Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 2 Dec 1925

Vol. 13 No. 12

SHOP HOURS (DRAPERY TRADES, DUBLIN AND DISTRICTS) (AMENDMENT) BILL. - PURCHASE AND DIVISION OF LAND.—DEBATE ON MOTION BY DEPUTY RODDY (Resumed).

Mr. NOLAN

I take a rather different line from that taken by Deputy Roddy. I am not so anxious about rushing into the division of land as some other Deputies who have spoken. I speak rather on behalf of the ratepayers and the taxpayers. My reason for taking that attitude is that, as we are all aware, and as I was informed in a reply to a question put to the Minister some days ago, the arrears of annuities in Limerick amount to close on £37,000. They extend back for about five years, and it is well known that these tenants purchased on very much more favourable terms and got their land very much cheaper, than the new allottees are getting theirs. These purchasers had only to buy out the landlords' interests, and the landlords' interest was based on a fair rent which was fixed in the courts. Their annuities were at the rate of, approximately, 10/- to 15/- per acre, whilst the recently divided land is about 32/- to 33/- an acre. That, to my mind, will become a source of great worry to the ratepayers hereafter, if they have to make up the deficiency in the rates caused by the agricultural grant being withheld. The amount of the agricultural grant withheld from the Limerick ratepayers at present is something like £26,000.

For that reason alone I would ask the Minister to go slow in the future purchasing of land. Of course in the case of any land that has been purchased and an agreement signed, I do not see why it should not be divided at the earliest possible opportunity. According to what Deputy Roddy stated some land has been from 10 to 17 years in the hands of the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board. If such land has been in the hands of the Congested Districts Board for the last 17 years, certainly there should be enough profits to redeem the whole estate within that time and the allottees should have the land now practically free. I am speaking from experience. I know one small estate quite close to my own place in Limerick which has been divided recently, the Lewis estate. There were one 65 statute acres in that estate to be divided. It was derelict for six years, and the landlord had nothing out of it during these years. Previous to that it was let at £2 per Irish acre, in con-acre. It was suitable for meadowing and it was good for nothing else. It was slobland. It was set to the men in craglands overhead for meadowing.

Some six years ago the landlord attempted to raise the rent and the local people took it on themselves to see that the rent was not raised, and as a result the place was left derelict. The Land Commission have taken it over recently and have given £1,300 for it. That would be £20 per statute acre, and it would work out very close to 32/- per acre in annuities. It would be over 30/- an Irish acre. I fail to see how the tenants of that little estate will be able to meet the annuities if the tenants on the adjoining estates, who have to pay only from 10/- to 12/- an acre, are in arrears. The tenants on this small estate will have to pay £1 per acre more than the others. I have had letters from my constituents asking me to see that these estates will be divided, but I am not going to do that. I am not going to take their advice for the reason I have given. I would ask the Minister to proceed slowly in this matter, and in any case where a bargain has not been made already to hold his hand because the value of land is coming down. An estate bought four years ago for £10,000 could, I am sure, be bought to-day for £5,000.

I am sure that these estates, between the high rates and the small price for agricultural produce, will be going back in value in the very near future, and that instead of the tenants paying annuities on £1,000 or on £500 they will only be paying on £200 or £250. That would be a great advantage to the State. I do not suggest that the Land Commission should confiscate the estate from the landlord. The landlords are entitled to get the full value for their land if it is taken over, but I think it will be much lower in value in another year or two because of the great fall in the price of agricultural produce. I am sure that half the land in Leinster would not be let for the coming year were it not that the graziers have so much stock on hands which they cannot dispose of at a profit. They would not get as much for their cattle as they cost them last year. I do not like to go too far outside my own constituency, but I would refer to one estate, the Scully estate, in Tipperary. The Land Commission inspected that some time ago and the inspector put a valuation of £4,250 on it. The owner appealed and the question of the valuation came before Mr. Justice Wylie. The valuation was increased to £6,450 —an increase of 50 per cent. If an economic rent could not be fixed on the original price, I do not see how you are going to fix an economic rent for the future on the new prices. I would like to know if any defence is made against increases of this kind, because it certainly is most unfair, most irregular, and most unjust if the valuer put a valuation of £4,000 odd on the land and the judge, who did not see the land at all, was able to increase it to £6,000.

Mr. DAVIN

That is not the only case.

Mr. NOLAN

I hope the Deputy will support me in getting that done and will also support me in asking the Minister to go slow in the matter of sales for the future. There is another class of case that I would suggest the Minister should also take into consideration—where the landlord has refused an offer by the Land Commission. I would ask the Minister in cases where the landlords refuse an offer to make them no further offer and to leave the land on their hands for a further two years, and it will be very easy then to get them to accept the offer. There is another case in the West of Ireland which was brought to my notice —the Cannon Estate in County Mayo. That estate contained 550 statute acres, including 67 acres of water. There were practically 100 acres occasionally submerged. There were about 100 acres of poor arable land, and the balance was cut-away bog. To give you an idea of the value, the rental was only £87. The Land Commission have given to the owner bonds to the extent of £6,000, and along with that he has about 150 acres of good land in Meath. I think that is a fabulous price. I would like in those cases to have the facts published in the Press. There is another case which, I think, was published in a paper called "Honesty."

Mr. GOREY

What claim has it to the title?

Mr. NOLAN

Before I leave the question of defaulting annuitants, I would like to ask the Minister why these arrears are left running so long. Some of these people have gone into five years arrears. I do not suggest that out of any feeling of ill will against them, but I think it is a shame to allow them to run so long. I think these estates should be put up for sale and let them be bought in by people who are anxious to get land. If they are not put up for sale, the Minister has only to accept the responsibility and I will have to take other action in regard to the grants withheld from the country councils. There are about two hundred large farmers in County Limerick who, I say, could afford to pay.

I do not say that the Land Commission should collect arrears from every individual, but some men, if they are only a month in arrears, are processed. That seems unfair. I want to suggest to the Minister that he should bring these people to some sense of responsibility and make them realise their liabilities. There are other classes entitled to the lands that are to be divided. There is one class who seem to be nobody's children and they are the ex-Army men of the old Volunteers. I think if any class of people are entitled to consideration as regards land, they have first claim, because the Act of 1923 would not have been in existence at all, and we would not be here, were it not for them. They seem to have been forgotten in every department, and I hope when the Minister sends his inspectors out that he will give them directions to have these men given special consideration.

Mr. DAVIN

I support the motion, and I can support almost everything that Deputy Nolan has said, with the exception of that portion of the speech in which he tendered advice to the Minister to the effect that he should not hurry in the division of land for what he described as personal reasons. I think as Deputy for Limerick he should not encourage the Minister to do anything for personal reasons.

Mr. NOLAN

I did not refer to the division of land for personal reasons, but I said that these lands should not be purchased with money at the expense of the ratepayers and taxpayers.

Mr. DAVIN

When the Land Bill, which is now an Act, of 1923, was being discussed I could not help remembering a common phrase used by the Minister on every amendment to make the Act more definite. He said that land could be acquired under this Act at any time, for any purpose, anywhere. That was the argument used by the Minister's supporters in 1923, and if any action was responsible for bringing the Minister's party back to power, it was the play made with the Act of 1923 on the assumption that the provisions of the Act would be administered in the best and quickest way. Now we find the Minister coming back to the House and asking the members a question which he must, having the responsibility on his shoulders, answer himself. He asked how far you are going to acquire untenanted land? I do not think it is necessary to ask that, as all untenanted land was to be acquired. He asked how far are you going to acquire demesne land, how far are you going to acquire untenanted land, and how far are you going to acquire unpurchased land? These are all questions which the Minister should answer, because he has at his disposal all the available statistics and information which would make it possible for him to answer that question better than the Deputies of whom he asked it.

The Minister gave figures to show the amount of land dealt with since the 1st April, 1923, as well as land which was being dealt with previous to the Act of that year. He quoted figures to the extent, I think, of ninety-one thousand acres. I have figures showing that in Leix, up to the 18th November, the amount of acreage is 7,860 acres. I do not know whether that would be a fair proportion, taking the twenty-six counties and dividing twenty-six into ninety-one thousand. The point I want to harp on is this, that in Leix, out of 1,296 acres dealt with—that is land either invested in the Land Commission or where there was a price fixed—only 428 acres have been divided. In Offaly there are 6,394 acres, out of which only 638 have been divided. I think the procedure in regard to the division is very slow.

Mr. HOGAN

There was distributed up to the 31st October, in Leix 886 acres, and in Offaly 1,263. That is the up-to-date figure.

Mr. DAVIN

I was supplied with my figures by the Secretary of the Land Commission on the 18th November, and I was acting on the figures supplied.

Mr. HOGAN

That was probably the figure up to the previous month, or something like that.

Mr. DAVIN

The Minister has explained the reason why it has not been possible to proceed more quickly than was anticipated when the Act of 1923 was passed. The real reason, so far as I can see, is the lack of properly qualified and experienced staff in checking the re-sale schemes. When the Land Commission estimates were before us, I drew attention to the fact that while there was a considerable increase in the number of permanent and temporary inspectors appointed under the Act of 1923 there was not, proportionately in the Land Commission, the same amount of experienced clerical labour as compared with previous years. I have made enquiries and so far as I can understand this delay is due to the lack of experienced clerical labour to do this highly technical work, and, so far as there has been an increase, it has been in regard to the number of lady clerks and typists. The Minister, I am sure, will agree that lady clerks, no matter how qualified, are not suitable, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will admit, no doubt, for work of this kind. I suggest to the Minister that, instead of putting through temporary schemes and putting people into possession who will afterwards cause trouble, as he is doubtless aware, he should make a good case to the Minister for Finance for the appointment of additional experienced staff in the Land Commission, if he wishes to proceed with the division of land in the way I understand he desires. The Minister also pointed out, and, I presume, correctly, from all the figures he put before us, that it is impossible to provide economic holdings for all the landless men and uneconomic holders, as well as the representatives of the evicted tenants, who are making application for them. He says that you can only deal with a certain number, and asks whether farms should consist of twenty-five, thirty, or fifty acres.

I presume he desires an answer. I think the proper way of approaching a question is to ask whether any person should have a holding with a valuation of over a certain figure and not of over a certain acreage. A man may have 300 acres of bog land at a valuation of £40 and another may have a farm of 500 at a valuation of £250. I do not think the question is whether a farm should be comprised of 25, 30 or 40 acres, but rather whether any farmer should have a holding over a certain valuation. The Minister, I am sure, is in agreement with Cumann na nGaedheal who are devising ways and means with a view to the encouragement of tillage. I suggest the proper way for giving that encouragement is to provide more economic holdings under the Land Act. If we study the percentage of tillage at present we will find that in most cases the people who till most land are people who have small holdings. Any farmer who has over 100 acres and is not prepared to till a certain amount of the land to such an extent as will in the opinion of the Minister conform to the policy of the Cumann na nGaedheal should be deprived of the extra acreage over the 100.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

We are not discussing tillage now.

Mr. DAVIN

I read the Minister's speech, and in that he dealt with the question of what should be the proper acreage of a farm. I am sure he was anxious to find out from the House whether a farm should be limited to a certain number of acres, or, as I suggest, to a certain valuation.

Professor TIERNEY

Is the Deputy recommending that Cumann na nGaedheal should be the judges as to the amount of acreage? If so, that is going further than Cumann na nGaedheal is proposing to do.

Mr. DAVIN

I have read about this committee which is in existence, but naturally I could not pass judgment upon its scheme until I see its proposals formulated and put before the House, and I think the other part of the question does not arise until then. If farms were limited to 100 acres, then some of the biggest farmers and ranch owners would lose land which should be available for creating more economic holdings. Deputy Gorey and his party in the 1923 election claimed they had brought this Act into existence, and that they were entitled to the credit for it. I am sure when Deputy Gorey, who is an expert on the question, speaks, he will tell the Minister what should be the greatest amount of land at the disposal of any farmer such as he represents, or like himself. I repeat that in my opinion the matter should be approached from the point of view of valuation, and I believe that no farmer, in view of existing circumstances, should have a farm with a valuation of over £80 valuation.

Mr. D'ALTON

Unless he works it.

Mr. DAVIN

Unless he works a certain percentage.

Mr. D'ALTON

That is not our policy.

Mr. DAVIN

Deputy Nolan has raised a question which should not be put as a barrier against proceeding on reasonable lines with the acquisition of land. The Deputy has spoken about the uneconomic price paid for land acquired for division under the 1923 Act. I have a case before me where an estate of 332 acres has been acquired in Leix, and, as I understand it, about to be divided. The price paid was £6,083 for 332 statute acres of not very good land. I have been informed that the bog land or really bad portion of the estate is to be let at the rate of 17/6 per acre, and the good portion is going to be let at 35/- per acre. I say that 35/- per acre is an uneconomic price. To that extent I agree with any complaint Deputy Nolan has made in that direction. I have heard of cases of estates that have been acquired under the 1923 Act, and when the owners went before the Judicial Commissioner he was very generous in increasing the purchase price. I understand, and it is significant if my information is correct, that he has increased the price in such cases since the Land Bond Bill became an Act, Another question to which I wish to refer deals with the sending down of inspectors to inspect lands as they have done in my constituency, and having completed inspection they then had the lands gazetted in the "Irish Oifigiúil," leaving the people in those areas under the impression that the lands were about to be acquired and divided among the local people.

I know of four cases within a radius of about 5 miles in Leix where the inspectors interviewed local people, uneconomic holders, took their statements and left them under the impression that the lands were to be divided. In one case the lands were gazetted, but after objections were raised by the owner the matter was referred to the Judicial Commissioner, who decided without giving any reason not to acquire these lands for division. That is raising false hope, and a situation that if allowed to go on will be difficult for the Minister to handle. Last week there came under my notice a case where 170 acres had been gazetted, and applications were received from uneconomic holders in the surrounding areas, but objection was raised by the owner, who has two other farms in addition to the one gazetted. For some reason unknown to me the Commissioners have written a letter stating that they do not intend to proceed with the acquisition of untenanted lands in this estate—the estate of Peter G. Alley. That gentleman, as I have said, has two or three other farms. Local people did not know he was going to raise any objection, and I do not know if they were represented before the Commissioners when hearing the case, but that is the extraordinary result, and it will be a sensation in the district.

If a man has two farms in addition to one of 170 acres, and if there are 40 uneconomic holders adjoining, it would take quite a lot to convince me that the farm of 170 acres should not be taken over and divided. In cases of that kind, when Deputies ask for reasons why the lands are not being acquired, those reasons, if the Minister agrees with them, should be given. The Minister has certain information at his disposal. I think the Deputies are entitled to have this information and pass it on to their constituents if they so desire. I have not been supplied with the reasons in respect of the four cases I have mentioned. In addition to the case of Alley, there are the case of Hopkins, Duigan and Cavanagh. They are all within a radius of five or six miles. From my point of view, and from the point of view of the local people, it would be far better if the inspectors never went into those areas. The result of decisions of this kind, and the raising of foolish hopes will, perhaps, compel the people to take action later on which the Minister would not approve of.

Deputy Hall raised a question to-day in connection with division of land. I have drawn the Minister's attention to similar cases where, when the Land Commission have gazetted land or expressed a desire to acquire an estate, the owner of the estate at once proceeds to dismiss the workmen, and deprive them of various rights, such as grazing rights for cows. That policy appears to be a common policy in Offaly. All the landlords there must belong to the same organisation, for they all take the same action once the Commissioners express their desire to acquire land. Those are cases in which the Minister should recommend the Commissioners to acquire the land as soon as possible. I know of one case where fourteen workers were thrown out of employment on the Baker estate, Mount Wilson. That happened nine months ago and they have been unable to get work since. Some of them are at present on home assistance. That is a state of affairs that should not be allowed to continue. Nine months should be long enough to enable the Commissioners to make up their minds as to the course they should adopt.

The question of depriving the workers of their grazing rights, in cases where they have cows, is a very serious one. So far as I am concerned, I am prepared to state, both inside and outside the Dáil, that I will advise the people concerned to put the cows back on the land they were driven off and, even where it is necessary to take unconstitutional action, they should maintain their existing rights until the Land Commission make up their minds to acquire and divide the land. I would encourage the people to adopt any action rather than allow their beasts to be put out on the roadside. If the animals are driven out on the roads probably the Civic Guard would come along and insist on having them removed from there.

Mr. BOLGER

Can the Deputy tell me what does the owner do with the land in cases where the labourers are dismissed? How is he working the land?

Mr. DAVIN

In the particular case I have knowledge of the original owner, who was made an offer by the Land Commission, sold the land to another person. That individual then passed it on to yet another person, and fully £2,000 profit was realised on the transactions between the original owner and the present holder.

Mr. BOLGER

Where there are uneconomic holders they should get a preference when lands come to be divided.

Mr. DAVIN

I do not quite follow what Deputy Bolger is aiming at, but I know that the Act provides that when lands of that kind are acquired and are being divided, people who are thrown out of employment should have preference in securing holdings. The Minister should speed up things in order to relieve distress caused by landlords for the purpose of preventing the Commission acquiring the land, or for some other reason that I am not in a position to explain. The action taken by the landowners in Offaly is being followed in Meath, as is indicated by Deputy Hall's question to-day.

I intervene in this debate to draw the Minister's attention to the few points I have referred to, and to express the desire and hope that he will not be encouraged by Deputies like Deputy Nolan not to acquire and divide land in the way I believe he intended.

Mr. GOREY

At any price?

Mr. DAVIN

I believe those were his intentions when he was putting the Act through the House in 1923. I dare say Deputy Gorey will not question the judgment of the Judicial Commissioner.

Mr. GOREY

I will.

Mr. DAVIN

I am very glad to hear it. I believe if the Minister would proceed, especially in the tillage counties, to acquire the land under the 1923 Act, and create more economic holdings where to-day there are so many ranches, it would be the most practical way to proceed and it would encourage the people to till the land, the aim of himself and his party who seem most anxious in that direction.

Mr. WILSON

I have to congratulate Deputy Roddy on the fact that his motion has been accepted by the Minister. His motion, in effect, means that the Department over which the Minister is the political head, has been dilatory in the past. It is that motion the Minister gives his assent to. The arguments put forward in support of the motion were put forward from those Benches as long ago as 1922-23. Seeing they came from this quarter, they were not acceptable, but when they came from another quarter they are very acceptable. although it is, in reality, a vote of censure on the Minister, he agrees with the motion. The division of land up to the present has been at the rate of 31,000 acres per year. As a result of this motion 40,000 acres will be divided this month and, before this time twelve months, 200,000 acres will be divided.

Mr. HOGAN

And not a word of congratulation from the Deputy.

Mr. WILSON

All that has been brought about by a simple motion from Deputy Roddy. I wonder what was the Department, so ably presided over by the Minister, doing during the last two years? They can divide 40,000 acres in one month now, yet, since 1923, they have only divided 90,000 acres. If that is not a vote of censure on the Land Commission, I do not know what a vote of censure is. I am very much concerned with regard to the appointed day. I have not yet found out the real reason why the tenants under the 1923 Act have not been vested in their holdings. The excuse given is that the Land Commission has been dealing with farms bought under previous Acts and that they have, during the last couple of years, vested 18,000 holdings. Is that the real reason why these lands are not vested and why these farmers, who have cleared off their arrears, have not had the lands vested in them? Surely the excuse is not that the Department is overburdened with work.

On this motion we are told they will be able to divide 40,000 acres in a month. On the other hand, we have the fact that they have not vested any land purchased since 1923. The farmers are suffering to the extent of 10 per cent. per annum. They are paying 2/- in the £ on their rent. It is not a fair proposition to have them paying interest in lieu of rent, paying off to the State money advanced for the possession of their holdings. I hope the Minister will see that the activity of the Land Commission in that direction is speeded up. I am at a loss to understand Deputy Nolan's policy. On the one hand he is anxious for the motion, and on the other hand he tells the Minister to go slowly, to buy no land at the moment.

Mr. NOLAN

Perhaps the Deputy did not understand me. I want the Minister to divide immediately that land on which agreement has been reached and the price fixed. As to the land on which agreement has been reached, I want the Minister to go slowly because he will be able to get that land at a lower price in the future, and that is a matter that will be much to the advantage of the State and the allottees.

Mr. WILSON

The motion says "the purchase and division of land should be expedited."

Mr. NOLAN

I am against that portion of the motion.

Mr. WILSON

Now, I am coming to it. That is the first Governemtn Deputy I heard who was against this motion. The motion really has been a call from the West. It has been produced by a Deputy from the West. It is there to deal with the problem of the West. The West is now awake and we are asking to have the division of land expedited, and the Minister is awake and the Land Commission is awake, and we will have the land divided in the West. Instead of that problem which this motion is set down to meet, the Minister turned the whole argument into a question of whether each farmer is to have 25 acres or not, a totally different question. He asks what is the policy to be. He asks: "Am I to divide all the land so that everyone will have 25 acres?" That is a different motion.

Mr. HOGAN

Will the Deputy answer it?

Mr. WILSON

When that particular motion comes before the Dáil we will have something to say on it. But that motion is not before the Dáil to-night. In connection with the land which has been in the possession of the Land Commission for 12 years and which has not been divided, Deputy Sears and Deputy Tierney spoke.

Mr. HOGAN

"Purchase and division."

Mr. WILSON

We will come by-and-by to the question of purchase. On one side the Minister was told to go slowly, and on the other side he is told by Deputy Davin that 35/- an acre is not an economic rent. The inference is you are to confiscate the land in possession of the tenant-farmers and the State is to pay so much money and take the land from the tenant-farmers. That is the policy proposed by Deputy Davin.

Mr. GOREY

He does not know what it means.

Mr. DAVIN

Deputy Gorey will mind his own land anyway.

Mr. GOREY

Let Deputy Davin wait until I am finished with him.

Mr. HOGAN

Is Deputy Wilson going to answer that question?

Mr. WILSON

I have another point to go on. I will leave that matter to Deputy Gorey. I think the Minister, in speaking about the six days' notice, has not put the facts before the Dáil.

Mr. HOGAN

Is the Deputy in order on this?

Mr. WILSON

I submit that the whole policy of the Land Commission has been in order since this motion came before the Dáil.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The question of purchase annuities and the tillage question do not arise.

Mr. WILSON

Does the policy of the Land Commission arise on this?

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The policy of the Land Commission was discussed on the Land Commission Estimates recently.

Mr. WILSON

I am afraid it has been very much discussed within the last two days. The motion reads: "So that the tenants and congests shall be dealt with as soon as possible." I want to talk about dealing with the tenants in connection with their rents. There are certain tenants in Ireland who are permitted to owe five years' arrears of annuities. There are tenants in Donegal who have been processed wholesale by the Land Commission for one year's arrears, and I am pointing out that that policy is not a consistent one.

I am afraid I am out of order, but we on these benches contend that the Land Commission has not been doing the work in the way in which it should be done in the past, whatever the Minister may say, and we contend that this motion asserts that fact. It is a motion which practically sets out that the policy in the past has been dilatory. Those in support of the motion have said that the Land Commission has been dilatory. The Minister accepts that motion, and I want to put it that in addition to dilatory methods, the Minister, or otherwise the Land Commission, has been at fault. Now, it is well understood by us as tenant farmers that it is absolutely essential for the success of this State that everybody should pay his rent or annuity.

Mr. HOGAN

Hear, hear.

Mr. WILSON

While we say that that should be so, and must be so, we say that there is something wrong with the Land Commission when in one area, and a rich area, there are people who are allowed to be five years in arrear while in Donegal they are not permitted to owe a year's annuity, and one of the Deputies on these benches succeeded at the last Circuit Court there in throwing out numbers of processes.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy will have to confine himself to the motion.

Mr. WILSON

Now, coming back to the congests we find according to the Minister's figures that there are 140,000 congests in the country, and no matter how we work in dealing with untenanted land no provision can be made for at least 100,000 of these congests. If you take that statement side by side with this fact, that there are only 200,000 economic holders in the Free State, you will understand the difficulty of the problem. I want to state that there are 100,000 men under the present conditions, and under the Land Act of 1923, who cannot be supplied with land, and on the other hand there are only 200,000 people who have economic holdings.

Those Deputies who were talking about giving land to the landless men, to the national heroes and the rest, will have to bear in mind that there are 100,000 congests that cannot be attended to under the present conditions, and that if they are to be attended to, the land will have to be taken from the 200,000 economic holders in the Free State. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture will agree that these figures are correct. It is not for me to say what is to be done; we have not the responsibility of dictating the policy of the Government in this matter, and we are not going to state a case which might ultimately be brought against ourselves.

Mr. DAVIN

Are you not responsible for the Act?

Mr. WILSON

We are responsible for the Act. The Act as stated by the Minister himself gave him power to take land anywhere for congests and for the provision of land for them. There is a provision in the Act by which it will be necessary to pay a suitable price for purchased land. But if you purchase that land and pay for it a price of 35/- an acre, the people who will get it will be living on an uneconomic holding. I ask Deputy Davin can he solve that problem of dealing with these 140,000 congests? Can he state how it is to be done without despoiling those people in possession of the purchased land?

If he can solve that problem I am in agreement with such a policy. I am very pleased indeed that the new method for the division of land enunciated by the Minister is going to have 200,000 acres divided this year.

Mr. HOGAN

Within a year.

Mr. WILSON

That is a very big proposition and I hope it will be a success. If the solution of this problem was merely to place the allottees on the land by means of a lease or temporary conveyance, it is very strange that that machinery was not evolved before this. For that reason I think Deputy Roddy is to be congratulated on bringing forward this motion. The discussion has borne fruit, and I am whole-heartedly in support of the motion.

Mr. McBRIDE

I listened with very great pleasure to the statement of the Minister, particularly to that part providing for the division of 43,000 holdings by the end of next year. I would like to be assured that that is not going to be an office division but that the people will be put on these holdings.

Mr. HOGAN

That is what I meant.

Mr. McBRIDE

I am glad to hear that. The cult of the foreigner is running very strong in this country now. I remember about twenty or thirty years ago the same cult was rampant, and its removal required a lot of teaching. At the same time, just as good work was being done at home. Denmark was lauded and has been lauded for a number of years, and the Irish people were asked to look on what Denmark and other foreign countries were doing. They were never asked to look on the work done in their own country. I read some of the articles of the special correspondent of the "Irish Independent" who accompanied a deputation to Denmark recently, in which the reclamation of heath was described as if it were a new thing. Over 100 years ago the same methods were adopted in County Mayo by a Government Department under Professor Baldwin. He never got any credit for the work. Another Deputy was loud in his laudation of Belgium and on the position of small farmers there. There is no analogy between Belgium and Ireland. No doubt Belgium is a land of small farmers, but throughout that country is a large industrial population that consumes vegetables and other crops that the farmers produce. Farmers there produce two or three crops in the year, which they are able to sell in these industrial centres.

It was also suggested that fishermen along the coast should be provided with large holdings as if they are unable to catch fish they must exist by the land. It is quite impossible to make fihsermen by a wave of the hand. If a man lives by fishing, three or four acres of land is enough for him. On the west coast there are no fishermen in the real sense. Any fishing that is there is more or less of a side line. All that state of affairs must be changed. I read in a high class agricultural publication two or three months ago that there were no real farmers in Ireland; men who knew the business from top to bottom, just as there are no real fishermen. It strikes me that if all the land in the country was divided into 20 acre holdings the economic conditions would be just as bad as they are at present. With his accustomed foresight the Minister for Lands and Agriculture will, no doubt, be able to produce for the consideration of Deputies a remedy for the bad economic conditions that I foresee for the country should no industries be established.

Mr. GOREY

Before I enter into this question, I want to refer to a small incident that occurred when this matter was last before the Dáil. When Deputy D'Alton gave expression to what I considered a very laudable sentiment, I expressed approval by saying "hear, hear." Evidently that offended Deputy D'Alton. I will pass from the incident by remarking that I do not take Deputy D'Alton very seriously always. Some of his remarks I did not understand, and nobody that I met understood them——

Mr. D'ALTON

I do not quite follow the Deputy. He says that he said "hear, hear" to a remark of mine and that I took offence at that. If I did take offence because he said "hear, hear," which he did not mean sarcastically, I apologise.

Mr. GOREY

If the Deputy did not understand what I said, then I do not understand him. After having listened to so many speeches which, as Deputy Wilson said, we have been hearing during 1922, 1923, and, I think, 1924, to my mind Deputy Nolan—although some Deputies have objected to what he said—has sounded words of wisdom. Similar words of wisdom were expressed here before about the price to be paid for lands, and the price the occupying tenant of the future and the ratepayer will be asked to bear. During the passing of the 1923 Act we were met by the argument from the Government benches that land was then fetching such a price. We were told that it would fetch from £12 to £15 per acre, and we were scoffed at when we ventured to say that that was a false value on which to frame the Bill. We stated that the 1914 prices were the real prices, and were peak prices for Ireland in normal times. We said that prophecy would be borne out within five years. Only two years have passed and we will reach it in three or four years time. The State has now to recognise that, and the load they are going to put on the occupier and the ratepayer of the future. The Commissioners and those responsible must set aside the war prices as being false and fictious values and must visualise what the price for the future will be. I say that Deputy Nolan has done a good service in drawing attention to this matter. If land cannot be bought at a reasonable price, based on a visualisation of future values, then let them go slowly——

Mr. DAVIN

Is it not a fact that the Land Commission are paying a higher price to-day in certain areas than land will fetch by public auction?

Mr. GOREY

I have no knowledge of that. I know that the price put on allotments is up to 35/- an acre, which I say is a ridiculous price, and one the tenants will not be able to pay in the future.

I want to give comparative figures. I speak with a lot of experience, and I have asked one gentleman in the Dáil, who has an intimate knowledge of the question, to confirm my figures, and he has done so. I assert that the pre-war price of the best land for grazing purposes in Ireland for letting was £3 to £5 an acre. In 1920 and 1921 the prices were from £12 to £15 an acre for the same class of land, and to-day that land is realising anything from £4 to £6. We are coming back to sense. We were not talking sense in 1923 when the Land Bill was going through and when the price of £12 to £15 an acre was accepted. That price has dwindled to one-third. Anybody responsible for the purchase of land in the future must consider what land is going to realise in the future, based on the history of the past. He should consider the amount of debt that will have to be carried. I can assert, from practical experience, that land will not in the future be of as high a value as it was in 1914. Land will not be worth the price in the future that it was in 1914. Perhaps some prophet would like to stand up and contradict me. I would like to hear his reasons.

Mr. HOGAN

What about the price of tenanted land?

Mr. GOREY

It does not matter what it is actually fetching. The market value of land at the present time does not matter. That is not the real value or the commercial value. What is it fetching in England, where the people seem to have sense?

Mr. HOGAN

When you deal with untenanted lands, you do not solve the whole problem. The Land Commission will have to deal with other sorts of land also.

Mr. GOREY

I will deal with that. Out of these lands, fetching from £3 to £5 an acre, annuities, rent and rates had to be met and the occupier had to live. We have been a long time listening to cheap rhetoric about the population that this country carried one hundred years ago or before the Famine, and we have been told that they all lived on the land. They did not live on the land. They lived in the country, but they did not live on the land. We had basket-makers, carpenters, shoemakers, weavers, and other classes of industrialists living all over the country. I remember them myself, and I think I would be safe in saying that they were one-third, if not half, of the population of the country. Those people have all disappeared from the country. Our boots, our hardware and our tailoring come from the cities or towns or from across the water. To state that these people lived on the land is to state what is wrong. The land of this country will not carry anything like the population that people seem to think it will carry. You may get this figure of eight millions or nine millions out of your heads and try, as the Minister said, to face up to the facts. Deputy Davin has asked me what we consider should be the limit or extreme size of a farm. That is a very problematical question, and it is a question with very wide ramifications.

Mr. DAVIN

The Minister asked the question.

Mr. GOREY

I want to tell Deputy Davin and the Minister that when you deal with land it is not the only thing you have to deal with. Land is one, and only one, source of living in this country. If we begin with land we must deal with all the others. We must deal with salaries, with investments, with profits from business, and with earnings from public services, like railway companies. I might not be wrong in saying that the salary that Deputy Davin is drawing would support four families who are living on the land.

Mr. DAVIN

I wish it was as big as Deputy Gorey's

Mr. GOREY

I am sure Deputy Davin is drawing £360 a year.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

Deputy Gorey has no right to bring another Deputy's name into a matter of this kind.

Mr. GOREY

I am only illustrating the whole problem. When I speak of Deputy Davin, I mean any man drawing a salary. I should say that the salary of a Minister would support ten families. When you go into this question, you go into a big problem, and when you want to find accommodation for all these people in the country, you had better face up to the problem and look outside the land.

Mr. DAVIN

I cannot allow even Deputy Gorey's suspicion of what my salary was to be placed on the records as correct. Whatever my salary is, I lose one-third of it owing to my attendance in this House.

Mr. GOREY

Perhaps it is well lost. £360 out of this place is no humbug. I do not really know what ought to be the proper size of any farm. It depends on how people are farming their holdings. I can understand a case where a man holding 1,000 acres should be allowed to hold those 1,000 acres, because he is a really good farmer. I know a farm of 1,000 acres which employs about 50 or 60 families, and if it were broken up I would like to know what the position would be. I am talking about the Mount Juliet estate. In dealing with tenanted land, you are dealing, as the Minister stated, with a different problem altogether from untenanted land. It is a well-established fact that two interests in land have rights in this country—the landlord and the tenant. You will buy the one at the accepted prices that obtained under previous Acts and that the history of the last 30 or 40 years has dictated. Then you have to deal with the other interests. Either the incoming tenant who wants tenanted land will have to meet the two claims or the State will have to do it. Interest in tenanted land is just as recognised an interest as an interest in business or in investments. Face up to the proposition honestly and squarely, that you have to compensate either for business or for land.

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy will have to admit that interest in tenanted land is equal to both the tenant's interest and the interest of the owner in fee simple.

Mr. GOREY

I will not admit it.

Mr. HOGAN

Take purchased land and it proves it.

Mr. GOREY

I will admit nothing of the sort. It is not borne out by reason. It is no comparison with English land.

Mr. HOGAN

Let us get the matter clearly. A man owns one hundred acres of land in fee simple. Two other men—landlord and tenant—own one hundred acres of land. One has the fee simple interest, with a certain limitation. The limitation, so to speak —that is, the tenant's interest is owned by the second. You have two farms of 100 acres, one being held in fee simple and the other being in fee simple, with the tenant's interest added. The two interests in the second case are equal to the interest in the first.

Mr. GOREY

By the simple process of eviction he could acquire the two interests, and the State is going to compensate him for both. I do not think the Dáil will be prepared to swallow that.

Mr. HOGAN

Why penalise a man——

Mr. GOREY

We were told that there were 240,000 uneconomic holders under £9 valuation.

Mr. HOGAN

Under £9 rent.

Mr. GOREY

I thought it was between £7 and £9 valuation.

Mr. HOGAN

Two hundred and forty thousand under £9 rent or £7 annuity.

Mr. GOREY

There is land available for 40,000, and if we include demesnes there will be land available for 50,000 more.

Mr. HOGAN

No, a total of about 50,000.

Mr. GOREY

Leaving over 140,000 for whom there will be no land. These are congests. To those must be added the landless men, the unemployed workers, the evicted tenants, and the new class that has been brought into the discussion—the national heroes. I think we must seek other occupations besides land in order to find a living for the surplus population of this country. I think it cannot be described as anything else but a surplus population. A population without means of livelihood is a surplus population.

Mr. LYONS

Are you married?

Mr. DAVIN

Is the Deputy assuming that all the landless men are without occupation at present?

Mr. GOREY

There is no need for providing them with land then. These are landless men looking for land. I do not understand Deputy Lyons's reference, but I can promise him that I will not ask for State help for anybody belonging to me.

Mr. LYONS

Neither do I.

Mr. GOREY

I must take exception to one doctrine advanced here from the Government Benches, that any land set on the eleven months' system should be taken over by the Government and given to men who will farm it. Land let on the eleven months' system in certain cases should not be treated in that way. A good deal of land is let by people who are driven by necessity to that method of living—people who have fallen into financial difficulties, women who have lost their husbands and who are not in a position to farm until their families grow up.

Mr. HALL

Will the Deputy admit that the people he refers to are people who are incapable of farming, just as the landless men he referred to a few minutes ago?

Mr. GOREY

I will admit nothing of the sort. Deaths have occurred in many families and people have no choice but to let the land on the eleven months' system until their families grow up.

Mr. P. HOGAN (Clare)

What percentage of the total amount?

Mr. GOREY

A considerable percentage.

Mr. DAVIN

How many live out of the country?

Mr. GOREY

Very few. I am not dealing with that class of people. I am not making a case for them. I am making a case for people who live in the country and who have to set their land.

Mr. D'ALTON

The reference to the eleven months' tenants was made by me, and I had better explain the cases to which I referred. I think any Deputy who heard me could clearly understand what I meant. What I wanted was that in the case of estates that were likely to be taken over by the Commissioners, lands that the owners lived away from, that were not being worked and on which employment was not being given, notices should be served that there was to be an inspection of them so that the owners could not evade the Commissioners by letting their lands in advance. I was not dealing at all with those who were working their land, because I believe they are an asset to the State. I am not going to limit the man that works his land. But, where there is land that the Commissioners are likely to take over, I suggest that they should give notice of inspection, so that the land could not be let before they could inspect it, and that they should give the market value for it and not a fictitious value.

Mr. GOREY

We hear a good deal about good farming. It is well known that some small farmers are bad farmers.

Mr. DAVIN

Is it because they have no money?

Mr. GOREY

Because they have neither industry, brains nor intelligence.

Mr. LYONS

They have as much brains as the farmers the Deputy is speaking for.

Mr. GOREY

Perhaps the Deputy will tell us why we have so many bad labourers' plots in the country. We have bad small farmers, bad large farmers and very bad occupiers of labourers' plots. Perhaps it would be well to have State inspection of all of them. Deputy D'Alton has been a very strong advocate of State inspection, and we will be delighted to go to the Deputy's model farm at Clondalkin and see what he is doing.

Mr. D'ALTON

The Deputy should not be personal. I have tilled a larger proportion than the Deputy has of his.

Mr. GOREY

How much has the Deputy tilled?

Mr. D'ALTON

I have a larger proportion in tillage than the Deputy has, according to the information given in the Dáil. Please do not be personal.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

It is very improper for any Deputy to make personal references to another Deputy.

Mr. GOREY

There is no personal reference at all, but we will be very happy to see all the model farms we can be shown in the country. In proposing his motion Deputy Roddy said that we had very slow and dilatory methods, and the Minister in accepting the motion I daresay accepted the reasons that Deputy Roddy advanced.

Mr. HOGAN

No.

Mr. GOREY

And accepted the statement of facts about the slow and dilatory methods.

Mr. HOGAN

No.

Mr. GOREY

How can the Minister accept the motion without accepting the main argument that it is based on? To my mind there have been slow and dilatory methods, especially in the West and particularly under the late Congested Districts Board. Statements have been made here on those Benches about those gentlemen. I do not want to repeat them. All I suggest is that they were always found in the hotels of the West and they gave very little time to doing anything, but they retained their jobs always. They did not want to lose hold of a good thing. I am not satisfied with the old methods of distribution, nor am I quite satisfied with the present methods. Very cumbrous machinery is used in the present methods. Fences have to be built. Buildings have, in many cases, to be put up at the Commissioners' expense, where they are needed. The expenses in connection with all this have to be charged back to the incoming occupier.

Mr. HOGAN

Only a portion.

Mr. GOREY

A portion, even. What proportion?

Mr. HOGAN

I do not know.

Mr. GOREY

We would like to have the figures in dealing with this. What is the proportion?

Mr. HOGAN

It varies in each case. There is an important sub-head of £180,000 in this year's estimates from which are defrayed certain expenses in connection with the cost of buildings which are not charged to the lands. It depends on the circumstances of each tenant. One might get a free grant and one might get half the cost. It would depend on whether the land was security for any additional expenditure. If a man got a particularly cheap holding the least he might do might was to bear the little extra expense on his land for the cost of his improvements and vice versa.

Mr. GOREY

I contend more expeditious methods could be employed. The erection of a lot of fences and of a considerable amount of buildings is slow, and once a man's title is made out and a division is made and future occupants selected, I think they ought to be given immediate possession. Where they choose to do it, they should erect their own fences and buildings, and they can do it more economically than it could be done by a State Department.

Considerable exception has been taken with regard to the speed at which some of these estates have been acquired and divided. The ordinary method is that negotiations take place and ultimately there is an agreement. Until the time an agreement is reached the Commissioner or those engaged in it cannot consider the question of applications. As a business proposition I do not think it would be possible for them to do it. Once the estate is acquired then the question of considering the applications arises, and not until then. I have no objection to a considerable amount of caution and discretion being exercised by the Commissioners in making a selection of the future occupants, because the future liabilities of the State largely depend on who is going to be put into possession in the first instance. Unless a suitable and proper selection is made, the State will suffer. It will do no good to the people you will put in. The State is going to suffer, and you will not have achieved the purpose you set out to achieve. I think caution and discretion and a proper selection of the right people are essential from the national point of view.

I do not make a special case either for the evicted tenants, landless men, the congests, or the national heroes. I make a special case for the best that are to be found in the whole of them. I say the most suitable man who is likely to make the best farmer, regardless of what section he comes from, ought to be selected for the land. To my mind—I may be offending some old traditions—I say the people who have been disemployed as a result of the acquisition of the land ought to have, I will not say a better claim, but a claim equal to the best of any other class in the community. Men are disemployed when an estate is acquired. Suppose a dozen men, say, are disemployed. Some get farms, others do not, and there is very little chance of getting employment from the future occupants of those lands. There is none at all, and there may be little chance of getting employment from the farmers around. They have their homes, they cannot obtain constant employment, and they have to clear out. Either that or they become uneconomic holders. I say they have as good a claim, if not better, than any other members of the community. We do not purpose to go over the same ground as that of previous debates on this question two or three years ago, but although it is outside the motion, the Minister has referred in his statement to the number of tenanted people who will get vesting orders this year. We hope it will be speeded up. These people have been waiting from 1923. We know of the arrears of work from the 1903 Act. That has been made up, and we hope no obstacle will lie in the way of having the appointed day fixed for the tenanted farmers of this country. It is desirable that better methods and a quicker distribution should be adopted. Perhaps the better way to arrive at that would be to appoint a small Committee to confer with the Minister. Let him take advice and he will share responsibility in that way with all the parties in the House and in the country. It is no use in blaming the Minister if he takes the right step, but I think a small Committee representing the different interests of the country might be able to suggest better means; if they are not able to suggest it, all those arguments about hurrying on must disappear.

Mr. BAXTER

I have only a word or two to say on this motion. What I have to say has very particular reference to the Minister's own constituency. The main arguments are centred round the point as to what body of claimants in the country are best entitled to get the land there is for distribution and who should be first considered. It seems to me that unless we are going to perpetuate the system we had and find fault with, and have found fault with up to the present, namely, putting more uneconomic holders on the land, we have got to consider the position of those already on the land who are titled uneconomic holders. We have only a certain number of acres of land for distribution, and perhaps two hundred thousand more people are claiming that land than we can expect to be able to satisfy. Someone has to take the responsibility of deciding who are to be catered for at first in the distribution of the land. My conviction is that as regards the people who are on land or who are supposed to be on land at present whose outlook so far has been towards land and who are getting their living off it, our aim should be to try to make their position in some way better than it is. Our aim should be, if possible, to try and give to those people at least nearly as much land as would enable them to get a reasonable living for themselves and their families, and before we decide to give land to men who already are not getting their living off the land, we should try and give as much land to those people who already have land as would enable them to get a living from it.

Mr. HALL

What about the agricultural workers?

Mr. BAXTER

I do not know what Deputy Hall means by his reference to agricultural workers.

Mr. HALL

They are getting their living from the land, too.

Mr. BAXTER

And we all hope they will continue to get it. I, at any rate, have no desire to put them off it. I ask the House to consider the congested districts as we know them. What type of congest. I ask, is to get first consideration? To my mind, the congest who is worst off is the one who has the least area of land—land that is of the least value to a man at the present time. During the summer I was in such places as Lettermullen, Gortumna, as well as in districts in Donegal, and there you would find men with little patches of land with a valuation of about 30/-. They might have a little holding of four or five acres with not as much soil on it as you would find on the half-acre of land attached to a labourer's cottage in another part of the country. These are the people that, to my mind, should get first consideration.

I think it would be advisable if the Minister were to get assistance from Deputies so that he might be able to contrive means to deal with this terrible problem. If Deputies, for instance, were to go down during the Christmas holidays to the west, or up to the districts in Donegal that I visited during the summer, they would come back, I venture to think, in a sympathetic frame of mind in regard to the problem that confronts the Minister, and would be able to give him some sound advice as to how he should tackle it. There are Deputies who have never seen that side of the country, and, I am sure, have no desire to see it. I ask them to contemplate what you see in these districts—a stretch of country that seems to be a thousand miles in extent, but in reality it may be only 20 or 40 miles. In that wild stretch of country there is nothing to be seen but the bare rock. The people in these districts are entirely dependent for a livelihood on soil such as that. Many of them have families of 10 and 12 children. Generations of these people have resided and have been brought up in these poverty-stricken districts. The soil that was on the land some years ago has disappeared altogether in many cases.

The fuel supply for the people is getting shorter and the women in particular have to tramp a distance of five, six, or eight miles to the bog and carry supplies of turf home on their backs. The bog probably consists of a cutting of half clay and half turf off a bare rock. The result of all that, going on as it has been for a great number of years, has been that to-day in these places you have a wild, bare stretch of country with hardly any soil, and where there is any it is growing poore year by year. Thousands of families are dependent for their existence on soil such as that, with, of course, the little help they get from America. Many of these families are the remnants of the people who were driven from the good soil of Ireland back to Connaught. In the wilds of Donegal, too, we have people living under similar conditions. I say seriously to the House as a result of what I saw myself, that the conditions are such in these districts that in our day a period will be reached when these areas will absolutely refuse any longer to give a living to the people who dwell there, and then the country will be faced with the difficulty of solving an extraordinary problem. At the present time there is absolutely nothing between these people and starvation.

No matter how bad the conditions may be in our towns and cities, they are nothing like the conditions that obtain in those dreary wastes. If these people are to be left in the condition they are in at present, when there is land for distribution, I say that the country later on will be faced with the problem as to what will be done with the thousands of families living, as they are at present, on land that is unable to support them. Their upbringing and their outlook do not fit these people for any kind of industrial work. They are different even to the landless men or to the labourers in other parts of Ireland. I say that if the claims of these people are not considered first, or at least jointly with those who will be deprived of their means of living by the breaking up of big farms, the Government in our day will be called upon to solve a problem that if tackled seriously now could be solved at least in part. I do not say that the problem could be solved in full now, but I do urge it could be solved in part. I say that if the interests of these people are to go by the board now because their situation is remote and because, perhaps, the claims of others can be put forward more forcibly here, then I say that will not be a good day's work for the country. I urge strongly on the Minister to consider at once the question of relieving congestion especially where it is worst. Everyone knows that the position of men on a ten or a six or a seven acre farm even in counties like Cavan, Leitrim, Meath, Kilkenny or elsewhere is bad enough even at the best of times, but if you saw the conditions under which the people live along the Western seaboard, not on ten, six or seven acres of land such as you find in the counties I have just named, but on two or three acres of bare rock without any accommodation whatever, it would be admitted, I think, that their position is a thousand times worse than that of the very small holder in counties such as I have mentioned. I doubt even whether many of these people could be trained for fishing.

Mr. GOREY

Is there even fresh air in these places?

Mr. BAXTER

They have plenty of fresh air, but it is God who gives them that. I am afraid that there are many Deputies in this House who would prefer to say "we will keep the land in Meath for the Meath men, and the land in Kilkenny for Kilkenny men and so on." But I say that this is not a problem for Kilkenny or Meath or any other county, but it is one that the Government must take up seriously and try to find a solution of it. I urge on the Government that if their main idea in the re-distribution of the land of Ireland is to consider the relief of congestion, then they ought to relieve it where it exists in a most acute form, where it is a menace to the country and certainly a menace to the lives of these people.

I would like to refer to the matter of the six days' notice that was mentioned at Question Time to-day. This is a matter that has aroused a considerable amount of complaint down through the country. The action taken by his Department in stopping the notices that used to be issued by the Land Commission has created dissatisfaction, not only amongst the tenants, but amongst the people generally, while I think it has also caused a lot of trouble to his Department. I believe the Minister could remedy the defect by retaining the receivable order after the rent is paid and until, say, within six days of the date on which the rent is again due. Then let the receivable order be sent out with a notice saying that the rent is due on a particular date.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

I do not want to take up much of the time of the House, as this is a subject which has been fairly well thrashed out from all sides of the House, but-the problem is such a big one, and the situation is so perilous at the present time, that I who come from Tirconaill, a county that is in a very difficult position with regard to land distribution, should, I think, make my opinion felt. The Minister, I am sure, is just as anxious as anyone in this House, to expedite the distribution, and the re-settlement of the land under the Land Purchase Act of 1923. I feel certain that he is as anxious as any of us to go on with that question. But I am not so sure that when he first tackled the question he understood the immensity of the problem, or the magnitude of the work, he was setting his hand to. It is a very big problem which he is tackling, and whether he will be able to do it satisfactorily will depend not so much on himself and upon his own staff as it will upon the machinery which is at hand for the doing of this work.

Now this machinery, to my mind, is not nearly sufficient to deal with the situation so extreme as this is at the present time, or else there must be something wrong in the delay which is taking place in the re-settlement of the land under the Act of 1923. We all expected, when that Act was passed, that something would be done, and done rapidly, in the matter, because of the amount of land that we knew was unused and the number of people we had in the country capable and ready to use the land in the most advantageous way, in the interests of the country generally, and in their own interests. As far as the small farmers are concerned, those that I speak for in Tirconaill have a valuation averaging not more than £5. They are half-time labourers and half-time farmers on their own land, so that as to what particular category they stand in it would be hard to say, whether we shall best serve them by helping them in the matter of agriculture or by the development of rural industries is a very doubtful question.

As to migration for these men, I do not see how far this would serve the situation, or how far they would be willing to migrate. They have not approached that question in any way that would give those who had been associated all their lives with them any ideas as to whether or not it would be a policy that they themselves would be prepared to further, or whether, at the present time, if they did agree that it might not be the most advantageous thing to a large extent. It might be done in a small way. You might take away individuals in some areas and leave their farms to be distributed to others, but how far that would solve the problem is doubtful. I feel that the problem of the congested areas will not be solved by distribution under the Land Act of 1923. I am perfectly convinced of that, and unless something is done otherwise to solve the problem it will not be done by this distribution. Cottage industries and fishing industries are the only industries that I can see capable of relieving the problem of congestion in these areas.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

resumed the Chair.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

There is another question that is brought forward, and that is the question of the eleven months' system. It would be disastrous to take away from those poor people an opportunity of getting land under the 11 months' system, because any reasonably good land in our county, that is, surplus land, and not sufficiently within the power of the owner to cultivate, is available for those who want land in order that they may be able to maintain themselves and family. It gives them an opportunity of getting that land in conacre. To refuse them that advantage would be very serious indeed. Of course, there are lands not let in conacre, and that we have in our areas. They are disputed lands, untenanted, and used, and steps should be taken, at once, to ensure that they are brought under cultivation. The Land Commission should see that these lands are taken up and made available for produce. They are derelict, and rates are accumulating on them. They are what are called "no man's land," and these are lands that could be used for reproduction purposes, and that the Land Commission should allow them to lie there idel and to continue so for years does seem deplorable.

We heard of the bad small farmers. I do not believe, speaking for the Co. Donegal, that I am speaking for bad small farmers. We believe that our small farmers extract from the land the utmost that can be extracted from it. We believe they leave nothing undone, and that their industry is nightly and daily employed at work, and that there is nothing that can be taken out of their little piece of land that they are not taking out of it. That is how I wish to deal with the question of bad small farmers.

I come to the question now of the collection of annuities by the Land Commission. I feel that this question of annuities through State solicitors is altogether a wrong method of dealing with this question. I do not feel it is possible for the Land Commission to continue to collect annuities—I know it has been done for the past three or four years—unless some other system is employed. I do not care what that system may be, but it must be a system that will enable those people, not being business men, and who very often are likely to forget what particular day, or at what particular time, they should meet this particular obligation, to do so without extra cost. Some method must be devised by which they will be able to keep themselves right without incurring the terrible cost they incur now, because they made a mistake in not observing their obligations at the particular moment they should observe them. All the difficulties that can be placed in the way of the people are placed in their way if they do not pay at a particular date. They come round to everybody they know in order to try and discover a way out. But there seems to be no way out except through the State Solicitor, and the costs are piled up. Some other solution of that question must be found, otherwise it will leave us in a bad situation as to the collection and payment of annuities. If the costs go on as they are, these small farmers' holdings will pass out of their hands, and into the hands of the County Council, who must be responsible for the rates. The rotation and distribution of land have been touched on. The rotation and distribution of land have been laid down under the Act of 1923. The first party to be considered are those who lose their employment through land, on which they were employed, being purchased by the Land Commission. These people have the first claim, and the second claim is the congests.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I desire to ask the Minister if the order in the Land Act means that precedence is given for those first mentioned by Deputy McGoldrick. I think not.

Mr. HOGAN

No.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

I can only say that my inference from the terms of the Land Purchase Act was, that this was the particular rotation laid down: that those left without any employment and thrown out because of land purchased by the Land Commission, were the first to be considered, and that after them came the congests. I understood that that was the rotation. I may be wrong, but if I am I can assure the Minister that that was my conviction.

Mr. HOGAN

That is not the order.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

In our county we have been waiting anxiously for the past two years for some sort of arrangement with regard to the vesting of land and with regard to some facilities for the tenants to obtain turf. The bogs are there, but the tenants are not able to go near them because the landlords are most exorbitant in their charges. They still hold control of the bogs although the Land Commission has purchased, and the prices they try to export from the poor people for the use of these bogs are exorbitant. Apart from that, there are no ways of getting into the bogs, and a great deal of confusion exists also on another head, in connection with tenants in common and joint tenants. There is a tremendous amount of confusion in regard to them. Some of them, although they are either joint tenants or tenants in common, do not agree well among themselves, and one will put the other into difficulties, with the result that we are in a continuous state of confusion. Something will have to be done, but how it will be done I cannot understand.

Mr. WHITE

And the Minister does not care how it is done.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

The only interest the Land Commission has is to collect the annuities. Deputy Nolan urged that we should proceed very slowly. That may be a wise policy, but it you continue to keep things in this state of turbulence, anxiety and confusion, and do not get the matter to a head in some way or another, I do not see how you will manage at all. Every day the position is getting worse and more dangerous, and if you do not take it in hand and deal with it with the utmost expendition you will be in such a position that I do not know what method it will be possible to devise in order to extricate the Government out of the difficulty or keep it from being held up to public odium because of its neglect to discharge its duty to these poor people.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Minister for Lands and Agriculture is anxious to intervene in the debate. He desires to make a second statement.

Mr. HOGAN

I have no right to make a second statement, but if I am to answer queries put to me——

Mr. HALL

I think it is unfair that the Minister should make a second statement approaching the conclusion of the debate. He does not know how many Deputies are still to speak on the matter before he concludes the debate.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Minister will not conclude the debate. It is Deputy Roddy who will conclude it. The Minister only wishes to intervene, and Deputy Hall might have more ammunition if he let him speak.

Mr. HALL

That is not my point. My point is this: That if the Minister wishes to explain matters raised by any Deputy it would be better if he spoke later.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Very good.

Mr. HALL

I do not intend to delay the Minister very long. I noticed that while the last speaker was on his feet the Minister was rather uneasy and was directing the attention of the Chair to the clock. I hope he will not endeavour to do the same with me, because I do not intend to keep him quite as long as the last speaker. One thing that I noticed was that while Deputy Nolan agreed with Deputy Roddy's remarks he was in thorough disagreement with the motion, and Deputy Gorey, being in agreement with Deputy Nolan, must also be in disagreement with the motion.

Mr. GOREY

I was nothing of the sort. If the Deputy has ordinary intelligence he will understand what I said on reading it.

Mr. HALL

I cannot read it. It is not before me.

Mr. GOREY

He has heard it. The Deputy need not comment on what he does not know anything about.

Mr. HALL

I wish to say at the outset that I do not agree that the Land Commission has been doing everything possible during the last two years to expedite the acquisition and the division of lands among congests and others. In the County Meath we have an organisation which, since the 26th February, 1924, has been in communication with the Land Commission with reference to estates in the neighbourhood of Navan, and every communication from the Land Commission to them states that the matter is being dealt with and that "careful consideration will be given to the matter contained in the correspondence which you have forwarded to us," and signed by Mr. Donnelly. The Land Commission has taken up the idea that a "go slow" policy is proper and right at present. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture is, no doubt, aware of that, and probably that is on his instructions. Being a subordinate branch of his Department it certainly has his sanction for its "go slow" policy. The Minister referred the other evening to the fact that there was only a certain amount of land available for division amongst a certain number of congests and landless people, but that does not cover the point. What we want to get from the Minister is an explanation as to the delay in the acquisition of land and in the division of lands that the Land Commission has already in its hands. Take the Browne estate, one of the largest in the County Meath, the address of which is Trimblestown, Trim. It has been in the hands of the Land Commission since last April, is let on the eleven months' system and must continue let until the eleven months are up.

Mr. BAXTER

How many acres are there in it?

Mr. HALL

There are 485. The people in that locality possess little or no land. The farmers born on that estate are people with no more than 12 or 13 acres, and some of them with as little as 2½ acres, though these are not farmers at all. These have been looking forward to the division of this land during the last 12 months or two years, but despite the fact that the Land Commission have it in their hands since last April, they have made no move to allot it. I am convinced that the Land Commission are advised by the Minister to adopt a "go slow" policy so that this land problem shall become perpetuated and be a perpetual annoyance to the people. At the Commons of Navan there are 300 families living on holdings averaging 6½ acres, and these people have been agitating with the Land Commission for the last two years for the division of land.

They are living within a mile and a half of the town of Navan, and they have put up very sound and substantial arguments to the Land Commission in support of the acquisition and the division of the lands of Commons, Williamstown, Bawn, Bective, Grange and Kilcarron on several occasions. All the promises that any human being could think of as necessary were given to them, and these promises were made with every appearance that they would be carried out, but up to the present day nothing has been done for these 300 families. They have to travel a mile and a half to the town of Navan and pay the highest price for milk while they have not sufficient land to graze a cow which would supply their families with one of the necessaries of life. Deputy Nolan might feel it was necessary to have lands that are in the hands of the Minister for Agriculture or in the hands of a subordinate Department of his, the Land Commission, divided, but he does not feel that the Land Commission should go any further for another while. They should sit down and do no more. The officials they are employing should be allowed to sit down, smoke cigars and have a jolly good time for the next three or four years. That was his idea of the situation. If I misinterpreted Deputy Gorey I am sorry, but undoubtedly he did say that he was in agreement with Deputy Nolan.

Mr. GOREY

I was in agreement with Deputy Nolan with regard to the price, and I said that if the Commissioners could not buy at the 1914 values it was better to go slow than to pay an exorbitant price that the incoming tenant would have to bear or that the State would have to bear. I said they should buy and buy at that price, regardless of what the market value is.

Mr. HALL

I do not think that argument is a sound one either.

Mr. GOREY

They should pay any price?

Mr. HALL

Under the Land Act the Land Commission have sufficient powers to purchase at their own price despite what the price was in 1914 or at present. They can set their own value on it. I do not think Deputy Gorey's argument is a good one, that the Land Commission should go back to the 1914 price, because the Land Commission can go back to that if it so desires. We cannot see that there is any justification at all for the present delay. The people cannot see it. The people say that the Government or the Minister responsible in this matter is holding the land over to dangle before the eyes of the people as a perpetual annoyance instead of dividing it to relieve the unfortunate position in which they find themselves. It is necessary that the Minister should make some statement as regards the Browne Estate, that I have mentioned, and to let this House know what is his intention as regards the division of that property. Is it the intention of the Land Commission to continue letting the Browne Estate year after year, or is it their intention to divide the property among the people? Let it be either one or the other, and let the Minister make the people aware of it.

Mr. GOREY

What people?

Mr. BAXTER

The people from the Rosses.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Allow the Deputy proceed.

Mr. HALL

I am not objecting to the people from the Rosses in Tirconaill. I have made no objection to them, and as soon as I have I will welcome the Deputy's interruption on the matter.

Mr. WHITE

You do not want them in the County Meath?

Mr. HALL

I never said that. We have been told by Deputies on the Farmers' Benches that land is not paying, that farmers are becoming beggars, that the land they possess is no particular use to them, that they are not able to eke out a livelihood from it. That is the argument of the unscrupulous farmer or land owner of the present day who has inherited a state of sloth which operates against agricultural development. I do not call a man a farmer who has only 15 acres, but Deputy Gorey suggested that people with larger holdings were entitled to a holding because they were supposed to be working it. In one instance a farmer was supposed to be working it, yet he had it let to another individual who was making a huge profit and still was paying a higher rent than that farmer was prepared to pay.

Mr. GOREY

I am afraid the Deputy is utterly misquoting me, but as what he says does not matter, let him go on.

Mr. WHITE

He is putting the Minister to sleep.

Mr. HALL

If the Minister is asleep I am surprised he did not go to sleep long ago. We are led to believe by the farmers that such a man is placed in such an unfortunate position that he cannot work that land. I suggest that that man is just as bad as the landless man. If the landless man is incapable of working land, that man who has land at his disposal and is not working it is also incapable, and that land should be taken from him and he should be placed on the same basis as the landless man. There is too much argument against the right of the landless man to come into his place on the land of Ireland. If we go back and try to sum up history a little bit we will find that 75 per cent. of the landless men are the great-grandsons of men who possessed property in this country, who were dispossessed by a regime that was most distasteful in this country. They were dispossessed by the perversity of a villain of a foreign type. Deputy Gorey and his type will support these people. Deputy Gorey will support men who hold three or four hundred acres and who let it. One of them, who sits on the Government benches and with whom he was in conversation this evening, a man who holds at the moment something like 600 or 700 acres and who is not utilising it——

Mr. GOREY

Name him.

Mr. WHITE

Is it Deputy McGoldrick?

Mr. HALL

It is time that people of that type should be got to realise that they are only the custodians or the trustees of the landed property, and that they should utilise it on behalf of all the people. We want to get rid of that system, and if we are going to do it now is the time. There is no use in dangling the Land Act of 1923 on every platform before the eyes of the people, pointing out the good clauses of the Act and forgetting all the bad clauses and at the same time forgetting what remains to be done to bring the good clauses into operation.

I am sorry that Deputy Leonard is not present, for, if he were he would, I am sure, unless he has become a hypocrite entirely, agree with me that the southern portion of County Meath is practically owned by a few individuals—Lord Dunsany, the Earl of Fingal, Patrick Leonard, John Leonard, and Mr. Kenneth of Garristown, That system, however, cannot be allowed to continue. The small landowners or the landless men in County Meath are the very poorest individuals who exist there, or, in fact, in Ireland, because those that have property in County Meath have too much, and those who have none have little or nothing at all. We were overridden by landlords in County Meath for generations and we are in the same position to-day. Prior to the Treaty we were agitating for the acquisition of land, and the small uneconomic holders and landless men united and, through security in the bank, managed to purchase many farms in the county, but they find themselves to-day in the unfortunate position that they are not able to meet the bank demands to pay the principal. They were not born with a perambulator at the bedside, like Deputy Baxter. They were probably born on a bed of straw under an old mud chimney. They were not lucky enough to be born in grandeur and splendour and with a great fuss and a great feast to follow. They are the children of parents who were the victims of a system, and they inherited the stain of that system, but they now call on the National Government to blot out that stain of a system inaugurated in this country by a foreign oppressor. Deputy Baxter may jeer at matters of that kind. It is a usual thing for men of his particular brand to jeer at working-class poverty, but although he may jeer he may, and I hope he will, be brought to realise that the people to whom I refer have as much stake in this country as either he or his party. The landless man is to get nothing. We are to consider the men with fifteen or sixteen acres before the man who has no property. What is to become of men such as those whom I mentioned in a question to-day who were dismissed at Kells and Ballyhaise—29 men dismissed owing to the acquisition of land? What is to become of such men if they do not get sufficient land to enable them to eke out a livelihood for themselves and their families? Is the Minister for Industry and Commerce to pay them the wages that they were paid heretofore, and is he prepared to pay them unemployment benefit? Are the farmers, whom Deputy Gorey represents, prepared to employ them at the rate of wages prevailing in the locality?

Mr. BAXTER

Have the men working on the Rotheram estate in County Meath who got the land divided, and who let it out on the eleven months' system, been notified by the Land Commission that unless they work the land, the Land Commission would reconsider their attitude towards them?

Mr. HALL

The men on the Rotheram estate were not working-class men, nor were they men employed on that estate.

Mr. BAXTER

They were.

Mr. HALL

The men living nearest to the Rotheram estate were living within two-and-a-half miles of it. They never worked on it, and the people who got it were people who were not interested in the division of land. There were no employees on that estate. The herd, perhaps, got land. There is no use mentioning the Rotheram estate. Perhaps Deputy Baxter could ask me about the men on the Ballinlough estate at Crossakiel, Kells. They were allotted parcels of property and they tilled them last spring, and they had a threshing will on the farm for nine days last harvest. One is never asked a question which could be favourably answered in the interests of the working classes, but one is always asked questions with the object of throwing the working classes into the mud and trampling on them as they were trampled on heretofore. Then there is another estate, that of Nicholsons at Ballinrath, where 19 men were dismissed last Monday. The men on the Nugent Everard estate were dismissed a fortnight ago. I want to see that these men get justice. Some of them have worked on the estate for thirty years, and the shortest period of years for which any employee worked on the estate was six. These men are entitled to some consideration by the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture and also by the Land Commission in the division of this property. It is not fair to come along and give something to somebody who has something. It is time to give something to somebody who has nothing. It is all very fine to say that the congests and uneconomic holders are to get everything. What about the man who has nothing staring him in the face but the workhouse? He may be able to live for a few years by having a cow grazing on other persons' property and paying dearly for it. What has he if he loses his employment but the workhouse staring him in the face? If he is married he cannot emigrate, and if he is single he must have money to take him away. Whether he is married or not he does not like to leave his native home. He likes to live at home, and I think with a National Government established here by the Irish people he should get an opportunity of living at home, and it is up to the Government to provide the individuals of this State with the means whereby they may live. I do not know anything about the national heroes whom Deputy Gorey was hitting at, but had it not been for some of those heroes whom Deputy Gorey was hitting at he would not be here to-day.

Mr. GOREY

I did not refer to the national heroes at all in the sense the Deputy implies. A claim was made for ex-Army officers, and I added them to the people who want land without making any comment whatever.

Mr. HALL

The Deputy spoke about the rights of congests and uneconomic holders, and he left his reference to the national heroes last of all. In my opinion the men who gave service to the country, and brought it so far that it was able to set up its own government, are entitled to some consideration. I am referring to the old, pre-Truce I.R.A., and I think the Minister and the Land Commission should certainly give consideration to those men who did great and noble things. Some compensation should be given to them for the services they have rendered. I do not know about the ex-National Army officers. If they had pre-Truce service they should be considered, but if they had not I would leave them to the Minister's discretion, and I hope he will not consider them very favourably, for the reason that you would have no National Army and no ex-National Army officers if it had not been for the pre-Truce I.R.A. I think it was Deputy Lyons who was interrupted by Deputy Gorey with the remark that the tenants of labourers' cottages did not till their plots, and from that the Deputy inferred that they were not entitled to land.

Mr. GOREY

I am afraid the Deputy is again wrong.

Mr. HALL

I am only drawing inferences from what Deputy Gorey said. I understood the Deputy to say that the man who was not able to till his acre of land was not fit to get any land.

Mr. GOREY

I said nothing of the sort.

Mr. HALL

I must say in defence of the cottage-holder referred to by Deputy Gorey that he works from eight in the morning until six at night —on Deputy Gorey's farm, perhaps. He has to go home probably a distance of a mile or two after his work, and by the time he has taken his supper it is probably eight o'clock. Is he not entitled to an hour's rest or two before he retires for the night? If the labourer got sufficient land so that he could stay at home and work it, he would become a national asset, and a greater national asset than Deputy Gorey or any of his friends. He proved that in the division of the land at Ballinlough, Kells, where ten of the sixteen tenants put on the land were labourers, and in the way they worked the land they gave a lead to every farmer in the locality last season. There is no use in saying the landless man is not entitled to land. He should get the first preference, because he has been dispossessed and disinherited by people who came here from another country to interfere with the rights and liberties of the Irish people. I do not know whether Deputy Gorey is as bad as his speeches and interruptions may lead one to think; he may have a better heart than one would think from his words. I would ask the Minister to urge the Land Commission to hurry up with the division of land, especially in Navan area, where there are three hundred families who cannot get sufficient milk under any circumstances, and for the small quantities they do get they pay the highest prices in the town of Navan.

Mr. WHITE

I move the adjournment of the debate until to-morrow.

Mr. BLYTHE

I move the adjournment of the Dáil until 3 o'clock to-morrow.