Land Bill July 13 1939

I am aware also that, in spite of the fact that this whole question as between the landlord and tenant represented by the fight in the old days was practically wiped out some 15 years ago, we still continue to have the alleged land question and we still continue to treat the farmers who happen to be owners of larger farms than their neighbours as if they were lineal descendants in title of the ancient oppressors of the Irish nation. All this oppression disappeared completely with the 1923 Land Act and we have no right to follow large-scale owners of land in this country with feelings which were, perhaps, justified in the case of the more oppressive of the old landlords.

Cromwell is not a very popular figure in this country. But surely, part of the curse of Cromwell is that we should continue to approach this land question in a spirit of envy, malice and all uncharitableness and that we should forget the common obligation of our citizenship of this nation. Every citizen has a right to expect from the state a just policy with respect to his property and his interests. So again I emphasise that our large farmers, whatever else they are, are not certainly the descendants in title of the ancient alien oppressors of this nation.

In fact, so far as my own personal traditions are concerned, I must say that my people in the old days stood with the tenants in the struggle for fair rents, free sale and fixity of tenure. The feelings that we had for the evils of the old land system were shared by the plain men in the North of Ireland and they were shared with the feelings of the people in the South of Ireland. That was one of the things which united them in the old days. Within recent days this recent perversion of land policy, through the mere spoliation of our neighbours, is one of the things that will continue to divide you from the North because it seems to them to be flying in the face of the Ten Commandments.

What policy has preceded the application of this confiscatory land legislation? We had a situation created by the so-called economic war in which agriculture suffered more or less. But the Government of the day were able, for reasons best known to themselves, to divert the major part of the burden of that economic war on to the shoulders of the larger farmers, especially the larger grazing farmers.

The position then was that the main part of that burden was not borne by the agricultural economy as a whole, but by a small section of the farming class. One of the effects of that successful diversion of the burden was to depress the value of land, especially the value of holdings of the larger kind. The State has, in my view, dishonestly taken advantage of that deliberate depression of the value of large holdings in order to acquire that land for a song with a view to its distribution amongst alleged landless men. That involves less than financial justice to the owners of the land in question and it involves less than financial justice to the tax-payers as a whole.

I say that because not only was the value of the land, which it is proposed to confiscate, deliberately depressed, but even at that reduced value, the people who have been given land -- and the word "given" is the right word to use -- have been allowed to acquire that land at an equivalent of £600 less than the depressed figure, at which the State acquired it. What I mean is that what they pay for this land represents £600 less than the cost to the State of acquiring that holding, even at that diminished value.

Consequently, the whole policy involves an injustice to the taxpayers as a whole. It seems to add a dead-weight debt of £600 for every person you put in possession of land under this policy of land confiscation. This is a destruction, of course, of the credit of such landowners, who have this constant fear that they may have the Land Commission coming down upon them and taking possession of their land for distribution. But it is a destruction of something more important, and that is a destruction of the moral credit of the nation.

We are told that there is an insatiable demand for land, that there are umpteen thousands of applicants for land. Of course there are. An overwhelming number of people want land. More land than is available is wanted. That is bound to happen if you make land available to applicants on terms such as these.

If any philanthropist proceeds to sell packets of 20 cigarettes for 6d, he will find an insatiable, demand for them on the part of people who will, either smoke them themselves or sell them to their neighbours. If you make land available at less than the market value, then you are going to have an insatiable demand from people who want to get something for nothing. That is the financial aspect.

I come now to the economic aspect. I do not propose to say much, on that because it is one of the things that come within the purview of the Agricultural Commission now sitting. But I do say that the question of the part which large grazing and tillage farmers should play in our agricultural policy is a question which the Agricultural Commission now sitting should necessarily consider and that the Government should await the report of that Agricultural Commission before they do anything which would prejudice the solution of that question on lines recommended by the commission.

It is on record that the Banking Commission report recommended that we should bring to a full stop as soon as may be this uneconomic distribution of land at the taxpayers' expense. But I know that the recommendations of the Banking Commission are at a discount in this Assembly and that the Government not only flies in the face of one of the most important recommendations of the Banking Commission but also makes things impossible and queers the pitch for another commission now functioning. The Government is prejudging the question which would naturally fall to that commission to consider and report on.

In my view there is a very simple solution for the problem of landless men. It does not necessarily involve making the landless man a small holder. But it does involve making agricultural labourers of them at a wage which will, I hope, increase in the near future. What is it in the nation's mind that seems to regard the small holder's life as something idyllic, something to which we should take off our hats and, at the same time, regards the man who is working as a wage earner on the land as something below what a self-respecting man should be?

In my opinion, the economic position of agricultural labourers, especially in the eastern parts of the country, is better than the economic position of the small holders, especially in the western counties. In my view, what we should aim at is to liberate the energies of the large farmers -- tillage and grazing -- and do everything possible to facilitate the expansion of production. By such expansion of production we are bound to increase the openings for agricultural labourers and for employment generally. In that way we will find an outlet for those landless men who now claim and want land for nothing.

In my view there is a clear solidity of interests between the wage-paid agricultural labourer and the large farmer, and if you are going to wipe out the large farmer you are going to do a serious disservice to the agricultural labourer because you are going to destroy the only possible source from which agricultural employment for wages may be increased.

It may be beside the point, though not entirely, if I mention in passing that our policy in regard to agricultural wages seems to he somewhat difficult to understand. There is a minimum agricultural wage now I believe, in the region of 27 shillings a week, and the assumption is that every agricultural labourer who is worth anything is worth the fixed minimum wage and, presumably, that none of them is worth more than that. The best farmers tell me that they would rather pay more than the minimum wage to the best men they can get hold of but the worst, they think, are not worth the minimum wage.

Because they have to pay the minimum wage to everybody, they probably find themselves unable to pay the kind of wage they would like to pay to the best workers. It is desirable that agricultural labourers should rise in the economic and social scale and that there should be legitimate avenues open to their ambition. To my mind, one avenue would be provided if we could encourage large scale farming, farming on holdings of 200 to 500 acres, so that you would have a development of different grades and different types of skill in agricultural labour.

Agricultural labour, even in its most general aspect, is a skilled occupation, and in the modern technique of agriculture, it is desirable that certain types of agricultural labour should be specialised for work on large scale farms employing 30 or 40 workers. On such farms it should not only be possible but certain, that many agricultural workers, employed in a specialised type of work, would obtain far more than the minimum wage. The possibility of rising to such a figure in the way of money income is something which would have a healthy stimulating effect on the mentality of agricultural labourers throughout.the country. But if you destroy the large-scale farm, you destroy the possibility of thus increasing the differentiation in agricultural labour and the increases in agricultural wages that are likely to come with it.

I find also a very prevalent notion that grass is one of the greatest inflictions that Providence ever inflicted on this country, that grass is a weed and that the farmer who is worth while is the man who is burying grass with his plough. Now, every farmer whether he occupies either grass land, good tillage land or indifferent land, knows perfectly well that grass is the most important crop of any kind we can grow in this country and that without grass we would be very poor indeed. I should not like to accuse people who deprecate the cultivation of grass of being possessed of a bovine intelligence because cattle, at any rate, have a. good idea of the bovine value of grass.

Mr Quirke: A cow would break very quickly into a field of wheat, too.

Professor Johnston: People like that have not a bovine intelligence. Their intelligence is either super-bovine or sub-bovine.

Mr M Hayes: Almost human.

Professor Johnston:. Another point I should like to make is that it is possible with the proper exploitation of good grass farms, suitably allied with the various developments in livestock production, to give greater employment and to produce a greater output of agricultural wealth than the same farm tilled, would produce. The development of intensive grass cultivation along these lines would do much to increase the productive capacity of our country. We want to make the best use of grass where it is available. We want to have hay for the winter keep of our cattle. We want to develop a method of preserving grass for the winter feeding by ensilage ---

Mr O'Callaghan: On a point of order, I think the Senator's speech is more of a lecture on economics than a discussion of this Bill.

Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Senator's statements are relevant to the Bill. The debate has a very wide scope.

Professor Johnston: I find a certain edge against grass farming in any shape or form. I do not deny that those who own good grass land, do not perhaps make as effective use of that land as they should in their own interests but is it not a policy of wisdom to do everything we can to remove every grievance which prevents them making the best use of that land in their own interest? If we hold over them the threat of confiscation, are we not likely to make them continue to use that land in the way that gives them the greatest immediate profit with the least permanent expenditure of capital?

Now, it has been said that on our large ranches, which it is the object of the Bill to confiscate, the only employment given is that afforded to the herd and his dog. On the face of it, I admit that it would appear that little employment arises from the use of land solely for the purpose of fattening bullocks, but even if the ranchers do not develop other aspects of agricultural economy, which would very greatly increase the employment of agricultural labour, even if they content themselves with feeding bullocks on that grass, is it not in the national interest that the largest possible number of their cattle should leave the country as fat bullocks at £20 each rather than leave the country as store cattle at £15 or less, each?

Is it not also a fact that by finishing the greatest possible number of our cattle at home we help the economy of the small holders who live by rearing these cattle? Everyone knows that the country is, roughly, divisible into two areas: one in which the farmers breed more cattle than they can finish, and another in which ranchers, as well as tillage farmers, finish more cattle than they can breed.

Consequently there is an identity of interest between the small farmer in the southwest who breeds cattle the large farmer of the Midlands and the East who likes to finish more cattle than he can breed. So that finishing of cattle, whether finished on grass or in the stalls, does provide an outlet and gives employment on the small farms in other parts of the country, even though it does not appear to give much employment on the ranches where they are finished.

Besides, the movement of cattle from one region of the country to the other gives employment in the transport services, and we know how badly in need of employment our transport services have been in recent years. In the final analysis, you will find that the £20 every bullock returns goes, not to the pockets of the bloated rancher, but that some of it passes also into the pockets of the wage-earner in the transport services, to the labourer employed on the large farm and to the small holder from whom the bullock was first purchased.

There is another aspect of the matter emphasised in the report of the Banking Commission and that is that our export agricultural industry is directly related to the large farms in a more intimate fashion that it is to our small farms.

If we cut up these grass farms, we are almost certain to diminish one of the most important of our agricultural exports with an effect on our sterling balances which you may contemplate if you wish. In my view -- in fact it is a matter of elementary arithmetic -- we can only hope to maintain our existing population in agriculture if we are in a position to expand our agricultural exports, because there are rigid limitations to the development of the home market for agricultural produce.

We have had in recent years a process of redistribution of population between country and town, and the town population has considerably increased. That is hailed in certain quarters as an increase in the home market, but surely the home market can only increase in proportion as the total population at home increases, or in proportion as the standard of living of the total population at home increases.

We have no evidence of any increase in total population, and any increase in the standard of living that may have taken place in the towns is far more than offset by the decrease in the standard of living that has taken place in the country. We are, therefore, up against rigid limitations in any effort to increase agricultural production for consumption by the. non-agricultural community at home, but, from our point of view at any rate, there is a virtually unlimited possibility of an increase in production for export purposes. Therefore, we should be very careful as to any agricultural or other policy which may possibly react injuriously on our Agricultural export capacity.

This policy is not a policy of to-day or yesterday. It has been going steadily now for six years or more, and it is quite possible, even at the present stage, to evaluate the results of that policy. One of the objects of the policy was to increase the quantity of land under the plough. Recent statistics show very clearly that the effort to increase the quantity of land under the plough has not been very successful, but there is no doubt about the success of the efforts to put agriculture itself under the harrow.

We have, I think, created 14,000 additional small holders, and one would expect to see some increase in the physical output of our agriculture if this new economy is to be more productive as a whole than the old economy. I have in my pocket certain figures, emanating from an absolutely reliable source, which show conclusively that the physical output of our agriculture, both tillage and live stock, increased from 1926 to 1931, diminished from 1931 to 1933, increased from 1933 to 1935, remained at that peak in 1936, and since then has steadily and seriously diminished, so that, in 1938, the physical output of our agriculture is actually 2% less than it was in 1929, and this in spite of those 14,000 new small holders, who are presumably a terrific asset to the agricultural producers.

In fact what we have been doing is abolishing 300 acre ranchers in order to make room for 30 acre ranchers. I do not blame those new allotment holders for being ranchers on a small scale, because it is a notorious fact that few of them have the capital necessary for the proper exploitation of their farms, and many of them have not perhaps the skill that they would need, but from a national point of view it is not economic to waste £600 per person of the taxpayers' money in order to turn 300 acre ranchers into 30 acre ranchers.

In the 18th century we had perhaps one of the vilest landlord systems imaginable. In those days a few owners of large estates let 'chunks' of land to other people, who let smaller 'chunks' of land to a third set of people, and, if ever a person having perhaps 60 or 100 acres and exploiting that 50 or 100 acres found himself in a position where he could live more comfortably and more lazily by sub-letting portion of his 50 or 100 acres to other small scale workers, he then proceeded to live on the surplus products of the people who were working for him, and ceased to work altogether, so that you had a whole series of surpluses along a whole hierarchy of land holders, and everybody but the people at the bottom was living on some form of unearned increment.

That was the vice of the old 18th century land system, but are we not at present reproducing the same sort of vice, beginning at the lower end of the scale? A person put in possession of a 30-acre allotment, on which he pays an annuity which is only a fraction of the annuity he should pay if that annuity represented the full market value of the holding, has a differential value which he can realise for himself not by working that land but by the simple process of letting it to some neighbour who has cattle and who pays him a rent of £2 or £3 an acre. His total outgoings on that land are probably not more than £1 an acre, and he gets perhaps £2 or £3 an acre. Meanwhile, he lives a life of cultured ease, snaring rabbits and fishing.

If we want to increase the wealth of the nation we must begin with agriculture, and, if we want to expand agricultural production, instead of harrying the larger farmers off the face of the earth, we should do everything in our power to liberate the energies of the large farmers, and adopt a more rational attitude to the part played by grass as well as tillage in our national economy. In particular, I would urge that, before we commit ourselves to a continuation of this foolish policy, we should await the report of the Agricultural Commission on this as well as on other questions.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999