§ Clause 4 (Powers of Land Commission).
§
Amendment moved,
At end of Clause, insert—("The Land Commission may of its own motion, or shall, on the application of any party to any proceedings pending before it, unless it considers such application frivolous and vexatious, state a case in respect of any question of law arising in such proceedings, and refer the same for the consideration and decision of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal in Ireland.")—(The Earl of Milltown.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he thought that the Amendment was unnecessary, inasmuch as all the points that the tribunal would have to decide would turn on mere questions of fact and of practice.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he thought it highly probable that questions of law would arise, and he could not conceive anything more monstrous or unreasonable than that men without any special legal knowledge should have to decide questions of law, while the parties concerned had no right of appeal.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he would repeat that the Sub-Commissioners would not have to decide on questions of law. Their jurisdiction was confined to questions of fact.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 5 (Delegation of powers of Land Commission).
§ THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, that the Sub-Commissioners might give the money of the landlords or the money of the State to tenants whose cases ought not to come under the Bill at all. They knew how the Sub-Commissioners had acted, and that they would give a decision against the landlords if they could. Therefore, there ought to be an appeal from their deci- 194 sions on questions of fact as well as of law.
§ Amendment moved, in page 4, lines 25 and 26, leave out ("on matters of law.")—(The Marquess of Waterford.)
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)said, that the object of confining the appeal to matters of law was to save great expense and delay. After the Amendment moved by the noble Marquess opposite earlier in the evening had been carried there was no necessity for the present Amendment.
THE EARL OF LIMERICKsaid, he held that the Amendment was required in order to secure uniformity in decisions.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he might point out that, as nothing could be done under the Bill as it had now been altered without the consent of the landlord, there could be no need in his interest for an appeal on matters of fact. It seemed to him that the name of the Sub-Commissioners appeared to act on some noble Lords like a red rag on a bull.
§ LORD BRABOURNEsaid, he could not admit that any great confidence was to be placed in the wisdom and justice of the Sub-Commissioners, whose decisions had been characterized by anything but equality or general fairness. Rents had, in many cases, been largely reduced, which had been paid without complaint for 50, and even 100 years, and it could not be a matter of surprise if dissatisfaction existed in consequence. He had had occasion lately to make certain animadversions upon the conduct of the Sub-Commissioners, not one of which had been satisfactorily answered, or, indeed, answered at all.
§ Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF KILMOREYsaid, he begged to propose an Amendment to exclude the Sub-Commissioners from being delegated by the Land Commission to carry out the preliminary inquiries under the Act. He could quite sympathize with the desire of Her Majesty's Government to expedite the business of the Commission; but considering what they had repeatedly been told of the doings of the Sub-Commissioners, he thought their Lordships would advise that these wide powers should not be delegated at their individual discretion.
§ Amendment moved, in page 4, line 30, leave out ("or of a Sub-Commission.")—(The Earl of Kilmorey.)
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)said, he opposed the Amendment on the grounds that it would be inconvenient in its operation, and consequently injurious to the Bill. It would forbid the Land Commission employing a single one of the whole number of 48 Sub-Commissioners in Ireland. He warmly protested against the language he had heard used in the House with regard to the Sub-Commissioners—as, for example, that "if they could give a decision against the landlord, of course they will." Such language was totally and absolutely unjust, and based on no evidence whatever. It was grounded solely on a certain number of worthless stories to which the noble Lord on the Cross Benches (Lord Brabourne) treated them the other night. To treat their Sub-Commissioners in the way they were being treated by some noble Lords in that House was not worthy of the House of Lords, and was highly prejudicial to the administration of this law in Ireland.
§ EARL FORTESCUEsaid, he thought the noble Lord had protested too much. It was a strange thing that three out of the 48 Sub-Commissioners had been appointed from among the supporters of the Solicitor General for Ireland. Already it had been proved that the Sub-Commissioners had shown themselves partizans. £700 a year for only one year certainly was not enough to secure the services of men of sufficient ability to perform the heavy and responsible duties intrusted to them. This was not the first time they had seen the Prime Minister exercising a miserable parsimony, unconscious of the importance of appointing men who would command the confidence of the general public.
§ LORD BRABOURNEdenied the statement that the attacks made upon the Sub-Commissioners were grounded on unworthy stories without evidence to support them. For his part, when he called attention to the subject on a former occasion he was able to corroborate every statement he made; but, in the present condition of Ireland, he could not think of giving the names of his informants, although he had told the Lord Privy Seal that he would be happy to do so, in confidence, in every case which he had mentioned. He had not brought forward one quarter of the cases 196 which had been supplied to him, and he should be ashamed to make any statement that he did not believe to be true. The attack made by the Lord Privy Seal was a little too hard, when it was remembered that the noble Lord had not been able to adduce any evidence in contradiction of the criticisms upon the Sub-Commissioners. With regard to the Amendment, he thought that entirely to omit the Sub-Commissions from the clause would be attended with inconvenience; and, therefore, he hoped some compromise would be arrived at—as, for instance, the insertion of the words "being a barrister-at-law" after the word "Sub-Commission," which would secure that only those should be intrusted with the investigations under this Bill who were above the class of men of whom complaints were principally made.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he could not conceive what possible relevancy there was in the remarks of the noble Earl (Earl Forteseue) to the question before the Committee. They were not considering the question of salaries, but he did not think that £700 a year was so very parsimonious a salary. The question was whether these Sub-Commissioners were honest men; and when he heard the impeachment of their integrity by the noble Lord on the Cross Benches (Lord Brabourne), and when he heard the answer of the Lord Privy Seal, he thought the impeachment most unworthy, and the answer most complete. It was not shown that they had done anything wrong, unless it was wrong to make a reduction of 21 per cent on the average when the County Court Judges had made a reduction of 22 per cent on the average. He did not know whether they were right or wrong; but if you were to infer want of integrity from a reduction of 21 per cent on the average, you must a fortiori infer want of integrity in the case of the larger reduction, and then they were landed in a very serious imputation indeed, not only on the Sub-Commissioners, but on all the County Court Judges in Ireland. Anything to his mind more odious, more utterly indefensible and unjustifiable than this kind of imputation he could not conceive. They must necessarily, if they were to have an Act of Parliament of this kind administered at all, have a considerable number of persons to administer it. Forty-eight 197 persons were selected by as honourable men as any who sat in their Lordships' House. He did not think that there was anyone who would attribute either to Mr. Forster or to Lord Cowper anything dishonourable. That being so, on what ground were the Sub-Commissioners charged with want of integrity? Attacks, reiterated again and again, upon subordinate officers of the law, who could not defend themselves, and whose decisions were subject to appeal, were, to his mind, intolerable, and the only ground possible was, because some of them were in particular Professions—barristers practising on certain Circuits, or solicitors or other persons who, in the exercise of the privilege of Englishmen, had taken part in favour of one Party or another at a particular election? Well, if they had belonged to the Party to which the noble Lord belonged, although he sat on the Cross Benches, they would at least have escaped the charge of the motives now cast upon them. Englishmen were wont to boast that they lived in so pure an atmosphere of public opinion that persons holding positions of a judicial or quasi-judicial character got credit for an honest intention to discharge their duties, even if in the exercise of the privileges of British citizens they had taken an active part previously in political affairs. Were not their Judges appointed from men who had been active on one side of politics or the other—many of them advocates of the Government—and did they not wait at least till something was done plainly contrary to their duty before they brought their political antecedents against them by way of impeachment? He had heard nothing except as to the political or professional antecedents of these men—not one word as to the way in which they had done their duty—except that they had made reductions of rent, being at a somewhat lower average of reduction than that made by the County Court Judges. They could not get on without the Sub-Commissioners. 'They could not do the work under this Bill without them, and any man whom they might possibly appoint, if pursued with the same virulence of Party spirit, would be open to the same imputations.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that if the noble and learned Lord imagined that the criticisms that had been 198 cast upon the Sub-Commissioners proceeded either from Party spirit, or were the eccentricities of any particular Peer, he was very much mistaken. He could assure the noble and learned Lord that long before the question was raised in that House many noble Lords had been watching the proceedings of the Commissioners, and the language that had been held upon the subject rested upon the evidence that had been taken before the Committee of their Lordships. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal forgot that Members of that House had been inquiring into the effect of recent legislation in Ireland, and that they had an opportunity of judging of the proceedings of the Sub-Commissioners from evidence given before the Committee, and it was from that evidence that noble Lords had spoken of the Sub-Commissioners in language which, he admitted, would not be used with respect to any ordinary judicial authority. One broad circumstance, which had left upon his mind the belief that the Sub-Commissioners had not been acting—he did not wish to make any imputations upon their integrity—but acting unmistakeably in a non-judicial spirit, was that it was impossible to ascertain upon what principle their decisions were formed. They had carefully concealed the process of reasoning by which they arrived at their conclusions. It was always the practice for Judges to explain clearly the grounds for their decisions, but this had not been done by the Sub-Commissioners. When they found that these persons concealed the reasons for their decisions, and when they found those decisions coinciding with the views of a particular Party, was it surprising that they should infer that Party feeling had some influence on their minds, that their decisions were political in their intention, and that it was not their object to do simple justice between man and man, but to forward aims which they believed to be advantageous, and which they desired, in Party interests, to secure? There was another ground which confirmed that view of the action of the Sub-Commissioners. In announcing the appointment of the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Monck)—whom they were glad to see appointed, although they would rather not see strong partizans added to the Commission — the Prime Minister said that he found no Tory qualified for 199 the Commission; and he went on to say that he could find no Tory who was disposed to administer the Act in the spirit in which it had been passed by Parliament. He would ask if that were a judicial and impartial spirit? If they were appointing Judges to try poaching cases, and only great game preservers were appointed to that office, would it be a sufficient defence to say that game preservers were specially to be trusted to administer the Act in the spirit in which it was passed? In every department of the Civil and Criminal Law Judges were appointed, not to administer any Act in the particular spirit, either of a Party, or of a majority, or of a Minister, but to do simple justice without any recognition of politics or Party. He confessed that, in spite of the perfervid protestations of the noble and learned Lord, he was convinced that the Sub-Commissioners differed from other judicial persons—no doubt, with the highest integrity—in that they were pursuing political objects, and were not administering justice between landlord and tenant. If imputations were made against the Sub-Commissioners the Government had only themselves to blame. In America judicial appointments were usually made for political motives, but the practice in this country had been different. The Government had strained the English practice and leaned to the American in many of these appointments. He might especially refer to the appointment of three of the leading supporters of the Solicitor General for Ireland, who had avowedly gone to the country on the question of the reduction of rents. Such actions as that forced comments upon the Sub-Commissioners against which the Government were now protesting so much. He regretted deeply the effect of the appointments. It might be that the effect of the decisions had been exaggerated; but for that exaggeration the Government had by their unhappy selections drawn upon these tribunals an amount of suspicion of which they would not easily get rid.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clauses 6 to 13, inclusive, agreed to.
§
Amendment moved,
After Clause 13, insert as a new clause— ("After the tenant has obtained a release from
200
arrears by the operation of this Act such release shall be a bar to all proceedings by any creditor or creditors to recover by sale of the tenancy or goodwill any debt or debts which may have been contracted by the tenant before the date of the last gale day in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one.")— (The Earl of Milltown.)
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)said, there was more than one reason for the rejection of this proposal, and the Government could not accept it. If they deprived the creditors of their legal rights they would drive them to take summary proceedings of another kind.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Clauses 14 to 17, inclusive, agreed to.