took the Chair.
ADJOURNMENT DEBATE. - PAYMENT OF LAND ANNUITIES.
Someone asked during Question Time if I were moving over to the Farmers' benches now. I want to assure whoever asked that, that the small farmers of Westmeath contributed in no small way to my election, and that I made this question, that I am now raising, a major issue in my election. In answer to a question yesterday, the Minister for Justice informed me that there were 1,845 decrees in Westmeath in the period of 1924 to 1927, and that in these cases there were returns of nulla bona to the tune of 969. In Longford there were 1,059 decrees. I submit that this state of affairs is abnormal and requires the immediate attention of the Executive Council with a view to stopping this process of law until this House devises ways and means to meet a national emergency which I declare and know exists. We will be told, probably, that the Agricultural Credits Act meets the case. I deny that it does. Assuming for a moment that it does, it is a case of live horse and you will get grass, if there is no assurance that it will operate in the spring, that it will be nothing but a piece-meal work, and that the constitution of its directorate will make it no more liberal or nationally sympathetic than the present credit institutions in the country. People who do not like to face certain facts and people who are timorous of their political future will adduce every reason under the sun for the present position of the farmer—from fluke to the wages of the agricultural labourers —as a reason for the plight in which that part of the community now finds itself. When I say farmers I mean small farmers and not the respectable class of farmers who are known as graziers.
Is the small farmer not a respectable person?
Well, I am not a respectable person, I assure the Minister. I use the word "respectable" in the sense that P.H. Pearse used it. The cause of the depression is the demand for the full repayment of advances made in the years when the gold standard was abandoned during the European War. At that time sterling dropped to less than half its present value, and the repayment of those loans is now demanded in deflated money. In other words, in the terms of real wealth, the farmer is expected to pay double what he was advanced, plus interest. That, as we all know, is a thing that is impossible. Whilst we have international debts amongst the nations funded and the cutting down of interest, and whilst credit institutions in England have come to the relief of such industries by composition and fresh financing, as the woollen industries in Yorkshire and the shipbuilding industries are being helped in this way, we have here in Ireland, unchecked, a system of Shylockism tolerated by an Executive which says it represents the will of the people. There are, apparently, three parties in the case—the banker, the trader and the farmer—but in reality there are only two—the banker and the farmer. It is the banker who urges on the shopkeeper, in order to pull down his overdraft, to proceed against the farmer, when he is not doing so himself.
The peasantry in this portion of Ireland deserve better from the Ministers who in other days found shelter and succour in these homes which are now being sold very often to pensioners who chased the Executive up and down the country a few years ago. These creations of credit are based on the power of the people to produce, and it should be a true reflection of the natural wealth of the country, not a portrayal of a state of things in which Nero fiddles while Rome burns. We have been told that the cure for this is to produce more. We have been told that from the Presidential bench. But of what avail is it to produce more when the operation of one of these stone-age laws, adulated in the Dáil by Deputy J.J. Byrne and Deputy O'Hanlon, brings about a state of things whereby double production means halving the price. Writing on this subject, Father Cahill, the distinguished Jesuit, in his notes on Caholic Sociology, says:—
A smiling countryside, with its waving crops and happy homesteads, may be converted in a few years into a tenantless ranch and the helpless people driven into exile or sent to swell the degraded slum population of the crowded cities. The same anonymous influence controls the policies of state, makes and unmakes governments, sets up and pulls down dynasties, orders wars, and dictates the terms of peace. It controls the press, international news agencies, the theatre, the cinema, and the book market. It practically arranges what the public shall eat, wear, and read.
In conclusion, I put to the Executive Council, who profess such sympathy with the will of the people—are you going to let the majority perish so that a tiny minority in their midst may get their unjust claims? Is the security of tenure, the principle of a contented peasantry rooted in the soil, going to perish in our time, so that we may be in the European stream?
I would just like to add something or say something in the line of an appeal. I will make that appeal directly to the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture, as I think it will be the only little consolation than can be expected for the next two or three months. Now, if it be possible for them to do it—I do not ask them to do anything that is impossible—I ask them to be as lenient as possible for the next three months, until this Dáil meets again, in the line of issuing writs, and so forth, for land annuities that the people cannot possibly pay. Now, there is not any use in mincing matters in this country. Talk in the newspapers and from this Assembly that we are prosperous is false. It is deception and it is morally wrong. We are not a prosperous nation, and we cannot be. You have the industry that puts up 80 per cent. of the wealth of this nation —you have that industry to-day in misery. It is completely dislocated. There are farms of land in the richest part of this island idle. They are idle by reason of the seizures for rates, land annuities, and other things. At present it is impossible to secure these. Men are unemployed all over the country. We spent four whole days here talking of unemployment. There was no remedy got, and you will not get any. There is only one remedy to be got, and that is the salvation of agriculture. But we cannot do that now. That is impossible. I only make one appeal, and that is an appeal to the men who control the department of the Land Commission to be a little easy and to extend as much leniency as is possible. I am not, I am sure, asking too much.
The position of the farmer to-day is this—if he produces beef he may get sixpence a pound for that beef. The butcher gets 1s. 3d., I suppose, and if the farmer after the market goes to have his dinner he pays 1s. 6d. for a little over a quarter pound of beef. That is just one little point that needs examination. I will not delay the House going into all the question. When we meet again in three months' time we may have a few words to say on such things as the producer, the distributor, and the unfortunate consumer. I may be wrong, but I do not think I am. I have a decided objection to the distributor. That is the gentleman who does the harm; but, as I told you, it is not my intention to delay you any longer. I will just conclude by making that appeal. The agricultural population, including the small farmer, the big farmer, and the new farmer who was a labourer a few months ago, are in a very unfortunate position.
rose.
I should like to remind Deputies that if this debate is to have any useful effect the Minister must be allowed some time to reply.
I should like to support the appeal from the Fianna Fáil benches in regard to the position of small farmers. In Tirconaill there are thousands of small farmers in a very bad way, many of them unable to provide their families with three meals per day, let alone pay land annuities. I may point out to Deputies, who may not understand the situation as far as Tirconaill is concerned, that many of these small farmers are unable to provide for their children between the ages of 8 and 12 years, and have to send them into the market square to be herded like cattle and hired out to farmers to work from early morning until late at night. I believe that a system of society that tolerates that sort of thing has something wrong with it. As I said, many of these small farmers are unable to pay land annuities. Under the Court Orders Act, 1926, decrees have been given against many of them and stock has been seized on their farms. Some of them who are unable to till their land let under what is known as the conacre system, but cannot do so now owing to the seizures which have taken place. I make this charge against the Government that there have been far more seizures made in Tirconaill since the election than prior to the election. We are adjourning for a period of almost three months, and I would appeal to the Government, as far as the putting into operation of these decrees is concerned, that they should hold their hand, exercise some pity, and take into consideration the plight of these small farmers. If they continue these evictions, I believe that it is going to counteract any good which is to be derived from the 1923 Land Act. We hear a lot in the Dáil about the number of acres that are being divided between landless men, but while one Department is dividing lands amongst landless men, the Minister for Justice is executing decrees, evicting small farmers from their holdings, and driving them away from Tirconaill to America.
The Minister for Justice does not execute decrees.
I would appeal to the Government not to carry out these seizures and evictions during the Recess, but leave them over until the Dáil reassembles, when the matter can be discussed, and we may possibly come to some settlement which will be much more beneficial to the Government and far more satisfactory to the hungry men, women and children who compose the small farming communities in Tirconaill and elsewhere.
This has been a very curious discussion. We have wandered in the most astonishing fashion. We have first discovered that the ills of Ireland are due to the existence of a gold standard and to what was called an unchecked system of Shylocks—I do not know exactly what that means.
Will the Minister pardon me?
What is the point?
My point is that it was the abolition of the gold standard for a period and the return thereto that was the cause—the suspension of it for a period.
I am asked to discuss the entire currency question and the question of a gold standard. Is that a sensible suggestion to make at this hour of the night. That is a subject which might be debated at tremendous length. It is one of the most difficult questions that financial experts could possibly have to solve—the adoption or rejection of a gold standard. It is very easy for a Deputy flippantly to get up and say that it was a mistake to have returned to a gold standard, when it is a matter upon which banking opinion is tremendously divided, and when in a country which is supposed to know something about its own business it was decided to be the wise thing to do. I am not going to debate, nor could I possibly debate the question of a gold standard. We wandered on then until we discovered ourselves in the field of Catholic theology—rather a big subject also to discuss at this late hour of the night. The whole realms of Catholic theology might be discussed at very considerable length. In fact, while the Deputy who introduced the matter was speaking, I really did not know what was his object, what he really wished to discuss, because I must frankly confess that to my mind he did not convey any meaning—that to me he did not make himself clear. I really could not honestly discover what the Deputy wished to discuss, what views he wished to put forward, or on what particular items he was finding fault with the present administration. I am sorry if I have failed to understand the Deputy—I am sorry if it is due to my stupidity, but I must leave it at that. Two other Deputies spoke and put their points clearly, so that even my limited intelligence could follow them.
A DEPUTY
You do not look sorry.
Well, perhaps I feel it. They referred to the Land Commission executing decrees for annuities.
I was referring not alone to land annuities, but seizures that take place under the Court Orders Act, 1926.
When a person gets a decree and puts it into the hands of the sheriff, it is the duty of the sheriff to execute that decree, and the Minister for Justice has not power to say to the sheriff, "Do not execute that decree." The sheriff must carry out his duty. If a decree is got by any ordinary person and is put into the hands of the sheriff, the Department of Justice or any other Department has got no right to interfere with the carrying out of his statutory duties by the sheriff. As to the question of land annuities, I am sure Deputies are aware that land annuities must be paid. If they are not paid by the persons who occupy the land out of which they are payable, then those annuities fall upon the rates. Are you helping a county, or the country, by allowing annuities to be paid out of the rates? They must be paid from somewhere—the debt must be met.
Does the Minister suggest that evictions will help the payment of annuities. The people are unable to pay and they are evicted.
If people are unable to pay, their lands are put up for sale. It is not a question of eviction. I am talking now of the Land Commission annuities. The land would be put up for sale and any surplus that would remain over and above the payment of the rent due would go to them. Will the Deputy inform me how many cases he knows of either evictions, as he calls them, or sales by the Land Commission in Donegal in the last year?
I could tell the Minister that for a period of about a month after the Government Party had got a majority they executed a large number of decrees, and not alone evicted these people, but also seized the cattle on the land, with the result that the poor farmers are not able to let their lands in conacre.
I put a plain question to the Deputy and he switched off to another point.
I think the Minister ought not to put questions to Deputies.
The Deputy has not put forward one single case of a sale of land by the Land Commission.
You will not get many grabbers nowadays.
These annuities must be paid out of the county rates or else paid by the persons who owe them. Suppose a person was entitled to say, "I am poor and I cannot pay," and the Land Commission is not to be allowed to seize for three months, what a premium you are putting upon dishonesty in Tirconaill and in the rest of Ireland.
It is not a case of dishonesty.
Who is to be the judge of who is poor and unable to pay? Is the man himself to be the judge? We are asked that no Land Commission annuity decrees should be levied within three months, until the Dáil sits again. Who is to be the judge whether a man is poor or rich? Is a man to say "I am poor" and, then, are the unfortunate ratepayers who have already paid their own annuities, and who have made ends meet by hard work, to be saddled with payment of their neighbours' annuities because the neighbour happens to say, "I am apoor man and I cannot pay"?
As far as this question of conacre is concerned, the Deputy says that it is impossible for these farmers now to get people to take their lands in conacre. I take it these are persons who set part of their lands in grazing and part in conacre. I do not know at what rate ordinary conacre land lets in Donegal, but I suppose it would probably come to about £4 an Irish acre. I know more about Mayo than I do about Donegal. Why do not these persons who take conacre see that the annuities are paid? The land annuity would be about 15s. to £1 the acre, whereas the rent for conacre would probably be about £4 an acre, depending, of course, upon the demand in the neighbourhood. Why out of that conacre rent is not the annuity paid, and also poor rate? These are the first charges upon the land, and why do not these conacre people, or people who put in grazing cattle, and have their cattle seized, see for their own self-protection, first of all, that the annuity has been paid? A man living on land, not farming it himself but letting out part in grazing and part in conacre, is really a species of middleman, and yet we are told it is unjust, though he collects his conacre rent and grazing rent, that he should be compelled to pay his overhead charges, land annuities or rates. I confess that is an argument I cannot follow.
There is another matter to which allusion is made. That is the profit which the middleman makes. We are told that beef sold at 6d. per lb. retails at 1/3, and that the farmer who had sold his beast in the morning would have to pay 1/6 for a quarter of a lb. of beef for a meal for himself. I must frankly confess that when you talk of beef by the lb. I am not able to meet you because in order to enable one to argue one must be able to speak in terms of some common denominator. When I think of cattle I think only of live animals and judge them simply by so much per cwt. I know how much they could fetch per cwt.
A DEPUTY
Do you eat them in the same way?
No, I sell them by the cwt., and I eat them at 1/6 per quarter lb. rate provided the Deputy is correct in his figures, but I must again admit that I have never yet gone into a restaurant with a scale and weighed the amount of beef I got on my plate. I would not like to do that even in the restaurant here. I have no doubt the Deputy knows that a Food Tribunal sat and has, I think, completed its report as to middlemen's profits, so that in future if he is overcharged by his butcher or by his restaurant keeper he will be able to put in force such provisions as that report recommends.
Are you going to enforce decrees or not? That is a plain question. Give us a bloody plain answer.
The Deputy must not use language of that kind. If he wants to ask a question, he must do so in a correct fashion and not use terms that are unparliamentary.
My point was about the enforcing of these decrees, and I adduced the reasons why I thought these decrees were unjust and had no moral or equitable basis. I adduced these reasons——
The Deputy cannot make a second speech. If the Deputy wants to ask a question, he can do so now.
I am explaining——
The Deputy cannot make a second speech. He can ask a question in the half a minute that is left to him.
I advise the Minister to read my speech, and perhaps he will understand it, and then he will be able to give me an answer after the recess.
I heard the Deputy read his speech to-day, but I shall read it again.
The Dáil now stands adjourned to Wednesday, 15th February, 1928.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m.