Before Senator Sweetman speaks on the Bill, may I ask whether it would be possible to postpone the Second Reading until to-morrow? The House, I understand, is meeting to-morrow. Is it worth while going on with the Second Reading debate for an hour?
Public Business. - Land Bill, 1944—Second Stage.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The Minister for Lands, who has been waiting for the Bill all the afternoon, will be here in a moment.
The Minister will have to be here to-morrow, and would it not be as well postpone the Second Reading until to-morrow?
The House can debate the Second Reading for an hour to-night.
Earlier this evening I made the suggestion that the Second Reading might be put off until to-morrow, but I was told that the Minister would prefer if the Bill were taken to-night. I am entirely in the hands of the House.
Now that the Minister is present, I propose the question: that the Bill be now read a Second Time. Senator Sweetman may now proceed.
In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I want, in the first place, to say that the Bill is drafted in a form which I and other people have frequently criticised. It is an unfortunate fact that in the last 20 years here we have become accustomed to legislation by reference which is extremely difficult for people who, afterwards, have to deal with that legislation. It means that they must, perforce, go frequently to legal advisers to have the legislation construed.
I mention that at this stage in order to ask the Minister to bear in mind that it would be of immense benefit if at some stage—I hope in the not too distant future—he would take steps to codify the existing law on land purchase into a unified Act. The Department of Local Government and Public Health did that recently in connection with the law relating to public assistance. As the Bill was being submitted for the consideration of the Minister I was anxious to deal with it, in so far as I could, according to the method to which he and the House had become accustomed. Therefore, I followed precedent.
I am afraid that, in explaining the provisions of this Bill, I must be a little bit technical because it is essential that one should appreciate, down to the foundations, the methods which have been adopted by the Land Commission for the taking of land and the fixing of prices. Land is taken by the Land Commission for sub-division in either of two ways—by acquisition or by resumption. The House is well aware that the main provision of the 1923 Act was that all land would vest in the Land Commission on the appointed day, and that the Land Commission would subsequently revest in the tenants—they were then tenants to their landlords—all land except what I may, roughly and broadly, describe as the larger holdings. These larger holdings were what was known as "retained holdings". When the Land Commission considered it necessary, in the national interest, to take over any of those larger holdings, they did so by process of resumption. The whole purpose of this Bill is to make the method of fixing prices for land taken by the Land Commission exactly the same for an acquisition case as it is for a resumption case. It is not intended to introduce any new method of fixing the value of the land to be taken. The object is simply to have the same principle applied in both cases. Therefore, I must, at the beginning, explain in a little detail the method by which land is taken on resumption.
When land was taken on resumption by the Land Commission, the amount to be paid to that person whose hold- ing was resumed was fixed, in the first instance, by the 1923 Act, was subsequently slightly varied by the 1931 Act, and was finally codified, if I may use the word, in the 1939 Act. That was done largely as the result of an amendment passed in this House. The effect of that section in the 1939 Act is that, where the Land Commission takes a holding from a man on resumption, they pay to him the market value of that holding, deducting from that market value only two things. If there is on the holding an annuity to deal with compounded arrears of rent—the amount of the redemption of that annuity for compounded arrears against the holding is taken out. Secondly, they take out the redemption value of what is called a funding annuity which was placed on the land when the Land Act of 1923 was passed. Both those deductions are perfectly fair and right. The resumption price of the land is fixed on the basis of its market value. It is fixed, as I say, by Section 39 of the 1939 Act, which is most explicit, and states:
"The resumption price of such holding or part of a holding, that is to say, the compensation to be paid therefor by the Land Commission, shall be the market value of the holding or part of a holding so resumed."
When the section, in that amended form, was being passed in this House, I think that the Minister for Lands at the time felt—and correctly felt—that it was only a restatement of the existing law. But it is a restatement in a very clear and explicit form. Another sub-section was dealt with at a later stage as a result, if I mistake not, of an amendment introduced in this House. Clause (c) of the same sub-section states:
"Where the Land Commission, in pursuance of the next following sub-section of this section, acquires other land from the tenant of the resumed holding, the foregoing provisions of this sub-section shall apply to the price to be paid by the Land Commission for such other land as if such price were a resumption price."
The reason for that clause was that a man might have a farm part of which was a retained holding which the Land Commission was proposing to resume and part of which was a holding which might have been vested in him by an earlier Act. The Government, very properly, accepted the principle that, when the whole farm was being taken over, one portion of that farm should not be valued in a different way from the other portion. I mention that, particulary, because it is a precedent for the principle that I am proposing here. The principle has already been accepted in respect of a particular class of farm and I am suggesting that that principle should be extended so that all lands so taken would be dealt with by the Land Commission in exactly the same way. So much for the method by which the price of land is arrived at in the case of resumption.
There remains the other method, the method which is termed acquisition, which means, in fact, the taking over by the Land Commission of land which was vested in the tenant under the 1903 Act or some earlier Act, or land which was taken under the 1923 Act and vested in the tenant subsequent to 1923, or land which was never subject to any land purchase annuity at all. The House will readily agree and realise that it is by means of acquisition, rather than resumption, by far the greater part of land will be taken by the Land Commission in the future because the number of retained holdings outstanding cannot be very large. The House will remember that I laid stress on the fact that the method of the retained holding was, by and large, reserved for the larger holdings. I think it could, therefore, very easily be argued that, in the case of the resumption method of fixing price, we would be dealing with larger holdings than those to be taken by acquisition. So far as acquisition is concerned, the method by which the price is fixed is laid down in the Act of 1923. I want to stress, particularly, the fact that it is laid down in the 1923 Act because I do not want anybody to get an erroneous impression that I am trying to deal with this matter merely on the basis of politics—of trying to upset some Act introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government. In actual fact, the particular section, the operative section, which I am suggesting should be amended, was introduced, not by this Government, but by the previous Government.
The Land Act of 1923 states that as regards land that is going to be taken on acquisition the price shall be fixed by the Land Commission, and then, if they do not agree, by the appeal tribunal, and that in fixing such sum regard shall be had to the fair value of the land to the Land Commission and to the owner, respectively—the fair value of the land to the Land Commission, on the one hand, and to the owner, on the other hand. Now, that sounds very well on paper, and unless I am very much mistaken in my reading of the earlier debates, it has been argued from time to time that that is exactly the same as saying "the market value", but I hope to be able to show the House that it is far from being the same thing and that although, in fact, it sounds very fine in the section, it has, in practice, worked out as a very substantial injustice to the owner whose land was being acquired.
Let us consider, for example, the case of a man who has an extremely good farm, well fenced, well watered, and bounded in a proper way to work it as one unit. He has his proper method of approach, his fencing is very well laid out from the point of view of working that farm as one compact unit, and, as one compact unit, it will therefore, of course, have a certain market value. We come along then, and the Land Commission decide to acquire that land and to apply the test of the fair value to that owner, which, I think it will be admitted, would be the market value, and, on the other hand, to apply the fair value to the Land Commission. Now, before that land will be of any use to the Land Commission they will have, perhaps, to divide it into three or four, or even more farms; they may have to put in an entirely new road through it, or perhaps they may have to erect fences all over it and to subdivide fields. They may even have to make some arrangements which would mean that water would have to be brought from one part of the land to another, because they were going to cut away the ordinary run for cattle coming down to get water. All those things, without question, substantially, and in come cases very substantially, reduce the value to the Land Commission. Yet, in this section, and in the section of the 1923 Act under which the Land Commission and the appeal tribunal must fix the compensation, there must be taken into account, not only what that place was worth to a man as one unit, but the additional expense that was going to be involved in dividing that place—which had been satisfactory as one unit—into four, five or whatever number of places would be concerned, in order to provide proper, smaller, economic units.
I can easily see a case where a man might spend a great deal of money on developing a farm and who might, as a result of sinking a lot of money in it, have a first-class farm and run it in a first-class manner. I know, of course, that as long as he is doing that the Minister will tell me that that farm will not be taken over. I agree; but supposing that that man dies; supposing that his children are too young to be able to step into his shoes; and supposing that the widow is not able to carry on: then the family of that man will suffer, because all those improvements, which were satisfactory and useful to the farm as one unit, are not going to be of the same use to it if it is divided into four farms or more. That means that the man's family will suffer and lose as a result of the phraseology of the 1923 Act to which I have referred.
I am merely introducing this Bill on the basis of one principle, and one principle only, that is where it is necessary, in the national interest, in order to solve the problem of congestion or any other problem like that, to acquire property belonging to a man, then it is the nation, and not that man, who should be asked to foot the bill. I am introducing it on the principle of what I might almost term natural justice. When I was considering this matter, I read back over the debates in this House, and, indeed, in the other House also, in connection with the passing of the Land Act of 1939 and earlier Acts. I was very glad to see that in the debate on the 1939 Act the Leader of this House, Senator Quirke, stated at column 455: "I do not object to selling at the market value", and that again, in column 857, he said: "None of us wants to see land acquired without just and equitable compensation to the owner. We, on this side, do not want to see injustice done."
I was extremely glad to read that, and it heartened me considerably then, particularly in connection with the plea that I intend to put before the House to-night. I also found that Senator O'Dwyer was very strong in his remarks on the same occasion. I think I am correct in stating that he, too, was on the other side of the House. He stated at that time, in column 518: "When land is acquired the owners do not get a just price"— because the land had to be valued on the basis of what the letting value would be to the Land Commission— which is exactly the same point that I am now trying to put before the House in this particular Bill. The Senator went on, after that, to state that in his opinion that, in itself, was clearly unjust, and that the value of land is the price it would fetch if it were put upon the market. He went on to say:
"There is no doubt about that. Another reason why the owner does not get a fair price for the land is the practice of the Land Commission in redeeming the land annuities out of the value fixed upon the land, leaving the owner with much less than the actual market value."
I was very glad also to see that in the same debate Senator O'Callaghan stated: "I think that the first thing is that the owner should get a fair price." It was when I read all those things in what I shall call my initial research into the history of the methods of fixing land values, as evidenced by the debates in both Houses, that I came to the conclusion that it was only right that the matter should now be brought again before this House, particularly because I felt at the time that there had been some little misconception in regard to the interpretation. I do hope, as I have mentioned that matter, that the House will not feel that I am in any way trying to be—what shall I say?— patronising in saying that there was a misconception when the matter was discussed earlier. It just happens that the interpretation of Land Acts is my job. If it came to a question of buying or selling cattle, or of judging cattle, Senator Counihan or Senator O'Callaghan could buy and sell me.
Question?
Well, it just happens that I know about this particular thing, and when I say that the matter was misconceived earlier I do not want anyone to think that I am suggesting it in a patronising way. When the then Minister for Lands, at the time of the passing of the 1939 Land Act, discussed the question in this House, he stated— Volume 23, column 895—and I think this is most important because it shows the line of his thought at that moment:
"Whether you call it ‘market value' or ‘fair to the owner and to the Land Commission' I cannot see what difference the form of words is going to make."
I tried to explain a moment ago that the market value is the value of a farm as one unit to the owner when he puts it on the market, while the value to the Land Commission is the value of the land, not as one unit but after the farm has been subdivided. Therefore, I suggest that the Minister was mistaken when he was discussing this question in 1939 with the House, and when the House were dealing with what they believed was the method of fixing the price of land taken by the Land Commission. They were, in fact, only dealing with land that was being resumed, the larger retained holdings under the Act of 1923.
I want finally to quote—and I am not going to weary the House with any other quotations—one other speech that I read at the same time. It was a speech of the Minister for Finance. He said:
"The success of the Government's social and economic policy depends on our ability to secure and retain the confidence and trust of the people who have been thrifty, and who have saved. If you are to deprive a man of his right to property, in land, might you not be equally justified in depriving him of any right to property in bricks or mortar, machines or materials? In short, what would there be to prevent you, once you had gone so far as to expropriate private ownership in land, from communising industry? Is it wrong to own land? If not, why penalise the owner? If so, declare that such ownership is immoral but do what you want to do openly and boldly. Do not don the mask of a hypocrite."
These are words used by the Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee, as reported in cols. 1031-43, vol. 61, of the Dáil Debates. I suggest that the analogy here is absolutely pure and plain, that if you decide in the national interest that certain land shall be acquired—and you must so decide; I am not trying to make any plea whatever in this Bill to hinder the State or the Land Commission in their efforts to solve the problem of congestion; I am not trying to put any brake on their activities or suggesting that where they think land should be acquired it should not be acquired—it should be acquired at the national expense rather than at the expense of the person from whom it is being acquired. I want to be clear that I am perfectly and absolutely satisfied—and I think anybody who has any experience of the working of the Land Act is perfectly satisfied—with the method as laid down in Section 39 of the Land Act of 1939 for resumption cases. I am asking that the same method which has proved so just and fair in these cases should be applied to the acquisition of all land acquired to relieve a national problem. I may be told by the Minister that the effect of doing that would be that the Land Commission would make the land too dear for allottees. I might remind the House that I, as a private individual, could not introduce in a Bill of this nature any provision which would impose a charge on the national revenue. There is ample scope for a precedent of that kind in the Wyndham Act of 1903, where the bonus principle was brought in. In addition, of course, there is the principle of the State contribution in the 1923 Act by which the State makes a contribution to the purchase money, but it would not have been permissible for me to deal with the matter in that way. If the Minister felt that was going to be one of the effects of the machinery I suggest, by virtue of which the market value would be obtained, it is perfectly open to him to deal with it in that way, though it was not open to me when I was introducing this measure.
Section 2, as I say, is a little bit complicated for it is the technical method of achieving what I wish, that the sum paid by the Land Commission when they acquire land should be the market value in acquisition cases as it is in resumption cases. The point that is mentioned in Section 3 is a very small and trivial one by comparison. The House may not be aware that the procedure in regard to the fixing of the price by the Land Commission or by the Appeal Tribunal is that the Land Commission makes a certain offer to the owner. If the owner does not like that offer then he has the right to appeal to the Appeal Tribunal. When it comes along to the Appeal Tribunal, possibly he gives evidence himself or he puts up perhaps, in addition, a valuer. When that valuer and himself are put on the witness stand, counsel representing the Land Commission is entitled to cross-examine them and to pick their case to pieces but the Land Commission are not under that handicap. All they do, so to speak, is to hand it on a plate to the Appeal Tribunal. They say: "Our offer for that land is £2,000." They are not put in the same predicament of having to go up and justify in the witness box the figures on which they base that price. In other words, what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.
I can quite realise the Minister telling us that the Land Commission or the Land Commission inspectors should not be cross-examined as to whether this or that land should be taken over. I entirely agree with him in that but I do suggest that once the Land Commission have decided to take over a particular farm, there cannot be an objection from any angle to asking the inspector or whoever has fixed the price that the Land Commission are putting up, to justify the basis of that price and to have his justification open to the same cross-examination and criticism as the owner himself and his valuer have had to face.
I do not propose to keep the House any longer on this subject. I am not going into, as I could, individual instances to show where the method that is adopted has resulted in very substantial injustice to the owner because I think it would be far better from my point of view if we kept to a logical theoretical basis of discussing the question as a broad principle rather than getting down to individual instances. At the risk of wearying the House, may I just repeat that I am absolutely satisfied with the method by which resumption prices are fixed. I am quite satisfied that in such cases the owner, or the dispossessed tenant, whichever you like to call him, gets a fair crack of the whip, because the price is fixed by relation to the market value. I am not satisfied, either in theory or in individual instances, that where land is being acquired the same fair crack of the whip is given to the man who owns it, because, as a result not of the wish of the Land Commission, not of the wish of the Minister, not of the wish of the Appeal Tribunal, not of the wish of the Government, but as a result of the wording fixed in the 1923 Statute that land must be valued by reference not to what it is worth but to what it is going to be worth to the State Department that takes it over. If the State Department want to take it over, they should consider it from the angle of the man they are dispossessing rather than from the future angle. If they want to consider it from the future angle, it should be valued by means of the same bonus provision as was dealt with in the 1903 Act and the price that was added under the 1923 Act. In one sense, are you not causing a certain amount of hardship to the man who owns the land by taking it from him? Is it fair that you should add to that hardship by asking him to bear the cost of solving a national problem? We are all agreed that congestion is a national problem. As it is a national problem, it should be paid for by the nation and not by any individual.
In this Bill I tried to devise the machinery which I thought, by dealing with the existing procedure of the Land Commission, would provide that the owner would get the market value. I am not concerned at all with my method or with my machinery. I am concerned purely with the principle, and, if the Minister thinks that there is any way in which that principle can be met by better machinery, I will be only too glad to fall in with him and to allow him to deal with it in his own way and at his own time.
Senator Sweetman has very thoroughly and clearly explained the provisions of this Bill. I think that it does not go far enough. If I had my way, this is not the sort of Bill I would have framed, but Senator Sweetman has far greater knowledge than I have of the mentality of the Government and of the Land Commission, and he is confident that this Bill which he has introduced will be accepted by the Government and passed without opposition. The Bill does not do very much; it does not do anything to alter the policy of the Government or of the Land Commission. It does not prevent the Land Commission from acquiring or resuming land. All it does is to say that when the Land Commission resumes or acquires land they will pay the market value for it. Senator Sweetman has put in all the technical terms, which laymen do not understand, but as far as I understand it that is the substance of the Bill. We do not want to restrict the activities of the Land Commission. If it is the Government's policy, let them acquire the land, but let them pay the market value for it.
It is difficult to understand how the Land Commission and the Appeal Tribunal in the past had such little regard for common justice in the price they fixed for resumed or acquired holdings. Most of the prices paid since 1933 amounted to pure confiscation. I can show that by a few examples. One is the value placed on a resumed holding, and the other on an acquired holding. The resumed holding belonged to ex-Senator Wilson, a man who is well known to most members of this House. In 1929, he bought a farm of 90 acres at Ashbourne, County Meath, for £1,500. The Land Commission interest in the farm was bought under one of the earlier Land Acts at £2,700, which had to be repaid at an annuity of £89 8s. 10d. In 1934, the Land Commission acquired an estate near Mr. Wilson's home, and he thought he would get an exchange of some of that land for his Ashbourne farm, so he offered the farm to the Land Commission. All the preliminaries for acquisition were completed, and the price Mr. Wilson would receive after the repayment of the land annuities was £231 for the farm for which he paid £1,500 in 1929. That happened in 1934. Representations were made to the Land Commission that, as Mr. Wilson did not get the exchange for his farm and had four sons who were prepared to work the land, it was quite unfair to take up that farm. The Land Commission very kindly agreed to withdraw their claim. In two months after that—the value of land could not have altered very much in that time; I think it was at its lowest for 50 years—Mr. Wilson sold that farm for £1,100, five times the amount the Land Commission was to pay him. Worse than that, the fact remains that if the annuities had not been halved by the 1933 Act, Mr. Wilson would have been in debt to the Land Commission for £1,000. Those are facts which the Minister can have verified in the Land Commission. The other example which I wish to give is that of a resumed holding. It is the case of the Hone estate, New Haggard, County Dublin. That farm was held in fee simple, 447 acres, and the price paid by the Land Commission was £8,500. There were no annuities to be taken off that. It was fee simple.
It was an acquired holding.
Yes, it was an acquired holding. It was acquired and divided in 1935. One man got 14 acres with an annuity of £14 a year, which he sold by public auction last year for £1,050. The owner of that acquired holding got £19 an acre from the Land Commission for that land. The late owner got something like £70 an acre for a holding that had an annuity of £14 a year. If you capitalise the annuity of £14, and add auctioneer's fees and legal expenses, that 14 acres would represent £1,500, or £80 an acre more than the Land Commission paid the late owner. On that estimate the man got £35,000 less for his estate in 1935 than it is worth to-day. I can verify those two cases in every detail. There are many other cases of greater injustice which I could quote, but I have taken these two cases as being typical of the price paid by the Land Commission for acquired and resumed holdings during a number of years.
It is not a sound policy economically, politically or socially, to divide any more land. The remaining few large farms in the country are essential if we desire to maintain our reputation on the export market for good cattle, good horses, or any other good live stock, which cannot be produced except on fairly big farms. The British Minister for Agriculture stated recently that the only hope for agriculture in the future was mechanised farming. That is the policy at present in operation in Russia.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator should deal with the Bill.
That would apply, under present conditions, in every country, and more particularly in this country, where we must produce at the lowest possible cost for export. I think the Taoiseach also is of the opinion that we should not divide up big farms.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I must ask the Senator to come to the terms of the Bill.
He said he did not want this country to be made into cabbage gardens. I think he said that in a recent speech, if my memory serves me right. After all the land division we have had, there are fewer people now employed on the land than there were 20 or 30 years ago, and the record of the output of our workers on the land is the lowest, I suppose, in the world. I see that in 1938 the output per man in this country was only £70——
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I am afraid that has nothing to do with the Land Bill that is before the House.
I would impress on the Minister that the time has come when no more land should be divided. I think he should consider recasting the whole policy of the Land Acts and make it definite that where land is acquired, if the policy of acquiring land is continued, the owners will get reasonable compensation. That is the whole object of the Bill.
Not at all.
I support the Bill that has been so ably introduced by Senator Sweetman. I confess that when this Bill was first mooted I regarded it with a certain amount of suspicion for, while I fully appreciated the justice of paying the market value to the large land owners from whom land is acquired compulsorily, I felt that it was unfair to the allottees to place on them the onus of repayment. I come from a congested district from which people have been migrated to new holdings and I realise that the migrants, while they benefited by migration, found the increased fine they had to pay in their new allotments a very difficult matter.
If Senator Sweetman's Bill purported to give an increased price to the landowner from whom land was being compulsorily acquired and to transfer the onus of repayment to the allottees, I certainly would not support the Bill, but he has clearly enunciated a means by which the difference can be made up. By that method, which I sincerely trust will be adopted, justice will be done to the man from whom land is being acquired and to the allottee who receives that land, and he will get an opportunity of making a living out of the land.
I desire to compliment Senator Sweetman for having taken so much trouble in carrying out the necessary research, and presenting the Bill in a very efficient form. I trust the Government will accept it. The Bill will repair certain injustice or prevent injustice in the cases referred to by Senator Counihan, and it will give the people who are migrated to new holdings an opportunity to make a living out of them. If, notwithstanding the extensive division of land that has taken place throughout the country, a smaller number of people are now getting their living from the land than heretofore, it is due to the fact that the allottees are finding it more difficult to live and that is an argument in favour of Senator Sweetman's suggestion for making up the difference between the market value paid to the owner and the price which the allottees will have to pay for it.
I have had very considerable experience in this matter and I find, generally speaking, in selling estates throughout the country that the Land Commission has not been unfair to any side. At the same time the existence of small grievances sometimes prejudices great cases, grievances that are not universally applicable but which, nevertheless, affect the outlook of the people generally. Since I have come to this House I have been listening to Senator Counihan pleading faithfully and well, if not always successfully, for credit for farmers. He struck oil when the present Minister for Finance went a certain length, some three or four years ago, but the trouble on the Continent raised prices and knocked the bottom out of any case for credit for anybody, because the farmers were supposed to be getting too much money, and were supposed to be well off. It must be obvious to anybody that since the passing of that unfortunate Act in 1923 which commandeered any land, any place, anywhere, anyhow, that there would not be a sane outlook or stability in regard to credit for land. It is for that reason chiefly that I would lend any measure of support to Senator Sweetman's excellent and simple suggestion for remedying injustices in regard not only to one agricultural holding but in regard to agriculture generally.
A few years ago a friend of mine, a bank manager, was present at a party at which we were playing an innocent game of solo. At that time the great idea was to subdivide land. While discussing what was being paid to some owners the question was asked: why not take the land? The bank manager mentioned that there appeared to be a feeling that not much was thought of farmer's credit so long as they had a system under which land could be seized and distributed, as that made for insecurity. What inducement was there for farmers to do their best and to develop the industry if they had no guarantee that they would get market value for their holdings if the Land Commission took them over? I want to see the title deeds of farmers as owners of their land, as valuable as any stock exchange securities. I want farmers by their industry to be in the position to create such value that their land will be their first asset. Farmers will then possess and enjoy the ownership of the land to which generations of Irish people have pinned their faith. I want to have this position, that if a farmer sees that by the expenditure of £20 or £30 he could improve his house or carry out drainage work on his farm, he will get as much credit for that as if he took out an insurance policy on his life. I want to see a position in which the expenditure of even £30 a year on improvements can be as effective for a farmer's benefit as an insurance policy. In my opinion that is due to industrious farmers, to people who have not the slightest intention of leaving the land upon which they were born and reared.
The first injustice towards farming that came under my notice occurred in 1934 in connection with holding No. S 7313, for which £4,340 was offered. That sale was withdrawn and on February 18th, 1935, I received an offer of £2,400. At that time some of the land had been set from £10 to £15 an acre. The interest of the people concerned was sacrificed at £10 an acre. That had a great effect in that district. So long as there is a law that will permit confiscation without due regard to the interests of those who own land so long will there be instability. In addition, that is creating a certain outlook amongst our people, because they are asking Senators and Deputies to have land divided. I expect that land division will have to go on, but, if so, let it go on on a stable basis and let everybody who owns land be assured of ownership. As long as you have the position that people in a room in Merrion Street—and I am sure they do their best in the circumstances— can interfere with the division of land you will have insecurity. While that state of affairs exists farmers cannot look for credit from the banks. What encouragement is there for people to go back to the land if that is the situation? Is the back to the land movement to be restricted to those who have not a shilling? I heard references by Senator Foran and Senator Duffy about pensions for employees. What has the farmer to look forward to? Is a man to get land if he is not capable of working it? I understand that the best farms in Germany are those containing 1,800 acres.
What inducement is there for farmers to do their best, so as to pay their labourers a wage equal to that paid by any other industry, if they have not security? How can I expect to have my farm worked in my absence if I cannot be assured of loyalty from those whom I employ? Why should not the farm labourer be entitled to a good living, with plenty of milk and butter for his family? Land should be given to men who are prepared to put their energies into working it. If farmers have security the banks will realise in this Christian State that if their land is taken adequate compensation will be paid the owners. On the other hand, if I am to be told that my farm is going to be taken, my reply is that is not what is done when dealing with other interests. Are not the owners always paid well so that they may carry on and give employment? I move the adjournment of the debate until to-morrow.
Debate adjourned until to-morrow.
The Seanad adjourned at 9 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 23rd November, 1944.