COMMITTEE [Progress 2lst July.]

HC Deb 25 July 1887 vol 317 cc1903-2001

[FIRST NIGHT.]

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.

Clause 1 (Leaseholders).

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

The first Amendment on the Paper stands in my name, and it is one which is preliminary to several Amendments to the same clause, which raise the question of option—that is to say, whether it should be optional to the tenant, holding under a lease, to apply to the Court to have a fair rent fixed. The Bill, as it stands, gives the option either to the tenant or to the landlord of making the application, subject to the terms of his tenancy. Although in the Tenant Relief Bill, last year, for which I was made responsible, the option was not given to the tenant alone, yet the interval which has since elapsed has supplied us with such a large body of information as to the desirability of leaving the option to the tenant alone, and as to the hardship which may result, in many cases, to tenants if it were not so left, and the difficulty of proof by the tenant, that it is out of the question to consent to the conditions contained in the clause as it now stands. In my opinion, the only way of proceeding is to give the option to the tenant, and to the tenant alone, to make application under this clause. I may mention that a considerable variation has been introduced into the Government clause against the tenant as compared with the provisions of the clause in the Relief Bill of last Session. In the Relief Bill it was only necessary for the tenant to prove that he had paid value, but in the present Bill it is provided that a tenant must prove that a valuable consideration has been given to the lessor for the lease. From the statement made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and also at the meeting which was held at the Carlton Club the other day, it would seem that the Government is disposed to concede this point, and therefore i will not labour the matter further, but will proceed to show how the Amendment fits in with the clause, and how the clause, if it be adopted, will read in connection with consequential Amendments. The clause, if altered as I suggest, will read in this way— At any time within three years after the passing of this Act, on application within the prescribed manner to the Court by the lessee of any holding who at the expiration of any lease existing at the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, would he admitted to be a tenant. Lower down I have an Amendment which is also consequential, to leave out the words— Provided that such lessee shall not be deemed to be a present tenant, where substantial consideration has been given for the said lease to the lessor or with his knowledge, and such lessee objects to being deemed a present tenant. In fact that Amendment amounts to the omission of the second paragraph of the clause. Now, Sir, I am anxious to say a word on the only question which is likely to introduce any controversy into the matter involved in the Amendment, and that is the period to be allowed to the lessee, after the passing of the Act, for the purpose of making his application. As the clause now stands, it appears to me that that period would be unlimited. I apprehend, at all events, that that must have been the intention of the Government in regard to the clause, because, otherwise, unless the lessee had applied on the very day in which the Act came into operation, he would be shut out altogether from making the application. It must be obvious that time will be necessary to enable the holders of the title to tenancies held under lease to make out their claim, and that that cannot be done in a day, and in many cases, cannot be done even in a year. The hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) apparently thinks that some limitation would only be fair, and that the tenants should not be restricted to the very day upon which the Act is passed into law. He has, therefore, placed upon the Paper an Amendment which provides that the application may be made within two years after the passing of the Act. I have taken a later period, having regard to the steps which may have to be taken by the lessees in order that they may be in a position to qualify themselves to make an application under the technical wording of the clause. The Government clause, I submit, provides no limitation whatever, and if there is to be any alteration in the wording of the clause, then I think it would be better to give to those who are interested a period of three years instead of two. I think it would be most unfair that a leaseholder should be compelled to become a yearly tenant when he prefers to continue under the terms of his lease. A period of three years will, I think, satisfy all the necessities of the case; it would not be an extensive period, and it would enable substantial justice to be done in the matter. Without further preface, I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 6, before the word "on," insert the words "at any time within three years after the passing of this Act."—(Mr. Parnell.)

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

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

This Amendment raises the question whether the breaking of leases shall be unilateral or bilateral—in other words, whether the lease shall be broken in favour of the tenant and landlord, or only broken in favour of the tenant. While, as a matter of argument, I can see no justification for the proposal before the Committee of breaking the leases in favour of the tenant only, I recognize the fact that the landlords themselves, as far as I can gather, are by no means desirous of maintaining the bilateral arrangement; and as the only cases in which a landlord can take advantage of this sub-section are cases which everyone would regret, and which everyone would admit to be cases of hardship, I am prepared, under the circumstances, on behalf of the Government to accept the general proposition which has been so powerfully supported by Peers of all shades of political opinion in the other House, and to consent to the unilateral principle. At the same time, I confess that I would prefer, as the form for carrying out that principle, an Amendment which stands in the name of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) to that which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell), which provides that the time should run, not from the passing of the Act, but from the date of the application. The hon. Member for Cork has, I think, properly stated the effect of the clause as it stands. He appears to think that if we carry the clause in its present shape an unlimited time might elapse before a lease was broken. That is not the case. It is certainly not our intention, and I do not think it is the effect of the clause. If the clause were carried in its present shape, the moment it is passed all leases would be broken, whether in favour of the landlord or of the tenant.

MR. PARNELL

What I said was that the application to fix a fair rent, as the Government proposal stands, could be made either by the landlord or the tenant at any time before the passing of the Act. There would certainly be no limit; but the Amendments proposed by myself and by the hon. Member for South Tyrone respectively limit the period within which such application shall be made by the tenant to three years after the passing of the Act in the one case, and two years in the other.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Then I appear to have mistaken the purport of the Amendment. The hon. Member now proposes that an unlimited time should elapse, and that is also the purport of the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The lease, under the form proposed by the hon. Member for Cork, would have to be broken in the course of three years; but after it was broken it would not be imperative to apply for a lease at once. We are of opinion that a limit of two years is quite sufficient for the landlords to be left in doubt as to whether the tenant chooses to take advantage of the Act or not. A further objection to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork, as compared with that of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, is that the retrospective form of the Amendment might lead to serious legal complications in the future, and, therefore, I greatly prefer the form of the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. For that reason the Government prefer to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

I do not think the hon. Member for Cork will feel inclined to quarrel as to whether the period shall be two years or three years. In my opinion, two years are quite sufficient, and as the Government now consent to narrow the question as between two and three years, I hope the hon. Member will accept the Amendment and enable us to go on with the Bill.

MR. PARNELL

In my opinion, as to the questions being retrospective, the two Amendments are precisely the same.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

That is not so. The hon. Member will see that his Amendment reads thus— At any time within three years after the passing of this Act; on application in the prescribed manner to the Court, the lessee of any holding who, at the expiration of any lease existing at the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, if bonâ fide in occupation of his holding, shall be deemed to be a tenant of his present tenancy in like manner and subject to like conditions and subject to the right of resumption, as if his lease expired at the passing of this Act.

MR. PARNELL

I understand that there is another Amendment on the Paper to strike out the words after "resumption," "and if his lease expired at the passing of this Act." That Amendment is proposed to be moved by the hon. Member for North Donegal (Mr. O'Doherty). If the objection which has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman is the only objection as compared with that of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, I will only say that I am ready to accept the substitution of the word "two" for "three" years, and I therefore beg to move the insertion of "two years" instead of three.

Amendment proposed in the said proposed Amendments, to leave out the word "three," and insert the word "two."—(Mr. Parnell.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'three' stand part of the said proposed Amendment."

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I will accept that Amendment.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

I trust that the hon. Member for Cork will now allow the Government to proceed with the Amendment in the form which they prefer, as the object is identical.

MR. PARNELL

I do not think it is fair for the Government to ask me to give up the place I have obtained for my Amendment. I am anxious to see whether the Government had any real and substantial reason for rejecting the first Amendment I had placed upon the Paper. There are two points raised in the first Amendment; first, that three years should be the period within which the application should be made; secondly, that the Amendment should have a retrospective effect. I have shown, as regards the second point, that the objection which has been urged against it has no effect, because the Amendment placed upon the Paper by the hon. Member for South Tyrone is precisely the same as mine in that respect, and it is not until Amendment 20 is reached that the hon. Member proposes to guard against the retrospective action of the Amendment. If that is a fault, it is one which the Amendment of the hon. Member has in common with mine, and the hon. Member is forestalled by an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for North Donegal (Mr. O'Doherty.) Therefore, the first objection taken by the Government to my Amendment has no validity whatever. Their second objection I have met by substituting two years instead of three. What is the fact in regard to the Amendments which raise the question of option? On the 14th July, the first day on which it was possible, I placed this Amendment upon the Paper. The hon. Member for South. Tyrone also, on the same night, placed his Amendment upon the Paper dealing with the same question. But the Amendment on which the hon. Member now elects to go, and which deals with the question of option, was not placed upon the Paper until the 21st July, a week later than mine. The hon. Member took off the Amendments which he had originally placed on the Paper, dealing with the option of the tenant, on the first night on which it was possible to give Notice of them, and placed other Amendments on the Paper which are substantially the same as mine. One of the hon. Member's Amendments proposes to leave out the words "shall at the date of the passing of this Act," in order to insert "applied in the prescribed manner to the Court, he shall if bonâ fide in occupation of his holding," &c. I have also an Amendment to leave out the words "at the date of the passing of this Act," which is a similar Amendment to that of the hon. Gentleman, so that his Amend- ments governing local option are Amendments substantially copied from mine, although he brings them in in a different part of the clause. I would ask, then, whether it is fair, as I have obtained precedence for my Amendment on the Paper, that, in consequence of some arrangement between the Government and the hon. Member for South Tyrone, I should be ousted from the honour of carrying these Amendments.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

As a matter of fact, the Bill I introduced at the commencement of the Session was the first measure that gave the option to the tenant.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.

Not at all.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I hope the Committee will not waste time in discussing matters of this kind, which are altogether irrelevant to the issue. I understand that an agreement has been arrived at in regard to the substance of the Amendment.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

It is really unimportant whether we take the Amendment before the Committee or the one which stands in the name of the Member for South Tyrone.

Question put, and negatived.

Question, "That the word 'two' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

MR. PARNELL

I now beg to move a consequential Amendment—namely, to insert, after "on," the words "the application in the prescribed manner to the Court."

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)

Before we come to that Amendment I think it will be necessary to leave out the word "on."

MR. PARNELL

No; the word "on" must remain.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 6, after "on," insert "the application in the prescribed manner to the Court."—(Mr. Parnell.)

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

MR. PARNELL

I have now to move to leave out, in the same line, the words "the passing of this Act," and to insert the word "by." The clause will then run— At any time within two years after the passing of this Act, on the application in the prescribed manner to the Court by the lessee of any holding," &c.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 6, leave out "the passing of this Act."—(Mr. Parnell.)

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

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 6, after "Act," insert "by."—(Mr. Parnell.)

Question, "That 'by' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

The next two Amendments are in my name; but as the object I had in view has already been attained by the Amendments of the hon. Member for Cork, I do not propose to move them.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

The Amendment I have to move is to omit the words— Who at the expiration of any lease existing at the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, would be deemed to be a tenant on a present ordinary tenancy from year to year within the meaning of the said Act at the rent and subject to the conditions of the lease. The object of this Amendment is to admit a certain class of persons who would otherwise be excluded from the benefit of the clause. It will be seen by the Committee that these words extend the application of the clause to leaseholders who, at the expiration of any lease existing at the time of the passing of the Act of 1881, would be deemed to be a tenant from year to year. That provision would place two separate and distinct limitations upon the class of leaseholders. In the first place, it would confine the clause to the leaseholders whose leases expired at the passing of the Act of 1881; and, secondly, it would confine it to those leaseholders who on the expiration of their leases under that Act would be deemed to be ordinary present tenants. I propose, by leaving out those words, to remove that limitation, and to extend the benefit of the Act to leaseholders holding under a term of over 60 years, and also to remove the other restrictions of the Act of 1881. The Amendment would have the effect of extending the benefits of the Act to a certain class of leaseholders who, by an extraordinary oversight in the Act of 1881, were de- prived of the benefits of that Act owing to leases having fallen in just at the period when the Act came into operation.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 6, leave out from "who" to "lease," in line 10, inclusive.—(Mr. Dillon.)

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

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

As I understand the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman, he proposes to make a most violent breach of the arrangements which were made under the Act of 1881. A fundamental principle of that Act was that every holding which became untenanted after the date of the passing of the Act, or in which there occurred a break in the tenancy, should be subject again to the ordinary principle of freedom of contract which applies in all other countries. That principle would be altogether destroyed by the proposal of the hon. Gentleman, so far as leases are concerned. The Government object to the Amendment on that ground; but they also object to it because it draws a distinction between future tenancies under a lease and future tenancies which are not under a lease. If any proposition of this kind, which I should certainly strongly deprecate, were introduced into the Bill, it would be absolutely necessary to introduce some further provisions which would altogether destroy the existence of future tenancies, which is an essential part of the arrangements of 1881. Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that the existence of judicial leases was distinctly contemplated in the Act of 1881. Under that Act it is competent for the landlord and tenant to go into Court, and have the terms of the lease fixed by the Court, and I think it would be a serious thing for the House to step in now and say that leases formed under that arrangement should be set aside.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

There is a definition of the word "lease" in an Amendment which is to be proposed subsequently.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman may know that to be the fact, but I rather doubt it.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I refer to Amendment No. 40, in which I propose to add at the end of the Clause the following words:— In this Act the word 'lease' includes an agreement for a lease and any contract of tenancy other than a yearly tenancy or a tenancy less than a yearly tenancy, but does not include a judicial lease or a fixed tenancy. Notwithstanding anything in the said Act contained, 'contract of tenancy' in the said Act and in this Act includes a letting for ever or an agreement for such letting.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

That is not a consequential Amendment, nor did the hon. Member for Cork, in his speech, regard it as a consequential Amendment. I think I have sufficiently shown to the Committee that it is quite impossible for the Government to accept the Amendment. We do not propose to interfere with leases entered into after the year 1881, nor do we propose to deal with the perpetuity of leases; and for these reasons the Government cannot accept the Amendment.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the position he seems inclined to take up upon this Amendment. The Bill, as it stands, will limit the leaseholders who will get the advantage of the Act to holders of leases which expired within 60 years after the passing of the Act of 1881. Now I do not see that there is any charm in 60 years; nor why, when we are going to do a great act of justice to the leaseholders, we should be tied to that particular number of 60. On that ground, I hope the Chief Secretary for Ireland will feel inclined to reconsider his position, and admit leaseholders up to a reasonable period. I have an Amendment later on which is consequent upon my first Amendment, and includes every lease granted before the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, for any terms of years. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be induced to compound the matter, and not to lay down a hard-and-fast line of 60 years.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I think the right hon. Gentleman misconceives the purport of the Amendment, which provides for two things. The sentence which my hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo proposes to leave out provides that any lease not expiring 60 years after the passing of the Act shall not be broken, and also that no lease shall be broken except leases made before 1881. With regard to the first of these points, that no lease which has not expired in 60 years after the passing of the Act shall not be broken, it is absurd to draw the line at 60 years. I presume that the Government do not intend to maintain that restriction. It has been pointed out, over and over again, that it is very doubtful whether under the Act of 1881 this 60 years' limit really exists. Let me point out that if a man takes a 99 years' lease, which is a very common thing, although you propose to break leases you do not propose to break that. Why is the lease of a man which expires to-day to be broken, while that of a man whose lease expires to-morrow is not to be broken, supposing that both are iniquitous? Why should the difference between 60 years, and 20 years, or 40 years, make this distinction in the minds of the Government? We have been told that the Government are now proceeding on the lines of the Act passed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone); but had he dared to introduce into that measure a proposition of this kind, the entire Tory Party would have been up in arms against him. When the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give the tenants tenant right in consideration of their leases, he was denounced in every form of language by the then Attorney General for Ireland, who is the very gentleman who has made himself responsible for this measure. In 1879, a Bill was brought in to give leases to the tenants; but the Government of that day refused to accept it, although it was proposed at that time by an hon. Member who was a supporter of the Government of Mr. Disraeli. With regard to the second branch of the proposal of my hon. Friend, I have somewhat less hopes. When he made his proposition he had in his mind the fact that scores of tenants have been deprived of the benefit of the Act of 1881 by the action of the landlords, in evicting them and then compelling them to take leases. Being placed practically at the mercy of the landlords, they were obliged to take leases during the time of the passing of the Land Act of 1881. The landlords continually sold out the tenants' interests, and hundreds and thousands of the tenants had leases imposed upon them by the fact that their interests had been sold out, and that they had no title to the redemption. The only title given to them for redemption was when they were evicted for non-payment of rent. All the landlords of Ireland took notice of the fact that the tenants had no time for redemption, and therefore they forced iniquitous leases upon them. What the landlords did in order to divert the proposal of the light hon. Member for Mid Lothian was to keep the tenants in as present tenants up to 1883, because no future tenants could exist afterwards. They then imposed leases on them, and it is with that grievance that the Amendment of my hon. Friend deals. I would suggest to the Government that it would be a reasonable compromise if provision were made that leases created during the time that a future tenancy could not have existed may not be broken. That, I think, is a reasonable compromise, which recommends itself on the ground of its equity. If the landlord had not sold out the tenant's interest he would have had six months to redeem the land. The Land Act of 1881 would then have come in for his relief, and he would have been before the wind.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

There are several points raised in the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman, and I think that some of them have hardly been fairly met by the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down. The last point he referred to was the leases which were created between 1881 and 1883. With regard to those leases, I can give no assurance to the Committee at this moment. There is another point, in regard to the breaking of the leases. I think the whole question would be more conveniently dealt with when the Committee reaches a later Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton). I would therefore suggest that the hon. Member for East Mayo should withdraw his Amendment for the present until we reach the Amendment which deals directly with leases.

MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries, &c.)

I would suggest that the question of what leases should be included within the 1st section of the Bill would be dealt with more conveniently on the present Amendment, rather than wait until we come to the section which commences at line 22. The clause says— The lessee of any holding at the expiration of any lease existing at the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881, who would be deemed to be a tenant of the present ordinary tenancy from year to year within the meaning of the said Act. If those words remain in the clause, there could be no difficulty in amplifying it, and therefore I would suggest to the Government, without prejudicing future Amendments, that if they would accept the present Amendment, their doing so would greatly facilitate the consideration of the matter hereafter as a matter of drafting, and the point could be more fully discussed at a later stage.

MR. DILLON

The view which the hon. and learned Member takes is the view which is taken by hon. Members on these Benches. I propose to remove from the section this restriction on the action of the clause, and then later on we might mention what classes of tenancies we wish to be excluded. I think that for many reasons that course would be the most advantageous course to pursue. It seems to me that a class of leases which it is desirable to exclude from the clause is very limited in its character, and when we come to discuss what leases are to be excluded, I think there will be very little difference of opinion at all. I think the clause is drafted in an absurd and objectionable way. First of all, we have a wide scheme of exclusion, and then a proviso to include a portion of the classes which have been excluded. One word as to the exception which has been taken by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He objects to my Amendment because it is a proposal to extend the benefits of the clause to certain leaseholders who are excluded in point of time. I know what the case was which I had in my own mind; but, perhaps, I did not explain it with sufficient fulness. The classes of tenants I propose to deal with are tenants whose leases dropped in about the very time the Act of 1881 passed, and the condition of those tenants was that when the Act of 1881 passed they were neither present tenants nor leaseholders I have been informed that such lease holders numbered about 1,000, and I maintain that on no principle of equity should they be excluded, because it was simply owing to an accident that their leases expired about 1881. Besides, there are a large number of leases which were forced on tenants after the passing of the Act of 1881, who have not been in a position to avail themselves of the benefit of the law. What I would recommend the Chief Secretary to do is this. If there are tenants who have entered into leases since the Act of 1881, I believe the number is exceedingly few, and such tenants would scarcely be inclined to pay an excessive rent. There are exceptions, however, and it should be provided in the clause that it should not be applied to any tenant who has freely entered into a lease since the Act of 1881, but only to those who accepted leases under compulsion. Those who accepted leases without pressure on the part of the landlords should be exempted from the operation of the Act, and the clause should only be applied to such tenants whose leases dropped in at such a critical period as to debar them from the benefit of the Act of 1881. I think the case of the leaseholders who freely entered into leases since the Act of 1881 might be easily met by a provision leaving it to the discretion of the Court to exempt them from the Act.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I understand that the Government propose to consider the case of tenants whose leases were in existence before the Land Act of 1881 came into operation, and leases which run for 99 years. I presume that the Government are willing to consider these cases. But there is another set of cases which has been referred to by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon). I have had some remarkable instances brought under my notice of leases having expired before the passing of the Act of 1881 which landlords refused to renew until the Act was passed. I have an Amendment, No. 37 on the Paper, which deals with that subject. I think the Government would do well to accept the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries, and on the definition of "lessee," deal with the whole matter.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

In regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo, I understood the hon. Member to say that there were two points which deserve the attention of the Committee. The first is, what should be the duration of the lease, and whether it should be within or without the duration fixed by the old Act as amended by this; and the other is, whether the old Act should not be ex- tended by the provision now before the Committee so as to apply it to future leases. Now the Act of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian was doubtless, for very good reasons, limited in its application to lessees who were in occupation and whose leases dropped in 60 years after the passing of the Act. That was the first restriction, and it was restricted both to yearly tenants and lessees who held tenancies at the date of the passing of the Act, and who, for the purposes of discussion, are always described as present tenants. Future tenants were a class of persons who were not entitled to the right of perpetuity, or to have a fair rent fixed, or to the other benefits conferred by the Act of 1881. The proposal now made by the hon. Member for East Mayo is, that there should be a substantial extension of the term which entitles the lessees to the benefits of the Act of 1881, and that is a matter which ought to be considered on a separate Amendment, and can best be considered on the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), which stands next on the Paper. The other point raised by the hon. Member for East Mayo, and which has been developed by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford, was a proposal to include a certain class of future lessees within the Act. That proposal will require very grave consideration when it comes to be dealt with, because the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian made it a vital principle of his Bill that future tenants stand in a wholly different position from the tenants who held present tenancies in 1881. The matter is a very grave one, and is not to be lightly decided by the Committee at the present moment. I will tell the Committee why it seems to me that this Amendment would involve consequences much greater than would follow even from an affirmative decision on both of the points raised by the hon. Member. The hon. Member will observe that, in order to vote for such an Amendment, it is necessary to be agreed upon both points; but it is perfectly possible for hon. Members to agree upon one and not upon both. It therefore occurs to me that the points involved in the Amendments should be moved separately; and the reason why I think the subject should be held over for subsequent discussion is this. The Land Act of 1881, as those who were concerned in passing it know, was subject to many qualifications and exceptions. For instance, one class of exception took out of the operation of the Act pasture farms, town parks, demesne lands, &c.; but if this Amendment be carried in its present form, all that class of exceptions will be swept away. Again, a class of judicial tenancies subject to judicial approbation are excepted; and, further, perpetuity tenancies under Section 11 of the Act, created after the passing of the Act, are expressly excluded from the Act of 1881. Also, in the case of tenancies of a certain value—namely, up to £150—the tenant may contract himself out of the operation of the Act of 1881. If hon. Members think that on these specific points the scope of the Bill should be enlarged, let them put their Amendments on the Paper and discuss each separate point, instead of discussing this general and sweeping Amendment. If both specific points are intended to be discussed together, it may happen that there will be a difference of opinion, some hon. Members being in favour of one only, while others may be in favour of both. On that ground, I would, therefore, suggest that the most convenient course would be to adopt the broad definition of the Act of 1881, to leave the definition now as it stands; and if hon. Members think that definition should be enlarged, subsequent Amendments for that purpose may be proposed, and may be considered, on the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Belfast, the other questions raised by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford being brought forward as substantive and specific Amendments.

SIR CHARLES RUSSELL (Hackney, S.)

Notwithstanding the argument of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, I would submit that the course suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries (Mr. R. T. Reid) would be the most convenient form of procedure for the Committee to adopt. My right hon. and learned Friend has argued that the acceptance of the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo will commit the Committee to two propositions, as to both of which hon. Members may not be in agreement, but that is not so. Now, the Amendment of the hon. Member is not an Amendment to add words, but to omit words; and the hon. Member for East Mayo has sought to justify the omission of those words. He has thought it right to explain why he proposes to omit them. There are two points which will become consequential at a later stage, but which do not affect the present Amendment. One is the inclusion of leases subsequent to the passing of the Act of 1881. Now, I do not think that that is at all a large question; but, nevertheless, it is important to a small class. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) has proposed to make the application apply to leases entered into subsequent to the Act of 1881. As regards the question of the length of lease which will be affected by Clause 1, it seems to me that the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Attorney General for Ireland have mistaken the application of Section 21 of the Land Act of 1881. Section 21 was addressed to an entirely different subject. It had nothing to do with the breaking of leases at all. The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian did not then see his way, and no hon. Gentleman or right hon. Gentleman who sits on the other side saw his way to give the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian any encouragement to deal with leases under the Act of 1881. Therefore, with a few exceptions, they are altogether out of the purview of the Act of 1881. Section 21 of the Land Act simply provides that the holders of existing leases shall be deemed to be present tenants at the expiry of then lease if such lease has not longer to run than 60 years. But that is not the proposition now. We are now dealing, and, as I venture to think, dealing reasonably, with the question of leases, and we are recognizing the fact that in the case of tenants who hold under a lease in Ireland, there is, in substance and in fact, no difference between their position and that of ordinary agricultural tenants held from year to year. The circumstances of both are the same as to the condition of the tenants and the size of the holdings. Therefore, I contend that the two points raised by the hon. Member for East Mayo are in favour of the view he takes; and, on the ground of convenience, it has been well put by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries that, by omitting the words proposed to be left out, we might then have a general clause of inclusion, upon which we may more easily graft the exceptions which it may be necessary to make.

LORD ERNEST HAMILTON (Tyrone, N.)

I shall certainly support the proposal of the hon. Member, so far as I understand it—namely, that leases granted before the passing of the Act of 1881, but which fall in after the passing of that Act, and are then renewed, should be included in the operation of the Bill, while those tenants who entered into leases subsequent to the passing of the Act of 1881 with their own free will should not be included. That I conceive to be a reasonable proposal, and one that will not injure the landlords nor inflict any injustice upon them. If the measure is not accepted, I believe it will leave a feeling of great dissatisfaction and a sense of injustice in Ireland, which I am certain the Government desire to avoid. If the hon. Member insists upon pressing the Amendment, I shall certainly support him.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

We are dealing partly with a question of procedure and partly with a question of substance. It includes the length of leases, which is a point we are anxious to discuss; but it includes, further, that point marked out by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford, and alluded to by my noble Friend behind me—namely, the case of leases renewed in the middle period between 1881 and 1882. That raises a question which we are most anxious favourably to consider; but if we hastily accept the Amendment now, we may subsequently find ourselves involved in legal difficulties of considerable magnitude. Therefore, I hope the hon. Member will not press the Government to put down in a distinct form the method by which they will try to deal with the case, and I would ask the hon. Member not to press the Amendment. If the Amendment before the Committee be carried in its present shape, it would, of course, shatter the definition contained in the Act of 1881, and we should have to set to work to create a new definition of leases. I would earnestly suggest that on the question of form the most convenient method would be to take the definition of the Land Act of 1881, and to make what- ever additions to it that may be proper.

MR. GIBSON

As to the question raised by the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone (Lord Ernest Hamilton), the effect of admitting this Amendment would be to strike out every qualification in regard to the word "lessee," and whether it was an exceptional class holding demesne land, or a pasture farm, or a town park, it would come within the section. I think that is a matter which ought to be dealt with by a substantive Amendment, and one which ought to be passed over now. If it is passed over the hon. Member for East Mayo will not be prevented from raising and discussing any question upon it when it is brought forward. I trust that these observations will be satisfactory to the hon. Member.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I venture to think that the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman is somewhat unfair. If the proposed Amendments were accepted, the effect would be to exclude all holdings under the Act of 1881, and in that case it would be easy to insert other words, specifying the nature of the tenancies that are to be provided for. That, I think, would be a satisfactory mode of dealing with the matter. I think the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Hackney (Sir Charles Russell) is an extremely reasonable and proper one—namely, that the words pointed out in the Amendment of my hon. Friend should be struck out without the slightest reference to any of the points which have been raised. I say that because it appears to me that it would be far more easy and far more simple to deal subsequently with any specific proposal and any particular class which the Government say ought not to have the benefit of the Bill. There is another point which is substantially raised upon these words which has not been adverted to. Perhaps the Committee will allow me to point out what the effect of omitting these words will be if we affirm substantially that no leaseholder shall get the benefit of the clause unless he is a leaseholder who, on the expiration of his lease, would be entitled to become a present tenant under Section 21 of the Act of 1881. Now, as a mere matter of procedure, I say that it would be an error first to affirm a proposition of that kind on the understanding that you are shortly afterwards to limit it in a particular way. What I maintain is that you should first make a general enactment, and then proceed to limit it by specific Amendments, each of which raises a particular point. There are three points to be discussed here. First of all, the case of leases made after the passing of the Act of 1881. then the general consensus of opinion which is held in regard to a particular section of these leases—namely, leases made in the case of tenants who had technically no interest in the holding at the passing of the Land Act of 1881, but who got a renewal of their leases before the 1st of January, 1883, It is agreed that something should be done in that case; but there is also the case of leases which expire at the end of 60 years. They are also excluded by the words which the Government have moved; but I take it that there is a general agreement that something should be done in regard to them. There is a third class of leases, which are also struck out. I refer to leases which are dealt with in the later part of the Act of 1881, which enacts that certain tenants shall not be entitled to become present tenants on the expiry of their lease or the transfer of their lease. Section 21 especially enacts that tenants in that position shall not be entitled to the benefit of the provisions of the Act; and if we pass the clause as it stands we shall be substantially including that class of tenants who were to be excluded. Certainly, that is my view of the position in which the matter stands, and I do not say it lightly. If you pass these words in their present form the effect will be to incur the risk that the Court in Ireland will exclude the classes of leases I have referred to from the benefit of the Act, on the ground that the Land Act of 1881 enacted that such tenants should not become present tenants on the expiry of their leases. I think the natural thing to do is to strike out these words without prejudice to any question which may be subsequently raised. The Government would thus be left to propose the particular limitations they desire, and it will be for the Committee to discuss their proposals in detail. That appears to me to be the regular and proper way of dealing with the subject, and the whole necessity for this discus- sion, however inconvenient it may have been, has arisen from the improper insertion of words in the Bill, which prejudge a different question which is to be subsequently raised. The best way of getting rid of the mischief is to strike out the words which create it, and then discuss the important points which may be subsequently raised.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 154; Noes 134: Majority 20.—(Div. List, No. 316.) [7.45 P.M.]

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

I beg to move as an Amendment, in page 1, line 10, after the word "lease," to insert these words— ''Or would be so deemed had the lease existed at the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' Now, this proposal covers one of the several questions which have been touched upon in the discussion of the previous Amendment. The object of my Amendment is to secure the benefit of the Act of 1881 for leaseholders whose leases did not exist at the time of the passing of that Act. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South Hackney (Sir Charles Russell) says this is not a very large question. Well, it is not. It does not affect a very considerable number of leaseholders; and while, on the one hand, that may be the reason why the Government should not be ready to accept it, I would say that, on the other hand, the fact that the people affected are not numerous is not a reason why it should be refused, because the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman is one of supreme importance to those who are concerned, whether their number be large or small. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) has spoken of qualifications and exceptions. I take the liberty of saying that your qualifications and exceptions have been the ruin of your remedial legislation for Ireland. You have never honestly accepted remedial legislation for Ireland. You lay down the principle of benefit, and proceed to apply it; but you always contrive to shut out somebody or other by your qualifications and exceptions. You have never been satisfied to relieve a dozen men in Ireland without trying to find out how you can shut out the thirteenth man. There is no difference in point of equity and expediency between the position of the leaseholder and that of the tenant-at-will; and I ask you to admit all leaseholders upon an equal footing, on the presumption that there is no freedom of contract in the case of the leaseholder any more than in the case of the tenant-at-will. It has been said that great hardships were suffered at the passing of the Act of 1881 by a number of people who were deprived of their tenancy before the passing of the Act, and who then, not being in a position to avail themselves of the status of present tenants, were obliged to accept leases at rents as oppressive as any imposed upon any tenants. They are leaseholders by virtue of the duress exercised on them by the landlords. I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman will himself deny that there is a considerable body of men who are in this position, and in point of equity and fair play they are as fully entitled as any other tenants to this benefit. Besides these, there are a second class of tenants who, because of the existence of arrears, or of some other cause, have not free will, but are under the compulsion of the landlords, and who, though not evicted before or since the passing of the Act of 1881, were obliged, by the superior force of the landlords, to accept leases. I contend that, though their leases were excluded, they have a right in equity to be admitted to the benefits of the Act. What is the use of talking of freedom of contract at all, if, at the present moment, no freedom of contract exists between the owner and the occupier in Ireland? The real question is, not when a lease began or will end, but, admitting its existence, whether the rent under it is oppressive. You ought to get rid of this question. It is no longer a question as between the leaseholder and any other tenant; it is a question of expediency. You want, as I understand it, to settle the question of rent in Ireland for a time by this Bill—for the time that must elapse before you can bring a purchase scheme into operation. You want to have no further trouble about rent. Your qualifications and exceptions—if you say that one leaseholder may come into Court because his lease does not expire at a certain date, and another leaseholder must keep out because his lease does expire in a certain year, and so on—if you say that, then I say that these distinctions, exceptions, qualifications, and vexatious provisoes will prevent the settlement of the rent question for many a long day, and the man whom you leave out will continue to agitate, and will feel a smarting sense of wrong, and will raise excitement and trouble in Ireland, and will go on appealing to this House, and in the end you will have to yield, if not to fear, at all events to a sense of inconvenience, that which in the beginning you refused to yield to reason. That is not statesmanship. I have shown that, in the case of two classes of tenants, they have no power to resist the will of the landlord; and, therefore, I move the Amendment which I have placed upon the Paper with much confidence.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 10, after the word "lease," to insert— Or would be so deemed had the lease existed at the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.'"—(Mr. Sexton.)

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

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

I may remind the Committee that the theory of the legislation of 1881 was that the tenants who were then on the land, under existing contracts, required a certain amount of legislative protection, but that in the case of land which was to be let in future the contract with the landlord as to such land was to be entirely free. In many cases within my own experience landlords have let land which never had a tenant on it before, and made, on the faith of that legislative guarantee, new tenancies, assuming that the terms of their leases ended when the leases expired, and that when the leases were at an end they would get back their land. The hon. Member's Amendment states that, with regard to every single lease in Ireland made after the year 1881, those future leases without exception, whether the tenants have been on the land before or not, shall come within the operation of the Act of 1881, in the same way and to the same extent as if they existed before 1881. Now, the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) has presented his view of an Amendment which goes very much on the lines of the argument of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton); but his Amendment would be much narrower on the whole. What I understand his Amendment to be, as suggested by him, would be supported by most of the arguments of the hon. Member for West Belfast. The difficulty has always been present to the mind of Parliament as to what might happen, assuming that the landlord were to adopt a harsh and inequitable course so as to bring tenants—present tenants—into the category of future tenants, and exclude them unfairly from the Act of 1881. That was present to the mind of Parliament, because it was provided in Section 57 of the Act that if a tenancy subsisted in the holding when the Act passed, and if the landlord evicted the tenant and chose to make a new letting before the 1st of January, 1883, whether by lease or not—whether for a term of years, or from year to year—it would be a present tenancy, so that the Committee will see that in the case of land which was in the occupation of the tenant when the Act passed, but which afterwards formed the subject of a new letting at any time before the 1st of January, 1883, that should be the subject of a present tenancy, though actually future in point of time. That was the provision which the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) thought it necessary to introduce, and it is upon the lines of that provision that I understand the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Ruseell) has framed an Amendment which is worthy of consideration. But the Amendment now proposed by the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) might be put very much on the lines of the Definition Clause to which I have referred, substituting for tenancies existing in 1881 the question of occupation existing in 1881, and that occupation continuing in the same persons from 1881 to 1883, subject to the very important factor suggested by the hon. Member for West Belfast, that some element of duress or influence should exist on the part of the landlord. I do not know whether the Committee has seen the Amendment of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, dealing with perpetuity leases; but the same consideration would apply there. I do not know whether the Committee will deal with it in some such way as I have suggested. Of course, in any discussion in Committee it is necessary that there should be a certain amount of compromise on both sides. Some hon. Members would like to see every future lease involved; but we cannot put future leases in a better position than future yearly tenancies, and there are many future yearly tenants who do not come within the provisions of fair rent. It would be monstrous that the future leaseholder should be put in a better position than the yearly tenant. A distinction was adopted by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, after great consideration, between present tenants and future tenants, and in the case of future tenants the parties were to be at liberty to make their own contracts. It would be a very dangerous thing to break down that distinction, and the most convenient arrangement would be to defer the consideration of this matter till we come to the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who raises the question in terms. That would be the most convenient place to raise the question. But the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Belfast is a sweeping Amendment, not limited to cases of hardship, but necessarily applying to every single future tenant in Ireland; and, as it involves a wholesale revision of the essential provisions of the Act of 1881, I should like to hear the views of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian upon it.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) has drawn quite an eloquent moral from the Act of 1881, which he and his Party have never ceased to denounce and malign. I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well that every Act of Parliament interferes to a certain extent with the rights of individuals, and the Act of 1881 is not peculiar in that respect. But he pushes his argument to an extreme, because if the Act of 1881 did anything it said that leaseholders should not be within the main benefit of the Act—it does not lie in the mouth of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to use a supposed moral in that respect. The Bill we are now discussing is the first leaseholders' Land Bill; and it would only be a parallel case if the Act of 1883 was the first yearly tenants' Land Bill. It would obviously be a monstrous and ridiculous principle to say that the Act of 1881 applied to all the persons now in possession of these leases, who now, for the first time, have got the opportunity of obtaining substantial redress. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says the Amendment would put future leases in a better position than yearly tenancies. That is easily answered. I can answer that question in true Irish fashion by asking another—Why are you making present leaseholders better off than present yearly tenants? Present yearly tenants are not relieved from a permanent liability to pay excessive rents; but, in respect to leaseholders, you do relieve them, and you give the leaseholder a certain substantial relief in that respect. But there is one argument which will appeal to the Government, and that is that as many of these men as you leave out of this Bill, so many Nationalists will you create. We desire to do these men a benefit. If the Government insist on leaving them out they will suffer. The general body of the Irish tenantry will be benefited; but the representation of some Northern counties will be changed. Even in the last Division several Members of the Government Party voted in the "No" Lobby, because, if they had not done so, they would lose their seats at the next Election; and I shall again expect to see them on this occasion voting with the Parnellite Members, whom they are so ready to despise and malign. I hope the Government will take warning while there is yet time, and will include all tenants. The number of those who would be affected is not very great.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

I should like to call attention to the distinction imposed by the wording of the definition of "present tenant" in the Act of 1881. It includes not merely those whose position has been determined, but those whose tenancy had been determined in 1879 and 1880, immediately before the agitation had reached its climax—the agitation which forced the Legislature to pass the Act. The notices to quit in order to raise rents were falling like snowflakes, and tenancies innumerable had been determined in principle in November, 1880. But the tenants were still in possession; and as soon as the Act passed it was plainly seen that the tenant need not be removed. The result was that there was no necessity for the landlord to shove him out, and he remained in possession after the passing of the Act, but without the slightest benefit derived from the Act. In the case of the man previously sitting as a tenant from year to year, he is out of all protection; but the case of the man intended to be met by the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) is even harder. I have in my mind the case of a tenant whose interest amounted to £4,000; and if the Irish Society had not given him, by grace, what he had lost technically he would have lost his £4,000. I take these two cases, where the tenancies from year to year were determined by notices to quit, or by terms under leases. In the drafting of any Amendment which will still continue the wording of the definition of present tenant under the Act of 1881 not one of these cases will be dealt with. We are all agreed as to the substance of the Amendment. The case of a man having an interest in his possession is lost by a technicality. He has no means of standing up and making a fair bargain with his landlord; but he would have been within the benefit of the Act if you had taken into consideration the fact that his interest was there. I ask the Committee seriously to consider this, because the arguments advanced by the Attorney General for Ireland amount, after all, only to this—"I admit your case; but there have been many landlords who had land on hand and let it to persons who could make a fair bargain." But a Proviso has been offered from these Benches to meet that—a Proviso that in all cases where there was land in hand the provision should not apply. The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has said—"Put in a Proviso that all future contracts made with land in hand shall still be valid." We are agreed, then, as to the substance. The only difference is as to the phraseology.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 105; Noes 116: Majority 11.—(Div. List, No. 317.)[8.5 P.M.]

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

I beg to move the Amendment which stands next on the Paper in my name—namely, in Clause 1, page 1, line 10, after "lease," to insert the words— Or would be so deemed but for the fact that such lease would expire within sixty years after 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' I think it would be unnecessary for me to offer any arguments in support of this Amendment. The Government have given up the case, and there is no longer any meaning in the term of years contained in the original Act. The greater the number of years the lease may be for the greater need there is to take measures for securing an equitable rent.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 10, after the word "lease," to insert the words ''or would be so deemed but for the fact that such lease would expire within sixty years after the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.'"—(Mr. Sexton.)

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

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

I hope the Government will consider this Amendment at all events. Here is a copy of a lease taken out in 1858 for 900 years—fine paid £500; yearly rent £405; Government valuation £187. I believe this is a point upon which the Government can fairly give way. There is no charm in 60 years. I can understand stopping short at a perpetuity lease; but 60 years is not the number of perfection any more than 99 years.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has told us that there is no charm in 60 years; but I am not responsible for the original introduction of that limit. That period appears in the Act of 1881, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, and that is the reason why we have selected it. There is something more in our selection of it than the hon. Member probably sees. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) brought under the operation of the Act leases of under 60 years. He left those leases intact during the tenancy; but ho gave to the tenant that which the landlord had previously a right to—namely, full possession of the land after the contract for which he had let the land had expired; therefore, when we interfere with those leases of 60 years we only complete the work of destruction which had been begun in those leases by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. It is not a question of adopting the limit adopted by the right hon. Gentleman; but we think that there is a clear distinction to be drawn—we still think there is a clear distinction to be drawn in the course of this legislation—between leases that terminate at the end of 60 years from the passing of the Act of 1881 and leases of longer duration. The hon. Gentleman who has moved this Amendment asks to break all leases in Ireland of whatever kind, and to allow no limit of duration whatever. But does he not see that by doing so you will be practically upsetting a ease that is undistinguishable, either in law or in fact, from a true case of purchase?

MR. SEXTON

No, no!

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Well, I will go into the question, of fact presently; but as a question of law, although I am not myself competent to form an opinion upon the matter, still I am given to understand that when a tenant has under the Act of Parliament converted a lease into a fee farm grant he becomes the owner of the fee simple.

An hon. MEMBER

He pays a rent,

MR.MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

The word "lease" in this section would not include a lease for ever, having regard to one of the definitions contained in the Land Act of 1881.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Is the hon. Gentleman going to draw a distinction between a fee farm grant and other leases?

MR. MAURICE HEALY

Leases for ever are provided for.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

In this Amendment?

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I did not intend to argue the question of perpetuity leases.

MR. SEXTON

Nor I.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I think the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken as to what we want.

MR. SEXTON

My Amendment is that 60 years shall not be the utmost term. It will be for the Government to exclude perpetuity leases.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

This Amendment, if carried, will not include perpetuity leases. The reason is that there is a definition in the Land Act of 1881 which excludes from its provisions any contract of tenancy lasting for ever.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I understand the point. This Amendment would cover the case of leases for 999 years, but would not cover the case of fee farm grants or perpetuity leases. That does, undoubtedly, make a distinction. But I cannot admit the difference in substance between a lease for 999 years and a perpetuity lease; and I think the Committee will bear me out in saying that in England, and I should think in Ireland, too, and in every other country, a 999 years lease is not distinguishable for any purpose from eternity. It is equal to a case of purchase, and ought to be exempt as a case of purchase. I gather that the hon. Gentleman opposite intends to argue the case of perpetuity leases at a later stage. [Mr. SEXTON: Yes.] I have given the reason why we have chosen 60 years as the limit for this Bill. I do not wish to resist the introduction of a term of years which may be proposed, so long as we still leave it a lease in substance, and not a freehold in substance. I apprehend that 99 years really covers that distinction. A 99 years' lease is a very common length of lease in England and elsewhere; but no one who has a 99 years' lease is supposed to be the absolute owner. But anyone who holds land for 999 years practically considers himself to be the freeholder. I consent, with reluctance, to a modification of the clause in the direction moved by the hon. Member. I will not resist such a modification, and shall be prepared to accept an Amendment extending the period to 99 years.

THE CHAIRMAN

Does the right hon. Gentleman move that Amendment?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Yes; I move to amend the Amendment.

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, to omit the word "sixty," in order to insert the words "ninety-nine."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'sixty' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I do not know that I quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. The Amendment reads— Or would be so deemed but for the fact that such lease would expire within ninety-nine years after the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' But the term 99 years does not occur in the Act of 1881, and, therefore, is not a bar to its being "so deemed."

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

I see what the hon. Gentleman moans—a fresh Amendment will be required.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

As the Government see that a fresh Amendment is necessary, I would ask them to amend the clause by a fresh Proviso at the end. I say that not with the intention of obtaining an opportunity for the discussion of a contentious point, but in order that we may have the clause framed with, some degree of intelligibility.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Would not the right course be for the hon. Gentleman opposite to drop this Amendment altogether, in order to introduce a Proviso at the end of the clause?

MR. SEXTON

No, no!

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

I would point out that the Act of 1881 excluded from its benefits leaseholders whose leases would not expire at the end of 60 years. The object of this Amendment is to get rid of that limitation. Well, if you get rid of that limitation, it will be competent for the Committee to substitute any other restriction on which it may decide. The first thing to do, I submit, is to wipe out the limitation contained in the Act of 1881, which is 60 years. If you do not do that, you cannot put in the Proviso.

MR. SEXTON

I would point out to the Government that if they accept my Amendment they clear the ground. They get rid of a Proviso of the Act of 1881, and leave it open to the Government to introduce later on any limitation they think proper.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have no objection to the course proposed. But it must be understood that all we do is this—we prefer the period of 60 years; but we concede 99 years to hon. Members opposite, and are prepared to amend the clause to that effect. I beg to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Amendment put, and agreed to.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

I desire, Sir, to add, at the end of the words the Committee have just decided upon inserting, these words— Or in the case of a lessee under a lease made prior to the 1st of January, 1883, would be so deemed if such lease had existed at the passing of the said Act. That would be a qualification of the Proviso of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton). It is a proposal intended to carry out the declaration of the Government upon the subject. The effect of the Amendment will be this—that it will admit to the benefits of the section any leaseholder whose lease was made prior to the 1st of January, 1883, that being the date fixed on for the commencement of future tenancies under the Land Act of 1881. May I be permitted to say what I propose without the necessity of waiting for the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) has given Notice of moving? I move this with great respect to the hon. Member, and I say this with great respect to him, that his Amendment is unworkable. His Amendment is unworkable for the reason that he requires that before any tenant can get the benefit of his Amendment that tenant should have been in the occupation of his holding between the time of the expiration of his holding and the time his lease was made. The hon. Gentleman will find that in practice it is impossible to make any limitation of that kind, for the reason that it would exclude the case of a man who was in occupation of his holding as caretaker from the time his old lease expired until his new lease was made. A man who is in occupation as a caretaker is simply the landlord's servant. He is not legally in occupation of the land. He is there as the servant of the landlord, and is no more in occupation of the land than a gentleman's butler is in occupation of his house. Well, we know that, although in point of law the caretaker is in that position, he has in point of fact all the privileges of a tenant. We know that he grazes his cattle on the land, that he works the farm, and that he performs all manner of agricultural operations on it. We know that for all purposes and in reality, except from a technical legal point of view, he is in occupation. That being so, I am sure that no right hon. Gen- tleman on the other side of the House will contend for a moment that a man who has been in occupation of his land as a caretaker should be excluded from the benefit of my hon. Friend's Amendment. I think the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) will admit that the point I make is a perfectly good one. In point of law, though the caretaker is practically in possession of the land, and working it, the landlord is always technically in occupation. He is liable for the rates and taxes, and he can call on the tenant to account for any dealing he makes in regard to the farm. If the tenant digs up or takes away any part of the crop on the farm the landlord can call him to account for it, just as he can call his servant to account. As that is the case, I think the hon. Member for South Tyrone will admit that an Amendment which brings about such an unjust state of things as the exclusion of such a man from the benefit of the Act does not carry out his own intention. It is impossible to take into consideration this question of occupation at all; and I would, therefore, ask the Government to deal with this question in a broad spirit. It may be that out of 500,000 there may be one solitary case where my Amendment may work injustice; but I submit that it is better that that should be so than that the interests of a large number of people should be injuriously affected. It may be that the Government wish to exclude only the case of the landlords in occupation of their lands at the time of the passing of the Land Act, and who let it for the first time between that date and the 1st of January, 1886. But it is impossible to provide for a few cases of that kind, and I would ask the Committee to deal with this matter without regarding these trivial points. I would ask them to deal with it in a broad spirit, permitting no qualification on any account. I, therefore, move the insertion of these words. I may say that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland desires to except any class of cases, it will be open for him to do so by way of Proviso at the end of the clause, or by way of some other Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 10, to add, after the words last inserted, the words "or in the case of a lessee under a lease made prior to the 1st of January, 1883, would be so deemed if such lease had existed at the passing of the said Act."—(Mr. Maurice Healy.)

THE CHAIRMAN

It should not be "or in the case of a lessee."

MR. MAURICE HEALY

Let it run "or a lessee under a lease, &c."

Amendment amended.

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

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

The Amendment of the hon. Member covers a much wider ground than that which I myself have put upon the Paper, or than I intended to cover. My Amendment, I would remind the hon. Member, was drawn in order to meet a special class of cases where a lease expired immediately before the passing of the Land Act, and where the landlord granted a renewal after the Land Act was passed, and the tenant was never out of occupation. As the Amendment now moved will cover that, I shall be happy to withdraw my proposal in favour of that of the hon. Member for Cork, and I see no reason why the Government should not accept it.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

This Amendment which is now moved is an Amendment which purports to be on the same lines as the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), which comes on later. It is, however, an Amendment wholly different in scope. This Amendment leaves out entirely all the qualifications and conditions contained in the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The hon. Member for South Tyrone contemplated in his Amendment those conditions which were referred to by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy), and those conditions were these—that a person who had taken a lease after the 1st of January, 1883, should have been in occupation at the time the Land Act was passed, though not necessarily as tenant. The theory of the hon. Gentleman was that if there was a continuance of the occupation between the granting of the lease and the Act of 1881, that was to be treated as though there was a continuance of the tenancy, and as though there was a wish on the part of the landlord to evade the provisions of the Act of 1881. This Amendment would actually destroy the lease of a man who may never have seen the land in question before the lease, and is a very different Amendment from that of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who contemplates the case of a man who having received notice to quit some time before the passing of the Act of 1881, though having had his tenancy terminated, has been allowed to continue in occupation. It seems to me that this proposed Amendment is in no way germane to the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton); any other Amendment amending the Act of 1881 would be equally relevant. The Amendment of the hon. Member for West Belfast is an Amendment only referring to the duration of the lease, and not to the length of time for which the lease was granted, which was the first Amendment of the hon. Member which was negatived. The first Amendment negatived by the Committee was one extending the Act to leases which were future leases not governed by the Act of 1881. What the hon. Member for West Belfast proposed was that every lease granted after the passing of the Act of 1881 should be deemed to be within its operation. That was negatived, as I say, and a question of a different character must arise when the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone comes up to be discussed. That Amendment appears to be largely supported by hon. Members below the Gangway; but the hon. Member for Cork is not satisfied with that, and has brought forward a new Amendment on the same line, but limiting the period very much during which a lease was to be granted. The Amendment has no relation to the definition of the present tenant to be found in the Act of 1881. I think the hon. Member would be well advised if he did not press his Amendment.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I am sorry the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not heard my speech. No doubt, it was my fault; but I will repeat the reasons which I gave in support of my Amendment, and which he does not appear to have caught. I will tell him why I do not embody in this Amendment the qualification he lays such stress on. I stated it at considerable length, and I will not so repeat it; but I will repeat this—that I do not introduce the element of occupation, because, if I did, it would exclude a certain class of cases which I do not think the hon. Member for South Tyrone intended to exclude—namely, the class of cases in which, though the holding had been taken by the landlord, the tenant had been admitted as caretaker. I put it to the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself. Suppose this happens—supposing a lease expired on the let of May, 1881, and that is a very common case—there were dozens of them, some before the Land Act was passed and some after—well, the landlord takes no step for some time, and the tenant is left in occupation of the holding to enter on a new tenancy. The landlord waits until the Land Act of 1881 is passed, or he does not, as the case may be, or, at any rate, in order to enforce his right he serves a writ of ejectment, and regains a free title; but he has no intention of putting the tenant out; all he wants is to have the tenant in his power, so that when making an arrangement he may exact better terms than he would otherwise be able to do. The tenant remains on the holding as caretaker for five or six months, and the landlord, then having him in his power owing to his exclusion from the Land Act, makes what terms he likes. There is no duress or compulsion, as the tenant is absolutely at the landlord's mercy. Well, the right lion, and learned Gentleman contends for this—that if the tenant had been in occupation during the whole interval, and had not been ejected from the tenancy, he ought to get the benefit of the clause, but that he ought not to get it if the landlord did as I say—that is to say, got possession through the Sheriff, and put back the tenant as a caretaker? The right hon. and learned Gentleman has too much good sense to contend for any absurdity of the kind; and if he will give me an undertaking that when he is dealing with this matter on the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, or any subsequent Amendment, he will give the same benefit to a man who is admitted as a caretaker as he gives to the man who has not been disturbed, and will put them in the same position, I will not further trouble the Committee upon this point.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I think that a very reasonable proposition.

MR. GIBSON

I cannot give such an undertaking as that. The hon. Gentleman himself will see that it would not be reasonable to do so. The matter, however, is one which should be discussed later on. I will promise, on the part of the Government, that we will carefully consider the question. As the Amendment is not at present upon the Paper, we cannot pledge ourselves with regard to it. Until we see what alteration may be required it will be impossible to give a definite undertaking; but this I can say—that the subject is one well worthy of consideration, and that every attention will be paid to it.

MR. LEA (Londonderry, S.)

I would suggest that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork should withdraw his Amendment in favour of that of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I think I have served my purpose in ventilating this point which I wished to make. I would, therefore, ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, at the same time giving Notice that I will raise the matter by another Amendment when the subject comes up for discussion again.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. PARNELL

I beg to move, in line 11, to leave out the words ''at the date of the passing of this Act."

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 11, to leave out the words "at the date of the passing of this Act."—(Mr. Parnell.)

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

MR. LEA (Londonderry, S.)

The Amendment next on the Paper is in my name, to insert after the word "of," in line 12, the words "the substantive portion of." I think the Government will have no difficulty in agreeing to the principle of this proposal. This will meet the case of sub-lettings, with which the Government are very familiar, so familiar, in fact, that they themselves have placed a Notice of an Amendment on the Paper dealing with it in the form of a now clause. I think it is desirable to make this clause perfectly plain, and for that reason this Amendment should be inserted here. It is desirable to explain that "bonâ fide in occupation" means in occupation not necessarily of the whole, but of the substantive portion of the holding. The insertion of these words that I propose would prevent the recurrence of such cases as have recently occurred in Ireland, about which Questions have been asked in this House. A very short time ago—some two or three weeks I think—Mr. Justice O'Hagan, in giving a decision in cases where there had been sub-lettings, said that cases of this kind had been frequent of late, and that it was evident that if there is anything that ought not to be allowed under the Land Act of 1881, we ought to do our best to prevent it from taking place. The Amendment simply does what the Government proposed to do in the form of a new clause at the end of the Bill. I think the words I propose will prevent any misunderstanding or mistake when this clause comes before the Court.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 12, after the word "of," insert the words "the substantive portion of."—(Mr. Lea.)

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

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

I am at a loss to see why a lessee should be in a different or in a better position than a person who merely holds an annual tenancy. The first difficulty we propose to deal with in the Amendment is the case of labourers, and we consider that Amendment to be a very fair, generous amendment of the Act of 1881. The question that is now raised about the substantive part of the holding, I think, will be found dealt with by our Amendment so far as it is desirable to deal with it. My suggestion, referred to the other evening, was that there were lettings of a small and insignificant character which did not vitally interfere with the principle of the Act of 1881, and that the occupying tenants should get the benefit of the Act in spite of them—that the occupying tenants should get the benefit and not the middleman. The suggestion was made by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy), and in order to meet that we have put upon the Paper an Amendment we propose to move applicable both to present tenants and leaseholders, Our Amendment provides this— A tenant may also be deemed in occupation notwithstanding that part is sub-let, where the sub-letting is of a trivial character, and the Court believes the tenant to be substantially in occupation of the holding. It seems to me that that satisfactorily deals with the question now raised by the hon. Gentleman. The Amendment seems to me to be a fair and proper one, and I think it should be taken in that place, and not here. It should be discussed as a whole, and not merely with reference to lessees, but also with regard to present tenancies. Our Amendment is sufficient to meet the justice and requirements of the case, and I would ask the Committee to consider the Amendment in a favourable spirit when the clause comes up. I would invite the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment at this stage, so as to enable the proposal to be renewed at a later stage.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

To my mind the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Londonderry is wholly inadequate, and, so far as it is of any value, I prefer the Amendment of the Government. But that, also, is wholly inadequate. Since the hon. Member has been elected a Member of this House, which he has attended so regularly, the case of "Flannery v. Nolan" has been heard in the Irish Courts and decided. The effect of this decision is that even if a landlord has looked on at a sub-letting and has allowed a tenant to continue his holding with the subletting existing on it, years afterwards the tenant can be put out of possession.

THE CHAIRMAN

It is quite irregular to discuss at this stage a future Amendment. An Amendment which will come on at a later stage can only be referred to in connection with the present Amendment.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I perfectly appreciate the character of your observation, Sir; but I am contending that the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Londonderry (Mr. Lea) has been followed by the Government in this word "substantially." I would put this to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, Supposing he was consulted by a tenant who had sub-let part of his holding who wished to know whether he was within this Act or not, how would he be able to answer him? Who is to be judge of this word "substantially?"

MR. GIBSON

The Court.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Well, I submit the Land Act of 1881 was admirably drawn, so far as it went, and what is wanted is an Amendment in the direction of Amendment 57. Section 57 provides that where a tenant sub-lets part of his holding without the consent of his landlord, he shall, notwithstanding such sub-letting, be deemed, for the purposes of the Act, to be still in occupation of the holding. Since the original cases decided against the Irish tenants, I do remember a more important case coming up for decision than those with regard to sub-lettings. It was always hold, until the case of "Flannery v. Nolan," that the landlord's consent could be taken in an implied manner. Cases of sub-lettings have been brought before the Courts constantly. The question has been repeatedly put—"Have you not sub-let a portion of your holding?" and over and over again the answer has been given—"I have." The landlord may have been looking on when the sub-letting was arranged; still, the Courts have rather overlooked this question until recently. Here, however, we now have two decisions, one of which in the case of "Flannery v. Nolan," staring the Irish tenantry in the face. It has been laid down that no amount of implied consent on the part of the landlord can justify a sub-letting, and that if a portion of a holding is sub-let without the consent of the landlord the tenancy is altogether outside the Act. That is the decision given within the last three months. I say to the hon. Member for South Londonderry, whoso desire in this matter is exactly the same as our own, that this question of the word "substantive" does not meet the case in any way. The way to meet it is by considering what condition was attached in the section of the Act of 1881. We find there "where the tenant sub-lets a portion of the land without the consent of the landlord," &c. I say there should be a presumption in favour of the tenant, unless the landlord makes a written statement within a certain time of the sub-letting. The action recently taken by the landlords with regard to the matter of sub-letting has been simply infamous. Where you have a landlord who has taken no objection in the Court below, but, on some future occasion in I the Court above, raises the point of his tenant Laving sub-let a portion of his holding, his action is simply infamous. If he comes and says, as was done in the case of a woman that came under my own observation—"Have you not let a pigstye?" and the woman acknowledges that such is the case, she is hunted out of Court, loses all the benefit of the Act, and has to pay all the costs. The question of sub-letting in this way comes up as gigantic a question as the question of improvements. It has come up not so constantly, but, nevertheless, it is one of considerable gravity and importance, which cannot be understated. In my judgment, if this Act passes with only the Amendment of the Government dealing with this point to which I am now referring, leaseholders will, to a large extent, be deprived of the benefit of the Act. I admit there is some inconvenience in discussing a certain Amendment which we know will not be accepted by the Committee; but, at all events, while it is inconvenient, it has this great advantage—that it enables us to apply the thin end of the wedge to the Government. The seeds we sow now, though very small, may, in the end, germinate into very large trees. In that view I advise the hon. Member for South Londonderry to withdraw his Amendment, provided he gets from the Government something in the nature of a promise that they will do something to enlarge the scope of their own Amendment. Only that you, Sir, have ruled that I am unable to discuss the Amendment of the Government, I should have said some very hard things with regard to it.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Sir HENRY HOLLAND) (Hampstead)

I may say on behalf of the Government that the seed has been sown, and that when the proper time comes, and the Government clause is brought forward, the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy) will himself admit that that proposal is preferable to the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Londonderry. The Government clause goes farther than the Amendment of the hon. Member. I would submit that the proper time to consider the case to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, and to consider the question whether new words should be inserted in the measure providing that unless a landlord has raised at the time a specific objection he should have no ground for subsequent objection, would be when the clause of the Government is introduced.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

The real point to consider here is this. The decision to which reference has been made has spread consternation throughout the whole of Ireland, and what I want to press upon the Government is the necessity not of having an Amendment, but of having an Amendment which will meet the case. The real point is that the Government Amendment, when it comes up to be discussed, shall be one that shall meet the case, and put an end to the difficulty.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

There is a difficulty met in part by the hon. Member for South Londonderry (Mr. Lea). No care has been taken to provide for the case of a sub-divided farm. It is a very common thing, when a father becomes incapacitated or a mother becomes incapacitated, that an arrangement is made for them to get a certain portion of the land. By the proposal you are making you would destroy the rights of certain tenants, and would be giving a premium to a son to kick out his father, or else giving a premium to a man who is not capable of managing his holding. There are some cases of sub-division which go by ordinary custom and consent.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member's observation cannot possibly be relevant to this matter.

MR. O'DOHERTY

Having called the attention of the Government to this most numerous and important class, I do not wish to trouble the Committee further on the point.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

I quite agree that the Amendment before the Committee does not meet the grievance the tenants of Ireland are suffering in connection with this sub-letting. It does not do so, for a reason pointed out by the hon. Gentleman opposite—because it is restricted to the case of leaseholders, and it does not do so in the second case, because it seeks to avoid giving in a plain phrase a definition of what Parliament means in the Act it passes. That being so, in order to enforce the appeal made to the Government, I would ask them to consider in a liberal spirit this whole question of sub-letting in the interval which must elapse before the question comes up to be discussed on their new clause. Let me, for the purpose of strengthening my argument on this matter, mention a case upon which I have myself been consulted within the last three months. It is a case directly relevant to the Amendment, because it is a case in which a leaseholder was concerned—and let mo say in the beginning that the leaseholders are far more interested in this matter of sub-letting than any other class of tenants, for the reason that where a man has a lease that does not contain a clause against sub-letting, he is free to sub-let as much as he likes, and the consequence is that during the last 50 years persons who have had a right of sub-letting have generally exercised it to a considerable extent, giving small portions of land to their labourers. Well, when a leaseholder comes before the Land Court on a question of sub-letting, no consent can ever be shown to the sub-letting, because no consent of the landlords was ever required. In the case of leaseholders before this new decision of "Flannery v. Nolan," it got rid of the doctrine of sub-letting by showing that the sub-letting had existed for a long time, and that the landlord had taken no step in the interval. The ground of the decision in the case of "Flannery v. Nolan" was that inasmuch as in the case of an annual tenant who had been sub-letting for some time, the landlord's consent would be assumed if he had permitted the sub-letting to continue in the case of a leaseholder you could never make an assumption of that kind, because all leaseholders were entitled to sub-let if they liked, and that, therefore, nothing could be assumed from the fact that the landlord had taken no steps to put an end to the sub-letting. I know a case on the Bandon estate where a tenant, on the expiration of his lease, applied to have his rent fixed, some of his neighbours having obtained a reduction of 30 per cent. It was to be assumed that as he had been situated just in the same way as his fellow-tenants he would be put on the same terms as they had been. The lease was 60 years old; but a portion of this man's holding happened to be sub-let at 6d. a-week. That sub-letting was within the knowledge of everyone, and had been made over 60 years before; but because this sub-letting was without the landlord's consent the Sub-Commission dismissed the case. It is quite impossible that anyone could have stated substantially what was the state of things 60 years before, so as to say whether or not the landlord was consulted. I state that as a literal fact, that because the unfortunate tenant was not in the occupation of the whole of the land, but got the land from his grandfather with this sub-letting upon it, he was deprived of the benefits of the Act of 1881.

THE CHAIRMAN

This argument would be quite pertinent in the discussion on the Government clauses, which will come on later; but it does not appear to me to be pertinent here.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I submit, Sir, that it is perfectly pertinent to this point. I gave the case of a leaseholder excluded from the Act of 1881 because his land was sub-let. A leaseholder in this condition would be equally excluded from the benefits of this clause; and, that being so, I would contend that a consideration of that kind is perfectly relevant to this clause. However, Sir, I do not desire to dwell upon the matter. What I have mentioned is a monstrous hardship which may occur under the present condition of the law, and it is a hardship which will not be dealt with by the Amendment the Government propose to move. I hope that in time we may be able to deal with this subject definitely, and that the Government will take the matter into their consideration. The real object to be aimed at is to confer a benefit on the unfortunate tenants who are exposed to this very grave and serious grievance.

SIR CHARLES LEWIS (Antrim, N.)

I apprehend that the only question that this Amendment raises is this—whether it is necessary, in order to preserve open for discussion every one of the four different clauses dealing with the matter of sub-letting, it is necessary to put in such words as "the substantive portion of his holding" in order not to foreclose the other questions? I take it that the hon. Member will not be without an opportunity and means of raising this question at a future stage. Four clauses have been given Notice of—one stands in the name of the Government, another in the name of the hon. Member for South Londonderry (Mr. Lea), another in my own name, and a fourth in the name of the hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. T. D. Sullivan). They will be found on pages 31,42, 50, and 52. It appears to me that the hon. Member for South Londonderry and myself have the same object in view. We have been discussing matters that would be pertinent to those clauses, when they come on; and hon. Members will believe me when I say that I do not think the clause, as it stands, will at all prejudice the due consideration of the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Londonderry, or my own Amendment, when they come on. Those clauses would interpret certain given facts as not prejudicing a person in bonâ fide occupation. So far as the Amendments of the hon. Member for South Londonderry and myself are concerned, it is not necessary to insert any particular word or words in this clause for the purpose of keeping open a certain question. Ours are Interpretation Clauses, which, if they were passed, would prevent sub-letting operating so as to interpret the case as a non-occupation.

MR. LEA

My desire was to make the Act as clear as possible. The hardship complained of is of a recent date; but it is one which may lead to great trouble in Ireland. My great desire was that we should make this matter clear, so far as it affects the leaseholder. In view of what has been said, however, I am perfectly willing to leave the matter to be dealt with at the end of the Bill.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. HARRIS (Galway, E.)

I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name; in page 1, line 18, after "conditions," insert— Save and except such conditions as may be contained therein in restraint of tillage. I trust the Government will see then-way to grant me their support in this Amendment. On many occasions in this House I have heard expressions of sympathy towards farmers on account of the fall which has taken place in the value of produce. I have also heard expressions of sympathy used towards labourers and other classes of the community. I trust that hon. Gentlemen who speak so sympathetically as regards these people will support this Amendment. The object of the Amendment is to exempt from the conditions applying to leasehold property so as to prevent existing conditions in restraint of tillage. Everyone acquainted with the statistics of agriculture in Ireland must know that 80 out of every 100 acres are under grazing. There are about 3,000,000 of acres in cultivation in that country. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of the Government to remove the barriers in the way of farming. In the Land Act of 1881 there were clauses providing for the reclamation of waste land, and other Acts have been passed for the erection of labourers' cottages. Now that waste land is to be reclaimed at the public expense, I do not see why the good land should be prevented from being utilized for the use of the farmers and the community generally. I shall not detain the Committee any longer, but conclude by expressing the hope that the Government and the Committee will see their way to support this Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 13, after the word "conditions," insert the words "save and except such conditions as may be contained therein in restraint of tillage."—(Mr. Harris.)

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

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

The Act of 1881 in regard to yearly tenancies did not affect the contract of letting, save as to the question of the amount of rent and that of sale. If the contract of tenancy contains terms and provisions as to tillage, grazing, or otherwise, all those terms and provisions remain in full force, and the only matters which the Court can revise in regard to any yearly tenancy at present are those of rent, and any conditions as regards sale. With regard to the entire category of present tenancies in Ireland, the Act of 1881 recognizes and does not vary the contract of tenancy, save so far as relates to the questions of rent and resale, all the other provisions remain intact. When, in the Act of 1881, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) destroyed the covenants for surrender which existed in all leases, and turned them into present tenancies, he necessarily and very properly provided that all the terms of the old lease should be received into the new tenancy. The question the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Galway (Mr. Harris) has brought forward has reference to the present tenancies which were substituted for leases; and he proposes that the present tenant should be at liberty to tear up his lease altogether and alter his farm, it may be, from a past we farm—which ho received as such, perhaps—into a tillage farm. It may be of vital importance to the landlord to have the land kept in the character in which he has let it; and there are covenants in leases regulating the manner in which a farm is to be used. It would be a serious matter if the Committee had to open up such a sea of litigation and controversy as is proposed, no doubt with the best intentions, by the hon. Member. I do not in the least question the hon. Gentleman's wish to afford employment to increased numbers in Ireland; but what he suggests would be a tremendous operation for this Committee to embark upon, because, no doubt, a certain number of farmers would think it desirable that rich pasture farms in Tipperary or Meath should be turned into tillage. This alteration might bring ruin upon the owners of the estates, and it certainly would alter contracts in a manner which has never been contemplated. I think that, upon further reflection, the hon. Member will see that it is impossible for the Government to accept this Amendment.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

I am exceedingly glad we have had, at the outset of this discussion, the law so clearly laid down as it has been by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson). His views of the law will be of the greatest possible use to us; but his views upon cultivation and tillage are by no means so valuable. He says that destruction may be brought to owners of land—that is to say, upon men who used to be the owners of land, but who are no longer—namely, the landlords, by giving permission to the tenants to till the land which has been prevented from being tilled by the covenants of the leases. But where is the farmer who would be fool enough, having, as he will have under this Act, a substantial interest in the land, to destroy his own interest; and you must recollect that he would directly ruin his own interest before he would his landlord's. What does this provision mean? It means the paving the way for the abolition of dual ownership, and the doing away with a set of covenants which have been proved to be of a most prejudicial and injurious character, not only to the farmers, but to the welfare of the country at large. We know that where a man is in possession of rich grazing land in Tipperary, Meath, or Kildare, he is not going to be lunatie enough to turn it into tillage except on such conditions as would pay him well. But there are in Ireland large tracts which have been maintained in grazing to the detriment of the whole country and to the injury of the land itself; and the question now is whether, when we are preparing the way by this Bill to make the occupier directly the owner subject to the quit rent of the landlord, we ought to make him bound by antiquated and played-out covenants which cannot be of the smallest use to the landlord. What is the whole supposition which underlies this Bill? The supposition is that for the future, in the case of leaseholders as well as present tenants, the landlord is not to reckon upon ever being in possession of the land, except when he chooses to buy the tenant's interest; all he has to look for is his rent; and, therefore, you must suppose that the tenant will use the land to his own advantage. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland seems to think ho will carry the Committee with him by the contemplation of the frightful precedent which may be set up by doing away with these covenants. As a matter of fact, I think his speech really amounted to an argument in favour of sweeping away these covenants. The covenants against the change to tillage and concerning the rotation of crops which are necessary to protect the English lands, and which may be necessary to prevent a tenant returning the land to his landlord in a bad condition, are utterly out of place in Ireland, where the tenant is the owner of the land in a more real sense than the landlord is. These covenants are utterly out of place in regard to Irish land; and, therefore, it is the business of this Committee, so far from seeking to maintain them, to accept this Amendment, and very properly to accept other Amendments in the same direction. I strongly advise my hon. Friend (Mr. Harris) to press this Amendment to a Division, in case the Government cannot see their way to accept it. I may say, in conclusion, that this Amendment raises a question which will be of a great deal more interest in Ireland than, perhaps, a great many people in this House imagine. The question of tillage versus pasture has been a burning question in Ireland ever since the days of the Irish Parliament; one of the greatest evils has been the spread of pasture at the expense of tillage; and this is not the time to maintain any antiquated covenants which may stand in the way of bringing and keeping land under tillage, which is so exceedingly necessary for the labouring classes of Ireland.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

Purely grazing farms are not within the Act at all; and, therefore, the observations of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland as to the rich grazing farms of Tipperary, Meath, and other counties are utterly beside the question. Now, there is a precedent for the course we ask the Committee to adopt. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will recollect that where, under the Renewable Leaseholds Conversion Act leases are converted into fee simples, the restrictions as to tillage and other injurious covenants wholly disappear. The case of the Government is that they are really giving to the leaseholders under this clause a perpetuity. If that be so, I ask them to follow the example of the Renewable Leaseholds Conversion Act, and abolish these restrictions altogether.

MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries, &c.)

I suppose the Government will desire, when there is no question of principle involved, to prevent any irritating restrictions remaining to interfere in the due relations between landlord and tenant. This Amendment only deals with conditions in leases in respect to tillage. The hon. Member for East Gal way (Mr. Harris) is more acquainted with the matter than I am; but I should have thought that when you are conferring a tenure, not a lease for a limited number of years—indeed, what is, in fact, a lease in perpetuity—you ought to have abolished altogether all restrictions and conditions in the lease, and to have substituted for that position the position of an ordinary tenant under the ordinary law contained in the Act of 1881. I am well aware that hon. Gentlemen who are familiar with affairs in Ireland see reasons against it. There are certain conditions attendant upon agricultural leases; these conditions may be applicable to the present methods of cultivation, to the present existing state of things; but when you are converting the tenure of a lessee into that of a perpetuity tenant, it is absurd to continue the terms of a lease intended to apply for a particular time only. The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) said that these conditions would be of no use to the landlord. The conditions in leases in England, especially in leases respecting tillage land, are very often made use of by the landlord for the purpose of extortion. I can quite understand that when you have a set of irritating anachronisms existing in the tenure, the landlord may make gross use of them for the purpose of putting the screw on the tenant. I do not think the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland desires that any such unfair use should be made of any of these conditions. I cannot conceive what other reason there can be for denying reform.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

I think the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. R. T. Reid) has misrepresented certain important points in connection with this matter. This question has been argued, not as a restriction to ordinary tillage, but simply and solely as to conversion of pasture. In other words, what has been contended is that, although the land may have been let as pasture land, the tenant shall have the power to turn what is held in pasture into tillage. Now, the first observation I have to make upon that proposal is that it puts the tenant under the lease which has been broken in quite a different position from that of the tenant from year to year under the Land Act of 1881. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: NO, no!] I beg the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon; I am quite correct. Under the Land Act of 1881 the conditions under which the tenancy was let from year to year subsist; and those conditions may, and very often are, similar and analogous to the conditions which limit the tenancy under lease. Therefore, if you introduce this provision into this clause you will be bound, in common fairness towards the tenants from year to year under the Act of 1881, to introduce a further provision at a subsequent stage of the Bill giving them the same liberty to break the terms of their tenancies as you have given to the tenants under lease to break the terms of their lease. That is not the only point. It has been argued as if we were creating a series of perpetual tenancies in Ireland, and as if the Land Act of 1881 had done that. In other words, as if under the Land Act of 1881 every present tenant was in the position of a perpetual leaseholder, subject to the revision of the terms of his lease and the amount of his rent every 15 years; but that is not the case. Under the Land Act of 1881, in regard to tenancies from year to year, and under this Bill, tenants holding under lease will have the power to give up their tenancies at six months' notice. They are not perpetual tenants. No doubt they have fixity of tenure in one sense, that the landlord cannot turn them out; but they have not perpetual tenure, because they can leave themselves if they choose, and throw the land on the landlord's hands. Hon. Gentlemen are sufficiently aware that it may pay the tenant enormously to turn a pasture farm into tillage for a few years, and then, when tillage ceases to pay, if the tenant is at liberty, on six months' notice, to throw the farm on the hands of the landlord, he may give up the land, and thus rob the landlord in a most effectual manner. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries really talked as if Irish tenants had invariably, in the past, cultivated their farms, so as not only to bring about the best results for the moment, but for all time. As a matter of fact, if the Irish agriculturist has been distinguished by one characteristic, it has been by the characteristic that he has often, for some short and immediate advantage, sacrificed the permanent utility and fertility of the soil. I conceive that a clause which would put in the power of any tenant for the immediate advantage to turn his farm into uses the landlord never intended is one which it is quite impossible for the Government to accept, and I believe also it would be impossible for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) to accept it, for it is entirely contrary to the whole provisions of the Act of 1881.

DR. COMMINS (Roscommon, S.)

I think I know quite as much as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland about farming in Ireland; but I have never known instances of tenants in Ireland exhausting their farms, and then throwing the laud on the landlord's hands. It would appear that the right hon. Gentleman is merely legislating in the air. If he will legislate upon actual facts, and not upon mere imaginary suggestions, the Bill may be made a proper and valuable one.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 130; Noes 175: Majority 45.—(Div. List, No. 318.) [10.10 P.M.]

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

The Amendment which I propose is one which I think the Government, on the slightest consideration, will accept. If the lease has gone its full course, and if the time contemplated by both parties for its surrender has arrived, there may be some ground then for allowing the landlord to exercise the right of resumption, which he gets by the 21st section of the Land Act of 1881. The Committee will understand that this right of resuming possession on the termination of a lease is a most annoying and vexatious proceeding. It is only on the pretence that the place is necessary for the use of the landlord or his family that the landlord is allowed to resume at all, and that plea has frequently been set up to the great annoyance of tenants. What I want to impress upon the Committee is, that if the tenant does not want the landlord to resume possession, he will not give up his holding but will remain under a rack-rent, and the landlord, by taking advantage of what he ought not to take advantage of, will continue hi8 tenant under a rack-rent. Seeing that there are powers preserved in every statutory term giving the right of resumption where the right of resumption is for the good of the estate, I strongly urge upon the Government to omit the perfectly useless and irritating limitation contained in the clause as drawn. To do so will in no way conflict with the general principle of the clause. Besides, it must be remembered that when the Land Act of 1881 was passed, it was never contemplated that the landlord would resume until the termination of the lease.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 13, to leave out the words "and subject to the same," and insert the words "except the landlords."—(Mr. O'Doherty.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'and subject to the same' stand part of the Clause."

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

The hon. Gentleman has said it was never contemplated by the Act of 1881 that the landlord should have power of resumption before the end of the lease. I entirely accept that view of the hon. Gentleman, but he must remember that the reason was that under the Act of 1881 it was never contemplated for a moment that leases should be broken. Had it been so contemplated, I cannot doubt the same power of resumption would have been given to the landlords at the time of the breaking of the lease as was reserved to him at the natural termination of the lease. The hon. Gentleman is not content with compelling the landlords to break the leases, but he is determined to deprive them of any advantage secured by the Act of 1881. The owners of leasehold property in Ireland are surely hit sufficiently hard by this clause without asking them to make any further sacrifices contemplated by the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. I think the hon. Gentleman would have had a good case had we preserved the clause in its original form, under which it would have been bilateral in its operation. Had the clause remained in its original shape, I confess I should have hesitated before advising the Committee not to accept the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. But when the lease cannot be broken, except on the direct demand of the tenant, it surely is hard to deprive the landlord of the right which was reserved to him by the Act of 1881. There are two limitations which exist in this power of resumption which, probably, hon. Members of the Committee, who are not familiar with the Act of 1881, may not have present to their minds. The first is, that the landlord should have no power of resumption unless the Court assents. If the right of resumption is so unreasonable, the Court may stop it; the second limitation is, that the landlord has to pay for his power of resumption. I think Gentlemen who are not acquainted with the details of the Act of 1881 may suppose, from the speech of the hon. Gentleman, that the landlord, at the end of the lease or at the time his lease is broken, has power to take without compensation the land which is under lease. As a matter of fact, the landlord has to pay full price for the privilege of resumption, and as it will never be to his pecuniary advantage to exercise his power of resumption, and he would only exercise it in the last resort and under strong necessity. I am of opinion we should be unduly injuring-a class who are hit sufficiently hard by the clause as it at present stands if we were to accept the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland forgot to tell the Committee that the words complained of were inserted in the House of Lords. These words are of the landlords insertion, and did not belong to the Bill as originally drafted, and presented to the House of Lords. I wish the Committee to understand that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, as usual, has entirely missed the point. I do not say he has missed it because his mind's-eye is not open, but simply because he does not understand the matter—because, and and I say it with great respect, he does not understand the ways of the Irish landlords. Where the power of resumption will be exercised will be that, when the Irish leaseholder says—"I will go into Court, and get a fair rent fixed against you," the landlord will retort by saying—"Yes, and if you do, I will apply for leave to resume the holding." The insertion of these words is simply the work of experts in the House of Lords, in what Lord Clarendon called felonious landlordism. While the House of Lords put in the power of breaking a lease with one hand, they with the other hand put a blunderbuss to the leaseholder's head, and threaten that if he dare to apply to have his lease broken, the power of resumption will be used. Let me tell the Committee what has recently been done by Mrs. Cane Otway, successor in title to one of the best landlords Ireland ever saw, Admiral Otway, a British sailor, who never had the slightest misunderstanding with any of his tenants. The farms form a kind of network round this lady's domain, and she has asked each tenant to give her a field out of his holding. I suppose that if they do not comply with her request she will apply for a resumption of their holdings. Observe the dilemma this puts the tenants in. If the tenants, in order to accommodate this estimable lady, surrender a field to her a new holding will be created, and that will be no longer under the Act of 1881. If they do comply with the request they will be future tenants, and if they do not give up the fields the landlady will apply for leave to resume the old holdings for the purpose of a homo farm, or for the benefit of the estate, or for residences for the family, and so on. And let the Irish leaseholders remember that they will be dealt with by Commissioners appointed by the right lion, and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Colonel King-Harman), a gentleman who, in his evidence before a Committee, stated that formerly he was on good relations with his tenants; but now there was no landlord in Ireland who was on worse relations with his tenants. I read his evidence the other day; I steeped myself in it. This hon. and gallant Gentleman, who is on the worst relations with his tenants, will be the chief adviser of the Irish Government. This will be the person who will have the appointment of the Sub-Commissioners.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECEETARY FOR IRELAND (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (Kent, Isle of Thanet)

I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to give me the reference to my evidence.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I will. If you will allow me five minutes' time, Mr. Chairman, I will bring the book in. Perhaps I may now give way to an hon. Friend, who will continue the argument, and I will bring the book in.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

While my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) is conducting his researches, I beg to say that this Amendment is one of the most vital importance to the Irish leaseholders. I am astonished that the Government, while professing to be anxious to settle the Irish Land Question, should take up the extraordinary attitude they have assumed. They have not brought forward a single argument against this Amendment. Now, what I understand is, that if a holding is required for the purpose of a home farm, or to be connected with the landlord's residence, or for the purpose of a residence for some member of the landlord's family, the Court may authorize resumption. The Irish landlords are a prolific race. They generally have half-a-dozen sons, and it is notoriously absurd that any one of these gentlemen may be accommodated with a residence on a farm at the expense of the tenant, simply for the purpose of punishing a tenant who may choose to avail himself of the Act. It has not been the custom of Irish landlords to have home farms, and I assert that this provision will go a considerable way to defeat the usefulness of the clause. I desire to direct the attention of the leaseholders of Ireland to the proceedings of the Government in this matter, and to the method of taking away by this pitiable and contemptible reservation the tenancies they intended to give by this clause. This reservation will make the Act ineffective. If the same policy is pursued throughout the whole of the clauses of the Bill, the Act is bound to be a failure. If the leaseholders' interests are left unguarded in this way, there is no leaseholder who would not go into Court with fear and trembling, and I therefore trust the Government will reconsider their position.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

The hon. Gentleman must remember that this application must be made by the landlord, within three months after the original lease drops, and that a resumption must take place within six months altogether. In all my knowledge of the Land Act, which is very considerable, I have never known the Act used as a means of oppressing the tenant in the way suggested by the advocates of this Amendment. Anyone who is acquainted with the present position of the Irish landlords must know that such a suggestion is of a very imaginative kind. The idea of Irish landlords buying up their tenants wholesale with ready money is absurd. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) has suggested that if this clause is allowed to stand unaltered, the landlord may go to the tenant, and say—"If you exercise your right of breaking the lease I will resume the property." I have some acquaintance with the Irish Land Commission, and I am persuaded that if such a course of dealing came to the knowledge of the Court the landlord would retire double-quick, and be required to pay full costs. If the Court once got an idea that this proceeding of the landlord was mala fide, the Court would at once put the landlord out of court.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

Where does the right hon. and learned Gentleman find ready money payments?

MR. GIBSON

The only way you can sell is by cash. Now, the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy), before he left the House, referred to the estate of Mrs. Otway. He thought the tenants of that estate were being very hardly treated. I do not assent to the view of the law which the hon. and learned Gentleman laid down. I entirely dispute and deny his proposition. In the presence of many eminent lawyers, I declare that if a tenant surrenders a field, he is not thereby converted into a future tenant.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Certainly.

MR. GIBSON

The suggestion that this power will be used for the purpose of oppressing the tenants, will be used mala fide, is completely got rid of by the intervention of the Court.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I have been challenged by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Colonel King-Harman) with reference to my statement as to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's relations with his tenants. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will refer to Question 7,521, he will see—

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

What is the date?

MR. T. M. HEALY

I am quoting from the evidence of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman given before the Committee of the House of Lords in 1882.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

The House of Lords?

MR. T. M. HEALY

Yes. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will refer to Question 7,521, he will see he was asked whether before the agitation he was not on good terms with his tenants, and that he answered— He did not think there was any landlord on better terms with his tenants. Then, in Question 7,522, he was asked— ''May I ask you on what sort of terms you are with your tenants at the present time? And his answer was— I do not think there is a man on worse terms with, them. But I pass from this incident.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

Perhaps I may be allowed to make an explanation. I acknowledge that in 1882 I had a portmanteau full of threatening letters. I am happy to say that previous to that time, and also since then, I have been on good terms with my tenants.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I am glad to find that, notwithstanding the intimidatory character of the National League, the proceedings of the League have not had any effect on the two extensive estates of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

None whatever.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Allow me to say, Mr. Courtney, that the words we propose to leave out were inserted by the Government in the House of Lords. The insertion of these words can only have one effect. If these tenants desire a revision of rent, the landlord will threaten to resume possession for the purpose of turning the holding into a home farm. Why did he not turn the holding into a home farm when he was letting it for 99 years, or 999 years? Why did he not think of a residence for his sisters and his cousins and his aunts when he was letting the holding for a considerable time? There is no answer to our argument. Your contention is that the Irish landlord should stand on the same footing as the ordinary tenant, and you say the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) was not ready to put them on an equality in 1881. Once you make an Irish, leaseholder a present tenant he will be subjected to all these disabilities. There will be an arrière pensée on the landlord's part, and anything else used for the purpose of screwing rent out of the tenant. The tenant is subject to the right of resumption on the part of the landlord after the first 15 years, and I ask the House to put the leaseholder on a parity with him.

MR. CHANNING (Northampton, E.)

As the next Amendment in my name is practically identical with this, I ask the Government to accept the principle of the proposal now made. The right lion, and learned Attorney General for Ireland has told us that the landlords will not exercise their right of resumption; but then I should lib e to know why the Government have shown such great anxiety to retain this Amendment which was introduced in the House of Lords. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland made a very good start this evening in announcing that the Government were prepared to deal with the leaseholder in the unilateral, instead of the bilateral principle. I would ask him to carry out the principle in this clause. By refusing this Amendment, the Government are simply insisting upon the back-door system again. It may be possible for the landlords to buy out their tenants, whatever their property may be worth. Under the present process the tenants may be reluctant for this right of resumption to be put in force, yet the object of the insistance upon this right is perfectly clear—namely, that the landlords may hold a threat over the leaseholders to prevent their getting the benefit of this Act. If the Government are sincere in their desire to give the benefit of the Act to the most deserving tenants in Ireland, I ask them to accept this Amendment.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

I wish to ask the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland whether he agrees with the law laid down by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Longford as to the right of resumption in the case of an ordinary tenant? If the ordinary tenant is safe for 15 years, then the whole object we have is to put the leaseholder in the same position as the ordinary tenant. I do not quite agree with, the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, that the landlords of Ireland will be able to show the Court that they wish to have these lands for bonâ fide purposes, and I am not quite sure that they will be able to get money on the large scale which will be necessary to pay the tenants to go out; but my object is to put the leaseholder in the same position as the ordinary tenant. If the hon. and learned Member for North Longford is right in his contention as to the 5th. section of the Act of 1881, that there is no right of resumption at the creation of a tenancy, but that it would begin at the close of the tenancy, then I shall feel bound to support the hon. Gentleman.

MR. GIBSON

The right of resumption given to the landlord on the expiration of the lease is the right of resumption found in another part of the Act. One reason for it is that the landlord may be provided with a residence for himself; another reason is that a home farm may be established; and a third reason is that he may be able to provide a residence for members of his family—a residence for which he makes a specific proposition before the Court. That resumption must be within three months after the lease drops.

MR. T. M. HEALY

That is according to the rules of the Court, and not according to the Act.

MR. GIBSON

It is equally binding. The position of the ordinary tenancy is that the tenant is not subject to having his holding taken away from him for any single one of the objects mentioned in Section 21. I want to make this quite clear. He cannot have his holding taken away from him to provide a residence for the landlord, he cannot have it taken away from him to provide a home farm, and he cannot have it taken away from him to provide a residence for any member of the landlord's family; but the Court may direct that the holding, or part of the holding, may be sold for full value for certain purposes connected with the good of the estate. [Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway may rest assured that I am not going to forget what the law is.

MR. T. M. HEALY

We are speaking amongst ourselves, and not to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

MR. GIBSON

I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman will have to complain of my statement of the law. In the section that deals with the matter of resumption as regards present tenancies, these provisions are to be found. The landlord, during the continuance of any statutory term, may apply to the Court, and the Court may, if it is satisfied that the landlord is desirous of resuming the holding, or part of it, for some useful purpose relating to the good of the estate or holding, including the use of the ground as building ground, or for the benefit of labourers in the way of cottage gardens or allotments, or for the purpose of building churches, schools, dispensaries, schoolmasters' residences, and so on, may authorize the resumption of the land for such purpose, on full compensation being paid. In Section 8 there is a provision that the landlord may resume, for some purposes mentioned in the previous section, but not for all of them, for the good of the estate. This power is not to be exercised—the power of resumption for the good of the estate or of the holding—for the first statutory term in certain cases. The law, therefore, is that, as regards some purposes for which resumption is authorized under Section 5, it is not to be exercised during the first statutory term, but after the expiration of the judicial lease.

MR. CHANCE

Where an ordinary tenant from year to year has had a judicial rent fixed, then for the first 16 years of the judicial term, for no purpose whatever under the sun, be it for the good of the holding, or for the formation of a home farm, or for anything else, can the landlord touch one inch of the man's land. That is a plain statement. In the case of leaseholders under this Act, the very day after the judicial rent has been fixed, if he likes, the landlord can resume possession of the holding, or part of the holding, for at least three purposes.

MR. GIBSON

The difficulty now pointed out by the hon. Member for South Kilkenny does not apply at all, because Section 8 only applies to the action of the landlord during the judicial term. The judicial term in respect of present tenants created under the 1st section may not be, and probably will not be, created until many months hence—probably not until six or eight months hence—because there are already many cases to be provided for. This provision as to the judicial term could not come into operation, because during that period of six months the tenants would not be judicial tenants, but present tenants. During that period of six months, of course, they will be entirely unprotected as regards this protection in every view of the case. The application for resumption must be made within three months, and I do not see how any extension of the principle referred to can get rid of that difficulty.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Read the rule relating to the three months.

MR. GIBSON

I will do so with pleasure.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

When this discussion started, I was rather prejudiced against the view of the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway. My desire is to place leaseholders in the position of ordinary tenants, so as to make certain that they cannot be interfered with during the statutory period. Under the circumstances, I shall be bound to support the hon. Member for North Donegal.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

I should like to ask whether a leaseholder, having broken his lease under the 1st clause of this Bill, and having become a present tenant, would not be subject to all the provisions of both the 5th and 8th sections? If that is so, the leaseholder would be subject to all the rights of resumption. But if the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Donegal is rejected, the leaseholder would be subjected to these further differences—he might, in addition to the rights of resumption provided for by Sections 5 and 8, also be subjected to the conditions of resumption of the 21st section. The whole reason and ground and foundation of this section is that the leaseholder is unable to pay the existing rent of his holding under his lease. You are going to give him the benefit of this new Act in order to relieve him of an extravagant rent, and to put him on the same level as other Irish tenants. Why should you put on him the other burden of having his tenancy terminated at the will of the lessor, for the purpose of finding a residence for his family or some other object of that kind?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I think I might suggest an arrangement which would meet the equity of the case. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Longford has pointed out to the Committee that during the first 15 years, the statutory term, the land should not be resumed for any purpose. In the speech I made on the Amendment, I pointed out, on my side, that it would be exceedingly hard to deprive the landlord of the privilege reserved by the Act now in existence. I think we might make some arrangement of this kind, that if a lease terminated within the statutory term of 15 years—if it naturally so terminated—the landlord should have the right of resumption, but that if the natural termination of the lease was beyond the 15 years, but if the lease be now broken he should have no power of resumption until the 15 years term comes to an end. Until the expiration of the first 15 years there should be no power of resumption of any kind.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I recognize the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman is inclined to approach the subject, but might I venture to point out to him that there is no principle in the suggestion he has made. I believe we are at one upon the main point, and I think, while we are about this, we should act liberally and with a free grace. What you are going to provide is this—that if your lease is timed to expire 15 years from now, that is to say, in 1902, then in that year the landlord is to have the right of resumption. But fancy the grievance which a man living next door to the tenant whose lease was to expire in 1902 might have. You might have a man on the other side of the fence who, because his lease expires in 1903, would not have the privileges extended to the other leaseholder.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Those of us who are acquainted with the Act of 1881 will have seen that there are two distinct classes of ground upon which resumption is possible—one class of ground is contemplated when a lease falls, and one in the case of tenancy continues from year to year. I would propose that there should be no power of resumption of any kind during the first 15 years—namely, the statutory term—but that after that term the landlord of a tenancy under a lease should have power of resumption not only for purposes mentioned in the 21st section of the Act, but also for the purposes contemplated by that portion of the Act which deals with a resumption at the end of the lease.

MR. T. M. HEALY

The right hon. Gentleman proposes to provide that, after the statutory term is fixed, and for 15 years afterwards, this power of resumption shall not arise, and shall only arise after the first statutory term?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Yes, that is so.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Subject, of course, to all other restrictions of the Court and so on.

MR. DILLON

Do we understand that this power of resumption will not come into operation at all until 15 years after the passing of the Act?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Yes.

MR. DILLON

The leaseholders are to stand in the same position as the ordinary tenant until the expiration of 15 years after they have applied to the Court?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Yes; until 15 years after the passing of the Act there will be no power of resumption. That power will only be exercisable 15 years after the passing of the Act.

MR. O'DOHERTY

Or from the date of the application?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Yes; from the date of the application. The landlord will have power to resume for all the purposes contemplated by that portion of the Act of 1881 dealing with tenancies from year to year, and all those portions dealing with the resumption at the end of the tenancy.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

It is scarcely worth while going over the points that divide us now; but I trust that the Government, in the interval that will elapse, will consider that after the leaseholder has obtained his statutory term, the power of resumption in respect of that leaseholder—namely, the statutory tenant—may not meet the power given to the leaseholders.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON (Lancashire, Rossendale)

I do not rise to put any obstacle in the way of any agreement that has been arrived at; but I think the Government, when considering the Amendment put down, will think it may be desirable to consider a case with which I do not think the hon. Members below the Gangway will have any particular sympathy, but in which some injustice might be done. The class of cases to which I refer are not a numerous class; but still there are cases where demesne lands have been held under certain circumstances for a definite short period—for instance, during a minority. I refer to cases where a demesne has been let on the understanding that it will be resumed on the expiration of the lease. In this case the tenant may have a perfect right to come into Court, and have his rent revised.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Such a tenant would not come under this provision at all.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I do not profess to be well acquainted with the law on this subject; but it appeared to me that, under the proposal made, a tenant who has taken a lease on a different understanding from that contemplated by hon. Members, would have the benefit of the clause under discussion.

MR. T. M. HEALY

They will not come under the Act at all.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

It appears to me that, under the proposal made, the tenant who has taken a lease on a definite understanding that he will have to resign at the expiration of the fixed period, may find himself in the position of a judicial tenant with an addition of 10 years to the lease which he originally undertook. If hon. Gentlemen are right in their statement that such a tenant will not come under the Act, it will be unnecessary to take this case into consideration; but if that is not the case, it appears to me that the case of such a tenant must be taken into account.

MR. T. M. HEALY

If the noble Marquess wishes us to support the view that such, tenants as he speaks of should have the benefit of the Act, I, for one, shall be very happy to support him.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

The next Amendment is consequential. I move to leave out certain words because the clause will not read with another Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Cork. The clause will read very well without these words in line 14, from "resumption" to "Act" in line 15. I beg to move that these words be struck out.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 14, to leave out the words from "resumption" to "Act," in line 15.—(Mr. O'Doherty.)

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

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

The next Amendment also is consequen- tial—namely, in line 14, to leave out the words "passing of this Act."

Amendment proposed, in page 1, lines 14 and 15, leave out "passing of this Act."—(Mr. T. M. Healy.)

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

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

I beg to move the next Amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN

That point has already been decided.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

With all respect to you, Sir, I wish to call your attention to the fact that there are several points sought to be included in this Amendment which were not referred to in the previous Amendment. The Amendment of my hon. Friend dealt with restrictions as to tillage; but I would point out that in these leases there are also restrictions as to the selling of hay and straw, and the rotation of the crops, and rights of turbary, and other conditions altogether different to the restraints in respect of tillage. With all respect to you, Sir, I would submit that I ought not to be excluded from the right of proposing the residuum of these restrictions simply because the Committee has decided against the Amendment of my hon. Friend with, regard to the question of tillage.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must reconstruct his Amendment then. As it stands it will not be admissible.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I should be glad, Sir, if you would point out to me how it ought to be amended in order to make it admissible?

[No reply.]

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I am very sorry, Sir, but I shall be obliged to raise the question again on Report.

A statement was here made to Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR by an hon. Member sitting near him.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I believe, Sir, we can put it this way, as an hon. Friend of mine suggests—by inserting after my Amendment these words—"Save and except a condition in restraint of tillage." I believe, Sir, the addition of those words would meet your objection. I wish to point out to the Government—and I have hopes that they will accept my Amendment—that a leaseholder becomes practically, to all intents and purposes, the owner of his holding on perpetuity after this clause has passed into law. Well, under these circumstances, I wish to ask the Government if anything can be more unreasonable than to impose upon a man, practically the proprietor of the soil, those conditions which were considered necessary when his occupation of the soil was dependent entirely upon the will of his landlord and upon the conditions of his lease? I do not think the Committee has a full conception of the odious and embarrassing and unnecessary conditions which are imposed in these leases. For instance, I would mention at this point one case in favour of the admissibility of my Amendment. There is a condition in several leases that a lease holder should not be allowed to sell his hay or straw. [Interruption.] Well, my hon. Friend below me tells me that one of the conditions in some of these leases is that a leaseholder should not be allowed to marry a Papist. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman opposite, whom I see smiling, would be desirous of retaining that condition. I do not suppose he would consider that the faith of his co-religionists would be so imperilled by their having Catholic wives that he would be in favour of the retention of such a condition. But I put it to the Government, whether there is any reason why a man, who is practically the owner of his farm, should continue to be hampered by these obsolete conditions? There are other conditions—for instance, there is a condition in some leases with regard to the rotation of crops. I certainly should say that the wisest course would be to leave to the man who has to make his living on the farm an absolute discretion as to the manner in which he should crop the soil. After all, the farmer is the best judge of how this should be done; and to ask the man, who, under this clause, is merely a rent-charger, to decide for the person who is the real occupier and owner of the soil, what crops should be put in, and how they should be put in, is not only an odious, but an embarrassing condition. Then there are the rights of turbary. Under the Land Act of 1881, the present tenant is allowed to take as large turbary as is required for his own use. I do not know whether or not I am correct in the statement of the law; but I understand that if this Amendment is not accepted, the leaseholder will be deprived of the rights of turbary which belong to every other class of tenant except the leaseholder. I put it strongly to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland whether he thinks the leaseholders should be hampered in the matter of turbary in a way in which other tenants are not? I think the fair principle that the Government should accept in the case of the leaseholder is, so far as is practicable, to put him in the same condition as the present tenant. If this Amendment is not accepted, the leaseholder will be put in a much inferior position to the tenant from year to year. I trust that is not the intention of the Government; and, therefore, I strongly, but respectfully, claim that my Amendment should be accepted.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 17, after the word "year," to insert the words "Freed from any of the conditions or covenants special to the lease and not ordinarily implied in a tenancy from year to year, save and except the condition in restraint of tillage."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)

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

THE CHIEF SECRATARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

The words, as they are put, are not those which appear on the Paper.

THE CHAIRMAN

That is so—certain words have been added.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I had to put in those words, because the Committee had already decided to retain for the landlords the conditions contained in restraint of tillage.

MR. TUITE (Westmeath, N.)

I desire to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool; and, in proof of his statement, I may say that I hold in my hand an agreement between an Irish landlord and his tenant, where the tenant has agreed not to grow a meadow on the land under a penalty of £20 for every acre tilled and meadowed. A large number of such cases exist in certain counties, and it would be a great benefit to many tenants if the Government would agree to accept this Amendment.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

As I understand the Amendment, it leaves out of account certain classes of restrictions and deals with another class. I take it we must take our stand on the broad principle laid down in the Act of 1881—namely, that the conditions of leases are to last. The hon. Gentleman opposite appears to think that the Act will put a tenant who has been a leaseholder, and has become a tenant from year to year, in a different position to those persons who are tenants from year to year without having been leaseholders. That is not so. The tenant from year to year remains subject to all the conditions upon which he held his holding before the Act was passed. It is true there may be cases in which the restrictions are useless; but there are also conditions which are vital in retaining the value of the holding. The hon. Gentleman, as I pointed out before, in respect to the previous Amendment, is entirely wrong in alleging that the tenant is a freeholder. If, by bad cultivation of land, the tenant is unable to pay his rent then the landlord necessarily has to resume the land, and, in common justice, we ought to leave him in such a position as to enable him to resume the land in no worse condition than it was when he let it.

MR. MAHONY (Meath, N.)

May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that a tenant is debarred by Statute from committing persistent waste. All tenants who come under a judicial rent have certain statutory conditions applied to them, by which they are bound; and unless the right hon. Gentleman accepts this Amendment he will do, so far as I can see, what he professes not to be anxious to do—he will put leaseholders under more unfavourable conditions than the ordinary statutory tenants. The right hon. Gentleman made a statement just now as to which I should like to have further elucidation by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. I should like to know whether it is a fact that all ordinary tenants from year to year who become judicial tenants are bound by the terms of their tenancy while they are yearly tenants, because, if that is the case, I do not know whether these statutory conditions are introduced into the Act of 1881?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

In extension of the statutory conditions.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

I wish it to be distinctly understood what is the law upon this point. Every contract of tenancy governing a yearly tenancy is in full force save so far as it is necessarily inconsistent with the special statutory terms which are laid down in this Act of Parliament.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman how, in his opinion, a covenant in a lease, not governed by a statutory term, can be enforced when a statutory term has been set up?

MR. GIBSON

It could be enforced in the ordinary way all contracts are enforced. No doubt, there is greater difficulty in enforcing a covenant in Ireland than elsewhere; but it would be enforced by bringing an action against the tenant, or bringing a suit in Chancery.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

If, in an existing lease, there is a covenant and condition, say, against breaking up more than a certain quantity of land, the landlord can enforce the covenant without bringing an action for ejectment. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman contend that the same state of things will exist if the lease has been broken, and if a statutory tenancy has been fixed? I think he will not contend that; and I will refer him to the 5th section of the Land Act of 1881, which expressly indicates that a tenant shall not be compelled to quit his holding for any reasons except a breach of the statutory conditions. It is perfectly plain, from that section, that if there is a lease which contains a condition against breaking up more than a certain quantity of land, and after the passing of this Act the lessee got his lease broken, and went into Court and got a fair rent fixed—I say it is perfectly plain that, having regard to Section 5 of the Land Act of 1881, all power of enforcing the condition by ejectment would cease.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c)

I think the Government are bound to make some concession in this matter. It is notorious that leases contain vexatious covenants, quite inconsistent with the requirements of modern agriculture. When you give a man practical fixity of tenure, it seems perfectly vexatious to maintain all the old re- strictions which are contained in leases. I do think that in this case the Government are bound to make some concession.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has just replied to a question with regard to the remedies a landlord will have against a lessee who obtained a statutory tenancy under the Bill now under consideration. He has told us that if such a tenant broke any conditions of the lease which are preserved by this Bill, the landlord would have two remedies. He would have a remedy by ejectment, or he could proceed by action against the tenant for damages. May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General what remedy the landlord would have against a statutory tenant under the Act of 1881 who had a statutory lease, and who broke any of the conditions which were incidental to his previous tenancy, that tenancy being a yearly tenancy?

MR. GIBSON

By action or by suit?

MR. PARNELL

I understand that the landlord has a different and an additional remedy in the case of a leaseholder for breach of condition incidental to the statutory term other than that which he possesses in the case of a statutory tenancy, and our contention is that the tenant who obtains a statutory tenancy under the Act of 1881, and the tenant who becomes a statutory tenant under this Bill, should be in the same position when they have obtained their statutory tenancy. I think that is a very simple proposition, and I think it is capable of an answer from the Government, Yes or No. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has pointed out that there is a vital difference between the right of the landlord as regards his remedy in the case of a leaseholder who becomes a statutory tenant, and in the case of an ordinary tenant who becomes a statutory tenant. We know that an action at law is not an effective right, but that proceeding in ejectment against a tenant is very effective. I should like the two classes of tenants to be put on an equal footing; and I wish to say in reference to this matter that this is the first time we have heard that the landlord is given the right of action against a tenant holding under a present tenancy, who has been a tenant from year to year, in case a breach of conditions other than those contained in the 5th section of the Act of 1881. It is entirely now to my legal Friends amongst whom I sit, and we are inclined to demur to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's opinions. Even if his opinion is correct there still remains a difference between the two classes of tenants. If we refrain from pressing him any further in respect of this, will the Government consider the desirability of bringing up a new clause making the condition of a leaseholder who becomes a statutory tenant under this Bill the same as that of a tenant from year to year who has obtained a statutory term or tenancy under the Act of 1881? This is a very simple proposition, and I think it is one which the Government ought to say Yes or No to.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I had the temerity a moment ago to differ from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, and in spite of his position I maintain my point. The Government propose to put in the Bill a proposition that the landlord may resume, at the end of 15 years, under certain conditions. It is not proposed that the Act shall be precise as to whether the restrictions in the lease are to continue or not, and therefore the landlord will go into Court and argue that Parliament intended these restrictions to be kept alive in full vigour, because at the end of 15 years a landlord has a right to resume. Let us suppose that the landlord is to have the right of proceeding by injunction against the tenant, say, for breaking up a portion of pasture. A tenant may desire to break up land for one reason or another, and if he does so the landlord will fire an injunction at him; he will bring the tenant into the Court of Chancery, will possibly heap up costs to the tune of £100, and will keep in full vigour all the obnoxious provisions of the lease. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) has been taunted that he would not grant the benefits of his Act to leaseholders. I say that you are not prepared to let leaseholders in the Act. Yon are not prepared to loyally and frankly and openly let leaseholders receive the benefits of the Act of 1881. Under the circumstances, you are not giving a free and frank and generous boon to the Irish leaseholders, as you would do if you put them on a par with present tenants. I trust that in this matter the Government will see their way to allow leaseholders to receive the same benefits ordinary tenants receive.

MR. SERJEANT MADDEN (Dublin University)

Mr. Courtney, I wish in a few words to say why I think it is just and fair a leaseholder should be admitted as a present yearly tenant, subject to the conditions of his lease. It seems to be assumed by the hon. Gentleman opposite that all yearly tenants under the Act of 1881 hold under a uniform tenancy. That is not so, and that I think is a fallacy underlying all the arguments addressed from the other side of the House. You may have a yearly tenant, you may have a tenant under a lease, you may have any contract you like; but the general law is that, on the expiry of a lease, if the tenant holds on, he holds on subject to the conditions in his lease, so far as they are not inconsistent with a yearly tenancy. I fail to see, when for certain reasons not connected with the conditions of the lease, but for reasons connected with the readjustment of rent, you come to the conclusion that it is just and fair to put a leaseholder into the position of a yearly tenant, why you should put him into a position of a yearly tenant who had been admitted without any special stipulations. It is asked what is the position of the landlord; what are his remedies? We all know that in Ireland it is a very usual thing to have conditions relating to a breach of covenants in a lease. A landlord is not without his remedy, and he should not be. He will have two remedies. He has the right to bring an action at law, or he will have a remedy by an injunction in the Court of Chancery. It appears to me that it does not follow from the mere fact that you consider it right there should be a readjustment of rent, that you must reduce all present tenancies to one dead level.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

We on this side of the House are perfectly well aware that tenants from year to year, who had no statutory rents fixed, were subject to certain conditions, and that those conditions varied very often; but what we were not aware of is this, that when a tenant went into Court and had a fair rent fixed, not only did he render himself subject to a very complete and drastic set of statutory conditions, but to all the old conditions of his previous tenancy; we were not aware that all these old conditions, be they reasonable or unreasonable, were placed upon his back. Now, Sir, we deny that that has ever been laid down as the law of the land by any competent Court. It is an alarming thing to find the Attorney General for Ireland takes that view of the law. I think the Committee ought to look about themselves, and while there is yet time ought to prevent that double burden being laid on the back of the unfortunate tenants of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has argued the whole of this question as if the conditions in the Act of 1881 were completely ineffective, and as if none of those conditions dealt with the question of the cultivation of the soil, as if tenants will be likely to break up the land, and as it were scourge the land. That is a complete fallacy. If Members of this Committee will look at the Act of 1881 they will see that a complete and drastic set of conditions are imposed by the 5th section of that Statute, they will see that a tenant shall not be allowed to commit waste of the holding or of the soil, and that if he does commit waste of the soil he can be ejected on the spot without pecuniary compensation; that he shall not sub-let, that he shall not become bankrupt, but that he shall allow the landlord to go in and exercise a number of rights such as opening up mines and quarries and taking timber, and such as hunting, shooting, and fishing. Our allegation is that by that 5th section, or in that 8th section, you have every reasonable power, if not drastic powers. In reality what the Committee is asked to do is to allow the Court of Appeal in Ireland to add to this drastic set of conditions another set of conditions which would be unreasonable and improper. Amendments ought to be introduced in order to prevent this second set of conditions being put upon the backs of the unfortunate tenants of Ireland.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

The hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite are very dogmatic as to the continuance of the conditions in a lease after a fair rent has been fixed, and after a statutory term has been given. Whatever their opinions may be their opinions have not up to the present time received any judicial sanction in Ireland. So far as the decision of the Irish Courts have gone up to the present on this point, they have tended in directly a contrary direction in supporting the views put forward by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I assert that the decisions of the Court as to the status of leaseholders whose leases have expired, and who have had fair rents fixed, have gone directly in the teeth of the doctrines laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. The decisions were made in the cases of yearly tenants; but, I think, when I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to them he will admit that they are directly analogous to the point before the Committee. One of the decisions was given by Mr. Justice Lawson, and another by Mr. Justice Andrews. They arose in this way. Two yearly tenants had gone into the Court to have fair rents fixed. Those tenants hold their land under somewhat peculiar conditions. They did not hold as ordinary yearly tenants held with regard to county cess, but under special agreements by which they were permitted to deduct half of the county cess from their payments to their landlords. After they had their fair rents fixed the question arose whether the special arrangements as regards the county cess which had existed before they went into Court continued to exist after they went into Court. If the proposition laid down by right hon. Gentlemen is correct—namely, that the fixing of a fair rent is to abolish any conditions of the tenancy which are inconsistent with the statutory term, these yearly tenants ought to have been affected in the case of the county cess. Mr. Justice Lawson, and subsequently Mr. Justice Andrews, decided that, owing to the fact that those tenants had gone into Court, and had a fair rent fixed they were not allowed to deduct half the county cess. Now, Sir, I challenge right hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that those decisions are not directly pertinent to the point before the Committee. How could any Court in Ireland, which has given a decision of this kind in the case of yearly tenants, come to a different decision in the case of leaseholders who went into Court. All the arguments which induced those learned Judges to come to the decision I have mentioned, apply equally in the case of leaseholders. That being so, I think we, on this side of the House, are still entitled, until we receive a more authoritative pronouncement of law to maintain our opinions on the point. Of course, in one sense, this argument is not relative to the point before the Committee; but I say, that if the law is as it has been laid down by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, cases of the greatest hardship will arise after this Bill passes into law. Anyone who read the celebrated lease-breaking case which came before the Irish Land Commission, must be aware that the habit of landlords, after the passing of the Act of 1881, was to compel their tenants to take leases, and to encumber the leases with a series of annoying and harassing conditions. In one case so remarkable was this, that the Irish Land Commission decided that the very existence of those vexatious and harassing conditions in the lease was sufficient reason for the breaking of the lease. If the leaseholders are to be subject to such unfair conditions as have existed in leases hitherto, they will still be, to a large extent, at the mercy of their landlords. These conditions are introduced in leases, not with any intention of enforcing them, but for the purpose of getting the tenants into the landlords' power; it is quite impossible a tenant could keep such conditions, and if the landlord is still to have power to insist upon them, leaseholders will receive very little benefit from this Act.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 158; Noes 231: Majority 73.—(Div. List, No, 319.) [11.50. P.M.]

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 18, to leave out from the word "provided" to the end of line 21.—(Mr. Parnell.)

Question, ''That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Words left out accordingly.

MR. MARUM (Kilkenny, N.)

proposed, in page 1, line 22, after "any" to insert "terms of years or any." This Amendment and one which will follow it relate to perpetuity leases, and will extend the operation of the clause. As this portion of the clause stands it only applies to leases for a life or lives. The effect of my Amendment will be to put all leases, whether for lives or for terms of years, on the same footing. We have had a discussion on perpetuity leases, and I think that as to them the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland is under a misconception. Every term of years, whether for 99 years or for 999 years, is not a perpetuity lease. In many incidents such a lease may differ from a perpetuity lease. The expression perpetuity tenure is indeed rather inaccurate. It does not occur in any Statute before 1860. Every Statute before that date uses the proper and legal designation for such terms. However, if we use the term perpetuity leases, there are different classes of these leases. There are first perpetuity leases for lives renewable for ever. These may be converted under the Leases Conversion Act into fee farm leases. Then there are other leases which are divisible into two classes. First, there are leases made anterior to the year 1860. There are non-evictable leases. They are subject to certain rent charges, and may come under the name of purchases. But, then, there are other leases created since the Landlord and Tenant Act 1860, and these are evictable leases. With regard to these, I do not understand the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen). The right hon. Gentleman says that he will not do anything to interfere with purchases. I agree with him so far. I will not do anything to interfere with purchases; but then I cannot understand how an interest which is an evictable interest—say for the non-payment of one year's rent—can be considered a purchase. It seems to me to be nothing of the kind. To all intents and purposes it is a mere letting of land on payment for hire; and that should be an interest brought within the operation of this clause. I say that because the object of this clause is to bring all rents to a proper and fair standard. It does not necessarily follow that because you bring a lease within the Act the rent will be reduced. If there be a low chief rent that rent may be increased. Therefore, it will be for the tenant to see whether he will go into Court and subject himself to 15 years rent as fixed by the Court instead of holding on by his inalienable title, as it does not follow from allowing a tenant to go into Court to get his rent adjusted, that this rent will be lowered. I would, therefore, move this Amendment, and the other of which I have given Notice if it be pleasing to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, indeed, seems inclined to extend the term of years within which a lease must expire to 99 years. That, however, if done at all, must be done at the close of this part of the clause. In the meantime, I would propose my Amendment dealing with perpetuity leases pure and simple. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated that he bases his objection to allow the exclusion of perpetuity leases in the Bill on the ground that they are a form of purchase. But on what principle does he regard as a form of purchase a lease for life or lives renewable for ever, or a fee farm rent created before 1860? These, which are the larger number of such leases, are evictable interests. I do not suppose that there are more than 30,000 leases, which being created since 1860, confer a non-evictable interest. These latter, may as I have already said, be regarded as a form of purchase. But with regard to the former and more numerous portion of these leases, I wish the right hon. Gentleman would point out what element there is in them that makes them fairly regarded as purchases? What is there in them other than a hiring of land—a mere locatio? Is there any element of venditio? I say there is not. I do not see how the rent of land that may be retained is more than a term of letting as distinguished from purchase. Take a farm worth £100, and suppose that there was only a chief rent of £10 upon it. If the landlord evicted the tenant for non-payment of rent the interest of the latter on the land would be forfeited. And am I to be told that a contract under which this can be done is not a hiring? I would therefore beg leave to move the inclusion in the Bill of perpetuity tenants holding for terms of years; but I will not insist on the first Amendment standing in my name, as I understand the Chief Secretary will enlarge the term of 60 years mentioned in this part of the clause to 99 years. Instead of moving that first Amendment, the terms of which I stated at the commencement of my remarks, I will now move a subsequent one—namely, in Clause 1, page 1, lines 22 and 23, after "lives," to leave out "other than a lease which," and to insert— Or for both concurrently or alternatively, or for any life or lives which has been or. Then there will be another Amendment consequential on this which I shall have to move later on in the clause.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

I would suggest that it will be undesirable to discuss the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend now, because if we do so we shall have to discuss substantially the same point again upon the Amendment of the Government extending the term of years, referred to in the paragraph of the clause under consideration, from 60 to 99 years.

THE CHAIRMAN

The point raised is one of convenience, and not of Order. If the hon. Member for North Kilkenny moves his Amendment it must be considered.

MR. MARUM

I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

I have now to move, in line 3, page 2, to insert the word "ninety-nine," and also in line 3, to add at the end of the paragraph, after 1881, the words— The term of 99 years shall be substituted for the term of 60 years in the said Act. I will read the sub-section as it will then stand. It will be as follows:— Every lease limited to continue for any life or lives other than a lease which can be converted into a fee farm grant under the Renewable Leasehold Conversion Act, shall, for the purposes of this section be deemed to be a lease which would expire within ninety-nine years after the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881, and the term of ninety-nine years shall be substituted for the term of 60 years in the said Act.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

If the right hon. Gentleman persists in moving his Amendment in that form, it will be necessary for me to move an Amendment before his. The Amendment I propose to insert is, in line 23, after the word "lives," the words— Or for a life or lives, and any term of years concurrent with, or for any term of years, or for any life or lives concurrent with or in reversion thereto. The clause will then run— Every lease limited to continue for any life or lives or for a life or lives and any term of years concurrent with or in reversion thereto, or for any term of years or for any life or lives concurrent with or in reversion thereto other than a lease which can be converted into a fee farm grant under the Renewable Leasehold Conversion Act, shall, for the purposes of this section," &c. That is a necessary Amendment, for this reason; this clause as it stands, of course, preserves the limit of 60 years, and inasmuch as if you preserve the limit of 60 years, you must make some provision for leases for lives, the clause provides that leases for lives shall be within the term of 60 years. But there are a number of other cases to be provided for. It is a common thing in Ireland to have a lease for lives with a term of years in reversion. That is a term which should come within the terms of this section, if a lease for lives is to come within it; but if you have not some express provision in reference to leases of the kind I have mentioned, it would be impossible to construe this section as including them. There are, in fact, four possible cases in which a term for life or lives is combined either concurrently or in reversion with a term of years, and not one of these cases is at present dealt with by this Bill. Some express provision with reference to them is clearly necessary, and I therefore beg leave to move the Amendment which I have read to the House.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

There is the case of leases for lives which might fall under section 21 of the Act of 1881. The provision as to terms for 60 years in that Act would not meet cases of leases for lives, and, therefore, we have inserted the present clause. I gather that the Amendment applies to different cases, and first to leases for terms of years concurrent with lives. I understand the meaning of the Amendment as to these is that the term of years would drop with the lives. Do I understand the hon. Member to mean that when there is a term of years concurrent with lives that the lease for years is to drop when the lives drop?

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I beg pardon. I do not mean that they are to drop together, but that they are to drop concurrently.

MR. GIBSON

Then the proposition is difficult to understand. They are to run on concurrently?

MR. MAURICE HEALY

The difficulty he has pointed out does not exist. Take a lease for the life of John Smith, or for a terra of 30 years, which even lasts the longer. The two run on concurrently, and the lease lasts, for whichever term is the longer.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Member has given no duration for the term. Therefore the term is to be unlimited—a perpetuity term. Having now ascertained the meaning of the word "concurrent," we see that what he proposes is this—he takes the first branch of the clause as to leases for lives, and says that if the lease is for an indefinite period, then that part of the clause is to apply. The effect of this Amendment might be to extend the application of the measure to cases where, after the lives dropped, there was a term to which there was no limit, and which might be for 1,000 years. That question of the duration of the term might be conveniently discussed on the Amendment of which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has given Notice; and I think the proposal he is about to make as to the duration of the term would fairly meet the object which the hon. Member has in view. I may say that we do not propose to deal with leases for lives renewable for ever, and there would be no difficulty in adjusting any matters connected with these. We have no desire to apply the limitation to leases at shorter periods than 99 years. We want to have it clear that all leases shall be limited to the maximum duration of 99 years. It is impossible—wholly impossible—to make the clause apply to cases of leases for lives and years that have no settled term of years for their duration. But I think the proper and most convenient course now will be to withdraw the Amendment, and proceed to consider the broader question.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman has met me very fairly, and I am quite satisfied with the pledge he has given. I can assure him, and I can assure the Committee, that this is not what might be called a ''catching" Amendment, nor was it intended to mislead the Committee, or to induce them to come to a change in their determination to provide a fixed term of years. The reason I did not insert the number of years is that leases of the character with which this Amendment deals, and which are few in number, have no fixed term. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will bear me out when I say that in practice there are no such leases with the alternative of a long term of years, for you could not have a term, of 99 years with lives after it; that would be an absurdity which no one, in drawing a lease, would insert. Perhaps I owe an apology for not putting my Amendment on the Paper, for it is a matter not readily apprehended; but the reason I did not put it on the Paper was because we understood, from what passed here and '' elsewhere," and from what was published in the newspapers, that the Government intended to put an end altogether to these limitations in leases, and that the only limit they would observe would be the exclusion of perpetuity leases. Of course, if we were right in our impression, no such Amendment as this of mine would be necessary.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I think the more convenient course will be for me to move the words I have read to the House in the inverse order. Thus, beginning with line 22, the words would run— The term of ninety-nine years shall be substituted for sixty years in the Land Act of 1881, and"— followed by the words in the clause as they stand.

Amendment proposed, In line 21, after the word "tenant," to insert—"The term of ninety-nine years shall be substituted for the term of sixty years in the Land Law (Ireland) Act of 1881, and."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour).

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

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

I respectfully submit there is no necessity to refer to the term mentioned in the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, because, by an Amendment moved to this clause by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), you have got rid of the limitation constructively imposed by a reference to the 58th section of that Act; you have got rid of the limitation of 60 years; therefore, any necessity for altering the period from 60 to 99 years ceases. At present, the way the matter stands is this—owing to the Amendment the Committee have adopted, the operation of the clause extends to present tenancies, or those that would be so deemed, but for the fact that such leases would not expire within 60 years after the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881. So you have got rid of the constructive limitation in the Act of 1881, limiting leases to those expiring within 60 years of the passing of that Act; therefore, all necessity for referring to that Act here drops. Would it not be simpler to withdraw all the words inserted under entirely different conditions, upon an entirely different principle, and to state the fact of the limitation. The limitation of 60 years in the case of leaseholders applying under the Act having disappeared, those words are unnecessary. The plain and commonsense way would be to state simply what the limitation is going to be, leaving out the words referring to the Act of 1881. State plainly what the limitation is going to be, so that he who runs may read.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)

I admit that I am responsible for the wording of this Amendment, and I overlooked the fact that the Amendment had been adopted in the 10th line. The view of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) will be carried out, I think, if we insert words providing that the section shall apply to leases expiring within 99 years, and then the clause will run on dealing with the provisions as to leases for lives. That, I take it, is the meaning of the hon. Member.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 22, before the word "every," to insert the words "this section shall apply only to leases expiring within ninety-nine years after the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act (1881),' and."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

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

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I did hope that some Member of the Party whose function it is to keep the Government in Office would rise and protest against this proposal. Now, it was stated at the meeting at the Carlton Club that the Government were going to abolish all restrictions on this clause, keeping only to the exclusion of perpetuity leases; and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen), in his speech the other night, laboured this point of perpetuity leases to an enormous extent. He said the Government could not deal with these, because it would be interfering with purchase. Then the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland took up the burden of the complaint at a subsequent period; he also went on the principle that the Government would not give up perpetuity leases. Now, I respectfully submit that by all this the Committee have been misled. In the debate on going into Committee, and subsequently at the Carlton Club meeting, which represented the coming together of the happy family, that happy family came together upon the understanding that all perpetuity leases were to be omitted from the Bill. But now it turns out that, but for my rising to make a protest, the Liberal Unionist Party were going to allow this proposal to pass sub silentio. Against this I do protest. We were told that this Bill was intended to give relief to the poor and loyal tenant farmers of Ulster. Now, I care not whether the relief is for Loyalists or Nationalists in Ulster, Leinster, or Connaught, sufficient for me it is that Irish tenants are to be relieved; but it was pressed upon the Government for the special relief of Ulster tenants. But we have had not a single word from the Government to show us how many tenants will be excluded if this proposal is allowed to pass, as has been usual on like occasions in the past. I remember that in the discussions upon the Land Act we had from Mr. Forster and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) statistics showing that if they did propose limitations, yet they did admit the great bulk of tenants, and only excluded a small portion with respect to whom there were special reasons for the limitation. But here we have a proposal not having at the bottom of it any shred of principle. Further than that, we do not know that from the relief the right hon. Gentleman said he proposed to extend to 130,000 leaseholders, 100,000 might not be excluded by this limitation. We do not know why this principle of 99 years is to be adhered to. We can understand why perpetuity leases should be excluded; we understand why this should be adhered to on the principle that perpetuity is practically purchase. But now we seem to be proceeding on what is known as the "horse-tail" argument—that is, that you may take away a hair from the tail and still leave a horse's tail, and you may take away another and another, and so on, removing hairs, and still leave the tail; the only question is, when do you come to the point where there is no horse's tail? You regard 999 years as practically perpetuity; so you exclude that lease, and so you go on fining down until you come to 99 years. But why the limit there? Why bring in the Rule of Three—these fractions and questions of arithmetic—are we not dealing with equity? If I am suffering under a rack-rent lease, I pore over my lease and exercise my arithmetical powers. I figure the thing out, and I have hope of relief. But I am wrong in my addition or subtraction, and my hope vanishes and I am to be for ever disappointed. On this mode of arithmetical progression redress of grievances has often been based. It used to be debated in connection with the franchise; and the question of the compound householder, the £10 householder, the £5 householder, and all the rest of it was discussed. But I say there is no principle or reason at the bottom of this Amendment. If 60 years is right, stick to it. If you raise it to 99 years, why? How many will it affect, and where is the principle, the right, the equity of it? And yet this is moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland without a word; moved, as he made the Motion for going into Committee, by the lifting of his hat. Metaphorically speaking, he has not even taken off his hat to the Committee on this occasion; he has sprung this proposal on the House without reason or Notice. I ask the Liberal Unionist Party, who have been steadily voting in the Lobby against us, is this an occasion on which they are bound to support the Government? If the Irish tenant, being a Loyalist, is to be relieved from his rack rent, why is it a question of 99 years, or of 999 years, or 9,000 years? I admit there is some principle in perpetuity leases; but why draw the line at 99 years? One thing I must deprecate in connection with this Amendment. It is that Members of the Liberal Unionist Party such as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) should go into the Lobby with those connected with landlordism to keep up restrictions upon Irish farmers, without one single word of explanation why they do so. I could quite understand their conduct when we were dealing with a criminal measure, for, of course, their view is all Irishmen are criminal, and therefore it is right to punish us; but I say this is an absurd provision, founded on no reason or justice, and based on a more arithmetical idea.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. Balfour) (Manchester, E.)

The speech we have just heard illustrates the inconvenience of discussing details of a measure upon imperfect information. The hon. and learned Gentleman appears to be misled, first, by an unauthorized report upon which he was not justified in placing reliance, and which was incorrect, and then he has not rightly understood the explanation given on Thursday. Then he went on to say that there was some principle in adhering to 60 years, and in the exclusion of perpetuity leases; but he asked what was the principle in 99 years. Well, that is a poor return for making what we deem to be a concession, and which we avowedly made "against the grain." I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman could have been in the House when we made the concession, and when I gave my reasons for wishing to adhere to the term of 60 years. We gave way on the point with considerable reluctance, and now the result is we are told we have abandoned all principle and have no standing ground for our Amendment at all. The hon. and learned Member said he saw some principle in excluding perpetuity leases; but he saw no difference in principle between 99 years and 9,000 years. But is this a common-sense ground to take up? The hon. and learned Gentleman has applied to our proposal what he calls the "horse-tail" argument, and which is, no doubt, familiar to hon. Gentlemen. If you draw the line at one number of years, why not just above or below that number? But this is an argument always held in contempt by practical legislators. You must draw a line somewhere, and there will always be on either side of that line cases that differ from cases on the other side of the line chosen by very small and almost imperceptible distinctions. But that is no reason for not drawing the line. For the line we have adopted a good practical argument is to be found. The hon. and learned Member is aware that it is a familiar practice to draw leases for 99 years, and in England such are not considered perpetual; the leaseholder is never considered a freeholder, but longer leases are regarded for practical purposes as perpetual. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to draw a distinction between leases practically indefinite and leases avowedly perpetual.

MR. T. M. HEALY

The distinction is that between personal and real property.

MR. A J. BALFOUR

The principle is admitted of excluding leases for lives renewable for ever and fee farm grants, and the holders of these long leases are regarded as owners in fee.

MR. MARUM (Kilkenny, N.)

Some of them are.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Is the distinction between owners and owners of leases renewable for ever more than a purely legal technical distinction? Are they not substantially and practically the same? Does not every man who is the holder of a 999 years' lease regard himself as to all intents and purposes the owner of the freehold for which he pays an annual rent-charge? If there be any principle, and I think there is—I admit there is in excluding farms held under a perpetuity lease or a fee farm grant—then I say you cannot include leases held for a very long term of years and leases for lives renewable for ever. On this ground I ask the Committee to accept the Amendment.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN (Birmingham, W.)

I rise somewhat unwillingly, for I am anxious to say and do nothing that will unnecessarily prolong discussion; but I speak in answer to the appeal of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy), who has taunted the Liberal Unionists, and myself in particular, with following the Government in previous Divisions as he says against the interests of the tenants. Well, I should like to ask the Committee to consider what has been the conduct of the Government and the action of the Commitee during the very practical discussion that has taken place to night on this clause. First we were called upon to consider an Amendment standing in the name of a Liberal Unionist—the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell)—a very important Amendment, which, however, we did not discuss in his name, because a similar Amendment from the hon. Member for Cork had priority. But in the course of that discussion we found the Government in a most conciliatory temper; they gave us all that was asked for by the hon. Member for Cork and the hon. Member for South Tyrone; and I confess that I do think, whatever opinion we may have, we are bound to recognize the spirit in which our objections have been met by the Government. On other points the Government have shown a similar inclination, and in the one or two matters on which they have resisted I confess my opinion has been that they only resisted Amendments which are in the nature of new proposals attempted to be foisted into the Bill and outside the original scope and intention of the measure. We are dealing now with a clause by which it is intended to give to leaseholders practically the same advantages that are secured to tenants from year to year in relation to the Land Act of 1881, the three F's. When you attempt to foist into that clause proposals to give to leaseholders advantages that it is clear are not enjoyed by tenants from year to year, and which may be well worthy of separate discussion, I say it is not fair to press such a proposal at the present time. On this ground I have followed the Government in resistance to these minor Amendments; they are not Amendments of very great importance, which do not raise any questions upon which I or any of my Friends, belonging to the Liberal Unionist Party, have in previous discussions expressed an opinion. But now we come to a matter of importance on which we have—some of us—expressed a pretty strong opinion. In the discussion upon the second reading of the Bill, I myself ventured, very respectfully, to submit to the Government the importance of not leaving behind any centre of disaffection, and the extreme desirability of dealing with all classes of leaseholders if they could make it possible to do so. To this suggestion objection was taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen), that it was most undesirable to interfere with such perpetuity leases as were in the nature of a sale. I admit there is great force in that objection, and I think the Go- vernment would be justified in excluding any lease having the nature of an absolute sale. I should very much prefer that the Government should carry out their intention and desire by excluding these perpetuity leases that are in the nature of a sale eo nomine, not attempting to deal with them by limitation in the particular way they have. But, even in this respect, I am bound to admit the spirit in which the Government have met the Amendment which has been pressed upon them. My argument was that it was unfair to exclude a large body of leaseholders, and that no distinction should be drawn between leases of 60 years and leases of a longer duration. Now, I am told that a large additional number of leaseholders will be admitted under the Amendment to extend the relief to 99 years leases, and I shall be glad if, in the course of the discussion, the Government can see their way to make a still greater extension; and, speaking for myself, I consider I am pledged to vote for the inclusion of all leaseholders other than those whose leases are in the nature of a fee or a proprietorship. But, at the same time, while I feel myself bound by what I have previously said as regards my own vote, I am also, at the same time, obliged to recognize the spirit in which our objections have been met, and to admit that, even if the concession of the Government does not proceed so far as I would desire them to proceed, they have practically met the grievances of the Irish leaseholders, and leave but an inconsiderable section of leaseholders outside the Bill.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Perhaps I may be allowed, by way of explanation, to remind the Committee that I had on the Paper a provision to break leases where it was shown to the Court that threats, undue influence, or inequitable means had been used to induce tenants to take these leases.

MR. T. M. HEALY

No use whatever.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

In answer to the interjection of the hon. Member, I would remind the Committee that I have framed this clause on much more liberal lines than that in the Act of 1881.

MR. PARNELL

From reading the reports of discussions in this House, and the declarations made outside this House, I have always understood that the only leases the Government pledged themselves not to include in this Bill were the perpetuity leases; and, therefore, I was very much surprised this evening when I heard the Government say it was their intention to take their stand on the 60 years' agreement contained in the Act of 1881. I admit, with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain), it is an advantage to have the extension from 60 to 99 years; but in view of what has taken place on this question out-of-doors, in view of what took place at the Carlton Club, and in view of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen), I submit we are entitled to press the Government to go a little further; and, while we do not ask them to fly in the face of the statements made by Lord Salisbury and by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to perpetuity leases, I think we can fairly call on them to extend their limit up to and short of these. If the Government would go so far as all leases except leases for ever, I think they would meet the wishes of their supporters, the Liberal Unionists on this side of the House, who are entitled to speak for them. What has just been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham and by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) clearly indicates that they think the Government ought to extend the limit to the perpetuity line. What I would suggest would be this—that the Government should agree to an amendment of their Amendment to insert these words—to omit all the words after the word "apply," and to insert instead "in the case of all leases except leases for ever." The paragraph would then run—"This section applies in the case of all leases except leases for ever." That would meet the declaration of Lord Salisbury, also the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That would remove an inequality, and would not trench on the principle of ownership, on which so much force has been laid by the Government supporters in this discussion. It is a fair Amendment. There is no reason why you should have stopped at 60 years or 99 years, and certainly there is no reason why you should stop short of a perpetuity lease, except the reason that has been laid stress upon by the Government, that, in their judgment, the extension of perpetuity leases would trench on the principle of sale. I have every confidence that in moving this Amendment I have moved one the Government can fairly accept without breaking their word—one which will satisfy all of us, and one which I believe and hope would be acceptable to their Liberal Unionist supporters on this sdie. I beg to move, Sir, to omit all the words after the word "apply," and to insert these words instead, "in the case of all leases except leases for ever."

Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment, To leave out all the words after the word "apply" to the end of the Amendment, and insert the words "to all leases except leases for ever."—(Mr. Parnell.)

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

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

I should be very glad if the Government saw their way to accept the proposed Amendment. At the same time I desire to acknowledge the manner in which we have been met by the Government to-night. Let us consider what has already been done in regard to this Bill by the Government. They have conceded the great principle of option; they have accepted 99 years for 60 years; they have promised to amend the clause dealing with the bonâ fide occupation of holdings, and there is an Amendment down upon the Paper to be considered by the Government with regard to perpetuity leases forced upon the holders. The reason that I see some virtue in 99 years is this. In all the correspondence that I have had with leaseholders during the last six months—and I have had some hundreds of letters—I find very few leases between 99 years and 900 years. I wish to put this very strongly, that that is the reason why the term of 99 years commends itself to me rather than the term in the Act of 1881. I do not conceal that my proposal has been all along that all leaseholders should be included. I do not attempt to deny that as regards perpetuity leases it is a very large order indeed, and that there is a great deal in what the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, that if you once tamper with them you run the risk of trenching upon the principle of sale. I quite see that; and, for my part, feeling that what we do to-night does not close this Land Question, as this is only a temporary measure in view of further legislation, I am content to waive the perpetuity leasehold, and also, looking at what the Government have done and propose to do in the future, I stick to the 99 years, which will practically cover the whole thing, and I shall vote with the Government if we go to a Division, though I should be glad if they could see their way to accept the Amendment.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

I confess it seems to me the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) is one which the Government might well accept. I doubt if it would make any very large difference. I admit the concessions which the Government have made to us; but I think that the speech of the hon. Member for Cork is a concession from the other point of view, as he is willing to give up the perpetuity leases, which is a great concession. If there is any large omission it will be found not in the leaseholders of 99 and 999 years, but in the perpetuity leaseholders; and if we could get the consent of all sides to the exclusion of perpetuity leaseholders, and the Government would consent to include all who come between 99 years and perpetuity, it would be satisfactory. I appeal to the Attorney General if I am not right in saying that would not involve a great number of cases? I hope very much that the Government may see their way to accept this proposal. In any case, I shall be bound, in common consistency, to vote for it.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)

I should like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and also to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork, that there is a principle involved in the term 99 years. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, in his first speech a few moments ago, agreed that if we excluded those leases which might be treated as being on the basis of sale we should recognize a principle, and it is suggested by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork that on the basis of sale you should exclude perpetuity leases only. I wish to point out to the hon. Member that 99 years is a term that is taken by all recognized valuers as the term when the reversion becomes of no value; and I submit to those who have studied this matter that when a landlord and tenant have met together, and bargained for a term of 99 years or longer, they have regarded it as being a term in which the reversion is of no advantage to the landlord, and no loss to the tenant. Many leases of even 80 years in London are regarded as of the same value as a freehold. When you come to deal with this question as a market question, there is a term when the bargain is regarded as of fee simple value. Will the hon. Member consider how that ought to bear on this proposal? I draw no distinction as to the question of legal estate—I think that 500 years is just as valuable as 990 or for ever. What I want to point out is that if the parties have met together and bargained, for better for worse, and have arranged to pay for a term that is equivalent in the market to perpetuity, there does seem to be a principle that under the circumstances the bargain ought to be treated as, from a market point of view, one of perpetuity. The words, "other than leases for ever," would, as a distinction, be too sweeping. This is really not a matter in which the Committee should be occupied, and I ask that the question will be settled away from all declaration and recrimination. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) is wholly wrong if he imagines that Lord Salisbury made any such declaration or recrimination as that which has been attributed to him. I want to deal with this question as one of principle; and, having extended the 60 years to 99 years when the reversion vanishes to nothing, I think we have accepted the principle up to that which forms the basis of sale. If the lease is admitted not to have been procured by corrupt means, then it seems to me it is a bargain that falls within the equity of the matter.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

I am very much surprised, when we have succeeded in procuring the powerful assistance of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, that the hon. Member for South Tyrone should think it a fitting moment to rise and pronounce a eulogy upon the Government, and say that he should consider it his duty to go with the Government. I thought I saw an inclination on the part of the Government to give way; but when they are told by men like the hon. Member for South Tyrone that they will support them it is hard for us to get any concessions. It must be either one of two things, either there are tenants in Ireland to whom this would bring relief or there are not; if the number is so few as the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone would lead the Committee to suppose, what is the use of wasting the time of the Committee in discussing it? It has not been contended, and is not sought to be contended, that any important principle is at stake; and, therefore, why should you waste the time of the Committee? ["Hear, hear!"] Yes; but we take up a different stand, and say there are a considerable number to whom this would bring relief; and if you say there is no necessity for it, because there is only a small handful of tenants who would be affected by it, why do you not give way and accede to the Amendment? What is it that we ask? We ask that these men should have a fair rent fixed, and what argument was there in the remarks of the hon. and learned Attorney General against their having a fair rent fixed? He talked about men making a bargain in the nature of sale; but if you fall back on that old argument it cuts away the ground for relief of any kind. We say there has been no freedom of contract in Ireland, and that these men who accepted leases such as the landlord chose, whether for 30 years, 60 years, 900 years, 999 years, or 99 years, accepted them very often because they were like a drowning man ready to grasp at any straw, and because they saw their friends going out all round them through the perpetual rising of rent; they grasped at any offer which gave them any hope of a fixed rent, and very often consented to pay an excessive rent in order to get security of tenure at any cost. In Ireland we know from positive facts that these leases have been made to extend over 100 years, and to have been obtained by undue influence; and, under these circumstances, why do you object to the Amendment, against which you cannot bring forward a single valid argument?

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON (Lancashire, Rossendale)

I do not understand that we are now discussing the question of admission to this clause of what are called perpetuity leases; the question we are discussing is whether a class between the leaseholders of 99 years and the holders of perpetuity leases are to be admitted. I agree with the hon. Member for East Mayo that the test of the question is what is the number and character of these tenancies. And I have not heard in the course of the discussion that it has been suggested there are any leaseholders who hold the term between 99 years and 900 or 999 years. I must say, in my mind, I find it difficult to draw any distinction between a lease for perpetuity and that for 999 years; but if there are leaseholders between 99 and 990 years, I do not see that the Government should withhold the inclusion of any ordinary agricultural lease. It seems to me that the Government have, as has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Tyrone, not only fulfilled—but fulfilled very liberally—every pledge we have received from them; and, under those circumstances, it seems to me, as it cannot be contended there is any considerable class of leaseholders who hold under leases for upwards of 99 years, which practically amounts to perpetuity, that we shall be justified in supporting the Government in resisting the present Amendment.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

The noble Lord has stated there are very few leases in Ireland, not one, I think—

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

Of course I have no knowledge of the subject; but in the course of the discussion it has not been suggested.

MR. SEXTON

Well, we not only suggest it now, but we say it, that the number of them is substantial and large enough to require the attention of the House. My hon. Friend beside me, on his own estate, has leases from 99 to 999 years. The reason given by the hon. Member for South Tyrone for not dealing in a practical manner with these leases is a poor one. Ho says they are few in number; but it occurs to me that is all the more reason why the Committee should come to the relief of these people. I think the Committee would be more satisfied if they heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer an interpretation of his former speech on the question, and an explanation of the view he takes now. We have heard three Members of the Liberal Unionist Party. The hon. Member for South Tyrone and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham are both in favour of the Amendment; but on this occasion the right hon. Gentleman will vote according to his conscience, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone will vote against his conscience. The third Member of the Unionist Party who has spoken will vote on grounds which I conceive to be erroneous, because he has stated what is notoriously inaccurate. Here we have three Members, one of whom is in a complete state of demoralization—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham; another is in a very bad way because his conscience is in a bad condition; and a third, whose conclusions would be sound if his facts were accurate. I must confess that leaves the question in a very puzzling condition. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) is in his place, and as he was a Member of the Committee of Seven, it would be interesting for him to tell us what he thinks of the question. I would also like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer about his speech the other night. I claim—having listened to his speech very carefully, and having read it two or three times since—that the passage is perfectly clear, and that it was to include all leases in the operation of Section 1, except perpetuity leases, and to exclude them on the point of expediency, because any interference with them would have an embarrassing operation upon the purchase policy of the Government. I am not a lawyer; but, speaking generally, I may say that the owner is the possessor of something he may do as he likes with; but that the holders of leases who have to pay more than the value every year are not in any sense the owners. I cannot conceive how the leaving out of this question will embarrass the Government in regard to their purchase policy; but great embarrassment will arise from leaving out the Amendment, because the necessary preliminary step to purchase would be to fix a fair rent; and therefore if you leave out these men you will, in their case, erect an impassable barrier to the policy of purchase. I would, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as there comes a very divided light and conflicting guidance from the moral censors who guide the House on this occasion, to use his own independent judgment.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)

I see the hon. Member in his speech made use of the fallacy that the fixing of rent would have a bearing on the purchase scheme.

MR. SEXTON

It will in the minds of the tenants.

MR. GOSCHEN

The hon. Member says it will in the minds of the tenants. But a very different construction has been put upon the proposal in various quarters of the House, and I repeat again that the fixing of rents will have nothing whatever to do with the purchase afterwards, and the more hon. Members exclude from consideration the idea that this re-fixing of judicial rents will prejudice purchase in any way the better it will be. Now, with regard to the particular question before the Committee, it always seemed to my unsophisticated mind that a lease of 99 years and a perpetuity lease stood very much in the same position. I accept, at any rate, the argument of the Attorney General for England, that after 99 years you approach the point of what is practically a perpetuity lease. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland spoke at the beginning of this debate of the inconvenience of introducing points of detail into a discussion of the principle of a Bill, and I am beginning to appreciate that remark, for I intended my observations as to perpetuity leases to be general. I trust the Committee will think the Government have met the general feeling in several quarters of the House in extending the provisions of the clause to leases of 99 years; and, in answer to the hon. Member for East Mayo, I may remark that the Government had no thought of giving way on this point until the hon. Member for South Tyrone addressed the Committee; we did not think it our duty prior to that to go beyond the point we had announced.

MR. HALDANE (Haddington)

I wish to point out one circumstance by way of comment on the speeches of the Attorney General and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In an Act which was passed on the motion of an eminent Tory—Lord Cairns—in the same year as the Land Act of 1881, and which applied to Ireland—the Conveyancing and Law Property Act—a point was fixed at which leases for a long term should become equivalent to leases for ever; and it was provided by Section 56 of the Act that when the term was of the prescribed length it might be converted into a fee simple at the mere will of the tenant. The length of term prescribed for this purpose fixed was 200 years and not 99.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that a reversion is worth anything after 99 years?

MR. HALDANE

It is so in cases of London house property, perhaps; but we are now dealing with agricultural property in Ireland. The Attorney General's experience of farms in Ireland is, I venture to say, very limited, although nobody has had greater experience with regard to property in London.

MR. ANDERSON (Elgin and Nairn)

I beg to move that you report Progress, Sir.

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

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

I hope the hon. Gentleman will not press that Motion. We have discussed this Amendment at considerable length and with very good feeling, and I believe the Committee are quite prepared to come to a decision now. I believe no advantage would be gained, but that very great disadvantage would result to the Public Service if the proceedings of this Committee were adjourned at this stage.

MR. ANDERSON

I only suggested we should report Progress, because the Amendments now being discussed were not on the Paper, and I thought that, perhaps, between now and to-morrow the Government would decide to grant what we asked. I will, however, withdraw my Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I wish to ask the Government to make one concession, and that is to omit the words "the Land Law Ireland Act, 1881."

THE CHAIRMAN

It is not in Order to do that now.

MR. T. M. HEALY

At any rate, I will ask the Government to give this matter their very serious consideration.

Original Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 191; Noes 142: Majority 49.—(Div. List, No. 320.) [1.40 A.M.]

Question, That the words 'this section shall apply only to leases expiring within ninety-nine years after the passing of "The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881," and' be there inserted, —put, and agreed to.

DR. CLARK (Caithness)

It is now a quarter to 2, and in view of the fact that there is other Business to come before the House, I think we ought now to report Progress.

MR. PARNELL

I hope that meanwhile the Government will consider whether they will not agree to some concession with reference to leases not in existence before the passing of the Land Act of 1881.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

We will consider it; but I am afraid I can give no promise.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.