HC Deb 08 August 1882 vol 273 cc1197-224

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £52,552, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Irish Land Commission.

MR. SEXTON

said, it was an exceedingly singular fact, and one which could not escape remark, that the Committee were asked to vote this large sum of money for the salaries and expenses of the Irish Land Commission at a moment when no Representative of the Irish Government was to be seen on the Treasury Bench.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that the Members of the Irish Government had simply retired for the purpose of drawing up Reasons for disagreeing with the Lords Amendments on the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill.

MR. SEXTON

said, that in that case he would move that the Chairman report Progress, so that an opportunity might be afforded to the Attorney Gene- ral for Ireland and the Chief Secretary for Ireland of being present to discuss the Vote after the Government had drawn up their Reasons for disagreeing with the Lords Amendments.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Sexton.)

MR. SEXTON

said, he saw that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had returned to his place; and he would not, therefore, persist in dividing the Committee upon the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. SEXTON

said, he thought it was desirable, in connection with this Vote, that the Committee should have some exact information as to the progress the Land Commission had been able to make in fixing fair rents. They had heard some time ago that out of some 600,000 tenants in Ireland, about 80,000 had made applications to the Land Commission to have fair rents fixed, and the Government told them that there had been 10,000 settlements. He (Mr. Sexton) thought, however, that if they looked very closely into the matter it would be found that a very considerable portion of the settlements which the Government claimed credit for were settlements out of Court. Personally, he was disposed to limit the credit to be given to the operation of the Land Commission to the settlements actually carried out in Court. As far as he was able to ascertain, the landlords, in many cases, used the arrears due on various holdings as a means of preventing the tenants from going into Court; and he was inclined to think that the number of settlements out of Court, and the growth of those settlements, was rather a proof of the helplessness of the tenants than the healthy operation of the Land Act. He should be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland what evidence he had in his possession that would enable him to inform the Committee that the settlements out of Court were settlements by the free will of the landlord and the free will of the tenant. He should be glad, indeed, if he could believe that the settlements out of Court had been settle- ments arising from a mutual sense in the minds of the landlord and tenant of the propriety and justice of the settlement made. He was afraid there was sad reason to suspect that the 10,000 settlements which had been made out of Court had been made by landlords who had used the arrears as a weapon of terror, and that the tenants had no option but to accept such terms as were preferred by the landlords or else to leave their farms. He strongly objected to the method in which the results of the action of the Land Commission had been tabulated and laid before the House. He had, he believed, on one occasion, already referred to the form in which the information relative to the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners had been laid before the Members of that House. They had been told what was the Poor Law valuation of the holdings, what was the old rent, and what was the new rent. He maintained that that was very insufficient information to enable the House of Commons to judge of the manner in which the Sub-Commissioners were doing their work, because the Poor Law valuation was, at the best, a very rough and very inconclusive test of the value of the holding. It was oppressive in some cases, and more oppressive in others. In some cases it marked about the level of a fair rent; in others considerably above that level; so that to tell the House what the Poor Law valuation and the old rent were was not to place in their hands information at all sufficient to enable them to judge with what degree of propriety and good judgment the Sub-Commissioners had exercised their functions. The curious part of the case was this, that the Sub-Commissioners supplied to the office of the Land Commissioners in Dublin—and he would be glad if the Land Commission in Dublin would duplicate the records in that office—two items of information very valuable to the Commissioners themselves, and very valuable because of the information they afforded as to the real value of the holdings. Nevertheless, those two items had hitherto been studiously and obstinately withheld from the knowledge of the House of Commons. Now, what were these two items? The first gave the amount sworn by the valuator of the landlord as being the true value of the farm; and the second gave the amount sworn by the valuator of the tenant as the true value of the farm. Why had the Land Commission withheld those two items from the House of Commons? Why had they merely given them the Poor Law valuation, the old rent, and the new rent, and abstained from informing them what the landlord's valuator and the tenant's valuator respectively declared to be the true value of the holding? He was inclined to think that if the information he asked for were submitted to the House, there would be a stronger case against the Sub-Commissioners in Ireland, from the tenants' point of view, than the noble Lord, fanciful author of Fairy Tales, who occupied a seat in "another House" (Lord Brabourne), had made out against that body. The noble Lord to whom he referred, who was certainly more effective in the region of romance than in that of practical politics, seemed to think that the Sub-Commissioners were a body of men who were acting very much in the interest of the tenants. But he (Mr. Sexton) would tell the Committee that if he could extort from the Government the information supplied to the Land Commission, to which he was now referring, he would be able to show that the Sub-Commissioners, as a general rule, had kept very much more closely to the lines laid down by the landlords' valuator than that which had been fixed by the valuator appointed on behalf of the tenant. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland could give the Committee any good reason why this information should be withheld, he should be glad to hear it. When the Irish Members asked for information from the Government, they were often told that it would be inconvenient to give it; that it would take time to collect it; or that the process of collecting it would be costly. He (Mr. Sexton) was, however, in a position to say that the information for which he asked was actually tabulated and written down in two separate columns, in an account book in the office of the Land Commission at Dublin. He was certainly curious to hear what reason the right hon. Gentleman could give for withholding the information. He should be glad to learn from the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether, if he (Mr. Sexton) moved for a Return, showing not only the Poor Law valuation with the old and new rent, but also the amounts sworn respectively by the valuator of the landlord and the valuator of the tenant, the right hon. Gentleman would consent to give that information to the House, so as to enable the House to judge with what impartiality, or the reverse, the Sub-Commissioners of the Land Court were discharging their functions. Looking at the Vote, he found that 12 Sub-Commissions were at present in full swing in Ireland, and he believed that an addition had been made since the present Estimates were presented. The greater portion of these Sub-Commissions had now been in operation for three quarters of a-year, and he believed they had really actually settled about 10,000 cases. If 80,000 applications had been made, and only 10,000 cases had been settled by the Court, he should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman at what time the Government expected the Land Court and the Sub-Commissioners would have dealt with the bulk of the applications of the Irish tenants? Did they propose to allow this Court to run out in the dim future, after endeavouring to apply its comparatively feeble power to the immense task before it; or did they intend to extend the Paradise for lawyers which Ireland had become, and increase the number of Sub-Commissioners? Unless that were done, he saw no prospect for the tenants, beyond having to pay for years to come the present unreduced rents. Too much emphasis could not be laid on the fact that the reduced rent fixed by the Court was only to come into operation on the next gale day succeeding the judgment of the Land Court. Therefore, in regard to the great mass of the tenants, the judgment of the Court would not come in for several years to come. It was a fact that, up to the present moment, a very large proportion of the neediest and most helpless of the tenants had been shut out from the benefits of the Act owing to the circumstance that they were in arrear. The fate of the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill was now depending in the balance, and no one was able at that moment to say what the result would be. There were some who thought the country was on the eve of a great Constitutional crisis. Some were credulous enough to believe in Dissolution in the immediate dim future, and to think that they had been going that evening through a sort of performance which might be called a political autumn manœuvre. It was, however, pretty evident that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister and the noble Marquess who led the Opposition in "another place" (the Marquess of Salisbury) had come to an understanding, and there could be very little doubt that the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill would soon become law; and noble Lords in the Upper Chamber, having saved their character for chivalry by a demonstration of valour, would prudently yield to the hostile battalions arrayed, against them by Her Majesty's Government. Assuming that the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill speedily became law, it was to be inferred that these poor tenants in arrear would be able, not merely to remain on their farms, but to go into the Land Court; but, at the present moment, they were prevented from making an application to the Court, because the landlords said to them—"If you go into Court in order to get my rents lowered, I will immediately proceed to evict you for arrears." Under the Arrears Bill, that threat of eviction would have no effect, and the tenant, while saving an eviction, would be able to go into the Land Court. It was only reasonable, therefore, to infer that the number of applications for the fixing of fair rents would be largely increased. Already there had been from 70,000 to 80,000 applications made, and they would probably swell into two or three times as many, so that they might have 200,000 or 300,000 tenants applying for relief to the Land Court, in order to obtain the fixture of fair rents. It was only natural that the number of applications to the Land Court would very largely increase if the tenants saw any hope of a speedy adjudication. No doubt, the certainty of a delay in the adjudication had, up to the present moment, greatly limited the number of applications to the Court; but the comparative security which he hoped the tenants had now got as to the matter of arrears, in the knowledge that they would not be evicted in consequence of arrears, and the additional freedom of access to the Land Court, would increase the number of applications. He, therefore, wanted to know what provision the Government proposed to make for increasing the strength of the pre- sent Land Commission. Hitherto the Court had proved woefully inadequate to the demands made upon it; and, up to the present year, the Commissioners had only got rid of 10,000 cases out of the 80,000 applications made to them. If the number of applications was to be multiplied by two or three, there would only be a very miserable prospect before the tenants of Ireland, many of whom would be compelled to wait for three or five years before they were able to get the decision of the Court. He thought the Irish Members were entitled to ask for some specific declaration from Her Majesty's Government upon this point, because it must be borne in mind that throughout all the years which must necessarily elapse before the tenants could procure the decision of the Court they would be required to pay the whole of the unreduced rent. There was no provision whatever that, in the interval, the rents would be reduced to Griffith's valuation; or, indeed, to any reasonable extent. On the whole, the experience they had had of the operations of the Land Court last year tended to show that the rents were even now, in the opinion of persons well qualified to judge, one-fourth above what they ought to be. That was universally declared to be the fact, and yet they allowed the bulk of the tenants who had sent in applications for the fixing of fair rents to go on labouring under the burden of the old rents. He could not help regarding such a state of things as an extraordinary contradiction of justice; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be able to tell the Committee that the tenants who went into the Land Court, from this time forward, would be able to have some slight hope of a speedy adjudication upon their cases. He had already said that the Sub-Commissioners had kept much more closely to the value given by the landlord's valuator than that given by the valuator of the tenant; but the case was made even worse when the landlords appealed from the Sub-Commissioners to the Commissioners themselves. The appeals had been very numerous in various parts of Ireland, and they had had a double effect. In almost every case, the Land Commissioners had acted upon the evidence of the official valuers, and the result had been to bring the rent back again almost to what it was before the application was made. The double effect had been this—the general body of tenants all over Ireland had been brought into a frame of mind in which they had come to the conclusion that it was almost useless to approach the Land Court at all; because they said to themselves—"If we go into the Land Court for the fixing of a fair rent, and we have our rents reduced by the Sub-Commissioners, the landlord is certain to appeal against the decision of the Sub-Commissioners, and the effect of the appeal will be to take the case to a higher Court; and, then, whatever benefit I may have obtained in the lower Court will be taken away." That fact had produced very evil consequences in the minds of many of the tenants. But there was another, and a most disastrous, effect upon the tenants whose cases had been carried by appeal to the higher Court. The tenants who had gone into Court, and had then had the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners appealed against, found themselves obliged to pay the costs of two hearings—the trial before the Sub-Commissions in the first instance, and a second trial before the Land Court itself. Thus it had not un-frequently happened that a tenant, in the endeavour to obtain justice, had to pay the costs of two trials, and having expended money which he had not anticipated in his effort to procure a reduction of rent, found himself, when all was over, with his pockets quite cleaned out, and his rent very little improved from what it was before the Land Act passed. He (Mr. Sexton) thought there was a fundamental error in the course of the proceeding under that Act, because the Land Commissioners acted on the un-sworn evidence of the official valuator. Would the right hon. Gentleman say why that should be? The valuators for the tenants in the lower Court had to give their evidence on oath; and, as far as he knew, everybody who appeared in a Law Court, whether on the side of the landlord or of the tenant, had to verify and solemnize the evidence he gave by the sanction of an oath. That had been the practice from time immemorial. The Commissioners themselves, of all grades, from Justice O'Hagan himself down to the youngest Sub-Commissioner, had to take an oath upon entering into his office that he would do justice between the landlord on the one side and the tenant on the other. Under such circumstances, he (Mr. Sexton) thought he was entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to explain why this apparently sacred person, the official valuator, should be the only person in the whole hierarchy of the Land Commission in Ireland who was to be free from the obligation of subscribing an oath? The present practice in connection with applications to the Court to fix a fair rent was this—a certain rent was fixed by the Sub-Commissioners in the Court below. That rent was fixed on the evidence of men who were acquainted with the circumstances of the case, the nature of the holding, and the value of land in the district, men who, being residents in the locality, and persons of respectability, were experts as to the value of the land dealt with; and in every instance they gave their evidence on their oath. The Sub-Commissioners, who were also bound by oath, decided upon the sworn evidence laid before them, and they declared that a certain rent was the value of the farm or holding. And, then, what happened? The landlord appealed against the decision of the Sub-Commissioners, and a certain gentleman called the official valuator was sent down from Belfast or Cork, as the case might be, to the district in which the holding happened to be situated. This official person, at the very outset, failed to fulfil the first stipulation of the Act of Parliament, because the Act of Parliament said that the Court should have regard to all the circumstances of the case, of the holding, and the district; and this official valuator knew nothing about the holding or the district whatever. He was an exotic, who, knowing nothing of the circumstances of the district or the nature of the holding, paid the farm a flying visit, went hurriedly over it, and, returning to Dublin by the next train, gave evidence as to what the value of the holding was. It was upon the word of a gentleman who knew so little about the tenant or the farm that the Land Commissioners set aside the decision of three sworn Sub-Commissioners who had acted upon the sworn evidence of local experts, thoroughly acquainted with every peculiarity of the district, and the character of the holding they had valued. The entire proceeding was a most extraordinary contradiction of justice, and it was the most indefensible anomaly it was possible to conceive. Even if the official valuator were a gentleman of the highest character and reputation, who was not open to attack, the fact that his calculations were placed before the Court upon unsworn evidence would be objectionable; but the official valuators themselves were not above suspicion, and the attention of the House had been already called to the circumstances under which Mr. Charles Gray had been appointed. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to apply himself to the facts of that case, and inform the Committee how it was that Mr. Gray was ever appointed at all. He (Mr. Sexton) might name other gentlemen who had been appointed official valuators, whose nomination was equally objectionable; but he would not do so. Nevertheless, if the noble Lord of the Fairy Tales (Lord Brabourne) and other noble Lords, acting in concert with certain hon. Members of that House, deemed it their duty to attack the Sub-Commissioners from the landlords' point of view, he (Mr. Sexton) thought he was fully entitled to show, from the tenants' point of view, that persons who held official posts in connection with the Land Court possessed anything but an unblemished reputation. It had been pointed out that Mr. Charles Gray was altogether an Englishman, who on going to Ireland distinguished himself on his arrival by buying a townland in the county of Tipperary. Immediately he bought it he raised the rents upon the tenants, and sold it again at a very smart profit. That was a case of sharp practice—a piece of Shylockism indeed, which no landlord in Ireland of any pretension to character would dream of being guilty of. It was a gentleman of this kind, who had indulged in these proceedings, who had been selected by the Government of Ireland to be an official valuator to decide any points of difference between the landlord and the tenant, and to overturn by his unsworn testimony the evidence of sworn experts, thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the holding, and the circumstances of the locality. The gentleman in question—Mr. Charles Gray—was the man whose conduct led to a conflict between the police and the people in 1869, which occasioned the loss of several valuable lives and much misery. As the land agent of the Earl of Derby and Sir Stafford O'Brien, he distinguished himself by his rent-raisings and exactions. Indeed, the estate of the Earl of Derby, as administered by Mr. Charles Gray, was subject to the most oppressive, severe, and stringent measures ever known upon any estate in Ireland. He warned Her Majesty's Government that, if they carried out the appointment of official valuator in this reckless manner, it would be impossible to predict any brilliant career in the future for the Land Court. There was some reason to hope that a clear road was about to be opened for the admission of the general body of the tenantry of Ireland within the portals of the Land Court; and he trusted sincerely that the tenants, 'when they had entered the Court, would find nothing inside to discourage them, or to induce them to believe that they would derive no advantage from bringing their cases under the notice of the Court. In order to supplement the action of the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill, to give confidence to the tenantry in the Court, it was absolutely necessary that the Government should, appoint to such an important post as that of official valuator gentlemen who could be relied on to act impartially between landlord and tenant. He trusted that the Government would inquire into the appointment of Mr. Charles Gray; and it was not too much to expect that in any future appointment that had to be made in relation to the Land Commission, they would take the trouble to appoint gentlemen whose minds had not hitherto been biassed in favour of the landlords against the tenants. The least that could be expected was that any gentleman appointed to fill so important a post should act impartially between the two classes.

MR. BRODRICK

said, the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had travelled over a wide field, into which he (Mr. Brodrick) did not propose to follow the hon. Member. There were, however, one or two questions which he should like to lay before the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and to emphasize in an opposite direction. The hon. Member had called attention, as he had done on previous occasions, to the dilatory nature of the proceedings under the Irish Land Commission. The attention of the Chief Secretary for Ire- land had already been called to the feeling which extensively existed in Ireland, and which was not confined to any section or body of persons, that the Sub-Commissioners, owing to the haste with which they were called upon to complete their duties, found it impossible to bestow proper time and attention upon the cases submitted to them. That was a question which had been brought before him (Mr. Brodrick), as well as before other hon. Members of that House, not merely by landlords, but by the tenants also; and the Sub-Commissioners themselves, by the remarks they had made, showed that they felt the pressure of the hurry and haste to which they were goaded. It was most desirable, in his opinion, that the Government should consider whether they could not, by some means, moderate the pressure upon the working of the measure. The result of requiring the Sub-Commissioners to go over large tracts of country, in order to value them, in this hasty and precipitate manner, brought about the natural result mentioned by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton)—namely, general dissatisfaction with the working of the Act; and when the official valuer was sent down to report on the cases referred to the higher Court, the conclusion he arrived at was almost always different from that of the Sub-Commissioners themselves. It was no small task to impose upon the Sub-Commissioners, to go over some thousands of acres, and fix a fair rent in a space of time in which it was wholly impossible that they could devote proper attention to the subject. For his own part, he confessed that he would gladly welcome any step taken by Her Majesty's Government to lighten the duties of the Sub-Commissioners in this respect. With regard to the mere duties of valuation, he wished to say but one word. When the Land Bill was before the House last year, he (Mr. Brodrick) had called the attention of the Government to the necessity of appointing a body of efficient valuers. At present there was a great need for efficient valuers to act on the part of the Sub-Commissioners. At present there were objections taken both by the tenants and the landlords to the valuation conducted on the respective sides; and he ventured to point out to the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the number of valuers provided for in this Vote—namely, nine chief valuers and four minor valuers, was altogether insufficient for the discharge of the duties they would be required to perform under the claims made upon them by the 12 Sub-Commissions which were now at work throughout the country. Until satisfactory valuators were appointed, there would not be content on either side, and any steps taken in that direction would greatly facilitate the business of the Sub-Commissioners. Not only should the body of valuators be larger, but they should be men of the greatest experience in regard to the value of land. The Sub-Commissioners ought not to be required to trust to the valuation of the landlord's valuer on the one side, or of some other person appointed on the part of the tenant, who was nearly always a tenant himself, on the other. In the case of the tenant's valuator, he was generally a man connected with the Land League, or some association in connection with the non-payment of rent, or by some person who was shortly afterwards promoted to the post of Sub-Commissioner. He hoped, also, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would take into consideration the effect of the Court being so inadequately constituted as it was at present. It had led to appeals, numerous as they were, becoming increasingly numerous in that part of the country in which certain appointments had been made which had been frequently commented upon in that House. The right hon. Gentleman must not ignore the fact that the same cause of complaint came from both sides—from the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), who represented the tenants, and from the Conservative Benches, which represented the interests of the landlords; therefore, if the Government had any real wish that the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners, as decisions in the first instance, should be valid, and upon which both parties must depend, they must appoint more satisfactory valuators. While matters remained in their present position, the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners would fail to give contentment to either side, and they would continue to have these constant appeals. He would content himself with these remarks, and would-not enter into the controversial questions which had been raised by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton).

MR. PARNELL

said, that when the Sub-Commissioners commenced their labours last October, their decisions were not so unsatisfactory, or nearly so unsatisfactory, to the tenants as they had since become. He thought, if they asked anybody who was acquainted with the circumstances of the case, they would coincide in the statement he had just made; and they would tell the Committee that gradually, from that day to this, owing to various causes, but more especially to a judgment given in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath" in the Superior Courts of Dublin, the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners throughout Ireland had been daily creating more and more dissatisfaction amongst the tenants. They had heard, when the Land Court first commenced its operations, a good many expressions of dissatisfaction with the decisions from the Landlord Party in that House, and also in the House of Lords; but they had seen that, as months went by, the dissatisfaction of the Landlord Party and the House of Lords was gradually becoming less intense and sincere, and more of a pretence. Their complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction had not that air of reality about them which they had some eight or nine months ago. He attributed this to various causes. In the first place, to the judgment in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath;" and he proposed to refer to that matter now, because it was one of considerable importance, and very well worthy the attention and consideration of the Government between now and the next Session of Parliament. When the Land Act was being passed through the House of Commons, unfortunately Her Majesty's Government gave in so far to the representations of the landlords in that House, and afterwards to those which were made in "another place," as to provide an appeal on matters-of law to the Supreme Court of Dublin. The result was that when the case of "Adams v. Dunseath" was brought before the Supreme Court as a test case, it was found that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who had been principally instrumental in passing the Land Act through the House of Commons, and who was well known as a sound lawyer of great erudition and experience, was left in a minority of the Judges; and in two most important points the decision of the Supreme Court was given against the interests of the tenants, and in favour of the interests of the landlords. It was roughly calculated that the increase of rents, consequent upon the decisions in regard to these two points, amounted to fully 15 or 20 per cent. That was not the first time there had been dissatisfaction expressed at the working of the Act; but, in consequence of that decision, the dissatisfaction of the tenants with the adjudications of the Sub-Commissioners had become most alarming. The two points decided by the Supreme Court against the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and against the opinion of all the Judges who had been appointed by the present Liberal Administration, or by any Liberal Administration, were of a very important character. They had reference, in the first place, to the improvements of the tenants executed at any time whatever, either previous to the Act of 1870, or subsequent to it; and, secondly, they had reference to improvements executed by the tenant since 1870. As regarded improvements executed at any time within the statutory limitation provided by the Act, it was held by the majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court that the tenants, under the Improvement Clause of the Land Act, were only entitled to claim credit for the improvements so far as the actual cost of the improvements went, and were not entitled to claim credit for the exemption of rent as regarded the value added to the land by them. Now, it would at once be evident to the Committee that this was a very important matter. A practical farmer, when he went to work to make an improvement upon his farm, expended something besides his capital—he expended his experience and his time—the experience and knowledge that he had gained with regard to the cultivation of his holding over a long series of years, and the experience which he had gained, of course, in his occupation as a farmer. Consequently, it happened that he would naturally expect—any farmer would expect—that he would be deemed to be entitled to benefit by those improvements more than the 5 per cent interest which might be supposed to be the strict commercial return for the expenditure in the actual cost of the improvements. A farmer, by his skill and by his enterprize, might lay out upon his holding £100, and make it worth £50 a-year more; yet, according to the judgment of the Supreme Court, in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath," that farmer was only to be credited with a reduction of his rent by £5 a-year, being the ordinary rate of interest upon the £100 he had laid out, and which he would have received from any other investment of his money, without any trouble on his part. He (Mr. Parnell), and many others, thought that that was not a fair construction of the Land Act, and that it was a point well worthy of the serious consideration of the Government before next Session, in order that they might carry out the intentions of the Legislature, which appeared to have been, if any conclusion was to be formed from the judgment of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who was mainly instrumental in passing the Land Act through the House of Commons, that the tenant should, to some extent at all events, receive an adequate share of the increased value of the holding arising out of the improvements he had effected, and that he should not be held to be compensated for his improvements by receiving the ordinary rate of interest on the capital he had expended. Let them take the converse case. Suppose a farmer expended £100 upon a farm with the object of effecting improvements, but that the result, instead of increasing the value of the holding, was a total loss—in such a case the tenant was not even allowed interest upon his outlay; he was allowed nothing whatever. In fact, the result of the decision of the Supreme Court, with respect to the tenant's improvements, was that the landlord would say, "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." No matter in what direction the coin turned, the landlord was sure to be a disproportionate gainer. In point of fact, the landlord would reap where he had not sown; whereas the tenant, who ran all the risk of the investment turning out badly, had not the ordinary privilege which appertained to skilled investors, in investments even of a doubtful character, of gaining the full extent of the value of his exertions in the event of the investment turning out well and profitable. The next point to which he wished to direct the attention of the Committee was also one of importance, and it related to improvements executed since 1850. He found, upon reference to the judgment of the Supreme Court, that these improvements, owing to the effect of an Amendment inserted by the House of Lords in the Act of last year, at the last moment, the Court was obliged to hold that the tenant might be compensated for those improvements by length of enjoyment. This interpretation, which had been placed upon the Act by the Supreme Court, was also arrived at against the opinion of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and the minority of the Judges; and, as he had said, it was entirely in consequence of an Amendment inserted in the Land Bill by the House of Lords while it was passing through Parliament. This decision had done more, almost, than anything else to deprive the tenants of Ireland of that confidence in the Act which they were beginning to entertain, up to the date of the judgment in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath." Personally, he (Mr. Parnell) was of opinion that the tenant should be entitled to reap the benefit of his improvements, however long he might have enjoyed them; that he should be entitled to receive a fair reduction of rent upon those improvements executed by himself, or by his predecessors in title, provided that such improvements had added to the value of the farm. None of the increased value should go to the landlord, but simply to the man who made them, either by the strength of his brains, or by the money he laid out. There was another matter to which he also wished to advert, and which, in his opinion, had done very much to take away the confidence of the Irish tenants in the Land Act, and which, although it might not immediately result in bad effects any more than the judgment in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath," might immediately result in bad effects, because he admitted that, owing to a rise in the prices of agricultural produce in Ireland, many of the Irish farmers might be willing to go on paying rack rents, and would not be pulled down by the operation of the Land Act for a few years longer, any more than by the operation of the Coercion Act they were to be coerced into doing certain things—he submitted that it was the part of a statesman to look ahead. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was one who had probably a long lease of political life before him, and he might not wish to limit his views by a consideration of what might be tolerated for two, three, or four years to come. He (Mr. Parnell) wished, therefore, to tell the right hon. Gentleman that although this Land Act of 1881, taken in conjunction with the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill, and in conjunction with the Coercion Act, might bring about a state of quietude in Ireland for a few years to come, yet if it was not immediately and permanently amended in the direction he (Mr. Parnell) had indicated that night, and in other directions to which time did not permit him to allude; if the right hon. Gentleman happened to hold the position of Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the commencement of the next cycle of bad seasons, would find himself confronted by the same difficulties with which his Predecessor had had to contend. He (Mr. Parnell) thought the wise statesman and the prudent politician would do well to look ahead in this matter. They ought not to wait until they were compelled to introduce fresh legislation. One of the great mistakes of English dealing with Ireland had been that the Imperial Parliament had never done anything for Ireland to remedy the admitted and crying wants and necessities of the people, until they were almost practically compelled to do it. That had been the lesson taught to the Irish people from time immemorial. Even in the days of the old Irish Parliament, it required almost a revolution to get a grievance corrected. And so it had been since the Union. Every single concession the Irish people ever gained had been the result of agitation, almost bordering upon rebellion; and he would entreat the Government, now that quietude had been to a great extent restored in Ireland, to study the question of the permanent amendment of the Land Act, and to see how far the necessities of justice and rectitude required a further extension of those principles in the land legislation of the country. If Her Majesty's Government would only show that they were conscious that the results of the toil of the poor man should be his and his children's—that they belonged to him only and to those who might come after him, and not to the landlord—if they went further, and enacted legislation of that character, he believed their exertions would be rewarded by a greater desire on the part of the Irish people to admit that, at all events, they had attempted from the best motives, and a genuine desire to do justice, to remedy the grievances under which the Irish people had laboured for so many years.

MR. LEWIS

said, that on various occasions, and in various ways, since the passing of the Land Act of 1881, the question had frequently been raised as to the amount of confidence which the public, and especially the landlords, in Ireland, might be called on to repose in the Commissioners appointed to adjudicate under the Land Act. He (Mr. Lewis) had ventured, himself, on one or two occasions, to make remarks on some of the appointments of the Sub-Commissioners; and he felt bound to say that the experience he had gained in reference to the class of persons selected, and their history and antecedents, induced him to believe that the landowning class had very small grounds indeed for reposing confidence in the administration of the Act at their hands. But, as a matter of fact, that was the first occasion on which the House of Commons had had an opportunity of taking in review the whole scope of the appointments to the Land Commission. He believed that many of the appointments were far from satisfactory. It was quite true that before the Land Act passed the Government inserted in it the names of the gentlemen who were to be appointed Chief Commissioners; but he need not say that the time which elapsed after the nomination of the Commissioners and the passing of the Act was so short, that it was impossible to trace with accuracy the history of these gentlemen, and the claims which they possessed to the confidence of the public. The House was told by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, on the occasion of inserting the names of the Commissioners in the Bill, that one of the chief—in point of fact, the chief title to the confidence of the public in nominating the gentlemen who were to administer the Land Act, was to nominate persons who would be imbued with the spirit of the Act. It would be impossible, they were told, under other circumstances, to confide in the proper working of the Act. There was another qualification—namely, loyalty to the State, because men placed in such a position might be able to do an immense amount of damage, and to set a very bad example. He wanted to read to the Committee a poem which had been written by one of those gentlemen. ["Oh, oh!"] He would not trouble the Committee at any length, but would only read two or three verses. The title of the poem was "The Union," and he would read the first verse. [Cries of "Order!"] He was dealing with the question whether the gentlemen who had been appointed Commissioners to administer an Act of Parliament, and who were the express subject of this Vote, were persons who were entitled to the confidence of the public; and he maintained, subject to the correction of the Chairman, that that was a subject which was perfectly regular, and altogether germane to the question now before the Committee. The poem was entitled "The Union," and this was the first verse— How did they pass the Union? By perjury and fraud; By slaves who sold their land for gold, As Judas sold his God. By all the savage acts that yet Have followed England's track; By pitch cap and the bayonet, The gibbet and the rack. And thus was passed the Union, By Pitt and Castlereagh; Could Satan send for such an end, More worthy tools than they? He did not propose to read the whole poem; but he would afford every hon. Member the opportunity of reading it. The second verse ended thus— Then curse with me the Union; That juggle foul and base; The baneful root that bears such fruit Of ruin and disgrace. The last verse ended thus— Then rend the cursed Union And fling it to the wind; And Irish laws, in Ireland's cause, Alone our hearts shall bind. [Cheers from the Home Rule Members.] He fully understood those cheers; but when he recollected that they had been told, both inside and outside that House, times without number, that the landowning class were what was called the English garrison, he thought the application of this charming ditty, or whatever else it might be called, to the subject in hand, was very great.

An hon. MEMBER asked, what was the date of the verses the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis) had read?

MR. LEWIS

said, he would come to the date in a moment. In the first place, he wished to inform the Committee that the verses were the production of the Chief Commissioner. It was a poem written by a gentleman who had been appointed by Her Majesty's Government to preside over a Commission which was to arbitrate between landlord and tenant, and which was expected to obtain and retain the confidence of the people of all classes among whom they were to work, and with whose property they had to deal. When he (Mr. Lewis) had this book, which could be bought both in Dublin and London, placed in his hands, he saw at once, on looking at it, that it was not printed now for the first time, but that it was a republication issued in 1881. He had thought that it would not be fair towards Mr. Justice O'Hagan to quote it without communicating with him, and he was able to state with great accuracy what passed between Mr. Justice O'Hagan and himself. He had drawn the attention of the learned Judge to the republication last year of the poem, which was originally written under a fictitious name, and Mr. Justice O'Hagan admitted that the name in question was a nom de plume which he had borne, but said that the lines had been put aside for some time, although the original publication was undoubtedly his. He (Mr. Lewis) was quite aware that the lines were written many years ago; but what he desired to call attention to was their recent republication. On receiving this communication from the author, he wrote again to him, calling attention to the fact that the poem was now being republished, and that it was extensively advertised in the Dublin newspapers as being the production of Mr. Justice O'Hagan, the Chief Commissioner of the Land Court; and, he added— It remains with you, Sir, if you think proper, to take any course you think right with reference to this republication. Mr. Justice O'Hagan wrote a letter in reply, stating that he had nothing further to say on the subject. He (Mr. Lewis) would appeal to the Committee whether, in point of fact, a gentleman dealing with the republication of a work in that way was not republishing it himself? He confidently appealed to the Committee, and, through the Committee, to those outside the House, whether a gentleman who could commit himself in reference to the Union between England and Ireland in that way, who saw no cause whatever for repudiating in his riper years what might probably have been merely his youthful aspirations and views, but who, in that way, did what was equivalent to acknowledging the same views now, was a proper man to place at the head of the Land Commission for the purpose of presiding over the Court which was to discharge these important functions? They had been told over and over again that these Commissioners were in the position of arbiters between the land-owning class and the land-occupying class; and he would ask anybody what opinion and impression he could form, when he found a gentleman who had such a profound detestation of the Union under which he lived, as to write, and not to express his disapproval of the republication of such a production as that which he had read to the Committee, had been placed by the Government at the head of the Land Commission? What had been the result of the appointments which had been made? It was that there had prevailed among those, or, at all events, among one class of those who had been subjected to the decisions of the Court, a widely-spread want of confidence, which had created much heartburning, constant bickerings, and much apprehension as to the future effect upon the preservation of law and order of the working of the Act. At all events, he was entitled to say upon this occasion that the Government had been signally unfortunate in many of the appointments they had made. He had no hesitation in taking up the challenge given to him on a former occasion with reference to the appointments made during the election of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland. He was not going to repeat the statements which had been made; but he referred to them simply for the purpose of saying that they had been abundantly proved. Mr. Cunningham was a constituent of his own, and it was stated over and over again that he had no business relations with the particular district round Derry in which he was called upon to perform the duties of a Sub-Commissioner. But it was perfectly well known that he had dealings with the retail tradesmen in the very district in which he was called on to act as a Judge. Another gentleman, a barrister on the North-Western Dis- trict, was only temporarily withdrawn from the district in which he conducted his practice, and he relied upon his position as a barrister unattached, although he was very much attached to the district, and was likely to resume his duties on Circuit immediately his duties as a Sub-Commissioner ceased. When he saw such cases, it was not at all surprising, when they were called upon, as they had been, to entrust large discretionary powers to the Sub-Commissioners' Court, that they should express the want of confidence in that Court, which prevailed all along the line. Personally, he strongly objected to any proposal which would place unfettered discretion in the hands of the Sub-Commissioners. It was not his intention further to detain the Committee on the present occasion; but this was the very first opportunity they had had collectively of dealing with the Comsioners and the Sub-Commissioners appointed to act under the Land Commission. He thought that everyone—at all events those who were directly interested in the preservation of the Union between Great Britain and Ireland—would very much regret to find that the gentleman who had been placed at the head of the Land Commission, who had published such strong views in regard to the Union when young, was not prepared to disown them now that he was an older man, but who seemed to be disposed, notwithstanding the high and responsible position he filled, to stand by the violent and intemperate language he (Mr. Lewis) had ventured to quote.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, he must say that the right of discussing the Estimates had, in the speech to which the Committee had just listened, culminated in very serious abuse. The hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis) had spoken at some length of the antecedents of an eminent Irish Judge. He (Mr. Trevelyan) could find a good deal to take exception to in the remarks of the hon. Gentleman. In the first place, the salary of the eminent man the hon. Gentleman had been commenting upon did not appear in this Estimate; and, therefore, how the Business of the Committee of this deliberative Assembly was to be conducted regularly and orderly, if such speeches were to be permitted, he could not conceive. Since these remarks had been made, he (Mr. Tre- velyan) must protest against them in the name of every one who took part in Public Business. Having, early in life, courted the Muses, he must protest against the idea of fixing upon a grave Judge of 58 the responsibilities—he would not say so much as the principles, but the literary merit of lines which he wrote when 22 or 23. Eminent Members of the Conservative Party—men whom the Conservatives might be proud to number in their ranks—such as Wordsworth and Southey, when of the same age as Judge O'Hagan when he wrote these lines, wrote works which were of the same character in political thought as that from which the hon. Member had read. It really would shortly come to this—that the hon. Gentleman would get up and taunt any Members of the Committee who had been in public schools or College with being pagans, because, in youth, they had written Sapphics and Alcaics in praise of Venus and Minerva. He preferred to discuss these Estimates in the same business-like way that Estimates ought to be discussed; and, therefore, he should confine himself to the few practical remarks which had interspersed the somewhat discursive discussion the Committee had just listened to. He might begin by regretting that the incomes of the Land Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners were not, as the incomes of Judicial Commissioners, a charge on the Consolidated Fund, because it was certainly a very unfortunate thing that so very many occasions were given and taken in this House for discussing the decisions of a tribunal which, after all, was a judicial tribunal. At any rate, the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners had no reason to regret the discussion of this evening, because he should say, as a general rule, that a tribunal which did not give complete satisfaction to either Party must, on the whole, be a tolerably impartial tribunal. It must be pretty evident to those who had listened to the discussion that night that the decisions of the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners did not give entire satisfaction, either to the hon. Gentlemen sitting below the opposite Gangway, or to the hon. Gentlemen who sat above the opposite Gangway. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) told them, as far as he (Mr. Trevelyan) could make out, that the particular epoch when the dissatisfaction of the tenants with the decisions of the Land Commissioners began to be most marked was coincident with the time that the dissatisfaction of the landlords with the decisions of the Commissioners began. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had made one or two practical observations on the proceedings of the Sub - Commissioners. The hon. Member asked why he could not have a Return published giving, not only the Government valuation, not only the former rent, not only the judicial rent, but likewise the values which were given both by the landlords' valuators and the tenants' valuators of the holdings? Now, what were the values of the landlords' valuators and the tenants' valuators? They were nothing more nor less than ex parte evidence and he (Mr. Trevelyan) could not think that a Return, laid on the Table of this House, and published under the order of the Chair, should contain ex parte evidence. The hon. Baronet the Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce) pressed him (Mr. Trevelyan) very much, and with some show of reason, to give a Return of the values of the Government paid valuator; but when that question was referred to the Land Commission, they objected to give the Return, on the ground that evidence might be brought that these valuations only applied to the actual value of the land, apart from certain questions of improvements which had been subsequently made in the land, and apart from the evidence which was brought forward on both sides. For that reason, the Government could not give the values of the Government paid valuator; and if they could not give those valuations—and he had never heard hon. Members below the opposite Gangway object to the decision which the Land Commission came to on the question—how much less could they give ex parte valuations of the landlords' valuators and the tenants' valuators? The hon. Member (Mr. Sexton) went on to explain that the Government valuator was not sworn, and said that it was contrary to the Act of Parliament. But under Sub-section 4 of the 48th section of the Land Act, it was laid down clearly and decidedly that in determining any question relating to holdings the Commission might direct an independent valuator to report to it his opinion on any matter the Commission might desire to refer to such valuator; and there was not a word in that sub-section, from first to last, which implied that the evidence must be given upon oath. He would pass on now to the question which seemed to him to be much more of an administrative nature, and to come much more within the scope of the debate, and that was the question with regard to the rapidity, or the opposite to rapidity, with which the proceedings of the Land Commission were carried on. On that point, he gathered, there was no divergence between the two Parties. He concluded that the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis) felt exactly the same as the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) on that point, and he supposed all hon. Gentlemen desired the proceedings under the Act should be quickened as much as possible. He had been asked a definite question, and it was necessary to give it an answer. Up to the end of June, the Land Commission and the Civil Bill Courts, between them, had disposed of about 21,700 cases. [Mr. HEALY asked if that included voluntary arrangements?] It included every case; 21,700 cases had been disposed of up to the end of. June, and something over 5,000 cases—he was now quoting from memory—were disposed of in the month of July, so that something like 27,000 cases had been disposed of by the Land Commission in all its branches. But the hon. Member was unwilling to take into consideration anything except fair rents that had been fixed by the Commission. Now, the number of fair rents fixed from November to the end of April was 4,023. There were some originating agreements which he (Mr. Trevelyan) considered himself to have as equal authority as fair rents. In May, 2,350 fair rents were fixed; in June, 2,287; and in July, 2,363. In all, in three months 8,000 fair rents had been fixed, so that, in the first six months that the Land Commission sat, 4,000 fair rents were fixed, whereas in the last three months, 8,000 were fixed—that was to say, the case of the Land Commission had improved by about four to one, the number of Sub-Commissions during the latter part of that period being, he supposed, about 17, as against 12 in the first six months. Now, that increase in rapidity was satis- factory as far as. it went; but it was needless to say that if hon. Members, whose interest in the matter was only that of Representatives, and he might say of loyal Irishmen—if they felt rather anxious about the comparative slowness with which this work was being done—it was needless to say that the Government, who were responsible for the peace of Ireland and for the prosperity of Ireland, were specially anxious to quicken the work of the Commission. Nothing could be more remarkable than the manner in which the peace and prosperity were connected with the settlement of cases by the Land Commission, whether by means of the judgment of the Commissioners in fixing fair rents, or by means of originating agreements, or by private settlement between landlord and tenant. Well, the Government, being impressed with that view, had already turned their attention to the best means for quickening the action of the Land Commission, and already their schemes were to a certain extent matured, and during the Recess the attention of the Irish Government and of the Land Commission would be earnestly directed to bring those schemes to maturity, and to practical determination.

MR. HEALY

asked if the right hon. Gentleman would give the proportion of settlements in each Province?

MR. TREVELYAN

said, he had not got such a statement with him. He did not know the deduction which the hon. Member would draw from such a statement; but he could tell the hon. Member one other point which had given the Irish Government great hope, and that was that yesterday a Return came in with reference to the payment of rent in Ireland. On that point they had Returns from the Resident Magistrates in 24 counties. In 20 of those counties rents were being paid in a manner which, he ventured to say, would arouse envy in the hearts of a Wiltshire or Warwickshire squire. The accounts from one county—Cork—were dubious. There were only three counties in which the rents were represented as decidedly badly paid, and these counties were those which had been lately desolated by distress—namely, Galway, Mayo, and Kerry. In 20 out of the 24 counties rents were being well paid, and to preserve that state of things, and to secure peace and order in Ireland, hon. Mem- bers might be sure that it would be the first care of the Government.

MR. COURTNEY

said, it was necessary that he should move to report Progress, in order that the Committee appointed earlier in the evening might present their Reasons for disagreeing with the Lords Amendments to the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Courtney,)—put, and agreed to.

House resumed.

The Chairman reported Progress; to sit again immediately.