§ Order for Committee read.
1622§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES), in moving that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair, said, that the Government had undertaken, before the House went into Committee, to state the names of the Commissioners who would be appointed under it. The Government were anxious, inasmuch as the Bill dealt with the interests of both landlords and tenants, that the two Commissioners to be appointed under it should be, as far as possible, representative of the interests of those two parties. The question of who the Commissioners should be to whom the administration of the Bill should be intrusted had been a matter of earnest consideration on the part of Her Majesty's Government. After the most mature consideration, they were now in a position to submit to the House the names of two gentleman whose past career and acquaintance with the subject, as well as the knowledge which hon. Members possessed of them, would, he thought, entitle their choice to the approval of the House. Mr. John George M'Carthy was for many years a Member of that House. When the Land Act of 1881 came into operation he was appointed a Sub-Commissioner, and from that time up to the present he had been engaged in carrying out the Land Act of 1881. Though it was difficult to say that any gentleman had given entire satisfaction in the carrying out of that important measure, yet it would be admitted by everyone that Mr. M'Carthy, as far as it was possible to do so, had carried out the measure in a spirit of fairness and equity to all parties concerned. While he was justified in saying that Mr. M'Carthy's sympathies were with the tenants, yet he was sure that in carrying out this legislation he would do nothing that was not just. The second Commissioner it was proposed to appoint was Mr. Stamslaus Lynch, who had been a Registrar of the Landed Estates Court for many years, and in that position had had great experience in the transfer of properties. He was sure that his experience in that particular would be of great importance in carrying out the Act. Furthermore, for the last two or three years, Mr. Lynch had devoted himself to the question of the creation of a peasant proprietary, and had written upon that subject. Speaking for himself and for his Colleagues, 1623 they were of opinion that if the House adopted these names there would be no danger that the Act would not be carried out with efficiency, fairness, and equity.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(The Attorney General for Ireland.)
§ MR. HORACE DAVEYsaid, it would, no doubt, be the desire of the Government, or of whatever Government happened to be in Office when the Bill was carried into effect, to carry it out, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, with efficiency, fairness, and equity. He wished to take that opportunity, which would probably be the last he should have before the Bill passed into law, of stating some misgivings he felt as to the soundness of the principle upon which the measure was based. He was well aware that the Bill was brought before the House with the assent of the leading statesmen on both sides of the House, and he was also aware that the part of a Cassandra was not a gracious nor a popular one either on the stage or off of it; but he could not help expressing his doubts and misgivings, after the experience he had obtained, as to whether the Bill would achieve the objects which it had in view, and, if it did achieve them, whether they would not be purchased at too dear a price. The principles on which the Bill was based appeared to him to be fraught with novelty. Almost for the first time they were called upon to sanction a measure by which it was proposed to invest the money of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom in loans to tenants in Ireland in order to enable them to purchase their farms on easy terms. He quite agreed that that principle had, to a certain extent, been acted upon in what were known as the Bright Clauses of the Land Act of 1881. But he would point out a very material distinction between those clauses and the present Bill. In the Act of 1881, and in previous Acts by which Parliament authorized advances to be made to the tenants out of the Church Surplus, for the purpose of enabling them to purchase their holdings, it was always provided that one-fourth should be paid down by the tenant in the first instance. In this Bill that provision had been altogether omitted. The 1624 proposal contained in the Bill was that nothing whatever was to be paid by the tenant, and that no security was to be taken from the tenant if he desired to purchase. He was not called upon to pay a single 1d.; but, on the contrary, a great, and, in his opinion, too great, a benefit was intended to be conferred upon the tenant in the shape of lowering the annual sum he would have to pay either in the way of rent or instalments of rent, and a large bonus was given to him in the future. It was quite true that the Bill proposed only to advance a sum of £5,000,000, and it might be said that that sum, as compared with the Expenditure of the country, was so trifling as to be a mere fleabite. This, however, was not a question of the advance of £5,000,000, but an experiment intended to be tried for the purpose of converting the ownership of land in Ireland into a peasant proprietary. If the Bill succeeded, and the landlords and tenants of Ireland availed themselves of the facilities given by the Bill, it would not be a question of £5,000,000, but the country would be called upon to advance £25,000,000, £50,000,000, or, it might be, £100,000,000, in order to enable the scheme which the Bill presented to the House to be carried out. He asked the House to consider what was the security offered for the large advances which the House was going to sanction out of the money of the taxpayers of the whole of the United Kingdom? They were told that the Bill provided that the Government should have the security of the land—a security of much the same kind as the landlord now had for his rent—and that there was a provision in the Bill by which one-fifth of the purchase money might be retained by the Land Commission. He ventured to say, however, that that security was absolutely illusory, because it was only permissive, because only one-fifth was to be retained; and, even if it were retained, it had to be given up as soon as the tenant had paid one-fifth of the purchase money, instead of being retained until the tenant had paid the whole of the purchase money, by which means something in the shape of real security would be given. As soon, however, as the tenant had paid the amount equal to one-fifth of the purchase money, the sum retained as security would be returned. So that this security was altogether illusory, 1625 and useless for the repayment of the whole of the advances which the State was asked to make. Then they were told that they had the security of the land itself; but that depended upon two factors—the first of which was the ability and willingness of the tenant to pay; and the second, and the most important, factor was the ability and willingness of the Government to enforce its powers as a secured creditor, He would ask the House to consider what would be the position of the tenant if the scheme contemplated by the Bill were carried into effect. The Bill provided that the tenant should pay an annuity calculated at 4 per cent on the purchase money, and extending over a period of 49 years. In that time it was calculated that he would have to pay the purchase money with 3 per cent interest; but the amount of interest was immaterial. He was told, and he believed it was generally accepted, that land sold for about 20 years' purchase; and if it sold at anything less than 25 years' purchase on the rent, the annuity which the tenant would pay would be less than the rent he was at present paying. Let him take the case of a tenancy in regard to which the rent was £50 a-year. At 20 years' purchase the purchase money would be £1,000. At 4 per cent interest, payable for 49 years, he would pay to the estate an annuity of £40 a-year, or, in other words, 20 per cent less than he would pay in the shape of rent, and at the end of 49 years the land would become his own, so that the position of the tenant would be much better by purchasing the land and being converted from a tenant into a proprietor. He would pay 20 per cent less than he was now paying in the shape of rent, and he would leave his successors in the possession of the land after 49 years. No wonder that the Bill had been called a generous Bill. Few proposals had ever been brought before Parliament of a more generous character. What they proposed to do was to make an immediate and most valuable present to the tenants of land in Ireland; but they made that present at the expense of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. ["No!"] Yes; it was the taxpayers of the United Kingdom who were to advance this sum of £5,000,000 out of the Consolidated Fund for the purpose of enabling the tenants to become the 1626 owners of land on these easy terms. Did the House think that it would stop there, or that the demand would be confined to Ireland? Was it not certain that a demand would be made in that House to apply the same principle in other parts of the United Kingdom, the inhabitants of which were, in fact and in truth, called upon to contribute to the large sum which, if the Bill became a success, would require to be advanced out of the Consolidated Fund? If this money were an ordinary advance to be repaid, it might be said that the Consolidated Fund was in the position of the money lender who advanced his money and got a return of his capital with interest; but he had already pointed out that the only security the State would have was a security which would depend upon the ability and the willingness of the tenant to pay, and what he thought was much more important—namely, the ability and willingness of the State to enforce payment of the annuity. He would ask what would be the position of the State in respect of a tenant who purchased under the Act? Every lawyer and every hon. Member of that House knew that the State would be in the position of a mortgagee; and they understood the difference between the position of a mortgagee and of a landlord who let his land to a tenant at a rent. They could not expect the peasantry of Ireland to realize the difference between the position of the landlord who received £40 and the landlord who received £50 a-year; and inevitably the State would become, in substance and in fact, for a period of 49 years, as regarded those tenants who accepted these terms, in the position of landlord of the land in Ireland, and all the unpopularity and all the odium which attached to the position of a landlord in Ireland would henceforth attach to the State, and with accumulating force, because the State would have to bear the additional unpopularity which attached to the State when it demanded money. Many people thought, and it was generally believed, he was sorry to say, in this country, that the State was to be what had been described as a universal provider; and if the State attempted, in hard times, to enforce the payment of annuities, it would incur all the odium of a landlord demanding his rent, and, in addition, the odium of the State 1627 enforcing payment of money upon people who found it very difficult to pay. All he asked the House to consider was what the position of the State would be if they had another period of scarcity and of famine such as those which had from time to time visited Ireland when they had bad seasons and the crops had failed, and it became most difficult for the tenant to pay his rent. What would be the position of the Government then? How were they to enforce payment of these annuities? Would they propose to enforce it by eviction or by sale? If they enforced the payment of the instalments by the legal remedies of sale or eviction, were they going to enforce it at the point of the bayonet, or how were they going to enforce it? He ventured to predict that if times like those which they had passed through should, unhappily, pass over Ireland again, it would be difficult, nay, almost impossible, for the Government, with the best intentions in the world, to enforce regular payment when it was refused, and if the refusal became anything like universal it would be impossible to enforce the payment of annuities, which would represent the principal and interest of the advances. He would not say what power this would give to the agitator. The agitator against the legal rights of the landlord had made out a strong case, and the agitator against the legal rights of the landlord had aroused the passions of the people. But what a field there would be for the agitator when these annual payments—whether rents or annuities were perfectly immaterial—were to be paid, not to landlords or to individuals, but to the State! He looked forward with the greatest misgiving to the ability of the State to enforce these payments; and although, of course, on paper they would have a legal right to enforce them by eviction or sale of the holding, he ventured to anticipate that, notwithstanding the approval which the Bill had received from both sides of the House, there would be the greatest difficulty on the part of the State hero after in enforcing payment of the annuity representing the principal and the interest of the advances. He was told that there was no doubt the tenant purchasing under the provisions of this Bill would pay his instalments of principal and interest. He said, with the utmost 1628 sincerity, that he hoped and desired that it might be so. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than to find that the misgiving and doubt which he could not help feeling as to the expediency of the Bill, and as to the precedents set by its provisions, were falsified. If the Bill became a success, and it were a means of establishing, with justice to all parties, and with justice to the State, which meant the people of the United Kingdom generally, a peasant proprietary in Ireland, and that peasant proprietary became a guarantee for order and good government in that country, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to find that the misgivings he entertained were falsified. He confessed that he should have liked the experiment to be tried which had been indicated, he believed, by the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson)—namely, that of the establishment of a National Land Bank. He was told that it was the practice of the Irish tenants to invest their savings in the Irish banks, and if the deposits could be utilized for the purpose of adding to the public fund which it was intended to apply in this way, he believed that most valuable results would be secured, and for two reasons—first, the Irish people themselves would provide the money by which it was proposed to transfer the land in Ireland from the present holders to a peasant proprietary; and, in the next place, the savings of the Irish people would be invested in loans to the tenants for the purpose of enabling them to purchase their holdings. Consequently, every person who became a depositor or a borrower in such a bank as had been suggested, the funds of which were to be applied for this purpose, would be interested in maintaining the stability of the system, and in taking care that the instalments represented by the annuity were paid with reasonable regularity. He would have had much greater confidence in the success of the proposals intended to be carried out by the Bill if some scheme of that kind had been attached to the measure, than he had in a proposal to advance money out of the Consolidated Fund to the tenants in return for an annuity. He was well aware that in all probability the Bill would be carried into law with such Amendments as might be made in it in Committee, and 1629 he was well aware that the doubts and misgivings he had felt it his duty to express, in his place in Parliament, as to the soundness of the principle on which the Bill was based, and the probability of its success, would be nothing more than an ineffectual protest. He could only tope and desire—and he did so from the bottom of his heart—that the Bill might turn out to be all that the promoters of it wished, and that his misgivings might be altogether falsified—that the tenants would pay the annuities and instalments they would have to pay with reasonable regularity, and that the Bill would be the means of establishing an order of things in Ireland which would tend to the prosperity of the country.
MR. SINCLAIRsaid, that it had not been his intention to have obtruded himself upon the Committee; but after the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Christchurch(Mr. Horace Davey), and knowing, as he (Mr. Sinclair) did, that anything which came from such a quarter would receive not only great attention in that Committee, but also from the nation at large, he thought it was desirable to notice one or two points which, in his opinion, deserved attention at the hands of hon. Members before a measure of this kind passed into law. The hon. and learned Member had referred to the question of the security that was proposed to be given in one-fifth of the purchase money being retained in the hands of the Government until at least that proportion had been paid by the tenant, and the hon. and learned Gentleman had said that that was the only security which existed, given on account or behalf of the purchaser. That, however, was not exactly the case, at least, in the North of Ireland, because the tenant right that existed on the Northern farms was of very great value. In some cases, as was mentioned in the House on the second reading of the Bill, the tenant right amounted to more than the value of the fee simple, and that security, if he understood the provisions of the Bill aright, would remain in the hands of the Government until the entire amount of the advance was repaid. That, he thought, was a very fair and a very effectual security; and it would remain in the hands of the nation, in order that the public might be secured as to any money 1630 advanced with a view of carrying into effect the attempt now being made to institute a peasant proprietary in Ireland. Very little had been said during the debate as to the desirability and necessity of the creation of a peasant proprietary. It seemed to be conceded in all parts of the Committee that that was a most desirable thing to do, and he, therefore, would not detain hon. Members by entering into that part of the question; but he would accept, as an axiom agreed in by both sides, that it was a desirable thing to attain, if it could be attained in a right and proper manner. The Bill had been spoken of as a generous Bill, and there was no doubt that, to some extent, it was so; but it must be remembered that Ireland required generous treatment at the hands of England, and that this Bill was only an attempt to do some little good for the evil which had been done in the past. It was one of the efforts England was trying to make at the present time in order to undo some of the harm which, by bad government and bad legislation, she had inflicted in the past on that country. It must be remembered that, in order to be a success, the advantages of the Bill, and the method by which it was intend to benefit the tenant, must be brought home to the tenant—that was to say, to those whose labour had in the past been the means of creating the value of the land which now existed. It was not the landlord who had done that; but it had been by the hard work of the tenant that the value of the land had increased in the past and would increase in the future. He would not dwell upon the circumstance that the cultivation of the land in England was quite different from that adopted in Ireland. In Ireland the improvement of the land was entirely effected by the tenant, and that fact alone rendered any comparison between the two countries perfectly impossible. It was altogether impossible for the English tenants to put forward claims of the same character as those which the tenants in Ireland could put forward, He thought he was fairly entitled to ask, at that stage, for some information as to the way in which the sum of £5,000,000, to be advanced under the present Bill, was to be expended. Was it to be looked upon as a matter of political economy? He admitted that the 1631 Bill sinned, to some extent, against the doctrines of political economy; but he understood that it was intended to be an advantage, not so much from the point of view of political economy, as from a national point of view. It was thought by means of this kind that something could be done to settle some of the questions that were troubling Ireland, and it was with a view of enabling a step to be made in the direction of securing peace, order, and prosperity in that country that the Bill had been introduced by Her Majesty's Government, and acceded to by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. But there was no doubt that the advances which might be given would be very different in different localities; for instance, the security for the advance would be very much greater in the North of Ireland than it would be in the South. He thought, therefore, that he might fairly ask if the Government were going to make the priority of advance depend to any extent upon the security offered; or were they going to make the advances all over the country in the order in which the applications were made, looking upon them as a matter of State policy, without regard to the fact whether the security upon which the advances were made was great or small, the main point being to settle, as far as the Bill could, the greater security which would thus be provided for the future government of Ireland? Then, also, he should like to hear something from those who represented the Government on the subject of what were called the glebe tenants—those who had purchased under the Irish Church Act. It was well known by hon. Members that, under that Act, very considerable inducements had been held out to the tenants to purchase the land that they were in possession of, and a large number of them had taken advantage of those inducements. But the terms of purchase were by no means so advantageous as those which were proposed in the present measure. He (Mr. Sinclair) did not think it had ever been suggested from any quarter that any reduction should be made as to the principal sum paid for the farms originally purchased under the Irish Church Act. The sale had been effected long ago, and the purchase, at the time it was made, was considered to be a bargain, and it was then thought that no change 1632 was likely to be made in the terms under which land in Ireland might hereafter be obtained. He ventured to think that those who had purchased at that time, and whose terms of repayment were onerous as far as the interest was concerned, would have a fair claim to consideration under an Act such as this. It might be perfectly true that it was not an absolute case of justice requiring that change to be brought about; but it was one of those cases where it might truly be said that considerations of leniency ought to weigh with the Government in determining their course of action. Some remarks had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Christchurch in which reference was made to the Schedule connected with the Land Act. The hon. and learned Member had pointed out that the essence of this Bill was the payment of an annuity at the rate of £4 per annum upon a capital sum of £100, comprising both interest and principal, for a period of 49 years. He (Mr. Sinclair) thought that a considerable amount of misconception was likely to remain, so long as that Schedule was allowed to remain in its present shape, the principal and interest being included in one sum. Perhaps, for convenience, it was desirable that the payment should be so arranged; but he thought that the Schedule should be amended to this extent—that the interest and principal of each year should be separately and distinctly stated. As long as it was represented in one sum only, it would be looked upon as rent; but if it were divided, as he thought it ought to be divided, the tenant would better understand what it was he was paying, and any misconception would be avoided. In conclusion, he would thank the Committee for the courtesy with which they had listened to him on the first occasion upon which he had felt it necessary to address them.
§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET)said, he did not propose to follow the arguments of hon. Members who had spoken in the debate. He could understand that the hon. Member for Antrim (Mr. Sinclair), who spoke for the first time, should be desirous to express his sentiments. But he must make an appeal to hon. Members generally. He could not but think that almost all those who had an immediate 1633 interest in the Bill had already spoken on the second reading; and if they wished that the measure should pass they ought to remember that time was pressing, and that unless they got into Committee at once and made progress with the Bill its passage might be endangered. He was quite sure that, instead of making speeches at this stage, hon. Members could not do better than reserve any observations they might wish to make for the clauses of the Bill in Committee, and to make those observations as short as possible.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of those who had an immediate interest in the Bill. He did not admit that that immediate interest was confined to Irish Members. It was not an Irish Bill at all. The British taxpayer had an immediate interest in the Bill as well. He had listened with great pleasure to the warning which had been given by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Horace Davey). He thought, however, that his hon. and learned Friend had made one mistake when he said that the Bill was supported by statesmen on both sides of the House. It should be remembered that a statesman of the very greatest experience in the other House (Earl Spencer) had given a most serious and solemn warning as to the danger of the Bill; and another right hon. Gentleman who was a great authority upon the subject—the right hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre)—had done the same thing in that House. It could not be said, therefore, with justice that statesmen on both sides of the House were in favour of the Bill, and he hoped the House would take warning before going further. One thing was admitted—namely, that it was a Bill for the relief of landlords. ["No!"] At any rate, it was a Bill to open the land market as it was called The tenants of Ireland, by the Liberal Administration of the past, had got almost all they could desire; and this was a Bill to enable the landlords of Ireland to sell their estates for sums which they could not otherwise expect to obtain. It was a Bill for the State purchase of the land of Ireland, and for rendering the land of that country saleable under more favourable terms. He hoped hon. Members would not be blind to the matter, 1634 and that they would not ignore the fact that it was a Bill to enable the State to purchase the land of Ireland from the landlords. It was merely the thin end of the wedge. If they passed a Bill for £.5,000,000 now they would have a demand by-and-by for £20,000,000, £50,000,000, £10(1,000,000, aye, and for £200,000,000. Although by reading this Bill a second time they were only pledging themselves to an advance of £5,000,000, these consequences would follow. Personally, he would not oppose the Bill if he was assured that this was to be merely an experiment, and that the credit of Parliament was to be pledged for £5,000,000 and no more. He was only afraid that in Committee pressure would be put upon the Government from so many sides that they would be induced to give way. There had been extreme anxiety on the part of the Irish Members to know who the Land Commissioners under the Bill were to be. No doubt a great deal depended upon that. If they had liberal Land Commissioners who would not take a petty peddling view, but a liberal view of matters, and would not be too strict about the security, things would go on to the satisfaction of the Irish Representatives. He admitted that the security in the North of Ireland was fair in a financial point of view; but from a political point of view it was a very shaky security indeed. But, be that as it might, he desired to point out that such high authorities as Earl Spencer and the right hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had distinctly warned the House as to the probable operation of the Bill. As he had stated, he had no objection to expend£5,000,000 of the money of the British taxpayers in an experiment. He knew that the Imperial Parliament often voted £5,000,000, if not more, with a light heart for wars; and if in this case it ended in conferring advantages upon Ireland he should not complain. He had had a Notice clown upon the Paper upon the second reading of the Bill, but had refrained from moving it. He had, however, been anxious to say these few words; and if the Government stood to their colours, and thought the security for the £5,000,000 was a fair and reasonable one, he had no desire to oppose the Bill. What he was anxious for was that the matter should be treated 1635 not entirely as an Irish question only; I and he wished to add his voice to the warning which had been given by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Horace Davey). There were Irish Representatives in all parts of the House; and with no half-past 12 o'clock Rule in force, with Irishmen on that side of the House, Irishmen on the other, and Irishmen below the Gangway, he was afraid that such pressure might be put upon the Government that they might find it prudent to yield, and in that way all sorts of objectionable provisions might be put into the Bill, the evil effect of which it might not be easy to obviate at the fag-end of the Session. He therefore thought the House ought to know that, in going into Committee upon the Bill, the liability of the taxpayers would be limited to the £5,000,000 now proposed to be advanced, and that the British taxpayer would not be pledged beyond the four corners of the Bill.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid, he was afraid there was no use in opposing the Bill at that stage, especially when it had not only the support of the Government, but that of the Chiefs of the Opposition and of the Leaders of the Irish Party; but it was a pity that a Bill of this great importance, which raised such large questions, should come on for discussion in so thin a House at the end of the Session. The hon. Member for Antrim (Mr. Sinclair) alleged the Bill to be contrary to the principles of economy. He (Mr. Bryce) did not oppose it because it was opposed to sound principles of political economy, or on the ground pointed out by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) that it was an imposition upon the British taxpayer, but because he believed that it involved great political dangers because it would make Great Britain the mortgagee of the land of Ireland. Nothing could be more calculated to aggravate the difficulties which existed between the two countries. Nobody was more anxious than he was to see a peasant proprietary established in Ireland, and nobody would be more glad to see that done by a local Irish Parliament. But if they were to spend English money for such a purpose it would be better to part with the money as a gift rather than as a loan. In the past the great evil had been that in 1636 Ireland there was a sense of exasperation against landlords, and particularly against absentee landlords; and the Bill was going to make the English Government the absentee landlord of the land of Ireland. Nothing could be more calculated to raise up future difficulties, to increase exasperation, and to prevent the bringing about of pacific and friendly relations between the two countries than a Bill of this kind. A possible mitigation was that in the next Session of Parliament they would create a large and liberal system of local government for Ireland, giving large powers, and that they would transfer this fund from the Imperial Exchequer to the Irish local bodies. That would, perhaps, be the best remedy for the danger which the House was now incurring.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he had no intention to detain the House, nor would he repeat any of the arguments which he had used a few nights ago; but he wished to take that opportunity of noticing the charges of inconsistency which had been brought against him by the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Plunket) in answer to his speech, which he ventured to think had its origin in the controversies of some years ago, the memories of which he had hoped had passed away. He altogether disclaimed the charge of inconsistency brought against him by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Wherever he had written or spoken upon this subject he had always spoken in the same language which he used the other night. In the Committee in 1878, and later in an article in The Nineteenth Century, in commenting upon the question, he had used the same language. Although most anxious to assist operations for the creation of a peasant proprietary, he had pointed out the danger of offering terms which would amount to a bribe to tenants to become owners on terms of such a nature that they would pay less in the shape of interest and instalments of the principal than they would otherwise pay in the shape of rent. He had always pointed out that two classes of tenants could not co-exist, the one paying rent for ever, and the other paying less than their previous rent for a limited term of years. That was an element of considerable danger, greater to the landlords than to any other class in the country. For 1637 his part, he fully recognized the very grave difficulties in which the landlords were placed at that moment by the unsaleable condition of the land they owned. Yet he believed that in their interests it would be wiser for them, for the present, to submit to these hardships rather than enter into a transaction like that now before the House, by which they offered such great inducements to the tenants to become owners, and such conditions as would be fraught with future danger. He looked upon the Bill, however, as a tentative measure, and as one limited to the advance of the sum of £5,000,000. Regarding it in that light, and reserving the important question which it raised for future discussion, he should not oppose it, and he would not detain the House longer on this question.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ Clause 1 (Short title).
§ Motion made, and Question proposed) "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ THE CHIEF SECRETAEY FOR IRELAND (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE)said, he would suggest to the Committee that as this Bill contained so much legal matter it would be better to leave it in charge of his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Advances by the Land Commission.
§ Clause 2 (Advances to tenants under this Act).
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, that he had an Amendment to propose in this clause in line 11; but he would postpone it until after the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had been disposed of.
§
MR. SEXTON moved the omission of the first part of Sub-section (a,) which provided that with respect to advances under the Act the Land Commission may—
If the repayment of the advance is secured by a deposit under this Act (herein-after referred to as a guarantee deposit), and if the Land Commission are satisfied with the security in other respects,
1638
make an advance to a tenant who was purchasing his holding, of the whole principal sum payable by the tenant instead of the three-fourths mentioned in. Part V. of the Act of 1881. As to the last words, "the Land Commissioners are satisfied with the security in other respects," he considered them to be mere verbiage. Of course, the Land Commissioners would not make an advance if they were not satisfied with the security. They would be idiots if they did, and, whatever might be said of the two gentlemen whoso names had been mentioned that evening by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland in other respects, that could not be said of them. Where the Land Commission purchased an estate for the purpose of re-selling it to the tenants it appeared to him that the landlord would pocket the whole of the purchase money, and the tenants would be asked to guarantee the repayment of the advances themselves, and if they were asked to provide the guarantee they would have to borrow the money, because there was very little capital possessed by tenants in Ireland themselves, and they would have to pay 6 or 7 or 10 per cent for it, while they would only receive from the Land Commission 3 per cent. The tenant would, therefore, lose the difference between 3 and 8 or 10 per cent. If he got somebody else to guarantee the money the same thing would happen, because the tenant would have to give a guarantee to the guarantor; and therefore he thought that in regard to the purchase of estates by the Land Commission the provisions of the Bill in reference to the advance of the whole of the purchase money would simply be illusory, and really mean only the advance of four-fifths of the purchase money. The tenant would have to provide the other fifth; and, therefore, the difference between this and the Act of 1881, or a difference of l–20th, which was totally inadequate, and very little more generous than the previous measures which had failed, would be useless, unless the Government were able to say that when the Land Commission bought an estate from a landlord and sold it to the tenant they would not require the same guarantee as in other cases. He wished to know how the scheme was going to work, because the provisions in regard to the
1639
security were embarrassing? In the first place, the State had the security of the holding itself. Then it was to have the security of the guarantee of one-fifth of the purchase money; and, in the third place, they were to have the security of the Irish Church Surplus. What was it that the Land Commission was to make an advance to buy? Was it not the interest of the landlord in the estate? What security the holding gave him would be given to the State, who would have the consolidated interests of both landlord and tenant? In Ulster, certainly, the interest of the tenant was much more valuable than that of the landlord; and in other parts of Ireland, also, it was of considerable value. Everywhere in Ireland it was worth something. Everywhere in Ireland it afforded to the State, in respect of the money advanced, a reasonable and an ample margin. That being so, he failed to see why the State should require, or even desire, anything beyond the security afforded by the holding. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the Committee why the security combining two interests—the interest of the landlord and the interest of the tenant—should not be a sufficient security for the purchase money advanced for the purchase of the interest of the landlord only? He wished to say, emphatically, before they went further with the Bill, that there was no sound basis on which the purchase could be effected except the basis that was afforded by fixing the purchase money at a fair and equitable rent, having regard to the prices of produce. The Land Commission ought to bear in mind what had been the recent course and prospects of agricultural prices in estimating the value of a holding. If they bore those facts in mind, and made the purchase money and the resulting instalments coincide with those conditions, the State had nothing to fear; but if that safe rule were departed from he would tell the Government that no collateral security would be of the slightest avail, because, if the purchase money were too high, the payment of the instalments would become intolerable. There would, consequently, be a considerable failure of payments, and there would be such a strain upon the guarantee securities, and on the surplus of the Church Fund, that no security would be of avail He therefore told the
1640
Government frankly at the outset that the only real security they had was to make the purchase money a fair and equitable rent. He objected to the two other securities—namely, the guarantee deposit and the value of the holding, because the direct tendency and the inevitable result would be to make the purchase money unfair. Would the guarantee deposit be used up before the holding was sold or not? The 3rd clause of the Bill seemed to him to have been drafted by some prentice hand. As he read it, the guarantee deposit would not be used until the Land Commissioners declared by order that the sum overdue by the tenant was an irrecoverable debt. Now, he presumed that they could not declare a sum due by anybody to be an irrecoverable debt until they first tried to recover it, and one of the sub-sections of Clause 4 gave the Land Commissioners the power of mortgagees. He presumed it was pretended that they should proceed to sell the whole of the holding as soon as they made up their mind that the money could not be had. What was the meaning, then, of the words in this clause as to the repayment of the advances being secured by a guarantee deposit, and the satisfaction of the Land Commission with the security in other respects, and what was the meaning of the words in Clause 3 which entitled the Land Commission to apply the guarantee deposit in discharge or reduction of an irrecoverable debt? Surely the State would have already sold up the tenant, and he would have no longer any interest in the holding; and, therefore, what was the use of declaring that the interest in the holding of the person liable to pay the purchase money should be charged in favour of the person entitled to the guarantee deposit? How could they charge the tenant with anything if they sold him out? He would no longer have any place in the transaction; and, upon the other hand, he wanted to know whether it was meant to charge the guarantee deposit upon the incoming purchaser? If it were so they would revive the landlord institution in a most offensive and intolerable shape, and they would introduce a state of things which would not settle the Land Question or ease the government of Ireland, but would leave the question in a worse position than that which it now occupied.
1641
If they wished to sell the whole holding what would happen? They could only use the guarantee deposit at all up to the time that one-fifth of the advances were paid. Did that mean—for it was not quite clear—that when the tenants' instalments reached one-fifth of the purchase money they were to be paid one-fifth of the capital, because, in that case, that result would not be arrived at for about 13 or 14 years? If they had to do without the guarantee deposit for the last three-fourths of the 49 years, they might as well do without it in the first one-fourth also. The guarantee deposit could only be applied during the short period which would elapse until the instalments paid, including capital and interest, were equal, and one-fourth of the purchase money would not be adequate to meet the irrecoverable debt falling within the period, during which the money could be recovered. The guarantee deposit could only be a scapegoat, and they would have to sell the land. Therefore, they might as well do that at first as at last. He failed to see any logic in having two securities, both of which were inadequate. The guarantee deposit would injure the landlord, cripple the tenant, and prejudice the State. Why did it injure the landlord? In nearly every case land was very heavily encumbered, almost up to the income derived from it so far as those persons were concerned who were likely to take advantage of the Bill. And what would happen? These men were men in regard to whom one-fifth of the guarantee deposit would about represent their interest in the land. The class of encumbered landlords in Ireland were really a class of persons who did not own more than one-fifth of their own lands. The other four-fifths belonged to those who held the encumbrances, and they might as well tell the landlord that he might come in at the Day of Judgment. He would only become desperate and say that the Bill was of no use at all, seeing that it would put no money into his hands, and that he would be obliged to stay as he was until the encumbrances left him not an inch of standing ground. So far as he was concerned he would avail himself of the Bill, and strain every nerve to screw up the purchase money to the highest possible pitch. If, for instance, the purchase money amounted to £1,00, the landlord
1642
would only get £800; and he would use every effort, by inducement and compulsion—such as appealing against the decision of the sub-Courts, or by putting a price upon the turf or bog, as would enable him to run up the purchase money to £1,200 or £1,500, so that the four-fifths he might receive would amount to £1,000. The effect of that upon the tenant was quite clear. The tenant would have to pay an annual instalment much too heavy for his means; and he (Mr. Sexton) would beg the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the direct effect the operation of this guarantee deposit would have. The effect of these collateral securities in the shape of a guarantee deposit and a Church Surplus Fund would encourage the landlords to run up the purchase money to the highest possible pitch; but if they had to fall back upon the security of the holding they would be careful as to what the price was. The Government might depend upon it that the adoption of this part of the clause would only encourage the landlords in using the many means they possessed of putting pressure upon the tenants. The clause as it stood would have the effect of running up the purchase money too high, and generally of placing it at a figure which the tenants would be unable to pay. He would, therefore, move the omission of these words, because he believed that the admission of this security as part of the scheme would embarrass the landlord, injure the tenant, and prejudice the State itself.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 17, after the word "may," leave out to the word "make," in line 20.—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, there was no doubt that- if the Government acceded to the Amendment of the hon. Member, and to the consequential Amendments, the object of the Bill would probably be facilitated. If the vendor on the one hand, and the intending purchaser on the other, were the only persons to be considered there might be no objection to the proposal; but it must be borne in mind that there was a third interest of great importance 1643 in the matter, and that the State had also to be considered, and he thought it? would be wholly impossible for any responsible Minister of the Crown to submit to Parliament a proposition that £5,000,000 should be advanced for the purpose of enabling tenants to purchase their holdings unless Parliament was satisfied that adequate security was given for the repayment of the money. Although from 1870 down to the present time various propositions had been made to enable tenants to purchase their holdings, in every instance the proposition had carried with it terms which would enable something like adequate security to be given. The Act of 1870 only enabled two-thirds of the purchase money to be advanced. The Act of 1881 increased the proportion from two-thirds to three-fourths, and in the Bill introduced last year by the right hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) there was another form of security proposed to be given to the State—namely, the security of a local guarantee. It would be impossible to expect that the present Bill would be carried through Parliament unless there was an adequate guarantee for the money which it was proposed to advance. The hon. Member had suggested that the holding itself would be a sufficient guarantee provided that the purchase money was on a reasonable basis, inasmuch as it would consist not merely of the landlord's interest to be sold, but likewise of the interest of the tenant previously existing in the holding. It was true that the rules governing tenant right in Ireland set the ordinary law, and even the doctrines of political economy, at defiance; but experience taught them that the value of an estate was not increased by the double interest—that was, by adding the price of the tenant right to the value of the fee simple. Therefore, when they looked at the guarantee which a holding gave, they must regard it simply as the value of the holding in the possession of the landlord at the present time. That might appear to be a startling proposition; but it was undoubtedly a true one—namely, that the owner of land in his own hands would receive but a very small sum more than he would receive for the interest that he could sell under the provisions of the Bill. Would a guarantee regarded simply as the 1644 value of a holding in the possession of the landlord at the present time be a sufficient security? He agreed with the hon. Member that under ordinary circumstances it would be; but, at the same time, they must bear in mind that if every care was taken to make the price a fair and equitable one in the year in which the contract was entered into, the state of agriculture and other things might change in the course of a year or two, and then it might be impossible to realize that price. In such a case the State must look to some guarantee similar to that which was imposed by this Bill. The framers of the Bill believed that the variation in value would never be greater than one-fifth, and, therefore, that figure had been named; but beyond that point he thought it would be impossible for them to go. The hon. Member had asked how this guarantee was to be worked out. He thought he could satisfy the Committee that it could be worked out in a fair and reasonable way, and he asked the attention of the Committee while he offered an explanation. Any person might give the guarantee; but in almost every case it must come from the vendor—namely, the landlord, who must be prepared to allow one-fifth of the purchase money to remain in the hands of the Land Commissioners until a sum equal to that one-fifth was paid up by the tenant.
§ MR. SEXTONasked whether he did that by selling his estate?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he would come to that point presently. Under ordinary circumstances, the person from whom the guarantee would come would be the landlord himself; and he must be prepared, before he and the tenant agreed to take advantage of this Bill, to allow that fifth to remain in the hands of the Land Commissioners. But it must be borne in mind that during that time the money would not be lying without its return to the landlord, to whom interest on it at the rate of 3 per cent would be payable. Moreover, the one-fifth deposited in the hands of the Land Commissioners was a security on which the landlord could raise money, as he could in the case of any other security in land; and, no doubt, he would be able to negotiate that security in the open market, and realize its fair value. 1645 In case of default, the first thing the Land Commission had to do under this Bill was to realize, as far as possible, the sum due to the State by the sale of the holding. The amount could not be declared irrecoverable until efforts had been made to recover it, and by the terms of this clause the Commissioners were bound to put in force the ordinary powers of mortgagees for the purpose of realizing. If those powers were put in force, and the result was to realize the entire amount due, there would be no necessity to resort to the deposit; but if the amount fell short, as it might do, under certain circumstances, recourse would be had to the deposits. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had called attention to the 3rd clause, by which, under certain circumstances, power was given to the Land: Commissioners to retain the guarantee deposit until a sum equal to the deposit had been repaid. At any time during the period for which the Land Commissioners were authorized to retain the guarantee deposit any sum due in respect of an advance secured by a guarantee deposit might be declared to be an irrecoverable debt. In that case the Land Commission might apply the guarantee deposit in discharge or reduction of such an irrecoverable debt. The meaning of that was that when the Land Commission sold for the purpose of realizing the amount that was due the purchaser would naturally demand a free discharge, and for this purpose it would be necessary to declare the deposit forfeited. That appeared to him to be just and fair. The hon. Member stated that it would have a tendency to raise the price above what would be fair and just, and he had instanced an estate which, in an ordinary case, would be sold for £1,000, being sold for £1,250. There might be something in that argument if the landlord were to fix the price at which the estate was to be sold. But that was not so. The price must be negotiated, in the first place, between the landlord and tenant—the vendor and purchaser—and then, if the two parties agreed, there was a third party which must also give its consent, and that was the Land Commission. Therefore, there was not the least danger of supposing that the estate would fetch more than the price it would fetch in the open market. The hon. Member 1646 had asked him what the consequences would be if the Land Commission purchased an entire estate from the owner for the purpose of re-selling to the tenants. It appeared to him that the Land Commission would never be justified in purchasing an entire estate unless they were perfectly certain that the greater number of the tenants were ready to purchase their holdings. If that were so the Land Commission would then make terms, and they would undoubtedly say—"If you sell to us, one of the terms of the contract must be that you will allow one-fifth of the purchase money to remain in our hands." Under no other circumstances would they be in a position to deal with the matter. It was quite clear that from first to last the tender must come from the landlord; and, that being the case, it would make no difference whether the Land Commission purchased the entire estate or not, and then endeavoured to negotiate with the tenants. It was wholly impossible for the Government to abandon their contention that the amount advanced must be ultimately paid in full, and it must be borne in mind that the State was taking this exceptional step for the benefit not only of the landlord, but of the tenant.
§ MR. WALKERsaid, it was very material to consider under what circumstances the land would be sold—whether the entire estate was purchased or not. It struck him, on consideration, that the clause would only operate where the entire purchase money was advanced by the State, and where the landlord was willing and able to sell. He thought that reasonably followed. The entire purchase money could only be advanced where a guarantee existed. He could not agree with what had fallen from his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland with regard to the deposit by the landlord in cases where the Land Commission bought the estate. There was no provision in the Bill for that purpose, and he did not see how they could leave that matter to the mercy of the Commissioners. It would only be where the landlord was a solvent seller that the question of the deposit of one-fifth could arise; and, further, it could only arise where he was willing. Now, he could not be willing unless he was able, and in every case where property was encumbered fully, 1647 of course, he was not able, because it was the property of another person, and, therefore, he could not be said to be willing. Therefore, it was only in the case of a solvent estate that this could happen. The result was that they could only deal with cases where the landlord was both willing and able to do it; and the only case where he would do it was when the market was in that condition that he would sell, even if at a loss. He thought the clause could only work in the case of a landlord willing to sustain a loss, and, except in that case, he feared that it would have very little operation indeed.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had spoken of the possibility of the deposit of the landlord being a security on which he could raise money. But he ventured to doubt that he would be able to make use of that, for who would lend money for a moment on a security which, owing to the tenant not paying up his instalments, might be snapped up by the Commissioners at any moment?
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that in his judgment this provision was utterly illusory, and instead of doing good either for the tenants, the State, or the landlord, it would do them a distinct mischief. Furthermore, he considered that by fixing the amount of loans by the limit of £5,000,000 the Government would thereby restrict the sale of land to the most undeserving class of persons. The Government wanted to do something to settle the Irish Land Question, and yet by this provision they were going to confine the operation of the Bill to rich graziers, large farmers, and people who did not deserve it. Those were the people whom the Government wanted to content, because, as a matter of fact, they were the only class who could get the one-fifth; the other class were practically excluded from purchasing the land. The Commissioners would be bound to have regard to the character of the purchasers; and when an estate was to be sold, out of the numerous applicants to purchase the Land Commissioners would be obliged to sell to the most eligible persons—that was to say, to those who could give the best security. Therefore, he said that the Government would exclude from the healing operation of the Bill the very class that it was 1648 desirable to include. As the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had pointed out, if this one-fifth guarantee were insisted on by the State, they would compel the tenant to raise money from a bank at a high rate, and that would compel him to offer a lower price than the landlord would take. The clause, therefore, offered no advantage to the landlord. It was no advantage to the State, because it would not settle the Irish Land Question, and it was, for the reasons shown, of no advantage to the tenant. The clause, therefore, would do them all a distinct mischief by preventing the Bill working in a satisfactory manner. For those reasons he hoped the Amendment would be pressed on the Committee.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he could, of course, understand the reason for providing in the Bill for this guarantee; but, at the same time, he thought there was great force in the suggestions of hon. Members below the Gangway, that it would impede the operation of the Act, because the landlord would endeavour to recoup himself for whatever burden was in this way imposed upon him. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had given as a reason for requiring the security of this deposit that the value of the fee simple would not be increased from the point of view of security by taking into account the tenant's interest in the land. He did not profess to put himself in opposition to the great authority of the right hon. and learned Gentleman on this subject; but he had always been under the impression that land in hand in Ireland fetched a very high price, because it included both the landlord's interest and the tenant's interest. He remembered that a good deal of evidence had been given before the Committee which considered the Land Question on this subject, and that it was pointed out that land unburdened with a tenant often fetched as much as 40 years' purchase of the assumed value. Then, if that were the case, the security offered by annexing the tenant right to the fee of the land would not be less than the security of two separate interests—namely, the tenant's interest and the fee of the land; and in that view he thought there was no necessity for this guarantee security as between the State and the tenant purchaser. The danger was not as regarded 1649 individual tenants, but as regarded a movement on the part of the tenants generally. For his part, he should be disposed to recommend that the guarantee security should be abandoned; but he would couple the suggestion with the recommendation that the term within which the instalments were to be made should be reduced. He did not know whether that would meet the views of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. He did not propose that the rate of interest should, be increased, but only that the term of repayment should be shortened. Looking at the question broadly, he thought that the effect of the clause would be to increase the sum which the landlord would demand from the tenant-purchaser; and although it was true that the Land Commissioners would be in the position of arbitrators between landlord and tenant, yet if the landlord and tenant were to agree to certain terms, he did not see how the Land Commissioners could refuse to allow the transaction to proceed upon such terms.
§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET)said, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sligo was a very serious one, and as such should be considered very carefully by the Committee before it was agreed to. It evidently went to the root of the whole scheme as it was drawn. He had listened to the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, which appeared to him to be absolutely conclusive on the question. It had been assumed from the first that it was not possible for the State, in its attempt to create a peasant proprietary in Ireland, to advance the purchase money of the land without security of some hind or other. He was, therefore, somewhat surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) recommending that the Government should give up all the security proposed in the Bill by way of guarantee. That which really wrecked the Bill of the late Government was that their required a guarantee that it was impossible to provide. The present Government, however, had substituted in this Bill another guarantee for a definite purpose, and at that period of the Session it seemed to him to be a perfectly illusory and wild idea to recommend to the public opinion of 1650 the country, which had been strained far enough already, a scheme which would be a departure from all precedents and theories formerly propounded—that was to say, to ask the taxpayers of the country to advance the whole of the purchase money without having any guarantee whatever. He must put it in fairness to the right hon. Gentleman opposite to say why he did not suggest the propriety and safety last year, when the Bill of the late Government was before the House, of advancing all the money without guarantee or security when the adoption of such a course would have cleared away all the difficulty so far as hon. Members from Ireland were concerned. He did not think it necessary for him to press that argument further. As to calculating the exact proportion of the value of the tenant right, and the value of the landlord's interest, and how much each should bear to the whole value of the land, he must say that the calculation was one which it would be almost impossible to make. Hon. Gentlemen from the North of Ireland would know that nothing varied in that part of Ireland so much as the value of the tenant right in respect of land. He submitted that it was not a fair way of viewing this proposal of the Government to say that this requirement, that every landlord should leave one-fifth of the purchase money in the hands of the State, was put into the Bill for the purpose of making the market high and inducing the tenant to offer a price that he could not afford to pay. If they were to safeguard the interests of the State there must be a margin somewhere, and he thought that the Government had hit upon a plan which afforded that margin, which would enable the Land Commissioners with safety to the State to give neither more nor less than a fair price to the landlord; and he was sure that there was no Party in that House which would wish to see the landlord robbed of any part of the fair price of his land, fie believed that there was great truth and force in what had been stated in an Irish nowspaper—namely, that there was not the least fear that the tenants in Ireland would give more than a fair price for the land Therefore, before the Committee throw out this part of the clause, he thought they ought very carefully to consider the matter, because if by any chance division it was 1651 left out it would effect an entire change in the scheme of the Bill, and plunge the whole question again in extreme difficulty before the country.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, he believed that if the words proposed by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) were agreed to the Bill would prove illusory and unworkable. He did not propose that the Land Commissioners should advance all the money, or even three-fourths of it on application, but that the question whether they should advance three-fourths or one-half should be left to their discretion. He thought it should be left to them to make such an advance as they thought would be covered by the fee-simple and the tenant right. He knew a case in which it would be safer to advance the whole sum than the half of it. In the county of Antrim recently there were cases in which the relative prices had been as follows:—Fee-simple 18 years, tenant right 39 years; fee-simple 21 years, tenant right 45 years; and fee-simple 29 years' purchase, tenant right 49 years' purchase. Was there anyone who would say that in making advances to the tenant, when the value of the tenant right was equal to, and in some cases double the value of, the fee-simple, that there was any risk whatever? He said—"Donot advance the whole, or even three-fourths of the money, but trust to the Commissioners, who were responsible to the Treasury." If the Bill was to work it could only be made to work by giving ample discretion to the Commissioners, who would be under the control of the Treasury, and who would take care that not more than the proper sum was advanced. This Bill was by all regarded as an experiment, and the amount advanced could not exceed the £5,000,000 named in the clause. When that was exhausted Parliament would be applied to for another £5,000,000 or £10,000,000; but in the meantime they would have had experience of the working of the Act. It appeared to him that they were continuing in this Bill the mistakes made in former Acts, the Purchase Clauses of which had turned out to be failures. When they had this splendid opportunity of testing this question, and creating peasant proprietorship in Ireland, he asked if the Government would not make a bold experiment and leave the question of advancing three-fourths 1652 or the whole of the purchase money to the discretion of the Commissioners whom they had appointod?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERSir, after the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, which in our opinion thoroughly met the case put forward by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), it will be necessary for me to detain the Committee but a very short time. I am bound to say that Her Majesty's Government look upon this guarantee deposit as a matter of supreme importance to the Bill, and that we have proposed it in place of the guarantee proposed by the late Government. We do not think in justice to the British taxpayers—and in that name I would include the taxpayers of Ireland as well as of the other parts of the United Kingdom—that we ought to advance the whole value of the holding without some guarantee. That guarantee we have endeavoured to take in a form which appears to us to offer the least possible hindrance to the carrying out of this plan. We have proposed that for no long term of years a sum equal to one-fifth of the purchase money of the holding should remain in the hands of the Commissioners on condition that the depositor shall receive 3 per cent interest, as much as he would get in the Funds, and with as great security; and at the end of the term, if the instalments are paid up, he will be entitled to the amount deposited. It is all very well to talk about the double security which the Government would have in the fee-simple and tenant right. That, no doubt, would be the case with such holdings as the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) has spoken of; but, as my right hon. and learned Friend has shown by the last Report of the Land Commission, it is perfectly clear that there are holdings in Ireland to which the Act would, undoubtedly, apply in which there would be no such double security—because the value has so deteriorated that there would be no tenant right, for even the fee-simple has been deteriorated by the neglect of the tenant. We have been told that the Land Commissioners would guard the interest of the Treasury in this matter, and consequently the taxpayers of the country. But, Sir, we cannot consent to leave it to thorn. We think there ought 1653 to be in this case, as Parliament has always before required a margin of security beyond the value of the holding at the time of purchase, not only to make up for the deterioration I have alluded to, but also for the bad seasons which may occur. I have heard from many hon. Gentlemen connected with Ireland that this is a very liberal proposal. I think that an hon. Gentleman opposite spoke of it as a great bribe; but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Beading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) that it is more liberal than anything which he, as a Member of the late Government, over ventured to propose, and yet he now comes down and asks us to omit the chief security of the Bill. I venture to say that we must adhere to this proposal of a guarantee deposit; and if hon. Members want the Bill to pass this Session, and be, as I hope it may be, an experiment of great value and importance to Ireland, I must ask them to leave this provision in the Bill. We think it of the greatest importance, and at the same time a reasonable proposal, as between the taxpayers of the United Kingdom and those whom the Bill is intended to benefit.
§ MR. VILLIERS STUARTsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) would not persist with his Amendment. Of course, as a landlord, he would rather receive the whole amount of the purchase money than four-fifths of it, still he could not shut his eyes to the fact that if the Amendment were carried the Bill would be shipwrecked to the detriment of peasant proprietorship in Ireland.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he was glad to perceive that Her Majesty's Government intended to stand to their guns in this matter. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken that if the Amendment were accepted the whole structure of the Bill would go. He said that they ought to take such security as a prudent banker would require.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANcould not see the great liberality of the Bill. The Bill of the late Government proposed to advance three-fourths of the money—that was 15–20ths. This Bill proposed to advance 16–20ths, 1–20th more, and for that 20th a guarantee was to be taken from the Church Fund, which amounted 1654 to £750,000—a guarantee of £750,000 for £250,000.
§ MR. GRAYthought that after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer it would be prudent for the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) not to press his Amendment to a division. After all, it was the Government who were responsible for this Bill; and if, in spite of warnings and forebodings, the Bill was found not to work satisfactorily on account of the Government insisting upon this guarantee, the blame could not fall upon the hon. Member for Sligo. In fact, the Attorney General for Ireland himself, and the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Plunket), had acknowledged that the effect of the clause would be really what they (the Irish Members) said. He (Mr. Plunket) put it that the effect would be to secure to the landlords what he called a fair price, which they would not otherwise get. The Irish Members, however, thought the effect of it would be to compel the tenant to pay an excessive price without giving the landlord any corresponding advantage. The conclusion was the same—namely, to enhance the price. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the landlord would remain out of his money for a short time; the Chief Secretary said 10 years. There was no doubt about that. As a matter of fact, it would be 15-years or 16 years that he would have to remain out of his money, because it w7ould take that period to repay that part of the advance. The fifth would be paid in a shorter term. It was acknowledged that this Bill was a Bill to relieve the deadlock caused by the impoverished landlords who were attempting to sell their estates in the Landed Estates Court. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the landlord had security for one-fifth; but it was not security which an impoverished landlord wanted—it was the use of the money. It was not in the form of a comfortable security he wanted it, even though the Government would pay 3 per cent on it—he did not want the one-fifth locked up in this way. He wished to settle his debts and utilize what there might be over to the best possible advantage, perhaps in some business. If the Government were to issue for that fifth a bond with coupons attached to it, which 1655 the landlord could take into market and sell, then he could understand its being a really available security; but if it were to be merely a contract to pay 3 percent per annum, it was quits useless to the impoverished landlord, and he would be inclined to seek a larger payment in cash. The result would be not to increase the security of the Government, but to diminish it, because it would place an excessive payment upon the tenant and tend to embarrass him. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the Government were exceedingly liberal in this Bill; but if hon. Members came to examine the matter, far from being convinced by what the last speaker had said as to what a banker would ask for an advance, they would find that the Government really were asking something very near what a usurer would ask as a margin upon an advance. They proposed an advance under this Bill really not of £5,000,000, but of £4,000,000. Thus one of the £5,000,000 they said they were going to advance they were going to retain. As a security for the rest they sought one-fifth of the purchase money, which would amount to £1,000,000, and the Church Surplus—three-fourths of £1,000,000—so that for an advance of £4,000,000 they sought a security of £1,750,000, or nearly 50 per cent. Hon. Members would bear him out in saying that any banker or Insurance Company would be content with a very much less margin than that. So far from being remarkable for their liberality in this matter, the Government were asking more than an ordinary banker would ask. If the hon. Member for Sligo would withdraw the Amendment, perhaps the Government would be content with this security, and would not press for more. They would have abundance of security. The Treasury need not give the money if they were not satisfied, and the Land Commission need not give it if they were not satisfied. He (Mr. Gray) would urge on his hon. Friend, after the announcement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not to press this particular Motion to a division.
MR. SINCLAIRsaid, he wished to say a word or two on what he believed would be the practical working out of this clause. It had been pointed out very 1656 clearly by the Attorney General for Ireland that prior to coining before the Land Commissioners there must be an agreement, in the first instance, as to the question of this security, because it must be provided by someone—either by the landlord or by the tenant. If the landlord was to provide the security, he would naturally want a larger price than the tenant would otherwise be willing to pay; on the other hand, if the tenant provided it, he would look for compensation in purchasing at a lower price; therefore its provision would be a matter of arrangement between the landlord and the tenant—between the buyer and the seller. He hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn by the hon. Member. He did not think the Government could go before the country and put this Bill before the taxpayers not only of Ireland, but also of England and Scotland, unless they retained the security of the fifth.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he wished to make one or two observations on this matter. He could not accept the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although convenience, perhaps, drove him to a conclusion contrary to that which his judgment approved of. With regard to the tenant's interest, according to a Paper read before the Statistical Society, it was shown that even in Clare and Mayo the tenant right was as great—and in some cases greater—than the landlord interest; and that showed that in regard to any advance limited to the landlord's interest a margin of security was left which was not only reasonable, but ample. As to the British taxpayer, all he could say was that if the Government had taken the advice of the Irish Members that individual would have been much more safe, for the Land Purchase Commissioners would have been compelled to take care that the purchase money was fair, and not excessive. He (Mr. Sexton) must say that with the landlord induced by the retention of his money to run up the price of his land, and the Purchase Commissioners induced by having one-fifth on their hands to consent to the running up of the price, they would have burdensome instalments necessary. However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was responsible for the Bill. The Irish Members had pointed out a much safer way; 1657 but he did not feel that he was in a position to resist very strongly the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whoso position reminded him very much of a successful movement made by himself (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) not very long ago against Gentlemen occupying the place he and his Colleagues now filled. If the right hon. Gentleman would assure him that the Government would not insist on the inconvenient overlapping of security which would be involved in the guarantee deposit and the Church Surplus Fund, and would be content with the guarantee deposit superadded to the value of the land, he (Mr. Sexton) would withdraw his Amendment.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI cannot, after the way the hon. Gentleman has met me, delay the Committee by dwelling upon the matter any further. I think I owe it to him and to the Committee to say that, having fully considered this question, I do not think it necessary for us to insist upon the remainder of the Church Surplus as an additional guarantee.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he now wished to move his second Amendment—namely, to leave out Sub-section (b). With regard to his third Amendment he wished to say——
§ THE CHAIRMANBefore the hon. Member brings forward any argument in favour of his third Amendment, I must inform him that I shall not be able to put it. he wishes to substitute £20,000,000 for the sum of £5,000,000; but the Committee has already sanctioned the sum of £5,000,000.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he wished to move an Amendment at the end of Sub-section (a) as follows:—
Provided no advance shall be made under this Act to any one tenant of more than £3,000.It appeared to him there ought to be some limit to the amount advanced, and he thought £3,000 would be a fair sum. The object of the Bill was to create peasant proprietors in the ordinary sense of the term, and he did not think it should be extended to large graziers.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 3, line 3, at the end of Sub-section (a), add—"Provided no advance shall be made
1658
under this Act to any one tenant of more than £3,000."—(Mr. Shaw Lefevre.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI quite agree with the principle of this Amendment. I do not think it is desirable that sales to large graziers should be made under this Act; but, at the same time, I am not prepared to say that the precise limit proposed by the right hon. Gentleman is the right one. I should like to take the opinion of the Treasury on the matter, and then, if necessary, the clause can be amended on Report.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he would suggest that the Land Commissioners should make rules to the effect that they would not give more than a prescribed sum without the assent of the Treasury, Parliament having had in view the granting of only small sums to a certain class of small tenants. That would obviate the necessity of putting any amount in the Bill.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he was under the impression that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had an Amendment lower down tending to restrict the operation of the Bill to holdings not altogether pastoral in their character, with the exception of those on which the tenant was resident. He, at any rate, thought that was the tenour of the Amendment the hon. Member contemplated moving lower down. He was not sure that the object of the right hon. Gentleman who proposed the present Amendment would not be more completely met by such an Amendment as that than by providing the restriction of a specific sum. Probably the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) allowing the Commissioners to make rules in regard to this matter would be even better than this. He wished to point out that in the case of the great grazing farms, as a rule, the tenants were not resident upon them. No doubt, the wording of the clause would require some consideration, so as not to leave out some who might require to avail themselves of the Act. There was no objection to extending the Bill to tenants of pasture lands, even if a higher price than £3,000 were to be paid, provided the tenants were resident,
§ Question again put.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANI understood these words were to be withdrawn.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANIf that is so I will say no more; but I have strong reasons to urge why this Amendment should not be adopted.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREI understand that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer agrees in principle to the Amendment, but that he doubts whether £3,000 is the right sum to fix. I understood him to say he will reconsider the matter between now and the Report.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERYes; that was what I intended. I understood the principle of the Amendment to be practically what was stated by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray)—namely, that it is not desirable that tenants of great tracts of grazing land should purchase that land under this Bill; but, of course, a resident tenant of a holding of considerable size would very properly come under the provisions of this Bill as well as the tenant of a small holding. I will promise to look into the matter.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREI am inclined to go a little farther than the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think that large sums should be advanced to tenants, whether resident or not. It seems to me that the main object of this Bill is to create peasant proprietors, and not to advance money to large holders.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, there would be no harm in letting the thing stand over now in order that the Government could consider it between this and Report.
§ Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he now wished to move a sub-section which he had not been able to put upon the Paper, but to which the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) attached great importance. He wished to propose at the end of the words just added to the Bill the following:—
No advance shall be made under this Act to a tenant of any land wholly or partly pastoral on which the tenant does not reside.The policy of this Bill was to make persons residing upon small holdings pro- 1660 prietors of those holdings. He begged to move these words as a sub-section.
§
Amendment proposed,
At the end of the last Amendment to add—"No advance shall be made under this Act to a tenant of any land wholly or partly pastoral on which the tenant does not reside."—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he wished to point out that if those words were introduced they might injure deserving tenants by preventing them from getting the benefit of the Bill. The Committee would bear in mind that the Land Commission would inquire into each individual case; and he had no doubt that the Commissioners would never allow money to be advanced to a tenant who had a large holding, but did not reside upon it. If this Amendment were passed what would be the consequence? Why, there were a large number of farmers of agricultural land who had adjoining to such land small farms which they used for pastoral purposes. If they made application under the Bill to purchase the agricultural land, it would be very hard if they were deprived of the power of purchasing the pastoral land. If the Amendment were carried it would injure the very class the Bill was promoted to benefit.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, he thought the objection of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland was a very strong one, and he (Colonel Nolan) himself had put it to his hon. Friend before he had got up. He thought the difficulty, however, could be met if an addition were made to the Amendment as follows:—
Unless the holding is under the value of £30, and in the vicinity of the residence of the tenant.That would meet the whole argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and would give all the benefit that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) wished to bring about. He acknowledged the force of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's objection; and if the Amendment went without some qualification he should see it accepted with much regret.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that he thought, on the whole, it would be much more 1661 convenient that this matter should be considered when the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman below him (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was brought up. He would, therefore, withdraw the Amendment, that it might be brought up on Report.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, that with regard to the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, that the Land Commission would carefully investigate these cases, he wished to express the opinion that the Commissioners would be compelled to make an advance if they were satisfied with the security. There was nothing in the Act to direct the Land Commissioners to investigate what the object of the purchasing tenant was.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, it was of great importance to discourage what were known in Ireland as dairy farms—that was to say, cases in which a farmer lived himself upon one farm and put dairymen upon others, charging them an enormous rent and employing no people. The object of the proposed Amendment was of great importance, and he hoped the Government would be able to carry it out.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he had an Amendment on the Paper to increase the sum under the Bill from £5,000,000 to £20,000,000.
§ THE CHAIRMANThis Amendment proposes an excess of the sum authorized by the Committee, and therefore it cannot be put.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that when the Money Resolution was put he had desired to raise this discussion then; but he had been told that it would be open for him, if he altered the amount in the Bill, to alter the Resolution afterwards.
§ THE CHAIRMANI will not state the words of the Resolution which authorizes a sum of money, not exceeding £5,000,000, to be advanced under the Act. The words are "not exceeding," It is clear, therefore, that the hon. Member would not be in Order in moving his Amendment.
§ MR. SEXTONWill it be open to me to move to leave out the sub-section, without proposing to amend its wording, so that no money at all be granted?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI hope the hon. Member will not do that, for if he does, and carries his Amendment, it would be impossible for us to carry out the Bill.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it would be impossible to work the Bill if this Amendment were adopted there was no more to be said on the matter. He was sorry that the Government had not seen their way to putting a larger amount in the Bill, because, anxious as he was to see the Bill work properly, he was afraid it was not possible for it to do so with the limited sum which was to be advanced under it.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that as the Act of 1881 was passed it contained an Instruction to the Land Commissioners to make Rules; and perhaps the Government would consider whether, by Circular or in some other way, they could not express to the Commissioners their view as to the class of persons to whom those advances should be made, and also as to the manner in which those advances should be made. Supposing what happened in the case of the Act of 1881 should happen in respect of this Act? Supposing there should be a rush of applications from one particular quarter of the country? the Sub-Commissioners might give out the whole £5,000,000 to that district, other tenants who would have been glad enough to avail themselves of the privileges of the Bill, but who had been slower to find out the benefits of the Act, being unable to obtain advances. His own opinion was that the Act should not be put in operation for three or four months—that no advance should be made until the people who were to be benefited knew exactly what the benefits of the Bill would be, and that the Land Commissioners, when the applications came in, should be able to make a choice. Those matters were matters which should be regulated by the good sense of the gentlemen who would have to administer the Act. He would ask for an expression of opinion from the Government upon this question. He thought it would be very unfortunate if this Bill were administered in the sense of first come first served.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
1663§ Clause 3 (Deposit of money as guarantee fund).
§ MR. BRODRICKdesired an explanation of this clause, by which it was provided—
That any person willing to secure the repayment of an advance made by the Land Commission to a tenant who is purchasing his holding either from the Land Commission or from the landlord of such holding may deposit with the Land Commission such sum, as a guarantee deposit, not being less than one-fifth of the advance, as may be agreed on between him and the Land Commission.He could not understand the value of that provision. He thought that the security demanded by the Land Commission ought to be in ell cases one-fifth of the sum. He would move formally to leave out the word "such" in line 10 and insert "a."
§ Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 10, to leave out the word "such" and insert "a."—(Mr. Brodrick.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, that the clause had been drawn upon the lines of similar clauses in former Acts. There would be a minimum or certain margin beyond which the Land Commission could not go. Under certain circumstances it could be conceived that one-fifth would not be a sufficient guarantee.
§ MR. BRODRICKsaid, in that case the whole position of the guarantee was entirely altered, because the Land Commission would have power to demand, on behalf of the Treasury, a guarantee of a totally different character from that which hon. Gentlemen were led to suppose. The Committee had gone on the understanding that one-fifth of the whole sum was to be deposited, and if a larger sum was to be demanded it would be almost impossible to come to any terms at all. He believed that this increase of the guarantee would greatly complicate the operation of the Bill. He did not know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland meant by the expression "in former Acts." He thought he must take the sense of the Committee upon this question. ["Oh, oh!"] He was quite certain that the effect of the clause was not thoroughly understood by hon. 1664 Gentlemen opposite; and, personally, he was inclined to take the sense of the Committee.
§ MR. GRAYbelieved it would be found that these words would have little operation. He thought it was a pity, however, not to provide in this clause for some other form of guarantee. A landlord might be perfectly in a position to give a guarantee, even to the extent of one-fifth of the purchase, in some other form than a deposit of money; for instance, there might be a deposit of securities, or it was conceivable that a bank might be established for the purpose of guaranteeing such advances, at least it was conceivable that the landlord might be able and willing—it might suit him better—to give some other form of guarantee equally good and acceptable to the Government as that contemplated by the clause. By this clause they shut the Government out from taking any other form of guarantee. A man might have India Four per Cents or Consols which he was prepared to deposit; but, owing to the drafting of this clause, the Land Commission would not be able to accept such security. He thought it would be well for the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to consider whether, if the landlord was ready and willing to give some other guarantee equal in amount and in security to that contemplated by the clause, the Land Commissioners should not be able to accept it. It was quite possible to understand that in many cases it would not be convenient to the landlord to make the deposit in cash.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE)said that the clause had been very carefully drafted, and the Government were not disposed to alter it in the way suggested.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, they were led to believe that in all probability the Land Commissioners would not require more than one-fifth of the advance guaranteed; but experience showed that the Commissioners had acted in a different manner. He would much have preferred his hon. Friend to have proposed to leave out the word "less," and insert "more," so that where the security was good as much as one-fifth need not be required. If his 1665 hon. Friend went to a division, however, he should support the Amendment.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the provision in the 4th paragraph was that—
The Land Commission shall retain the guarantee deposit until a sum equal to the deposit has been repaid, and shall then pay over the guarantee deposit to the person entitled thereto.He would like to know what that meant? Lot them take the case of a man who bought his farm for £1,000. £200 was deposited. The tenant would pay £40 a-year, and therefore in five years would pay £200, a sum equal to the deposit. Would the landlord be entitled to get his deposit at the end of live years? By the next paragraph it was provided that—If at any time during the period for which the Land Commission are authorized to retain the guarantee deposit any sum due to the Land Commission in respect of an advance secured by a guarantee deposit under this Act is declared by them, by order, to be an irrecoverable debt, the Land Commission may apply the guarantee deposit in discharge or reduction or such irrecoverable debt.He thought it ought to be clearly defined what the Land Commission must do before they declared the debt to be irrecoverable. Would they proceed in the Civil Bill Court for the instalments, or would they sell the interest to the whole amount? Finally, it was provided that—It shall be lawful for the Land Commission, by order, to declare that the interest in the holding of the person liable to pay such sum shall be charged in favour of the person entitled to the guarantee deposit with the amount of the guarantee deposit.But if the Land Commission had sold the holding, it appeared to him they would charge the incoming purchaser with the deposit. He thought all these points required some explanation.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said that, as regarded the first point, the intention of the Government was that the deposit money should not be returned until one-fifth of the sum advanced had been paid. To make this quite clear, it would probably be necessary to make an Amendment on Report. As to the second point to which the hon. Member Mr. Sexton) had called attention, his (the Attorney General for Ireland's) 1666 belief was, when this and the other clauses of the Bill were carefully examined, their provisions would be found ample. It would be found that by one of the clauses the duty was imposed on the Land Commission to make use of the power of sale. By a sale they were to seek to realize the amount of the debt due. If the Land Commission declared the deposit forfeited there would be a charge on the holding to the amount of the deposit.
§ MR. SEXTONunderstood that if the Land Commission did not resort to a sale of the holding they would make the debt a charge on the holding. Would the Government have any objection to say, in line 33—
It shall be lawful for the Land Commission in a case where they do not resort to the power to sell the holding?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, if the hon. Gentleman would allow him to consider the matter he might introduce words to make the intention perfectly clear. He thought the words the hon. Gentleman had mentioned, or some such words, were desirable in order to clear up any ambiguity.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 4 (Terms of repayment of advances).
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE)proposed to insert, after the word "Act," in line 5—
Or to be made under 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870,' or 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1831,'and also in respect to the advances to be made to tenants under Part II. of "The Tramways and Public Companies (Ireland) Act, 1883." The object of this Amendment was that the advances made in 1870 and 1881, and also those made to public Companies, should be made on the most favourable terms.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ On Motion of Sir JOSEPH M'KEKNA, the following Amendments made:—Page 3, line 14, after "redeemed," insert "in whole or in part;" line 17, after "it," insert "as is sought to be redeemed."
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONproposed to add after "tenant," in page 3, line 31— 1667
(e.) Where any tenant has before the passing of this Act become the purchaser of his holding from the Church Commissioners, under the provisions of 'The Irish Church Act, 1869,' or any Act or Acts amending the same, he shall be entitled to obtain the benefit of this Act upon the terms hereinafter mentioned;In case any such tenant shall elect to obtain the benefit of this Act, the Land Commission shall, on the application of such purchaser, ascertain by certificate under their seal the principal sum due by him after all payments, and the sum so due shall be repayable by an annuity of the term and amount mentioned in sub-section (a). This provision shall apply, notwithstanding that such advance or any part thereof may be secured by mortgage;(f.) Where any annuities are, at the time of the passing of this Act, payable by tenants who have purchased their holdings under 'The Landlord and Tenant Act, 1870,' or under 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' in respect to advances made to them for that purpose, the Land Commission shall, on the application of such purchaser, ascertain, by certificate under their seal, the principal sum due after all payments, and the sum so due shall be repayable by an annuity of the term and amount mentioned in sub-section (a.);(g.) Where any tenant shall, before the passing of this Act, have entered into a contract for the purchase of his holding, "which provides for the payment of his purchase money by instalments, or by an annuity, to secure principal and interest, he shall be at liberty, if he thinks fit, subject to the provisions of the last preceding section, to have the purchase money repayable by an annuity of the term and amount provided by this Act, instead of in the manner provided by such contract, and, if any question of dispute shall arise as to such contract, or annuity, or purchase-money, it shall be decided by the Land Commission.The hon. Gentleman said, his object in moving this Amendment was to bring within the scope of the Act tenants who purchased their holdings under the Church Act of 1869, and under the Land Act of 1870, and under the Land Act of 1881, that all these purchasers might now have the benefit this Bill conferred of the reduced interest, and of the extension of time. He was very glad to see that since his Amendments had appeared on the Paper the Government had, to some extent, adopted one of them, the one relating to the Church tenants, and that those tenants were to have the advantage of this Bill. But he pointed out that the tenants who purchased under the Land Acts of 1870 and 1881 were in exactly the same position, and it would be unfair to require those tenants to continue to pay the present rate of interest, and to repay the money advanced in the time now specified. He earnestly hoped the Govern- 1668 ment would take into their consideration the case, not only of the Church tenants who purchased under the Irish Church Act of 1869, but the case of all those tenants who purchased under the subsequent Land Acts. He trusted that the Government would, on this question, take a broad view, and endeavour to place all the purchasing tenants exactly in the same position as regarded interest, and as regarded the period of repayment. It would be a very disastrous thing if the tenants who had already purchased were not placed upon an equality with the tenants who would purchase under this Act, for it would undoubtedly give rise in Ireland to dissatisfaction and heartburning. He trusted that the Government would see their way to extend the consideration they proposed to bestow on the Church tenants to the tenants who purchased under the Land Acts of 1870 and 1881.
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAhoped a concession would not be made in this matter; he did not think the request of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) could be complied with without exhausting some portion of the £5,000,000 voted in order to give effect to the Bill. He hoped the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Holmes) would not accept the proposition of his hon. Friend without considering what its effect would be upon the sum voted for the purposes of the Act.
§ MR. KENNYsaid, it was quite clear that the effect of adopting the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone would be that the greater portion of the £5,000,000 which the Government proposed to advance for the purposes of this Act would be consumed in paying the debts of persons who had entered into contracts years ago, and who ought to be bound by the obligations they then entered into. A certain number of men undertook years ago to buy the fee-simple of their holdings, and at the present time the greater portion of the purchase money had been paid off. The tenants who would purchase their holdings under this Bill when it became law had all these years been paying rent which had been absolutely lost to them, and the hon. Gen- 1669 tleman the Member for Tyrone would by his proposal deprive those people as much as he possibly could of the benefits of this Act for the purpose of relieving those who, years ago, with their eyes open, entered into contracts which he (Mr. Kenny) thought it was the duty of Parliament to compel them to carry out.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the Committee would perhaps allow him to say a few words on this question, because, as hon. Members were aware, the matter was brought before him a few days ago by the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) and other Members from Ireland. It appeared to him that the glebe tenants stood on a different footing to other purchasers. They purchased at comparatively high rates, because they purchased under circumstances which almost amounted to compulsion. It was necessary that the glebe should be sold, and had they declined to pay the price required they were liable to be outbid by outsiders; therefore it did seem to him, looking at all the circumstances, that the Government might fairly agree to a reduction of the rate of interest, and to an extension of the term of years with regard to the future payments due from the glebe tenants who purchased under the Irish Church Act. But there was great force in the remark made by the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny) that the purchasers under the Acts of 1870 and 1881 had made contracts of their own free will. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) did not wish to dwell upon the fact that they were few in number. He thought it would be doing more than they ought to do, at any rate in this Bill, if they extended the relief beyond that suggested in the Amendment which had been placed on the Paper by his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
§ MR. WALKERsaid, he quite felt the fairness of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so far as his proposal went, although it did not go so far as that of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson). The Amendment of the latter, however, did not propose to make any large concession to those tenants, but merely to reduce the rate of interest, and increase the time for the repayment of the money proportionately. The question was this. 1670 The glebe tenants in the Northern part of Ireland who purchased under the Irish Church Act, no doubt, bought at a high rate, and their interest was to be reduced from 4 per cent to 3⅛; but those who bought a year later under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1870, also bought at a high rate. They paid 3½ per cent, and he could see no reason why that should not also be reduced to 3⅛, and the period of years for repayment extended. The whole question between them was only one of figuring, and he could see no reason why the 1870 tenants should not also receive some concession. It appeared to him to be most unreasonable that there should be in Ireland two different classes of tenants, one class paying 3⅛ per cent, and the other 3½ per cent. He hoped, therefore, that the Amendment would be agreed to.
§ MR. LEAhoped the Government would reconsider this matter simply as a matter of fairness to the tenants. It was very important that a provision should not be carried under which one tenant who purchased at the higher rate had to pay 3½, per cent, while another who purchased at a lower rate had only to pay 3⅛. He could understand that the tenant who felt himself at a disadvantage compared with his neighbour would be induced by that very feeling to enlist in any agitation which tended to place them on an equal footing. If the Act were to work harmoniously it should contain no provision of a deterrent character, and the tenant would certainly not have purchased by now if he was led to believe from the experience of past years that by waiting a little longer he could get better terms. He thought that those who bought in 1870 at the higher rate of interest were entitled to be placed on the same footing as the other tenants.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he thought there was a great deal of force in what had been said by the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Lea). It was true that these tenants were in one particular district, and, for his part, he was perfectly well satisfied with the arrangement as it was. As he understood it, however, the policy of the measure was one of equal dealing. He could not agree that there would be any considerable need for all of this £5,000,000 if they included these tenants, although there certainly would have been if they had accepted his 1671 Amendment. However, he was disposed to join with the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson), and to ask that those tenants should be allowed the lower rate of interest and the same term of years as those under the Irish Church Act. It could not make any serious inroad into the £5,000,000, and would simply resolve itself into a question of Treasury finance. He thought he saw the material for a compromise in this matter. Of course, he believed that there had been farms bought under the Act of 1881, and that the sales had been effected under threat of distress, and things of that sort. Landlords could still put a price on the turf, and do a great many things to make the tenants pay the higher rate; and, therefore, he could understand that under the Act of 1881 there might have been farms bought at the high rate. He thought, however, that persons who bought in the face of the agitation that was going on almost deserved the bad bargains they had made. They had subjected themselves to any demand the landlord liked to make, and they might, therefore, be left out in this concession. At the same time, there was little difference between the tenants who had bought in 1869 and those who had bought under the Act of 1870; and, therefore, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would consent to include the tenants who bought under the Acts of those years. The right hon. Gentleman would be doing a graceful and a considerate act if he allowed them this concession.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that when he authorized his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland to place this clause on the Paper he did so on the understanding that it would be accepted by those hon. Gentlemen who came to him the other-day to express their views on the subject. He was bound to say that after the speeches of hon. Members, and the Amendment which had been moved, he doubted whether he ought not to suggest to his right hon. Friend to withdraw the clause altogether and avoid dealing with the matter in the Bill. The Amendments which were suggested appeared to him to re-open the whole question of the position of various classes of purchasing tenants in a manner which was most unjustifiable. He felt that he must con- 1672 fine the clause to purchasers under the Irish Church Act.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, that in the interview to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred he would remember that he had pressed the claims of those who had purchased under the Act of 1870. Indeed, he had always done so. Notice to quit had never been pressed on the tenants in 1870, and yet those tenants now found themselves in a much worse position than they would have been if they had waited until the present year. He did not propose to touch this £5,000,000. All he asked was that the terms of the Treasury should be reduced from 4 per cent to 3⅛ per cent, which would be the interest under the present Bill. A compromise on this question was absolutely necessary; and seeing that the Bill was going quietly through the House, and as he knew the necessity for the Amendment in regard to the tenants of 1870, he must press his proposal.
§ MR. SEXTONfelt it was necessary to say that upon a far more important point than this he had withdrawn an Amendment of his upon an intimation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it might interfere with the progress of the Bill. Under those circumstances, and after what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman in regard to this point, he could not support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Dickson).
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 12; Noes 56: Majority 44.—(Div. List, No. 281.)
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Sales of Land.
§ Clause 5 (Purchase of estates and holdings).
§ MR. WALKERsaid, he begged to move in page 3, line 40, after "advance," to insert—
Where any holdings in a town or village or other holdings not agricultural in their character form part of an estate for the sale of which the Land Commission may have contracted, or for the purchase of which or (in the opinion of the Land Commission) a sufficient part of which the tenants or (in the opinion of the Land Commission) a sufficient number thereof shall have entered into agreements with their landlord, then if the Land Commission (due regard being had to the proportion which such holdings, non- 1673 agricultural, bear in extent and value to the rest of the estate) should consider it expedient that this provision should apply, the like agreements and purchases, either by the Land Commission or the tenants, may be made in respect of such non-agricultural holdings or any of them, and the like advances under this Act may be made for the purchase of such non- I agricultural holdings, or any of them, as if the same were agricultural holdings; and this Act shall be deemed in all respects to apply thereto.The object of this clause was to meet a case which had often happened before, and which might frequently happen in the future. The clause would, of course, only deal with those holdings which were in the town or village which formed part of the estate which was being sold under the Act. It would be to the advantage both of the tenant and the landlord that this provision should be inserted in the Bill. They would neither of them have any responsibility in the matter at all, for the question whether the purchase should be made or not would rest upon the responsibility of the Land Commissioners.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he was sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman; but he had an Amendment which came in before his—in line 35, after the word "estate," to insert the words—
Providing that the Commissioners shall not buy an estate unless they are satisfied that a majority of the tenants, four-fifths in number, have agreed to purchase their holdings.Now, unless there was a provision securing that at least a certain proportion of tenants should have agreed to purchase before the Land Commission offered to purchase the estate, it might operate very harshly against the tenant. He apologized for bringing on the matter in the middle of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman; but he would have been ruled out of Order if he had not brought it up now, for he could not see where else in the clause it would come in. What he desired to effect was that the Commissioners should not i be able, if they purchased an estate, to sell to outsiders, over the heads of the tenants, who would be enabled under this Bill to borrow one-half of the purchase money. He wished to prevent the land falling into the hands of land speculators, and with the purpose of effecting that object he desired that the Commissioners should be satisfied beforehand that a substantial proportion of 1674 the tenants on the estate wove willing to buy their holdings. He proposed four-fifths; but of course that was an outside proportion.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 3, line 35, to insert, after "may purchase any estate," the words "on which four-fifths of the tenants have agreed to purchase their holdings."—(Mr. Gray.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he proposed to add words at the end of the first paragraph of Clause 7, which provided that—
Where the Land Commission have purchased an estate, they may sell any parcels which they do not sell to the tenants thereof in such manner as they think fit.to enact that the parcels disposed of in that manner should not be more than one-tenth of the entire estate. His hon. Friend proposed one-fifth; but he thought that one-tenth would be quite enough. This was a Bill to provide facilities for the sale of land to the occupying tenants; but this was a proposal to give a new lease to the landlords. He could not consent to such a proposal for a moment. If the Land Commission were once induced to buy the estate, there would be no limit to the portion they might sell to speculators who would be tempted by the offer of an advance of a portion of the purchase money. He therefore thought it would be proper to provide that only a certain fraction of the estate should be disposed of in that manner.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he had no objection, if it were considered more convenient, to withdraw the Amendment until Clause 7 was reached. He thought it was necessary to give some such power to the Land Commission, or one peasant proprietor might prevent the purchase of an entire estate. His only desire was to assist the Land Commission in overcoming a difficulty of that kind, so that they might not find themselves checkmated by a few unreasonable tenants. All he wanted to secure was that if there were a desire to effect the purchase of the estate by the Land Commission, it should come from a substantial portion of the tenants, and that the Commission should not have facilities for purchasing the estate for the mere purpose of re-selling it to land speculators.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, the Amendment of the hon. Member provided that four-fifths of the tenants must agree before the Land Commission could purchase. He thought that was too high a portion to require, and would tend to make the Bill entirely inoperative. The proportion ought certainly not to be more than two-thirds, and he would strongly advise the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) not to press the Amendment, but to leave the matter to the discretion of the Commissioners. He was satisfied that four-fifths would defeat the object of the Bill.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he had hoped to obtain some expression of opinion on the part of the Government; but if it were considered more convenient to raise the question on Clause 7 he had no objection to do so. He should certainly have to raise the question again.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. WALKERmoved, in page 3, line 40, after "advance," to insert—
Where any holdings in a town or village or other holdings not agricultural in their character form part of an estate for the sale of which the Land. Commission may have contracted, or for the purchase of which or (in the opinion of the Land Commission) a sufficient part of which the tenants or (in the opinion of the Land Commission) a sufficient number thereof shall have entered into agreements with their landlord, then if the Land Commission (due regard being had to the proportion which such holdings, non-agricultural, bear in extent and value to the rest of the estate) should consider it expedient that this provision should apply, the like agreements and purchases, either by the Land Commission or the tenants, may be made in respect of such non-agricultural holding's or any of them, and the like advances under this Act may be made for the purchase of such non-agricultural holdings, or any of them, as if the same were agricultural holdings; and this Act shall be deemed in all respects to apply thereto.The hon. and learned Gentleman said, the object of the Amendment was to enable the Land Commission to deal with the whole of an estate, and not confine their operations to agricultural holdings.
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, the Amendment contained a proposition of a startling character. The Acts of 1870 and 1881 were confined strictly to agri- 1676 cultural holdings; but it was now proposed by his hon. and learned Friend to advance to the tenant of a house having no land in connection with it five-sixths of the purchase money, in order to enable him to purchase the tenement. It appeared to him that the Amendment was an innovation altogether. They had been told again and again that landed property in Ireland stood in a peculiar position so far as the holders of land were concerned; but he was not aware that the holders of houses in Ireland differed from the holders of similar property in the rest of the United Kingdom. He was quite aware that his hon. and learned Friend had stated that the object of the Amendment was to enable the Land Commission to value the whole of an estate and re-sell it where it so happened that property had been purchased by the Commissioners, part of which was situated in a town. But he did not think the Commission would be justified in purchasing house property for any purpose whatever, and he did not think that Parliament ought to give them the power.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, he would take the case of the London Companies who were now about to sell their estates in the county of Londonderry. Those estates comprised a number of small villages and a good deal of house property, which was held in conjunction with the land. It would, he thought, be very hard to shut out the village tenants upon the estates of the London Companies from the benefits of this Act; and he was afraid that the Amendment would prejudicially affect a considerable amount of property all over the North of Ireland. He thought that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the County of Londonderry (Mr. Walker) was absolutely necessary. He knew that the London Companies would be placed in a difficult position if they could only sell part of their property, and were obliged to retain all their village property.
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, the amount of the advance was limited to a sum of £5,000,000, and it would be most unjustifiable to use it in the purchase of villages in the North of Ireland.
§ Amendment negatived.
1677§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."
§ MR. SEXTONsaid that, before the clause was passed, he wished the Attorney General to explain what the guaranteed deposits were. Was it intended that one-fifth of the value of the whole estate should remain in the hands of the Land Commission; and, if so, for how long?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, it must be obvious to hon. Members that a very considerable amount of power must be left in the hands of the Land Commission; and it would be necessary to make arrangements with the greater part of the tenants previous to the purchase of an estate for the purpose of selling it to the tenants. Unless there were previous arrangements, and the Land Commission purchased an estate which was defined as a large tract of land, it was necessary that the owner must allow one-fifth of the purchase money to remain as a guaranteed deposit. If some small portion of the estate were not sold by reason of the tenant occupying a portion of it not being disposed to buy, the one-fifth of the guaranteed deposit of the purchase money of land not sold would be returned to the original landlord. The administration of the Act must, however, be left, to a considerable extent, in the hands of the Land Commission; and it was impossible to frame a clause which could meet every contingency that might arise.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, it was a matter of considerable importance to express, in some way, what the guaranteed deposit was to be. Clause 3 enacted that—
Any person willing to secure the repayment of an advance made by the Land Commission to a tenant who is purchasing his holding either from the Land Commission or from the landlord of such holding may deposit with the Land Commission such sum, as a guarantee deposit, not being less than one-fifth of the advance, as may be agreed on between him and the Land Commission.It was not made manifest anywhere who the person was to be—whether the landlord, the tenant, or any other person.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he had no desire to leave it in doubt as to who the money was to collie from. It might 1678 come from the landlord, the tenant, or a third person; but he thought the only person it was likely to come from was the landlord. It would certainly not be the tenant who would pay the deposit; and the person who would advance it would, as a rule, be the landlord.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause 6 (Power to tenant for life to leave part of purchase money outstanding. 45 & 46 Vict. c. 38.)
§ MR. SEXTONasked the Attorney General for Ireland to explain what was the object of the clause?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, the clause dealt with advances under the Act of 1881. The Government did not propose, by the provisions of the present measure, to put a stop to advances under the Act of 1881. The Bill made provision that one-fifth of the purchase money should remain outstanding; but the Act of 1881 enabled persons who desired to purchase under that Act to do so, upon securing a mortgage of one-fourth of the purchase money upon the holding. It was proposed by this clause to allow one-fourth of the purchase money still to remain as a security to the landlord.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 7 (Sales of residues).
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that now was the time to fix some limit as to the amount of the estate which might be sold to others than tenants. The previous clauses of the Bill enabled the Land Commission, after they had purchased an estate, to re-sell to the tenants; but this clause provided that where the Land Commission had purchased an estate they might sell any parcels which they did not sell to the tenants in such manner as they thought fit; that they might advance to any purchaser of a parcel under this section, on the security of such parcel, one-half of the principal sum paid as the price; and that, subject to that limitation on the amount of the advance, all the provisions of the Act relative to sales and advances to tenants by the Land Commission should apply to the sale of a parcel in like manner us 1679 if the parcel had been a holding and the purchaser had been the tenant at the time of his making his purchase. He conceived that the greatest danger might result from, the operation of this clause. So far as it allowed the Land Commission to sell to purchasers other than tenants, it departed from the original purpose of the Bill, and controverted it. It afforded facilities to those who were not tenants to purchase the holdings, and instead of that being within the scope of the Bill the exact contrary was the object of the measure. If the Government would accept the proposal he was about to make, they would bring the clause within the limits of safety. Nothing could be more dangerous than to run the risk of creating a new class of landlords. The whole object of the measure was to get rid of the interest of the landlord in the soil, and to make that of the tenant absolute. He begged to move the addition to the clause of the following Proviso:—
Provided that the parcels shall not together exceed one-tenth of the estate.
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAexpressed a hope that the hon. Member would not divide the Committee upon the Amendment.
§ THE CHAIRMANsaid, the Committee could not amend the clause now; but any Amendment must be brought up on the Report. There were no Amendments on the Paper; and, therefore, he had put the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill. The only Amendment on the Paper in regard to Clause 7 was one in the name of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) to leave out the clause altogether.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, it was not desirable that the Land Commission should purchase an estate unless they were perfectly certain that they could re-sell the greater part of it to the tenants. He thought that the suggestion of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), if adopted, would render the operations of the Land Commission more difficult, and would hamper them in their arrangements. If they turned to the 5th clause, they would find that the only object with which the Land Commission could purchase an estate was for the purpose of re-selling to the tenants of the lands comprised in such estate their respective holdings; and the object of 1680 the 7th clause was to provide that if there were three or four holdings which could not be sold to the tenants they might be brought into the open market; but certainly the Government did not want, nor had they ever contemplated, that as much as one-fifth of the estate should be disposed of in that way. Wherever it was possible the whole would be sold to the tenants; and this provision as to a sale to the general public would only apply to an isolated holding which, under some exceptional circumstances, was not taken by the tenants.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause 8 (Vesting order in lieu of conveyance).
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that before the Question was put that the clause should stand part of the Bill he had an Amendment to move which was not on the Paper. He proposed to omit the words of the clause from the beginning of line 35 down to the words "it shall be lawful" in line 40. The words he proposed to leave out provided that when a holding had been sold by the Land Commission to a tenant or other person, and also when a holding had been sold by a landlord to a tenant, and it had been agreed between the Commission, the landlord, and the tenant, that the sale should be carried into effect by means of a vesting order of the Land Commission, it should be lawful for the Commission, after a due investigation of title, to make an order vesting the holding in the purchaser. If his Amendment were adopted, the clause would commence with the words "it shall be lawful," &c. The lines struck out dictated the method of conveyance by which the holding should be sold. When the holding was sold by the Land Commission, it would be lawful for them to make a vesting order; but if the sale was by the landlord to the tenant, then the landlord appeared to have power to dictate to the tenant whether he was to use a vesting order or a conveyance. A vesting order would be much cheaper, and he did not see why it should not be used in all cases.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 4, lines 35 to 40, to omit the words—"When a holding has been sold by the Land Commission to a tenant or other person, also when a holding has been sold by a landlord to a
1681
tenant, and it has been agreed between the Land Commission and the landlord and the tenant that such sale shall be carried into effect by means of a vesting order of the Land Commission under this Act."—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he would tell the hon. Gentleman why it was desirable to preserve these words in the clause. If the landlord and tenant made a bargain outside the Land Commission, except so far as they applied to the Commission to advance the money, there must be an agreement between the three parties as to how the purchase was to be carried out. If the Land Commission said that the contract must be carried out in any particular way, they might do something to interfere with the freedom of contract.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that a vesting order was much cheaper. Why should there be any provision to enable the landlord to impose upon the tenant a more expensive method of proceeding"?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, the basis of the Bill was an agreement between the parties. Nothing was made compulsory on one party or the other in any part of the Bill, and he did not think it desirably that it should be so.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. SEXTON moved, at the end of the first paragraph of the clause, in page 5, to omit the words which required the vesting order to be made subject to such charges, rights, and easements as might be specified in the order, or, if the vesting order so declared, subject to such charges, rights, and easements as might lawfully affect the holding. He maintained that this Amendment was only carrying out the policy of the Bill, which was to render the purchase as free from encumbrances as possible. Every effort should be made to accomplish that object; and he imagined that there was a provision in the Bill later on to buy up all the encumbrances, so as to make the purchase as free as possible to the tenant. It appeared to him, therefore, that it was undesirable to retain these words.
1682
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 5, line 2, to leave out the words, "subject to such charges, rights, and easements as may be specified in such order; or, if the vesting order so declares, subject to such charges, rights, and easements as may lawfully affect such holding."—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, the omission of these words would have a contrary effect to that which the hon. Member intended. The object of the clause was to convey the land to the purchaser free, and without any encumbrance whatever. At the same time, it might be impossible to define the precise position in which the land was vested in the tenant except by rendering it subject to the charges, rights, and easements specified in the vesting order. If these words were struck out, there might be a law suit in every case in which a holding was sold.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that if that were the case, might not the assertion of these easements in the instrument of conveyance have the effect of destroying those of persons other than the landlord? They might be getting rid of an evil which now existed for the benefit of some person who was not a party to the conveyance. Would it not be much bettor to leave out the easements altogether? The clause as it stood might enable a landlord to keep up an easement which might materially interfere with the right of way of the tenant.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, he did not think the Committee ought to leave out easements altogether. If they did it might be discovered hereafter that one holding had been sold with no right of way, and another with no access to water.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that if his hon. and gallant Friend looked a little further down the Bill he would find in one of the sub-sections of Clause 9 the following elaborate provision as to rights of common, rights of way, and other rights and easements:—
(2.)The Land Commission may, if they think fit, after due and sufficient inquiry, declare by their order that the sale is made subject to any rights of common, rights of way, or other rights or easements which the Land Commission find to affect such holding; and in that 1683 case the rights and easements so declared shall be the only rights or easements affecting the holding; or they may abstain from making any such declaration, and in that case the holding shall be deemed to be sold subject to such rights of common, rights of way, and other rights or easements as may lawfully affect the same.Therefore, the cases referred to by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) were provided for in this sub-section. If there were other rights and easements the Bill continued the power to the landlord over the holding in reference to them. Of course, as a layman, he (Mr. Sexton) was prepared to take the word of the right hon. and learned Attorney General that when, in an Act of Parliament, they wanted to make provision for one thing, it was necessary to say something that was exactly contrary to what they meant.
§ MR. HEALYwished to put this case. Suppose that, owing to some contingency which might arise, the tenant might find it necessary to let out a portion of the land of which he was actually the tenant, and suppose that the Land Commission made a vesting order, why should the doctrine of merger continue? Was it contemplated by the Bill that that doctrine should have effect? He did not say that it would be so; but he thought that in such a case the doctrine of merger should not apply. If the holding were let to another person, all the rights under the Act of 1881 would be continued. He was afraid that if the clause were retained in its present shape many complications might arise three or four years hence.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he hoped the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) would not press this Amendment. It was necessary, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, to make the provision contained in the clause which the hon. Member wished to strike out.
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he took exception to the rule which had been laid down in this clause by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. If another landlord or another tenant was in possession of contiguous property to which there was the right of way the tenant who had purchased his holding should not be able to deprive him of that right of way in consequence of any omission to specify it in the conveyance. He did not think there was anything to be 1684 gained by retaining the words which the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) proposed to strike out, and which he regarded at best as so much useless verbiage.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 5, line 14, to leave out from the word "Act" to the end of the paragraph.—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, if there were not in the Bill a clause of this character, some serious questions might be raised which it was necessary to avoid. The object of the words was that the title should be given to the person really entitled to it.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 9(Charges and rights subject to which the sale may be made).
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 5, line 24, after the word "fit," to insert the words "with the assent of the purchaser."—(Mr. Walker.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he saw no objection to the introduction of the words, although he did not think there was any necessity for it. He was willing to agree to the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. WALKERsaid, that very useful words were contained in Sub-section (5) of the clause with which the Committee were dealing. Having regard to the provision made in Clause 8, that the vesting order should be made after due investigation of title, it occurred to him that it would be better to provide that all encumbrances should be transferred to the purchase money, and that the tenant should get a complete title. He submitted to the consideration of his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland the question as to whether the clause which he now begged to move would not be of advantage in the Bill.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 6, line 11, after "may," leave out to end of sub-section (5), and insert "notwithstanding anything" hereinbefore contained, be made at any time after the application for such vesting order has been made to the court, and same may be made though the landlord is only tenant for life, or has the powers of a tenant for life, and whether or not the holding, either solely or in common with other lands, is subject to any encumbrance or annual charge, and the fact of such encumbrance or annual charge affecting only a partial interest in the estate sold, such as a tenancy for life or lesser interest, shall not affect the right to make such vesting order, but the purchase-money shall in all eases where the court shall think fit be paid into court to abide the further order of the court, and shall, for all purposes as regards the rights or claims of any person to or against the estate sold, represent such estate, and unless and so far as the vesting order shall otherwise declare, the rights and claims of all persons in respect of the estate sold, or any encumbrance or annual charge thereon, shall, from the date of such vesting order, be transferred to the purchase-money, and the purchaser shall be wholly freed from any liability or claim in respect thereof.—(Mr. Walker.)
§ Question proposal, "That those words be there inserted."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he was disposed to think that the whole of this clause was to be found in the Bill; but he had examined it carefully, and had no objection to its being added to the clause.
§ Amendment agreed to.
CAPTAIN ATLMERsaid, he proposed to move the Amendment next on the Paper and standing in his name. He wished to provide that—
Where any holding forms part of an estate subject to any mortgage, incumbrance, or charge, the Land Commission may assist the owner of such estate to clear off such mortgage, encumbrance, or charge, by advancing to him a sum of money, which shall be repaid by an annuity in favour of the Land Commission, for forty-nine years, of four pounds for every one hundred pounds of such advance;and he further proposed—That such annuity shall not exceed in amount one-half of the total amount payable each year as rent by the tenants on such estate.He said that if the landlords were to be served at all by the Bill, it would be necessary to make a provision of this kind with regard to estates that were encumbered. There were plenty of landlords who, if his proposal were adopted, would sell estates under the Act which 1686 now they would not sell, because they had no interest in doing so. He knew of an estate of 1,500 acres which was encumbered, and, the rents having been reduced by the Act of 1881, the landlord had now no income, and therefore no object in selling now, because the amount that would be realized would not pay off the mortgages and leave anything for the landlord. The only course the landlord could take was not to sell, but to wait, in the hope that hereafter the estate would fetch a better price than now. Clearly the only way to induce landlords in this position to sell was to enable them to pay off the charges on their land, so that they might have something left for themselves.
§ THE CHAIRMANsaid, he did not think the hon. and gallant Member could proceed with his Amendment, which was not germane to the Bill.
CAPTAIN AYLMERasked if it would be germane to the Bill, where notice was given to landlords, to sell parts of estates to tenants?
§ THE CHAIRMANsaid, it would not be germane to the Bill.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clauses 10 to 12, inclusive, agreed to.
§ Clause 13 (Sales to be for a gross sum. Stamp duty.)
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he rose to move the omission of the words—
On every sale, when an advance is made by the Land Commission to the purchaser, the Land Commission shall charge the purchaser with one gross sum, which shall include the advance, the stamp duty on the vesting order or conveyance, if any, made by the Land Commission, and the stamp duty and fees payable for registering such vesting order or conveyance.He pointed out that in this case it was the landlord who received the money and the tenant who paid it. He certainly thought that the person who received the lump sum and on whose account the Bill was devised should be the person to pay the charges described in this paragraph.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 7, line 28, to leave out from "on every sale" to "conveyance," in line 33, inclusive.—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
1687§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, Her Majesty's Government could not assent to the hon. Member's Amendment, which simply provided for the usual charges being made to the purchaser of land.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 7, line 32, to leave out the words "the stamp duty and."—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Amendment negatived.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 7, line 36, to insert the words "every vesting order and conveyance shall state the Ordnance name of the holding, and also the advance and terms of repayment."—(Colonel King-Harman.)
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 7, line 36, to insert "A duplicate of such vesting order or conveyance shall be lodged in the Registry of Deeds Office, and shall answer the purposes of and be deemed a sufficient substitute for a Memorial."—(Colonel King-Harman.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he thought that this would be a rather dangerous alteration. As the Committee would be aware, there was at present a recognized mode of registering an order, and he was not aware that there was any reason for deviating from it. He considered that the operation suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be more expensive than having the Memorial. The Memorial would be a shorter process. He did not think there would be any saving, and the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, if adopted, might lead to a considerable amount of inconvenience.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANpointed out that the expense would be less, because any educated man could draw up a duplicate. It was true that a Memorial was shorter than a duplicate, but it took a rather strong head to make it up; and, according to his experience, a barrister had to be employed. He wished to avoid the cost of that in the case of these holdings.
§ MR. HEALYasked if the Attorney General for Ireland would give a promise that Rules should be drawn up to 1688 make the operation as cheap as possible?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he would bring up a clause on Report to provide that Rules should be drawn up.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 14 agreed to.
§ Clause 15 (Injunction to put purchaser in possession).
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 8, line 10, after the word "commission," to insert the words "under the powers contained or referred to in the preceding section."—(Mr. Walker.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he admitted that the greater number of cases to which this clause would be applicable would be cases under the preceding section; but there were others that would not be so, and therefore he was unable to adopt the words of his hon. and learned Friend.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Supplemental Provisions.
§ Clause 10 (Charge upon the Irish Church Surplus Fund. 44 & 43 Vict.)
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out the Clause.—(Mr, Sexton.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 17 (Additional members and officers of the Land Commission).
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he thought the two additional Commissioners to be appointed under the Act ought, in his opinion, to be placed on a level with the existing Commissioners in point of salary, and he therefore begged to move that their salary be £3,000 per annum.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 9, line 9, to leave out the word "two," and insert the word "three."—(Colonel King-Harman.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'two' stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, there 1689 was a reason why the Government had inserted the word "two"—it was because they did not want to take powers to pay more than they intended to pay. It was suggested that the additional Commissioners should not receive £2,000 a-year, while the Commissioners received £3,000 a-year; but it must be borne in mind that the Commissioners had to perform duties of a very important character which the additional Commissioners could not possibly have to discharge—amongst others he might mention appeals. [Mr. SEXTON: They get their expenses.] That was true; but he was sure that the hon. Member for Sligo would admit that the amount paid them did not represent the great inconvenience they were put to. Having regard to the less difficult character and less onerous nature of the duties that the additional Commissioners would have to perform, he thought the amount of £2,000 named in the clause was a reasonable one.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he wanted to know on what ground the new Commissioners were to remain stationary in Dublin? If the Committee looked forward to lines 20, 23, and 29, they would see how the work of the Commissioners might be distributed. He did not know whether the £2,000 named in the clause was sufficient; but he said that one man was as clearly worth the salary of £3,000 as the others.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the question was, what salary was required to secure competent Commissioners. As a matter of fact, they had named gentlemen who had been unanimously accepted as competent to do the work; and those gentlemen had been named with a full knowledge on their part that the salary stated in the Bill would be paid. He must, therefore, ask the Committee to agree to the amount named in the clause.
§ MR. SEXTONasked if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be willing to lower the salaries of the existing Commissioners?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI should very much like to do so from the Treasury point of view; but it is one thing to lower the salaries of existing officers, and another thing to fix new ones.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General 1690 for Ireland had stated that the powers of the Assistant Commissioners would never be co-ordinate with those of the Chief Commissioners. That he (Mr. Healy) thought objectionable. He thought the Committee should have an opportunity of knowing the meaning of this clause. In the first place, it said that Her Majesty might, by Warrant under Sign Manual, appoint some fit person to fill any vacancy that might occur within the period of seven years. And then the clause went on to say that—
The Lord Lieutenant may from time to time by order direct that the additional members of the Land Commission appointed under this Act, or such member or members of the Land Commission as be thinks tit, shall specially attend to the business imposed upon the Land Commission by this Act.Now, he would like to ask why should not the powers of the new Commissioners be co-ordinate with those of the existing Commissioners? He thought it right that those gentlemen should specially attend to the work under this Act; but it must be remembered that there was a great block m the Land Court at present, and their services would be very useful there. Some means ought to be taken to relieve the congestion which existed in that Court. With regard to the amount of salary, he thought it should not be limited to £2,000. He suggested that the words should be "not more than three thousand pounds," but that the amount should be £2,000 for the present, and then, if it was necessary hereafter to pay more, there would be no occasion to bring in another Bill for the purpose. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to tie the hands of the Commissioners in the way proposed in the clause. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had spoken of the appeals in the Land Court as a matter which required serious consideration. There were 9,000 appeals in the Appeal Court. Last year the Government proposed to appoint additional Commissioners; it was now proposed to appoint two new ones. If they had spare time to attend to other work, why should they not have fair salaries? It might be found that this Bill would not work at all, and as the Commissioners would be appointed for three years those gentlemen might just as well be availed of for 1691 getting rid of the block in the Appeal Court. And yet the Government seemed to have made up their minds to prevent that by reason of the question of salary. If the theory was that the Commissioners got £3,000 for going round the country hearing appeals, those new Commissioners, if they heard appeals, should also get £3,000. Even though they had undertaken their work for £2,000 a-year, the Bill should not tie the Treasury up in a hard-and-fast way to a certain amount, so that it would subsequently be necessary to bring in an Act of Parliament to give them extra remuneration if they did appeal work. He hoped the Government, while retaining this £2,000 in the Bill for the present, would say that they would make some change later on, so that it would not be necessary eventually to have to tome to Parliament for a new Act.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, his impression was that, if this Bill was to be worked successfully, these two Commissioners should go about the country. It was much more important that they should travel from place to place visiting the tenants than that they should simply confine themselves to visiting large towns, indulging in the comforts of the best hotels. He did not want the Government to fix the salaries.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ MR. SEXTONsincerely hoped the Government would seriously consider this question of the interchange of duties. It must be evident to everybody that the Commissioner who fixed fair rents ought not to be the person to consider the purchases under those rents. He thought the men who were carrying out the purchases should not be the men who fixed the fair rents. There were two elements in this business—fair rents and purchase money—and each should be under the management of a different authority. He begged to move the omission of the following words from the clause:—
The Lord Lieutenant may from time to time by order direct that the additional members of the Land Commission appointed under this Act, or such member or members of the Land Commission as he thinks fit, shall specially attend to the business imposed upon the Land Commission by this Act.Any person so nominated for the time being may act in the name of the Land Commission 1692 in carrying this Act into effect; and anything done by Jam shall be as valid and effectual as if it were done by the Land Commission.Notwithstanding the appointment of additional Land Commissioners under this Act, any matter or thing which under the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, was required to be done by three members of the Land Commission sitting together, may be done by any three members sitting together; and any matter or thing which might lawfully be done under the said Act by three members or any less number, may still be done by any three members or any less number, of the Land Commission.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 9, leave out from beginning of line 23 to end of line 39.—(Mr. Sexton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he could explain in a very few words the object of this part of the clause. The intention of the Government was that the two Commissioners whose names he had read out that night should be Commissioners who should act generally under this Act. Their primary duty would be under this Act; but, at the same time, the Government were not prepared to accept the Amendment standing in the name of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Walker), because they considered it would be too hard-and-fast an Amendment. It might at times be necessary to make use of those Commissioners as ordinary Land Commissioners temporarily. One of the ordinary Commissioners might, through illness or for some other reason, be unable to attend to his duties, and it might be desirable that one of the new Commissioners should take his place. As he said, the arrangement would only be a temporary one. On the other hand, it might be desirable, in the temporary absence of one of the new Commissioners, that one of the existing Commissioners should undertake his duties. At the same time, of course, the lines it was intended to go on were those which the section laid down under which the duties imposed upon the new Commissioners would be mainly those of this Act. He did not wish to draw that line hard-and-fast, but considered it desirable to give the Lord Lieutenant power from time to time, as circumstances might arise, temporarily to im- 1693 pose upon one or other branch part of the duties of the other.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he saw no necessity for any provision for aiding the two new Commissioners in the work of purchase. The right hon. and learned Gentleman talked of illness; but gentlemen in receipt of £2,000 a-year had no right to get ill. If, when one of them did get ill, the other Commissioners could carry out his duties, manifestly the existing Commissioners were adequate to discharge the duty of purchase. He would ask the Government whether they could not, before Report, draw up an Amendment to limit this interchange of duty to work other than that of purchase?
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that, as one of the Land Commissioners, Mr. Litton, had declared himself so strongly against the purchase scheme, and had protested so loudly that it would lead to separation, he viewed with alarm any proposal to allow the Land Commissioners to interfere with the working of this Bill. The Committee could well imagine that the new Commissioners might not have sufficient work to occupy the whole of their time, and that they might give assistance in getting rid of the block of appeals; but it was not to be expected, looking at this block, that the existing Land Commissioners would be able to take up the work of either of those new officials. The new men might be able to undertake the work of the old men, but he could not think the old men could undertake the work of the new men.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, there was a great deal in what the hon. and learned Member said, and he would promise to consider the proposal before Report.
§ THE CHAIRMANDoes the hon. Member withdraw his Amendment?
§ MR. SEXTONYes.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. WALKERbegged to move, in page 9, to leave out from line 23 to line 31, inclusive, and insert—
The additional members of the Land Commission appointed under this Act shall specially attend to any business, not being business of a judicial character imposed upon the Land Commission by this Act, and anything so done by them shall be as valid and effectual as if it were done by the Land Commission.1694The Land Commission shall, from time to time, make rules for the purpose of assigning to such additional Commissioners the business to be so done by them.The Judicial Commissioner and Mr. Commissioner Litton, or one of them, shall sit with the said additional Commissioner for the purpose of transacting any business under this Act, which shall not be specially assigned to the additional Commissioner.Notwithstanding anything hereinbefore contained, any person interested may apply that any matter arising under this Act maybe heard and determined by the Judicial Commissioner and Mr. Commissioner Litton or one of them sitting with the additional Commissioners, and thereupon such matter shall be so heard and determined upon such terms, if any, as the Court shall direct.He should like the Government to consider this Amendment before Report, because the questions the Amendment referred to would certainly be as important as the hearing of appeals. Whether it would be desirable that the Judicial Commissioner should sit with the additional Commissioner for the purpose of transacting business under the Act would be a matter for the Government to decide.
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he did propose to consider this matter before Report, and the reason why he did so was that he thought it should be in the power of the Legal Commissioner, if any question of law were raised, to take part in the investigation.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clauses 18 to 22, inclusive, agreed to.
§ Clause 23 (Saving for the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, 44 & 45 Vict. c. 49).
§ MR. SEXTONdrew attention to the wording of this clause. It was as follows:—
Nothing contained in this Act shall restrict the powers of the Land Commission under the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881. Nothing contained in this Act relative to the making of vesting orders by the Land Commission shall prevent the Land Commission from conveying or assigning any land or holding in the same manner as they might have done if this Act had not been passed.He desired to know the meaning of the 1695 words, "if this Act had not been passed." Why should not land be transferred by a vesting order, and why should power be reserved for doing it by way of conveyance?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, the words referred to by the hon. Member were introduced into the clause because it was supposed that, under certain circumstances, it would be desirable to resort to the Common Law rather than to vesting order. However, he would consider before Report whether those words could not be omitted.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 24 agreed to.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE)said, that in accordance with a promise made earlier on he now begged to move the following new clause after Clause 22:—
Whereas certain lessees and tenants of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Ireland, referred to in the first paragraph of the fifth sub-section of the thirty-fourth section of 'The Irish Church Act, 1809,' purchased parcels of land from the Commissioners under that Act, and a part of the purchase money was, in some cases, allowed by the Commissioners to remain outstanding, with interest at the rate of four per centum, and was secured to the Commissioners in some cases by a simple mortgage of the property sold, and in other cases by a deed, referred to in this section as an 'instalment mortgage,' providing for the payment of the principal sum, with interest, by an annuity extending over a term of years:And whereas, under 'The Irish Church Act Amendment Act, 1881,' the Land Commission are the successors of and stand in the place of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Ireland, so far as regards such purchases and deeds of mortgage:And it is expedient that the following provisions should take effect; therefore—
- "(1.) The rate of interest made payable by every such simple mortgage as aforesaid shall, from and after a day to be determined by the Land Commission by order, be reduced to a rate of three and one-eighth per centum.
- "(2.) Any person liable to pay to the Land Commission the annuity secured by such an instalment mortgage as aforesaid may make application to the Land Commission to accept payment of the amount then remaining due on the security of such instalment mortgage upon the terms hereinafter specified:—
- (a.) On such application the Land Commission shall ascertain, and by order declare, the amount of the principal money which then remains owing to them on the security of such instal-
1696 ment mortgage; and, by the same order, the Land Commission shall declare how many years would then remain unexpired of a term of forty-nine years, calculated to commence on the day on which the term of years commenced during which the instalments secured by such instalment mortgage were to continue payable; - (b.) The Land Commission shall accept payment of the said sum, with interest at the rate of three and one-eighth per cent, by half-yearly instalments of such amount as shall be ascertained and declared by the Land Commission in such order to be required to pay off the said sum with interest at the rate aforesaid, if paid for the residue then unexpired of the said term of forty-nine years;
- (c.) The payment of such instalments shall be secured to the Land Commission by deed, in such form as they may determine, which shall be in substitution for the instalment mortgage, and which shall be exempt from stamp duty;
- "(3.) No order shall be made with reference to any debt secured by a simple mortgage unless all interest on that debt due before the making of the order is then paid up;
- No order shall be made with reference to any debt secured by an instalment mortgage, unless all instalments due before the making of the order are then paid up;
- "(4.) Nothing contained in this section shall apply to any debt due to the Land Commission in respect of any purchase from the Commissioners of Church Temporalities of land held from or under them by virtue of any lease for twenty-one years, or for three lives or twenty-one years, or for forty years, or for three lives, referred to in the last paragraph of the said fifth sub-section of the thirty-fourth section of "The Irish Church Act, 1869."
§ New Clause (Terms of repayment of advances to tenant purchasers under the Irish Church Act,)—(Sir William Hart Dyke,)—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for County Dublin (Colonel King-Harman) had placed the following clause on the Paper:—
In addition to the powers by Part V. of "The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881," conferred on the Irish Land Commission in reference to the acquisition of land by tenants, the following additional powers are hereby conferred on the said Land Commission:— 1697He desired to know whether that clause could be moved? This was a Bill to provide greater facilities for the sale of land to occupying tenants in Ireland, whereas this clause proposed the extension of 44 & 45 Vict. c. 5, to the conversion of statutory tenancies into fee-farm interests. In reality, the clause would 1698 convert one form of tenancy into another, and was not consistent with the object of the Bill, which was to enable a sale to take place from one person to another. He submitted that the clause was outside the scope of the Bill, and, therefore, could not be put.
- (a.) Where the landlord of a holding has agreed with the tenant thereof who has obtained or shall hereafter obtain a statutory term of such holding under the provisions of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' to make such fee-farm grant as hereinafter mentioned, and where the Land Commission having investigated are satisfied of the title of the landlord to make such grant, the Land Commission shall be at liberty to advance to the landlord, or pay or apply the same in discharge of incumbrances affecting the landlord's estate in the holding or in accordance with the trusts (if any) binding such estate, a sum sufficient to purchase up one moiety of the judicial rent of the holding on the landlord and tenant executing under the direction of the Land Commission a fee-farm grant of the holding at a fee-farm rent equal in amount to the remaining moiety of the said judicial rent, such advance to be secured by an annuity in favour of the Land Commission for forty nine years at four pounds per centum out of the estate in fee farm-under the said grant;
- (b.) Should the tenant of any such holding neglect or refuse for a period of six months after notice in writing given to him by the landlord of his willingness to execute such a grant as in the last sub-section mentioned, it shall be lawful for the Land Commission to advance to the landlord, or pay or apply the same in the discharge of incumbrances affecting the landlord's estate in the holding or in accordance with the trusts (if any) binding such estate, such sum as would have been sufficient to purchase one moiety of such judicial rent, on the same being secured by a like annuity for forty-nine years of four pounds per centum out of the estate and interest of the landlord in the holding, and upon the terms that the landlord, on the request of the tenant, shall at any time within the said statutory term execute to the tenant a fee-farm grant at a rent equal in amount to the remaining moiety of the said judicial rent, and in such latter case and on the execution of such fee-farm grant by the landlord and tenant, the annuity payable by the landlord shall cease, and shall be transferred to the estate of the tenant under such fee-farm grant, and the period for which the annuity shall continue shall be for the residue of the term of forty-nine years from the period when such annuity was made payable by the landlord."
§ THE CHAIRMANI think the point raised by the hon. Gentleman is very just, and that this clause cannot be considered as within the scope of the Bill.
§
COLONEL KING-HARMAN moved the following new Clause:—
When the purchase money of one moiety of the judicial rent has been paid to the landlord or applied in the manner hereinbefore provided, either on purchase by the tenant, or advanced by the Land Commission in case of refusal by the tenant, the unexpired portion of any present statutory term shall be counted as part of the forty-nine years accessory to clear off interest and principal. At the close of the first statutory term it shall be lawful for the Land Commission to agree with the tenant either that the same rent shall continue for the remainder of the forty-nine years, or that a new period of forty-nine years shall then commence at a proportionately reduced rate of annual payment.
§ New Clause (Power to extend time for payment),—(Colonel King-Harman,) brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read the second time."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)could not accept the clause for the reason that the estimates under the Settled Land Act were not at all suited to the proposed provision.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§
COLONEL KING-HARMAN moved the following new Clause:—
Notwithstanding the provisions of the Landed Estates Court Act, section sixty-four, it shall be lawful for the Land Commission to invest in any of the securities sanctioned by 'The Settled Land Act, 1882,' the moneys by said section sixty-four directed to be laid out in purchase of land, or directed by same section to be paid to trustees.
§ New Clause (Powers of investment of purchase money in cases of sales—21 & 22 Vic. c. 72, s. 64),—(Colonel King-Barman,)—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read the second time."
1699§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, this clause seemed to be a very reasonable one; but he would suggest that, instead of confining it to the 79th and 82nd sections of the Landed Estates Court Act, it should apply also to the 80th and 81st sections.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANI beg to amend it accordingly.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed,
In line 6, after "seventy-ninth," to insert "eightieth and eighty-first."—(Colonel King-Harman.)
§ Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTproposed the following new Clause:—
Where the landlord and tenant of any holding agree to substitute a tenure in perpetuity or fee-farm grant, accompanied by a fining down of rent, as in section twenty-four (b) of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' for a complete sale and purchase under the provisions of this Act, then the whole of such fine to be paid to the landlord shall be advanced to the tenant upon the same terms as to repayment as are provided by Clause four of this Act.
§ MR. SEXTONI think, Sir, this clause comes under the Rule of Order you decided just now.
§ THE CHAIRMANsaid, the clause could not be put.
§
MR. WALKER moved the following new Clause:—
The Land Commission shall have power at any time to apportion any incumbrance or annual charge affecting the estate or holding sold or the purchase-money thereof, and to commute to any capital sum or value, to any amount they may under all the circumstances think reasonable, any incumbrance or annual charge or any apportioned part thereof affecting the estate or holding sold or the purchase-money thereof, and may make any payment based upon such apportionment, commutation, or valuation.
He wished this clause to be inserted after Clause 10. The object of it was to enable the Land Commission to commute any incumbrance or annual charge on an estate.
§ New Clause (Apportionment and commutation of annual charge),—(Mr. Walker,)—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read the second time,"
1700§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, it would be impossible to accept this clause. Such a thing would be entirely new matter in law. As a rule, incumbrances had been brought about by the lending of money on an entire estate, and it would be difficult, if not unfair, in certain cases, to split it up into several sums. The Government had considered that fact very carefully. There was already a provision in the Bill, taken from the Landed Estates Court Act, allowing a certain portion to be commuted for a certain sum, and he did not think they could go further than that.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. WALKERsaid, he begged to move, as a new clause, the following:—
The word 'tenant' shall include a tenant holding under a fee-farm grant.
§ New Clause (Definition),—(Mr. Walker,)—brought up, and read the first time.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)I think that is fair and reasonable; only I would suggest that the second reading should not be moved, and instead of being brought up as a new clause, it should be incorporated in the Definition Clause on Report.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. T. A. DIOKSONbegged to move the insertion of the following Clause:—
A tenant shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be in occupation of his holding, notwithstanding that he may have sub-let any part or parts thereof, provided the Land Commission shall deem such sub-letting to be reasonable, having regard to the proportion which the portion of the holding so sub-let bears to the entire of the holding, and also to the other circumstances of the case.Clerks and officers in the employment of the Land Commission shall be entitled to such compensation or superannuation allowance as is provided in the case of persons serving in the permanent civil service of the State; and in estimating such superannuation allowance, the time (if any) spent by such officers, clerks, or other persons in the employment of the Church Temporalities Commission shall be taken into account.There were many cases where sub-letting was necessary; and he maintained that if this clause were not accepted, a number of purchases which would otherwise be effected would fall through. The 1701 clause would give power to the Land Commissioners to adjudicate as to whether sub-letting was fair and reasonable or not. He hoped the Government would accept the proposal, and assured them that if they did not, it would have an unfortunate effect upon the working of the Act.
§ New Clause (Sub-letting not to disqualify tenant purchasing),—(Mr. T. A. Bickson,)—brought up, and read the first time.
§ THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member cannot move the second portion of his clause; it would necessitate a grant of public money.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read the second time."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he could not accept the clause, as it seemed to him contrary not only to the policy of this Act, but to the policy of other Acts. The object was to give a tenant in occupation the power of working his land.
§ MR. SEXTONHow much of this is to be taken as one clause? There are two paragraphs, but there is only one title.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ COLONEL NOLANbegged to move the insertion of the following Clause:—
Any owner may enter into an agreement with one or more of his tenants to let to him or them a portion or the whole of any grass or mountain farm conditionally on the Land Commissioners approving of the sale of such land to such tenant or tenants; and, should the Commissioners approve of this agreement, the tenant or tenants will be considered the occupying tenants of such land for the purposes of this Act.The Commissioners may make rules to enable tenants to be treated as the occupying tenants of a grass or mountain farm which the landlord may wish to sell to them.The object of this clause was to enable the landlord when he was selling to, say, 20 tenants, to say that he would let to them a portion or the whole of any grass or mountain farm, on the Land Commissioners approving, in addition to their holdings, and let them come under the Act. At the present moment a great number of people in Mayo and Galway were thinking more about this than any- 1702 thing else, and in those districts there would be much more agitation on this subject than with regard to the occupation of holdings. At present, most of these tenants had five or six acres; but if they were to be able to get the benefit of this Bill, they would increase them to 10 or 12. It might be said that a landlord could exercise those powers without such a clause as this—that he could divide a grass farm amongst his tenants and bring them under the Bill. But that would be so difficult that the landlord would not do it, because the result would be that he would have given them a grass farm at a high rent, and they would not give it back again to him. What he wanted to do was this—to enable the landlord to say, "I will let you a grass farm on condition the purchase is completed." He believed that would be a great advantage in the West of Ireland, and would cause a great many sales which otherwise would not take place. He hoped the Government would see their way to adopt it.
§ New Clause (Purchase of grass farms),—(ColonelNolan,)—brought up, and read the first time."
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read the second time."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)said, he was not quite sure whether he fully understood the clause that had been put upon the Table. It seemed to him there ought to be no anxiety about the matter. If the landlord chose to sell a grass farm to a tenant from year to year, he could do so, and, therefore, as he understood it, the clause was wholly unnecessary. If it meant anything more than he understood, he could not accept it.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be making a great mistake if he did not accept it. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh; but he could assure them that if he attended any public meetings in Ireland, this was the subject he should ring most loudly. There could be no doubt that the right hon. and learned Gentleman thoroughly understood the question. The people saw these grass farms, and they wished to have them. They were willing to pay the value, and why the Government should draw 1703 their Bill so as to shut them out he could not understand. The clause was merely a form to enable the landlords to hand over the grass farms, and there was no interference with property in it. It might be said that these grass farms did not exist; but that was not the case—there were a great many all about Galway and Mayo. Under his proposal, at the time a sale was effected, a landlord would be able to increase his tenant's holding very considerably. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland objected to the wording of the clause, he had not the slightest objection to let him draft it himself.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, the object of the Amendment was very properly to enable the landlord to increase the tenant's holding at the time of sale, and the landlord would be enabled to take back the land in the event of the sale falling through. In the Tramways Act there was a provision for the taking of land and its re-sale to the tenant—something very like the present proposal. Some tenants might have holdings so small and so poor that the sale to them would really be of no benefit, and the landlord might have land upon his hands which he would be willing to divide amongst his tenants for the purpose of sale, but which he was not able to give them if they were to remain his tenants. There was no means of providing in the Bill as it stood that the landlord should make the additional contract with an existing tenant to increase his holding if a sale was effected. There was no doubt that this new clause would be exceedingly desirable in the West of Ireland. Of course, if it were considered desirable, the phraseology might be improved. He thought that where a landlord was willing to sell, and a tenant was willing to buy, there was no reason why there should not be an enlargement of the tenant's holding. It would be well for the Government to consider this matter, with a view to relieve congestion in certain parts of the country, and to enable tenants to get holdings of sufficient size to keep them comfortably.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that unless something was done to meet this case, the Act, instead of being a benefit to the poor people of the West, would leave them worse off than they were before. 1704 He hoped that on Report the Government would introduce words tending in the direction desired.
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAdesired to express his approval of the clause proposed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Nolan). Many landlords wishing to make the best of their grass land, would be very willing to parcel it out to their tenants. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) hoped the Attorney General for Ireland would see his way to accept the principle of this clause, and bring up on Report a clause of his own. If he did that, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would confer a great benefit upon the smaller tenantry of the West of Ireland.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, some provision of this character was required; and, therefore, he trusted the Attorney General for Ireland would confer with the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Nolan) on the subject.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. HOLMES)was afraid he would only be misleading the Committee if he said he would consider this subject by Report. He did not see how they could adopt the clause of the hon. and gallant Gentleman without altering entirely the scope and character of the Bill.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Schedule.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this be the Schedule of the Bill."
MR. SINCLAIRthought it would be well to have a second Schedule, showing separately the amount of principal and interest payable in each consecutive year. It would be of advantage, inasmuch as it would serve to do away with the misconception which did exist in Ireland that payments of this kind were payments of rent, instead of principal and interest.
§ MR. SEXTONthought the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman a very good one.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Sir W. HART DYKE)thought there would be some difficulty in drafting another Schedule now. There was every possible desire on the part of the Government to give information; but the difficulty of acceding to the suggestion of the 1705 hon. Gentleman would be easily understood.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.