SETTLEMENT OF ARREARS OF RENT. (Hansard, 10 July 1882)

HC Deb 10 July 1882 vol 271 cc1972-2058 1972

§ Clause 1 (Settlement by Land Commission of arrears of rent).

1973

§ MR. TOTTENHAM moved, in page 1, line 7, after "holding," insert, "or two or more holdings held by the same tenant." He said he believed it would not be necessary to press his Amendment.

MR. GLADSTONE
said, there could be no doubt that the clause as it stood would apply to two or more holdings as well as to a single holding.

§ MR. TOTTENHAM
said, after that assurance from the Prime Minister he should be satisfied, and would not press the Amendment.

§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 7, after the word "holding," to insert the words, "or two or more holdings held by the same tenant."—(Mr. Tottenham.)

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

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, that that was the intention of the Bill, except in cases which were explained subsequently.

§ MR. HEALY
said, he entertained a very strong objection to the acceptance of the Amendment. It frequently happened that a tenant had a holding under £30 valuation, which would bring him within the meaning of the clause; and it was only reasonable where a tenant had two holdings, one of which was in the character of a house and not of an agricultural holding, that he should be enabled to come within the terms of the Act. It would be too bad to cut off a tenant from the benefit of the provisions of the Bill under such circumstances; and he would ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether, in his view, if a tenant had a holding that was not of an agricultural character, say a house in Dublin or anywhere else, or a tenement such as a house or stable, it was intended, if that brought him above the value mentioned in the clause, he should not be entitled to the benefit of the Act? He thought it would be an exceedingly inconvenient thing for the Government to accept an Amendment of this character, and therefore he would ask the Irish Law Officers if it was intended to provide that the second and subsidiary holding should be also of an agricultural character, and not merely a holding of which the man was tenant?

1974

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, that was the intention of the clause.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ MR. TOTTENHAM moved, in page 1, line 10, to leave out "thirty," and insert "fifteen." He said the object of the Amendment was to reduce the value of the holdings which would come within the operation of the clause from £30 to £15. He had taken that sum of £15 from the limit at which it was proposed to put the relief under the Seeds Act of 1880. Under that Act it was considered that a valuation of £15 was sufficiently high, and, that being so, he did not see why the same limit should not be observed in this case. He could not find that any Member of the Government who were then in Opposition joined in the discussion, either upon the second reading of that Bill, or in Committee upon it; and he, therefore, took it that they gave a silent assent to that being a proper limit. If it was considered necessary in 1880, after a succession of bad harvests, to put a limit of £15 upon the value of the holdings to be entitled to relief, he thought it was even more necessary to retain that limit in the present case after two of the best harvests which had been obtained in Ireland for many years. Under those circumstances, he thought the Committee could not do better than adopt the limit fixed by the Seeds Act of 1880.

§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 10. to leave out the word "thirty," and insert the word "fifteen."—(Mr. Tottenham.)

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

MR. GLADSTONE
said, there had been a considerable difference of opinion expressed as to the limit of the operation of the clause, and as to whether the limit of £30 which the Government had chosen was on the whole the best. He was, therefore, not surprised at the objection raised by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Tottenham), and it would be very difficult to define any strict principle upon which Parliament should act. At the same time, he did not think that the question involved came under the precedent cited by the hon. Member. The object of the Relief Act, to which the 1975 hon. Member referred, was purely an eleemosynary one, being nothing in the world but a gift of money for the relief of certain persons. Now, this gift was by no means an eleemosynary proceeding, but was more in the nature of an act of policy. In his opinion, it would be a very great boon to many landlords in Ireland as well as to the tenants; and he did not intend, therefore, to view it as an eleemosynary gift, and, consequently, he could not accept the proposal of the hon. Gentleman. The precedent pointed out by the hon. Gentleman in the Act of 1880 did not apply, and he was reminded by his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General that there was a precedent which was more applicable in the Act of 1881. They had taken the same limit as that inserted in the Act of 1881, because they considered it as the most fair to be taken as the standard in the present Bill. The whole matter of interference with arrears by means of public funds was a most grave and serious one. Many objections might be urged to it, and it was only commanding considerations that could overrule those objections. It was one of those things which, if they were to do it at all, they had better do not only equitably, but effectually, so as to remove the whole evil out of the way. He could not, therefore, accept the Amendment of the hon. Member.

§ MR. P. MARTIN
pointed out that a great number of tenants would be excluded by keeping the limit to £30, and he was glad to hear that the Government were prepared to reject any attempt to reduce it to £15. Many tenants would feel a well-founded discontent when, in consequence of the limit adopted, they were deprived of all assistance. The distress and want of means of too many of those above the £30 limit were facts well known to all resident in Ireland. If it was determined not to extend the principle of gift, why should not loans on easy terms be granted to the excluded tenants? He trusted for some favourable expression of intention in this direction from the Government.

MR. GLADSTONE
remarked that, although the Government had been in some doubt as to selecting a hard and exact figure, he was bound to say that they could not accede to any proposal for extending the principle of gift by an alteration upwards. He thought that 1976 would be a very great objection indeed. They had preferred to take their own precedent afforded by the Act of last year, and he could not accede to any policy of extending it upwards. At the same time, in regard to loans, it was a question to be considered whether the machinery of the Act of last year might not be made applicable to a higher assessment.

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
said, that was exactly the point upon which he had been about to make an observation; but it was unnecessary now that he should trouble the Committee, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman had indicated that the question of granting loans to tenants upon higher assessments would be favourably considered.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, he thought it would be an advantage for the Committee to be made acquainted, without loss of time, with the views of the Government on the important points which had been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that there might be a further demand upon the Exchequer in respect of loans in addition to the probable demand upon the Public Exchequer involved in the proposal now before the Committee. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Government were prepared to consider a further demand in respect of loans with regard to holdings exceeding the limit laid down by the Bill. He took that to be the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, who would correct him if he were wrong. He thought the Committee was scarcely in a condition to consider and discuss the Bill as it stood now, unless they were made aware of what the ultimate demands on the National Exchequer would be. He therefore hoped the right hon. Gentleman would avail himself of the earliest opportunity of stating the intentions of the Government in that respect, so that the taxpayers of the country might clearly understand whether they were hereafter to be called upon to advance money under the colourable designation of a loan in addition to a gift. If that were so, the sooner they were informed of the fact the better.

§ MR. M'COAN
would ask the right hon. Gentleman to suspend his judgment on the point, and to hold his answer over for the present, seeing that he (Mr. M'Coan) had an Amendment further on 1977 which distinctly raised the question. He proposed to ask the Government to lend money to tenants whose holdings were valued at between £30 and £50 upon a small scale of interest.

§ COLONEL BARNE,
as a Representative of English taxpayers, expressed his regret that the Prime Minister would not accept the Amendment. The English taxpayers would be called upon to put their hands into their pockets in order to pay this gift; and if the limit were placed. at£15, instead of £30, they would be required to put their hands less into their pockets than they would be under the clause as it stood. It was quite evident that a farmer paying £30 a-year must be farming a considerable number of acres. They all knew it took £10 an acre, at least, for the farmer to stock the land, and, therefore, a man paying £30 a-year must be the possessor of at least £300; and he did not think a man who had £300 ought to receive assistance from the English taxpayers. He was, therefore, sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had not accepted the Amendment.

§ Question put, and agreed to.

§ MR. SYNAN
said, that in the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) he would move the Amendment which stood in his hon. Friend's name, and which proposed, after "year," to insert— Or, in case it can be proved to the satisfaction of the Irish Land Commission that a holding valued over thirty pounds has been held, at the time of the passing of this Bill, by two or more tenants, whose separate portions are under the said value of thirty pounds, though not separately valued in the rate book. The object of the Amendment was to provide that a holding of upwards of £30 in value which for some years might have been in the hands of two or more tenants, instead of one single tenant, should be entitled to be regarded as a separate tenancy. Each separate tenancy of less value than £30 would be entitled to the benefit of the clause, and this proposal was to the effect that where such a separate tenancy should have been divided into two holdings, and to all intents and purposes was one holding, but owing to negligence had not a separate value given to it, it should come within the meaning of the Act. Unless the Act was made to apply to such ten- 1978 ancies, a great injustice would be done, because in most cases the default would only have arisen from negligence or omission. The Commissioners would be able to inquire into all such cases, and see whether they were bonâ fide holdings or not. He hoped Her Majesty's Government would accept the Amendment, seeing that the Commissioners would have a complete control of the ease, and would not put any tenancy down as a holding unless they believed it actually to be one.

§ Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 10, after the word "year," to insert the words "or, in case it can be proved to the satisfaction of the Irish Land Commission that a holding valued over thirty pounds has been held, at the time of the passing of this Bill, by two or more tenants, whose separate portions are under the said value of thirty pounds, though not separately valued in the rate book."—(Mr. Syrian.)

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

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, it was impossible for the Government to accept the Amendment, and for this reason. The Amendment contemplated holdings over the value of £30, and, therefore, would include any holdings of whatever amount, very many of which were without the scope of the Bill. In point of fact, the Amendment as it stood would apply to holdings of an undefined value, and there was no reason why a holding of £1,000 should not be brought under the Bill.

§ MR. SYNAN
said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had misconstrued the Amendment.

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
remarked that the terms of the Amendment were these— In case it can be proved to the satisfaction of the Irish Land Commission that a holding valued over thirty pounds has been held, at the time of the passing of this Bill, by two or more tenants, whose separate portions are under the said value of thirty pounds, though not separately valued in the rate book. It was impossible for a moment to accept an Amendment of that kind, as they had already provided that the holdings dealt with should not be above the value of £30. If two tenants held a holding between them which was not valued at over £30, then both of those tenants would constitute one tenant, and 1979 would be entitled to relief under the Act if the holding were sub-divided.

§ MR. GIVAN
approved of the Amendment. It might so happen that a farmer, having two sons, had sub-divided his farm in. equal proportions. They would hold under the father's title, or some other title, and yet the landlord might never have recognized the severance of the holding. The consequence of that omission would be to make it one holding, although the two tenants would be holding the land for all purposes in severalty. And so it might continue for several years, although the tenants might have adverse interests and adverse titles. Nevertheless, to all intents, the landlord might treat it as only one holding. Therefore, he thought the clause ought to be applied to a case of that kind, and that no matter whether the holding was held as one holding, if it were practically divided between two or more tenants, and each of those tenants farmed a holding of less than £30 in value, he should have the benefit of the Bill. He believed the effect of the clause as it stood would undoubtedly be to exclude from the benefit of the Act a considerable number of tenants to whom it ought to apply, and he therefore trusted that the Amendment, or some similar Amendment, would be accepted by the Government. He wished to remind the Government that the same principle was already applied to the franchise.

§ MR. HEALY
said, he thought the Attorney General for Ireland had forgotten the fact that the Commission would have ample means of ascertaining what the nature of the holding was. Personally, he could not understand upon what grounds the right hon. and learned Gentleman based his objection to the Amendment. No matter whether the holding was held by one ground landlord or not, two persons might have worked it for 30 years separately, and have paid the rent separately, and on account of some laches, not of their own, but of somebody else, they were to be shut out from the benefit of the Act. It might be that the fault rested entirely on the part of the poor rate collector. As the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan) truly pointed out, for the purpose of the franchise the law recognized the right of these people to separate votes. He ventured to think that 1980 the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had not seriously considered the point, and, if so, he trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman would give a distinct assurance to the Committee that he would do so before the Report stage of the Bill was reached, and that he would be prepared to make some proposal in the matter. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must know that the will of the tenant was not always executed; and, that being so, because there had been some technical default or other, it would be unfair to shut out two men from the benefit of the Act. He hoped the Government would make a concession upon the point.

§ MR. MOORE
said, he thought the Attorney General for Ireland hardly understood the real nature of the case. It was a common thing in Ireland for two farmers to live side by side on two farms which were practically co-terminous; but the holding had nevertheless been divided, owing to the easygoing agreement under which it was held, or, perhaps, from a disinclination on the part of the landlord to acknowledge a sub-division. The result was that each part, being under £30 value, ought to be separately valued; and they were actually held by the very class of persons for whose benefit the Government had brought in the Bill. This was a very common occurrence in Ireland, and he thought it desirable to make some provision for it in the Bill.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, he believed there were two distinct classes of cases which would come within the words of the Amendment. One of them was the cases in which the sub-division had been made with the consent of the landlord, and the other was the cases in which it was unauthorized. He was prepared substantially to accept the Amendment if those cases were excluded in which the sub-division had been unauthorized by the landlord. There must be two or more distinct holdings, although they might not be separated in the rate-book. The words of the Amendment were not satisfactory; but on the Report he would bring up a clause to give effect to the intentions of the hon. Gentleman.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
understood the right hon. Gentleman to state that the Government was prepared to accept the 1981 principle of this provision in cases in which the landlord and tenant agreed to a sub-division.

§ MR. CHILDERS
In cases in which they have agreed.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
understood the right hon. Gentleman to say in cases in which the landlord and tenant had agreed that the holding, though actually one, had been virtually divided into two. Was that the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman? [Mr. CHILDERS assented.] That would clearly open the Bill to a larger number of cases than that to which, it was now confined.

§ MR. CHILDERS
wished to point out that it would not apply to cases in which the landlord and tenant might hereafter agree, but only to cases in which they had already agreed.

§ MR. HEALY
And where the rent has been paid separately?

§ MR. CHILDERS
Yes; where the rent has hitherto been paid by two persons.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, it would not be necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to go into recent history, or he would find it difficult to draw up a list in which the rent had been paid at all. He thought he had noticed in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman some confusion between sub-division and joint tenancies. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the sub-division which it was the policy of the State to discourage. Of course, a sub-division was hardly involved in the Amendment. The Amendment spoke rather of joint tenants, although it did not specify that in distinct terms. It rather spoke of the same holding, and not of a sub-division of a holding which might be sub-divided, as was constantly the case unfortunately in Ireland, and two or more persons had a distinct portion of one holding divided between them. He thought the Amendment pointed to a case of that kind, and he would ask the right hon. Gentleman how he was to find out what number of tenants there had been upon a holding, or how many persons were legally liable to pay the rent? He thought the Committee ought to understand, before they adopted the suggestion of the Government, whether the right hon. Gentleman meant by two or more persons, persons severally responsible to the landlord for their rent. Of course, if that was meant, then it would 1982 be a much smaller matter than if the suggestion were taken in a more general sense.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, he had already intimated that the words of the Amendment were not satisfactory, and that on the Report he would bring up a clause to give effect to the intentions of the hon. Member for Limerick County (Mr. Synan).

§ MR. SYNAN
said, that if the right hon. Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) had listened to his observations, he would have found what the Amendment really meant. Although the Amendment was a general Amendment, he had confined his observations to cases where the holding, which was substantially a separate holding, had by reason of an omission not been separately valued.

§ MR. PARNELL
remarked, that, before the Amendment was withdrawn, he should like to draw the attention of the Government to an important question which might be raised in the working of the Bill, and which was referred to in an Amendment standing higher up on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham). It happened frequently in Ireland that a tenant held one separate holding, and was a joint tenant for commonage. He wished to know if the Government were not of opinion that by the adoption of the Amendment which stood in the name of the hon. Member for Leitrim, two or more holdings held by the same tenant would not apply to separate holdings of this character, and so rule a tenant out of the Bill on the ground that he held a farm of a larger value than £30 a-year, although the holding of a larger value was held in common with other tenants? He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would deem it necessary to make some observation upon that point before the Bill reached the Report stage, or otherwise there might be a large number of small tenants with holdings under £30 in value, who would be exempted from the operation of the Act owing to holding a grazing tract exceeding that value in common with other tenants.

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, that question would not arise. The grazing right of a tenant would not be valued at all.

1983

§ MR. GIVAN
asked if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would consider whether the particular tenants referred to by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) might not be valued for a dwelling which they might hold in common with 20 other tenants?

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, he did not think that a case of that kind could occur; but he would consider the matter before the Report. A tenant's commonable right would not be valued.

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
said, he wished to have the case distinctly cleared up. He understood the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) in a totally different sense from that which appeared to be understood by the Attorney General for Ireland. As he understood the hon. Member for the City of Cork, he desired to know whether a tenant, having a house and farm valued at £8 or £10, but also possessing rights over a tract of grazing land rated at a much more considerable sum, bringing him up higher than £30 in value, would still be included within the provisions of the Bill? He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) wanted to know if the two holdings together were to be counted, or whether the tenant who had grazing rights elsewhere, for which he paid a considerable sum, was to be allowed to come under the Bill, because he was in possession of a house and land, separated from the grazing rights, the value of which was only £10?

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, that if he was tenant of two holdings valued at £30, he would not come within the scope of the Clause. He did not think that he had in any respect misunderstood the hon. Member for the City of Cork.

THE CHAIRMAN
Do I understand that the hon. Member for Limerick withdraws the Amendment?

§ MR. SYNAN
Yes.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ DR. LYONS
said, there was one subject which had been mooted by the Prime Minister, and upon which he desired to move an Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman spoke, as far as loans were concerned, of tenancies of a higher value than £30.

1984

THE CHAIRMAN
asked where that came in?

§ MR. SYNAN
remarked that there was not a word of the kind in the Bill at all.

§ DR. LYONS
said, he only wished, in conformity with what he had himself so long contended for, and with what the Prime Minister now assented to, to raise the question of the principle of "loan" in addition to that of "gift," and to introduce an Amendment dealing with cases of loan.

THE CHAIRMAN
certainly could not see where such an Amendment would come in the particular part of the Bill they were now discussing.

§ DR. LYONS
said, it would come in, because they were now disposing of the question of fixing a limit of £30 value in reference to the operation of "gift;" and he proposed to move an Amendment, after the words "thirty pounds a-year," to introduce the principle of "loan" to tenants above that limit.

§ VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE
rose to Order. He wished to know if the hon. Member (Dr. Lyons) was in Order in moving an Amendment before the withdrawal of the Amendment now under discussion?

THE CHAIRMAN
said, the Amendment had already been withdrawn.

§ DR. LYONS
said, he would move to insert, after the words "thirty pounds a-year," the words— That the principle of a loan, repayable at five per cent for a term of thirty-five years, be applied to the case of all tenants above the limit of thirty pounds' valuation. They were now limiting the clause to tenants of £30 a-year, and he wanted to bring in loans to tenants above £30 a-year, so that they might be similarly dealt with.

§ DR. LYONS
(after conference with the Chairman) agreed to the insertion of his Amendment at the end of line 2, page 2.

THE CHAIRMAN
said, it would be better for the hon. Member to move the Amendment on the 2nd clause. It was quite possible to move it now; but it would come in better in the place he suggested.

§ MR. D. GRANT moved, in page 1, line 10, after "thirty pounds a-year," leave out to end of line 2, page 2, and insert— On and after the passing of this Act, no process of eviction or other proceeding in law 1985 or equity shall be valid that has reference to any arrears of rent prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, until such holding has had a fair rent fixed for the statutory term, either by mutual agreement between the landlord and tenant or by a judicial decision of the Land Court. When such fair rent has been fixed all arrears of rent prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one shall then and there be settled, either by mutual agreement between landlord and tenant or by the decision of the Land Court, such arrears to be divided into equal half-yearly payments extending over the whole statutory term, and to be added to and form a portion of the future rent of the holding. The hon. Member said that his object in moving the Amendment was to put the clause in conformity with the intentions of the Bill. They had in Ireland a large number of tenants who had holdings of less than £10 a-year, and it might be fairly considered that a very large number of those tenants would come under the operation of the Act.

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

§ MR. TREVELYAN
said, the Amendment was altogether contrary to the spirit of the Bill, and would, in fact, constitute a new Bill, and a very important Bill indeed, laying down entirely new matter. The hon. Gentleman said that his Amendment would get rid of the objections to the Bill. It certainly would get rid of the objections to the Bill by the simple process of getting rid of the Bill itself. The Amendment was, therefore, a very serious one, and one which it was impossible for the Government to accept. The hon. Member proposed— That on and after the passing of this Act, no process of eviction or other proceeding in law or equity shall be valid that has reference to any arrears of rent prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, until such holding has had a fair rent fixed for the statutory term. The Land Act, on the contrary, distinctly recognized the obligation of the tenant to pay the old rent until a fair rent was fixed, and to pay all the obligations which the old rent involved. Obviously, if a tenant were not bound to pay any rent until a fair rent was fixed, he would have very little motive to expedite the proceedings of the Land Court. But the Amendment was so drawn that it was not limited to cases in which an application to fix a fair rent had been made; but the landlord must 1986 actually wait until the Court had fixed a judicial rent before he would be in a condition to recover any rent at all. The second part of the Amendment was equally objectionable in principle, and fell greatly short of the requirements of the case. It enacted— That all arrears of rent prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one shall then and there be settled, either by mutual agreement between landlord and tenant or by the decision of the Land Court, such arrears to be divided into equal half-yearly payments extending over the whole statutory term, and to be added to and form a portion of the future rent of the holding. The Bill preposed that the arrears of rent should be dealt with on an entirely different principle, and in what he ventured to regard as a much preferable manner. He did not think the Amendment would recommend itself to hon. Members on the other side of the House, and he trusted that the hon. Member would not press it.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
said, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had a very easy task in demolishing the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman, especially in regard to the second part of it, and the work which it professed to do. But the first part of the Amendment raised an important question, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman would do a great deal towards satisfying the people of Ireland, and in producing tranquillity, if he would state whether the Government were ready to introduce into the Bill some clause to provide proper safeguards against evictions.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
pointed out that the Amendment in its present shape would virtually omit the whole of the Bill. It would completely destroy the landlord and very much injure the tenant. The Committee would then have the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that both were in the same boat. The question raised by the Amendment, if it were accepted, would disturb the whole of Ireland and would continue to be in operation for ever. He certainly thought the Amendment ought to be at once withdrawn, if the object of the hon. Member who proposed it was to benefit the tenants. It would certainly be most injurious to the tenants in small and poor districts, and particularly to his (Colonel Nolan's) constituents.

§ MR. GIBSON
said, he should not have spoken upon this Amendment were 1987 it not that a point had been referred to in connection with it about which it was necessary that there should be an absolutely clear understanding. He pointed out that the Bill did not in the slightest degree propose to affect the landlord's right of eviction, except by the indirect method of paying off arrears. That was the statement very naturally made by the Prime Minister when the Bill was introduced to the House.

§ MR. D. GRANT
said, he rarely occupied the time of the House, and only when some point was brought forward worthy of discussion. He thought the question raised by the Amendment was large enough and plain enough to awaken a greater interest in the minds of the Committee than was at present felt in it. It would assuredly present itself again at a time when it would have to be looked at in a better light by hon. Gentlemen opposite. He was willing to withdraw the Amendment, and leave the matter to be dealt with at a future time upon its own merits.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE
Sir, the Amendment which I have to move touches one of the main principles on which the Government are proceeding in this matter, because it is to make the commencement of the process involved in this Bill dependent on an agreement being made between the landlord and the tenant. Now, the professed object of the measure is to give a fair start, as I understand it, to the Land Act of 1881. I understand the position of the Government to be that by the Act of last Session a certain Code of Land Laws has been laid down for Ireland, and that in future these may be expected to prove satisfactory, and to furnish the proper relations that should exist between the landlords and tenants. But I also understand that the Government consider it is necessary with a view to the arrears which have accumulated in the past to make some arrangements, and in that way to get rid of a difficulty which, as they say, prevents the fair working of the Act of last Session. Now, it seems to me that although it is a very important thing that as quickly as possible some arrangement should be come to with regard to the outstanding questions of the whole of the arrears, yet the method which is proposed by Her Majesty's Government is 1988 one more likely to disturb friendly relations between landlord and tenant than to promote them. After all, any arrangement between the two principal parties concerned in this matter under any system of Land Laws which does not entirely abolish landlordism—and I do not understand that the Government are prepared to go the length of doing away with that portion of our system—ought, if possible, to rest upon good feeling; and it seems to me that it would be most undesirable that we should, by violent and dictatorial legislation, do what I believe this Bill will do—namely, disturb and prevent the continuance of those friendly relations. As far as I can make out, the landlords and tenants are, in a great number of cases, endeavouring to accommodate themselves to the new law, and according to the statements we hear from the Government, and from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary especially, we are led to believe that in many cases arrangements have been made, are in process of being made, or were in process of being made, between the landlords and tenants until this Bill was introduced. But, undoubtedly, when, by the introduction of this Bill, expectations were held out to the tenantry that they would be able to obtain for themselves something very much more to their advantage than they could get by private arrangement with their landlords, a very great check was given to arrangements which seemed to be in process of fair and satisfactory settlement. Now, Sir, many of us have friends in Ireland whose cases may furnish instances of the correctness of that view. I myself have a friend who has property in the West of Ireland of some £7,000 a-year. This gentleman, after much trouble and negotiation, had arrived at what seemed to be a perfectly fair understanding with his tenants. Arrangements had been made with regard to arrears and future rents upon I terms very liberal to the tenants. But all of a sudden the introduction of the Arrears Bill gave things a new turn, and my friend received communications from his tenants very civilly but, at the same time, very clearly worded, to the effect that they saw there was going to be a new arrangement; that the Government were going to sweep off arrears by paying some portion of them for the tenants, and that, therefore, they must 1989 be off the bargain which they had made. I ask what is the effect of that kind of disarrangement of what was going on in Ireland? In the first place, it destroys altogether the hope of a satisfactory settlement in a great many cases, and in a great many others, if it does not actually destroy the hope of settlement, it puts off all chance of such settlement for a very considerable period, and it seems to me that speed in the present state of Ireland is really of the essence of any arrangement which should be made. It would be better for the prosperity of the Irish tenantry that you should be able in the course of 1882 to come to an inferior settlement than that you should have to put the matter to the year 1883, or, perhaps, 1884 and 1885, for the purpose of arriving at something which on paper might appear to be very satisfactory. Because all the time these things are going on, you must bear in mind that there is in existence an organization directed to the disturbance of the peace of Ireland, which catches hold of every possible opportunity and avails itself of every conceivable opening for increasing disturbance and preventing the reconciliation of classes. It is, therefore, most dangerous to keep questions of a burning character, such as the adjustment of rents, open longer than is absolutely necessary. This, then, is one reason why I am pressing upon the attention of the Government and of the Committee an alteration at the base of this Bill. If you wish to avail yourselves of the chances, and what are more than the chances, in favour of private settlement between landlord and tenant, I say you must allow ample elbow-room, and you must facilitate every arrangement to be made between them. Well, but then, if that is to be done, you must necessarily change the basis of the Bill on which you are now about to proceed. We were told by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister some time ago that we had to chose between two alternative processes. Either we must have the process of gift, in which case, he said, our Act must be compulsory; or we must have the process of loan, in which case our Act must be voluntary. I suppose, as the right hon. Gentleman says so, that must be true; but I confess I have never been able to master the argument on which that distinction is based. It seems to me possible to have either a voluntary 1990 gift or a compulsory loan—however, I will not enter into that question at the present moment. Whether what you propose should be voluntary or compulsory, I look upon it that you have to consider the question as opened by the Government; and I bear in mind, although I will not trouble the Committee by repeating the exact words, what was quoted the other night in the course of the discussion upon the Motion of the Speaker leaving the Chair—that last year the Government laid down in the most emphatic manner the proposition that any settlement based upon the compulsory arrangement of arrears would be demoralizing and objectionable. I do not see, if that mode of arrangement were demoralizing in 1881, why it should not also be demoralizing in 1882; I should imagine that the truth of the proposition did not depend upon the date at which it was put forward. At any rate, it was an axiom on principle firmly fixed on the minds of the Government last year, and I can hardly imagine that they have got rid of it at the present time.

MR. GLADSTONE
I did not say that compulsory settlement of arrears was demoralizing.

§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE
Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that he did not consider it demoralizing last year, or that he does not consider it demoralizing this year? Well, the right hon. Gentleman says he did not consider that it was; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), who was then Chief Secretary, said that it was demoralizing in very emphatic language, and he was the Minister who was responsible for introducing the Bill of last year. I am in the recollection of hon. Members, and, according to my own recollection, the right hon. Gentleman the then Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant was, at all events, one of the Members of the Government who introduced the Bill of last year for the amendment of the Irish Land Law. That Bill contained a clause subsequently introduced for the purpose of dealing with arrears, and objection was taken to the mode of settlement proposed. Although we have some reason to believe we were in error, we always supposed that the Government were harmonious and united; but certainly we thought the late Chief Secretary was speaking in the name of the Government 1991 when he introduced and defended the clause I have referred to. At all events, he did it in the presence of the Prime Minister and his Colleagues, and they did not get up and rebuke him. That being the case, I think I was justified in saying, if there is any meaning in language, that the Government have called upon us to adopt a principle which last year they declared to be demoralizing. I believe a large proportion of Members of the House will so understand it, and certainly a considerable number of persons in the country. But if we are to have this Bill passed in its present shape—if we are to carry this measure with the compulsory character which it bears, and a settlement is made under it, I venture to say that such settlement will leave a grievance behind it. By that settlement you will leave a sense of wrong on the part of at least two of the three parties concerned—the landlord, who finds himself unjustly deprived of what he considers to be his right, and what in many cases would have been admitted even by his tenants to be his right; and the honest tenant who has paid his rent, and whose wrongs, I think, are not sometimes sufficiently acknowledged in this House. Then there is the tenant with whom no settlement has been made, but who is enabled to take advantage of the provisions of this Bill. You must leave in the mind of that man a sense of soreness or injustice. But I say you will do something worse than that. You will have demoralized him by leading him to believe that he has nothing to look to but agitation in order to get the fulfilment of his desires; he will have been taught that, although he has gained something now, if he wishes to get more it will be open to him to do so by the same means as have been hitherto employed. The Act of 1870 was not final; the Act of 1881 was not final; and to the tenant I am now speaking of the Act of 1882 will also not be final. There will be no idea of finality in his mind; he will believe he has nothing to do but to agitate sufficiently, and that then he will be pretty sure to get some further concession made. Let me ask the Government to consider what, besides the inconvenience of the length of time these things will remain open, is the inconvenience to the status of landlord and tenant. I confess I have not been able thoroughly to understand 1992 what that status will be; but so far as I am able to comprehend what has been told us, I imagine for some considerable time—that is until the date at which a further settlement can be made between any particular landlord and his tenants—the relations between the landlord and the tenant at present existing will remain undisturbed. Now, we ought to have some full and clear explanation on that point, because if you are to have a considerable length of time during which landlords and tenants are to remain on the same footing as they are on now, with the knowledge that at the end of that time a totally different state of affairs is to come about, and that the landlord is to accept considerably less than he believes to be his due, you will undoubtedly be keeping up a soreness, and you will place before the landlord a strong temptation to exercise his power of eviction, and the other rights which he has, before that time comes. I do not profess to have gone into any minute calculation as to the time which will be occupied in the settlement of this question. Undoubtedly, if we are to go into a careful examination of all the statistics bearing upon it, and especially into that difficult question as to the inability of the tenant to pay his arrears, a great deal of time must be spent, and it will be impossible in most cases that a settlement can be arrived at in the Court proposed by this Bill. I want to know if, during that time the relations between landlord and tenant are to continue as at present established, whether we shall not be exposed to after irritation, which is the thing you want to avoid, and whether we shall not be deprived of the present chance that, if you will only let matters alone, there will be a peaceful arrangement between the two parties? Surely hon. Members must see that an arrangement arrived at by something in the nature of give and take on both sides—reasonable concession on one, and reasonable pretensions on the other—is far more satisfactory than a violent and authoritative settlement coming from the Government. At any rate, the opportunities of challenging such settlements would be fewer than the opportunities of challenging settlements made under the authority of the Government, because it would be felt that the Government legislation was not final, and the tenants would in consequence be always agi- 1993 tating. I have said this much with regard to the advantage which voluntary settlement appears to me to possess over compulsory settlement. I also wish to add a word or two with regard to the effect which the change I propose would have on the working of the Bill. I say it would be of great advantage to the working of the Bill if you were to adopt this principle. In the first place, there is the question with regard to the inability of the tenant to pay, which everybody admits will be a most difficult one to settle. It is admitted, too, on all hands, that it will be almost impossible for the body of Commissioners, the Court, or whatever machinery you employ, satisfactorily to settle the question whether a particular tenant was or was not at a particular time capable of paying his rent. That was mentioned the other day in the course of the debate upon the second reading of the Bill, when it was said on behalf of the Government—"Oh; in this question you will have the advantage of the experience of the landlord, who will be able to give you material assistance in deciding the question from his knowledge of the tenant's circumstances." Well, I do not think that the landlord, under the circumstances proposed, is particularly likely to give you that assistance. But, assuredly, if you make the matter one of a voluntary character, a great deal of relief in the sense just referred to will be given in the demands upon the public time by the information afforded by the landlord, who will of necessity know so much more of the circumstances of the tenant than can possibly be known by the Court. The landlord, speaking as one who knows the circumstances of the tenant, may say—"It is impossible for me to assent to any such settlement as this;" and he may propose another mode of settlement satisfactory to both parties, and which will be more advantageous to himself, the tenant, and the public. That, I think, is a consideration which ought to weigh, and I think it is one in favour of voluntary instead of compulsory settlement. I need hardly point out that if that should be the working of the Bill, it would be of great advantage, not only in the saving of time, but in the saving of money which would otherwise be demanded from the State. You will still retain your power to examine into the tenant's inability to 1994 pay; and, as I have already pointed out, you will be assisted by the landlord in the preliminary inquiry to be made. Now, this is what I think we may say with regard to the effect of the change I am asking you to make upon the working of the Bill before us. But I wish to express my belief that this Bill, whether it works for good or evil, will, after all, be but a measure which deals with a fragment of the subject. It certainly does not deal with some of the more important remedies which ought to be applied, and which I hope in due time will be applied, to admitted evils. This Bill, I say, deals with the symptoms and not with the disease. Measures referred to in the earlier part of the evening, and which were passed over with some little carelessness, I think, will undoubtedly have to be brought forward again, and other questions will have to be hereafter discussed which will be in the nature of more serious remedies than this Bill offers for the secular difficulties and sufferings of Ireland. I say, in passing this Bill, you run great risk of setting aside, and actually impeding, the operation of more important measures; and I believe, by what you are proposing to do, you will render it still more difficult hereafter to introduce such measures as are desirable for the benefit of Ireland. I speak, for instance, of the dilemma which exists as to the poor districts in Ireland. It is well known that there are districts in which the condition of the people is one of absolute misery, caused not by inability to pay rent, but by the impossibility of their large populations raising from the soil sufficient for their own maintenance. Everyone admits that these cases ought to be dealt with in a different manner to that which you propose—that the mere remission of the arrears of rent, leaving the populations referred to under the weight of all their other incumbrances, would be insufficient, because it would leave them still fastened to the soil. Again, the Church Surplus Fund, which you are going to draw upon, and which some day, I presume, you yourselves will admit you have exhausted—that money might have been spent, and would otherwise be spent, in a much more profitable way. I repeat that, if you will allow those who ought to and do take an interest in the condition of their estates, and the farmers who are dependent upon them, to agree 1995 with the latter in the manner indicated by my Amendment, you will be doing more good than by forcing them to adopt the manner of settlement you propose with reference to their just interests as owners of the soil. A great deal more good might have been done if, instead of forcing the payment of arrears, you had introduced the voluntary element. That is a wholly different proposal from that contained in the Purchase Clauses. An advance by way of loan would have placed the tenants in a very different position; and it would have worked out in quite a different way from the principles which are involved in this Bill. But I cannot anticipate questions of this sort. I only refer to the point for the purpose of showing that you, by your legislation, are preventing and cutting away the ground from the proposal which ought to be made, and might be made, and properly discussed, in connection with the difficulties of Ireland. I, for one, entirely object to this piecemeal method of legislation, as I shall say at the proper time. But as we have to deal with it now, I am anxious that it should be on a basis that will not exclude the possibility of dealing with more rational and more promising measures, and measures more suitable to the condition of the country. After all, look at these districts. Some of them are of a character which cannot support the persons placed on them. The only way to make them do so is by the expenditure of a liberal amount of capital. But what you are doing destroys the chance of capital being introduced. You are driving away capital from the country by your measures for the compulsory confiscation of the rights of the landlord; and, on the other hand, you are fixing the tenant to the soil by the nature of the assistance you are giving him. It may last for a time. You may enable him to go on for a time; but your assistance will be of no advantage to him when the time comes, which is certain to come, when he will have the disadvantage of bad seasons. I would apologize to the Committee, for having gone at some length into this question. It is one of the greatest importance, and involves one of the principles on which this measure rests, and, as far as we have the means of judging, it is not a principle at all essential to the Bill. The Government 1996 themselves did not introduce their measure last year on the principle of compulsion. On the contrary, they repudiated the principle of compulsion. This year, when the measure was introduced by the hon. Member who sits below the Gangway on this side of the House (Mr. Redmond), they declared that they would give it their consideration, but without pledging themselves to one principle or the other. They took notice of the gravamen of the principle to be drawn between loan and gift, and the principle of voluntary action as against compulsion. After a time they elected, whether on their own motion or in consequence of the pressure put upon them from another part of the House I cannot say—they elected to proceed on the principle of compulsion and gift. Now, I think the House has a fair right to exercise its own judgment on that question. I think the House has a right to consider the question in all its bearings. I am conscious that hitherto we have been very far from considering the question in all its bearings. But I know that others better acquainted with the matter than I am are prepared to supplement my observations; and I am satisfied that the Committee, looking at the great and paramount importance of the question now raised, will exercise a sound and unbiassed judgment upon the proposal submitted to them.

§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 10, after the first word "the," to insert the word "joint."—(Sir Stafford Northcote.)

§ Question proposed, "That the word 'joint' be there inserted."

MR. GLADSTONE
This is the first time within my Parliamentary experience that I have ever heard the Leader of the Opposition rise upon a particular Amendment—of importance it is true, but of limited scope—and take the opportunity of discussing the whole Bill, and travelling beyond the Bill, and going into questions of the Land Act entirely outside the Bill. I must say that the right hon. Gentleman has set an example which, I believe, if followed in another quarter of the House, would lead to very summary proceedings. I remain under this disadvantage, that I must allow the observations which the right hon. Gentleman has made in the wide field over which he has travelled to remain unan- 1997 swered, because I must confine myself to that portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman which appears to have some faint degree of relevancy to the Amendment. [Mr. WARTON: Oh!] Notwithstanding the displeasure of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), I am compelled to say, however painful it is to differ with so great an authority, that I shall confine myself to those portions of the speech of the right hon. Baronet which have some faint relevancy to the Amendment he has moved, and which, as I have said, is, no doubt, an important Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman said that it would be better to have a defective settlement in 1882, and a better one in 1883. Now, I do not know the meaning of the difference between 1882 and 1883. So far as the action of Her Majesty's Government is concerned, the question will not be postponed till 1883.

§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE
I may explain that what I said was that the question would not be settled until the Courts had operated upon the different cases submitted to them, which would not be until 1883 or 1884.

MR. GLADSTONE
I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the explanation. It does not, however, appear to me that time would be gained, but that it would be lost, by the adoption of such a method. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Government have disarranged the arrangements which have been made in Ireland, and that he has a friend who has arranged with his tenants to settle their arrears; and he assumes that that arrangement was pursued by others in Ireland, and that this friend and his tenants are patterns of all the other landlords and tenants in Ireland. But they are no such thing. The right hon. Gentleman's citation of one case is almost frivolous, when I point out that the general object of the Bill is not for my own friend or the right hon. Gentleman's friend, but for the mass of the tenantry in Ireland. Has the clause of the Act of 1880 operated upon the whole mass of the tenantry? It has failed to do so, and it has failed within so little of being an entire failure, and proof is so adequate with respect to it, that we propose to allow even those who have come under arrangements to undo those arrangements, and come under the present Act. Yet the right hon. Gen- 1998 tleman says that we are about to disarrange what is now going on in a satisfactory manner. That statement I entirely deny, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to prove it. On the contrary, speaking roughly, out of the tenants in arrear in Ireland I do not believe that more than one in 100 has settled under the clause of the Act. If that be so, what is the use of talking about the inexpediency of disarranging the arrangements of a satisfactory character now going on with the consent of both parties? It is the opinion of the Government that this question is one of great importance, and the only way of dealing with it is the plan we propose. The right hon. Gentleman says that we shall leave upon the minds of the landlords a grudge and sense of wrong by the confiscation of their property under this Bill. I do not hesitate to say that, lightly as the word "confiscation" has often been used before, there has never been a case in which it has been used with so much levity as it now has been by the right hon. Gentleman. Anyone who knows the character of the Irish arrears knows that where they exist they have depreciated in market value far below their capital value. They have been long used for purposes entirely unknown to English landlords—namely, to place a power in the hands of the Irish landlord to establish his control over the holding, and not with any view towards the recovery of them. I would venture to tell the right hon. Gentleman a fact which has been made known by the researches of the Land Court. Probably he has seen the letter of Lord Clanricarde, in which he states that he has postponed the collection of his rents, and added them to the arrears. That is the old Irish practice—not to give abatements in order to meet the necessities of the time, and to make the tenants safe against future claims, and to allow the tenants to start fair in the future; but to let the rent stand against the tenants, so that it may be made a lever in the hands of the landlord to compel the tenant to agree with any increase of rent, or to comply with any other alteration in the conditions. Who ever heard in England of selling the arrears upon an estate?—I speak in the hearing of Gentlemen concerned in the management of estates—Who ever heard in England of the sale 1999 of the arrears on an estate? But in Ireland it is a common thing to sell arrears of rent upon an estate. ["No, no!"] Who said "No!"

§ MR. BRODRICK
I said "No!"

MR. GLADSTONE
Then I will tell the hon. Gentleman who says "No!" that the practice has been noticed in an Act of Parliament, which recognized and sanctioned it. I am astonished that any hon. Gentleman acquainted with Ireland should not have cognizance of that fact.

§ MR. BRODRICK
It is not the practice now.

MR. GLADSTONE
I never said it was the practice. If I had said that it was the practice, I should have asserted that it was the universal rule. I said it was a practice, and a common practice, in Ireland. I am happy to know that there are a large number of estates in Ireland upon which there are as few arrears as upon an English estate; but a bad practice has existed for the outgoing landlord to hand over to the incoming landlord a mass of arrears. The arrears are never expected or intended to be recovered; but they serve as a power in the hands of the landlord. Yet the right hon. Gentleman now comes forward and tells the Committee that, by the manner in which the Bill deals with this mass of arrears, we are confiscating, forsooth, the property of the landlord, when we are going to give him, in a multitude of cases, a great deal deal more than he could by any possibility otherwise obtain. So much for confiscation. But there is another point—that on the tenant's mind there is a sense, not of grievance, but of demoralization; and that demoralization, says the right hon. Gentleman, was urged as an argument against the principle of gift by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). Now, the arguments have been used in solidarity by every Member of the Government; but it must not be supposed that each Member of the Government was obliged to answer for every word spoken by every other Member of the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, I happen to know, took a particular view in connection with the circumstances in which the principle of gift was proposed, because it made no reference to the ability of the tenant to pay. But my right hon. Friend never said, and I believe I am correct in saying 2000 he never thought, it would be demoralizing to assist with a gift from the public funds those tenants who were unable to pay. My right hon. Friend, upon whom the right hon. Gentleman charges this doctrine, himself has spoken in this debate in favour of the present Bill, and in favour of the principle of gift. In reference to what the right hon. Gentleman has said about finality of legistion, I think, after the circumstances referred to in connection with the Purchase Clauses, to speak of finality of legislation is only encouraging a renewal of agitation. And now I come to the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's proposition. No doubt it would be desirable if we could work this thing through a joint agreement between landlord and tenant, and such a proposal would have my commendation. But the fact is that we cannot so work it. The right hon. Gentleman says, with truth, it is not desirable that the Legislature should interfere in these relations. Certainly, it is not; but the hard necessity of the Irish case, the dictates alike of humanity and policy, have obliged us to put out of view those minor considerations, in consequence of the weight of the major considerations connected with the condition of Ireland and of its people. It is too late to say we could only adopt a method of joint procedure after the Land Act of last year. The House of Commons, by a vast majority, adopted—and the Friends of the right hon. Gentleman in the House of Lords, in a large majority, adopted—a law which was founded, not upon joint action, but upon action which was voluntary as regarded one party, and compulsory as regarded the other. That is the principle which the Government have assumed as their starting point. Well, now, I want to know if the principle of compulsory action is necessary for the tenantry of Ireland in general, is it less or is it more necessary for that portion of the tenantry of Ireland with whom the Committee are going to deal? I grant you that objectionable clauses may be made when this sort of compulsory action is taken; but we have taken the greatest pains to make the provisions of the Bill equitable. I do not hesitate to say that I believe, in a great number of cases, this Bill will confer a large pecuniary boon upon the landlord; and it is only the policy involved in the measure which makes it justifiable to propose 2001 such a Bill. But I put this argument—if, in. the case of the tenantry of Ireland who pay their rents, it was necessary to give to the tenant, on high public grounds, the power of drawing his landlord into Court, is it not tenfold more necessary on the part of the tenant who, not by his own fault, but by inability, is prevented from paying his rent, and is shut out from the benefits of the Land Act, and can obtain no relief from the Court? This Amendment deliberately proposes to withhold from these tenants the assistance which Parliament and the Party of the right hon. Gentleman in the House of Lords has given to every other class. I will not further detain the Committee on this subject. It appears to me that, after having tried the voluntary system for arrears, which has failed, and after having established the principle of compulsion in the case of the stronger part of the tenantry, it would be quite impossible to adopt a contrary system in the case of the poorest and weakest of the tenantry of Ireland. If the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman were adopted, what would be the effect? In 1883, in 1884, and afterwards, this question of arrears would crop up, staring us in the face, and would again be a source of social disturbance and disorder, and prevent Ireland from having that peace for which we are making so many struggles and sacrifices.

MR. FITZ-PATRICK
said, his right hon. Friend had shown that his proposal would be a great advantage to both landlord and tenant. He could not see any objection to that proposal. He himself knew a case in which the acting upon the principle of that proposal was beneficial. The other day a meeting was held of tenants on an estate with which be was connected. They stated their wishes; he talked the matter over with them, and an agreement between himself and the tenants was the result. In almost all cases where the landlord and the tenant came together the matter was discussed with forbearance, and a settlement without difficulty was the result. He confessed that he did not see any objection in any way to the Amendment moved by the right hon. Baronet; because if they forced the tenant to enter into an agreement, he was immediately induced to believe that he had something at stake, and he would say—"I have no wish to wipe off this one year's arrears." 2002 If they forced the landlord to agree, then, vice versa, the same thing happened, and they made him angry. The Prime Minister said the object of the Bill was to help the poorest tenants—tenants who could not help themselves—but the Bill would not do that at all. The tenantry who were the poorest of all would not be reached by this Bill. The very poorest tenant had nothing literally. He had his tenant right, which he was not allowed to sell; and if he was told to pay a year's rent, how could he do it? He believed that the adoption of the Amendment would be of advantage in removing a portion of the grievances of the Irish landlords. The Prime Minister said the arrears had been depreciated in value. But what caused that depreciation? Through the inaction of the Government for some time after the Land League commenced operations, the arrears became large, and the tenants had never been allowed to wipe them off. The Prime Minister said it was a common practice to sell arrears; but he was perfectly convinced that if the right hon. Gentleman would make further inquiries, he would find it was not a common practice either to sell arrears or to allow them to accrue, and then utilize them against the tenant.

§ COLONEL COLTHURST
said, he had advocated the principle of loan instead of gift, but he could not support the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He believed it was absolutely necessary that the principle of compulsion should be adopted if the Bill was to have any operative effect at all. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Fitz-Patrick) mentioned that in his own county a mutual understanding had been arrived at in reference to arrears; but the cases referred to were not cases contemplated under the Bill. In the first place, the tenants whom the Bill proposed to relieve were tenants with whom it was not possible to make such arrangements, and the adoption of the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet would render the Bill absolutely worthless. As to the sale of arrears, he also thought his hon. Friend (Mr. Fitz-Patrick) was mistaken. There was no doubt that arrears could be sold. He knew one remarkable case in which arrears of 20 or 30 years were sold. The estate had changed hands three times, and the tenants were at this moment groaning under the arrears 2003 which had been sold by the owner of the estate at least twice. He had no wish to mention the name of the estate; but he would do so if it were considered necessary.

CAPTAIN AYLMER
said, he had never heard of a single instance of the sale of arrears except the one mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Cork (Colonel Colthurst), which was the case of an estate sold in the Incumbered Estates Court. As regarded the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, he felt that the effect of the Bill, if it were passed as it had been drafted without the Amendment, would do great harm in one direction. At present there were a great many cases settled out of Court, under the Land Act, and he believed it was the wish of the Government that as many as possible should be so settled. But if Parliament placed this power in the hands of the tenant, they would in future prevent any settlement from being carried out by arrangement; and he thought that was the settlement referred to by the right hon. Gentleman when he said that the clause in its present shape would interfere with arrangements between landlord and tenant. If the Amendment were accepted, the tenant would be more likely to come to terms with his landlord, and would be disposed to say—"I am able to wipe off all my arrears, except a small portion, and, therefore, I am anxious to make an arrangement." The hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Colthurst) had referred to arrears which had grown up for 20 or 30 years; but what it was proposed to wipe off by this Bill was the arrears which had accumulated in Ireland within the last three or four years. He was quite satisfied that if the Amendment were not accepted it would be difficult to bring about an amicable feeling between landlord and tenant, or to induce them to enter into mutual agreements out of Court.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, the adoption of this Amendment would not be conducive to the tranquillizing of Ireland, and if hon. Members desired to bring about a better state of things there they ought not to accept it. It would make the action in the case more cumbersome, and the settlement would undoubtedly be delayed; and the mere fact of people having to agree as to whether or no the Bill should be availed of, would in many 2004 cases prevent any action being taken under it at all. The hon. Member for Portarlington (Mr. Fitz-Patrick) had argued that the clause ought not to be in the Bill in its present form, because it could not be put in action owing to the fact that some of the tenants could not pay the year's rent. The hon. Gentleman might as well say that the medicine prescribed for a patient could be of no use because it might not be successful in some cases. But he held that in the vast majority of cases the Bill would be useful. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), in supporting this Amendment had contended that the clause would demoralize the tenant; but he would point out that the tenant would be just as much demoralized if he were to get the money by the aid of the landlord as if he got it upon his own application alone. He had spoken on the subject with many landlords in his own county, and he was satisfied that a large number of landlords in the West of Ireland would like the Bill to pass. For his own part, he believed that practically the landlord would be benefited by its passing in its present form. With regard to the Amendment, he repeated that it would make the Bill useless, and, if after being rejected in that House, it were introduced in "another place," he should certainly vote against the Bill in consequence. The Amendment, if adopted, would take off about 90 per cent of the value of the measure.

§ MR. MACFARLANE
said, hon. Members on that side of the House had spoken strongly in favour of this Amendment, and had urged the great desirability of maintaining joint action on the part of the landlord and tenant in Ireland. Now, nothing could be more desirable than that, and everyone would echo the wish that, in a matter of this kind, both parties should be agreed. But the House would be aware that, practically, no such joint action could or did exist, and it was for that reason that Parliament had had to legislate between the two parties. Had there been this joint action the Bill would not have been required. He was unable to understand on what ground the Amendment was pressed on the Committee. All the clause proposed to do was to remedy a defect in the Bill of last year which proved fatal to the Arrears Clause, by 2005 making it a condition that there should be a joint request for the application of State funds to the liquidation of arrears. The landlords had not responded to this condition, and the present Bill was brought in for the express purpose of enabling the poorest and most wretched tenants in Ireland to initiate action for themselves. But there was nothing whatever to prevent the landlord and tenant coming together and making their arrangements. The clause simply enabled the tenant of an obstinate landlord who desired to clear his estate to apply to the Court for relief in the matter of arrears in his own name. He was clearly of opinion, after the experience of last year, that there should be an opportunity of making separate and distinct application on the part of the tenant, and he was at a loss to understand why hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House, in the supposed interest of Irish landlords, should propose and press for this joint action on the part of the landlord and tenant.

§ MR. PLUNKET
said, he desired to make a few observations before the discussion closed. In the first place, the Amendment seemed to him to be one which the Government might have received in, at any rate, a friendly spirit, inasmuch as it was merely proposed to introduce into this Bill the very principle contained in their own Act of last year. The proposal was simply to make it a condition that there should be joint action on the part of the landlord and tenant to have the arrears settled in the manner provided; but he was compelled to call attention to the extraordinary manner in which it had been received by the Prime Minister. His right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had introduced the Amendment, after due Notice and in his own name, and no one could say that it did not challenge one of the most important, although not the main, principles of the Bill. Now, in putting forward his views on this subject, his right hon. Friend addressed the Committee certainly for less than half-an-hour, and, in doing so, he avoided, as far as possible, any topics which had no direct bearing on the point with which he was dealing. But the Prime Minister, in a speech of great length, attacked his right hon. Friend in language which, as far as his experience wont, had never boon used by 2006 the Head of the Government to the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman said if the discussions in Committee were to be conducted in. future in the spirit and style adopted by the right hon. Gentleman who had proposed this Amendment, very strong measures would have to be taken. Why, he had never in his experience heard such an assertion. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have remembered that this principle, which he now thought ought to be disposed of in, perhaps, five minutes, was one of the principles which, they were told, redeemed the Bill of the Government last year from the charge of demoralizing the people. The right hon. Gentleman said he was not responsible for what was spoken by his Colleagues; but certainly he sat beside them, and never challenged the words they uttered. Having regard to what had taken place, he was bound to say that the manner in which the Leader of the Opposition had been met on the occasion of his introducing an Amendment to the Bill beyond comparison important, did not augur well for future proceedings in that House. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister went on to say that the Government were charged with confiscation. But how did the right hon. Gentleman meet that argument? Why, by a wild charge against the landlords of Ireland generally—that they allowed their rents to run into arrear, not from any motive of toleration or compassion, but simply, as he said, for the purpose of obtaining a leverage over their tenantry. He should like to know how many estates the right hon. Gentleman could point to on which that had occurred? The right hon. Gentleman, with no shadow of authority, had made that sweeping charge against a body of honourable men. But how did he support the charge? He said—"Do you really deny that; don't you know there is an Act of Parliament which recognizes the fact?" The right hon. Gentleman, however, carefully abstained from telling the Committee to what Act of Parliament he referred. There was the Incumbered Estates Court Act; but in what sense did that deal with the point referred to by the right hon. Gentleman? Was it in the sense in which he endeavoured to deal with it in Committee, and which had probably been put into his head by some impar- 2007 tial adviser—namely, that this was an Act of Parliament which sanctioned some scandalous transaction whereby the landlords were permitted to sell property on which arrears of rent had accumulated? Nothing of the kind. The Act simply allowed arrears of rent to pass with the property, and certainly did not legalize the practice alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman. He said it was too bad that the Prime Minister should rise in his place at the beginning of a debate upon an Amendment which touched the most delicate relations between landlord and tenant, and make charges of the kind on no better foundation than this. He had listened to the remarkable speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and considered that it was as likely as anything to lead to heated and protracted debate. He said, on the authority of those who put forward the principle contained in this Amendment last year, that this principle, and this alone, could redeem the present legislation from demoralization; and, further, that if they left it to the landlord in every case to disprove the inability of the tenant to pay, they would leave to him an impossibility—a task that the late Chief Secretary, when he was a Member of the Cabinet, declared to be impossible of performance. If that were so, then the Government, by refusing to accept the Amendment of the Leader of the Opposition, offered a direct reward to those dishonest tenants who had abstained from paying their rent, in order to get their arrears wiped out—which he (Mr. Plunket) charged again as an act of confiscation on the part of the Government—and, moreover, they gave discouragement to those who had endeavoured to do their duty and pay their rents.

§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE
said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken stated that he had never known a case in which arrears of rent had been allowed to accumulate in the manner indicated by the Prime Minister, and he challenged that right hon. Gentleman to name the Act of Parliament to which he had referred. He could not but think that a good deal of the feeling that existed on the opposite side of the House with reference to this question of arrears was due to a misconception as to the practice of the Irish landlords. Everyone must be aware 2008 that when bad seasons occurred in England, the landlords then, as a rule, remitted a portion of the rent. Nothing could be more common than to see that such and such a landlord "has remitted 10 or 20 per cent of his rents;" and he was sure that during the recent bad times the English landlords had at various periods remitted what, on the whole, amounted to the rent of one year. But that was not the case in Ireland, and it never had been. The practice there had not been to remit rent in times of depression, but to allow it to accumulate in the shape of arrears. It was in illustration of that practice that the Prime Minister had quoted the letter of Lord Clanricarde, which said he had not remitted rent in 1879, but added the rent to the arrears. That, he maintained, was the old practice in Ireland, and he would refer, as an illustration, to what took place in the Incumbered Estates Court in 1847–8. In those years large arrears were accumulated on many estates in Ireland; these were kept up for years afterwards without the slightest intention on the part of the landlords ever to collect them; and when the estates were sold in the Incumbered Estates Court it was the practice of those who bought the estate to purchase the arrears—here, again, not with the object of collecting them, but for the purpose of holding them over the tenants. That practice assumed such importance that in the year 1858 a clause was introduced to enable the Incumbered Estates Court to permit the sale of arrears to the purchaser of the property, so that he might use them either against the tenant as before, or be able to recover them in his own name from the tenant instead of from the vendor. It was to this clause—the 58th section of the Act—that the Prime Minister referred. The practice of leaving arrears uncollected, as against the remission of rent in bad times, in his opinion, threw a great deal of light upon the present condition of affairs in Ireland. They had had three of the very worst seasons known in Ireland. He ventured to say that 1877, 1878, and 1879 were the worst years known there since the Famine of 1846–7; during those three years large arrears had accumulated, and it was with those arrears they had now to deal. It was of the greatest importance to remember that tenants 2009 were practically unable to avail themselves of the Land Act of last year to go into Court; and this power the landlords were now making use of. It was on this account that it was necessary to deal with the question in the manner proposed by Her Majesty's Government. But the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman opposite struck at the root of the Bill, and would, if it were adopted, render it useless. They had already had experience of what its effect would be, in the way it had impeded the operation of the Bill of last year. The Act of 1881 was based on the voluntary principle, and it had failed; and it was, therefore, impossible to proceed upon the same principle now. The landlord and tenant in Ireland were so far apart that they could not come to any agreement on this question; it was therefore absolutely necessary that the Legislature should interfere, and the only way they could do so effectually was on the principle of compulsion. For these reasons, he hoped the Committee would not agree to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman.

§ MR. SALT
remarked, that the hon. Member for Carlow County (Mr. Macfarlane) had stated that if the word "joint" were inserted it would have no value whatever, because it would be open to the landlord and tenant to make exactly the same joint arrangement without the Bill as they could make under the Bill.

§ MR. MACFARLANE
I said that the Bill, as it stood, without the word "joint," would not prevent a joint arrangement being made.

§ MR. SALT
said, he had understood the hon. Member to say that a joint arrangement could be made without the Bill—that the joint arrangement proposed in. this clause would be just as good without the Bill as with the Bill. But he wished to observe that, even if the word joint were inserted, the Bill would still confer great benefits both on the landlord and tenant. A large grant of money, a remission of rent, and a settlement of claims would still be obtained.

§ MR. MACFARLANE
explained that he had intended to convey that the non-introduction of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon would not in any way prevent the landlords and tenants agreeing 2010 to make a joint application, and that the Bill, as it stood, reserved to the tenant the right to make an application without the consent of the landlord.

MR. H. R. BRAND
said, he thought that the Amendment, if accepted, would entirely destroy the efficacy of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had based his arguments in favour of the Amendment on the supposition that there was a chance of a friendly settlement between landlord and tenant being arrived at. Now, looking at the present state of affairs in Ireland, he would ask the Committee whether there was the slightest chance of any such friendly settlement in the immediate future? In view of the agitation which had led to the Land Act of last year, the Land Act itself, and the evictions reported from Ireland, was it likely that the landlords and tenants would join together and make this arrangement voluntarily? He thought it unreasonable to suppose anything of the kind would be done, and, therefore, it seemed to him that the only course open to the Government was to proceed in this matter on the principle of compulsion. The test that was to be applied to the alleged inability of the tenant to pay was, no doubt, a very difficult one, and would lead to considerable discussion. But, as had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman, the landlord was the individual best able to speak from his own knowledge on that point, and he (Mr. Brand) could not conceive anything more unfortunate than to make the landlord both the medium of application on the part of the tenant and the judge of his inability to pay. He understood the object of the Bill was to enable the tenants to take advantage of the increased facilities given to them by the Land Act of last year, or rather to prevent them suffering a loss of these advantages by eviction on account of their arrears of rent. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, then, amounted to giving the landlords power to place a veto upon that arrangement. What would be the natural object of the Irish landlords? He did not speak of all; but there was a certain number of them who would wish to push their claims strongly and partially, and their object would undoubtedly be to prevent the tenants from obtaining the advantages offered to them by the Land Act of last 2011 year. He repeated that the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give the landlord power to veto the Act; and as this would be fatal to the Bill, he trusted the Committee would decide against the Amendment.

§ MR. DILLON
said, he wished to mention two facts which had come under his notice, having a considerable bearing on the statements which had been made in the course of this discussion. In the first place, he had had in his hand a bundle of writs served in the county of Roscommon for rents outstanding from seven to 13 years. Again, within his knowledge it had been acknowledged to be a good system to keep always a year's arrears hanging over the tenants in order to bar them out from the benefit of every Land Act passed in that House.

§ COLONEL O'BEIRNE
said, the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was incorrect in stating that it was the invariable practice that the arrears should be added to the arrears of previous years. He knew several estates in his own county (Leitrim), the owners of which pursued the opposite system.

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
said, he was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) say that it was the usual custom in Ireland to keep from seven to 13 years' rent hanging over the tenants.

§ MR. DILLON
I said that in one instance in the county of Roscommon I had the writs in my hand.

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
said, that in that case the argument did not apply, because what the hon. Member stated only showed how lenient the landlord had been in not calling upon the tenants who were unable to pay the rent in question. But it occurred to him to ask—supposing the arrears were forgiven the tenants, would they be able to pay their rent in future? That question, he thought, deserved serious consideration, although it had been passed over very lightly by right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) spoke of the Famine of 1846 and 1847—the two bad years—but the Committee must bear in mind that the necessity existing then was ten times greater than it was in the years 1877 and 1878. The two periods could not be compared. But there was no Arrears Bill brought 2012 forward then. Why was an Arrears Bill brought forward now? It was to help right hon. Gentlemen sitting upon the Treasury Bench who were endeavouring to conciliate hon. Members on that side below the Gangway, who had shown that they were not to be conciliated even by these means, and also materially to help and work out the Land Act of last year. It had been stated over and over again that the rights of the landlord were to be protected; but what rights had been left to him excepting that of the power of eviction? He ventured to say that although there were some landlords who had used this power to the extreme, yet, taking the general body of them, as had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in introducing the Acts of 1870 and 1881, they had done their duty honestly and fairly, and with great consideration to their tenants. And yet their reward was that they were not to have any voice in the settlement of a question so vitally affecting them, as that of arrears of rent. Take the case referred to by the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon). Supposing that the man died—an event which was as likely to happen in Ireland as elsewhere—what position would the landlord be in who, as was generally the case, had to recover the arrears not for himself, but for others, for whose benefit they were left, and he was responsible for them—what position would he be in when the arrears were given up? He said this was a question which most seriously affected the interest of the landlord, and which ought to be carefully considered before the Committee deprived the landlord of the right of saying anything with regard to these arrears. But he also pointed out that the landlord who had been generous to the tenant, and the tenant who had done everything in his power to meet his liabilities, were both especially to suffer. The landlord who had not called upon his tenant to pay was now to be mulcted of the arrears due to him, while the tenant who had striven to pay his rent, and had done so, was to receive no consideration. But the men who had attempted to avoid all their engagements were to receive every consideration—those were the men who would be benefited by the Bill when it became law. It was because he thought these were serious and damag- 2013 ing matters, so far as this question was concerned, that he should give his hearty support to the Amendment before the Committee. With regard to the argument of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. H. R. Brand), that the adoption of the Amendment would render the Bill useless, he pointed out that although the Amendment might be said to be at variance with the principle of compulsion, still it could not be considered otherwise than as fair and reasonable to those landlords, whom the Prime Minister admitted had done their duty in Ireland.

§ MR. SERJEANT SIMON
said, he should be very sorry to approve anything in the nature of injustice towards Irish landlords. He pointed out that one of the objects of the Bill was to relieve tenants who were weighed down with a burden of arrears, which had accumulated through misfortune and circumstances over which they had no control. Now, if the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition were carried, the whole of the benefits of the Bill of last year would be taken away from a large mass of the Irish tenantry. The case stood thus. There were two adverse parties—debtor and creditor—the former the tenant, the latter the landlord; they had before them a Bill for the purpose of relieving the tenant, and the Amendment proposed that the tenant should only get relief when he had obtained the consent of the landlord to apply to the Commissioners. Why, it might as well be contended that a man, seeking redress of a wrong, should not commence an action at law without the consent of the defendant. But the Bill allowed the landlord to go into Court if he thought fit to do so, and then, unless the tenant took action in the matter, there was nothing to prevent the landlord showing that the tenant's claim was unfounded, and that he was able to pay. If the Amendment were adopted, it was clear that the object of the Bill would be defeated. Without using strong language, the Amendment might be described as an affront to the Bill; and he should, for the obvious reasons stated, vote against it.

§ MR. GIBSON
said, that both the Bill and the Amendment were of importance, and could not be disposed of by strong expressions of opinion, or by strong epithets towards those who put forward their views in connection with them. He 2014 did not believe the Amendment would kill the Bill, to use the phrase of an hon. Member who had spoken in the course of the discussion. Undoubtedly it was an Amendment which would lead to important considerations in reference to the measure, but to considerations which were entitled to be presented to Parliament and to the country, and upon which they might fairly ask and claim the judgment of the House. The object of the Amendment, as it would strike one at first blush, was tolerably fair. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken argued as if the landlord ought not to have any voice in the matter. Of course, it must not be forgotten that they had reached times when all their bearings with relation to ordinary transactions had been lost.

§ MR. SERJEANT SIMON
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has not quite correctly represented me. I did not say that the landlord as the creditor should not have a voice in the matter. I said he would have a voice in it—that he could go before the Court and, if it were the case, show that the tenant's claim was unfounded.

§ MR. GIBSON
admitted that the tenant could go before the Court; but his protest would be worthless, because the tenant could bring him in whether he liked it or not. The Committee were asked to assent to the proposal that there should be a joint application on the part of the tenant and the landlord; in other words, that the landlord was to have a voice in the matter, and be considered before calling a portion of the Act into operation. From the opposition it had received one would think that the proposal was of a nature never before heard of. But the words proposed by his right hon. Friend were actually taken from the Arrears Clause of the Act of last year; and, although they lived rapidly now, it was rather startling to be told that the words of the Ministry, which were thought to embody good and sound statesmanship eight or nine months ago, were no longer to be tolerated, and to find that the Leader of the Opposition, who felt it his duty to propose their admission into this Bill, was exposed to the observation that he was very well off in not being dealt with in a summary manner for his temerity in arguing in support of his own Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minis- 2015 ter, however, in replying to the Leader of the Opposition, had occupied but five minutes less than he had in laying his views before the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) stated it was of no use to go back on the Act of 1881, which contained the principle that the landlord should have a voice in the disposition of his own property, because the clause had failed. But did it fail on that account? There was no validity in the argument, and the House was not in a position to affirm that the clause had failed on the principle of option. Anyone who took up that curious section would find reason after reason why it should have failed, quite irrespective of the principle of option. Take one of the reasons which at once presented itself. It failed because no landlord, unless driven by poverty and distress, would undergo the primary condition—namely, that the tenant, having got the loan largely for his own benefit, was not to be the person to be answerable for it, but the landlord. If that, as he believed it to be, was an abundant reason for the failure of the clause of the Act of 1881, he was at a loss to know what would be a good reason. The Prime Minister, feeling it was necessary to deal with the question, said—"Oh; but in the Act of 1881 you enable the landlord or the tenant to do everything relating to the tenancy, and it is rather too late now to say that you require a joint action on the part of the two in reference to arrears." But he had to remind the Prime Minister that in the same Act of 1881 the difference was that the tenant might invoke the Tenure Clauses alone, and that the landlord might invoke the intervention of the Court. It was felt necessary to admit some words, and in the Tenure Clause there were the same words as his right hon. Friend now moved. The precedent for this proposal of the Government was to be found in the Bill of the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond), which dealt with the Land Act and the stopping of arrears, and in which, as might be expected, the landlord was ignored and taught his proper place. But the landlord was given no voice in the matter, and to the tenant alone was given the right of invoking the intervention of the Court with reference to arrears. This 2016 Bill was, in substance, the same as, though in words slightly different from, the Bill in question, because it left the tenant, and the tenant alone, absolute master of the position. The tenant could go into Court when he pleased. But if the landlord did so with the approval of the tenant, the latter, with a gesture of contempt, if he pleased, could simply set the action of the landlord at naught by not complying with the condition resting on the tenant of paying one year's rent. In this way the landlord was bound neck and heel; and what use, then, was it to put in that the landlord might go into Court, unless it was for the purpose of throwing dust in the eyes of the country? It was a curious thing, bearing in mind the relations of the parties, to say to the tenant that he could do all sorts of serious things in reference to the property of the landlord, and that he could do them against the wish of the landlord, and without conference with him. He did not at that moment say whether it was just or unjust; but it struck him as a grave and startling proposal, only to be justified by exceptional and peculiar reasons. Now, the right hon. Gentleman had dealt with this matter in several ways. Amongst others, he dealt with it in reference to the state of the country; but he had not, he thought, presented any broad view which would illustrate either to the country, or to those who read the debates, why it was that the landlords were absolutely denied any voice whatever as to how the property was to be managed in this most cardinal point. Now, attempts had been made in one or two parts of the House to show that what he would call "old bookkeeping" arrears, dating from the Famine years of 1847 and 1848, had been handed down on the estate books. They knew that on some estates that might be so; but, of course, it was not the practice generally, and when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was pressed on the subject, he at once admitted that he was only dealing with a limited class of estates, and that his illustration was not to be supposed to represent the entire state of facts. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), too, contributed to the debate from his knowledge of the whole of Ireland one solitary case of these arrears in the county of Roscommon. Still, assuming that these old 2017 arrears were more common than was actually the case, he could then understand the argument that they ought to be dealt with in some compulsory way; but, few and far between as they were, to say that this special and peculiar class of arrears were to be taken as an illustration of the general state of facts to be dealt with by this Bill was a thing which would not stand one moment's consideration. They were dealing with normal, and not abnormal, arrears—with arrears which had been permitted to accrue by the forbearance of the landlords during the last three years, and there were 50 or 100 cases of this kind for every one of the kind suggested by the hon. Member for Tipperary. He did not think the Prime Minister considered the Amendment from the point of view of argument; he was more desirous of making an attack upon the Leader of the Opposition. If this Amendment were accepted, there would be an immense advantage gained in the working of the Bill, because it would remove one of the greatest difficulties in the way—namely, the danger of litigation. If the Bill were to become law, it should be capable of application with comparative promptitude; but with the conditions now affixed to it, there was the most absolute certainty that it could not come into action for a considerable time, because the Government had sown the seeds of 180,000 or 200,000 lawsuits; and unless they accepted, the Amendment of his right hon. Friend, they had guaranteed that one of the parties would feel that he was aggrieved, and that he was bound to have recourse to law for the vindication of his rights. But if the Government accepted the proposal that the landlord and tenant should jointly apply, would not that remove one of the great difficulties out of the way of the operation of the Bill? Because, if they agreed together to apply to the Court and invoke the operation of the Act, it would, of course, be on the understanding that the tenant was unable to satisfy the antecedent arrears. That in itself would sweep away a great cause of litigation, and it would be a circumstance that would be likely to lead to the greatest possible smoothness in the working of the Act. Of course, that would still leave the question open as to the right of the Treasury and the public to be satisfied of the inability of 2018 the tenant to pay; but he ventured to say that no serious or resolute offer would be made by any Government official to show that the tenant was not as poor as he said he was. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister stated that he knew the landlords were in favour of the Bill, and waiting for it to pass. If that were so, where was the danger of making them one of the two persons whose joint sanction should be necessary to put the Bill in operation? Either the landlords were willing or unwilling that the Bill should take effect. If they were unwilling, the Government were taking away their property without their consent; but if they were willing, then they were refusing to accept this Amendment without reason to justify their refusal. Now, what would be the effect of the compulsion which it was proposed to apply to the landlords? They would, of course, feel they had been treated in an unfair and unreasonable way, and this of necessity would tend to widen the breach and to prolong litigation between the two parties. Again, the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. H. R. Brand) had said that the acceptance of the Amendment would be fatal to the Bill. But he saw no reason why it should be so. He assumed the Government were prepared to accept some Amendments; he did not suppose they meant to lay down the line of the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill. The Amendment of his hon. Friend was serious and substantial; but, at the same time, it would leave the Bill capable of large and wide operation. It was competent to the Government to say they would not accept it, of course; but in that case it would be open to hon. Members who thought with him to give it their loyal support on division.

§ MR. TREVELYAN
said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) had appealed to the Committee to discuss, this matter calmly, and in so doing he seemed to cast a reflection on the speech of the Prime Minister; but he was sure the Prime Minister's rhetorical humour had not exceeded in warmth or energy what the two right hon. and learned Gentlemen the Members for the University of Dublin, themselves both good speakers and appreciators of rhetoric, usually enjoyed. However, he proposed to say nothing which would 2019 call down the censure of the right hon. and learned Gentleman upon himself; but he should like to answer the charge of inconsistency which had been brought against the Government for not allowing under this Bill a joint application on the part of the landlord and tenant, seeing that the principle was contained in the 59th clause of the Land Act of last year. Now it seemed to him there was an absolutely conclusive difference between the present Bill and the clause of the Land Act which the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) had quoted. For in that clause the relief given to the tenant was by means of a loan, and surely it was unreasonable to say to a man that he must borrow money to pay his debts whether he liked it or not, and that he must pay it back by instalments at the will of another person, without his having the power of saying whether he would borrow the money or not. For that reason it would be quite impossible for the Government to allow in this case the landlord to have a governing voice in the matter. He supposed the right hon. Gentleman would admit that they certainly could not give a governing voice to the tenant under the 59th clause of the Act of last year, and that was the reason why joint application was enacted. The right hon. Gentleman, in supporting the Amendment, said the Government ought to have introduced into this Bill the principle which governed the Act of last year, and he contended that they were disturbing the arrangement made under the Arrears Clause of that Act. However that might be, the 59th clause of the Act had undoubtedly failed, because under it only some £30,000 had been applied for, and of that amount about £5,000 had been paid off. They must, therefore, take warning from the Bill of last year, and the Government had determined that this clause should not be a failure. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the Government must not disarrange the arrangements made under their own Arrears Clause; but when it was remembered that the small holdings in Ireland yielded a rental of £6,000,000 a-year, and that under the clause of last year only £30,000—that was only £ per cent of the rentals—had been asked for, he must say there really was nothing left to disarrange. The right hon. Gentleman, said they had been dealing with 2020 arrears which had been allowed to accrue through kindness and consideration. Now, he was very far from questioning the motives with which Irish landlords had allowed those arrears to accrue. He was quite sure they were those which were attributed to them by the right hon. Gentleman; but they had a right to say that that kindness and that consideration were not altogether directed by a just judgment. The other day he was reading a letter of Lord Clanricarde's which appeared in the newspapers. He must say he thought that letter a most significant and a most curious one in one respect. He was reading from the point of view of a person who was interested in English land, from the point of view of a person who knew how the difficulties of recent seasons had been treated by English landlords. A particular passage of the letter began by speaking of the great distress which had taken place on the estate, and then, proceeding in a tone of kindness and consideration just like that described by the right hon. Gentleman, Lord Clanricarde went on to say— That under these circumstances I did not insist upon the payment of 50 per cent of the year's rental, but I allowed it to be added to the arrears. He did not hesitate to say that Lord Clanricarde's action was entirely different from the action of those English landlords who, instead of adding 50 per cent to the arrears of the tenant, freely forgave the 50 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman asked the Government for practical reasons why this joint application by landlord and tenant could not be accepted by the Government. It went to the root of the Bill, and if it was accepted by the Government, the Government might just as well drop their Bill, because it would be as ineffective as the Arrears Clause of last year. Now, in the first place, the landlord was able, by refusing his consent, to prevent the Bill coming into operation in the case of a particular tenant. The landlord, if he was a bad landlord, might make conditions which would bear very hardly upon the tenant. He might make it a condition that he should have in one year 18 months' or two years' rent paid down. He might make it a condition that the tenant should give up part of his holding—in fact, to leave it to him to make 2021 what conditions he liked would be reducing the Bill to nothing more or less than to waste paper. The landlord, instead of making a condition regarding money, might make a condition regarding the holding. There were landlords in Ireland who found it to their advantage to consolidate their holdings, and they might make it an absolute condition that holdings might be consolidated before any of the tenants should have the benefits of the Bill, and in order to overcome these difficulties and induce the landlord to go into Court—to come within the operation of the Arrears Bill—the only possible way in which to induce them to do this would be to very considerably increase the pecuniary inducement, and to alter the financial conditions of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment said the Bill, if it were by joint application, would increase the good feeling between landlord and tenant; whereas the Bill, if it were by separate application, would diminish this feeling. He could not remember one single argument which the right hon. Gentleman adduced to support that position. On the contrary, he was sorry to say that at this moment, for reasons which it was not necessary to go very far to seek, there was not the best feeling—there was not the usual good feeling between landlords and tenants in Ireland. He was sure one could not in many cases blame the landlords that this feeling did not exist; but he called to witness some very powerful evidence, the evidence of a witness who certainly would be accepted by the right hon. Gentleman—namely, the evidence of the hon. Member for Downpatrick (Mr. Mulholland), who, in the debate on the second reading of the Bill, gave his idea of the present feeling between landlord and tenant in Ireland, that feeling which the right hon. Gentleman was so anxious not to shake or disturb. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Downpatrick (Mr. Mulholland) gave his idea in a sentence, the metaphors of which were confused, but the drift of which it was impossible to mistake. The hon. Gentleman said the litigation resulting from the operation of the Land Act had divided landlords and tenants into two hostile camps, and left behind it some feeling of bitterness. Without accepting the form of that sentence, he could not but allow that besides that 2022 litigation which the hon. Member spoke of in the course of the last two years, a great deal had happened to throw landlords and tenants into opposite directions, and he (Mr. Trevelyan) drew from that an entirely different deduction from the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He thought it very important that the benefit of this, as he thought, most beneficent Act could be secured by both sides on the application of one party. Parliament should not oblige landlords and tenants to come to a joint decision to apply. His own belief was that if either the landlord or the tenant appealed for the benefit of this Act the feeling resulting would be common to both, and that this Act would do as much as legislation could do to do away with that unpleasant feeling which had been described by the hon. Member for Downpatrick (Mr. Mulholland). The right hon. Gentleman threw it in the teeth of the Government that a very powerful and important Member of the Administration last year spoke of a separate application for the purpose of coming under the Arrears Clause as demoralizing. The right hon. Gentleman, it was true, could not exaggerate what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) had said on that occasion; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford had asked him (Mr. Trevelyan) to state in his (Mr. Trevelyan's) speech to the Committee that he (Mr. W. E. Forster) applied the epithet "demoralizing" to machinery which did not duly recognize an inability to pay. If that inability to pay were to be insisted upon, then the demoralizing character of the Arrears Bill in the eyes of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford and everybody else would be diminished, and, he (Mr. Trevelyan) hoped, destroyed. One argument he entirely agreed with—namely, the accelerating character of the proposed Amendment upon the operation of the Bill; but it would quicken that operation by cutting out those cases in great numbers where it would be of the greatest assistance. The Government desired to have the action of this Bill rapid; but they were still more anxious to have it thorough. They wished to have it thorough, comprehensive, and all-embracing, and unless it fulfilled those conditions the Government felt that it could not be final. If the right 2023 hon. Gentleman's Amendments were adopted, he feared the Bill, so far from being all-embracing and comprehensive, would be extremely limited in its sphere.

§ MR. WARTON
said, he was glad to see the Prime Minister had returned to his place, because, after the kindly reference the right hon. Gentleman had made to him, he felt it was but due he should say something. The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to refer to his (Mr. Warton's) high position. He was sure that remark was not made in any unkind spirit or as a sneer. He considered it but a playful joke, having reference to the lofty Bench on which he usually sat. The exclamation which called for the right hon. Gentleman's reference to himself he made, because he heard the Leader of his Party attacked in what he considered very strong language. He cared little for himself, and very little would cause him to reconsider his personal position; very little would cause him to resign his seat in that House. This question had been forced upon the Committee by the Government themselves. His Parliamentary experience was not long; it was confined to this present Parliament. But during his experience he had never heard a Leader of one of the recognized Parties in the House attacked in such strong language as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) had been attacked by the Premier. He might say that while they had complaints made on the one hand that the Leader of the Opposition took too long to consider this question, they had other complaints made that this was a matter of vital importance striking at the very root of the Bill. Surely, if this Amendment were of vital importance it was worthy of a somewhat prolonged consideration. He was struck very much with the jubilant tone adopted by Members on the Treasury Bench. It was easy to say that last year's clause was a failure. Why should not this be a failure? Why were they to say that this would be any more successful than the measure of last year? It was a question not only of gift or loan, but also of compulsion, and they ought to look carefully and philosophically at the elements of the question, so as to consider to what the failure of last year's clause was due. The hon. Member for Galway 2024 had talked about patent medicines; but it was the habit of quack doctors, when one remedy failed, to say they had some other which would be thoroughly efficacious.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
(who rose amid cries of "Oh, oh!") said, he should not feel himself justified in being deterred by the disorderly interruptions from, the other side of the House from saying a few words on this Amendment. He had not, as a matter of fact, had an opportunity of addressing any observations to the Committee upon this stage of the Bill, and he trusted the Committee would now allow him to say a few words on this Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant made a defence of the speech of the Prime Minister. He (Mr. Lowther) could not help thinking that had the right hon. Gentleman been present when that speech was delivered he would have been painfully impressed with the fact that the language of the Prime Minister, although it came, no doubt, from the bottom of his heart, certainly partook of the character of menace. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, addressing the Leader of the Party opposed to him in Parliament, spoke of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition as being such that if they had emanated from another quarter of the House which he indicated, they would have necessitated the adoption of what he ominously called certain measures. He (Mr. Lowther) ventured to say that that was language which had never been used in the House of Commons before. He accepted it as a re-assuring incident that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, sitting next to the Prime Minister, and doubtless having received his permission to do so, tried to minimize those oracular utterances to which he (Mr. Lowther) had referred. He trusted that in future they would be at liberty to discuss this Bill without fear of having their observations called in question in a manner with which they had recently become familiar. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister must remember that, as Members of the House of Commons, they were guardians of the public purse. He had always understood that one of the primary obligations resting upon a Member of the House of Commons was to jealously guard the 2025 purse of the country. What was this Bill? They were asked by it to commit the taxpayers to what he must say was an unknown liability. [Cries of "Question!"] The hon. Gentleman who cried Question was none other but one whom he had always thought to be ex-officio, par excellence, the guardian of the public purse—namely, the Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury.

§ MR. COURTNEY
I never cried "Question"—I simply said it was a second, reading speech.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, the hon. Gentleman might have deferred that observation until he could have made the Committee acquainted with his sentiments in a more orderly manner, although he fully agreed with the hon. Gentleman that his (Mr. Lowther's) observation was one that might very fairly be urged on a second reading, though it was also distinctly applicable to the present discussion. He would call the attention of the Committee to the fact that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) went to limit the imposition of the burden on the public purse. The Amendment proposed that this obligation should not be imposed upon the public purse unless both parties were agreed that it should be imposed. It had been stated that this was, in reality, a "No Rent" Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister endeavoured to reply to that by quoting some remarks which had been communicated to the public prints by Lord Clanricarde. What did that letter amount to but this—that in his (Lord Clanricarde's) neighbourhood, and, in fact, in a large portion of Ireland, the introduction of the Bill had resulted in a general stoppage of the payment of rent. This measure was very fairly described as a "No Bent" Bill. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) combated the proposition that the effect of the introduction of this Bill had been demoralizing. What could be more demoralizing than for the honest tenant to be told that the money which he had spent in the payment of his rent had been money thrown away; that if he had chosen to retain that money in his own pocket he would have been a richer man now, and perhaps he would have had more limbs on his body and more members in his family? The Government had by the 2026 introduction of this Bill, dealt a heavy blow to morality in Ireland.

§ MR. SYNAN
rose to Order. There must be some limit to the discussion of this Bill, and he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was addressing himself to the Amendment? In his opinion, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was one only suited to the second reading.

THE CHAIRMAN
I am waiting for the right hon. Gentleman to come to the point.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, the Chairman's anxiety should not be long delayed. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister himself stated that this Bill rested between the two pillars of gift and compulsion. The right hon. Gentleman had selected the principle of gift as opposed to that of loan, and he (Mr. Lowther) thought that what he was now addressing to the Committee was very pertinent to the Amendment under discussion. The right hon. Gentleman had said that arrears in Ireland were of a totally different character to arrears in England. What was the evidence the right hon. Gentleman adduced in support of that proposition? Why, he said that in England, although doubtless arrears were allowed frequently, or at any rate sometimes, to accrue, there was no Act of Parliament that recognized the sale of arrears. The right hon. Gentleman did not give him (Mr. Lowther) the reference to the Act of Parliament to which he was then alluding; but he (Mr. Lowther) understood the right hon. Gentleman to refer to the Landed Estates Court Act. The reason why there was no English Act of Parliament precisely on all fours with the Landed Estates Court (Ireland) Act was because there had been no need for such an Act in England up to the present time. ["Question!"] The hon. Gentleman who cried "Question!" was evidently not thoroughly conversant with the subject. Had the hon. Gentleman been present when the Prime Minister addressed the Committee, he would have found that the right hon. Gentleman specially quoted that Act, and dwelt with marked emphasis upon the fact that there was not on the Statute Book, as applied to England, any section which dealt with the sale of arrears. The right hon. Gentleman was doubtless aware that they had not hitherto had an 2027 Incumbered Estates Court or Landed Estates Court in England. If the doctrine of free trade in land were applied to England, as hon. Gentlemen sitting below the Gangway on the Ministerial side of the House seemed to desire, perhaps they would have had a clause dealing with the question of arrears. The right hon. Gentleman trod on dangerous ground when he called in question the quotation made by the right hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster), whom he (Mr. Lowther) was glad to see now in his place. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford was reported to have said that the principle of compulsory insistance upon the settlement of arrears would be demoralizing. This was said to have been the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman last year. His right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) intimated that what was said from the Treasury Bench by a responsible Minister of the Crown, representing in that House the Irish Government, to be demoralizing in 1881 might not impossibly partake of that character in 1882. No doubt, as the Chief Secretary just now said, a great deal had happened recently; but he (Mr. Lowther) was not aware that matters had proceeded so rapidly that what was demoralizing in 1881 had become just and proper in 1882. Different doctrines had been propounded from the Treasury Bench as to the responsibility of Ministers for the sayings of their Colleagues. The Prime Minister deprecated the doctrine which he said was being laid down by his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), to the effect that there was a solidarity amongst Members of the same Administration as to the particular sayings which might be used in the course of their speeches. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister repeated that he was in no way bound by the opinions expressed by the right hon. Gentleman who at the time held the Office of Chief Secretary (Mr. W. E. Forster.) He (Mr. Lowther) certainly understood the Prime Minister to say it was unreasonable to insist upon a solidarity of the views and expressions of opinions of the Members of Her Majesty's Government. He must remind the Committee that only a few days ago 2028 a very different doctrine was propounded by the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary, in solemn terms, addressed the House of Commons, and said that every Member of the Government was represented by any one of his Colleagues.

§ MR. CAUSTON
rose to Order. He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was now confining his remarks to the Amendment?

THE CHAIRMAN
could not say that the right hon. Gentleman was strictly confining himself to the Amendment.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
rose to Order. He asked the Chairman whether he was aware that the right hon. Gentleman was only following the example set him by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote)?

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
feared he must have failed to make himself clear even to the Chairman, because he was distinctly replying to, and actually quoting, the words of the Prime Minister. He had yet to learn what qualifications the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Causton) possessed for enlightening the Committee on points of Order. He must inform the hon. Gentleman, who apparently required information on the subject, that an essential element of debating was to be permitted to reply to a speech delivered in the course of a debate. He (Mr. Lowther) was quoting a speech delivered by the Prime Minister when the hon. Member (Mr. Causton) gave vent to his disorderly interruptions. He believed that the other hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), who had just interrupted, was not present when the Prime Minister spoke, or else he would surely not have taken exception to his (Mr. Lowther) replying to observations made by the Prime Minister. During the years he had had the honour of a seat in that House—[Mr. M'COAN: Question! Question!] The hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan), whose Parliamentary experience was not of long date, would, no doubt, when he had had sufficient experience in Parliament, be prepared to admit that it had always been held that in Committee, as well as in the House, Members were within their legitimate rights of debate in replying to a speech delivered by another hon. Gentleman, especially when that hon. Gentleman was the Prime Minister.

2029

§ MR. SHEIL
appealed to the Chairman whether the right hon. Gentleman was now addressing himself to the Question immediately before the Committee?

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
must really object to these interruptions. [Cries of "Go on!"] An hon. Member said "Go on!" To be subjected to unseemly interruptions such as he had been subjected to deterred him from going on; and when he was replying, or endeavouring to reply, to the Prime Minister's speech delivered in the course of the debate, it was not calculated to promote the order of debate or the progress of the measures before the House if hon. Members who had not heard the previous speeches rose to Order and contended that replies to previous speeches were not admissible. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, among other observations, charged the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition with calling in question, in the course of the debate in this Committee, a measure which he (the Prime Minister) said had been sanctioned by the Upper House of Parliament. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The Prime Minister now shook his head; he had evidently forgotten what he himself had said. The right hon. Gentleman distinctly said that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) was calling in question a provision of a measure which had been sanctioned by his Friends in the Upper House of Parliament. He (Mr. Lowther) was, perhaps, now in the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. Now, this opened up a point which he thought the Committee would do well to dwell upon for a moment. The right hon. Gentleman had said, in point of fact, that if in either House of Parliament the Members of the Conservative Party did not oppose by every means in their power every proposition subjected to their consideration, they became participators and accomplices in the proceedings of the Government. ["No, no!"] What else did the words of the right hon. Gentleman moan but that? And, therefore, he thought the Members on the Opposition side of the House, at any rate, would be wise to consider very carefully how they should deal with Amendments like the present. If they did not divide upon the ques- 2030 tion, the right hon. Gentleman would say that they had acquiesced in the course proposed by Her Majesty's Government. It therefore became the duty of the Conservative Party to be very careful how they proceeded in matters of this importance. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would not be prepared to controvert his argument when he said it was the duty of all of those who strongly opposed this Bill, both in its principles and in its details, to offer every opposition they could to provisions like the present. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Brad ford (Mr. W. E. Forster) last year en lightened them upon one point which had been declared—

§ MR. R. T. REID
rose to Order. He wished to ask the Chairman whether the time had not come when the right hon. Gentleman should be required to address himself to the Amendment before the Committee?

THE CHAIRMAN
I am bound to say that I do not think the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman are very much in reference to the Amendment before the Committee, which is simply whether the word "joint" should be inserted.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, as to how far he was justified in alluding to the observations of previous speakers he would not now dwell upon; but he would say that the interruptions which had taken place had not in a single instance emanated from any Member who possessed, by experience, at any rate, any claim to assist the Chairman in the duty of presiding over their discussions. Now, as there appeared to be a very decided determination on the part of some hon. Members to anticipate the return to that House of those Members who might not have had the advantage of being present during the greater part of the discussion, and as there appeared to be a desire—[Mr. CAUSTON: Question! Question!]—as there appeared to be a desire on the part of the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Causton) and other hon. Gentlemen to insure a division before the return to that House of many hon. Gentlemen who had, like himself, been debarred from the opportunity of hearing the discussion, he should curtail his observations within the narrowest possible compass. He must draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that if the applications under this 2031 Bill were to be joint on the part of the landlord and tenant, it would tend to diminish the demands which this clause would necessitate from the public purse. There was a great deal to be said in favour of a universal remission of all arrears; but he himself was not prepared to advocate it. He could understand the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister coming down to the House and saying that, as a matter of public policy, it was advisable that all arrears of rent should be remitted at the sole expense of the State. He (Mr. Lowther) would certainly take exception to any such doctrine; but, at any rate, he could understand it being advocated. The House of Commons was bound to consider that it was its duty to guard the public purse, and that it must subject to the closest scrutiny any attempt made upon the public funds. He trusted the Committee would not consent to claims being made upon the public purse which were not justified by the concurrence in this matter of both landlord and tenant.

§ MR. VILLIERS-STUART
said, that he was an Irish landlord, and as a charge had been brought against his order, he felt bound to say a word in their vindication. Until that night he had never in all his life heard of arrears being sold. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had said that remissions of rent were never made in Ireland except on condition of their being added to the arrears. Every one of the great landlords in his (Mr. Villiers-Stuart's) county made remissions of rent in 1879, and he did not think that in a single instance the remissions were added to the arrears. As regarded the Amendment before the Committee, he could not support it, because he was of opinion that unless this Bill were made compulsory it would not be successful.

MR. MAC IVER
said, he rose for the purpose of asking hon. Members opposite to give a reasonable and fair consideration to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). It seemed to him that questions affecting the condition of Ireland were far too important and too grave to be dealt with in a hurried manner; and he could not help feeling that they ought to strive, without distinction of Party, to do that 2032 which would restore good feeling between landlord and tenant. That which [would restore peace to the country; that which would make people feel ready to invest money in Ireland; that which would give hope for the future, was I deserving of the most serious attention; and he asked hon. Members opposite to join hands with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon in amending the Bill in such a manner as would conduce to the well-being of the Sister Isle. He hoped hon. Members opposite would exhibit a continuance of that spirit of independence which had lately been visible amongst their ranks. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would restrict the mischievous operation of the Bill, and it would cause the disturbed relations between landlords and tenants in Ireland to be settled in a just and amicable manner. He was not one of those who objected to an expenditure of public money under this clause; but he did insist that whatever expenditure was made should be made for the real good of the people of Ireland. Let them accept the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, and they would find the clause would prove beneficial to the Irish people. To put the matter on the lowest and most selfish grounds, was it not immensely to the interest of Great Britain to make Ireland satisfied and contented? The only way, in his opinion, to make this clause useful would be by the acceptance of the Amendment. If this Bill was to be made useful, something must be done in the direction which the right hon. Gentleman proposed. Parliament must do something to restore good feeling between landlord and tenant—to make both parties cooperate for the good of the country. He should be sorry, in deference to the Committee, to stand between it and the division on this Amendment; and therefore he hoped that hon. Members opposite would put aside their Party leanings and do that which was best for Ireland.

§ MR. TOTTENHAM
said, at that hour, it was the evident wish of the Committee to divide, and he was not going to stand between it and the division longer than was necessary to answer one observation of the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman had said that it was the practice in Ireland—[Mr. GLADSTONE: A practice.]—a practice, if the right hon. 2033 Gentleman preferred the indefinite article, to sell arrears in Ireland; that arrears were, in fact, sold as an article of merchandize. Speaking with probably more experience of Ireland, but certainly not with the same experience of Parliamentary life and of the world as the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, he must say he had never known of a single case where the sale of arrears had taken place; and he must add that an observation more unfounded in fact had never emanated from anyone in that House.

§ MR. GIVAN
said, he must give a flat contradiction to what had just been (stated by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Tottenham). He had had, for many years, experience of the sale of estates—an experience more extensive than the hon. Member, or, perhaps, many other Members who had spoken on this matter. He knew that with regard to sales in the Landed Estates Court it had been a frequent practice to sell arrears, and to sell them separately, as the Landed Estates Court was empowered to do. He had never known of a case where arrears had been bought at a small figure for the purpose of being remitted; but he had known of them being bought in order that they might be kept existing against the tenant. The most had been made of arrears by landlords in Ireland. What was the fact proved before the Commissioners of Appeal in the case of Mr. Newton, of Derry? It was proved he had bought an estate in Donegal, and, finding the tenants were unable to pay the arrears, he added the interest on the money, and made it a permanent increase in the rental of the estate. Those hon. Members who had spoken in the course of this debate in contradiction of the statement of the Prime Minister had made statements in utter ignorance of the practice of Ireland. He had known not only arrears sold by the Landed Estates Court, but by private owners; and he could quote instances of sale well known to many hon. Gentlemen opposite.

§ SIR HERVEY BRUCE
said, the observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Givan) must be supposed to apply to some of the Irish landlords sitting on the Conservative side of the House. All he could say was, from his knowledge of the selling of estates in Ireland—and he was happy to think that he had not the knowledge 2034 of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and he did not wish to have the knowledge that the hon. and learned Gentleman sometimes exhibited—it had not been the practice of landlords, when selling their estates, to sell the arrears on the estate. What the Landed Estates Court Judge did in his business he (Sir Hervey Bruce) could not tell; but he himself sold some estates some few years ago, and he did not sell the arrears. He simply got the number of years' rent that he agreed for, and what became of the arrears he did not know.

§ MR. GIVAN
said, in reference to what had just been said by the hon. Gentleman (Sir Hervey Bruce), he must say that he had never had any action in the sale of estates personally.

§ MR. GIBSON
said, there could be no doubt that when an estate was sold in the Landed Estates Court arrears of rent were often sold with it. There was no question about it. But he was positive that in the experience of the hon. Member who had just sat down no case had ever been known of a landlord selling an estate to one person and the arrears to another.

§ Question put.

§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 170; Noes 248: Majority 78.—(Div. List, No. 244.)

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, that the next Amendment, which stood in his name, related to the question of the tribunal which was to administer the Act. The Government proposed that the Land Commission should have the duty of carrying out the Act cast upon it; but it seemed to him there were very strong reasons why some other tribunal should be constituted or utilized for the purpose. It was most important that the tribunal selected should possess public confidence; and he said, without hesitation, that the Land Commission had hitherto failed to elicit that confidence. The Land Commission had certainly, hitherto, not shown itself to have that impartiality and discrimination which was essential to every tribunal laying claim to the possession of the confidence of the community. He did not wish to detain the Committee by going in detail into the reasons why he thought they would do well to substitute any other tribunal for the Land Commission. He had pointed out that the special tribunal 2035 he had referred to just now might be said to be not exactly in the position of Cæsar's wife. They had heard to-day a statement to the effect that a County Court Judge had laid down some rather strange doctrines as to the method by which a fair rent was to be arrived at, and that he had adopted a remarkably rough and ready plan in arriving at the end he had in view. It had been said that the Judge placed Griffith's valuation on the one hand, and the actual rent on the other, and, by going between them, conceived that he had arrived at a fair rent. He (Mr. Lowther) did not say that he had endorsed such a course as that, nor did he think the Government would endorse it either; but, at the same time, he should not be right in casting discredit upon the whole body of County Court Judges on account of one gentleman who had charge of this important function having so far forgotten his duty to his country. Those who know the County Court Judges of Ireland must be aware that they were far more competent to deal with questions of this kind than the Land Commission. What was the Land Commission? Why, it was essentially a political tribunal. It had, as a matter of fact, been stated by the Chief Commissioner that his Court could not be guided by the ordinary rules that regulated the conduct of a judicial tribunal, and that they had to see that the tenants lived and thrived. There were very sound reasons why the Committee should hesitate before they cast these duties upon the Land Commission. He said emphatically, as he had said on a previous occasion this Session, that the Land Commission had been constituted on a distinctly partizan basis. On the occasion to which he referred, the Prime Minister had taken exception to the remark, and had said that one member of the Commission, at least, was not of his (Mr. Gladstone's) political opinion. He (Mr. Lowther) had ventured to question that statement; and he repeated now what he had said before—namely, that the Commission was chosen on principles that hitherto had never guided the Government in the selection of a judicial tribunal. The Government themselves had stated that the composition of the tribunal had been determined on with a view of securing gentlemen in harmony with the spirit of the legislation they were called upon to administer, 2036 and that was a delicate way of saying that they were partizans of the Government. If the Bill was to work well and smoothly, he contended that it was necessary that there should be public confidence in its administrators. The administration of the measure should be, as far as possible, secured from prejudice and bias.

§ Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 13, to leave out the words "Irish Land Commission," and insert the words "county court judge for the division within which such holding is situated."—(Mr. James Lowther.)

§ Question proposed, "That the words 'Irish Land Commission' stand part of the Clause."

MR. GLADSTONE
said, he could not accept the Amendment, which was wholly inconsistent with the character of the administrative arrangements of the Bill. It was necessary that in regard to this measure, and in regard to the Land Act, there should be unity of action. The conditions required that there should be one authority presiding over the entire operations; otherwise it would become most difficult—nay, impossible—to conduct them in a manner in the slightest degree satisfactory. But the right hon. Gentleman proposed to strike out the supreme and central authority, and to substitute for it a number of gentlemen entirely independent of one another, who would have no means whatever of arriving at a unity of action. He (Mr. Gladstone) did not in the slightest degree object to the Amendment on the ground that it was supported by the argument that the Land Commissioners were unworthy of confidence. It would be seen, when they came to a later clause, that they had provided that the Land Commission might have power to work through a variety of persons who would fall within a very wide definition, and amongst whom County Court Judges might be included. He objected to the proposal on administrative grounds, in the first place because it was absolutely necessary there should be this central authority for the purpose of securing unity of action. He was bound to say he had a second reason, and it was this—he entirely challenged the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the Land Commission. He (Mr. Glad- 2037 stone) maintained that the Land Commission did possess public confidence. ["No no!"] Well, he had never said that it possessed the confidence of the right hon. Gentleman; but he might venture to express an opinion as to the view entertained with regard to it by the public. The Commission was composed of gentlemen whose names had met with the approval of both Houses of Parliament, and whose proceedings had been strictly legitimate. It was quite true that he himself, and perhaps some other Members of the Government, had stated that the gentlemen to be appointed to administer it should be gentlemen who would work in the spirit of the Act and of the Legislature which passed it. It was their duty to conform to the mind of the Legislature responsible for the measure. The Amendment now proposed would, if adopted, be injurious, indeed ruinous to the Bill, therefore he must oppose it.

§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH
said, this was a most important question which had been raised by his right hon. Friend, because it was not merely whether the County Court Judges should be substituted for the Land Commissioners, but whether the Land Commission should be the tribunal to administer the Act. He did not wish to enter into the question of whether the Land Commission did or did not possess the confidence of the Irish people; but he would venture to repeat that for saying which he had been sharply taken to task the other night by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright)—namely, that he was confident that, at any rate, no inconsiderable number of the Sub-Commissioners did not possess anything like the general confidence of the Irish people. In saying that he was not so much blaming the persons who were placed in the position of Sub-Commissioners, as he was referring to the fact that by the very terms of their appointment, by the salaries which they received, and by the temporary nature of their appointments, it was utterly impossible for Her Majesty's Government—however good their intentions might be, and however much care they might exercise in making the selections—to find persons competent to fulfil the very difficult and delicate duties which devolved upon the Assistant or Sub-Commissioners. But what 2038 was the proposal in this Bill? They had already a Commission overwhelmed with work. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had told them, in the course of a speech he delivered the other day, of his sanguine expectation that the work of the Land Commission, under the Land Act of last year, would be completed by August, 1883. But the right hon. Gentleman had based his expectation on figures that were erroneous. He had told them that there had been 78,700 applications made to the Court, that 21,511 had been disposed of, and that, therefore, there were only 57,000 remaining. As a matter of fact, however—as appeared from a Return issued on Saturday morning—there were between 9,000 and 10,000 more applications than the right hon. Gentleman had estimated, leaving 68,000 to be decided by the Commission. There was all this work before the Land Commission, irrespective of all their more important duties in the matter of breaking leases and of giving decisions on appeal—duties all of which must, of course, fall upon the Land Commission itself. He had said enough to show that it would be utterly impossible for the Land Commission to perform the duties imposed on it by this Bill. It was said that the object of the Bill was to suspend evictions, and in that way to enable the tenants to obtain the benefits of the Land Act. Well, it was essential, if that was to be done effectively, that, it should be done speedily; and if there was a long delay—if the work of hearing applications were to remain in abeyance until August of next year, the Bill would be practically useless. Then, if the Land Commission itself could not undertake the duties which they proposed to impose upon it under this Bill, could the Sub-Commissioners? He did not think so—their hands appeared to be already full; therefore, it was proposed that the Land Commission should be able to delegate its powers to other persons besides the Sub-Commissioners. In a sub-section of Clause 5 the Government said— The Land Commission may, from time to time, with the assent of the Treasury, appoint fit persons to investigate and report as to the existence or non-existence in the case of holdings of the preliminary conditions required to be proved for the purpose of orders under this Act, and as to the value of such holdings. And it went on to say— 2039 And the Land Commission, or Civil Bill Court, or any Sub-Commission, or any member of the Land Commission, or of any Sub-Commission dealing with an application under this Act as respects any holding, may adopt any such report, or any part thereof, as may seem expedient, and may from time to time direct a fresh investigation to take place, or may themselves or himself take evidence in respect of the subject-matter of such investigation. Everything depended upon the investigation of all the circumstances of each case on the spot. All those delicate investigations, about which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) had told them the other day—those inquiries as to the means of the tenant, as to the value of his tenant right, the stock on his farm, his money in the bank, and all those circumstances by which they were to determine his ability or inability to pay his arrears—would have to be investigated and settled by persons locally employed for the purpose; and it would be utterly impossible for any central tribunal, whatever it was, in practice to depart from the finding of these local investigators. And who were these local investigators to be? They were persons for whom the Government had laid down no qualification whatever in the Bill as it was now before the Committee. They would not be able to obtain for this purpose the services of persons even as competent as those whom the Government had already appointed on the Sub-Commissions. The Government would only pay these people small salaries, and the appointments would be even more temporary than those of the Sub-Commissioners. He (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) would venture to say that for the real administration of this measure they would have to depend upon the work of those who events would prove were even less deserving of the confidence of the country than the worst of the temporary Sub-Commissioners. If that were the case, he certainly thought they were entitled to some better defence than the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had offered for his proposal as it stood in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman's objection to the Amendment was that it was opposed to the principle of unity of action which it was desirable to maintain. The right hon. Gentleman said it was desirable to have a central authority to superintend the rest, and to lay 2040 down rules for the guidance of those to whom they would have to delegate their powers. That might be; but what was the nature of this Bill? Was it not, in all the circumstances of the case, practically a Bankruptcy Bill for the tenants? Could they not, then, do this—he merely threw it out as a suggestion—avail themselves, under the Act, of the services of the Bankruptcy Court, strengthening that Court if need be, and employing the County Court Judges and other officials, who were already experienced in Bankruptcy jurisdiction? Why should they not entrust the Bankruptcy Court with this power of central administration instead of the Land Commission, which, as he had already shown, was rendered utterly incompetent by its present duties to perform any new functions. He trusted the Committee would hear from right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Ministerial Bench not only objection to the proposal of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Lowther), but, what was more important, the required defence of the proposal of the Government. It ought to be shown to the Committee how it was possible for the Land Commission to discharge the new duties which this Bill, if unamended, would impose upon them—how the duties which the Commission would be compelled to delegate to others would be likely to be performed by the gentlemen they would obtain to undertake them; and, in short, how it was proposed to provide that which was essential to the success of the measure—namely, adequate working machinery, without which the investigation would degenerate into the farce which some hon. Members of that House had for a long time intended it should become.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, he had listened very carefully to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, being anxious to see how, in the course of his speech, he would contrive to support the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowther). That right hon. Gentleman made a definite proposal; he proposed that, instead of the Land Commission, the authority to administer the Bill should be the County Court Judges. That had been met by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) with a statement that was overwhelming—namely, that it was impossible to hand over the general administration of 2041 the Act, involving, as it did, the careful preparation of rules and regulations, and the appointment of persons to deal with each case, to a number of co-ordinate Judges of second rank in all parts of Ireland; and then the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), evidently impressed very much with the arguments of the Prime Minister, had suddenly changed his ground, suggesting that, not the County Court Judges or the Civil Bill Courts, but the Judges in Bankruptcy in Dublin should administer the Act; that they, with their knowledge of Bankruptcy proceedings, would form an excellent central authority, and that the Civil Bill Court should operate under them. That, so far as he understood it, was the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman.

§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH
These Courts have already Bankruptcy jurisdiction, and are under a central authority.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, he was pointing out that the right hon. Gentleman supporting the Amendment—which evidently was not admissible after the speech of the Prime Minister—had diverted his argument to the point that the administration of the Act should be relegated to the Bankruptcy Court, and that the Civil Bill Courts should carry out the general system under that Court. He would point out that, so far as he was aware, the Judges in Bankruptcy in Ireland knew practically nothing about land; that it was entirely foreign to their experience. He was informed that these Judges were engaged almost exclusively in the consideration of matters arising out of commercial matters. There was a large amount of business of this kind done by the Judges in Bankruptcy in Ireland, and to confer upon them the administration of proceedings in connection with arrears of rent would be practically to render the Act unworkable. Besides, the Amendment came altogether in the wrong place. The question of who in detail should administer the Act all over Ireland was set out in the 5th clause of the Bill. The persons to whom the powers should be delegated were expressly indicated. Reports would be made by the persons appointed by the Land Commission to make them, and would be submitted, in the terms of the clause, to— 2042 The Land Commission or Civil Bill Court, or any Sub-Commission, or any member of the Land Commission, or of any Sub-Commission dealing with an application under this Act. So that, when they came to the 5th clause, they would be able to see to what extent the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman could be carried out, and whether the powers should be limited to Civil Bill Courts, or extended as in the method proposed—that was to say, that not only should the County Courts be charged with the administration of the Act, but the Land Commissioners and the Sub-Commissioners. He would propose that the Committee should not accept the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowther), but should leave with the Land Commission the power of framing the rules—for that was a power they could not delegate to anyone else—and of directing the business of the local authority, and, when they came to the 5th clause, should turn their attention to the question of who should be selected to administer the Act. As to the opinion of the right hon. Baronet about the confidence reposed in the Land Commissioners by the public, that opinion, he might point out, was not shared by the great majority of the House. The majority of the House did place confidence in them, and, so far as he (Mr. Childers) had heard, that confidence was shared by the great majority of the people of Ireland. The business of the Land Commission was of such a novel character that there might have been cases where great difference of opinion arose; but he believed that as the business of the Commission advanced the confidence the public would repose in it would become greater and greater.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) had said that the majority of the House and the majority of the Irish people had perfect confidence in the Land Commission, and on a question of such importance, no doubt, the Committee would desire to act fairly. There were two sides to this question—the landlord's side and the tenant's side—and he thought it could not be contended that the landlords of Ireland had that confidence in the Land Commission which the right hon. Gentleman had expressed, and which he had claimed for it on behalf of the House. There was one question which struck him (Mr. W. H. Smith) as ex- 2043 tremely important. The right hon. Gentleman said the Land Commission was especially qualified to deal with this question, because it was a question affecting the land. Well, he (Mr. W. H. Smith) could not himself see that it was a land question. The question to be decided was whether the tenant was or was not able to pay the rent due, and that was a question eminently fitted for reference to a judicial person who was accustomed to try cases where debts were claimed, and where payment of debts was refused. He apprehended that never in the history of England or of Ireland had a question of greater difficulty been placed before any set of men than that of deciding whether the rent claimed from a tenant could or could not be paid. Anyone who had any knowledge of the facts of the case must know the extreme difficulty of deciding the question. Well, should the body who would have to decide the question decide it on political grounds and popular grounds, or judicially, as a matter of right or wrong? If the question were to be decided judicially, then the officials to be entrusted with the duty of administering the Act should be selected from a judicial point of view; and then, he could not help thinking, the Amendment of his right hon. Friend was a just and proper one. How did the Government propose that the 150,000 or 200,000 cases that would have to be disposed of within a reasonable time should be dealt with? If the measure was to be a success from any point of view, the steps taken should be such as would enable the cases which arose under it to be disposed of within a few months; for to allow their settlement to hang over for months, and perhaps years, would be to inflict the greatest possible amount of trouble and disorder on Ireland. By what kind of means did the Government propose to examine into the capacity of 150,000 tenants to pay their arrears of rent? Everybody knew that the difficulty which would prevail in Ireland would be a difficulty infinitely greater than anything that could prevail in England. The habits and customs of the people were such that it would be enormously difficult to rightly and properly decide a question of this kind. There was not only the interest of the tenant to be considered, but there was also the inte- 2044 rest of the landlord and the interest of the estate to be borne in mind. All these conditions were such as seemed to require from the Government a statement of a definite course—an idea of the means by which a decision in each particular case would be arrived at within a limited period of time.

MR. GLADSTONE
said, the right hon. Gentleman had put a question which was clearly out of place, the subject of it having no connection whatever with this Amendment. The question before the Committee was simply one of constituting the central authority. When they came to the 5th clause, the right hon. Gentleman would be entitled to call on the Government to show whether they had adopted the best means for providing instruments for the administration of the Act, whether those instruments ought not to be manifold, and whether the proceedings to be taken ought not to be expedited. The Government would be prepared to show that they had made provision for the greatest number of instruments that would be at all competent to do the work. But the question now under discussion was the selection of a central authority, and that central authority the Amendment which had been moved would destroy altogether, setting up in its place some 30 County Court Judges. Surely that, upon reflection, could hardly commend itself to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowther). There was an argument which would have to be considered when the proper time came—an argument with reference to the Land Commission. It was said that it was at present full of work, and, that being so, it would be a legitimate matter for discussion whether the Land Commission should not be strengthened. The question might be very reasonably raised, although he might say that the Land Commissioners themselves entertained no doubt whatever of their capacity to deal with this Bill; and, for his own part, he believed that body would be better qualified than any authority they could select to perform the duties.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, the Question which was put by the Chairman was, whether the words "Irish Land Commission" should be omitted. If the Committee thought the Bankruptcy Court in Dublin would be a better tribunal than the County Court Judges to 2045 substitute, he would have no objection to accept the alteration. He was quite in the hands of the Committee on the point; but the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Childers) was quite wrong in thinking that the present Amendment would be more properly moved on the 5th clause. He was sorry if he had not made his meaning clear, but it was that the Committee would not be justified in laying the duties of the central authority on the shoulders of the Land Commission, which was constituted in a one-sided manner—which had, in his opinion, generally failed satisfactorily to discharge the duties laid upon it, and which was notoriously overworked. It was stated that it would take many years for the Commission to perform the duties that now devolved upon it; and he considered the Committee would be unwise to cast further duties upon it.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, the right hon. Gentleman had at first proposed to substitute the County Court Judges for the Land Commission; but having found that it would be impossible to do that, he said—"Well, put in whom you please—I don't mind; but I object to the Land Commission." He (Mr. Childers) contended that it was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to make a specific proposal, if he thought it desirable to move an Amendment at all, and not to leave it to chance for an acceptable authority to be selected. The Government said the Land Commission was the best authority, and they adhered to the proposal of the Bill.

§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE
said, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) seemed to forget on whom the burden of proof lay. The Government made a proposal, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowther) objected to that proposal, and had called upon the Committee to consider what should be suggested in its place. It was the part of the Opposition, as critics of the Bill, to say whether they were satisfied or not with the proposal of the Government. It would be impossible to put off the discussion, because if they allowed the Land Commission to be named in the 1st clause, there would be no opportunity for amendment subsequently. The most reasonable course would be to strike out the words objected to, and substitute something of this kind—"tribunal ap- 2046 pointed by this Act." That would leave the matter open for settlement when they came to the 5th clause.

MR. GLADSTONE
said, the Government could not adopt that suggestion, as they were distinctly of opinion that the Land Commission would be by far the best qualified tribunal.

§ MR. HEALY
said, he should like to point out that the Tories appeared to have very short memories. It was only that day that the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Brodrick) had brought forward an accusation against Irish County Court Judges, suggesting, by implication, that those functionaries knew nothing about the Land Question. Now, however, the Front Opposition Bench wanted to take away jurisdiction from the Land Commission in a matter connected with the land, and confer it upon the County Court Judges.

§ Question put.

§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 249; Noes 177: Majority 72.—(Div. List, No. 245.)

§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTON
said, the Sub-sections (a), (b), and (c) dealt with the conditions with which the tenant would have to comply before coming under the operation of the Bill. The Prime Minister, when introducing the Bill, stated that the intention of the Government was that the tenant who was in arrear should pay one year's rent before he could apply to the Land Commission; and then, after a certain investigation, a portion of the remainder of the arrears was to be paid by the State to the landlord, and that none of the landlords was to get more than one year of arrears, no matter what the amount might be. He had no doubt the Prime Minister wished to adhere to the letter of the undertaking, or rather the arrangement, which he had laid before the House; but he proposed to move an Amendment which would strike out the 1st sub-section of Clause 1, and he believed he should be able to give good and cogent reasons for his proposal, which would not make any difference in the conditions; it was only intended to simplify the Bill, and to remove two sub-sections which were ambiguous and unintelligible. This Bill was very complicated in its provisions, and, therefore, he thought the conditions should be made as simple as possible. 2047 Sub-section (a) of Clause 1, and Sub-suction 3 should be read together. The tenant was to pay the rent payable in respect of a yearly tenancy Expiring on the last gale day of the tenancy in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one (which year of the tenancy is in this Act referred to as 'the year expiring as aforesaid') has been satisfied," &c. Then Sub-section 3 provided that all payments which were made on account of rent by a tenant In or subsequent to the year expiring as aforesaid, shall be deemed to have been made on account of the rent payable in respect of that year. These conditions seemed to him very exceptional, and he could not understand what was meant. He imagined the object of the Prime Minister in inserting Sub-section (a) was to recognize the obligation of the tenants to pay rent, and to enable tenants coming under this Act to repudiate the "no rent" manifesto. It was, however, perfectly clear that any tenant who paid rent, whether with reference to the year 1881, or any other year, equally repudiated the "no rent" manifesto. Therefore, he could not understand why the Act was complicated by these sub-sections. Those conditions brought the Act into collision with one of the most difficult things to settle—namely, the running of the hanging gale. What he proposed was to leave out after "that the" to end of sub-section, and insert— That a year's rent, or the equivalent thereto, has been paid on behalf of the holding during the twelve months expiring on the thirtieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and. Then he should propose to strike out Sub-section 3, and that would make it clear to every tenant that if he wanted to come under the Bill he must, by a certain day, pay a year's rent. As the Bill stood, that was not compulsory on the tenant. He was sure that it was the intention of the House that the Bill should be effectual as to arrears, and it was quite possible that any tenant whose arrears were cleared off under this Bill would start afresh with two and a-half years' arrears, because he was not bound to pay at the date of his application—not until the case came on, and the last date at which he could make his application was the last day of February, 1883; and that date might be extended, in some 2048 cases, to the 30th of June, 1883. He would take the most sanguine view of the time by which the work could be done by the Courts, and he believed that the last application would not be settled until a year after being lodged; and, therefore, tenants would be coming up in 1884 with reference to arrears due in 1881. They need not have paid any rent between 1881 and 1884; and if the unhappy landlords in the meantime, getting neither arrears in 1881 nor rent subsequently due, proposed to evict the tenants, some astute gentleman on the part of the tenant farmers would probably ask the Ministry of the day if it was not true that the landlords were trying to make evictions contrary to the intentions of the Arrears Act? He thought that was likely to occur, but that such a difficulty would be obviated if his Amendment was adopted. He was not particular about the words; he wanted to lay down the principle that a year's rent must be paid by a certain date, and that such payment should not have reference to any particular year—that was to say, that when that amount was paid, all the arrears due up to the date mentioned in the Bill were to be cleared off. The only difference between his proposal and that of the Government was this—in each case a year's rent would have to be paid by the tenant, and the maximum would be one year; he proposed to make that payable by a certain date with reference to the year to which it belonged, and not to any particular year; and in that way he would avoid difficulties which were raised by the sub-section. He did not know whether he had made his point quite clear; but, if not, then he would state it in another way. If the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) understood it, it would not be necessary to go into further detail, and he would simply move the Amendment.

§ Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 14, to leave out after the words "that the" to end of sub-section, and insert the words "That a year's rent, or the equivalent thereto, has been paid on behalf of the holding during the twelve months expiring on the thirtieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and."—(Lord George Hamilton.)

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

2049

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, he thought he understood the noble Lord's meaning; but, at the same time, he did not think the words proposed would carry out that meaning. Sub-section (a) and Sub-section 3 were very long, and possibly not very clear; but the fact was, the whole of the arrangements in connection with the hanging gale were by no means clear, and it was impossible to express what was meant in fewer words than were inserted in the Bill. What was really meant by the Government was, that the rent due in respect of 1881 should be paid, whether the year ended in September or November, and whether the hanging gale was three or six months, or one year. That was the reason why it was necessary to employ these terms; but if it was possible to express to the tenants of Ireland in fewer words what was intended, the Law Officers of the Crown would be very glad to do so. The real object, however, was, as the noble Lord had put it, that the amount due for 1881 should have been paid. The noble Lord proposed, in order to make matters clear, to substitute— That a year's rent, or the equivalent thereto, has been paid on behalf of the holding during the twelve months expiring on the thirtieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and. That meant that if a year's rent was paid on the 29th of November the provisions of the Bill would be satisfied. That was clearly out of the question, as it did not require that it should be rent for the year 1881; and, inasmuch as the words of the clause expressed that intention more clearly than the words proposed by the noble Lord, he hoped the Committee would not accept the Amendment. The statement in the Bill was perfectly simple, and, as at present advised, the Government thought it was clear enough. The noble Lord said that the Bill did not provide that the rent should be paid in respect of one year; but the Bill, in fact, provided that the rent should be expressly so paid.

§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH
observed that the noble Lord, in his Amendment, had adopted the words "rent paid," instead of "rent satisfied." There was a great deal of difference between these two expressions. Both the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) demanded that the rent should have been paid, and if an amount due 2050 was compounded, it was evident that by the sub-section a remission of rent was to be satisfaction of rent—in other words, it was to be no rent at all. On the second reading of the Bill the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) expressed gratification at the prospect that the payments would be collusive rents; that meant no rent at all, because the landlord and the tenant would come together and make an arrangement by which the landlord would get a sum of money from the public funds without any money having been paid by the tenant. If the rent was to be paid, let the word "paid" be substituted for "satisfied."

§ MR. GIBSON
said, the statement of the right hon. Gentleman was more satisfactory than what he should have conceived to be a clear construction of the Bill. His noble Friend had done good service in giving attention to this matter, whether the actual words proposed were inserted or not. The Government only proposed that the rent should be paid up to the last gale day of 1881, leaving nearly a year's rent, which would have accrued before the Bill came into operation. He did not think that was a wise way of beginning to work an Arrears Bill. They proposed to stand upon their own figure, and, as he understood, proposed that a year's rent due in 1881 was to be paid or satisfied—that was to say, the payment was to be made in and for that year, and it was to be either by cash payment or made up of two gale days, which, according to custom, would be taken to satisfy the rent, subject to deductions in which the landlord might acquiesce in respect of that year. Assuming that to be the intention, that was not the construction of the Bill, because Sub-sections 3 and 4 must be read in connection with the sub-section now before the Committee, and they had caused an immense amount of apprehension. The words of the sub-section were far more susceptible of misconstruction than the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The words were— All payments on account of rent made by the tenant to the landlord in or subsequent to the year expiring as aforesaid, shall be deemed to have been made on account of the rent payable in respect of that year. Although the rent might have been otherwise arranged, the Act would come in and break through the receipt and 2051 disturb any deliberate appropriation between the landlord and the tenant, although in view of bad seasons in 1879 and 1880, the landlord might have consented to accept 50 per cent. and cried quits with the tenant for the rest of the rent. That had happened in very many cases, and how was it to be dealt with in view of the Bill and of the right hon. Gentleman's statement? It would have no bearing on the construction of the Bill, because such a payment was not a payment for and on behalf of the year 1881. That was the view of the right hon. Gentleman; but that was not the construction of the Bill, because the Bill said that, although a rebate and remission should have been made for 1879, if money was paid in 1881, it would have been deemed to have been paid contrary to the then intention of the parties, while Sub-section 4 said the remission made in respect of 1879 should be regarded as having been made in respect of the year expiring on the last gale day of 1881. It was obvious that the drafting of the sub-section upset the intention of the Government as stated by the right hon. Gentleman.

§ MR. BRODRICK
pointed out that the noble Lord's Amendment raised one point which had not caught the attention of the Government. If payment was admitted in respect of this year, that would broaden the scope of the Bill, and increase the amount of the money to be paid by the Government. If that was so, although he fully sympathized with the proposal as to the date of application, he did not think the Amendment could be carried out.

MR. GORST
said, the first thing necessary was to understand what the Government intended, and having learnt that, the Committee could consider what words would carry it out. He thought the extent of the proposal of the Government was that a tenant should, before coming under the Bill at all, evince his honesty by paying a year's rent, which, in the opinion of the Government, he was able to pay. According to the Bill as it now stood, that test year for which the tenant was to pay was to be 1881. The ground the Government took up in the Bill of last year was thus shifted, because in that Bill they had a test year which was not 1881, but the year which expired on the last gale day before the Act of 1881; that would be half-a-year 2052 in advance, the year expiring in May, 1881. So that last year it was the opinion of the Government that the tenants were able to pay rent which began in 1880 and ended in May, 1881. This year, however, they had shifted their ground, and the only year for which they required the tenant to pay was the year beginning in November, 1880, and ending in November, 1881. He thought it right the Committee should know why this year the Government adopted 1881 as the test year, while last year they took half of 1880 and half of 1881. So far as he could understand the Amendment it would aggravate the mischief of the Bill, and make the year for which the tenant was to pay rent, not 1881, which the Government selected, but the year 1882; and the year 1881, in which, according to the Government, the tenant should pay rent, was thrown into the arrears. He differed from his hon. Friend the Member for West Surrey (Mr. Brodrick) as to the charge being aggravated as the Bill stood, because the total amount the landlord was to recover was limited. The charge on the Church Surplus Fund or the Consolidated Fund would not be aggravated; but the loss of the unhappy landlord would be aggravated, because, instead of getting 1881 paid and half the antecedent arrears and half 1882, he would get only the rent for 1882 and half the antecedent arrears. That would involve a gross injustice to the landlord.

§ MR. HEALY
said, it seemed to him that the Conservative Party were endeavouring to support the Amendment by arguments other than those in their own minds. The Amendment meant that the tenant must pay the rent of 1882, and in the meantime the landlord was to have the full right to evict a tenant for the whole rent; that was the meaning of the noble Lord's Amendment, and it was carefully concealed. If the noble Lord's speech had not been understood it was because he did not wish it to be understood. The Amendment was still worse than the clause, because it deferred the application of this Bill to November 30th. The Government gave time up to February for the applications to be made; but the noble Lord insidiously proposed that unless a tenant had paid rent due on the 30th November he should not have the benefit of the year. Nothing more preposterous in the interests 2053 of the landlord had been put forward than this Amendment.

§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTON
said, it was easy for the hon. Member for Wexford to say that he had not spoken what he meant, and that the Amendment was impossible; but the Amendment was perfectly clear. Everybody knew that six months' grace was allowed for the payment of rent in Ireland, and what he proposed was that the tenant must pay a year's rent by the end of November, 1882. Then, the tenant having paid this year's rent, arrears up to November, 1881, would be wiped off. This Bill dealt with arrears of rent up to the last gale day of 1881, and his Amendment was that a year's rent during the year ending on November 30, 1882, should be paid in inference to these arrears. His contention was that the year's rent which was payable under the Bill by the tenant should be paid by a certain date, and should not be credited to one particular year, and in that way Sub-section 3 and its complications would be got rid of. He would not, however, press the Amendment; but when the end of the sub-section was reached he would propose an addition to carry out his idea.

MR. GORST
asked the noble Lord whether these words would express what he meant— That a year's rent, or the equivalent thereto, in respect of the year expiring on the last gale day of 1881, shall have been paid.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ MR. BRODRICK
said, he thought there would be no difficulty in understanding his Amendment, but he would endeavour to explain it in a few words. His intention was distinctly to provide for that time during which at present no rent was payable. At the present moment the rent was to be satisfied up to November, 1881. What position did that leave the matter in? If no application was made in respect to the Bill until February next year, there would then be two gales due. If the Land Commission exercised their discretion and put off the application to June next year, there would then be three gales due, and he wished to put it to the Government whether that would not defeat the whole object of the Bill? He thought the Government could not ask the Committee to vote money for the 2054 settlement of arrears if such a sore as that was left open. When the Bill was introduced, he was much struck by a letter which the Prime Minister read from an Irish landlord, which said that until applications had been settled no rent could be paid. Until the tenant had been before the Court and obtained a decision as to what sum he should receive it would be impossible to extract money from him. With regard to the time, he had fixed the gales at two or three, because a great deal had been heard about the time it would take for the Land Commission to settle the applications, and if the Commission were allowed even six months to get through the work, the Government must be prepared to find another gale due. He believed it would be a kindness to the tenant at this moment to insist upon any settlement being a complete settlement. The landlords were making a sacrifice of antecedent arrears; the Government sacrificed a year's rent; and the tenant himself would pay a year's rent. He did not wish to bring into the argument any suggestion as to the Bill being introduced against the interests of the landlords, and he objected to gales being allowed to remain over; and if the Government allowed that, and forced the Committee to accept the Bill in its present condition, leaving this enormous unpaid liability to accrue, that would lead to demoralization, and he was convinced that the same state of things would again occur, and that if rents got into arrears from November, 1881, the strongest arguments would be used against the landlords if they took advantage of the Bill.

§ Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 14, to leave out from the word "year," to the word "satisfied," in line 18, and insert the words, "tenancy since the last gale day of the tenancy, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty, has been satisfied up to the date of application."—(Mr. Brodrick.)

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

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)
said, the proposal amounted to this—In addition to the rent for the year ending 1881 there should be paid all the rent which should have accrued subsequently to that time, possibly the entire year of 1882.

2055

§ MR. BRODRICK
Except the hanging gale.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)
said, the Bill did not propose to deal with the rent subsequent to the last gale of 1881. As a matter of fact, where any gale existed—the last gale of 1881, say—it would not be admitted until June, 1882. Under these circumstances, the Bill did not intend to deal with the payment. It proposed to deal with no rent subsequent to 1881; but every tenant taking advantage of the Bill must have paid the rent of 1881, either by gale due or in some other way which was taken as payment. It did not propose to interfere with the interests of landlord or tenant in any subsequent gale. It was assumed that the crop of 1881 would have enabled the tenant to pay the rent of the subsequent years; but it was not intended to impose upon him more severe terms than the payment of the rent of 1881.

§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH
said, he thought there was something to be said against the arguments of the Solicitor General for Ireland. It was true the Bill did not propose to deal with any rent subsequent to 1881; but what was to be the position of the land-land and the tenant with respect to such rent? The Prime Minister had stated the other day that since this Bill had been proposed there had been a considerable cessation of the payment of rent in Ireland. That rent was at the present moment rent due in June, 1882. Supposing a tenant, who was able to take advantage of the Bill by the payment of rent due for 1881, went before the Court, and, though being in a position to obtain the benefits of the Bill, was also in arrear for the first half of 1882 and continued in arrear for the second half, and perhaps even for the first half year of 1883, before his case was decided—what would be the position of landlord and tenant under those circumstances? Looking at the condition of things in Ireland, it could not be anticipated that that rent for the first half of 1882 and the subsequent gales would be regularly paid; but was the landlord to evict the tenant for not paying such rent? Then, what would be said of the cruel and unpatriotic conduct of the landlord if he did evict? An eviction for rent due subsequent to 1881 would absolutely prevent 2056 the tenant from deriving any benefit from this Bill, while at the same time he had fulfilled the conditions under which he was to obtain such benefits; on the other hand, if the landlord was not to evict, the tenant might go on without paying for three or four years.

MR. GLADSTONE
We cannot undertake by this Bill to have a new system of rules and remedies to secure the payment of all rents without evictions. The argument of the right hon. Gentleman refers to the position of a landlord and tenant in respect to rents due for the period after November, 1881. That position is to be exactly the same in regard to that rent as it would be to other arrears. I grant there may be a period for which the Bill does not provide; but I do not think we can undertake to give this Bill such scope as that it shall secure the payment of all rents up to the period at which application may be made. What it does is this. We have at the present time before us a great number of tenants who are burdened, not only with the present rents, but with the past rents, and that load of past rents makes it impossible for them to cope with the present rents; and the purpose of this Bill is to relieve them of the load of past rents, so that then there may be reasonable hope of their being able to cope with the present rents. Consequently, I think there is no reason to anticipate the non-payment of those rents when they are relieved of the burden of past rents.

§ MR. TREVELYAN
said, hon. and right hon. Gentlemen would do him the justice to believe that he had never intentionally distorted any argument used by any hon. Member—he never had done any such thing, and he never would. He had tried to explain that the expression of his—an act of cruelty on the part of the landlords—to which reference had been made, referred to those landlords who had pressed their tenants for rents in 1877, 1878, and 1879—which he, rightly or wrongly, had described as very bad years—and had so deprived them of the advantage of the Land Act. He had never said that even in ordinary years, such as last year, the landlords had not had full moral as well as legal right to take advantage of any remedy they might have against the tenants who did not pay their rents.

2057

§ MR. SYNAN
said, he thought that if hon. Members had read the Amendment they would have found that it was just the same as the Bill. The Amendment proposed to leave out from the word "year," and insert— Tenancy since the last gale day of the tenancy in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty has been satisfied up to the date of application.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, that, instead of paying one year, perhaps the tenant might have to pay one year and a-half before the 1st of November if this Amendment were adopted. The Committee were putting a pauperizing test, and were asking a man to pay this money when they admitted that he was very poor. A tenant would be able to pay a year's rent, because he would have made his arrangements for such payment; but he would not be able to pay a year and a-half.

MR. GORST
said, he did not wish to keep the Committee from a division, but he wished to put a question to the Government which he had already asked, and which he thought he had a right to have answered. He wished to know why the Government had fixed on the year 1881, when, in connection with the Bill of last year, they thought the tenant was able to pay the rent of November, 1880, and of May, 1881? The provision of the Act of last year was an intelligible one, for the harvest had not been so satisfactory; but he could not say the same of the present provision. Why did they throw the rent, after a good harvest, into the arrears?

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
said, the whole thing seemed to him to turn on the rapidity with which this section was put into operation. If the machinery the Committee provided for working the Act was sufficiently extensive and efficient, there could be no accumulation of rent since November, 1881. At present only one half-year's rent was due since November, 1881, which was the period with which this section dealt. It seemed to him that they might leave this point and take care to provide, when the time came, for working the Act.

§ MR. BRODRICK
said, that, if this year happened to be a bad one, the Bill might prove to be absolutely useless. He wished to provide that the rent should have been not necessarily paid, but satisfied up to the date he mentioned 2058 in his Amendment. There should be an opportunity for an arrangement to have been made between the landlord and tenant.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)
said, that the system in practice on many estates of having a hanging gale would project the rent six months beyond the last gale day of 1881, and would make some of the rent payable in 1882.

MR. GORST
said, he wished to know why a different period had been taken in this Bill to that taken in the Bill of last year? They had been told that the reason was that the years which had been selected were those in which the tenants could pay their rents. Well, if a tenant could pay his rent last year, he could pay it this year.

MR. GLADSTONE
said, the year 1881 had elapsed, and the Government thought the most convenient year to take was the full year elapsing last before the time of the passing of the Bill.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, he could not see why tenants were to have the benefit of the Act if they did not pay their rents during a good year.

§ Question put.

§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 187; Noes 124: Majority 63.—(Div. List, No. 246.)

§ Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.