than in the past. The landlords, too, do expect that in the future the produce of the country will, in an increasing degree, be absorbed and used by the people who help to make the wealth of the country. They have the right to expect that, and they do expect it. They are not expecting that henceforth the landlord element in the country is going to have as easy a time, or would be likely to have as easy a time, in the future as in the past; they have the right to expect that under a National Government the people who do the work of the country will be the people who will get the benefit of the produce of the country, and with that reasonable expectation they are doing very well if they get 60 per cent of their net revenue. The amendment proposed by Deputy Gorey is, I think, easily sustainable in discussion, and would be before a tribunal which was not obsessed by the position that landlords have held in the past—by a tribunal that took into account all the facts of to-day and the prospects of the future; any tribunal that took full regard of these prospects and present facts would, I think, conclude that the suggestion embodied in Deputy Gorey's amendment would be very generous compensation, and is the fullest amount the tenant should be reasonably expected to pay. We want that 10 per cent. and 5 per cent. to be paid to the labourers, where there are any.

Mr. WILSON

Hear, hear.

Mr. JOHNSON

We would like the whole 65 per cent. to be made available for improving the standard of life for the labourers, and we are at one with the farmers in this: an alliance between the farmer and the labourer.

Mr. HOGAN

An unholy alliance.

Mr. JOHNSON

It is a holy alliance between those who work and are owners and those who work and are not owners, against those who do not work but draw rents or annuities. That is a holy alliance which, I hope, we shall see consummated and then have, what Deputy Wilson suggests, a real republic of workers.

Mr. HOGAN

I was glad to hear Deputy Gorey's speech, and I assume from it that he will now hand over the interest he draws from his Debenture holdings in railway stock.

Mr. GOREY

I have not got any.

Mr. HOGAN

I shall not be surprised if I find members of the Farmers' Party coming along and making an offering to the State of the interest that I hope they draw from the various companies in which they have their money invested. I have stated my reasons so often for this figure of 65 per cent. that I propose to confine myself strictly to the arguments advanced. Deputy Gorey has saved me a lot of trouble, because he has not put forward one single argument against the figure in the Bill. He started with a great flourish with regard to his figure of 40 per cent. He gave a number of what, I suppose, he would call reasons for that figure, but I suggest that all these reasons would apply equally to reductions of 50. 60. 80 or 100 per cent., and his argument would also apply to confiscating the landlords' property. I do not know why he does not advocate that. But he gave no argument, nor did Deputy Johnson, for this 40 per cent. figure, and I am still waiting for their arguments on that. It is true that on the 40 per cent. figure Deputy Wilson came to the rescue, and I must say he was extremely flattering to myself. He pointed out that the effect of this Bill was to place a tenant, whose rent was £100, and whose Poor Law Valuation would be about £120, that is to say a man with about 200 acres of fairly good land, at an advantage. The tenant is in such a magnificent position that he only loses £200 as a result of not having purchased under the 1903 Act. Notwithstanding that he has been twenty years paying rent——

Mr. GOREY

Not twenty years.

Mr. HOGAN

Make the time anything you like. But this farmer owning 200 acres of good land, rent £100, Poor Law Valuation £130 or £150, finds that the only disadvantage he is at, as a result of not having purchased for such a long period, is a loss of £200. I accept that position; if I have really succeeded in rescuing all the tenants of Ireland to such a large extent from the loss that they suffered by non-purchase, then I am on the point of making up my mind to go ahead. Having made such a magnificent success of this, certainly we ought now tackle the 400,000 tenants who did purchase under the 1903 Act and compensate them in the same way for not having purchased in 1885——

Mr. GOREY

That proves nothing at all. That is not an argument.

Mr. HOGAN

The farmer who owns a holding of 150 valuation and who has 200 acres of good land——

Mr. GOREY

With £100 rent.

Mr. HOGAN

I am quoting a member of your own Party. If I can put this farmer in the position that he has only lost £200, in spite of the fact that he has not purchased under the 1903 Act, and in spite of the fact that he is purchasing now when we cannot borrow money on anything like the same terms as a result of the war—having done that I am tempted to go ahead and tackle this problem of the 400,000 tenants who purchased under the 1903 Act and make up their losses because they did not purchase in 1885. In any event, I want to say that I am quite satisfied with Deputy Wilson's figures. If I have saved his particular friend all he has lost except £200 I am satisfied that I have done a very good day's work. That was really the only argument put forward in favour of the forty per cent. All the other arguments would apply equally to fifty, sixty, eighty or one hundred per cent.

We are acquiring property compulsorily. Does Deputy Gorey suggest that we ought to give a price for it which is less than two-thirds of its current value? Deputy Gorey does not hold the same views about property as Deputy Johnson, and I want to try and split this alliance. We are acquiring property compulsorily, and I would like to hear from Deputy Gorey whether he is prepared to subscribe to the principle that we should so acquire it at less than two-thirds of its current value.

Mr. GOREY

Who had the fixing of the current value?

Mr. HOGAN

The current value has been fixed by law for a period of over thirty years and has not shared in the inflation of prices due to the war. Let Deputy Gorey take his courage in his hands and enunciate that theory. Remember that we are acquiring not only landlords' property under this Bill, but we are acquiring tenants' property. We are acquiring future tenancies—men who can be put out on six months' notice— men who might have taken their lands two years ago, who have no title to them at all, but who at the same time we are allowing to purchase. Suppose we find we have to resume a number of tenanted holdings and future tenancies in respect of which no improvements were done, will we acquire them at fourteen years' or sixteen years' purchase?

Mr. GOREY

I suggest that you buy the landlords' interest at the figure you mention and then you proceed to buy the tenants' interest.

Mr. HOGAN

I am talking of buying the tenants' interest in a future tenancy. You have the case of untenanted land farmed by the landlord, and, remember, the landlord may be another tenant in this case—perhaps a man who has far less land than Deputy Gorey, perhaps fifty or a hundred acres. He may have let thirty acres of it as a future tenancy, four, or five, or ten years ago.

Mr. GOREY

What does all this prove?

Mr. HOGAN

We are acquiring, let us say, a future tenancy now. What price will we give for it? If we are acquiring any other tenancy, what price shall we give for it—what number of years' purchase? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Mr. GOREY

On a point of explanation, perhaps the Minister would tell us whether there is such a thing as tenant proprietorship or tenant interest at all.

Mr. HOGAN

I am saying there is a tenant interest. What is that future tenant's interest—the interest of a man who had never to put up any buildings, who probably never did any improvements, who was making a big profit out of the land during the war, and who has no legal interest, and very little moral interest, in it. We may have to acquire those lands for the relief of congestion. What price would we give for them? That is what I want to know. The landlord, in such a case, has a bigger interest than the tenant, if anything. It was, perhaps, untenanted lands fifteen years ago. He let it for temporary convenience at the request of the tenant. The tenant took it to suit his own convenience. He has no tenure there. The landlord's interest, if anything, is greater. I am not talking of present or judicial tenancies. I am talking of future tenancies, of which there are many. Deputy Gorey wants us to acquire the landlord's interest at a certain number of years' purchase—I have not been able to discover whether it is fifteen years, or fourteen years, or twelve years, because his arguments apply equally to all. What I want to know is what are we going to give for the tenant's interest.

Mr. GOREY

We will deal with that when it arises. We are beginning to know where the boot pinches now.

Mr. HOGAN

I agree with the Deputy that this is where the boot pinches. People cannot have it both ways. If the Deputy likes to come forward on this, the first occasion when the Free State is acquiring property compulsorily, and, regardless of the fact that the property has been a well-recognised security in the past, and that banking and charitable institutions, and stockbrokers and all sorts of people, are interested in it, suggests terms which eat into the security value of the property, just in order to make a temporary profit, let him do so; but he cannot have it both ways. If that is to be the rule in regard to this sort of property, it will be the rule in regard to future tenancies. When the State wants property in future, it will have to take it at considerably less than two-thirds of its current value.

Mr. GOREY

The Minister has asked for figures as between these and previous purchase figures.

Mr. HOGAN

I asked you to justify the 40 per cent.

Mr. GOREY

To come to the first term tenancies under the 1903 Act, we know from the Blue Book figures that the average reduction was just thirty per cent. What the tenant got on an average in the 26 counties was a little short of thirty per cent. By purchasing under that Act in 1909, he would be now purchased for 14 years. On £100 rental, that thirty per cent. for 14 years would be £420. If he bought immediately on the passing of the 1903 Act. he would be purchased now for 20 years, and that would mean £600.

Take the average percentage for a second-term rental under the 1903 Act, at a little less than 24, and multiply 24 by 14 and you get £336. If he bought immediately after the passing of the Act it would be £480. What is £600 now worth to the man who bought under the 1903 Act a first-term rental? He would have a capital sum of £600, and that would be worth £30 at any time. If he did not buy until 1909, when the operations of the Act ended, he could not have less than £420 under a first term tenancy. If he purchased second term, he could not have a lesser sum than £336, and could not have more than £480. How do those figures compare with the case of the man who did not purchase at all? He has paid in the meantime £600 in one case, £480 in another, or £420 in one case and £336 in another. We are asking that you put those on equality. Will 40 per cent. put them in a position of equality?

Mr. HOGAN

It would take about 60 per cent. on your figures, and 50 per cent. on Deputy Wilson's.

Mr. GOREY

If you can contradict those figures, well and good. If we put the present man on the same level, regardless of the number of years as between him and the man who purchased 20 years ago, we would have 33 per cent. in the case of the second term man added to the present price offered under the Bill. You cannot put them on the same level short of confiscation. We do not want confiscation. Neither 40 per cent. nor 50 per cent. would be just. We have suggested the lowest figure that we could reasonably ask. We did not think for a moment we were asking too much.

We suggested 40 per cent. because we thought we would have a chance of that figure being accepted by the Government. If we put up 50 per cent. we knew it would be turned down; we put up 40 per cent. in the hope of its being accepted, and we see no reason why it should not be. The amount was made lower than it really should be, so as to make it possible for the Government to do what is right. The great argument in favour of the present price to a landlord is that his estate is encumbered—that many landlords' estates are encumbered, that the rentals are encumbered and other charges have to be met, and that vested interests have grown up that require to be protected. That may be true, but we want to know the facts. There is something between £1,000,000 and £800,000 rental. We want to be sure we are dealing out justice. We want to know how much of that £800,000 or the £1,000,000 is encumbered. How much of this philanthropy, this effort to preserve the public credit, is at stake? How much of this rental is encumbered and how much is not? Are we giving away £45,000 or £50,000 a year as a bonus where, perhaps, 10 or 12 millions would be sufficient? We have not had any figures. If the landlords' case or the Government's case is good we should have those figures. This matter should not be done on assumptions or presumptions. We should also know how much these charitable and banking institutions have advanced, and what rate it bears to the rental. How much is advanced in proportion to each rental? If we had these particulars perhaps we might be able to do justice. I do not want to go into figures. I have always heard that figures can prove anything. Figures in the hands of experts who could juggle with them could prove anything. I try to avoid figures as much as I can, especially in this Assembly. The whole argument in favour of this price is based on justice. We owe justice to every member of the human family. The question of what the people require now and will require in future has been dealt with by Deputy Wilson and others, and there is no occasion to travel over the same ground. The human family in the future will require a higher standard than in the past, and it is time they had it. More than two-thirds of the human family in this country have not a standard as good as an average animal in England.

Mr. DAVIN

Or in Ireland.

Mr. GOREY

Or perhaps in Ireland— I quite agree. They certainly have not. They have not as good a house, they have not as good a floor, and they scarcely have as good a bed. It is very doubtful if they have as good food. They certainly have not such abundance of food to meet the requirements of the human being as the animal. The animal is very much better treated than the human being. If this was based on justice it should be based on the profit derived from the use of the land. If you are not able to approach it from that point of view you should leave out the word justice, and deal with it from some other standpoint.

Mr. HOGAN

What about the price of these tenancies I asked about?

Mr. GOREY

A Leas-Chinn Comhairle—will you try and control the Minister? He does not like this at all. With regard to the price that ought to be paid for the land to the different interests I would point out that while there is only one interest in England there are two interests in this country. I would be the last to put money into land at the present price that is being paid for tenant's interest. It is ridiculously high; it is madness. It has been madness to pay such a price since the war. I have always held and expressed that view, and I am not going to recant now. But in buying Irish land from the fee-simple up you buy the landlord's interest and the tenant's interest. If you acquire tenanted land the landlord's interest has probably been bought under some previous Bill. You should pay for the tenant's interest at some reasonable rate, not an extravagant or a wild rate-not the rate obtaining at present—but something in proportion to what you are depriving him of.

Mr. HOGAN

Twelve years' purchase.

Mr. GOREY

That will be a question for future Governments. If you are going to deprive a man of his living you ought at least to compensate him for it. This Bill is not based on justice. I contend that the word justice does not apply to it at all. It is based on the balance sheets and the incomes of vested interests. Those interests have to be met according to this Bill—and probably according to the great forces behind it—as near one hundred per cent. as possible—as near at least as figures can go, and they can go a long way. Why is it that large farmers for the last three years have lost money in agriculture? There is no doubt that they have lost money. They have lost it because there were no profits to be made out of the land after paying the labour bill.

Mr. DAVIN

They do not work themselves.

Mr. GOREY

There is an Agricultural Commission sitting, and you can go there and bring all your witness from all over the country, and prove otherwise if you can. That is your answer. Farming is run at a loss by the bigger men. Why is the small farmer able to exist? Because of his intensive efforts, and of the low standard of comfort that he is content with; because of his natural craving for independence, and because he is satisfied to be under-fed and under-clothed in order to have that independence. If it were not for the intensive efforts of the small farmer and his family they could not exist at all. Not alone is the small farmer doing his duty to the State, but he is doing the duty of three men. Other elements in this country are able to live doing nothing, because of the efforts of the men who work. I saw in the country on Saturday evening last men going home to their supper at 8.30 in the evening (old time), after which they came back and worked until ten o'clock. I know these men are out from 5.30 or 6 o'clock in the morning. That is the sort of thing that makes existence possible— it is not possible without slaving.

Mr. WILSON

Our proposal boiled down into figures means that we intend that the capital sum which should be paid to the landlord would be £1,263 plus 10 per cent. contribution, which would bring him in all £1,389, or 62.5 per cent. of his rental. based on the revenues and securities of the Free State. I think that is a fair proposition. If I were a landlord I would take £62 10s. 0d. safely secured, rather than a nebulous £100. I believe the landlord would be doing a good thing for himself. When we ask for the 40 per cent. reduction, we are not alone trying to do justice to the landlord, but are trying to uphold the security of the State. We are just as much concerned about the welfare, safety, and credit of the State as any of the Ministers. We do not want confiscation or spoliation. We are offering 62.5 out of a suppositious £100 that will not probably eventuate.

Mr. MILROY

I want to ask Deputy Gorey a question, and I hope I will get a straight answer. If we were selling two or three hundred acres of his holding would the price he would ask be less or more than that which the Bill provides for the unpurchased tenants?

Mr. GOREY

In other words, would the Deputy sell his clothes for less than he paid for them?

Mr. MILROY

I would like to press for an answer. If the Deputy was willing to sell any of his present holding would he ask for a lesser or a greater price than that which the Bill provides for the present unpurchased tenants to buy their land?

Mr. JOHNSON

The question that has been put by Deputy Milroy was the same question that was raised by the Minister for Agriculture, and I want to find out whether Deputy Milroy or the Minister for Agriculture makes any distinction between these two things that are talked about—these two properties. Do they contend that when they are buying the right from the tenant to work certain lands that they are buying the same thing, or anything like the same thing, as when they are buying the right of the landlord, not to work the land, but to draw rent from the land?

Mr. GOREY

Deputy Milroy does not want that at all. That is not what he is sent here for.

Mr. MILROY

On a point of order, I think it is about time for whoever is responsible for the regulation of this assembly to take steps to control this peculiar Deputy who thinks that he has a licence to insult any member of this Assembly. He has made an observation which I will ask you to ask him to withdraw.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

I will ask the Deputy first to withdraw the word "peculiar."

Mr. MILROY

Did I use the word "peculiar"?

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

I ask you to withdraw it.

Mr. MILROY

Suppose I substitute "fantastic." I will withdraw the other word.

Mr. GOREY

I think there is a good deal of justice in what Deputy Milroy says. I am peculiar.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

Deputy Gorey or any other Deputy should not cast a reflection on other Deputies, and any Deputy who does so must withdraw the insinuation. Deputy Gorey has suggested that Deputy Milroy came here for unworthy motives. It is not fair to make an insinuation of that sort, and I will ask Deputy Gorey to withdraw that expression.

Mr. GOREY

I quite agree. I should not have said it and I apologise.

Mr. JOHNSON

I am anxious that the Dáil should be made acquainted with the views of Deputy Milroy and of the Minister for Agriculture in regard to these two things that are being purchased or referred to as purchasable. The Minister for Agriculture made it quite clear in introducing this Bill that what was proposed to be purchased was a rental, not the land. It has been generally conceded in the discussions that it was the legal right to draw rent that was being purchased. Is it contended that that is the same thing as the tenants' interest, the tenants' interest being the right to occupy and work that land? I submit there is a very great distinction. You cannot and ought not to treat these two things as though they were parallel, and try to put posers to Deputy Gorey or Deputy Wilson or any other person, in regard to their right to work their land as contrasted with the landlords' right to extract rent from the land. While this may be an academic question it goes right to the heart of this Bill and the proposals in it. It is the right to extract rent which is supposed to be purchased and that may be of very little value in 10, 20 or 30 years' time. As Deputy Wilson said the future value is quite nebulous, and in two or three years' time it may not exist at all. According to some of the statements that are put into the Press the country is going to the dogs and there is not going to be any value at all in the landlord's interest. I ask the Minister for Agriculture if he lays it down that there is no difference in the kind of property that is under consideration—the property of the tenant occupier, the proprietor who works the land and the property which is merely the legal right to draw rent?

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy wants to know whether the right to draw rent is the same as the right of the tenant who works the land, or whether it is more or less. It depends on the nature of the tenancy. If a small tenant lets five acres of his land to a conacre tenant for a year, the right of the tenant at the same time is much greater than the right of the man who takes the conacre, even though this man does the work, and is worth more money. On the other hand the right of a present tenant is undoubtedly more valuable than the right of the landlord. The right of a future tenant is a totally different matter. It was the right of a future tenant I was discussing with Deputy Gorey.

Mr. SEARS

We have had a very interesting discussion this evening, and we on this side have watched the progress of the allies. We heard Deputy Gorey advance principles that were applauded more vehemently on the labour benches than any other principles I heard applauded in the Dáil. Then as a kind of return Deputy Johnson pressed the farmers' interests by advancing arguments that were of the most capitalistic colour. They were at once accepted, and there were gracious bows exchanged between the two parties. They have changed places. If you closed your eyes you would think that what Deputy Johnson was saying was what he should have allowed Deputy Gorey to say, and all that Deputy Gorey should say was put forward by Deputy Johnson in his usual clear and precise style. I am afraid you will see these arguments flung back again with scorn from one side to the other later on. After what we heard about what 9s. a week means to the poor farmer we will be told how much more it means to the poor worker. We also heard about these poor men who are living in bad houses, and who are getting worse feeding than cattle. The debate was very fair and legitimate as a debate. I would not say one word here in favour of encumbered landlords. I felt an echo in my heart for everything that Deputy Gorey said about these gentlemen who piled up big debts on Irish estates, and squandered the money. I have no sympathy for that sort of thing. nor has any man in the Dáil, but what we have to remember is that this is the heel end to a big question, and that it is settling up what was commenced in former Land Acts, and in particular the Act of 1903. Let us do the decent thing, and get this question out of the way. We are not saying that there is justice in giving all this to the landlords. The landlords are there, and as the other landlords got something the present ones should also get something. They are not getting too much, considering all the interests involved. I am sorry that the farmer is not faring better, though the landlord is only getting £1,500 compared to £2,500 that could be got under the 1903 Act. That does not represent a corresponding advantage for the tenant. This Bill considering all things, is a very fair and reasonable Bill, and being so I ask the Dáil to keep that in mind. It is a bargain, an approximation. Deputy Gorey spoke of very real things when he spoke of the small farmer, and the small holding where all the family work, where they start at an early hour in the morning and finish at a late hour in the evening, and whose living is on a very low standard. By such means they carry on. It is in the interests of such men this Bill is introduced, and that the Dáil should pass it. This particular Bill is part and parcel of a certain policy, and the spokesman of that policy made it possible, and say it is the best thing that could be done as a bargain between all interests. The Bill is offered as a fair thing, and gives an opening and a chance in the future to the small man. Do some justice to those who are clearing it. This is your Bill and your bargain, and do not try to upset it, and take the best part of it away. Do not smash the Bill, and do not smash the whole thing. I have sympathy with all those points brought forward, but the fact that it is a bargain must be borne in mind. We have to take the good and the bad. We have to swallow the whole lot as it is.

Mr. LYONS

I was more than pleased to hear the remarks of the last Deputy when he referred to the union that has been created here between the Farmers' Party and the Labourers' Party. I hope in the interests of the country that that unity will continue amongst us. I can, as a Labour man, assure the Dáil it will not be the fault of the Labour Party if a unity like that is broken.

Mr. CORISH

Send him down to Waterford.

Mr. GOREY

Come over here to these benches.

Mr. LYONS

I want to support this amendment, and not simply because it is put forward by Deputy Gorey. If the same amendment is put forward by any of the members in the Government benches I am sure that the Saorstát will rise in the morning and see in the Press where the Labour Party threw in their lot with the Government for this particular amendment. I think it is really necessary that this amendment should be accepted. For surely 60 per cent. is quite enough to give the landlords. Before this Bill was introduced, there were in the country some very large holders of land, who had actually advertised their land for sale. But when they read the terms of the Bill and found they were getting 65 per cent. they removed the posters and said they would wait until the Bill goes through, "Because" said they, "we would not get so much at the auction." Deputy Gorey spoke of the men in an impoverished state, and he also mentioned the amount of good that those particular landlords have done to the country, and the amount of employment they gave on the land and the amount of improvements they carried out while the land was in their possession. That reminds me of a little story I read in a book some years ago. It happened somewhere down in Waterford where a poor man went to a large landowner who owned something like 1,600 or 1,700 acres. The tenant thought to get into the good graces of the landlord and lay down at the hall door and started to eat the grass. The landlord came out and said "my poor man what is the matter with you?" And the tenant replied "I am impoverished and destitute." The landlord said to him "get round to the back of the house, the grass is much finer and sweeter there." These are the men to whom the Saorstát are now asked to give a rent that will cripple the future tenants or the tenants who are already in occupation. I certainly support this amendment not for the interest of the big farmer, the man with the £200 valuation, but for the small man, the man who possibly cannot afford to pay. Furthermore, I think that when we take into account particularly the two classes of farms taking the fee simple holding, say, of a £30 valuation, and take another farm of the same valuation that carries a rent of £12 a year, I think something more should be done for that man who is paying £12 a year, than for the man who is a freeholder more or less. That is why I support this amendment. Deputy Wilson was large in his remarks; He maintained that £200 will be lost by the tenant who will buy under this Act. That £200 will be lost by him. That was gained by the tenant who purchased under the 1903 Act. The Minister for Agriculture wants to know if Deputy Gorey or any citizen had money invested would they hand over the whole sum raised through that money being invested. I think that was a wrong remark thrown at Deputy Gorey and Deputy Wilson. I am not quite sure that the money they had invested was money they earned, but the money you give to the landlord has not been earned by him. They have not done anything in this country to deserve the amount of fairplay given under this particular Clause. I think it is high time that we asked those landlords to hand over to the original owners the land that belongs to the people of Ireland. The land of Ireland has been long enough in the hands of a few. I am sure that the Minister for Agriculture will try the influences he has, when this amendment of Deputy Gorey's will be put to a vote. I am sure notwithstanding the words that have been said in the previous speeches about the Minister for Agriculture throughout the country that he was the only man that could succeed in getting a Bill that could satisfy overbody, that it will be said to-morrow that he got that Bill to satisfy the landlords and that he had no interest in the tenants.

Mr. DOYLE

I support the amendment, and I believe myself that the Minister and Government ought to accept it—for State reasons alone. It has been debated from every point of view except from one, and that is the tenant's. The tenant should not be compelled to pay any higher rate than 60 per cent. of his present rent. At the present state of Agriculture, and the state it has been in for the last three or four years, it is impossible to pay any more. Agriculture has been losing for the last three or four years and everybody engaged in agriculture knows that thoroughly well. How then is a farmer to pay an impossible annuity? I consider that the State will be well advised in making his annuity as low as it possibly can. For this reason—that they will leave him in a position of being able to pay his annuity, and pay his rates and taxes. If they put too big an imposition on him, if they put too high an annuity on him, it will leave him in a condition that he will not be able to meet any of his engagements whatsoever. You know when the 1903 Act was passed, things were very different. Things were very different with regard to the men engaged in agriculture at the time. The cost of production at that time was very little—not more than one third of what it is at present. And then he came along for a number of years at that cost of production. He got a reasonable profit in those particular years. Then the Minister talked about inflated prices. He said nothing was to be had in those years. If he looks at this inflation from a tenant's point of view he will see that the latter had to pay more for every hand's turn he got done on his farm, and so the inflation was not as large as the Minister thinks. There was also inflation on his purchases. The farmer had to pay for any farm implements he purchased during those years four times as much as when the 1903 Act was passed for everything was dear in comparision with then. The inflation of his prices was brought down by the inflation of the purchases he had to make, and this is not a matter which is being taken into consideration at all. I say that the State and Government should try and leave that annuity as low as they possibly can so as to give the tenant purchaser a chance to pay his annuity, his outgoings, and his rates and taxes. If those things are not paid, that is the annuities, rates and taxes, the country will go bankrupt, and I say to the State and the Minister to accept the lowest annuity they can.

The PRESIDENT

Yesterday we were told that there were something like 70,000 tenants, and a rental in the neighbourhood of £800,000 a year. According to that a very large proportion of the persons affected by this Bill would be paying a rental of £10 a year. Now, under the Bill the sum for which they would be liable is this: a person who had to pay a rent of £10 a year would pay £6 10s., and the proposal is to reduce it to £6. We are told from one side of the Dáil that the difference between £6 and £6 10s. will compensate for what is regarded as the normal standard type of life, and put the tenant in the position to enjoy all the advantages of a higher standard. I am in some difficulties to know how this is to be done on 10s. a year. We are told from the other side that this 10s. a year spelt bankruptcy. I have never come across a case in which 10s. a year made a man bankrupt. The Deputies may know of such a case, and in justice to the Dáil they should tell us. There is one order we must admit, in connection with this Bill not represented here. The landlords have no representatives here. The Deputies have an excellent opportunity of pillorying the Government, and saying "you are fine specimens, and you are defenders of this Order that ought to be exterminated."

LABOUR DEPUTIES

No.

The PRESIDENT

Oh yes, you are in that position. You are able to say that. But we have got to strike a fair and even balance. We were not able to strike it in this case, and Deputies know it well. In the one case all that could be afforded was something like 13? years' purchase. If one mentioned that in 1903 what would be said?

Mr. GOREY

It would be the same price if you got the money at 2¾ per cent.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

Order, you cannot interrupt.

The PRESIDENT

We have bolstered up that at the cost of the State. I may tell the Dáil that it was only after a very long and careful consideration that I even considered the question of bolstering up that contribution by reason of the fact of the condition of our finances. This particular order that has got no representation here at all has got to have something said for its side of the case. Deputies say it has none. If you say it has none, why then do you give it 60 per cent.? No honest man would stand up and say give them 60 per cent. if he thought that. He should say "give them nothing."

If you presume to give them anything at all you ought to give them what is fair. If we are prepared to give them what is fair then we ought to consider it on a fair basis, and consider how it will effect one and the other. We cannot get an acceptance from those concerned of a 60 per cent. payment of the former rental. We are then faced with the position that there are citizens of this State who are entitled to ask that the machinery of the State be put in motion, and Deputies know what that means. You can if you like at a particular time pass this Bill over the head of the Seanad. You may now—but I doubt it. It will be held up for nine months, and meanwhile the machinery of the State must operate. Suppose it is held up for nine months. How many tenants will be deprived of what you are trying to save them now?

Mr. GOREY

I wish to God it were held up.

The PRESIDENT

You know well it cannot be done, and it is well known that it may not be done.

Mr. GOREY

I hope it will be held up. They will get an opportunity of holding it up.

The PRESIDENT

Well then you are going to justify the holding up of the machinery of the State. The citizen has his rights. Are you going to deprive him of them without having the law to back you?

Mr. GOREY

We will have the law at the next election.

The PRESIDENT

If it be elections that are mentioned it is a new matter. We can deal with that. This is the first time a question of this kind was mentioned in this Dáil. I thought that every member brought in what he could of ability which he contributed towards the solution of urgent, public matters regardless of whether or not he should be returned at the next Election. I may tell the Deputies that there is not any one on those benches here who cares about being in public life. They are here for the country. The majority of the members of this party want to get out. We can only keep them in by the greatest possible persuasion. We keep them in for one reason, and the Deputy knows that reason. You can dissolve this party to-morrow but will the Deputy deal with the difficult situation we are faced with?

Mr. GOREY

If the time comes, we will.

The PRESIDENT

If that be the case we are willing at any moment to give you an opportunity. It is not for love of office we are staying here. It is for one purpose we got into this thing for the last 6 or 7 years, and certainly it was not. our intention at the beginning that public life would be the sport of any parties. I think it will be admitted that Deputies on this side have suffered, and lost a great deal. The real question here is what can you do in justice? You cannot maintain in justice that 10s. difference in a £10 rental is going to bankrupt you, and can it be proved that 10s. a year is going to give a man a higher standard of living.

One case put forward was that the landlords were getting security. Take care whether they are getting security or not. Take care what will be the value of the particular security. Take care how much it may affect very important interests in the State, in which the Deputy's interests are just as much bound up as those of the landlord, and perhaps more so, because I do not believe that there is any larger interest in the country than the agricultural interest. Take care that the industrial, banking and other interests are not lessened in amount, lessened in value, lessened in importance, for upon the security of these depends, to a very great extent, the value of the country's agricultural industry. It was stated that they would get security. I would like to know from the Deputies if we were in a position to say to-morrow, so far as labour is concerned, that they should have a forty per cent. reduction on the rather nebulous incomes that they have derived for some years and that we guarantee them that, would it be accepted?

Mr. JOHNSON

Tempt us.

The PRESIDENT

This has not been put forward in that way. If Deputies would put forward that, I am inclined to think that a great many of the important industrial interests of the country would accept it, and I am inclined to think that a great many supporters of the Deputies opposite, whom they represent, would not be agreeable to that proposition. Deputies might say "yes," but the men themselves might say "no." Forty per cent. is a very considerable reduction in income in the case of many of these estates. I do not know to what extent they are encumbered. I have been informed that there have been considerable mortgages in certain cases, and I do not think that the Deputy was wise in criticising charitable organisations which had certain mortgages on them. Certainly one must look for some security. Formerly, practically the entire security in a country was in its landed property, its landed estates. That has passed away; the world has changed; the value that formerly affected landed estates has passed away and other securities have been substituted such as War Loan, or things of that sort. People might criticise these charitable organisations, but they were perfectly entitled and justified in taking these mortgages and you are not justified in reducing their value. After all, it may be very much of an accident that Deputy Gorey has a pretty considerable farm and that a man beside him has a very small farm. The time may come when that man may think that that farm is too much for one man and he may attempt to get a slice off it, and other men may come along and take parts of it, and the Deputy might find himself in the position of a small farmer. If the majority of the people of the country are very poor——

Mr. GOREY

That argument is no good.

The PRESIDENT

Perhaps not. I am sure it would take a good deal to assure the Deputy of the danger of it, but the danger is there. Now, I have put it to the Deputies that this is a case for common justice. We approached it from that angle entirely. It would have been a very popular thing for us to have put down the 40 per cent. reduction. It would perhaps have involved the State in consequences in which we did not think we were justified in involving it. From all the information that we have been able to gain we are satisfied that the Bill as it stands is accepted in good faith by the people, who are just in their decisions in such matters. There is nothing in it to commend it to them but common justice, and it is in that spirit that we are putting it forward.

Mr. DAVIN

I regret that some of the things mentioned by the President were introduced, because I think they have no bearing whatsoever upon the conduct of this debate so far as we are concerned. If one were to take his speech seriously, one would be led to believe that the whole foundation of the State was trembling in the balance and affected altogether by the landlords' consideration, so far as this Bill was concerned. We were told by the Minister for Agriculture himself that this question is really a simple one because of the small acreage involved, because of the very small number of unpurchased tenants, and because of the very small number of landlords who would be concerned by the Bill, compared with those who had already purchased and settled under previous Acts. Therefore, the matter cannot really be so serious for the State as the Minister for Finance asks us to believe, Deputy Sears taunted Deputies on this side of the Dáil with the unity existing in this matter between the Farmers' Party and ourselves regarding a matter which, I think, concerns the agricultural workers and the small tenant farmers. If that unity—and I say this seriously—is any indication of a greater spirit of co-operation between the two being set up I welcome it most heartily, and, as far as we are concerned, we will do nothing that will impair or break it. The whole thing boils down to what is considered a fair price. In this matter it is very hard to find out who could be the best judge. The Minister for Finance said that the landlords have no representation here, and that therefore they are not able to put up any good case in defence of the attitude adopted by Deputy Gorey and his followers. I am sure that the landlords' side of the case is very well known to the Minister for Agriculture because of the many conferences that he has had with their representatives.

Mr. HOGAN,

Quite true.

Mr. DAVIN

Well then, I take it that the Minister for Agriculture is the defendant on behalf of the landlords on that particular point.

Mr. HOGAN

On a point of order, how does the Deputy deduce that from the fact that I happen to know the landlords' side of the case as they put it up to me? I did meet the landlords. I met the unpurchased tenants often. Is it because I met the landlords and heard their side of the case——

Mr. DAVIN

Is that a point of order?

Mr. HOGAN

That I am the defender of their side of the case here?

AN LEAS-CHEANN-COMHAIRLE

It is a point of personal explanation more than a point of order.

Mr. DAVIN

Deputy Sears seemed to think that because the landlords of the larger and different class voluntarily agreed to sell under the 1903 Act, the landlords who have held out against any of the previous Acts are entitled to the same consideration. I may be pardoned for making the distinction between the two classes, and the distinction to me appears to be this, that the landlords who sold under the 1903 Act, or previous Acts, were people who were inspired with some national outlook, with some consideration for the other side, and who made what they considered to be a fair bargain. That class of landlord generally is a landlord who has lived and spent his money within the country and put it in circulation within the country. On the other hand, the landlord who has held out against any previous Act, and who has now been compelled to sell, is the landlord who has drawn rent out of a small number of unpurchased tenants and who has spent the money outside this State. That is a different matter altogether, and to me, at any rate, there is quite a difference between the two classes of landlords. I look upon any person, whether he be a landed proprietor or otherwise, as patriotic in the sense that whatever money he derives, by rent or by other means, he spends within the State. That type of man is a patriotic citizen whether he be a landlord or a worker, and he is the man who keeps this or any other State going.

My concern in regard to the question of price is mostly with the person who has lost the most during the past two or three admittedly very bad years. Deputy Gorey has pleaded very well on behalf of that particular class and the small tenant farmer who, it has been admitted, has been very badly hit because of circumstances over which he has had no control, and who is called upon to pay a price out of the labour of his family, although he has no control over the prices of the produce which he helps to grow. I think that is a very unfair thing so far as the man who helps to produce the food of the country is concerned, and I think that should be taken into consideration.

The Minister for Local Government seems to be amused at some of these statements, and the Bill has been defended by the Minister for Agriculture and the Front Bench in a very amusing way. They apparently believe there is nothing in anything put up except by themselves. Deputy Sears went very far when he said that the people who are responsible for this Bill are the people who are responsible for making it possible for the Dáil to meet and to bring forward the first Irish Land Bill. Let me ask him whether he thinks that the people who are sitting with him on that side of the Dáil are the only people who made it possible for us to meet in the Dáil. The small tenant farmer and the working classes have taken their share of the sacrifices that have made it possible for us to meet here just as much as those of whom Deputy Sears speaks. It appears to me he is inclined to give no credit except to that particular class. I put to the Minister for Finance a fair question which I think has some bearing on the aspect of the case which even he himself put up. Would he be prepared to offer to the labourers of this country 60 per cent. of their present wages while they did no work? That is what he is giving to the landlords who held out against previous Acts, and to whom he is offering this under the terms of this Bill. I ask him that in all fairness, seeing the attitude he has adopted and the case he has put up for the people who have never done any work so far as this country is concerned.

Mr. GOREY

I have reserved some little facts and figures for the last. The Minister for Finance has inspired me with them. I know that the Minister for Finance knows a little about finance. He is a business man, and business was his object in life until he started politics, and his view point ought to be the view point of a business man. I know a little, too, about Land Purchase from its business aspect. Since 1919 and 1920, when money was in the country, twelve estates were sold in my country, voluntary sales between landlords and tenants, and the terms were arrived at by agreement at a round table at which I sat, and all those sales were carried out under a cash transaction. The average price was between 11 and 12½ years for cash. The Minister for Finance talks about 100 per cent. of the landlord's income. If he was a landlord and knew anything about property, or landlordism, or the collection of rents, or even the history of the recent Acts, he would know that that 100 per cent. was never received by any landlord. He would know that he had the cost of collection, that there were legal expenses and other charges incidental to the collection of the rents that could not be got away from. If he read up the report of the Convention held at Trinity College, he would know that the net income of the landlord at that time was voluntarily agreed on as 75 per cent. of his income. That is 25 per cent. gone west, and that he never had. He would have 75 per cent. of his income—if he could collect it. He, as a man who owned a property, got as much as he could collect; he had to meet bad years and good years, and got what he could collect, and no more. What was the average collection of many of the Estate Offices in this city? Go back before the fat years of war and tell us what was the average collection on £1,000. How much of that was collected? I challenge the Minister to get these figures for me.

The PRESIDENT

I thought the Deputy was going to give me information, but it appears he is asking for it.

Mr. GOREY

I am giving him the information, and I challenge him to contradict my figures. What was the average collection? According to the Convention Report it was 75 per cent., if he could collect it. How much did he collect in the forties, the fifties, the eighties and the nineties, and even in the tens of this century? Did he collect 75 per cent.? Nothing of the sort; he was entitled to that if he could get it, but he never got it. There were circumstances in every case which made it impossible for him to get it. Deputies smile. I want to tell them that this is not a joke, and it was not a joke when one and a half year's rent had to be forgiven. Deputy Hughes knows nothing about it.

Mr. HUGHES

Apparently no one knows anything about it except Deputy Gorey.

Mr. GOREY

Deputy Hughes knows more about trade.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

It would be better if these interruptions would not take place. The Deputy has spoken three times already. The first time fourteen minutes, the second time thirteen minutes, and he must be short now.

Mr. GOREY

The President has spoken of extermination. There is no question of extermination at all; it is a question of offering these landlords a fair business proposition. There is £75, if he can collect it, but there is always a considerable element of doubt about that collection, and about how much of it he can collect. How much would any sensible business man, the President, for instance, accept as an absolute certainty for that sum of considerable uncertainty?

The PRESIDENT

The Deputy has paid rent himself; if he tells us how much he has paid on £100, I will accept that.

AN CEANN-COMHAIRLE

at this stage resumed the Chair.

Mr. GOREY

How much I paid on £100? I owe a few years' rent at present, and my father owed more before I came along. Perhaps some of the Deputies would call him dishonest or immoral, but it never troubled his conscience. I asked the President a question, and he has not answered me. What would he take as a fair equivalent for seventy-five years, an absolutely gilt-edged security, for a security of considerable uncertainty? What would he or any sensible business man take? The landlords in my county agreed to take twelve and a half years' purchase. They agreed to take less than 60 per cent., and they thought they were doing good business; and here we are met by talk of confiscation and extermination when we make a lesser demand. But the men who had property to sell, and did sell it voluntarily within the last three years, were sensible men and knew their business, and knew what certainty was as against uncertainty. There is no use in coming here and talking about extermination and confiscation, and indulging in the histrionics we have heard about the unfortunate landlord. The speech of Deputy Sears a few minutes ago was witty, and there was no malice in it; but if you take the wit out of it there was nothing left. This is a question I think the President, as a business man, or any other business man in the Dáil, ought to answer—how much as a fair proposition would he take for £75 when his chance of recovering it would be very remote? How much as a bulk sum would he take? Would he take £60 or £55? If he was a business man he would, and he would not grumble about it.

Mr. HOGAN

I really did not think it was worth my while to rise to answer the points put forward by Deputy Gorey or by any of the other speakers up to the present. There has not been a single attempt by Deputy Gorey to produce a single intelligent argument in favour of the figure he put forward, or a single intelligent argument against the figure that I put forward. We simply have had a lot of hot air from Deputy Gorey and a lot of hot air, more or less, from the Farmers' party.

Mr. GOREY

Hot air on the part of the landlords has been put forward by the Minister.

Mr. HOGAN

And we have had all this for 10s. per annum.

Mr. GOREY

Yes, why not?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Order, Order. Deputy Gorey will have to sit quiet and cease from interrupting. I am getting completely tired of Deputy Gorey's interruptions, and I cannot allow him to continue.

Mr. HOGAN

Let me now try to bring a little common sense into this debate. We have been here for hours and the proceedings have been a perfect farce so far as the Farmers' party is concerned. We have had plenty of histrionics, plenty of excitement, and there has been a lot of hot air about. For the average tenant 10s. is the figure involved, and that was only arrived at a couple of days ago. It had been 50 per cent.—that was the figure put forward through the organisation; they started at sixty and it reached fifty-four and three-quarters, on one occasion, which was meant, of course, to show how accurately the figure was arrived at. Now the figure is forty per cent. As the President has pointed out, that is for the average tenant 10s. per annum. The business of the Dáil must be held up, in order that the country may be shown how some people's hearts are bleeding and are broken for the unpurchased tenant, and how other people's hearts are not. The very party that Deputy Gorey represents agreed with the landlords to take a twenty-five per cent. reduction in 1920.

Mr. GOREY

Nothing of the sort!

Mr. HOGAN

Was there not an agreement between the landlords and the Farmers' Union in 1920 to settle upon a twenty-five per cent. reduction basis?

Mr. GOREY

There was an agreement between the Farmers' Union and the landlords of those days.

Mr. HOGAN

What! 1920?

Mr. GOREY

There was an agreement between them in that year to take thirty per cent. reduction on first term rents, and twenty-four per cent. reduction on second term rents. I want to say that the Farmers' Union in those days was a Landlords' union led by a landlord, Colonel O'Callaghan Westropp, and backed up by landlords' men, in the union. They were kicked out of it and then we formed the Unpurchased Tenants' Organisation. They did not represent the unpurchased tenants and never acted for them.

Mr. HOGAN

We could all get excited if we wanted to, as well as Deputy Gorey. I take his own figure. They accepted thirty per cent. for first term rents, and twenty-four for second term rents. They accepted the terms of the 1920 Act, which gave an average reduction of 25 per cent. on first and second term rents. I am giving a reduction of 35 per cent. The Farmers' Union accepted the 25 per cent. reduction under the 1920 Act, and, I ask, did Deputy Gorey or any member of the Farmers' Union ever denounce the action of the Union at that time for accepting such a reduction, or write a single letter to a newspaper in Ireland denouncing this betrayal of the interests of the unpurchased tenants by what we are now told was this renegade Farmers' Union.

Mr. WILSON

The price for produce was different then.

Mr. HOGAN

Here is a serious question, be it big or small, and as Deputy Davin knows, it is not the number of tenants involved, it is the principle of how much you are going to pay where you acquire property compulsorily. The serious question is, how much you are going to give for it. It is a serious question, even from Deputy Gorey's point of view, the question of how much you are going to pay for property that you acquire compulsorily. How did the Farmers' Union tackle it? They started off with a demand for a 60 per cent. reduction, then they came down to 54¾ per cent., and later to 50 per cent., and now we have a demand for a 40 per cent. reduction. Previously, as I have stated, they were satisfied with a 25 per cent. reduction. I say this is pure casual guess work. I said before that I do not begrudge the farmers or the Labour Party their pic-nic. They have a magnificent opportunity, and if we on these benches had such an opportunity I am sure we have splendid imaginations and would look for a 60 per cent. reduction if we thought we could get it. We could have made tremendous speeches about the poor tenants of Ireland, but we did not talk about land purchase; we did not go around the country when the confusion was at its height and when you had the energies of any man who had the good of the country at heart trying to bring about conditions of peace and security, and trying to do what they could to allay the class war that was developing at the time. We did not go around the country at that time preaching doctrines that we did not believe in in regard to the price at which property should be compulsorily acquired. On the contrary, we tried to see to it, as far as we could, that any man in the country whether a landlord, a tenant or a workman would get his legal rights. We have done that, and we are now introducing this Land Purchase Bill. I have heard a good many speeches from people who were never within half a mile of an unpurchased tenant, and who know nothing about his condition. They talk now about his rights and his wrongs, but I say that 95 per cent. of the unpurchased tenants of the country know perfectly well that the price in this Bill is a tip top one from their point of view. Deputy Gorey knows that, too, just as well as I do, and so does the rank and file of the unpurchased tenants. A reduction of 35 per cent. is considerably more than they ever expected to get, and Deputy Gorey, and every other Deputy in this Dáil, I do not care to what Party he belongs, knows that perfectly well. The unpurchased tenants know that that reduction is a good deal better than they ever expected to get, and that it is more than fair. I explained on the First and Second Reading of the Bill why we arrived at this price. I put forward specific reasons, and I have waited here since to hear one of them deliberately met or to be shown to be inaccurate or unsound in any respect. I have not heard it done. No one has attempted to do it. It was simply histrionics from all Parties when they were not engaged in an academic discussion on the rights of property, histrionics which are about twenty years out of date and which deceive nobody. I said in introducing the Bill that we tried to be just to the landlords and generous to the tenants. These terms are generous to the tenants; the tenants know they are generous and Deputy Gorey knows it also, and if, as a result of any monkey tricks, this Bill was beaten, and that the price in it was not obtained, it would be very bad business for Deputy Gorey and the Deputies sitting with him.

Amendment put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 21; Níl, 33.

Tá

• Donchadh Ó Guaire.
• Seán Ó Duinnin.
• Domhnall Mocháin.
• Tomás de Nógla.
• Liam de Róiste.
• Seoirse Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Seán Ó Ruanaidh.
• Liam Ó Briain.
• Tomás Ó Conaill.
• Aodh Ó Cúlacháin.
• Séamus Éabhróid.
• Risteárd Mac Liam.
• Liam Ó Daimhín.
• Seán Ó Laidhin.
• Cathal Ó Seanáin.
• Domhnall Ó Broin.
• Domhnall Ó Muirgheasa.
• Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
• Micheál Ó Dubhghaill.
• Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin.

Níl

• Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
• Gearóid Ó Súileabháin.
• Uaitéar Mac Cumhaill.
• Seán Ó Maolruaidh.
• Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
• Seosamh Mac Suibhne.
• Peadar Mac a' Bháird.
• Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
• Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
• Sir Séamus Craig.
• Liam Trift.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Pádraig Ó hÓgáin.
• Pádraic Ó Máille.
• Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
• Piaras Béaslaí.
• Fionán Ó Loingsigh.
• Séamus Ó Cruadhlaoich.
• Criostóir Ó Broin.
• Proinsias Bulfin.
• Séamus Ó Dóláin.
• Aindriú Ó Laimhín.
• Liam Ó hAodha.
• Proinsias Mag Aonghusa.
• Eamon Ó Dúgáin.
• Peadar Ó hAodha.
• Séamus Ó Murchadha.
• Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde.
• Liam Mac Sioghaird.
• Tomás Ó Domhnaill.
• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Uinseann de Faoite.
• Séamus de Burca.

The amendment was declared lost.