Now we are told that the situation amongst Fianna Fáil allottees of land has become so intolerable that if a man gets an addition to his holding he may not sell his original holding without the consent of the Land Commission. A man may have a holding of which he is full owner. He may get an additional parcel under one of the recent Land Acts, but that additional parcel may not vest in him for 15 years. During that time he has lost freedom of sale in respect of his original holding. He must now go to the Land Commission, exactly as people had to go to the landlords in the past, to crave permission to dispose of his tenant right.
Surely there must be some Deputies who understand sufficiently the atmosphere in which the land war was fought to appreciate that their fathers and grandfathers were not fools when they sacrificed all they did sacrifice to get freedom of sale, fair rent and fixity of tenure. Surely it was not for fun they worked out that slogan, the Three F's. Surely they knew that if these things were not maintained it would react to the disadvantage not only of the people who lived on the land but to the land itself and, consequently, to the whole community. Everything that Fianna Fáil has done in regard to land, since it came into office, has been directed towards destroying fixity of tenure and free sale. It has turned a large part of our people into grabbers.
Deputies will remember the case in Roscommon a few days ago when 15 respectable men walked on to a neighbour's land and drove his cattle off. They called in the Guards and said they had driven the cattle off, and, when they were asked why they did so, they said: "Because we want his land." Could anyone here ever have imagined that a situation would be created in which young fellows down the country would be tempted to go in and drive their neighbour's stock for no other reason than that they wanted his land? They knew that there was power in the hands of the Government to take their neighbour's farm and give it to somebody else. Was that situation ever anticipated by anybody who was concerned for land reform? Is it desirable or good? Do we want to turn all the people living on the land of this country into tenants again? Was the whole land war wrong? Was it all a mistake? Should we, when we were expropriating the landlords, have vested all the land in the Government and made the people liable for land annuities in perpetuity?
Is that the intention? Does the Fianna Fáil Party mean to say that they have changed their mind about fixity of tenure, about fair rent and about free sale, that they think free sale a bad thing, fixity of tenure a bad thing and fair rent a bad thing, and they want to revert to the system which the landlords defended in this country — that no man shall live upon the land and work the land unless he is somebody else's servant, that there shall be no land owners in this country and that everybody who adopts agriculture as his livelihood will be for ever under surveillance and have hanging over his head for ever the sword of Damocles, of being thrown out on the side of the road, because whoever happens to be the Government of this country does not like the way he is working the land, or does not choose to hear the justification he wants to make for the way in which he is living on the land, unless he is prepared to go in with his hat in his hand to a political Minister and crave him of his bounty not to make the certificate which he is entitled to make under Section 4? No man living on the land in this country hereafter will have the right to go into court even to claim his fixity of tenure because he knows he can be met there by the final and conclusive certificate under Section 4 of the Land Act of 1945. Did any landlord in this country ever dream of challenging fixity of tenure in such a way?
I am told that I ought not to oppose this Bill, that the land is encumbered with a collection of duds, frauds and "chancers", that the Minister himself says their multitude has become so great that he must take steps to clear them out. I am supposed gladly to forswear every guarantee that the tenant purchasers of this country have of fixity of tenure in order to deal with Fianna Fáil's duds. Now that Deputy O'Grady has come back, I want to ask him to intervene in this debate. He was Minister for Lands for a protracted period and was responsible for the working of the Land Commission. I want him to tell us how it is that, during his stewardship, persons were put upon the land who have produced this result, that, when a survey is made of 4,000 holdings, 700 are found to be sub-let, 200 badly used and 820 houses built under his administration or that of his colleagues either sub-let or empty, and that, in a second survey, 17½ per cent. of the people he put on the land are unsatisfactory and 470 of the houses built while he was responsible to this House for that Department are untenanted.
Have we not got a right to ask him to tell us how that came to pass while he was holding himself out to the House as conscientiously discharging the duty of trustee for this House of the Land Commission? Does he propose to get up and say: "I had nothing to do with it; it was none of my business"? Does he propose to deny that during that time he was warned again and again that if the Land Commission were called upon to divide land at the rate which, for political purposes, he insisted they should operate and that the Land Commission said that if they were persistently interfered with by his supporters down the country the allocation of land must be unsatisfactory and would be unsatisfactory and would ultimately call for reconsideration? He cannot deny it if he proposes to tell this House the truth.
Do people in this House realise what Fianna Fáil did when they passed the 1931 Land Act? Do they realise the "slush-fund" they opened for the purchase of votes in this country? Do they realise that under the existing land law the Land Commission buy an estate and improve that estate, and that, having done that, they ascertain the economic rent payable in respect of each farm on that estate, according to the formula laid down in the earlier land code and that that rent is designed not to redeem the price of improvement, for that is a charge upon the Exchequer, but to redeem what the land actually cost the Land Commission, together with certain minor expenses which are involved? That rent is further abated if, in the judgment of the Land Commission, the holding is not such as to permit of an annuity sufficient to liquidate the purchase price and to leave the farmer a reasonable standard of living, not only for himself but for his wife and family as well, and the rent, having thus been ascertained, is cut in two and the land conveyed to the incoming tenant at half its cost.
Is it any wonder there is land hunger in this country? Is it any wonder that every camp follower of Fianna Fáil is running around with his tongue out to get land, because the day he goes into a holding he acquires an asset corresponding to half of the total of the land for nothing? If he does not sell it, he can mortgage it. Is it any wonder that every Fianna Fáil T.D. went down the country and said: "We have largesse to distribute amongst our supporters if they will only toe the line?" Is it any wonder that their fulfilment of that undertaking has resulted in the necessity for this Bill? Let somebody answer the question put by Deputy Giles. What are you going to do with your own duds? What are you going to do with them, poor, miserable and contemptible as they are; poor wretched creatures who sold their souls for penny rolls and lumps of hairy bacon? We do not want to see them treated as dirt under your feet.
The Fianna Fáil Party may think it is practical in this country to go down and corrupt simple people, to degrade them, to use them and then to cast them aside like a sucked orange and trample them into the earth, but they will find they cannot, and it will not be their own wretched dupes who will rise against them. It will be the decent elements in the country who never allowed them to corrupt them, those who have not been taught the filthy lesson of jealousy and hatred and the desire to grab your neighbour's holding, those who would have scorned ever to grab their neighbour's land, no matter what powers were conferred on the Land Commission by the 1931 Land Acts or any of the Acts which followed it. You cannot take people for whose misfortune you yourselves are responsible and kick them into the ditch because the decent elements in the community will not let you do it.
I think it is deplorable that we have so many cases of this gross misuse of land, and when I speak of misuse of land, I mean its granting to persons who never meant to use it, and who, those who sought to get it for them knew, would never, could never and in fact never did use it, but I do not believe that that horrible situation can best be remedied by destroying the last vestige of fixity of tenure left to the people. I do not believe that situation can best be remedied by upsetting the whole system of the law, and remember that Section 4 more rightly belongs to a Criminal Law Amendment Bill than to a Land Bill.
Suppose there was a provision in any Criminal Law Amendment Bill that the penalty for an offence under the Act would be the confiscation of a person's entire property, would Deputies not say that that was an appalling penalty, a penalty worse than life imprisonment, because it meant a condemnation to disruption of the family and to chronic poverty and destitution? That is what Section 4 provides.
If the Minister for Lands issues the necessary certificate everything the unfortunate man has is gone from him because the alleged cause of issuing the certificate is that he is subletting the land and has neither stock nor anything else wherewith to work it. Does the House believe that that is a proper-method of dealing with an evil which the present Government itself created and admits itself that it created it? It was you put them on the land; it was you who chose them for the land; it was you who boasted that you were going to put them there and that you had put them there, in spite of everybody, and in the face of any advice that experienced persons were in a position to give you. I say deliberately that such a remedy is inhuman and outrageous. We, having made our bed, ought to lie on it and face the consequences. I do not deny the existence of the evil, but the right way to remedy the evil is to ensure that in any land settlement, and in the division of land in this country in the future, the Land Commission and its experienced officers will be allowed to do their job and that if a Fianna Fáil T.D. is seen approaching one of them the dogs will be set on him. I guarantee that if the experienced officers of the Land Commission are allowed to carry out their duties without political interference in the business of allocating the land of this country, there will not be .1 per cent. of complaint in the administration of the holdings they create. It may take some time for this particular problem that the Minister has in mind to work itself out, but it would be better to let it work itself out, and let these unfortunate ne'er-do-wells alienate their holdings to other persons, and bring the land back gradually into cultivation rather than remedy it by the provision of Section 4, and put the further inroad on free sale represented by Section 6.
I know full well that we are living in an age when principle and standards count for nothing. The only rule that runs in this country is: can you get away with it? There was a time when considerable numbers of persons, if given the opportunity to do wrong, would be ashamed to do wrong, and whether they were going to be found out or not would scorn to put their hands to work of that character. Now, as far as I can see, if you can get away with it anything goes. If we are going to set that example in this House it is only too likely that it will be followed gladly by a great many people down the country. Are we of opinion that, with a view to remedying not the mistakes but the deliberate, conscious, corrupt, misfeasance of Fianna Fáil during the last 15 years in connection with land division in this country, we should pass Section 4 which abrogates the fundamental rights of citizens to invoke the courts of law? I do not think that we should, and mind you I think we are making a mistake if on this side of the House, no matter what Party Deputies belong to, or whether they stand alone, we allow Fianna Fáil to stampede us by their misfeasance into expedients that commend themselves to Fianna Fáil.
It has never been the practice of people on this side of the House to do the kind of thing that Fianna Fáil had thought itself justified in. We never stooped on this side of the House to the shady transactions which Fianna Fáil has thought possible that they could get away with. We never appropriated a Republican Loan and we never purchased the assent of people to the abandonment of fundamentals by holding out to them the bait of monetary advantage. We never sought to purchase the mass of the people, nor stooped to corrupt and degrade them, and we should not allow ourselves to consent to the kind of remedies that commend themselves to men capable of that kind of activity. I for one reject it.
I believe that free sale, fixity of tenure and fair rent are still precious things in this country. I think that everything done to undermine these three things will react disastrously not only on the land and the people who live on it, but on the whole community. I believe that Fianna Fáil does not believe in those things. I believe they think they have discovered something new and that those three things were merely gags that were run by the Land League to embarrass the landlords. I believe that they do not understand the kind of people who led the Land League, who, no matter how advantageous a gag was, if it was dishonest they would have scorned to use it. They campaigned for these three things because they believed they were honestly and genuinely necessary. They did not use them for the purpose of expropriating the landlords and of benefiting themselves and their supporters. They demanded them because, without them, they felt our people could have neither freedom, independence nor dignity. They wanted to put our people in the position that if a landlord or Fianna Fáil T.D., or anybody else who claimed to be their master, threatened to cross their threshold uninvited, they could put him out and have the law on their side. If you pass Section 4 of the Bill, who dare put a Fianna Fáil T.D. out? You remember the old days when the bailiff called. Theoretically, he had no right to enter — only the agent of the landlord could — but who dare put him out? You dare not put him out because he had his agent there and if you did not submit to his most outrageous exactions you were liable summarily to be evicted by the agent, who was always on the bailiff's side. The bailiff's certificate was sufficient. There was no argument against it. It was conclusive evidence that you had to go, and go you did. There was no use pleading with the landlord or the agent that the bailiff was a blackguard, a liar and a fraud, because his certificate was sufficient.
Are we going to create a situation now that if a tenant purchaser in this country is ordered by a member of the Fianna Fáil Party to toe the line, and refuses to do so, that member can go to the Minister and get the agent's warrant for eviction, and that when the tenant seeks the protection of the court he will be told, as his grandfather was told by the landlord: "There is no argument; the bailiff's certificate is conclusive, and you have got to go. There is no court, there is no tribunal, there is no remedy of which you can avail. Your only hope is to go back to the Fianna Fáil T.D. who got that certificate first signed; go down on your knees to him, recant all you said or did, and beg of him in his kindness to go back and undo his dirty work, and, if you prostitute yourself sufficiently you will have a fair chance of getting back your right to live?"
Do Deputies on this side of the House think that is a suitable remedy for the situation created by that Government? Do they want to put every tenant-farmer in this country in that position? Do they want to feel that any day a certificate may be issued, the result of which is going to put them out on the road penniless and that they will have no remedy and that they will stand on the roadside, not an object of universal pity but branded as incompetent, fraudulent, worthless, so much flotsam and jetsam to be thrown upon the tide? Do they think that is right, or what has come over the Deputies on this side of the House? Do they think they ought to approve that plan? Do they think they ought to dirty themselves with the consequences of the situation which that Party admits they are responsible for? How often have we told them on this side of the House that they were corruptly misusing the powers conferred upon the Land Commission, that they were interfering with the Land Commission, that the allocation of land was in many cases unjust and improper? How often have I heard Deputy Hughes get up and quote cases where he said the allocations were unjust? Now, when these birds have come home to roost, now, when they stand convicted before the country of the consequence of what they did — and remember when we charged them with doing it they denounced us; they said we were saboteurs; they said we were trying to denounce Fianna Fáil regardless of the justification of the allegations we made against them — are we going to say that they were right, that all our allegations during that period were unfounded and were false, or are we going to say: "For 15 years we warned you that if you went on with your corrupt and rotten administration, this Bill would become an urgent necessity"?
Is this the hour to fall upon their necks and tell them we do not blame them, that they are in a sad mess and that, God help them, it is as much our fault as theirs and that any steps they think necessary, any abrogation of the most fundamental principles that they recommended to the House, meets with our entire approval? If that be so then I do not know the purpose of debate. It is hard to bring home to the people the truth when the truth is bitter and when the truth is utterly amazing. We have warned the people time and time again of the very abuses that have begot this Act. Are we now going to renege what we ourselves have been doing or are we going to say to the people: "Here is the consequence of the abuses we have warned you of but, foreseeing these consequences, we are not going to be stampeded into standing over, "Where an agreement or undertaking to purchase a holding or parcel of land from the Land Commission whether entered into before, on or after the operative date, contains a condition whereby the purchaser agrees to work the holding or parcel in accordance with proper methods of husbandry to the satisfaction of the Land Commission, a certificate under the common seal of the Land Commission certifying that the purchaser has not so worked the holding or parcel shall be conclusive evidence for all purposes of the fact so certified'?" Is the Fine Gael Party going to vote for that? Is the Clann na Talmhan Party going to vote for that? I will wait and see.