LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.

HC Deb 05 July 1881 vol 263 cc96-136

Progress resumed.

Amendment again proposed, in page 9, line 12, to leave out the word "thirty," and insert "sixty."—(Mr. Litton.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'thirty' stand part of the Clause."

MR. LITTON

explained, that he proposed the Amendment with a view to ascertaining the views of the Government upon the subject. It appeared to him that it would be a very great advantage, where an equivalent was to be offered to the tenants, that a real equivalent should be offered, and not simply 30 years, which appeared to him to be totally inadequate. He did not wish to press the Amendment, if the Government did not see their way to accept it; because he thought the necessity was somewhat removed by reason of the Amendment made on the latter portion of the prior clause. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland was able to state to the Committee that he preferred to keep the term "thirty years" in the clause, he (Mr. Litton) would withdraw the Amendment.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he did not know what the intention of the Government was as to this particular Amendment. Under the clause, as it at present stood with 31 years, the tenant, instead of being entitled to a renewal from time to time at the end of 15 years, would, at the end of 31 years, become a future tenant. That was an objectionable provision, because a landlord might bring pressure to bear on the tenant, and threaten that if he did not agree to his terms he would take him into the Court and put him to expensive litigation. Although provisions of leases heretofore had not been always insisted upon by the landlords, it had been customary to put in leases conditions which would be thoroughly unreasonable if acted upon, and would deprive the tenant of his rights. Nothing could be more natural than that a landlord should say that the provision was the same as leases which had been signed from time to time; and thus the tenant of a large property might be induced to accept leases entirely taking away his rights.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, the Committee must remember that the position of the tenant would be very different after this Bill became law from his position hitherto, and the power of the landlord to force the tenant, or to bring pressure to bear upon him, in order to take away a lease, would be very much diminished; because, by this clause, the Bill would enable a tenant, under pressure or threat, to apply to the Court in cases where there was a judicial rent to resist more or less the powers of the landlord. Everything which would apply to the Act of 1870 would not apply now; the landlord would not be able to force upon the tenant a lease as he could under the Act of 1870, and the arrangement would not in future be one-sided. It was not absolutely to the advantage of a tenant to have a long lease; on the contrary, it might in many cases be an advantage to have a shorter lease; therefore, he thought the proposed Amendment was not desirable. If they were to look forward to the judicial lease at all, they must take care not to make the tenancy so large as to take away the landlord's interest. Both sides ought to be considered.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

was glad the Government did not support the Amendment. He would remind the hon. and learned Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) of the necessity of not making more absentee landlords, and that, he feared, would be the result of the Amendment.

MR. LITTON

asked permission to withdraw the Amendment.

MR. BIGGAR

objected to the Amendment being withdrawn, observing that Irishmen had not derived any advantage in past times, and did not expect to do so in times to come, as to leases. It was perfectly well known that since 1870 landlords had been constantly urging their tenants to agree to leases. If a tenant was to be entitled to appeal to the Court with regard to leases, he had better not have the powers proposed as to leases at all; for if he were a free agent be could please himself whether he agreed to a lease or not, whereas under the Bill the lease must be subject to the whim of the Judge.

MR. LALOR

hoped the Government would accept the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, he rose to propose an Amendment on behalf of the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Har- court). The clause, as it stood, provided that the landlord and tenant might agree to a lease mutually made, "if sanctioned by the Court, after considering the interest of the tenant and the value of his tenancy." His hon. Friend, however, proposed to insert, instead of "the interest of the tenant," the words "rights and interests of the landlord and tenant respectively." He had not the slightest doubt that the Government in introducing this Bill desired to do justice to all parties, and he, therefore, felt sure they would agree to the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 9, lines 15 and 16, to leave out "interest of the tenant and the value of his tenancy," in order to insert "rights and interests of the landlord and tenant respectively.

Question proposed, "That the words 'interest of the tenant and the value of his tenancy' stand part of the Clause."

MR. WARTON

agreed with the object of the Amendment, but objected to the words "rights and interests of the landlord and tenant respectively;" because that might imply that the landlord only had rights and the tenant interests. He suggested the words should be "rights and interests both of the landlord and the tenant."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

regretted that he could not accept the Amendment. He explained that a judicial lease was not a lease which the landlord of his own mere motion was to have the power of granting to a tenant. The Court was brought in not to look after the interest of the landlord—who was perfectly well able to take care of himself—but to protect the tenant, and it was with that view that the Court was to be empowered to sanction a lease.

MR. PLUNKET

said, he understood that the object of this clause was to carry on in this Bill the policy which was introduced into the Act of 1870—namely, the system of leases, which exempted a landlord from the provisions of that Act. The object of the clause, as he understood it, was to introduce a similar provision; but the intervention of the Court was to be permitted. He did not wish to insist on the language of the Amendment; but he desired the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to explain exactly what was the mean- ing in this clause of the words "after considering the interest of the tenant, and the value of the tenancy?"

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOE IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

explained that it would be the duty of the Court to ensure the interests of the tenant being respected.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

pointed out that the clause distinctly stated that the landlord might propose, and the tenant agree to accept, a lease, and the thing would then practically be done on such conditions as the parties agreed upon. Then came the words "if sanctioned by the Court," and the right hon. and learned Gentleman said the Court was to see the interests of the tenant respected; but surely they ought to look at both sides of the question, and it was monstrous to say that the Court was only to look after the tenant's interest.

MR. GIVAN

thought the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Aylmer) was labouring under a slight misapprehension, for he seemed to forget that in accepting a judicial lease the tenant surrendered certain important rights which he possessed if he had not accepted the judicial lease. He had a right to go and get a statutory term and have the rent fixed; but as he surrendered those rights by accepting a judicial rent, the clause properly provided that the Court should have supervision over his interests. It was not necessary that the rights of the landlord should be protected, because those rights were subsisting rights which were not surrendered. The tenant might be an ignorant man and not understand the effect of the clause, and so he might be induced to accept a lease which would be prejudicial to his interests, while he surrendered all the privileges he would have as a statutory tenant; and that was the reason, as he understood, why the rights of the tenant and not those of the landlord were to be protected.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

thought the argument of the hon. Member (Mr. Givan) was based entirely upon a misapprehension as to the meaning of the words. The judicial leases were suggested by the Government, because the Government recognized that in dealing with the Land Question in Ireland, they had to deal with two distinct classes of landlords—good landlords and bad landlords. Good landlords would allow their tenants to hold on for a great many years at a moderate rent, while other landlords would, to a certain extent, rack-rent the tenant. The good landlord, who had been in the habit of allowing the tenant to hold on at a certain rent for many years, would have power under this clause to suggest to the tenant that they should not go to the Court to fix a rent, but should agree together to continue the tenancy on its old terms. In that way he would exclude the action of the Bill; but he would give the tenant a certain amount of permanency in his lease. That was the object of the clause. The landlord would grant a judicial lease which would be accepted by the Court, and the landlord's and tenant's interest would be equal. He considered the Amendment on the whole a reasonable one, and the only ground upon which he disliked the language of the Amendment was that it was the same as the hon. Member for Dundalk had inserted in the 7th clause, to which he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had objected as having an insidious meaning. It had, no doubt, an insidious meaning in that clause; but he did not think it would have in this clause. He attached very considerable value to the provision as to judicial leases, because the landlords in Ireland who had managed their property fairly and well would be glad to give the tenant for 31 years or more all the advantages they had hitherto enjoyed, but on the understanding that the tenant was not then to be at liberty to take hostile proceedings against the landlord. That was the value of the judicial lease, and he considered that it was being seriously interfered with by the Amendment which the Government had accepted earlier in in the Sitting, and with regard to which he should, on Report, move the reinsertion of the words then omitted.

MR. PLUNKET

suggested that the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Aylmer) should not put the Committee to the trouble of dividing upon the Amendment. He still preferred the language of the Amendment to that of the Bill, and he could not understand the necessity of the words "after considering the interest of the tenant." If any reference was to be made to the interests of either landlord or tenant, it would, he thought, be better not to have a one-sided affair. But, under the cir- cumstances, he would advise the withdrawal of the Amendment if the Government persisted in opposing it.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

observed, that there was nothing in the clause to bind the tenant to give up his statutory term, and that if he accepted a lease he did so by his own free will. Both landlord and tenant were on equal terms, and he maintained that the interests of both parties ought to be considered by the Court in deciding whether the terms on both sides were just. He regretted that the Government did not look at the matter in the same light; but he would not take up the time of the Committee by dividing. At the same time, he thought it was extremely unfair and unjust for the Government to refuse the proposal.

MR. WARTON

asked, whether it would still be in the power of the landlord and tenant to agree to a lease on any terms apart from the lease?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

Certainly not.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

proposed, in lines 15 and 16, to leave out "and the value of his tenancy;" and explained that if any hon. Member thought it necessary to raise a discussion he should not press it.

Amendment proposed, in page 9, lines 15 and 16, to leave out the words "and the value of his tenancy."—(Mr. Charles Russell.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be struck out stand part of the Clause."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, in agreeing to the Amendment, he did not think the proposed words were required.

MR. PLUNKET

said, he did not wish to raise a controversy upon the Amendment, and he should not therefore oppose it.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

pointed out that "the interest of the tenant and the value of the tenancy" might be two distinct things. "The interest of the tenant" meant what was established under the Common Law, fortified by the Act of 1870; but "the value of the tenancy" meant any sum of money which the tenant had paid on going into the farm; so that all the Court had to consider was what the Common Law assigned to him. Therefore, he thought that the framers of the Bill were not open to the charge of tautology, and it was not necessary that all judicial leases should take into account "the interests of the tenant and the value of the tenancy," because the two things were distinct. On the whole, he was inclined to think that the clause would be better as it stood, than if amended as proposed.

Question put, and negatived; words struck out accordingly.

MR. PLUNKET (for Mr. NORTHCOTE)

proposed an Amendment. The Amendment would do no possible harm, and he thought the Government would not object to it.

Amendment proposed, In page 9, line 16, after "tenancy," to insert "and where such lease is made by a limited owner, as defined by the twenty-sixth section of 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870,' the interest of all persons entitled to any estate or interest in the holding subsequent to the estate or interest of such limited owner."—(Mr. Plnnket.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. Law)

agreed in the object of the Amendment, but explained that that object was already provided for in the 18th section of the Bill.

MR. WARTON

pointed out that the 18th section applied only to a fixed tenancy, and not to a judicial lease.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

replied, that that might be quite true; but the clause with regard to rules met the difficulty.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

proposed an Amendment with the object of introducing, at that point of the Bill, that system of Parliamentary tenant right with which the name of Judge Long-field was associated. When the Land Act of 1870 was passing through Parliament, Judge Longfield, in a letter to The Times, on the 26th March, 1870, pointed out, or gave expression to, some apprehensions he had as to the failure of that well-intentioned measure, then being carried through Parliament, in some respects, and he made a suggestion as to a principle which he called "Parliamentary tenant right," which was that leases might, on the agreement of the parties, be indefinitely renewed, with a self-adjusting mechanism for settling a fair rent without reduction. He (Mr. Sullivan) hoped the Committee would agree that in this Bill it was desirable to introduce this principle, which could be introduced without dislocating or damaging in any way any of the other useful provisions of the measure, especially if it could be shown that the Amendment would enable the landlord and tenant to adjust the question on a fair rent from time to time without approaching the Court. The proposal which Judge Longfield made was that every tenant in Ireland should be made to purchase a Parliamentary right in his holding equivalent to the Ulster tenant right, which the tenant might have purchased for a considerable sum of money. In Ulster, a tenant would have the Parliamentary tenant right based upon the sum which the tenant had paid for his interest in the holding. Outside Ulster, Judge Longfield proposed that a similar system should be introduced by enabling the tenant to buy the tenant right in either one of these ways—by the payment of a sum of money down, or by money paid by the lessee to his predecessor in title with the expressed or implied consent of the landlord, or by money to be spent in improvements agreed on by the parties; or, in a vast majority of cases, which under this Bill were called present tenancies—that was to say, tenancies outside Ulster where the Ulster Custom had not been localized, but where the tenants, nevertheless, had succeeded, through many generations of occupancy, to an interest in the holding, as well as to their actual improvements—he would allow the tenant right to purchase by estimating the value of such equitable interest as the tenant had in the farm, including therein the Ulster tenant right where it existed. The question of fair rent would be adjusted in this way. The tenant having agreed upon a fair rent for a certain term of years, which the Amendment proposed should be 15, if, at the end of the 15 years, the landlord claimed a higher rent, the tenant might either assent to it or elect to go out; but in the latter case, the landlord would be bound to pay the tenant 10 years' purchase of the increased rent which he demanded. On the other hand, if a tenant demanded a reduction of rent, and the landlord did not consent to the reduction, the tenant would be bound to sell to the landlord at 10 years' of the reduced rent. The effect of this proposal would be this—if the tenant attempted to extort from the landlord by demanding a reduced rent which was less than a fair rent, he would be cut by the landlord, who would buy from him, on the basis of 10 years' purchase of the reduced rent; on the other hand, if the landlord endeavoured to extort from the tenant by asking an increased rent, he would be cut by the tenant, who left the farm, and received 10 times the increase asked for by the landlord. In that way it would be the interest of the landlord not to ask too much, and the interest of the tenant not to insist upon too low a rent. That would be what he would call a self-acting mechanism for effecting a fair rent without recourse to litigation, and by the simplest of all processes—namely, self-protection and self-interest, which enabled both landlord and tenant to prevent either over-reaching the other. The system had been in operation on some farms belonging to a relative of Judge Longfield, in Ulster; and not only had the instalments of the money advanced to tenants to purchase tenant right been regularly paid, but there was not at this moment on any of those farms one farthing of uncollected arrear even for past bad seasons. The security which this Parliamentary tenant right had given to those tenants had, somehow or other, brought about a thrift and a saving on the part of the tenants, which tenants elsewhere had not exhibited. He, therefore, wished to move this Amendment, the nature of which he had explained. The power to be created by the Amendment would be purely permissive, and the Court might or might not permit a lease on which the landlord and tenant had agreed.

Amendment proposed, In page 9, line 20, after "applies," insert "Provided always, That a judicial lease may be a lease for a Parliamentary tenant right, according to the form in the Schedule to this Act annexed, or such similar form as the Court may prescribe from time to time."—(Mr. A. M. Sullivan.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

thought it would be certainly inconvenient to introduce the Amendment into the clause, and he pointed out that, as the clause stood, there was no reason why the Court should not adopt leases such as those indicated by the hon. and learned Member, if only they were agreed upon by landlord and tenant. The Court had to see that the conditions were fair, and it would be quite competent, under the clause, for the Court to consider and adopt the Longfield Lease if they liked.

MR. PLUNKET

said, the proposal had attracted a great deal of attention in Ireland, and, like everything which Judge Longfield had brought before the public, it was extremely ingenious. It was brought forward in 1870—but then he (Mr. Plunket) thought rather as a rival scheme to the Bill of the Government—and during the debate the Prime Minister had announced that if it was intended as a rival scheme, he preferred his own proposal. He (Mr. Plunket) should not regret the adoption of the scheme in the present Bill, and he thought it had some recommendations as compared with the general scheme of the Government. In the first place, it avoided the constant interference of the Court, and would work easily, if voluntarily adopted by both parties. In the second place, it did, to some extent, make provision for bad years and varying seasons, for it regulated the rent at times when the landlord might be inclined to ask for increased rent, or a tenant might be inclined to ask for a decrease. If, however, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had stated, the Longfield Lease might be adopted under the present clause, he would not now advance any further argument.

MR. PARNELL

said, he believed that the proposal for the Longfield Lease was brought forward in 1870, not as a permissive proposal, but rather as something the Court might do instead of giving the tenant compensation for disturbance under the Act of 1870—that the Court might, upon application, grant such a lease. It appeared to him that the great objection to the Amendment, as at present proposed, was that it would not be operative. As had been pointed out by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, practically speaking, the Court could adopt this lease under the present Bill if it chose; and undoubtedly the 9th clause was sufficiently wide to cover the Longfield Lease, if the parties agreed to such a lease. But he (Mr. Parnell) should like to see the Amendment brought forward in a different shape—in the shape of a new clause, after the 7th clause, empowering the Court, after it had, on the application of the landlord or the tenant, determined upon a judicial rent, to grant to the tenant some such lease as this, instead of on a 15 years' statutory term. In this way the difficulty as to fixing the future rent after the expiration of the statutory term, might be got rid of. The rent would be fixed according to the arrangement under the Longfield system. The landlord and tenant would be able to agree upon the rent at the expiration of the statutory term, and there would be no more reference to the Court. This would provide a certain practicable plan for settling future rents, after the judicial fair rent had been once settled. This was a subject which he thought well worth the consideration of the Government in the interval before coming to the new clauses; and if his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) were to withdraw the Amendment now, in order to see how he might bring it up again as a new clause after Clause 7, the Government might perhaps be induced to agree to some such proposal. The proposal, if adopted, would get rid of a great deal of the friction which would undoubtedly arise under the provisions of the Bill, as it at present stood, with regard to future revision.

MR. GLADSTONE

The whole of this debate has been exceedingly interesting, and the tone of the Committee is pacific. I have not the slightest inclination to vary it. But there is nothing to prevent the inclusion of the Amendment within the terms of the judicial lease. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) wants to have a judicial lease fixed, and the Bill fixed, so as to have the movement of the rent according to the Longfield Lease, and not according to the statutory judicial lease.

MR. PARNELL

To give power to the Court.

MR. GLADSTONE

Yes, on the application of the parties.

MR. PARNELL

Not of both parties.

MR. GLADSTONE

It appears to me that the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Meath is for both parties, and it would be dangerous to start it as a provision which might be adopted on the application of one party only. Under the judicial lease it will be the duty of the Court to see if the rent is a fair rent; and therefore, if the parties agree, it is clearly within the power of the Court to give a judicial lease with the Longfield Lease, subject to a statutory term of 15 years. But if it is to be adopted on the application of one of the parties only, I confess I think that is rather a peculiar plan, and one which it would be unsafe to start.

MR. GRAY

observed, that the Long-field Lease was theoretically perfect; but it appeared to him to be utterly inapplicable to small tenancies. It would only be applicable to large tenancies, where the tenants were able to deal at arms-length with their landlords. It gave power to the landlord at any time to propose an increased rent, and the only remedy the tenant had was to demand a decrease. In the case of tenants holding large interests, this was a substantial check on the landlords; but in the case of small tenancies it was no check whatever, because the extra power which the tenant gained would be no compensation for his increased rent, and he would agree to an excessive rent rather than risk being paid off. He thought it was tolerably evident that the Long-field Lease must be one of the many forms of judicial lease sanctioned by the Court; but it was a different thing to introduce it by a Schedule; and although he would object to any power imposing the Longfield Lease on the tenant, it would be desirable in cases where hardship existed to encourage the adoption of that lease. When the Longfield Lease was first brought before the public in 1870, there was a marvellous consensus of opinion in its favour in Ireland—Conservatives and Liberals and all classes united in pressing on the Government the desirability of adopting that lease as a permissive lease under the Act. But, at that time, the Prime Minister held different views from his present views, and he was so opposed to it that the proposal had to be pressed to a division. If there was no substantial objection to the Longfield Lease itself—and he had not heard of any objection—it might be well worth the consideration of the Government whether they would embody it as a permissive lease in the Bill.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

thought the proposal would cause great complication in many cases, and he hoped it would not be pressed upon the Committee, but that the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) would be satisfied with the general approval which had been expressed by the Government.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, it was not often that he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Meath; but in this case he did agree with him, and his view was not a thing of the moment, because, last year, when the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was under consideration, he spoke to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland about the advantages of the Long-field Lease. At the same time, while he would support the Amendment he would not exactly follow the Schedule which the hon. and learned Member proposed to attach, because he thought the Schedule of the Longfield Lease required some alteration. It was sound in its general principles, but in some parts it was defective. Some landlords had altered it, and had then found it work well. He hoped the Government would adopt the proposal.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he was exceedingly rejoiced to hear from the Government that this was a lease which it might be quite within the power of the Court, under Clause 9, to award. His own conception of the lease was that it must necessarily be a matter of agreement between the parties. The object of the Longfield Lease was to avoid friction, and he thought the virtue of the plan would be destroyed if it were to be imposed on the parties. He should ask permission to withdraw the Amendment, with a view to consider whether, at a later stage of the Bill, he could introduce something which might give expression to as much of the agreement of opinion as he had collected from the speeches of hon. Members.

MR. BRODRICK

thought it would be well if, before the Amendment was finally withdrawn, the Committee should be aware of the previous views of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) on this subject, and of the change that had taken place in those views: The hon. and learned Member wrote a letter to The Freeman's Journal on October 5, 1880, in which he said the idea of a reduction of rents over all Ireland would be entirely repugnant to the principles of commercial freedom of the English people.

THE CHAIRMAN

I think the hon. Gentleman is going beyond the Amendment.

MR. BRODRICK

said, he was merely going to point out that there had been a great deal done since that time; and that the principle which the hon. and learned Member now wished to withdraw and re-introduce in a fresh form as an alternative, was one which the hon. and learned Member, representing, no doubt, a large section of the Irish people, previously held up necessarily as sufficient to meet the case at issue. He thought it was not legitimately brought forward as an alternative. If the lease proposed was held sufficient nine months ago to preclude the necessity of any revision of rents, it was equally so now; and if the hon. and learned Member brought it forward, he ought to be prepared to vote against any interference with the provisions in the 7th clause.

MR. BIGGAR

thought it was rather hard on the Irish Members, that each of them should be held responsible for what his Colleagues might have said 10 years ago.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. PLUNKET (for Mr. GIBSON)

moved, as an Amendment, in page 9, line 21, to leave out after "lease" to the end of line 24, and insert "the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession of the holding." This, of course, was a serious and important proposal; but he hoped to be able to show that it was a fair proposal and well worthy of consideration. Supposing that the proposal of the Government were adopted, and that after the expiration of the judicial lease, the lessee should be deemed to be the tenant of a future ordinary tenancy from year to year at the rent and subject to the conditions of the lease, so far as such conditions were applicable to such tenancy, that amounted, practically, to perpetuity of tenure. What was the good of contracting this judicial lease, and having all the conditions of the tenancy laid down by the Court for a certain period, if, after the termination of the period, the landlord was again to find himself face to face with what was called a future tenant? The present clause applied not only to the landlord and tenant of any ordinary tenancy, but also to the landlord and tenant of a proposed holding to which the Act applied, which was not subject to the conditions of an existing tenancy; and in that case, though the lease offered by the landlord and accepted by the tenant was entirely fair, and the lease would be submitted to the Court and sanctioned by the Court, still when the lease expired the landlord would find that the tenant stood in the position of a future tenant. The clause, at all events, so far as concerned the eases to which he had referred, was of a very extraordidary character, and the Committee would perceive that although the number of years mentioned was 31, there might be a 60 or 100 years' lease; and, no matter how long it lasted, at the end the tenant would be in the position of a future tenant. What the Amendment suggested was that at the expiration of the judicial lease the landlord should be entitled to resume possession. That seemed to him to be a fair and natural conclusion to a tenancy which was strictly guarded against all those infirmities which were supposed by some to attach to contracts of tenancy made in Ireland, because this lease, voluntarily entered into between landlord and tenant, was supposed to have already obtained the sanction of the Court. Therefore, with great confidence, he submitted that the Amendment would make the state of affairs more logical, and was more in consonance with the idea of freedom of contract than the proposal of the Government, that in all cases where a judicial lease was granted, whether in the case of an ordinary tenancy or not, the landlord should afterwards find himself face to face with a future tenant. He moved the Amendment accordingly.

Amendment proposed, In page 9, line 21, after "lease," leave out to the end of line 24, and insert "the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession of the holding."—(Mr. Plunket.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'the lessee, &c.,' stand part of the Clause."

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, he did not understand the difficulty felt in this matter. Where was the hardship of the landlord's position, if, at the end of the lease, he could exercise the landlord's ordinary power of control by raising the rent, and could compel the tenant to go or pay an increased rent? [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: No.] He said "Yes," certainly; and his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) was, he submitted, quite wrong upon the point. Applying this to the case of a future tenant, he could not go to the Court for a judicial rent. He failed to see the object of the proposed Amendment, or, rather, what was the hardship it proposed to remedy.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, at the end of a lease a tenant became a future tenant, so that if the landlord demanded an increased rent, and the tenant did not pay it, he could take him into the Court. That was what, in plain English, seemed to him to be the position of the matter; and if the point required any further explanation, perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland would get up and give them the necessary information. To his mind, there could be no doubt at all about it. The tenant, by the words of the Bill, became a future tenant at the expiration of the judicial lease. He thought the words of the Bill were very much better than those of the Amendment, because he was clear upon this point, that the landlord, upon the termination of a judicial lease, could evict the tenant if he liked, just as a landlord could evict the tenant of any holding where the lease had expired. The tenant became an ordinary yearly tenant, and was no longer protected by the Bill, and the landlord could go and evict him. What did the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) propose? He said that the landlord should resume possession of the holding, and that was an artificial expression which they had had some conversation about before. The resumption meant the question of very full compensation.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

really thought that the words proposed to be omitted could not, and ought not, to stop as they were. It might be desirable to leave to the parties freedom of contract as to new tenants coming in; but this section would apply to an existing tenant, and especially to a present tenant. ["No!"] Well, if it did not apply to a present tenant, he had nothing more to say. He had read the clause, and it appeared to him to be the fact that any present tenant who accepted a lease under this provision would sacrifice his tenant right. He thought they should encourage the landlords to grant long terms and keep themselves out of the Court.

MR. GREGORY

thought it would be desirable that they should have some explanation from Her Majesty's Government as to what would be the practical operation of this provision, because he confessed for himself, it might be from ignorance, that he felt considerable difficulty about the matter. If it was a matter of English law he should not feel that difficulty, because there the principle was clear that a tenant, after the expiration of a lease or agreement held under the terms of such lease or agreement, and subject to all the conditions of a yearly tenancy as regarded notice to quit. But now the tenant was turned into what was called a future tenant; and what a future tenant in the Bill really meant he was at a loss to know, and it was upon this point that he thought the Committee were entitled to some information. If the position of a tenant, after the expiration of a judicial lease, was to be the position an English tenant would occupy under similar circumstances, there would be an end of the matter. He would merely hold at the will of the landlord; but if there was anything beyond, any inchoate right to the continuance of the tenancy, he thought the Committee ought to know it.

MR. LITTON

said, that if the proposal of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) were agreed to, the clause would read thus— At the expiration of the judicial lease the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession of the holding. Now, he would ask what was the object of putting in this Amendment? Because this was the state of things that would follow in the absence of any words of the kind. The Amendment ought, therefore, to have been to strike out the clause, because precisely that result would follow if the clause were not there. There was no distinction whatever between the law of England and the law of Ireland as regarded an over-holding tenant. An over-holding tenant might be evicted at the expiration of a lease. With regard to the question what should take place on the termination of a judicial lease, that divided itself into two branches. There might be a judicial lease in the case of a present and of a future tenant. The question might arise, what should be the position of a judicial lessee on the termination of his lease?—first, where he happened to be a present tenant; and, secondly, where he was a future tenant. It was manifest that the position of the two ought to be different; and it was quite clear that the man who was a present tenant, and came and took from his landlord a judicial lease, should, on the expiration of that lease, be in the position of a present tenant and not a future tenant.

MR. GLADSTONE

Her Majesty's Government do not propose to accept this Amendment. I am not quite certain—indeed, it would be presumption in me to say what would be its legal effect—but I take it, as expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman who moved it (Mr. Pluuket), to be a notice to the tenant who accepted the judicial lease, and at the end of all the relations between him and the landlord, that all the tenant's interest should terminate. That is exactly the thing to which the Government cannot agree, and if we did agree to it the clause would be rendered absolutely a dead letter. No tenant in Ireland would accept a lease on conditions that at the end of that lease his whole interest should expire. I will quote a very ancient anecdote upon this point, but is also a very short one. It is one which the late Lord Devon, who was at the head of the Commission of 1843, told me. He said that when inquiries were going forward in Ireland it was found to be usual for a man who held a lease for life to bequeath it on his death-bed to somebody else. That was the expression of a deeply-engrained idea, and the Government are not prepared to come into conflict with that idea. I do not say anything about the other Amendments that may be moved, but I must object to this one.

MR. GIBSON

said, that, speaking with great frankness, his opinion as to the judicial lease and the subsequent proposal as to fixed tenancies was that they partook very much of the nature of padding. He did not attach very much importance to all this elaborate phraseology about judicial leases, and he thought that fixed tenancies, to which two clauses of this remarkable Bill were devoted, would not be called in question 10 times during the next 100 years. As, however, the clause was there they should try and give it something like an intelligible construction, and try to arrive at something like a reasonable conclusion upon it. The reason that he had put down on the Paper the Amendment which had been moved by his right hon. and learned Colleague (Mr. Plunket) was that he wished to arrive at a clear and definite idea—if Her Majesty's Government had one—as to what would be the position of a tenant of a judicial lease at the termination of it. They appeared to intend, by adding this second paragraph to Clause 9, to give a construction to the position of a lessee on the termination of his lease entirely at variance with the construction that would be put upon his position on the termination of an ordinary lease. It was intended, by adding the second paragraph at the end of Clause 9, practically to give real perpetuity of tenure in that case as in all others—real, but not avowed. Now, what was the position of the tenant of an ordinary lease, leaving the word "judicial" out of the case altogether? If the tenant of an ordinary lease was permitted by his landlord to continue in occupation on the termination of his lease, and if the landlord elected to accept from that tenant payment of rent, that tenant became a tenant from year to year upon the terms and conditions of his lease which had just expired. There could be no question about that; but the Government did not leave the tenant over-holding on the expiration of his judicial lease to the legal implication which every lawyer understood. They stepped in and said that at the very moment the judicial lease terminated the tenant became clothed with all the powers and authorities of a future tenant; and it was there that he thought it right to step in and present to the Committee nakedly and clearly what it was that they were asked to decide in this clause. What was the meaning of saying that the lessee would be deemed to be the tenant of a future ordinary tenancy? Did the Government mean to suggest that that was exactly the same position as if the landlord of an ordinary lease, on its expiration, had permitted the tenant to con- tinue in occupation, had accepted rent from him, and had so accepted him as a tenant from year to year? If they did mean that, why did not the Government put it in the clause? As a matter of fact, they must mean something more, because they had, in the preceding part of their Bill, given to future tenants certain rights entirely independent of a tenant holding on at the expiration of a lease. For instance, under sub-section 2 of Clause 3, the tenant of a future lease, if asked by his landlord to pay an increased rent, had a right to sell his tenancy, and to compel the landlord then to pay the amount of difference that the Court would hold was lost in the purchase money by the fact of a rise of rent being asked in excess of what the Court would hold was a fair rent. The tenant would have the right of free sale, and it might be that they would compel the landlord by these words, instead of having an absolute right to resume possession on the termination of a lease, to admit that the very day the lease terminated a future tenancy was created. They would compel the landlord, if he wanted to get possession, to serve a notice to quit. They would, therefore, compel the landlord, by the words which the Government now said meant nothing—[Mr. GLADSTONE: I never said so]—it had been suggested by silences and by gestures, which were sometimes liable to be misinterpreted; but, no doubt, he had made a mistake, as his statement had not been accepted. But, at any rate, as he had understood it, it was suggested by several speakers that these words in the second paragraph of the 9th section really said, in reference to a lessee on the termination of a judicial lease, that he was to be in exactly the same position as a lessee on the termination of an ordinary lease. He (Mr. Gibson) ventured to say that that was not a fair way in which to treat the landlord. The Prime Minister said that nothing could be more absurd than to say that this Bill contained anything in the nature of perpetuity of tenure; and, unless he was very much mistaken, the right hon. Gentleman lead said that it was an abuse of language to use any such phrase in connection with the Bill. Well, he (Mr. Gibson) spoke with entire sincerity, and with great respect for the opinion of the Prime Minister on a question of this kind; but, really, with some misgiving, he must venture to say that, although he might lay himself open to the same charge from the Prime Minister of being absurd, he had arrived at the conclusion that, though not avowed and put in terms, there was actual, real, and substantial perpetuity of tenure in this Bill. He was not going into any other clause of the Bill except for the purpose of illustration; but if a tenant from year to year expanded to a statutory 15 years' tenancy, and then at the end of 15 years he could expand that tenancy into another 15 years, he called that, if Dot perpetuity of tenure, at any rate, the best imitation of perpetuity of tenure that he had ever heard of. The Court could, with the sanction of the parties, give a judicial tenancy for 31 years as a minimum, and might go up to 500 years, or even 1,000 years. Few of them would really speculate as to how long the world was likely to last; but if a lease was granted for 300 or 400 years, or for 1,000 years, it was a tolerably substantial instalment towards perpetuity. But take it that it stopped short of that, the tenant could have the holding for 31 years, and that was the minimum. He asked in what time on the expiration of a lease had a landlord the shadow of a ghost of a chance of resuming possession? He could not do it, because they did not give him the power. They said a tenant at the end of the lease was a future tenant, and they clothed the tenant with the character and fixed conditions under which the landlord could not resume, possession. ["No, no!"] Yes, that was the case. The landlord could not get back possession, except under conditions where he would have to buy over again the fee-simple of the tenancy. Was that giving the landlord any power whatever of resuming possession? To deny that the Bill gave perpetuity of tenure was the merest play upon words. He called it perpetuity from the landlord's point of view. No matter how the tenancy might change, or what machinery might be contained in the Bill with regard to change or sale, there could be no doubt that the proposal of the Government involved perpetuity of tenure as against the landlord, who could not, under any circumstances, resume possession of the holdings. The proposal contained in the clause cer- tainly, in his mind, involved perpetuity of possession as against the landlord; and he ventured to say that the proposition could not be gainsaid, or even qualified. It had been his (Mr. Gibson's) good fortune to hear almost all of the speeches which had been made by the Prime Minister on this Bill, and he had endeavoured to derive all the instruction and information that was possible from them. The Prime Minister had addressed the Committee that afternoon, with his usual force and eloquence, to this particular branch of the matter before the Committee, and had endeavoured to show that it was an abuse of language to suggest the idea that the Bill intended or was framed to procure perpetuity of tenure; but in doing that the Prime Minister looked at the question only from one point of view, and absolutely ignored every other. The right hon. Gentleman said it was an abuse of language to say that the Bill involved perpetuity of tenure, because in certain conditions one tenant might be compelled to sell his interest to another tenant; but he ignored the fact that all this might be mere bye-play on the part of the tenant, and that it did not bring the landlord one whit nearer the possibitity of resuming possession of his estate. The tenant in possession, or the one who might succeed him, had in his hands perpetuity of tenure as against the landlord, in that the landlord could not resume possession, but could only under certain conditions compel his tenant to transfer the tenancy to someone else, which would not bring him an atom nearer to the re-possession of his estate. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that on the previous evening he had been prevented, by a ruling from the Chair which was defended by the hon. and learned Solicitor General in a well-considered speech, from raising this question on Clause 7, and he was now dealing only with the particular clause under discussion. He did not wish to go back upon Clause 7, except for purposes of illustration as far as his present argument was concerned. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech that day, denied that the Bill contained the principle of perpetuity of tenure—in saying that he (Mr. Gibson) ventured to urge that he was not misrepresenting what the right hon. Gentleman said—but asked why there was not perpetuity of tenure? He would give an answer to this which he thought no one who had considered what occurred on the previous evening would gainsay.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL,

rising to Order, said, he wished to ask whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman was discussing the Amendment now before the Committee or one in Clause 7—a matter which had been disposed of at the Morning Sitting?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) was certainly illustrating his argument very fully by references to what had taken place in the course of the previous Sitting.

MR. GIBSON

said, his complaint was that the perpetuity of tenure, which in his view the Bill certainly involved, was disguised instead of being thoroughly and frankly avowed. He supposed this was due to the fact that in the year 1870 the highest authority in the House laid down the proposition, and supported it by the most persuasive reasoning, that if perpetuity of tenure was granted as against the Irish landlords they would have an absolute claim to compensation. It was in order to avoid——

MR. GLADSTONE

rose to Order, and said that the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) bad been speaking for nearly 20 minutes, and had said no single word on the subject of the Amendment before the Committee.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that, as far as he could gather, the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) had certainly addressed his observations much more to Clause 7, and the arguments which were used in support of it, than to the Amendment immediately before the Committee.

MR. GIBSON

said, the clauses were absolutely connected together. He did not wish to refer to the speech which the Prime Minister had made in the course of that day, further than to say that the right hon. Gentleman had committed himself to the opinion that the Bill was free from the charge of giving perpetuity of tenure. He had endeavoured to show that this clause in its 2nd paragraph, instead of giving to the landlords a right to resume possession of the holdings which they had let, so hampered the landlords as to imperil, if not altogether to prevent, their right or power to resume possession. He was, therefore, asking why the Government, instead of frankly, plainly, and directly giving perpetuity of tenure, were doing that particular thing in a round-about, involved, and disguised way, so as to obscure the landlord's right to compensation? The object of his Amendment was to bring into perfect clearness the landlord's position. This was a perfectly clear proposition which, if denied by the Government, made it clear to his mind that there was something, at all events, very like perpetuity of tenure to be granted under this Bill.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, he thought his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) had been labouring under some delusion in respect to this clause, or that his brain was oppressed by the weight of arguments which he had intended to bring forward on a previous occasion. To contend that the clause practically conferred or involved perpetuity of tenure, disguised in some marvellous way, required a considerable amount of courage, and that courage had, he must admit, been displayed by his right hon. and learned Friend on the present occasion. His right hon. and learned Friend had told the Committee that the Court might give leases for 30 years, 100 years, or even 500 or 1,000 years, as against the landlords, the fact being that the Court could give nothing, but that the landlord could give what he pleased in agreement with his tenants. To talk of what the Court could give, as against the landlords, was, therefore, only misleading the Committee. If his right hon. and learned Friend would look at the last paragraph of the clause, he would find that a tenant, at the determination of his lease, became the ordinary tenant of a future tenancy. His right hon. and learned Friend then went on to ask how the landlord was to regain possession of his property, and to urge that he might be deluded by a series of mock ejectments—in short, he had mixed up the clause now before the Committee with the one which preceded and the one which was to follow it, without any over scrupulous reference to the matter with which the Committee was now asked to deal. But, after all, what did the whole of this come to? Everyone who knew anything of Irish agricultural life knew that a lease only meant a settlement of the amount of rent for a certain number of years; and that, although according to the letter of the lease, the landlord, at its termination, was to get back possession of the holding, still, according to the almost universal custom, the landlord, instead of resuming possession, had a revision of the rent, and on the revised scale the tenant retained possession. A judicial lease, as proposed by the Bill, was a pure matter of agreement, to which the landlord was not compelled to assent if he thought the terms proposed to him were unjust. His right hon. and learned Friend had suggested that the clause would not be used in many cases. This might, or might not, happen; but, in any case, it was clear that the landlords were not bound to grant leases on terms which they thought would be unfair to themselves. He could see no injustice in a proposal which, in accordance with the Irish custom, allowed tenants, on the expiration of their leases, to retain possession of their holdings, subject to a revision of rent. No one could suppose that a man would take a 31 years' lease of his holding if he was liable to be turned out of it on the clay following the completion of his term. If the tenants were expected to accept these leases, they must be presented to them in a form likely to be acceptable.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

said, there were two points which seemed to arise out of this Amendment. The first was, whether, at the end of a lease which, in Scotland, was, as a rule, 19 years, and in England far less, the landlord was or was not to resume possession of his holding? The value of an estate in Ireland was from 22 to 25 years' purchase, yet it was proposed to give leases for 31 years; and he asked whether it was fair that, in such circumstances, the landlords should not have a perfect right to resume possession of their properties? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland said that course would have the effect of being contrary to all Irish opinion. The second point was that which had been raised by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), which was whether a future tenant would have a right to a statutory term in the event of his rent being raised?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, it was an essential feature of the Bill, as set forth in Clause 3, that the future tenants were not entitled to go to the Court in order to have a rent judicially fixed, or procure a statutory term. It was only the present tenant who had those privileges.

MR. SYNAN

said, the mistake into which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had fallen was in confounding the "future tenant" with the "future ordinary tenant," the different phrases being used in different clauses of the Bill. He should be glad to see the word "ordinary" struck out of the clause; but unless that was done, there must remain a marked distinction between tenants under this and under the 3rd clause.

MR. MULHOLLAND

said, he would admit that, according to the Irish custom, it was not usual for tenants to give up their holdings at the expiration of their leases, but to go on after there had been a re-valuation and a re-adjustment of the rent; but, on that point, he thought there was somewhat of ambiguity in the clause, as it stood in the Bill, in relation to the meaning of the words "a future tenant."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, they on that Bench had not been arguing about the clause as it stood, but as to the Amendment which had been proposed. When that had been disposed of, they would consider what should be the ultimate form of the clause, bearing in mind the importance of several of the suggestions which had been made.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, he hoped the Amendment would be disposed of forthwith, in order that they might get at the substance of the clause which the Prime Minister said had yet to be reached.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, he had altered his Amendment as it stood on the Paper. Hon. Members would see that, as it had first stood, it applied to all cases in which a judicial lease was agreed to between a landlord and tenant, without making any distinction between the case where a judicial lease was accepted by a present tenant or a future tenant. The object of the Amendment was to make a distinction between those two cases. He said "the Amendment," but there were really two Amendments—although the first was only formal and rendered necessary to make the other intelligible. Possibly, the second Amendment would, in the eyes of many hon. Members opposite, raise a very important question. The question was one that must be raised and dealt with by the Committee, if justice was to be done. There were two classes of cases—first, those where the future tenant, so-called, had had no previous relations with the occupancy or contact with the landlord, as in the case where a previous tenancy was determined, and a future tenant came in fresh, as referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton), where a landlord let out some of his demesne lands. The distinction drawn in the Bill between future and ordinary present tenants—although he agreed that there probably ought to be some distinction—was too sharp; and he therefore trusted that that sharpness, which would cause inconvenience, would be avoided. But, for the moment, he did not wish to deal with that. He wished to deal with the case of the man who was a present tenant of the land, and who agreed with his landlord to take a judicial lease—that was, a lease which received the sanction of the Court. The Bill, unless amended as he proposed, said that the present tenant—such at the time of the acceptance of the judicial lease—was, by reason of his acceptance of the judicial lease, altogether to lose at the expiration of the lease the character and advantages given to a present tenant. If this were to be the case, they would get no people to accept these judicial leases. The Government ought to be consistent, and, after the course they had taken yesterday with regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour), they should accept his (Mr. Charles Russell's) proposal. The hon. Member's (Mr. Balfour's) Amendment was to the effect that the statutory term should come to an end at the end of the second statutory term—in other words, the statutory term for the purpose of his Amendment should be two terms of 15 years, equal to 30 years. The Government, desiring to see this an efficient Bill, resisted that Amendment. But, having resisted the Amendment, which sought to fix 30 years as the limit at the end of which time a tenant was to cease to be a present tenant, in the sense of having the benefit of any application which he might make for a statutory term, it seemed to him that the Government must accept his Amendment as giving effect to the action they had already taken. In the case of the Ulster tenants there was an express provision that at the end of their leases they should have the benefit he wished to give to tenants under judicial leases.

Amendment proposed, In page 9, at end of Clause, add—"Provided always, That, at the expiration of such lease either the landlord or the tenant shall be at liberty to apply to the Court to fix the rent, and thereupon the Court shall make such order as, in view of all the circumstances of the case, shall seem to be just."—(My Charles Russell.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

MR. W. H. SMITH

I certainly think the time has come when the Prime Minister ought to give us some statement as to the views of the Government on the subject of this clause. It appears to me that if the words of this clause are adopted, the occupier under a judicial lease will be in a position of having agreed with the landlord for that which will enable him to say—"I am now entitled to compensation for disturbance if, at the end of this judicial lease, you do not agree with me either for a new tenancy or a new lease." This, in reality, transfers to the occupier so much of the property of the landlord as is expressed by the compensation to be given to him, and enables the occupier to say to the landlord—"Make terms with me, or I will place you under this fine." The landlord will say—"It is true I have agreed with you for a judicial lease." Well, I suppose he may not have agreed, because a judicial lease is different from any other document which, in the past, has been looked upon as a lease. Hitherto it has always been understood that at the end of the lease the property reverts to him who granted it; but it is not to be so in this case. The tenant is to enjoy his occupation for 31 years; and the landlord, at the end of that period, is to be subject to a fine, if an arrangement is not come to which is satisfactory to the leaseholder. That is a real transfer of property from the one to the other. If they are to negotiate a new lease, the tenant says to the landlord— "Here is my right to seven years' rent, in the case of a £30 tenancy; five years' rent, in the case of a £50 tenancy." And in that way he extracts from the landlord—who does not wish to be subject to a fine—an arrangement. That can hardly be the intention of the Government. It is not just. It places the tenant at the end of a lease in a better position than he was at the beginning of the tenancy. The landlord may have fulfilled all his engagements; and it cannot be the intention of the Government that at the end of the lease he should be in a worse position than at the beginning.

MR. GLADSTONE

The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith), I am afraid, has not gathered the effect of the clause. The right hon. Gentleman is under the impression that the tenant will be invested with a kind of indefeasible tenancy, which it will rest with him to retain, which he has a right to retain, and on account of which, if he is not allowed to retain it, he may demand from the landlord compensation. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is entirely incorrect. The tenant may continue in the tenancy under the terms of the lease, and, if he demands any modification of those terms, the only mode of enforcing it will be by quitting the tenancy; and, if he does that, the only privilege accruing to him will be the privilege of selling his interest. That will be the position of the future tenant at the expiration of the lease under this clause.

MR. W. H. SMITH

Then I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that a lease for 31 years becomes a lease practically for ever, according to the terms and conditions of the lease. ["No, no!"] Well, at the expiration of the judicial lease, the lessee is to be deemed to be the tenant of the future ordinary tenancy from year to year at the rent and subject to the conditions of the lease, and he can only be turned out—that is to say, the landlord can only resume possession—under the penalties contained in the Bill; in other words, by giving compensation for disturbance. Under the Act of 1870 these leases were subject to the conditions of all leases, and at the end of them the landlord could resume possession, or a new arrangement was come to by the parties. There was no idea of compensation for disturbance at the end of the lease.

MR. GIVAN

said, the matter was one of considerable gravity. They should be able to carry with them on this clause——

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the Committee that the discussion is going very much on the whole clause, instead of on the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell).

MR. GIVAN

said, it was on the Amendment that he was about to speak. It was important that they should carry with them the sense and judgment of those who were inclined to agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson), who had a facility for putting matters in such a way as to carry many people away with him. In order that the Committee might understand the position of the tenant under the judicial lease it was necessary that the Committee should consider what was the present position of the tenant from year to year. The right hon. Gentleman had asked what was the position of a tenant under an existing lease? Well, they would see in a moment whether the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) was reasonable or not, when they considered what was the position of the tenant under the existing lease. The tenant, under the existing lease in the Province of Ulster, was entitled to tenant right at the end of that lease, because the lease, in most cases, had been proved to be a mere interregnum in the tenancy; consequently, at the end of the lease, all the incidence of the tenancy returned, and the tenant became entitled to all the rights and privileges he enjoyed previous to the date of the lease. Then, what was the position of the lessee outside the Ulster Custom? Under the 4th clause of the Act of 1870, he was entitled to his improvements. Now, if the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite had been carried, or if the tenancy was to be a future tenancy under the Act, not only would the tenant not have the privileges of the Ulster tenant under the 4th clause of the Act of 1870, but he would be turned out of his improvements and altogether deprived of his holding. Therefore, it was clear with regard to future tenancies created after the passing of the Act, where there had been a pre- contract between the landlord and tenant, and where he had no existing interest in the land, the true principle to adopt, and the principle which the Bill enforced was this—that the tenant should, at the determination of the lease, become a future tenant; but if the tenant had at the commencement of the judicial lease an interest in the land as a tenant from year to year, then why should he be deprived of the tenancy by accepting a judicial lease? Unless the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) were accepted a tenant now accepting a judicial lease would be put in the position in which no tenant ever was before. He would neither be a tenant under the Ulster Custom, nor entitled to full compensation for disturbance under the Act of 1870.

MR. GIBSON

wanted to ask a question of the Government. As he understood the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), it was this. He proposed to leave the drafting of the second paragraph of the clause as it stood, and then to say that as to certain tenants who might have been present tenants at the commencement of a judicial lease, they should maintain their status as tenants at the expiration of the judicial lease. If the hon. and learned Member would look at the earlier words of the clause, he would find that it was not at all general—it did not purport to give power to all tenants coming under the Act to obtain a judicial lease. It was limited to two very specific classes—first, the landlord and tenant of an ordinary tenancy; and then, the landlord and tenant of any holding to which the Act applied which was not subject to a subsisting tenancy. That was all. He could not exactly reconcile the Amendment with the glossary. He asked for information—whether the clause contemplated, in its rather peculiar phraseology, that the present tenant could at all have entered into a judicial lease?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, the first sentence of the clause expressly included both present and future tenancies.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

wished to know what they were going to do with regard to this Amendment? When the Prime Minister rose, he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had hoped that he would say something as to the view the Government took. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had not done so. It appeared to him (Lord Randolph Churchill) that if they accepted the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), they would be altogether departing from the plan they had in view when they inserted these judicial leases in the Bill. He had tried to point out before dinner, but had not been successful in his endeavour to attract the attention of the Government, that the Amendment they had accepted to the 8th clause seriously interfered with their plan. They had cut out that which was part and parcel of their plan. If the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk was accepted, judicial leases would be wholly worthless. He wished to disembarrass the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member from the consideration raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith). He could not understand the contention of that right hon. Member that any part of this subsection, as it stood, conferred perpetuity of tenure. It appeared to him to be nothing more nor less than what would be the existing law with the modification that the tenant at the end of the lease could be put out on an ejectment. By this clause he became ipso facto a yearly tenant, and would have to be put out by a notice to quit. But a future tenant at the end of a lease was as unprotected from eviction as any tenant in Ireland. And, more than that, the future tenant at the end of a judicial lease was debarred from claiming compensation for disturbance under the Act of 1870. He could not imagine that that point would be pressed by his right hon. Friend so as to embarrass the Committee in deciding the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk. He attached great importance to this question of granting judicial leases, and he thought it distinctly in the interests of the landlords. The advantages were these—the landlord would be saved from hostile litigation on the part of the tenant, who would be bound by the conditions of his lease. There would be many landlords who would say—"We do not want to be bothered by going to the Court; we will give them judicial leases for 31 years, that will last our lifetime, and when our heirs follow us they will have to make their own arrangements with the tenants on the basis of free contract." But if they made a tenancy at the end of a judicial lease of a present tenant, they would destroy any advantage that could be got in this way, because the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk wished to put judicial leases on the same basis as leases executed before the passing of the Act. The hon. and learned Member appeared to forget that a tenant under a judicial lease used all the rights that the Act would confer upon him. He had great advantages. He obtained security for two statutory terms; the landlord had no right of pre-emption at the end of the second statutory term, and he could not raise the rent. It was said that no tenant would take a judicial lease. Certainly he would not if they accepted the Amendment. As the Bill stood, under certain circumstances, the tenant would have no option but to accept a judicial lease.

MR. GLADSTONE

I would point out to the Committee that the Court would still be enabled to judge, under the 8th clause, whether a refusal to give a lease is or is not unreasonable. Upon what principle is the Court to proceed in order to judge this question? It would ask the tenant to show whether it was or was not to his interest to accept a lease; and if we pass this clause we must take care that the interests of the two parties are so balanced that there can be no reason why, if the landlord offers a lease and sees his interest in offering it—because, of course, he cannot be compelled in the matter—the tenant should not have a reasonable interest or inducement to accept it. As the clause stands, I confess that I am bound to say it is not drafted so as to meet all the merits of the case. The clause as it stands is applicable both to present tenants and to persons who are not present tenants; but the general effect is to give somewhat less than is due to present tenants and somewhat more than is due to persons who are not present tenants. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) will, I think, find his horror at the clause considerably diminished if he bears in mind that our intention really is this—the future tenant shall fare subsequently like any future tenant, so that he will come in at the end of his judicial lease like any other third party. But I admit that, as the law stands, he gets more, because he gets a lease; whereas, if he came in as a future tenant, the landlord would be entitled, when he had separated his holdings into several parts, to fix upon whatever initial rent he pleased; whereas, those who are not present tenants may be willing to take leases under favourable conditions, yet we may release the landlord from all special restraints at the termination of the lease, and allow him to deal with respect to the initial rent just as he would if there had been no judicial rent at all. It is not to be doubted that it is the result of general testimony with regard to opinion and practice in Ireland that the reputation of leases is at this moment not good in Ireland. There is an ill savour about them in the nostrils of the Irish tenant generally, and he will be very cautious indeed about taking a judicial lease, and the Court will certainly not consider his refusal to take a judicial lease as an unreasonable refusal, unless it can be shown on the face of the lease that the conditions of that judicial lease are constructed upon the principles of a fair balance, giving him an equivalent for his rent. Therefore I believe that, as regards tenants, the foundation of sound legislation with regard to this matter of judicial leases will depend upon our drawing a distinction, in the first instance, between persons who are not present tenants at the outset of the lease, and persons who are. As regards persons who are not present tenants at the outset, I believe their case will be quite provided for, and the Court will have the utmost discretion and jurisdiction in regard to them, if we drop the words in the second portion of the clause. But then there is the question of those who are present tenants. My hon. and learned Friend (Mr. C. Russell) proposes to provide a declaration that, whatever the length of the lease may be, at its termination the tenancy should be a present tenancy. We are rather disposed, I think, to meet my hon. and learned Friend half way, and to say that there are cases in which, where leases of great length are given, we think it might fairly be expected that, in compensation for such security, the tenant should give up the advantage of being a present tenant at the expiration of the lease. For the sake of argument, I may refer to the amicable conversation we have had to-night upon the Longfield Lease, which, it appears, is a lease for 500 years. I confess I do not see any necessity for providing that, at the termination of a Longfield Lease in the year 2381, the holder of that lease shall be a present tenant. But what my hon. and learned Friend evidently has in view is the currency of leases such as are usually given in Ireland upon agricultural holdings. We have taken that here as 31 years. What I think we might do is that we might accept the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend with regard to all judicial leases which do not extend beyond a certain term of years; but we must place that term of years sensibly higher than 31 years, or, if the practice of 31-year leases were adopted under this clause, it would be entirely inoperative if we adopt the provision of my hon. and learned Friend. If we are to have judicial leases at all, we must make it reasonably worth the while of the tenant to accept them, or the Court would never give them. I think we may say that if the currency of the lease does not extend to 60 years or upwards, we shall, in all those cases, accept the Amendment, and that would fairly strike the balance between the various interests involved.

MR. GIBSON

could not see how the suggestion of the Prime Minister could be worked in with the Amendment now before the Committee. He thought the Amendment ought to be withdrawn for the present, and then it could be brought up again subsequently in an altered form. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. C. Russell) seemed to think it reasonable that the present tenant should be dealt with in an entirely exceptional way, and that he should be reinstated at the expiration of his lease as a present tenant. He (Mr. Gibson) thought, however, that the best thing to do would be to leave the question to be dealt with on Report, when he was sure his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland would present the matter in a way which they could all understand.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, he would be quite willing to do whatever was reasonable; but, as a matter of drafting, he thought he could easily accommodate his Amendment to the suggestion made by the Prime Minister. He was, however, willing to leave the necessary Amendment conceded by the Government to be dealt.with by the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law).

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

understood the Prime Minister's proposal to be that the present tenant should not be altogether thrown on one side at the expiration of the lease. He quite approved of that proposal, and thought it quite wrong that the present tenant should be so sacrificed, though he did not so much care for the future tenant.

MR. MACARTNEY

pointed out that the present practice in the North of Ireland was, as a matter of custom or of law, that upon the expiration of the lease the tenant should continue as a tenant from year to year until he was disturbed; but he had no right to remain on if the landlord gave him notice to quit. The right which belonged to him was the tenant right, which he was able to dispose of to another tenant who wanted to come in, or to the landlord who might wish to purchase. He (Mr. Macartney) thought he had understood the Prime Minister to say that the future tenant, after the judicial lease had expired, though he would not be subject to the conditions of the Act in regard to other matters, would have a right to sell his holding. Had he correctly understood the right hon. Gentleman?

MR. GLADSTONE

What I said was that, as the clause now stands, it is too much to place him in a better position. There is no reason when a man gets a judicial lease why he should, at the expiration of that lease, be in a better position than another future tenant, and the landlord would fix the initial rent. We propose, therefore, to leave the main subject to the general operation of the law.

MR. MACARTNEY

wished to know whether the tenant, at the end of his judicial lease, was to have the right which the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. C. Russell) would give him, and which would place him in as good a position as the tenant who had had two successive statutory terms, and was entitled to a third? He did not know whether the Bill intended to give that power, even to the present tenant.

Question put, and negatived.

Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Fixed Tenancies.

Clause 10 (Present ordinary tenancy converted into fixed tenancy).

MR. BIGGAR (for Mr. MEALY)

moved the omission of the word "present" in page 9, line 26.

Question, "That the word 'present' stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Words struck out accordingly.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

moved, in page 9, line 26, the omission of the word "ordinary," lest it should have the effect of precluding the parties from entering into any voluntary arrangement at the end of the first 15 years.

Amendment proposed, in page 9, line 26, to leave out the word "ordinary."—(Sir George Campbell.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'ordinary' stand part of the Clause."

MR. GLADSTONE

I do not think any inconvenience would arise from the retention of the word "ordinary;" because at the close of the statutory term the tenancy would become an ordinary one.

Question put, and agreed to.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

moved, in page 9, line 26, the omission of the word "tenancy," in order to insert the word "holding."

Amendment proposed, In page 9, line 26, to leave out the word "tenancy," in order to substitute the word "holding."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'tenancy' stand part of the Clause."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

trusted that the Committee would allow the word "tenancy" to stand, for it had been deliberately determined before that the word "tenancy" should be used when the interest of the tenant was spoken of.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

pointed out that the definition of "tenancy," as given in the Interpretation Clause, was "the tenant's interest in a holding." But the words in this part of the clause were governed by the word "landlord." Now, there could not be a landlord of an interest—he must be the landlord of a holding.

MR. WARTON

thought there was a great deal of force in the observations of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). The fact was they were rapidly drifting away from all the definitions given in the Interpretation Clause. They had just omitted the word "ordinary," without considering what an "ordinary tenant" meant; and now they were going to do worse, by leaving the word "tenancy" where it should be "holding."

Question put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

MR. GREGORY

wished to make an inquiry on behalf of an individual who had been ignored throughout the Bill—he meant the mortgagee upon Irish estates. The Bill, as he understood it, enabled any landlord and tenant to enter into any contract to convert any holding into a fee-farm rent. All he asked was that the mortgagee should have an opportunity of being heard when the landlord and tenant proceeded to any such conversion, and that it should not be done behind the mortgagee's back. He asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to consider the question before they came to the Report. If some protection were not given, the only result would be that all securities on Irish property would be called in, or otherwise the interest of the mortgagee might be completely annihilated behind his back.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

hoped an assurance would be given in accordance with the proposal of his hon. Friend (Mr. Gregory).

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, he certainly would consider the question; but he wished to point out that the 18th clause would deal with limited owners.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 11 (Conditions of fixed tenancy).

MR. GREGORY

moved to insert, after the word "tenancy," in page 9, line 34, these words— And as in the case of a landlord who is a limited owner, as defined by the 26th section of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, the Court shall approve, after considering the interest of all persons entitled to any estate or interest in the holding, subsequent to the estate or interest of such limited owner.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. BIGGAR (for Mr. HEALY)

moved as an Amendment in page 9, line 38, to leave out "and," and insert— Provided that in case of the re-valuation by the Court under this section of any such fee-farm rent, such Valuation shall be conducted on the principles prescribed for fixing a fair rent under the seventh section of this Act. He presumed the Government would accept this Amendment, and therefore it was not necessary for him to occupy time by supporting it with argument.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

said, he did not see how a fee-farm rent could be dealt with on the same principle as an ordinary rent.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, the principle of the Amendment was unobjectionable; but perhaps the hon. Member for Wexford would allow it to stand over until Report, for it would require some consideration on the point of drafting.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, a fee-farm rent might or might not be subject to re-valuation, as might be agreed upon between landlord and tenant; and, surely, the conditions of re-valuation would be matter of agreement.

MR. H. R. BRAND

said, if the words "by the Court" were left out of the Amendment, that would meet the objection.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it seemed to him that there was no objection to the Amendment. As he understood the Bill, it simply meant that the re-valuation should take place in accordance with the provisions of the Act. But, seeing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had agreed to the principle of the Amendment, and had undertaken on Report to bring in such words as would carry out the idea of the Amendment, he begged leave now to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. ERRINGTON

said, he had an Amendment to move on a subject that excited much interest in Ireland. This question of fixity of tenure, which the Committee were discussing, was really considered the most important and most useful portion of the whole measure. His proposal was to omit the word "and" in line 38, and insert these words— Which rent, or any part thereof, he shall be at liberty to redeem at any time of such term, subject to such regulations as the Court shall deem fair to both parties. This was to facilitate the purchase of an increase of the tenant's interest. The importance of the provision in the clause for the purchase of the land by the tenant was agreed, but few tenants would be able to avail themselves of it to the full extent, and he was anxious that they should be enabled to acquire it by a gradual process. It would be a great inducement to offer to the tenant this means of fining down the amount of his rent, and by the gradual increase of the tenant's interest in his farm the tenant's security would be increased and the general tranquillity promoted. The words he proposed to introduce would safeguard the interest of the landlord, for the Court would make the regulations and lay down the terms on which the fining down should take place, and the means by which the money should be paid, and probably there would be no difficulty in the Court making arrangements for the investment of the money if this course were determined upon.

Amendment proposed, In page 9, line 38, to omit the word "and," and insert "which rent, or any part thereof, he shall be at liberty to redeem at any time of such term, subject to such regulations as the Court shall deem fair to both parties."—(Mr. Errington.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'and' stand part of the Clause."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he thought there was a great deal of force in the object of his hon. Friend (Mr. Errington) up to this point, that when the landlord had become a rent-charger, and was no longer in the true sense a landlord, there should be arrangements for this rent-charge being redeemed. But this was a matter for the Court. He did not wish to insert more than the conditions to bring in the action of the Court, and it would be better to leave the matter until the action of the Court was reached.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, a fee-farm rent could not be so fined down.

MR. ERRINGTON

said, he did not wish to press the Amendment. He only hoped that the principle was in the Bill as it now stood.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he would formally move an Amendment, of which his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had given Notice, though he did not think that, as the law stood, it was necessary.

Amendment proposed, In page 10, at end of Clause, to add new sub-section 3—"A fixed tenancy shall be created by deed executed, or note in writing, signed by the landlord or his agent thereunto, lawfully authorized in writing."—(Mr. Biggar.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, the object proposed to be carried out by the Amendment was the existing practice under the ordinary law. It was desirable that there should be a formal document.

MR. BIGGAR,

seeing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman shared the opinion which he held himself, would not press the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.