MR. DEASYsaid, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend the law of landlord and tenant in Ireland, and to express a hope that he 1577 might be allowed to defer any exposition of the measure until a future stage.
MR. DEASYsaid, that he could not state the objects of the Bill without entering into minute explanations of a legal character which the House, he believed, would not at that hour be disposed to hear, and he might add that the hon. and gallant Member would not be the wiser if he (the Attorney General for Ireland) were to make such a statement.
§ MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he thought that was not a fitting answer for the hon. and learned Gentlemen to give to the question which had been put to him. No doubt an explanation would take some time, but a law that touched every acre of land in Ireland, and affected all the relations of landlord and tenant, required a short exposition, and if the right hon. Gentleman asked the indulgence of the House to defer that exposition he ought to have refrained from the use of any language which could be considered of a personally offensive character.
MR. DEASYdisclaimed the slightest intention of giving any offence to his hon. and gallant Friend. He had merely meant to say that he could not explain the provisions of the Bill without entering into details of a legal character, which he feared that he could not at that moment make intelligible to a gentleman who was not himself a lawyer.
COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he really had not heard what was the answer the right hon. and learned Gentleman had given to his question. If the Bill had reference to the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland he believed he understood the subject better than the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself.
Leave given.
§ "Bill to consolidate and amend the Law of Landlord and Tenant in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND and Mr. CARDWELL."
§ Bill presented and read 1°.