FARMERS' ESTATE SOCIETY (IRELAND) BILL. (Hansard, 28 July 1848)

§ MR. GLADSTONE

said, that having acted as Chairman to the Committee to which the Bill was referred, he would very briefly explain its object and the nature of its provisions. The object of the Bill was to create a body of independent yeomanry in Ireland: and the way in which this was to be done was by incorporating a company to purchase land and to resell it, divided into portions, the minimum being restricted to thirty acres, below which subdivision was not to he permitted. There were two points which the House would feel called upon to consider—first, whether the incorporation of a company for the possession of land was not a deviation from the ordinary current of legislation; and, 979 secondly, whether the provisions proposed to be adopted for preventing the subdivision of land into portions less than thirty acres, were likely to be sufficient for that purpose. As regarded the first point, a precedent for the present measure was to be found in the Irish Waste Land Improvement Society Act, which was passed in 1836. With respect to the second point, it must be a matter of speculation whether the provisions of the Bill were calculated to prevent the subdivision of land into smaller portions than thirty acres. The plan was ingenious and not complicated; and every person who had been consulted on the subject was of opinion that no better one could be devised. It was provided that if the land sold by the company should at any period, no matter how remote, be found occupied in portions less than thirty acres, a penalty should accrue not incident on persons merely, but on the land itself. The penalty was to amount to half the rated annual value of the land, and it was to be applied in aid of the poor-rate of the electoral district; thus every ratepayer and guardian would have a distinct interest in looking for the recovery of the penalty. It was, of course, impossible to say how the provisions of this measure would work in future generations; but if it should prove efficacious for fifty years, that would be time enough to test the possibility of establishing a body of small independent yeomanry in Ireland. Under the circumstances of the case, he thought that the House would be justified in deviating from the general principle in passing this Bill, and he recommended it to take that course.