To the general principles of this Bill I do not propose to take any serious exception, but I would like to state what they are, in order to form a bridge between the general principles of acceptance and the very imperfect and unjust manner in which, I hope to convince the House, these principles have been carried out. Under the Act of 1908 the obligation was cast upon occupiers to pay rates on the dwellings they occupied. The argument at that time was that if the occupants were given votes they should be brought to a sense of responsibility by the payment of rates. That was the fundamental principle upon which was to be built up this rather vague and nebulous doctrine of civic responsibility. But as time went on considerable inconvenience was experienced in carrying out that principle, more especially in the case of small dwellings, the occupants of which had no very fixed domicile. They were people brought up to live from hand to mouth, and, as many members of this House who have the good, or bad, fortune to be members of a county council know, by having to revise yearly an irrecoverable list of rates, they would meet constantly the words "nulla bona," meaning that the sheriff was unable to recover the amounts, and that the loss fell on the local authority. What that loss amounts to I do not know. In answer to a question in the Dáil recently the Minister said he did not know. It surprised me, I candidly admit, that the Minister went into a measure of this kind without at least approximate knowledge of the losses involved, because I propose to show that these losses may be transferred to the owners. Anyhow, the Minister did not know the amount, but I hope, if he does not know now, that he will give an undertaking before the Committee Stage that he will get a return from the local authority as to what the losses have been, say, for the year 1926-27, on dwellings up to £6 and between £6 and £12. These are the categories of dwellings affected by this Bill, if it is passed. It is necessary that the House should know it to form an opinion fairly on this measure. It is admitted on all sides that there is considerable worry and loss, and also some hardship on people who have small means, and who have to find half-yearly what is to them a substantial sum of money. The principle in this Bill is that the landlords' organisation shall be used to collect these rates; that where the rents are collected periodically, some weekly, some monthly, and some half-yearly, there will be no extra hardship on the landlords to add to the rents a sum to cover rates. I think that is, as far as it goes, a good case, provided this condition is observed: that the position of the landlord shall be no worse than before, and possibly a little better, on account of the unpleasant task he has to do, on account of the odium he has to shoulder, and the pressure undoubtedly he will have to bring on the tenants to recover his money. I suggest to the House that a fair way to approach that would be for the Minister to call the owners into consultation and say: "We propose to do this, and we want to meet you as far as we can." I have no doubt that a great many points of difference might be solved in that way. Unfortunately it was not done, and while the Minister quite courteously received deputations from various bodies, I think I am right in saying that they were only received after the Bill was introduced. We know how changed the position is when we come to alter a Bill, once it has been introduced.
I wish to place before the House in an appropriate Second Reading form — as I am afraid I will have to ask it to give further attention to this Bill in Committee — what these burdens are that are to be placed on landlords. In the first place there are the costs of collection. I think these now amount to about 7½ per cent. on local authorities. Of course that 7½ per cent. is a flat rate on all classes of dwellings. In connection with small dwellings, the costs are infinitely greater, as any rate collector will say that there is always more worry and trouble about such dwellings. In addition to the poundage to the collector there are the legal costs, which are considerable where proceedings are taken. It is owing to these costs and trouble that the local authorities have sought, and have apparently successfully sought to place this burden on the owners. I might mention in passing that in England, under the Rates Act of 1925 where similar burdens are placed in a very restricted form under certain conditions — sometimes compulsorily by resolution of the local authorities and at other times by agreement with the owners — commission or cost of collection is allowed in some cases up to 15 per cent., and in other cases 10 per cent. I further understand, and I will know definitely by the Committee Stage, that in the city of London where owners collect rates a rebate up to 30 per cent. of the rate is allowed. I do not know if that is correct. That is my information but it seems such a large sum that I would be surprised if it is so. In addition there are other costs on the landlord besides the legal costs. Everybody knows, especially under the new conditions, that legal costs are unfortunately heavier now than formerly. In the old days when proceedings for ejectment were necessary the constabulary did certain work. I am sure the legal members of this House will know what that work was better than I do. But that work is no longer done by the police. My information is that where it cost a few shillings before to prosecute an injectment proceeding it now costs £2 to recover small amounts on poorer dwellings. That is an additional burden, to a certain extent owing to the addition of the rates, that will be thrown on the landlords. Possibly this is a point that may not appeal to the higher officials, but the bookkeeping costs are going to be considerable. I speak at first hand as an owner. I do all my book-keeping; I employ no agent. I am in close touch with what happens. Every year the weekly rents will have to be adjusted on a certain appointed day and sums of 1d. 2d. or 3d. as the case may be, will have to be added to the rents. In the case of rents that are paid half yearly the ledgers will have to be adjusted yearly, and the new rents carried down, so that there will be inevitable complications, with arrears carried forward. In addition many queries will arise if new owners will have to pay the rates. There is further the question of the irrecoverable rates to which I have referred. In one county, Co. Waterford, the total irrecoverable rates of 1926-27 was £14,000. I do not know, although I can ascertain — but I hope the Minister will save me the trouble — how much of that is on these small dwellings, but I anticipate that a very considerable portion of it is. I should hazard the guess that £1,000 of that is on these small dwellings.
On that assumption, and taking Waterford as an average county, which I think it is, you can arrive at a figure of £20,000 for the whole country. I hope I am wrong and that the Minister will be able to correct me when he gets the figures from the authorities concerned, but I hazard the guess that a sum of somewhere about £20,000 is going to be transferred, without any remuneration for costs, from the local authorities to the owners of this small property. I will come to the question of the means of recovery later, because the means of recovery that a landlord possesses are somewhat different from those possessed by the local authority in the past.
I want to make this point, that these small dwellings of up to £6 are the most irksome and unpopular form of property any owner can possess. I do not know if any of you have the pleasure of possessing them, because I have. I tried to sell eight houses the other day which were in good order and bringing me in about £40 a year, but all I could get was an offer of about three years' purchase, because my neighbours knew as well as I know the cost and worry of them, the fact that they are sometimes ransacked and the woodwork burned for firing, and all the endless annoyance that is involved in their ownership. I also want to make this point, that the house-property owner as a whole has, of all classes, benefited least by inflation in values due to the war. Whereas I think, in almost every case, with the exception perhaps of the civil servants, who might challenge this and say that they do not, those who have not been controlled followed the market and got what was going. The property owner is restricted by the Rent Restrictions Act, and whereas his charges have gone up by 100 per cent., he is only allowed an increase of 40 per cent. on the rents, so that I do not think anybody can say that this class that it is now proposed to penalise are a pampered section of the community. They are the hardest hit section of the community, and any profiteering in this class of property that there has been has been by people who have got in as tenants under the Restrictions Act and who have sub-let at enormous rents. That is well known.
The inevitable tendency of this legislation is that, of course, this class of property will get into the hands of the worst owner. Nobody who can avoid it will burden himself with such property. Anybody who can will sell out at a sacrifice, and that is largely the genesis of the slum. All this property is thrown on the slum owner, and if you are now going to perpetuate these conditions with this burden of rates and the additional burden of collection, undoubtedly there will be less attraction in this property and it will fall more and more into the hands of a bad class of landlord. You have got to set beside that very important point the argument, and rightly so, that the one measure of all others that can get to the root of proper conditions and improved civilisation is better housing. But I will be surprised if the Minister will say that he expects to solve this problem of housing by State money. It must not be forgotten that private enterprise has borne the burden in the past. If the Government wish to throw more and more of this burden of housing on to the taxpayer and to make the conditions of housing in the interim worse, this Bill is going the right way about it.
There is another point, not from the owner's point of view, but with regard to the tenant. Hitherto the tenant has not been subject to eviction for the non-payment of rates. It has not been possible to evict him; it has been possible to distrain on him, but if there were no goods he could not be evicted. Under this Bill the tenant is liable to eviction, and in that connection it would be rather interesting to hear the Minister's argument. This Bill received very little notice in the Dáil, in spite of its most disquieting provisions, but it was argued there that as it was difficult to collect rates and as they were badly collected now it was unfair to place the additional burden on the owners. The Minister's reply to that was somewhat significant. I do not think he has heard the last of it. He said: "If there are landlords who, with the powers they already possess, are not able to collect their rents, I do not think we can deal with that under this particular Bill. The relative importance of the rates as compared with rents does not warrant that we would avoid dealing in the most systematic way possible with a definite public problem simply because there may be landlords who do not collect their rents." I read that as a distinct notice to the landlords to put on the screw, and if landlords do put on the screw, I hope the tenants will note at whose suggestion it is put on. Landlords that I talk to now say: "Where in the past we have kept the money for ourselves we, at least, felt a certain compassion, and occasions of hardship were motives for consideration," and I can give you cases whereby considerable consideration was exercised. For instance, a person owes me arrears amounting to £20 at 2s. a week rent, and he is living on a few shillings outdoor relief. It is now expected that I should pay his rates. If the Minister accepts that I shall have something more to say on it. Where landlords paid the rates themselves there were in some cases reasons for consideration, but it is different now. They will merely be acting as a collecting body for the local authorities, and I shall be very much surprised if I do not see very much harsher methods used in the collection in future. One solicitor who deals largely with the collection of rents described this Bill to me by saying that it should be called a Tenants Eviction Bill — that if things panned out as he expected it would pay to get rid of the tenants, lock up the houses, and pay rates on them as empty houses.
That is dealing with the main principle of the Bill. I now wish to deal with what I call the mechanism of the measure, although this will emerge more closely on Committee. In the definition of "owner" an agent is included. I am not going to say this is the first time that an agent has been made a principal and responsible for the debts of his principal, but it is almost the first time, and it is unusual and a somewhat strange thing that, because the principal's rates are not collected and paid, the agent is liable to have his premises entered and his furniture distrained and carried off by the officers of the law. I have no doubt that the Minister will tell me that in the British Act of 1925 an agent is responsible. I read the Act and I am inclined to agree with him, but I would explain to the Minister that you cannot appropriate and reprobate within the same Act; if you are going to claim a precedent, or to shelter yourself behind some favourable clause, you should also add for us a commission of ten or fifteen per cent. for the trouble and worry involved. As the Bill stands, the main provision is that it shall only apply to dwellings of £6 valuation and under; but by a very curious clause — Section 2 — the Minister takes power, on the application of a local authority, to extend the valuation to £12. I am rather inclined to regard that clause as camouflage. I know that local authorities — I do not blame them — will all be clamant to place this burden on the landlords to the utmost extent. The Minister will find the pressure from them far more awkward than he will find it from the scattered and unorganised owners, and I am afraid in a very short time we will see this extended to the £12 valuation. Twelve pounds would take in about 60 per cent. of the dwellings in a small country town. Some of the leaseholders will be brought in, especially people of whom there can be no doubt but that they are good marks, and the landlord will have foisted and put upon him all the worry and trouble of this work. In the English Act, moreover, it only applies to rents that are not collected quarterly or at longer periods. It practically applies to rents collected weekly or monthly.
I think the Government might meet us on this. It is the weekly and the monthly tenant who has been the cause of the demand for this, and why cannot it be confined to them? Why is it necessary to bring in a number of leaseholders? Undoubtedly they will be brought in — publicans and owners of shops will now cease to pay their rates and the landlords will be compelled to readjust their rents. Then, the definition of a rackrent as two-thirds of the valuation of the land is, I suggest, an entirely obsolete value. That is from that Act of 1878. Values have completely changed now, and it would be only reasonable under the new conditions to make the rackrent at least the valuation, or more. That would relieve a certain number of these cases of landlords being compelled to collect rates for substantial, well-to-do leaseholders.
There is nothing in the Bill that I have been able to find which says that the owner is to receive a demand note in the case of every separate valuation. That is provided in the British Act, and of course it is the law here now. This Bill does not set that out. It says that "the rate shall be made on the owner." That is rather vague and loose language. But I hope the Minister will give us an assurance — and I shall put down an amendment to make it clear — that a demand note in the usual form must be served in the case of every separate valuation.
There is considerable obscurity in Section 5, sub-section (1), as to what is the meaning of "Twelve months next after the making of such rate." What the making is I do not quite understand, but after the rate is made the landlord can proceed to readjust his rents. But, of course, we will not know what the date is, because the making of the rate is a thing that takes place without any special publicity in the office of the local authority. You cannot expect the owner to make himself cognisant with what is going on in the county council offices. I put this forward, that the landlord cannot proceed to amend his rents until he receives the demand notes. He should then have complete, separate valuations specified, and then he can proceed to make the adjustments. But as the Bill now stands it is entirely obscure as to what date the landlord can proceed to make the adjustments from, and my argument is that he cannot proceed to do so until he has full, accurate and official knowledge of the position, and that is not until he receives a demand note.
The question of overlapping and readjustments would also arise. Assuming that the rent cannot be adjusted until the demand note is received, which, I think, the Minister will admit, what will the position be? The demand notes are received at totally irregular dates; rate collectors are changed, the county council acts more quickly one year than another. I have known cases where demand notes were not received until June or July in some years, so that the landlord cannot proceed to amend his rents until July, and the rent will then extend from July to July. Supposing that next year the demand note is received in May, it is quite possible that there will then be overlapping, because the new rents will be adjusted in May, and for two months the occupier will be paying rates for two years. That may be a small point, but I think legislation is a thing that must be exact, as it has to be interpreted by the courts. I hope the Minister will say exactly how this is to work, because I can see tenants having to pay as much as two months' rates for two years at the same time. Then there is the very great hardship involved as to the difference between the date when the rate is to be paid and the date when it is to be collected. That will be in the case chiefly of half-yearly rents.
Assuming that the demand is received in May in places where the gale days are in March and September, you will not be able to adjust your rent until the following September, but the local authority can demand the rate in May, which is usually not paid until September. In many of these tenancies the hanging gale system is in operation. You may say that it should not be, but landlords have not been the bad people in the past that everybody has suggested, and they have allowed their rents to hang over in some cases for six months. The September rent, which would bear one moiety of the rate, is not in many cases collected before the following March, so that the landlord would be out of his money and would be financing the local authority for six months, or even more. Is that just?
With all this burden and all this unpleasantness, who is going to pay the costs? We are now going to finance the local authorities in some cases to the extent of six months' rates. If people have not got this money we can see this running into hundreds of pounds in some cases, and they will have to have recourse to borrowing, and other things of that kind, to find the money. I have read the Dáil debates very carefully, and I notice that none of these points, which I consider fundamental and most important, was raised at all in the other House. That is as far as my criticism of the Bill goes. I only say that in spite of the fact that in some quarters my motives are suspect, I do not put this criticism forward in any spirit of selfishness or avarice. I consider that it is a healthy instinct to try to keep what you have got and to try to get justice for all classes of the community, including those who have the good, or bad, fortune to own property. I assure you that I would not take a serious view of this from the public point of view if it were only a case that A is rich and B is poor, you were simply taking something from A and giving it to B, and that the transaction ended there. I can assure you that it does not end there. People who have money are not going to allow themselves to be made a target for legislation of this kind. They are well able to protect themselves, and they will do so to the prejudice of the community. It takes very little insight to see that it is the poorer man and the consumer who invariably suffers from legislation of this disquieting character.
This is the first time really, and I am afraid it will not be the last, to bring house-property legislation into the same dangerous trend as land legislation. In the case of land legislation, we know that where an owner had £100 in the 80's, when the thing is cleared up he has now got about £30. But that is not the whole story. I do not believe that the tenant himself is better off. Demoralisation is involved, all the money is going out of the country in consequence, and to-day nobody with money will buy any quantity of land. He will buy small plots of it, but any quantity of land has no market; land as an instrument of credit is highly suspect. This is not really in the interests of any class, however maligned or however deserving they be. It is fundamental that any infringement of the rights of property will injure the wellbeing of the community and will affect all classes. I ask the House to give critical thought to this measure, and to view with sympathy certain amendments which I shall bring forward at the proper time.
