[BILL 117.] SECOND READING. (Hansard, 6 April 1881)

§ MR. WAUGH,
in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it had for its object the simplification of the enfranchisement of copyholders, with a view to the abolition of copyhold tenure as far as possible. The subject had been before the House of Commons ever since 1838, when a Select Committee made a Report upon it. On that Committee sat the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Goulburn, Sir James Graham, Mr. Cobbett, and other distinguished men. In 1841 an Act was passed appointing a Commission to carry out the enfranchisement of copyholds, a form of tenure which was ill adapted to the wants of the present day, and which was a blot on the legal system of the country. Little, however, was done under that Act, which was voluntary in its operation; and in 1851 another Committee was appointed to consider the question, which reported much in the same terms as the previous one had done. They declared that copyhold tenure was an impediment to improvement of land, and inconvenient to the lord of the manor as well as to the tenant, and they recommended that enfranchisement should be made compulsory. In 1852 an Act was passed by which enfranchisements were made partly permissive and partly compulsory; but the machinery of the measure proved too cumbrous, and failed to have the desired effect. In 1858 another Act was passed, giving greater facilities for enfranchisements; but its provisions also were insufficient. No great deal had been done towards enfranchisement under that Act, for although the area of copyhold tenure was diminishing, he doubted whether the number of customary tenants was 835 diminishing. The object of the present Bill was to bring that matter to a conclusion. In a short time, perhaps 10 years, the Ordnance Survey would be ready; and if copyholds were also extinguished, they would then have the course clear for a proper registration of all the lands in this country. The hon. Member, having explained in some detail the provisions of the Bill, remarked that after nearly 40 years it seemed that the period had arrived when an entire enfrancisement ought to be effected within a reasonable time, and one not longer than a lifetime. He concluded by moving the second reading of the measure.

§ SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEY,
in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, that people in the South and West of England were much wedded to the copyhold system which existed there, on account of its great simplicity and of the facilities it afforded for the transmission of their property. A compulsory Bill, like the present one, therefore, ought not to be applied to those who did not wish to have it forced upon them. Moreover, almost all the measures proposed in connection with copyhold enfranchisement had hitherto been introduced as part of a great scheme by the Ministry for the time being, and also founded on the Report of a Commission. He maintained, further, that the existing legislation with regard to the voluntary enfranchisement of copyholds, instead of being inoperative, had been very largely acted upon, and transactions of that kind involving several millions' worth of property had been carried out at a very small cost. He had no objection to the details of the Bill, if the principle were accepted; but he must protest against the principle of compulsion. Since 1838, the period of the great Land Commission, the question had been dealt with and reported upon on four different occasions, and the enfranchisement had been left optional to the copyholders and the lords of the manor under the Act of 1858. He therefore thought it had best be left with them, for they best knew their own interests. The Copyhold Commissioners had stated that since 1857 there had been no less than 14,147 volun- 836 tary enfranchisements, of which 650 had been done during the last year. The amount of money invested in those transactions was large enough to show that the process was going on with reasonable quickness and sufficient to negative the prophecies that if people were left alone they would do nothing, and there was no need to accelerate the natural process. He could instance two large parishes and districts which were known to himself, and upon each of which there might be 2,500 copyhold tenants. The mode of dealing with that was exactly the mode Lord Brougham spoke of in his speech on Land Law reforms. The man who had actual possession of the land simply went to the steward's office, or to the Court, and said—"I agree with Mr. Jones to sell my property for £5,000." The steward turned to the registry of the copyhold manor, and found that the name of the person who came to him was there as a tenant on the roll. Without any investigation of title, and without any further inquiry, beyond the purchaser being willing to pay the money, the vendor there and then surrendered the property to the purchaser, the money was paid over, and he simply made a declaration to regulate the ad valorem stamp, and the whole matter was completed. The people in the parishes he had referred to knew the custom, and were in the habit of dealing with their property under it; and he (Sir Gabriel Goldney) said, with confidence, that although that large quantity of property on an average passed from hand to hand, either by death or by sale, once every 11½ years, he did not know of any dispute having occurred in any portion of that property, nor had any person expressed dissatisfaction with reference to it for a period of 35 years. The Bill sought to provide that after next December no person should be able to transfer his property in the mode he had spoken of. That, he thought, was unnecessary, as enfranchisement was proceeding fast enough under the present Acts in force. He hoped this measure would not be pressed upon the House, but that it would be withdrawn, as it only touched part of a very large question. It was the more advisable to do so, inasmuch as a measure dealing with the whole question of land tenure was in prospect. The hon. Member concluded by moving the rejection of the Bill.

§ MR. GRANTHAM
said, he objected to the Bill as an attempt to interfere unduly with the liberty of the subject, and to force compulsory enfranchisement upon people who had no particular desire to be forced, and who would find it difficult to make the requisite compensation to the manorial lords. In exceptional cases, such as some of the copyholds of Cumberland, such legislation might be justifiable; but it could not be justified as universally applicable. It could not be said that the present Acts were in any way dead letters; for the question was settling itself, and under the existing system the voluntary enfranchisements were as numerous as the compulsory. Manors were becoming smaller and smaller every year, and it was much better to allow the provisions of the Acts which were in force to exert that quiet influence which they were exerting on the country. In the case of land near towns, which was in a transition state between agricultural land and building land, great injustice might be done both to lord and tenant if enfranchisement took place before the land was properly developed, or had reached a value to which it was rapidly tending. The lord would not got proper compensation for probable increased fines, or the tenant for prospective improvement in the value of his land. If the existing Acts were not strong enough to insure enfranchisement, let them be amended by all means; but, although he disliked copyholds, he could not say that it would be to the interest of the country that a compulsory Act such as this should be passed.

§ MR. COURTNEY
thought that the hon. Member for Chippenham's (Sir Gabriel Goldney's) objection to the Bill, on the ground that it only touched part of a large question, was really an argument in its favour. Before dealing with the Land Question as a whole, the Government thought it better to deal separately with some questions of land reform, and this was one of them, the object being to convert copyhold tenure into common socage tenure, thus making 838 the different tenures uniform. The argument of the hon. and learned Member for Mid Surrey (Mr. Grantham) was also in reality an argument for the Bill. One great obstacle in the way of land reform was that so much of it was held by copyhold tenure. As Fellow of a College, he had had some experience in one case of the obstacles which copyhold tenure presented to the development of land. His College possessed some property in the North of London, admirable as building land, but which, until the passing of the College and University Estates Act, it had been impossible to turn to a good account. As an illustration of how the copyhold system operated, he would mention that in the case of a certain manor, a person going over it could detect and separate by sight parts of the land which were enfranchised and those parts which were not enfranchised, merely by comparing the uses to which the land was put; so that enfranchisement was to be promoted on the ground of public benefit. The principle of the Bill of the hon. Member for Cocker-mouth (Mr. Waugh) was that the course of enfranchisement hitherto had been too slow, and he wished to accelerate it, and to convert, as soon as possible, the whole of the copyhold land into the condition of common socage tenure. With that aim, he (Mr. Courtney) entirely agreed, sympathizing with him in the object he proposed. It might be a matter of consideration with the Committee whether the term fixed upon was not too short, and there were other matters which would require consideration—for example, under the 3rd clause difficulties might arise in the preparation of marriage settlements and wills, as it was proposed to abolish trusts in respect of the copyholds. He confessed he did not understand how that would work in the case of copyhold trust. He would also point out an apparent blot in the 20th clause, which saved to the lord of the manor compensation for fine even after enfranchisement was effected. If that was the meaning of the Bill, then undoubtedly the mischief of copyhold was preserved even after enfranchisement was effected. Another difficulty might arise in regard to marriage settlements, and in respect to that the measure should be a little more elastic, so that as settlements were often drawn up in a hurry, conveyance might take place even after 839 the date of the marriage settlement. These, however, were only details, which might be amended in Committee; and he hoped his hon. Friend would fix a convenient day for that stage. He had great pleasure in accepting the Bill as an honest and fair proposal to accelerate enfranchisement, which it had been the aim of the Legislature to promote ever since the first Land Commission, and he should, therefore, support the second reading.

§ MR. GREGORY
agreed with the object of the measure; but would call attention to the case of tenures other than, but similar to, copyholds, such as freeholds of manors held by heriots and quit rents, which also required to be dealt with.

§ SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEY
said, that he did not wish to press for a division, and would, therefore, ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.