When I was speaking to this motion on Wednesday night I had reached the point where I said that soldiers are soon forgotten. It is only a few years ago since the eyes of the nation were turned to the bogs and the bogmen were asked to take off their coats to save the nation by producing fuel, so that the people would not be cold during the winter months. The bogmen responded to the call in no uncertain way. Now that the emergency is easing off, and conditions are coming back to normal, we find that the bogmen are not being applauded for what they did but they are to be penalised, notwithstanding all the good work they did for the Irish nation.
So far as I see, the actions of the Government are little different from the actions of the old Irish landlords. If a man improved his place they slapped on new taxation and the position with many people in the country was that their last state was worse than the first. The Minister starts by pin-pricking in various parts of the country to see how this business of increasing valuations will be taken. He started in Tipperary and then in Mayo and increased valuations here and there. I am not sure whether he has yet come to my county, but there is one thing certain, that if this is allowed now there will soon be a general revaluation and I do not think the Irish people will be prepared to stand for that.
One would think the bogmen made huge profits, that their pockets are bulging with money. So far as my county is concerned, that is a fallacy. It is unjust to suggest that about the bogmen because those of them who reside in Meath got a raw, cruel deal. It may be that bogmen did well in other counties where the bogs are vast, but there is not a vast area of bogland in Meath. There is one part with a fair amount of bog, but I should like the Minister to realise that fully 75 per cent. of the bog areas in Meath are, as a result of the Government's operations, now completely wiped out. They are now a wilderness. In the past there were men in Meath who had little bogs which they regarded as private concerns for themselves and their friends. When the emergency came the State stepped in and trampled on the rights of these private individuals and gave them practically no compensation. State agents cut the turf and allowed others to cut it until the little bogs were wiped out. Now the men who formerly had those bogs have to travel outside their areas to get fuel.
We are told that the bogmen are well off and the Government are about to increase their valuations. That is very unfair. Most of the bogmen that I know regret that there ever was an emergency because it did them an immense amount of harm and it has left them without fuel for the future. This action on the part of the Government is mean, niggardly and un-Irish. Who are the bogmen? They are the most unfortunate people in the country. They represent the remnants of the old Irish race, the people who had to go to Hell or Connaught. They went to the bogs and they survived, but always it has been a desperate life, a hard, pitiful life. Would the Minister live for 24 hours in any of these bogs, let alone for 24 years? I do not think he would. He might have passed through them at one time while he was on the run, but I do not think he would stay a night there now.
These areas are bleak and miserable. For the people living there it is damp, sour and dour. Most families are afflicted with tuberculosis, pains or rheumatism. All the afflictions common to man reach the bogmen. Most of them die young. You can see many of them moving around on crutches; they are nearly always lame from the dampness. The Government now tell us that the people on the bogs have had a good time and a higher valuation must be imposed on them. Cromwell is not dead yet. I have had a letter from one of those new-rich, as the Government describe them, those famous bogmen. When I read that letter the House will see how these unfortunate men are placed. It is only right that I should read this letter. The writer seems to be an honest, straightforward man who just wants a fair crack of the whip. Here is what he wrote to me:
"I beg to ask you to do a little favour for me. The Meath County Council has a spread ground for turf taken from me under the emergency Order for the past six years. The council had it the first two years and Mr. Geraghty has had it now for four years. Now Mr. McKiterian, the district surveyor, says I was paid £2 the first two years. I definitely got no money for the first two years. Now they want to put me away with £2 for four years, 10/- a year. I measured the area under turf covered by Mr. Geraghty and the area was 1 acre 1 rood and 28¼ square yards, Irish measure. An auctioneer has valued the spread ground at £5 per Irish acre per season. Under the emergency Order it was read out for me at an arbitration meeting held at the courthouse in Ballivor recently. The arbitrator was Mr. A. J. Malone, solicitor, Trim. Mr. Noonan and Mr. McKiterian were also there. It was read out that the county council of each county would pay full compensation for any damage done. I cannot go to law under the Order. I have returned the cheque for £2 to Mr. Ward, solicitor, Edenderry. What I want to ask you is, will you ask a question in the Dáil or put one to the Minister over this business, or bring this matter up at a county council meeting? I will have your answer published. Another thing, Mr. A.J. Malone never saw the bog, he was not there, and Mr. McKiterian would not let Mr. Murphy, ex-teacher from Trim, survey the area under turf. I am a poor man trying hard to eke out a living. Do not let them best me. I am entitled to full compensation.—MICHAEL COMMONS."
That is the type of man on whom the Government want to increase the valuation. He is a Meath bogman with a few acres. There is a spread bank which he could let to his neighbours at £2, £3, or £5 an acre, but the Government would not let him do that. They took over the spread bank and offered him 10/- a year for one and a half Irish acres when he could have got £2, £3 or £5 an acre from his neighbours or could use it for grazing.
If the Minister for Finance knows of people who have made huge profits out of turf, he will not find any of them in my county or in Westmeath East either. This thing is going too far. It is bringing contempt on the Irish Government and on this House. These unfortunate men got a chance—the one chance in a lifetime. When did the bogman get a chance before? Did he get a chance in the last 50 or 100 years? He did not. In the last few years the men on the bogs got a chance to make a little money by hard work and now the Government begrudge them the little they made and want to take it off them. Such action is mean, dirty, un-Irish. It brings us back to the days of Cromwell. And all this is not being done under our own laws. The Government have to resurrect the Victorian laws, old British laws, the laws which the Minister said he had such contempt for. I am afraid he has not very much contempt for them now because he is using them to penalise a down-trodden people.
The Government should drop this idea of increasing the valuation and give these poor people a chance of living. We ought to be proud of them for the way they stood by the nation in a time of need. The Forces man cannot even get a house built for him. The houses are all mud cabins, with no foundations, sitting in quagmires. Then an Irish Government must have money to make new Ministries, to give the officials a better time and squeeze the down-and-outs. I want the Minister for Finance now present to realise that those who were prepared to shelter Irishmen in their struggle for freedom did do it and Irish nationalism ran in the blood of everyone. Let him stop this dirty, mean work and let him be as Irish as he was 15 years ago. If he does not do that, the Irish people will live to regret the actions of this Government.
