IRISH LAND LAW BILL [Lords].

HC Deb 26 July 1887 vol 318 cc53-167

[BILL 308.]

(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

COMMITTEE [Progress 25th July.]

[SECOND NIGHT.]

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.

Clause 1 (Leaseholders, 44 & 45 Vic. c. 49).

MR. LEA (Londonderry, S.)

I rise for the purpose of moving the omission, in page 2, of the Proviso at the end of the clause, which says— Provided also, that when under the provisions of this section an application is made to the Court to fix a judicial rent for a holding held under a lease, the Court shall disallow such application if the Court is satisfied that the landlord or his predecessors in title has or have made permanent improvements on the holding, the unexhausted value of which improvements is at the time of the making of such application not loss than four times the yearly rent of tin holding. The Proviso which I propose to omit is, I think, contrary to all the pledges which the Government have given. I cannot imagine why the Government propose to place leaseholders under greater stringency by this measure than was imposed by the Land Act of 1881. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) the other day said something about English managed estates in Ireland; but I cannot think the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer will for a moment defend this Proviso. Those who are acquainted with the state of Ireland are fully aware that the landlords over and over again have borrowed money from the Government at 3 and 3½per cent, and have charged the tenants 5 per cent on their outlay. I believe I am correct in saying that under the Land Act of 1880 the landlords were empowered, to a certain extent, to borrow money even at 1 per cent for the improvement of their land, and that the investment of money borrowed at so low a rate of interest has been followed by an increase of 5 per cent on the rent. Can it be maintained that a fact of that nature is to disqualify a tenant from coming in in order to get a fair rent fixed. It is altogether contrary to every principle of justice, opposed to the principles of the Land Act of 1881, and will, if carried out, disqualify a large number of tenants. I do not know whether the Government have any information which, they can give to the Committee upon this point. An estimate has been made by a solicitor in the North of Ireland that a sum of £5,000,000 has been advanced to the landlords in this way, and that if the clause passes in its present shape those advances will have the effect of disqualifying many thousands of leaseholders from getting any benefit under the Bill. It cannot be contended that when the tenant, with a rental perhaps of £100 a-year, has spent a large sum of money in improving the holding, it would not be a confiscation of the tenant's interest in the holding if he were prevented from coming into the Land Court to have a fair rent fixed simply because the landlord has borrowed and spent money from the Board of Works at a rate varying from 1 to 3½ per cent. Such a proposal is contrary to the spirit of the provisions of the Land Act of 1881. I cannot for a moment believe that the Government intend to do an act of such great injustice; and, therefore, I beg to move the omission of this Proviso.

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

Upon a point of Order, I wish to ask whether, if the Government refuse to accept the Amendment, the whole of this sub-section will be affirmed?

THE CHAIRMAN

I propose to put the Amendment down to the word "improvements," where the first Amendment is proposed to be inserted in line 9.

MR. T. M. HEALY

May I ask you to put it down to the word "lease?"

THE CHAIRMAN

In what line?

MR. T. M. HEALY

In line 6.

Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 4, to leave out from the word "provided" to the end of the Clause—(Mr. Lea.)

Question proposed, That the words 'Provided also that when under the provisions of this section an application is made to the Court to fix a judicial rent for a holding held under a lease,' stand part of the Clause.

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

The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Londonderry says that this sub-section is contrary to all the pledges the Government have given. I cannot quite accept that statement; but I am ready to admit that the Government have no desire to exclude any class of leaseholders who ought to be included within the benefits of the section; and, therefore, as this sub-section would no doubt have the effect of excluding some leaseholders, although not nearly so many as the hon. Gentleman thinks, we shall not attempt to carry out the object we had in framing the Proviso in the manner in which it stands in the Bill at present. In other words, we shall not make any attempt to protect the interests of the landlord who holds what is called an English-managed estate by excluding his leasehold tenants from the benefits of the clause. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that this provision is entirely contrary to the spirit of the Land Act of 1881. Well, I cannot quite accept that statement either. In the Land Act of 1881 there was an attempt made to exclude borrowing operations on what are called English-managed estates, on which the improvements, to a large extent, are carried out by the landlord. But owing to certain technical objections that clause did not succeed in excluding, even from the operation of the Act of 1881, those few estates in Ireland which are managed on the English system. But Parliament had recognized before, and may still be asked to recognize again, that where the landlord has done a good deal towards carrying out the permanent improvements on his estate such estate shall be treated in a different manner from an estate managed purely upon the Irish principle. The distinction between the two is that the Irish landlord is simply the owner of his land on which the tenant has done the greater part of the improvements, and for the use of which land the tenant pays him a certain annual sum. The English landlord does all that, and something besides. He is a man who has not only given his land for a certain length of time to be cultivated, but he is a man who actually lends capital upon it in the same way as if he were a money-lender, and the capital which he lends is utilized by the tenant in effective improvements. Therefore, there does seem to be a primâ facie case of justice for saying that inasmuch as the landlord is not only the owner of the land, but lends capital to enable the tenant to cultivate the land, he shall not be treated on the same principle as the landlord pure and simple. It is in order to carry out that object—an object the Legislature in 1881 considered to be -worthy of being carried out by the section known as the Heneage Clause, that we have put down this Proviso. I am now talking about the broad principle of the matter, and do not propose to enter into details. I feel that although that principle is a just and sound one, it is not a principle which we can carry out by this Proviso, because the Proviso would have the effect of excluding those tenants altogether from the benefits of the Act. I therefore fall back upon the suggestion of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) in the speech which he made on the second reading of the Bill, in which he proposed that that part of the landlord's interest in the holding which represents his outlay should be put on one side by the Land Court, and that he should be allowed a fixed rate of interest, apart from any variation of reasons, or fall of prices, just as if the money had been lent, and that the Land Commissioners should fix a fair rent merely for the holding.

MR. T. M. HEALY

That is already done.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

NO doubt, under the Act of 1881, the Sub-Commissioners could take into consideration not merely the rent of the holding, but the interest upon the money, which, properly speaking, has been laid out upon it. Therefore, if the Committee take that view, I shall be prepared, in lieu of this Proviso, to propose a form of words for carrying out the suggestion of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. The words would run in this way— Provided that when an application is made to the Court to fix a fair rent of a holding held by a lessee under this section, if the Court is satisfied that the landlord or his predecessor in title has made permanent improvements on the holding, the unexhausted value of which at the date of the application is ascertained to he not less than twice the yearly rent of the holding, the Court shall fix a fair rent for the holding, subject to the landlord's interest, at the rate of 4 per cent per annum in respect of the unexhausted improvements. In order that the point may be raised in the most convenient form, I would suggest that the hon. Gentleman should withdraw his Amendment, and I will then move these words in substitution.

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

I hope the Government will not take their stand on this matter now, and I will tell the Committee the reason why. The English-managed estates are so few that they are not worth considering in dealing with the question, and even where they exist the Court would be bound to take all the circumstances of the case into account. Even supposing that the landlord has done all this and made all the improvements with his own money, and not out of money borrowed from the Board of Works, what is the use of a Court if it is not to take such a fact into consideration, and fix the rent accordingly? I hold that the Court in bound to take everything into consideration, and I hope that the Government will omit this Proviso from the Bill, and allow us to get on with the remaining provisions.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

the Government are perfectly ready to accept the Amendment in the terms proposed by the hon. Gentleman; but in that case they will propose the words I have just read to the Committee. I think that is the most convenient course to take.

MR. T. M. HEALY

The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Londonderry, who moved the omission of the Proviso, referred to English-managed estates. In justice to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage), I may say that when he moved the English-managed estates clause to the first clause of the Act of 1881, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) intimated that his Government would throw up the Bill if that clause was inserted. The Bill went up to the House of Lords, and there the Peers did an insidious and dangerous thing; they put in a worse clause than that of the right hon. Member for Great Grimsby. English managed estates in Ireland are very much like snakes in Norway—they are not to be found anywhere. I would ask hon. Members to read the statement of Lord Cowper. He says that all the improvements in Ireland have been made by the tenant, and not by the landlord. Some noble Lord—whose name I have forgotten—got up when that statement was made in the House of Lords and challenged it, but Lard Cowper, in the face of the challenge, maintained the proposition that no improvements axe made in Ireland except by the tenants. I see that the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Ireland is paying close attention to this point. He will probably toll mo that he has made improvements; but how has he made them? Simply by borrowing money from the Irish taxpayers out of the Church Surplus Fund, and then putting the repayment in the shape of rent upon his tenants, which is practically to last for ever. I do not know whether that is absolutely the case, because I am not sufficiently acquainted with the circumstances, but I do know that the Irish landlords have made no improvements except by means of money borrowed from the Board of Works, and if you exclude that money which the tenants have to repay, and if you take away the improvements which the Irish tenants have made themselves, you will leave the soil as bare and naked as an American prairie. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will be ill-advised if he did not take the entire circumstances into consideration, because he would only be adding an additional element of aggravation. Let me read the English-managed estates clause. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary says that it has failed in Ireland on account of a technicality in the clause itself. Now, no clause ever failed in Ireland owing to technicalities which were in favour of the landlords, but everyone has been worked up to the hilt. The English - managed estate clause says where application is made to the Court under this section in respect of any tenants the Court may, if it thinks fit, disallow the application if satisfied that permanent improvements have been made by the tenant, and that the tenant is entitled to compensation; but not if the improvements have been made by the landlord or his predecessor in title, and substantially maintained by him, and not made or acquired by the tenant or his predecessor in title. That was the language of the House of Lords, and let me assure the Committee that when the House of Lords frames language to benefit the landlords it knows very well what it is about. In this case it threw out a net with the very widest meshes, and it succeeded in reaching some 200,000 Irish tenants, although there is not a single estate which can be regarded as an English-managed estate. The matter has been brought to the test by legal inquiry and cross-examination, and it has been established as an incontrovertible fact that out of nearly 250,000 of tenants not one is proved to hold his tenantry in accordance with the principles of an English-managed estate. Under these circumstances, I warn the Government not to add an additional principle of difficulty and irritation which is certain to produce delay and inconvenience in the passing of the Bill.

COLONEL WARING (Down, N.)

With regard to the expenditure of money by landlords on their property, although Lord Cowper was unable in the House of Lords to state a case, and maintained that in every instance the money was borrowed from the Board of Works, I am able to give an instance, which is much bettor than arguments upon the point. In the case of my own property, my father expended £400 on a house which he let to a tenant upon a contract of this kind, which sum would be confiscated if the Committee agree to the proposal that has been made. I do not attach much value to the point myself, because I am satisfied that the Land Court would do justice to me, and take that circumstance into consideration; and I do not think the Court has, in any previous case, been anxious to commit an act of positive injustice. I only rose, however, to say that I do know of a case where the landlord's own money was spent.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

I can say of ray own knowledge that I never knew a single sixpence spent by a landlord which was not allowed whenever it was brought before a Court, especially in the case of houses. The great grievance has been that houses have been valued far too high, and at a larger sum than the tenant could pay. I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that his £100 will not be in the slightest danger if the 8th section of the Act is applied in the ordinary way. What the hon. Member for North Longford has mentioned is, I think, well worthy of the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He has said that money has been borrowed by the landlords from the Board of Works, and repaid by the tenant at a rate of four or five per cent interest with the intention that the charge should be terminated at a certain time, but at the end of 20 years it has been frequently found that it was included in the rent. As an instance of this, I may mention the estate of Lord Templemore, a few miles from Derry. This is a burning question so far as the unexhausted value of improvements is concerned. What the Government say is that those improvements belong to the landlord, but if the tenant has paid for them that is manifestly an injustice. If the Government are not satisfied with the 8th section of the Act, I would suggest another means of dealing with the question. There should be a proviso by which the Court should take into consideration any substantial portion of the money paid to the landlord by an increase of the rent charged to the tenant, with leave to appeal all round, so that the matter may be right and fair for all sides.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL&c.) (Kirkcaldy,

I quite agree with what was said by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) that the Government have made such Liberal concessions with regard to the Bill, that we ought not to press them too hard. I quite recognize the fair and equitable spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has met the demand that has been made on this side of the House in this matter; but I think there may be some practical difficulty in the working of the clause. The right hon. Gentleman has suggested, as I understand, that the landlord should have a first charge. In some cases the landlord may have made improvements similar to those which have been mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for North Down (Colonel Waring) in building a house. He may, however, have built a house that was inappropriate to the holding, and which the tenant doss not appreciate, and it would be unfair to ask the tenant to pay four per cent on the actual value of the house from the builder's point of view if that house has no letting value from an Irish point of view. That is the real difficulty, and I would ask the Government to consider whether the Land Courts are not independent enough to take a sufficiently wide and open view of the matter. I am afraid that considerable difficulties will be involved if the right hon. Gentleman insists on the clause as it stands.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

I do not think that any additional value can be given to the clause by clogging it with this incumbrance, even from the point of view taken by the Government. As I understand the clause, it is open to this objection—that, in the first place, it makes a distinction between a yearly tenant and a leaseholder. The landlord may make some improvement upon the holding of a yearly tenant, but the same state of things which is to apply in the case of a yearly tenant is not to apply to the ease of a leaseholder. I think that is unfortunate, because there is no difference of principle between the two cases, and no reason why the Government should propose to make a distinction between the two classes of cases. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Down (Colonel Waring) has mentioned a particular case in which he was concerned in which large improvements were made by the landlord. If all these cases were oases in which the hon. and gallant Member was concerned, there would be no reason to believe that the tenant would not be properly treated. But a solitary case of that kind is not of the smallest value in furnishing the Committee with any light or guidance upon the question. I have not the misfortune to be an Irish landlord, but I have had a large experience in the Land Court of applications to fix a fair rent, and so notorious is it that the landlord makes no improvement, that it is a regular formula to ask whether the landlord makes any claim for improvements, and the invariable answer is that he does not. It is invariably the case that the improvements are made by the tenant. So common is that, that the landlord is generally invited to get up at the beginning of the case in order to spare the tenant the necessity of formal proof that all the improvements which have been made upon the land have been made by him. Certainly, that has happened in nine out of ten eases, and in the tenth the rule may not apply, not because the landlord made the improvements himself, but because he has evicted a tenant who had made them, and then sub-let the holding to somebody who took it with these improvements upon it; and, therefore, technically, the improvements were held to be the landlords, although they might have been made by some previous tenant. I cannot see what the Government expect to gain by an Amendment of this kind—an Amendment which is vicious in principle, and which, in the case of the tenants' improvements, has been over and over again acknowledged by the Land Court. It is constantly the case that when the tenant has proved his outlay in regard to improvements, and claims to have them allowed, the landlords have come into Court to admit that the tenants made the outlay, but that the improvements have been of such a character that they are of no value. That has been the universal rule in the Land Court, and I do not see why any different rule should be made in regard to landlords' improvements. I It may turn out that a landlord has spent £200 or £300 in drainage; but one of the most common experiences in the Land Court has been to find that the money expended by the landlord has been so misspent and so mismanaged that drainage works executed 10 or 12 years ago were absolutely worthless at the date upon which the holding came into Court. Then why should the tenant be charged with a fixed rent for improvements which, whatever value they originally possessed, have, by deterioration, been rendered worthless. The proposition now made is vicious in principle, and I trust that the Government will make up their minds to grant concessions to the tenant, and not insist upon burdening him with some mischievous principle of this kind, which will take away one-half of the value of the Bill, and induce the Irish, tenants, and those who represent them, to entertain a very uncharitable feeling in regard to the concessions the Government have made,

MR. ESSLEMONT (Aberdeen, E.)

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has read to the Committee the words he proposes to substitute for the present Amendment. I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) in his place, because I cannot quite understand the proposal he made the other day. Let me suppose that the rent of a holding amounts to £20, and that the landlord has spent £500 upon it in improvements. That sum at 4 per cent will represent another £20 a-year, making the rent £40, which it is proposed to set aside as the full rent of the holding as it exists. If you take the holding without interest upon the improvements it would only be £20, and if you increase the sum the tenant has to pay to £40, it is obvious that the tenant is paying 4 per cent upon the capital spent in improvements in addition to his rent, whatever the cost to the landlord may be.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I think I have already very clearly explained to the Committee that the Government do not intend to adhere to the Proviso contained in the clause, and I have recommended the Committee to assent to the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman, opposite, and then to allow us to discuss our Amendment. I made that suggestion some time ago.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should do this. We have not yet had an opportunity of seeing the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman on paper. Will he now consent to strike out the Proviso as it stands on the clause, and on the Report bring up his proposal, which we will then have it in our power to discuss?

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

I do not think the Report would be a convenient stage. I should think the plan suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary is the best—namely, that we should at once negative the Proviso as it stands.

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

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, at the end of the Clause, to add—"Provided that, when an application is made to the Court to fix a fair rent of a holding, by the lessee becoming a present tenant under this section, if the Court is satisfied that his landlord or his predecessors in title has or have made permanent improvements on the holding, the unexhausted value of which at the time oil such application is asserted to he not less than twice the yearly rent, the Court shall fix a fair rent of the holding, subject to the landlord's right to he allowed interest at the rate of four per cent per annum in respect of the unexhausted value of the improvements."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

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

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

In Ireland in a great number of cases—in fact, the majority of the cases—it is admitted that the improvements referred to in this Amendment are made by money borrowed from the Board of Works, with re-payments in such a way that the entire sum is re-paid in 25 years. Now, what is the course adopted by a considerable number of Irish landlords, I do not say all of them. They borrow the money; they execute these improvements; they charge five per cent on the money so borrowed upon the tenant, and in many instances they make that charge a permanent addition to the rent. What is proposed by the Government is this—to deprive the Court of this discretion to consider whether all or part of the money which has been borrowed has been repaid by the tenant. It may be, and no doubt in most instances it will turn out, that the tenants made improvements themselves, the unexhausted value of which is more or less considerable. It may be proved to the satisfaction of the Court that a tenant has paid 5 per cent interest to the landlord on the money which he originally expended, and that the landlord has received more than all the capital expended. By this Amendment the Government deliberately propose to remove from the Court the power it now exorcises in the case of yearly tenants, of taking all these facts into consideration, and making an allowance to the tenant accordingly. I am at a loss to conceive noon what reasonable grounds the Government can defend such a proposition. That is the first point I wish to call attention to. In the next place, I would ask the Government to consider that at the present moment every Court in Ireland, when fixing the judicial rent, takes into consideration the question of the unexhausted improvements of the tenants, and makes a liberal allowance when fixing the rent to be paid to the landlords, if the money the landlords have expended has not already been repaid. Why, then, should we interfere with the discretion of the Court? Another question also arises. As the Amendment is at present worded, there is an extraordinary ambiguity. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary says that in fixing a fair rent it must be fixed subject to the allowance to the landlord of 4 per cent on the value of his unexhausted improvements. It is considered important that the landlord is to get a fair rent for the holding, and this 4 per cent in addition. In that case, I maintain that he would be paid twice over.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

That is not so. A fair rent is to be fixed for the holding apart from the improvements.

MR. DILLON

Then, what is the object of this Proviso, which proposes to tie the hands of the Court—first, in fixing the value of the holding, and then in charging 4 per cent interest on unexhausted improvements, which is to be added to the rent? The Court is engaged daily in the consideration of these matters; and why should it not be the duty of the Court to consider what would be an equitable allowance to the landlord as the owner? The whole question resolves itself into one of equitable jurisdiction. As you leave all other matters to be settled by the Court, I cannot see that the Government have given a single valid reason for tying the hands of the Court in this respect.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON (Lancashire, Rossendale)

I have no doubt the intention of the Proviso proposed by the Government is perfectly equitable; but it seems to me extremely doubtful whether any real advantages can be gained by attempting to make a distinction, in settling a fair rent, between that portion of the rent which is interest on the money expended by the landlord and that portion of the rent which is the rent of the holding itself. What is really desired—and I believe the Committee are agreed on that point—is that in exceptional cases which certainly do exist, though I think they are not numerous, where the landlord has laid out money of his own in the improvement of his estate, that that fact should be taken into consideration by the Court in fixing a fair rent in case of permanent improvements having been made by the landlord and not by the tenant. Hon. Members say that that is already sufficiently provided for by a clause in the Land Act that was inserted by the House of Lords. What I have understood is that that clause in the Act of 1881 has been rendered inoperative, owing to the legal construction placed upon it, that a landlord, to come within the benefit of the clause, must be shown to have "maintained" as well as "made" the improvements. It is possible, although I cannot speak from experience on the subject, that that distinction may have the effect of excluding the landlord's expenditure from being considered in the Land Court. I know that on an occasion of this sort it is impossible for us to undertake the revision of every defect which may come to light in the Land Act; but it does appear to me that it would be better if, instead of an elaborate proposal such as that which has been read from the Chair, words were inserted on the Report if it should be found necessary, almost in the terms laid down in the Act of 1881, to omit the words which have been found to be objectionable. As the leaseholders are now going to have the same benefits as the yearly tenants, I cannot myself see any strong argument for treating leaseholders differently from yearly tenants. Therefore, I would recommend the Government to introduce a Proviso to this effect—that if it is necessary to protect them against some provisions of the Act of 1881 which are found to be inequitable, to insert a Proviso amending the Act of 1881, so as to escape the extremely limited construction which has been placed upon the clause. That, I think, would be preferable to the elaborate proposal which has now been made, and which I do not think would be found to be of any advantage to the landlords.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Of course, I am fully conversant of the difficulties which surround the question. I admit that we have resisted several Amendments to this clause on the ground that they would give the leaseholders privileges which they would not get if they were tenants from year to year; and, on the whole, it is, perhaps, desirable that leaseholders under the clause should not be placed in a different position from ordinary tenants under the Act of 1881. Unfortunately, this proposal does draw a distinction of that kind, and therefore I admit the force of the noble Marquess's remarks, and, further, that the argument we have employed may be turned against us. The suggestion of the noble Marquess to leave the matter over until the Report stage is one which I consider the Committee would be well-advised to accept. I think the question is not one, as far as I understand it, which can possibly affect the interests either of the landlords or the tenants of Ireland. It is rather an attempt, in my opinion, and an advantageous and desirable attempt, to stop, if possible, what has now become a practice in Parliament—namely, that of interfering with contracts, whether they relate to the land or not, and of subjecting them to the review of the Court. The Government do not desire to interfere with contracts more than can be avoided, and they regard this extra payment in respect of improvements made by the landlord more in the nature of a pecuniary arrangement made between a debtor and creditor than a contract between landlord and tenant. I do not think I need further labour the question. I think I have made clear what the motives of the Government are; and, in accordance with the suggestion of the noble Marquess, the Proviso I have proposed will be withdrawn, in order to see whether some words cannot be brought up on the Report to meet the objections which have been raised.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I would warn the Government against any attempt to deal with the question of tenants' improvements.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

This Proviso relates to landlords' improvements.

MR. T. M. HEALY

No; it is really the tenants' improvements that are dealt with, and I warn the Government that if they go any further in that direction they may find that they are putting their hands into a hornet's nest. As to the proposal that the question should be re-opened on the Report stage, I shall certainly have to move, if the question is brought up in that way, that the Bill be re-committed, for we can never consent to discuss this question on the Report stage. In discussing the Act of 1881 there was nothing which caused so much friction as this question of the tenants' improvements. In regard to the tenants' improvements, the intentions of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian in passing the Act of 1881 have been shown to have been grossly and cruelly betrayed by what occurred in the Court of Appeal in the case of "Adams v. Dun-seath."

MR. LEA

The Act of 1881 clearly lays down that the Land Court should consider the representative interests of the landlord and tenant in the holding, and it was further laid down what the Court ought to take into consideration in regard to a yearly tenant. I do not think the Government ought to introduce any special provision with regard to leaseholders which does not prevail in the case of tenants from year to year. They ought to show that some injustice has been done by the Court before introducing any fresh provision into the matter.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I think the Court, in fixing the fair rent of the tenant, ought to take into account the improvements he may have ejected, and when they come to fix the fair rent of a leaseholder they should also take into account the improvements effected by such leaseholder. No one would wish to confiscate the property of another person; but I do not think the leaseholder or the tenant should be placed in a worse position than the landlord.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I am quite willing that the Court should consider the landlords' improvements; but, as a rule, they have made none. Some of them have borrowed money from the Board of Works; but they have charged every penny of the outlay upon the tenants, and this is simply an attempt to swindle further the unfortunate tenant.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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

I have now to move to insert the Proviso which stands on the Paper in my name, and is numbered 37. It is as follows:— Always provided that leases made since the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, to take effect from a period subsequent to the passing of the said Act, shall be deemed to be leases existing at the passing of the said Act, in which the premises demised by the said leases so made after the passing of the said Act shall, before the making of the said leases, have been held by the lessees thereof, or their representatives, under leases which expired before the passing of the said Act, in which the said lessees or their representatives remained in the actual occupation of the premises from the expiration of the said leases, so made before the passing of the said Act, until the making of the said leases thereof, after the passing of the said Act. The Proviso is designed to meet some special cases of hardship. The circumstance referred to is where tenants held under leases which expired shortly before the Act of 1881 was passed, and where the tenants remained on the holding cultivating it after the passing of the Act of 1881. Tenants in that position were never recognized by the landlords until after the Act came into operation, when leases were given to them which brought them into the position of future tenants, and deprived them of the right and the benefit of having a fair rent fixed. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork accomplishes the object I have in view, but will do more than I intend. I cannot conceive that the Committee will refuse the moderate demand which is made by this Amendment. The men for whom I ask this small modicum of justice had their rents fixed immediately alter 1881, when prices were comparatively high, and they are suffering very severely now from the rents imposed upon them under the new leases. I will not go into the question as to the wisdom of bringing all leaseholders who took out their leases after 1881 under the Bill; but I do claim that those who were in a manner done out of the benefits of the Bill in this way should be brought under this clause.

Amendment proposed, to add, in page 2, at the end of the Clause, the following Proviso:— Always provided that leases made since the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881,' to take effect from a period subsequent to the passing of the said Act, shall be deemed to be leases existing at the passing of the said Act, in which the premises demised by the said leases so made after the passing of the said Act shall, before the making of the said leases, have been held by the lessees thereof, or their representatives, under leases which expired before the passing of the said Act, in which the said lessees or their representatives remained in the actual occupation of the premises from the expiration of the said leases, so made before the passing of the said Act, until the making of the said leases thereof, after passing of the said Act."—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)

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

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

If I understand rightly, the intention of the hon. Gentleman, in moving this Amendment, is that he proposes to deal with a particular class of cases of hardship which is alleged to have occurred under the operation of the Act of 1881. The hardship was of this character—that if a lease had expired in the year 1881, or at the very end of 1880, when it was known that the Land Act of 1881 was going to be introduced, the landlords, in some cases, instead of making the farmer lessee a tenant, kept him on as a caretaker on his own holding until that period had lapsed after which it became possible for the landlord to re-instate him as a future instead of a present tenant. When re-instated in that position, the tenant could not claim the benefit of the Act of 1881. Now, that, no doubt, is a grievance, and is inequitable. I quite admit the grievance, and we are bound by the general principles of the Bill to apply a remedy. We have put down a clause on the Paper to meet anything like cases of fraud or violence, or pressure on the part of the landlord, and we give power to the Court to break down leases entered into under such circumstances. I would hope, and, indeed, I believe, that the number of such cases are extremely few; but, be they few or many, I acknowledge that it is our duty, if we can, to remedy them. I am bound to say that I so far agree with the hon. Gentleman; but I think that the particular form of words he has put down on the Paper is unnecessarily obscured. If any hon. Member will read the words I think he will appreciate what I say.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

The clause was drawn by a barrister of very great experience.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am quite certain that if the hon. Gentleman had drawn it himself we should have been able to understand what he meant; but, unfortunately, having been drawn by a lawyer of great experience, who does not feel the difficulty we laymen have in dealing with these matters, it is very obscure, and there is nothing on the face of the clause itself to suggest that because these things are inequitable, and only because they are inequitable, the leases ought to be broken. I was going to suggest to the hon. Gentleman the propriety of substituting some such words as these—a copy of which I have furnished to the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell). My proposed sub-section would run as follows:— This section shall apply to a lease made between the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' and the 1st day of January, 1883, of a holding whereof the lessee had been previously tenant under a contract of tenancy expiring after the 31st day of December, 1880, and of which he had continued inoccupation up to the time of the making of the lease, if the Court is of opinion that the postponement of the making of such lease was a contrivance of the landlord to evade 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' In this sub-section, the expression 'lessee' shall include any person who would have been predecessor in title of such lessee if the tenancies existing up to the 31st day of December had continued to exist. If the hon. Member will withdraw his Proviso I will venture to move this in its place.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

Part of it seems to meet my case, but I do not know about the whole of it.

THE CHAIRMAN

Does the hon. Gentleman withdraw his Amendment?

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I should like to hear the Proviso proposed by the right hon. Gentleman read again. I do not see that the intervention of the Court is necessary. I would prefer to stand on the fact itself. If such an occurrence took place, it would constitute of itself the injustice of which I complain.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

If the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his Amendment, and allow the first part of the Proviso I propose to move to be put, he will be able to move an Amendment to that Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, wihdrawn.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

As a point of Order, I think the Amendment which I have on the Paper will take precedence of that of the right hon. Gentleman's.

THE CHAIRMAN

No. The Member of the Government who is in charge of a Bill always has precedence when he submits an Amendment.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I beg to move the insertion of the Proviso I have already read.

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, to add at end of Clause—" This section shall apply to a lease made between the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, and the 1st day of January, 1883, of a holding whereof the lessee had been previously tenant under a contract of tenancy expiring after the 31st day of December, 1880, and of which he had continued in occupation up to the time of the making of the lease, if the Court is of opinion that the postponement of the making of such lease was a contrivance of the landlord to evade 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' In this sub-section, the expression 'lessee' shall include any person who would have been predecessor in title of such lessee if the tenancies existing up to the 31st day of December had continued to exist."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

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

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I would suggest that the hon. Member for South Tyrone should now move an Amendment omitting the last part of the Proviso.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I have an Amendment on the same point, and I desire to state my reasons for thinking the Proviso of the right hon. Gentleman inadequate, inasmuch as it does not go as far as the Amendment I have put down. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, differs from mine on four points; and two of them, I think, are vital. The other two are points on which some compromise may reasonably be made. The four points are these—in the first place, the right hon. Gentleman interposes a limit of time before the beginning and end of the party to which the scheme is to be applied. There is to be a sort of interregnum in the tenant's right which the right hon. Gentleman proposes should end on the 1st day of January, 1883, that being the date fixed by the Land Act for the commencement of future tenancies. That is a point upon which there would be very little difficulty in coming to an arrangement. It has been mentioned in the course of the debate as a proper date at which the fresh start should be made; and, therefore, I will not quarrel with, the right hon. Gentleman for fixing that date. The second point upon which I differ appears to me to be a point of considerable importance. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman requires that before any tenant who, owing to the expiration of the tenancy at a particular moment, is deprived of the benefit of the Land Act, can get relief, he must be in a position to prove in Court that he remained in continuous holding from the time the first tenancy ended, and until the time his second tenancy commenced. Now, that is a point upon which there is not the slightest possibility of our coming to any agreement with the right hon. Gentleman; and for this reason—that it would exclude the most cruel and the most pitiful of all cases—namely, the case of a tenant who is evicted by his landlord, but whom the landlord reinstates in the course of a couple of months. Now, what difference of principle can there be in the case of a tenant whose legal rights have expired and who has continued to occupy his holding on sufferance, and of a tenant who has been evicted for a few months, the landlord having got possession of the land, and having re-instated the evicted tenant after that interruption of title? What is the case of the right hon. Gentleman? His case is that in that class of cases where the landlord has allowed the land to remain in the hands of the tenant as caretaker, and, after the passing of the Act of 1881, has for the first time given the tenant a lease, that lease ought not to be broken. Upon that point there is no difference of opinion; but why should the right hon. Gentleman go so much further, and exclude this unfortnnate class of evicted tenants who, for some reason or other, the landlord afterwards re-instates? I submit to the House that it will deal with the question in a very imperfect and cruel way if it excludes these unfortunate tenants because the landlord has exercised his legal rights to the fullest degree, and, having put the tenant out of occupation for a few months, has afterwards re-instated him. Under the provisions of the Land Act the landlord would have a tenant who was placed in such circumstances completely in his power, and he could re-instate him on any terms he pleased. I certainly hope that the Government will make a concession upon this point. The next point is this. Suppose a case of this kind happens, that instead of evicting a tenant the landlord re-instated him as caretaker. In that case, as the Amendment is drawn, such tenant would be excluded from the benefit of the Act, because he would not, technically speaking, have enjoyed continuous occupation of the land. The landlord would be the occupier for all legal purposes, and the tenant would merely be his servant, who, for all the purposes of this Act, would be excluded from any benefit to be derived under it. I fail to see how any distinction can be drawn between the case of a tenant, although his tenancy has expired, who has been allowed to occupy it uninterruptedly under the terms of the old lease, and the case of a tenant who has been evicted and subsequently re-instated as a caretaker. In a case like that, I say it, would be grossly unfair to the person who has lost possession of the holding to exclude him on account of this technicality from the benefits he would otherwise enjoy. I submit that, for all purposes, he ought to be considered by the Court as a tenant who has remained in occupation of the holding, and he ought to get the same benefit as if the landlord had not gone to the extreme length the law allows him to go. There is another point still. The Proviso starts from the 31st of December, 1880, which is the date I propose to fix in my Amendment; but; the Government require that the tenant should have been in occupation on the 31st of December, 1880, whereas my Amendment makes it sufficient that the holding should have been in the occupation of the lessee, although the ten- ancy had been previously determined. The word "lessee" includes any person who would have been the predecessor in title of such lessee if the tenancy under which the holding had originally been occupied had continued in existence. There are cases—not very numerous, I admit—but there are a number of cases which occurred two years prior to the passing of the Land Act in which persons were permitted to occupy farms in Ireland, although their tenancies had been determinated. Over and over again such cases have come before the Land Court, and the unfortunate tenant has been denied redress, because he was only in occupation on sufferance. Now I submit that if the landlord has chosen to permit the tenant to occupy the farm the tenant should be in the same position as if he had occupied the holding uninterruptedly. My last point is also a point of some importance—namely, the point mentioned by the hon. Member for South Tyrone in reference to the discretion of the Court. The Court must be satisfied that the postponement of the making of the lease was a contrivance of the landlord to evade the Irish Land Law Act, 1881. Now, I venture to say that it will be absolutely impossible for the tenant to prove that. The landlord is not called upon to express what his intention was in letting the occupation of the tenant continue and postponing the making of a new lease until after the Land Act had passed. How, then, can he be said to have evaded the Act, having regard to the fact that he never intended the tenant to have the benefit of the Act? I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not insist on this portion of the Amendment; but I think the most profitable way of discussing the points I have raised will be to bring them forward on the Report without my proposing any Amendment now.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

I beg to move to leave out all the words after the word "lease."

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman proposes to omit these words— If the Court is of opinion that the postponement of the making of such lease was a contrivance of the landlords to evade 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' In this sub-section the expression 'lessee' shall include any person who would have been predecessor in title of such lessee if the tenancies existing up to the 31st day of December had continued to exist.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

Yes.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

I have an Amendment to propose.

THE CHAIRMAN

If the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) touches prior words I shall be ready to receive it.

MR. PARNELL

My Amendment refers to line one of the Proviso—namely, after the word "made" to insert "or made to take effect." I think the Government will admit that these words are necessary in order to provide for leases made, but not made to take effect on a certain date. Otherwise, the section will shut out an enormous class of leaseholders whom I am quite sure it is the intention of the Government to include in this clause. In addressing myself to this Amendment I will express a hope that the Government will take a large view of the question and of their own Amendment, and will not, by making it too narrow, compel us to move a variety of Amendments to the Proviso which will necessarily take up a great deal of time. I am most anxious to do everything I can to assist the progress of the Bill; but when a clause of this kind comes before us, and the words of it are very narrow, it becomes absolutely our duty to bring the questions at issue under the attention of the Committee and of the Government. I trust that this Amendment, which is one of several I have to move, will be accepted by the Government.

Amendment proposed, to insert in the proposed Amendment, after the word "made," the words "or made to take effect."—(Mr. Parnell)

Question proposed, "That the words 'or made to take effect' be there inserted."

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

Will the hon. Member for Cork read the passage, so that we may understand how the Proviso will be affected by the Amendment?

THE CHAIRMAN

If the Amendment is adopted the Proviso will read thus— This section will apply to a lease made, or made to take effect, between the passing of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' and the 1st day of January, 1883.

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

I am not certain that I quite understand the hon. Member. The section deals with leases made or agreed to be made between certain periods. Suppose that a lease was made 20 years ago, but was a reversionary lease of which there are several instances in Ireland, and which were provided for in the Act of 1881. The intention of the Amendment might be to cover the case of reversionary leases made 20 years ago. All I can say is, that the words of the Proviso would apply to such cases. I do not gather from the hon. Member that it is not his intention to apply it to the case of reversionary leases.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

The Amendment proposes to deal with the common case of agreements made prior to November, 1882, which all of us agree should come in. But frequently arrangements have been made on parole for the formal payment of a rent, the lease to take effect from November, but not to come into actual existence until the January following.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

I think we are all agreed about the principle; but it would seem that the words are open to some ambiguity. I would suggest the insertion of the words "agreement or agreements for a lease."

MR. O'DOHERTY

A lease is by this definition actually an agreement for a lease.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I now propose to omit the words "under a contract of tenancy expiring." My object is to make the section apply to a lease made between the passing of the Act of 1881 and the 1st of January, 1883, of a holding whereof the lessee had been previously tenant "of which he was in occupation as tenant or otherwise on or" after the 31st of December, 1880, and of which he had continued in occupation up to the time of the making of the lease. The Amendment is designed to meet a common case of hard-ship which I adverted to a short time ago. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland will consider the matter I think he will find that this is one of. The commonest cases of all. The cases which have arisen have generally been cases in which the tenancies have expired on the 25th of March or the 1st of May, 1881, or on the 29th of September or the 1st of November, 1880. The Proviso of the right hon. Gentleman will only admit the tenancies which expired in March and May, whereas mine will let in tenancies which expired in September and November. The Act of 1881 applied to tenants who continued in occupation after the 31st of December, 1880, and many cases occurred immediately after the passing of the Land Act, in which tenants sought the benefit of the Act and were refused. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is acquainted with the matter, he will be aware that quite as many leases expired on the last day of 1880 as upon the first day of 1881. Therefore I think this section ought to apply to one equally with the other, and, therefore, beg to move this Amendment.

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, to omit the words "under a contract of tenancy expiring," in order to insert the words "of which he was in occupation as tenant or otherwise on or."—(Mr. Maurice Healy.)

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

MR. GIBSON

The question raised by the hon. Gentleman in his speech is not exactly what he has put on the Paper. The object of the Government was to meet the case put by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) that in the case of a person who has been in possession of a holding but who for some cause has ceased to be in possession of it as tenant, although really in occupation, and who in regard to his occupation for a considerable period has had a lease granted to him, he should be placed in the position of a present tenant, the object being to give him the benefit of the Act of 1881. It is clear at once that in dealing with the question the purpose of the Government was to provide an anterior limit over which the shadow of the coming Act might be supposed to be cast, and that period was the 31st of December, 1880—a period fixed by the hon. Member for Cork.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

For purposes of occupation.

MR. GIBSON

It is impossible to suggest any case of limit in which there might not be a hardship. We have to take a rough and broad line, and the line fixed by the hon. Member for Cork and ourselves is the 31st of December. I think that that is a fair compromise to the limit of time when the operation of the coming Land Act may be supposed to have influenced the minds of the landlords. The Committee have now to consider what are the class of tenants or of persons who are to get the benefit of the Act. They are not to be mere occupiers, but cases of tenants who ceased to be tenants properly, and came into occupation some time after the 29th of September. If we deal with cases further back—cases of tenants whose leases expired earlier in 1880—the result will be to place the Committee in some difficulty in justifying the equity of this legislation, which is certainly legislation of an ex post facto character. The Amendment of the hon. Member is an Amendment of a very elastic nature. He uses the words "tenant or otherwise;" and it would be perfectly competent for the Court to go back to a tenancy which may have been terminated 10 or 15 years before. There is no limit of time between the occupation, and the preceding tenancy. The only safe ground the Committee can go upon is to take broadly a date within which it may be supposed the coming Land Act might influence the action of the landlords, and to say that the tenants whoso leases have expired after that date, and which fact might influence the mind of the landlords, shall be dealt with in this particular manner; and as to the question of the continuance of the occupation, I presume we shall be able to discuss that later on. As far as I understand the words that are used in the Amendment of the Government, and also in the Amendments put on the Paper by other hon. Members, that is the object with which the word "occupation" has been in every instance retained. I am not dealing with "occupation" as between the tenancy of one man and another, but I am dealing with the actual occupation of the land, which I understand to be physical occupation. If the landlord chose to appoint such a man a caretaker I think that case would be covered by this section.

MR. T. HEALY

Oh, no.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. and learned Member thinks it is not covered?

MR. T. M. HEALY

Yes; that is my view.

MR. GIBSON

Then, I beg the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. In my opinion it is.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

So far as the question of occupation is concerned, may I refer to the case of "Eiffe v. M'Kenna," where the lease expired, and the tenant hold on for 10 months, receiving receipts for his rent. Subsequently the landlord went to the Court of Appeal and said that the tenant wag not there as tenant, but merely as a person having the use and occupation of the land, and that the receipts were virtually receipts for money paid for use and occupation for a certain limited period. The Court of Appeal held that that was so, and deprived the tenant of the benefit of the Land Act of 1881, which he would have got if he had been in occupation; and, on the face of that judgment, it is idle to tell us that the occupation will be deemed to be mere physical occupation. I have given the right hon. and learned Gentleman a case which went before the Court of Appeal, where a tenant, paying a rent which was precisely the rent he had paid previously, was held to be only a person who had merely a licence to use and occupy the land without being in actual occupation. I am convinced that, under that ruling, it will be held that occupation moans a real and lawful tenancy, and that it will not cover the case of a caretaker, so that the result will be that this clause will be of very little value indeed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has alluded to the fact that my hon. Friend the junior Member for Cork (Mr. Maurice Healy) has specified the 31st of December, 1880, as the date in his Amendment. I would point out to the Committee that that is a date giving the commencement of a new tenancy, and not a date determining an existing tenancy. Under the Government Amendment the only tenants who will get the benefit of the Act are tenants whoso leases expired after the 31st of December, 1880; whereas those whose leases expired on the 25th of March, or the 29th of September, would have no advantage. I submit that the 31st of December is a most inconvenient date and a date which would absolutely nullify the intention of the clause. At the right time, in spite of the wish the right hon. and learned Gentleman has expressed, I shall feel it necessary to move the omission of the 31st of December,1880, for the purpose of fixing a more reasonable date—such as the 29th of September, 1880. That will include the great bulk of the leases which fall in on the gale day of September, 1880.

MR. O'HEA (Donegal, W.)

It has been my lot to defend, for the purpose of keeping them in their holdings, a great many persons whose leases expired in 1880, and I know, as a matter of fact, that in a great many of those cases the Sheriff was not put in. motion, but the people were allowed to remain in possession of their farms believing themselves to be fairly rented; but when the Act of 1881 was passed they were told that they were only in colourable occupation of their holdings, and they were obliged to capitulate to their landlords and accept any terms the landlords chose to impose upon them. I know, further, that a great many of the persons whose cases I refer to belonged to the most respectable class of peasants in Ireland; but they were obliged to accept leases. Therefore, I trust that the Committee will not be led away by what has fallen from the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland. I am quite in agreement with the suggestion which has been made by the hon. Member for South Kilkenny (Mr. Chance) that unless some date anterior to the 31st December, 1880, is fixed, persons who have been kept in occupation without the Sheriff being put in motion will be without any remedy. I think this is a matter sufficiently serious to engage the attention of the Government, in order that they may extend to those persons the benefit of the Act, especially when we know that it is a more matter of accident that leases drop out at this particular time.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

We are not now on any question of date; but the point the Committee is asked to decide is the omission of the words "under a contract of tenancy expiring," in order to insert "in which he was in occupation as tenant or otherwise." The hon. Member opposite has referred to a case which came before the Court of Appeal; but the decision of the Court did not turn on words such as the Government now propose. The objection I have to the Amendment is that it uses the words "occupation as tenant or otherwise." There is no distinction between "tenant or otherwise"; there is nothing to show any connection of the occupation with the tenancy; and it would, therefore, cover any occupier however the occupier got in, or when he got in, and whether he was a previous tenant or not. In point of fact it would put a leaseholder in a better position than an ordinary tenant from year to year. I am sure that cannot be the intention of the Committee. The words in the clause, as they stand, seem to meet the facts of the case much better than the words "occupation as tenants or otherwise." The adoption of which words would put a leaseholder in a position which I am certain the Committee does not contemplate.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

If I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the Government are willing to make a concession on the point of date I should have no objection to withdraw the Amendment. I must, however, point out that the question of date is of great importance.

THE CHAIRMAN

No question as to date is at present before the Committee.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

With all submission, Mr. Courtney, I think we are bound, in some sense, to have regard to the question of date, because, in my Amendment, I fix it as the 31st of December, 1880. What I am pointing out is that a tenant whose lease expires on the 29th of September should get the benefit of the Act. That is a very common case in regard to the expiration of a tenancy; but if the Amendment of the Government is accepted it will exclude all such cases. It is on this ground that I ask them to make a concession in regard to the date. The Government have taken my date, but they have altered its meaning by making the date the point to which the tenancy should reach, instead of making it the point which the occupation should reach. The effect will be to exclude a large number of tenants from the benefit of the clause. I hope the Government will give us some explanation upon, the matter. We have no desire to do anything unreasonable. The hon. and learned Gentleman suggested the case of a man who may have occupied a holding for 10 or 15 years without a lease; but he knows very well that that is an absurdity and a case which cannot possibly arise.

MR. T. M. HEALY

It has already been pointed out that a tenant in Ireland, instead of being in occupation until the 31st of December, 1880, will practically have ceased occupation on the 25th of March, or the 29th of September. Consequently the Government are running away with a fallacious idea that the Act will affect leases expiring on the 31st of December. As a matter of fact no leases expire on the 31st of December, but they will have been leases which have expired on the 25th of March, the 1st of May, the 29th of September, or the 1st of November. This question of date is really of some importance for this reason—that where you name the 31st of December you do not really mean the 31st of December, because no lease expires on that date.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! The Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork raises a question of the character of the occupation, whether as a tenant or otherwise; but if he merely wishes to raise a question of date, it would be better, for the despatch of Business, to withdraw the Amendment, and move an Amendment in regard to the date.

MR. PARNELL

I wish to ask the Government whether they will object to deal with an Amendment which will affect the case of evicted tenants who have ceased, for a period, to be tenants before the passing of the Act, but who have been appointed caretakers, and afterwards reinstated as tenants under a lease? We wish to provide that such tenants as those should have the benefit of this Bill; and we also wish to make it quite clear that caretakers, under such circumstances, shall also, when they hare been reinstated, have the benefit of the measure. If the Government have no objection to that proposition, we shall be glad if they will propose their own words, and we are quite ready to let the matter stand over, if they desire it, until the Report stage. I hope it will be possible for the Government to say whether they agree with that principle or not. I may add that time is now being occupied because the Amendments are not before the Committee in print.

MR. O'DOHERTY

Perhaps I may be allowed to say a word as to the object which my hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) wishes to carry out. He desires to leave it to the Court to decide matters of fact—namely, to say whether there has been a continuance of the occupancy of the old tenant. That was certainly the intention of Parliament, and I do not see why the tenant should not have the rights which he had prior to the Act of 1881. If any leases have been entered into, that fact should also be taken into account.

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

I have endeavoured, together with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. A. Cohen), to follow the discussion which has taken place, but I confess that I have been unable to do so. Indeed, we have gone as far as to get a copy of the Amendment; but it is of a highly technical nature, exceedingly difficult to understand, and I think it is absolutely impossible for the Committee at large to follow the debate without having the Amendment before them. Therefore, I think it would be much more conducive to the despatch of Business if this matter were postponed until the Report, so that hon. Members may be able to follow it satisfactorily.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I feel the difficulty which the hon. and learned Gentleman has pointed out; but the Government would have been placed in a false position, and would have laid themselves open to strong animadversion, if they had not laid the clause upon the Table. I think the House will feel that we are amply justified in the course we have taken. I had hoped that the Amendment we brought up would have met the difficulty, and that it would have been allowed to pass with very little discussion. I regret that that has not been the case, and, without finding fault with the course which hon. Members below the Gangway opposite have felt it their duty to take, I do not think we ought at the present moment to continue this very technical discussion. I would only suggest whether we should put it down as a substantive clause, or bring it up on the Report stage. That is a question for the Government to consider; but, at any rate, the last hour's discussion has shown that it is almost hopeless to expect the Committee to come to a satisfactory decision now.

MR. PARNELL

Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to bring up the question in a new clause?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

If that is the view of the hon. Gentleman I will certainly consider the matter.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I think it would he far better that we should have a distinct understanding I have no desire to waste one moment of time unnecessarily; but I think it is desirable we should have a promise that the Amendment should assume the form of a now clause.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I think it is very likely that that will be the case.

Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On the Motion of Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, the following Amendment made:—In page 2, line 11, at end, add— In case of a lessee becoming present tenant under this section, the Court shall not, for fifteen years from the commencement of such present tenancy, authorise resumption by the landlord under this section.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

I cannot, having regard to the previous decision of the Committee, move the whole of the Amendment standing in my name. I shall, therefore, omit that portion of the Amendment relating to a letting or agreement to let for ever; and I think in that form the Government will agree that it is an absolutely non-contentious Amendment. The Bill contains no definition of the word "lease." The Act of 1881 contains no definition; it simply says that the word is to bear the same meaning as in the Act of 1870; you have to go back to that Act to get a definition, and then you are in a worse position than before—the definition is no definition at all, and is used solely for the purpose of explaining the meaning of the word in that Act. I draw attention to the peculiar form of the 21st section of the Act of 1881, which uses a meaningless expression, and draws a distinction between a lease and a contract for tenancy which is not a yearly tenancy and is less than a yearly tenancy. This is a somewhat technical matter. The right hon. Gentleman will see that these two contracts are placed on the same level. I do not know whether this is a contract for tenancy which is neither one nor the other of these; but if there be, the tenant ought to get the benefit of this clause, because Section 21 of the Act of 1881 excluded him from the benefit of that Act. I, therefore, beg to move my Amendment down to the words "fixed tenancy."

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, line 11, at end, to add the 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."—(Mr. Maurice Healy.)

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

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

The 21st section of the Act of 1881 provided that contracts of tenancy should be dealt with as existing leases. There is no doubt on that point as a matter of legality, and I submit that it would be undesirable to multiply definitions by adopting the Amendment of the hon. Member, seeing that this Bill is identical with the Act of 1881, so far as this matter is concerned.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

If this clause used the phrase "existing lease," I admit that there would be no difficulty; but the words are not here. The words "existing lease" have a technical meaning in the Act of 1881, and the difficulty lies in its application to this clause. It is on that account that I propose my Amendment. The point I take is that the 21st section of the Act of 1881 mentions four classes of tenancies—namely, the lease, yearly tenancy, tenancy less than a yearly tenancy, and contracts of tenancy. I say that this clause should apply to contracts and agreements which are not in the other three classes, and I simply follow the 21st section of the Act of 1881, being driven to that because the Government have not used the phrase "existing lease." If this Amendment is not accepted there will remain the class excepted from the benefit of the Act of 1881, who will be excepted from the benefit of this Act. It is a difficult matter to explain this across the floor of the House; but I am perfectly sure that if I were in communication with the right hon. Gentleman I could show him that my Amendment is desirable; but in the expectation that the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter between this and Report I will ask leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

There is an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for North Wexford (Mr. J. E. Redmond), which, in his absence, I propose to move. I believe the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland will see that there is a strong necessity for this Amendment, which is to meet the case that is ordinary in Ulster, on the estates of the London Companies, for instance, of the lease being handed down for many years to successors who have relied on the fact that it carried with it a beneficial interest, but who now would, under this Bill, be required to prove the title. I want the poor tenant to be able to go into Court without being compelled to prove his title. The Acts of 1870 and 1881 were both framed in the spirit in which I urge this Amendment; in both cases provision, was made for poor tenants who could not take out administration. My clause injures no one, and it is merely to enable the Court to decide between landlord and tenant as to what is a fair rent. Take the case of a lease of 60 years at a rent of £5. I ask what would be the use of getting a poor man to produce his title under those circumstances? Why, it would put him out of Court altogether. It is to remove that disability that I, as a lawyer, speaking even against the interests of my own profession, suggest the Amendment I now propose should be adopted.

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, line 11, at end, add—"Any person beneficially entitled to the tenants' interest in a lease, any of the next-of-kin of a deceased lessee acting as though not being legally the representative of the deceased, any person liable for the rent of the holding to the landlord, and any person on whom notice to quit could he served to determine the tenancy, if it were a tenancy from year to year, shall for the purpose of making any claim or application under the Land Law (Ireland) Acts be deemed to be a lessee, without prejudice however to the rights or claims of any person to the tenant's interest in the holding, and without prejudice to the power or duty of the Court in proper cases to appoint any person as limited administrator, as provided by the said Acts."—(Mr. O'Doherty.)

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

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

I understand the hon. Member in the latter part of his observations to say that the Amendment would apply to a very different class of tenants from those he referred to in the earlier part of his speech. That would give the Amendment a very wide application indeed, and I may mention what the effect of it would be. Under the Amendment it would be competent, if a man left 10 or 12 next-of-kin, for each person to come into Court and have a fair rent fixed. It is necessary that the landlord should know who is to get the judicial tenancy. There may be many cases in which the tenant would be too poor to have a representative, and in such cases the Court at no cost at all makes the person who comes into Court, if he fairly represents the tenant's interest, and is a decent man, the administrator for the purposes of the suit. The landlord then knows whom he is to look to for the rent. In whom is to be the judicial tenancy? The proposal of the hon. Member is that it is to be in the whole body of the next-of-kin. But it is impossible that everyone calling himself the next-of-kin should come into Court and have a judicial rent fixed, he, perhaps, being put forward as a pauper in order to avoid the claim of the landlord for rent. I think I have said sufficient to satisfy the Committee that this Amendment, which is of a highly technical and theoretical character, ought not to be accepted. We all know that a large amount of work has to be got through, and I earnestly invite hon. Gentlemen opposite not to press Amendments of this kind. The present Amendment is of no very important character so far as regards the benefit it would confer on the tenant, whereas it would be very injurious with regard to the landlords in Ireland. This is a serious matter for the Committee to consider, and I submit that, having regard to the great number of questions which we have to discuss, the hon. Member should consent to withdraw his Amendment.

MR. O'DOHERTY

The contention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman is that a man who comes into Court as lessee must prove his lease and the assignment of it, unless he has been, appointed administrator for the purpose of making this claim. He also spoke of the whole of the next-of-kin coming into Court; but I would point out that the Amendment is carefully limited to one as legal representative of the deceased. The right hon. and learned Gentleman next spoke of a pauper coming into Court and getting a fair rent fixed, and then hopping out of Court and leaving the landlord without other resource. I never heard a description, of an Amendment so utterly opposed to the meaning of the Amendment itself, and I venture to way so contrary to what any Irish lawyer believes it to be. I say you will exclude the man who has had a lease for 50 years as effectually as if he had only held it for five years. This Amendment is, in my opinion, of a much more important character than that which we have been debating for two hours, and it is an Amendment which we shall press upon the Government, because of the effect which the former Acts have had in excluding tenants of this class from the benefit of the Bill. I have listened with absolute astonishment to the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and the only explanation I can find for them is that he believed this Amendment to have been put down by a layman and never read it. As I have said, we shall continue to press it on the Government, because, while it is one that can do no harm, it will effect a great deal of good to the poor tenants of the class I have in view.

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

May I, with great respect to the hon. Member for North Donegal, say that I think this Amendment is one which has no reference to the clause before the Committee? It is a general Amendment of the Land Act of 1881, and I think it would be absolutely impossible for this House to got through the work that is to be done if we are to deal not only with questions within, the scope of the present. Bill, but also with Amendments which hon. Members consider improvements upon the Act of 1881. I beg the hon. Gentleman to consider the time of the House, and venture to express a hope that he will withdraw his Amendment, which, as I have said, has no special reference to the present clause.

MR. LEA (Londonderry, S.)

I rise to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Donegal (Mr. O'Doherty). The matter which he has called attention to is one of very great importance. I know that many applications made under the Act of 1881 were dismissed by the Court on very trifling points. I have been informed of the case of a tenant who had been paying rent to the landlord for 12 years, but regarding whom the Court decided that it was impossible for him to proceed, because when he came into Court he had not taken out letters of administration.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 119; Noes 142: Majority 23.—(Div. List, No. 322.)

[8.48 P.M.]

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central)

My object in moving the Amendment standing in my name is for the purpose, in the first place, of endeavouring, if possible, to prevent the undue employment of Special Commissioners under the Act, and, on the other hand, to relieve landlords and tenants of the cost of litigating questions of rent. If the clause remains as at present, there will be an immense rush of leaseholders to the Court. We are told that the number of leaseholders in Ireland is 120,000, and I believe that something like two-thirds of these will be in a position to go into Court for the purpose of obtaining judicial rents—that is to say, that it is probable that 80,000 will apply. So far as I can ascertain, two-thirds of the whole number will be paying rent under £50 a-year, and it is especially with reference to that class that I make my present proposal. It is clear that, as I have said, there will be an immense rush to the Court, and I need hardly point out to the Committee that the cost to the State, as well as the cost of litigating, both to the landlords and tenants, will be very great. I have been told that each Sub-Commission Court, consisting of three members, costs from £3,000 to £5,000 a-year, and that they are able to get through about 1,300 cases in the year. It is obvious, then, that there will be required about 30 Courts sitting for two years for the purpose of clearing away all the business that has to be done, and that the cost to the State will be something like £150,000 a-year during that period, besides which there is the cost of litigation to the landlords and tenants. My proposal is to avoid this great cost if possible. I can quite conceive that when the Land Act of 1881 was passed it was absolutely necessary that all the tenants should go into Court for the purpose of obtaining a judicial rent, because at that time there was no standard of value which could be used; but we are not now in that position, because we have a certain standard which I think can be applied by the Court. If that standard could be so applied it would not be necessary for tenants to go into Court, unless the parties went there by way of appeal, and the probability is it would be found that there was no necessity for going into Court at all. My proposal is that on the tenant making application for a judicial rent under this clause it should be the duty of the Court, in the first place, to determine in a provisional manner the rent as between the landlord and the tenant by a standard of valuation up to £50 a-year, determined by the Land Commission, It would be open to every landlord and tenant afterwards within six months to appeal against the decision; and the Appeal Court would set about hearing the case in the same manner as under the Act of 1881 in the case of appeals from the Civil Bill Court. It is my belief, if this proposal were adopted in the case of the smaller leaseholders, that a very small proportion of them would appeal from the provisional determination of the Court, the result of which would be the saving of a large sum of money. In support of this proposal I would point out that while it could be carried out without any cost to the parties it would inflict no hardship on either of them, because they would be able to appeal in case of dissatisfaction with the previous decision of the Court. Supposing that in the Province of Ulster the leaseholders were rented at 10 per cent above Griffith's valuation, then on application to the Court, if the Commissioners found that the average rents determined by them in other cases, and in respect of tenancies under £50 a-year, were 10 per cent below Griffith's valuation, then in the particular case before them the Commissioners would provisionally determine the rent to be 10 per cent below that valuation; but if objection were raised, appeal could be made to the Court, and the proceedings would take place as if no provisional decision had been come to. I am appalled at the probable expense which this clause may cause to the State by the multiplication of special Commissioners, and I think it would be in the interest of all to avoid that expense, and still more to the interest of tenant and landlord that they should be saved the great cost of litigation which will be otherwise incurred. I do not know whether this is the best form in which my object could be carried out. If it be not, I shall be glad to accept any modification from the Government, because my Amendment is moved out of no hostility to the Bill, but simply for the purpose of saving money to the State and the parties concerned.

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, line 11, at end, add—"Provided also, that where an application is made under this section for a judicial rent by any tenant holding under a lease within the meaning of this Clause, and whoso holding is valued under the Poor Law valuation at the annual value of fifty pounds and under, the Land Commission, after notice to the lessor, but without hearing any evidence as to the value of the land from either lessor or lessee, shall provisionally fix the rent for the holding at the average rate, with reference to the Poor Law valuation, at which the vents of other holdings within the same province, of the Poor Law valuation of fifty pounds and under, have been finally fixed by the Commission during the twelve months preceding such application, provided that if within two months after such provisional determination of the rent either the lessor or the lessee shall appeal against it, the Commission shall hear and determine such appeal, without reference to their previous determination, in the manner provided for appeals from the Civil Bill Court under section forty-seven of the Irish Land Act, 1881: provided also, that if no such appeal be made, the rent so provisionally fixed shall be the judicial rent of the holding."—(Mr. Shaw Lefevre.)

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

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

I fully recognize that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentle-man is brought forward solely with the view to facilitate the proceedings, and to save the expense of all concerned in the fixing of a fair rent. At the same time, I think I can show that there are certain objections to the proposal which ought to prevent the Committee accepting the Amendment, oven if it were considerably modified. It is quite clear that the fall in prices, which is the prime cause and reason why we are legislating with regard to leaseholders, has affected the various classes of holdings very differently, so that a reduction on a rich grass farm might be excessive which would be inadequate in the case of a small agricultural holding. Then I have another objection to the Amendment, which I think the right hon. Gentleman will feel to have great weight. He proposes to have a different mode of settling valuations as between leases and tenancies from year to year. I do not think you can set side by side the two systems of fixing fair rents, because it would lead to much dissatisfaction and heartburning, and I conceive we should thereby be establishing an inequality which the Committee ought to be slow to create. The Amendment proposes a different system for holdings under £50 and holdings above £50. One evil which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to avoid is the block of Business which he thinks would take place. I do not believe that there would be that tremendous block which arose under the Act of 1881, and oven if there were we have a clause in this Bill which did not exist in the other Act, and which would largely meet that difficulty. I point out that the right hon. Gentleman, in his desire to avoid a block in the Commissioners Court, has forgotten the block that may arise in the Court of Appeal. Now, if there should be a block in the Courts, there is power, if necessary, to appoint additional Sub-Commissioners; but if the Court of Appeal is overworked you cannot meet that difficulty without legislation. I think the arguments I have laid before the Committee are sufficient to make us reject the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman. If that Amendment were carried it would practically sweep away and render nugatory the action of the Commissioners, throwing the whole weight of future decisions on some general principle arrived at in the past, subject only to appeal to the Court. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Gentleman, having the best intentions with regard to the clause, will not think it necessary to press his Amendment.

MR. MAHONY (Meath, N.)

I acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out a great objection to the clause as it stands; but I ask him to consider not the words of the clause, but the spirit of the Amendment, which I think is a very reasonable one. The first objection of the right hon. Gentleman was on the ground of the vast area involved. I admit that it would be impossible to leave the Commissioners to deal, as is proposed, with the case of all the Provinces in Ireland. The next objection is that there would be two modes of fixing rent, one for tenancies under £50 and another for tenancies above £50 valuation. But I point out that that difficulty might be met by including all tenancies. I would suggest for the right hon. Gentleman's consideration that the Amendment should merely be used to fix rent in a rough and ready manner in the first instance, and that if either party were dissatisfied with the rent so fixed they should then go in the ordinary way before the Sub-Commissioners. Now, the right hon. Gentleman stated that there was no block in the Court of Sub-Commissioners in 1881. That is one of the most absurd statements I ever heard in this House. Anyone who knows anything about the working of the Act of 1881 must know that there was a terrible block in the Land Court, and that in the year 1884 we were still engaged hearing cases that were listed on the day the Court first sat, and that some of the rents which were fixed in 1884 had to date hack to the first sitting of the Court. A very large body of Assistant Commissioners were appointed in consequence of the great block in the Courts. Now, I want to call the attention of the Committee to one of the results of that block. The Chief Commissioners, I think, incurred very great responsibility in what they did in this matter. They pressed the Sub-Commissioners to hasten on their decisions, and to get through as many cases as possible; and the consequence of that, in many instances, was that the Sub-Commissioners used improper hurry to get over the cases. Each month there was a Circular sent round to the Sub-Commissioners giving the number of cases of rents fixed by the Sub-Commissioners during the previous month. The object obviously was to get up a competition between the different Commissioners. Naturally the Assistant Commissioners were anxious to get on with their work, knowing that a great deal of favour was depending on their making rapid progress. The consequence of that Circular being sent round each month was, as I say, the establishment of a sort of competition between the different Sub - Commissioners. I am speaking of what I know; that there was competition amongst the Sub-Commissioners I know for a fact; and I also know for a fact that wherever any Sub-Commissioner fell short of the average of the cases he disposed of, the Chief Commissioners at once directed an inquiry to be made as to why he had so fallen short of the requisite number of cases. Well, Sir, nothing to my mind can be more calculated to destroy the proper working of the cases by the Sub-Commissioners than the action taken by the Chief Commissioners. A very difficult and delicate set of cases were set before us, and yet we had to go through them hurry scurry as fast as we could. Speed was the great consideration. If we did not complete the average number of cases we had to give a reason for it. The result of that, no doubt, was that a great many cases were hurried through unreasonably and improperly, and that in some instances the work was done in a very miserable manner. Now, what would be the effect of this proposal? If you take an area, or rather leave it to the Chief Commissioners to choose an area, they would naturally choose one where they would meet with cases of a similar character. They would fix an area where all the rents could be dealt with upon a Government valuation, approximating to rents fixed there during the past 12 months; but if my suggestion were adopted, either the landlord or the tenant would have a perfect right to go before the Court of the Sub-Commission in the ordinary way if he did not like to have the rent fixed in what I call a rough and ready manner. No injury would then be done to anybody; but there can be no question that in a very large number of cases both parties would be satisfied with the result; so that in a large number of cases, by the adoption of this proposition, you would save the necessity of further inquiry. You would get a large number of landlords and a large number of tenants to agree to arrangements, and save still further large expense to the country. I think I have met all the objections which were urged by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secre- tary. I am not supporting the Amendment in its present form, but I am merely suggesting that it is worth while for the Government to consider the spirit of the Amendment, from which I think they might evolve a proposal of great importance.

MR. LEA (Londonderry, S.)

I wish to say a word with regard to what has fallen from the hon. Member for North Meath (Mr. Mahony). He has stated that one great objection to the Amendment is that the Court of Appeal would be blocked, and then he suggested, I think, that the two parties should be allowed to go before the Sub-Commission if they choose. That, I think, is his proposal. Well, it seems to me that that proposal does not advance us at this time. If the two parties like they can enter into an agreement at the present time, and can have the agreement registered in Court, when it has all the effect of a judicial lease. It seems to me that that is all that is required; and that is the law at the present time. To give the parties power to go before the Sub-Commission does not seem to me to advance us a single step—we simply remain where we were. I feel obliged to the hon. Member for moving the Amendment. It is one which has often been discussed, but it seems to me that it is one of those things which, whilst they must always secure sympathy, are always difficult to carry out. I would ask him not to attempt anything which would have the effect of blocking the Sub-Commission. I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary say that Clause 19 will not be pressed. The proposal before the Committee seems rather impracticable; even if amended, as proposed by the hon. Member for North Meath, it would not enable us to advance beyond the present state of the law.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

The hon. Member for South Londonderry (Mr. Lea) has overlooked the most important part of the clause. I do not defend the clause as it is drawn. There is no equity in giving this relief to large tenants, while you deny it to small tenants. What does the clause propose? Why, that the Land Commission shall with rapidity fix a certain rent by a rough and ready method, striking as near to what they believe to be a fair rent as they can, having regard to the locality and to the rents fixed in the locality, and thus it says that there shall be a rent proposed and power given to either party to go to the Sub-Commission to have that rent altered. Now, the effect of that proposal would be this. Whereas to the present hour after three or four years of the working of the Land Act 1881, a tenant comes into Court, perhaps suffering from a rent 50 per cent too high, and makes an application, is listed, is kept two years upon the list, until the rent is fixed; and then what happens? He is liable to be required to pay his rent rapidly, and he may easily lose all right of redemption before his case conies into Court. That is a most serious grievance. I know that under the Land Act of 1881 power was given to the Superior Court to stay proceedings for ejectment pending the decision of a fair rent. These powers were hardly used, and in the Court of Common Pleas, which seemed to be the favourite tribunal of the landlords, as they took most of their cases to it, it was said that the legislature were not going to take away the rights of the landlords by a side wind. What will happen here pending the final hearing—the real hearing of the case by the Land Commissioners? The old rent will have disappeared, and anew rent, which will be very much nearer the true rent than the old one, will have been substituted for it. The tenant will be in a position to pay this rent; he will not be evicted. You will save all the heart burning and trouble following upon evictions, and in very many cases, where the rent which is fixed by this automatic method is brought before the Sub-Commission, you will have prevented the exorbitant rent having been exacted during the hearing of the case. But the clause will do more than that. We cannot assume that the Land Commission are in every case to be wrong. We must assume that in many cases that automatic system will be found satisfactory to both landlord and tenant. They will know that if they go before the Court it will be necessary for them to gather together their valuers and witnesses, and they will think it wiser—even where the tenant thinks his rent a few shillings too high—he will be prepared to pay those few shillings rather than go to the expense and trouble of appearing before the Court. By the adoption of this system you would cut off a prolific source of evictions, and you would get rid of 50 per cent of the cases. You would relieve the Court, and let the Committee recollect that, taking the amounts of the reduction of rents by the Land Commission, and taking the cost of the Land Commission, it is no exaggeration to say that for every pound taken off the rent of the Irish tenants the taxpayers of this country have been charged a pound for the operation. I would submit that 12 months is too long a period of time to go back, and that rents fixed more recently ought to be considered. I would also strongly urge that all the small tenants should be included. But with all those modifications I do not see why the Government should not ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford who has proposed the Amendment (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) to withdraw it, and why they should not say they would favourably consider a scheme by which they could got rid of 50 per cent of the work of the Courts.

SIR JOSEPHM'KENNA (Monaghan, S.)

I hope the Government will give the promise which the hon. Gentleman has spoken of, for I believe if they do they will save 50 per cent of the cases which would otherwise come before the Courts. I veuture to say that anyone knowing anything of the course pursued by the Sub-Commissioners will be able to tell within 5 per cent what rent will be fixed when he knows what rents have been fixed previously, and what the Poor Law valuation is. What I would propose would be something shorter than the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. It would be that all classes of tenants who are now free to come, or would be free to come into Court, should have, in the first instance, prescribed for them by some competent authority what the rent should be. They should be governed by arithmetical considerations, they should know something about land valuation, and should consider the rent that the tenant has paid. All these considerations would enable a primâ facie rent to be made out, and then they could say to the parties—"You can either take or leave." The parties could take the matter into Court then if they liked. I believe that fully one-half, probably two-thirds, of the cases would disappear when the tenants came to consider that they had got, as probably they would get, a fair and substantial redaction from the old rent which they had been previously familiar with, and the landlords, I believe, would be likely to say—"The rents will have to be reduced; we know the worst, and we will accept that arrangement." I believe that would promote peace more than any other proposal which has been made, and I think the Irish Members are very much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) for the trouble he has taken in endeavouring to improve this Amendment. Though, perhaps, there are none of us who agree with the Amendment as it stands, we are all for improving it on the principle which it embodies. I think we all look to the principle of the Amendment to guide us. I look upon this Amendment free from all predilection for cither the tenant, or the landlord class, and I say we must all be indebted to anyone who enables us in Ireland to arrive by a short cut at a preliminary settlement which would leave either side the option of coming and saying how much more or how much less than a certain amount they would agree to. I think that if some such clause as this were carried we should get the matter properly settled.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

Although the Government are not prepared to accept the Amendment in its present form, I am not altogether dissatisfied with the discussion which has taken place, because it is admitted by the Government that it is a serious question, and one which ought to be met, and that it is desirable to deal with it. With regard to the objections that are raised, they are not, I think, fundamental, and they are such as might be easily met by certain small alterations. For instance, I should be prepared to accept the suggestion that small local areas should be adopted rather than counties. I think also, if this method were adopted with regard to leaseholders, it ought also to be applied to small tenants, the tenants holding under a small amount of value under the Land Act of 1881. Then as to the question of the block of business in the Court of Appeal, that, I think, might be met by letting the question go by way of appeal in the first instance—by appeal to the Sub-Commissioners. With regard to the present situation, I believe the best course will be to withdraw the Amendment in its present form, and to place a new clause on the Paper, embodying the suggestions which have come from different quarters, and I trust the Government will consider the question in a favourable spirit. It appears to me that they have not quite taken into account the real import of this Amendment in respect of the very great cost of the Sub-Commissioners. My opinion is, that if it could be possible to adopt such a plan as this, the country would be saved many thousands of pounds, and both parties would be saved the trouble and expense of litigation, which is now a serious matter to them. It is on this account, in fact, that I have introduced the Amendment; and I cannot but think that if the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) and other economists were present, I should receive their support on this occasion; as, however, they are absent, and as I cannot hope to be successful on a Division, it seems to me that my best course will be to withdraw the Amendment in order to modify it, and bring it up again at a later stage.

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

If the Amendment is put down for the Report stage the Government will consider it; but I must point out that there are grave objections to it on principle. With regard to the suggestion the right hon. Gentleman makes on the score of expense by going to a Court of First Instance, the expenses which would arise would be even more formidable-in extent than those which arise at present before the Court of Appeal. It should be understood that the same kind of objections would arise to the Amendment on Report, and that unless he is able to modify it, so as to remove the objections which have been pointed out, it is not likely that he will receive the support of the Government.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

I beg to move an Amendment to add at the end of the clause, on page 2, line 11, the following words:— Provided also, that in case of the lessee becoming a present tenant under this section, his lease shall not be deemed to have expired by the efflux of time nor shall the provisions of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Acts' with respect to improvements in the holding under an expired lease be applicable to such lessee. This Amendment I have handed in in manuscript; but I think hon. Gentlemen representing Ireland have read it. I am called upon to discuss it in the presence of the Solicitor General, whose acquaintance with law in Ireland is probably equal to that of the Attorney General. Unless this Amendment is adopted, serious injustice will be done to leaseholders becoming present tenants under the Bill. My Amendment proposes that a lease shall not be deemed to have expired by efflux of time in which the tenant has applied under this section to be deemed a present tenant. The object will, of course, strike the two hon. and learned Gentlemen as dealing with the case provided for in the Act of 1870, where, at the expiration of the lease, the compensation which the Land Act gave was either appropriated altogether or cut down, or the presumption in respect of which was altered. Perhaps the best way to illustrate that is to draw the attention of the Committee to the sections of the Act of 1870 which deals with this matter. I ask the Committee to remember that the Court will undoubtedly hold those leases to have expired. They will hold the tenant coming into Court as a tenant coming in at the expiry of his lease within the meaning of the Land Law Acts. What will his position be if he comes in as the tenant whose lease is expired? Why, he will be robbed of all the improvements he has made under the lease which he has held, say, for 31 years. The houses he may have built will remain to him, and all reclamations of waste land; but beyond that, all his improvements, such as drains and fences, will pass to the landlord. [An hon. MEMBER: That will not apply to Ulster.] No, it will not apply to Ulster; because the Act of 1870 and the Act of 1881, read together with the practice of Ulster, has preserved all the tenant's improvements. We are perfectly safe in Ulster, no matter what words are put in here, whether the lease is an expired lease or not. I am, however, speaking for the other Provinces, and where the land may be dealt with in a different manner under expired leases. I adhered strictly in my Amendment to the case of a lessee becoming a present tenant, and his lease having-expired. The grievance does not arise except in a case where there has been a lease. Now, as I say, it will be deemed that leaseholders who apply to become present tenants under this Statute have lost their leases by lapse of time when they apply to the Land Court to have a fair rent fixed under the sections of previous Acts. In the first place, if the tenant's lease contained a provision expressly prohibiting compensation, then he would get nothing. That case, I think, would scarcely arise, because, before the Land Act of 1870, no one dreamed of compensation, still there may be cases; but the second case is a common one, and will always arise under Sections 4 and 5 of the Act of 1870. It is provided in Sub-sections 2 and 3 of Section 4, that a leaseholder shall not be entitled to compensation for improvements unless it is specially set out in the lease that he is to be so entitled. That goes further in the case of leaseholders, because in Sub-section 2 of Section 5 it is provided that in the oases of leases expiring, the tenants shall receive no compensation for ordinary improvements made by him during the lease, and that the presumption in the case of buildings and reclamations is that the lessee who goes into Court to have his rent fixed will have to pay rent on his own improvements. Under the case of "Adams v. Dunseath," the measure of the allowance to the tenant, and the only one of an allowance to the tenant, is the measure of the compensation he is entitled to under the Land Act of 1870. My Amendment only provides to meet the case in regard to other tenants—a special hardship which arises by reason of the Act to which I refer. You have said there are men labouring under rack-rents, and, after the passing of this Act, they should apply to be admitted to the benefits of the land legislation of the country. But what will those tenants be able to say? Why, that you give with one hand, and that you take away with the other, for the reason that they are to loss every fence, and every drain, and every improvement they have effected on the holding, except the house in which they live. And even in the case of dwellings, they will have to go and prove the improvements, which is not the case with regard to tenants from year to year. As I understand the policy of the Government—and I should be glad to see them take an interest in this matter, and to hear from them something to show that they appreciate the point which is raised—as I understand the policy of the Government, it is to prevent injustice being done to the leaseholders. Surely, then, they should protect them from the injustice of losing the value of the improvements they have effected during the operation of their leases. Those men are liable to be robbed and plundered to the full extent of their improvements; they are liable not only to be deprived of their improvements, but, under the sections I have quoted, they are actually liable to pay rent upon them. I have deliberately confined myself strictly to the case of lessees. It will be impossible for us to pass out of this Committee, and to return to the tenants of Ireland, unless we have dealt with this case of "Adams v. Dunseath" before we leave the subject. I declare that no iniquity was over perpetrated by a tyrant equal to the result of the decision in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath." Dealing with the Land Act of 1881, and with the disastrous case of "Adams v. Dunseath," it is impossible to leave this Committee without making provision for those who are being daily and hourly plundered. Everyone who is emancipated under this Act will be subjected to the effect of the decision in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath." I want the Committee to observe the policy which the Government ask us to understand is the policy that they wish to observe—namely, that the same privilege should be extended to leaseholders as are possessed by tenants from year to year. I submit that the Government are bound to support me, though, if I am wrong in anything that I have stated, or if I have overstated anything, I should be glad to be corrected, and shall at once acknowledge any correction.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 11, at end, to add—"Provided also, that in the case of the lessee becoming a present tenant under this section, his lease shall not be deemed to have expired by efflux of time, nor shall the provisions of the Land Law (Ireland) Acts with respect to improvements on the holding under an expired lease be applicable to such lessee."—(Mr. O'Doherty.)

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

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, 104 Walton)

As I understand it, the Amendment now moved, if accepted, would be contradictory to the decision already arrived at by the Committee. I would point out to the hon. Member that, so far as I understand the question, a decision upon it has already been arrived at. It has been decided that those who claim under the Act of 1881 shall be subject to the provisions of that Act. The Act of 1881 provided that leases for a limited period should, on the expiry of those leases, be altered into present tenancies; and I would call attention to the fact that the present tenancy created by the Act of the right hon. Gentleman opposite is not a matter which depends on the choice of the landlord and tenant in their contract, but is an asset, and property resident in the tenant which comes into existence when the lease drops, but which is a property before. A present tenancy which comes into active existence at the expiration, of the lease is, in reality, a continuance of the lease. As I understand it, the purport of the Amendment which we ask the Committee to accept is a generous extension of the Land Act of 1881; and it is intended to provide that a continuous tenancy shall extend not only to the 60 years' lessee, but to the 99 years' lessee; and we say that those lessees, for the purposes of the Act, should be dealt with in the same way as when a lease expires. I would draw the attention of the hon. Member to the words of Section 21 all through this matter, and they are very remarkable. The words which frequently appear are, "deemed to be." They are not an alteration so much of the abstract legal quality, but a legislative Proviso that the tenant is to be "deemed" to be a present tenant, and to be deemed to have certain rights. It is not stated that he is to be so deemed in regard to abstract questions. What I meant by saying that I think the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman is contradictory to what the Committee has already decided is this—I understand the Committee to have decided that in the case of a 60 or 99 years' lease, a tenant may have elected to be put in the position of a tenant holding under an expired lease of the Act of 1881. What the hon. Gentleman now proposes is, that this particular class of tenants who come for the first time in existence under this Act of Parliament, are to be in a wholly different position as compared with their brother tenants, who hold under an actually expired lease, and who come within the very letter and spirit of the Act of 1881. If the hon. Member's view of the law is well founded, he proposes to leave men who come within the letter and spirit of the Act of 1881 in a worse position than those who come within the present clause—those to whom we propose to apply the benefits of Section 21. That appears to me to be a very serious matter for the Committees to undertake; and, as I said a minute ago, I do not adopt the view of the law suggested by the hon. Member. I understand that view of the law to be this—that on looking at the present tenancy, which for the purpose of Section 21 is a continuance of the old tenancy, you are to look at it as if it were governed by the laws which relate to the right of compensation. I deny that you are to do that.

MR. T. M. HEALY

That is not my hon. Friend's argument at all.

MR GIBSON

Allow me to entertain my own opinion upon the matter, which is of some little value to myself, at all events. Without in the least disparaging the knowledge or fairness of the hon. Gentleman opposite, I wish to present my own view. It occurs to me that the hon. Member opposite has not quite correctly interpreted the decision in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath." So far as I am aware, it was never suggested on any principle to apply it to a case under Section 21. The question as to Section 21 was very fully discussed in a case I argued myself in a Court of Appeal——

MR MAURICE HEALY

Was the case one of a tenant for life?

MR. GIBSON

Yes; and it was then held that where a man was lessee for his own life, still he came within the Act of Parliament, and was a present tenant for the first time the day after he was buried. That was a very curious state of law. The principle held was that a present tenancy of a prospective character was actually in the tenant at the moment of his death for the benefit of his next of kin. I think the view of the hon. Gentleman is founded on a rather narrow construction of what should be the rights of the tenant, if you are making a claim under the Land Act for compensation for improvements after he had broken his lease and become a present tenant. I would remind the hon. Member of the great danger and inconvenience of raising sweeping Amendments of this character relating to the Act of 1881. I do not say that those Amendments may not be necessary to be considered at some other time, if hon. Members think there is any substance in them; but, at the present moment, it appears to me that this proposal is inconsistent with the decision which the Committee has already arrived at. It is not relevant to the Bill. It might be relevant to Section 8 of the Act of 1881; but my contention is this—first, that the Amendment appears to be inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee; next, I say that if well founded, it shows that those tenants who are now brought within Section 21 are to have a greater measure of right than is granted to tenants at present falling within that section—I mean tenants who fall within Section 21, before the passing of this measure. Next I say that his propositions of law appear to me to be founded on a mistake. I certainly would recommend the hon. Member if he will allow me to offer him advice, not to press the Amendment, but to allow the Bill, which is already sufficiently overloaded, to remain as it is, and to allow us to proceed with the Amendments on the Paper. There are various important provisions to be considered, and I would urge him to allow us to proceed with the consideration of those matters, so that we may have some prospect of coming to a conclusion of our labours within the limited time at our disposal. There will have to be a great amount of concession made one way or the other, and I think the hon. Gentleman should rest satisfied with the knowledge that that is to be the case, and should not proceed in a course which is likely to bring about serious delay to the great disadvantage of the Bill.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

The Amendment we are discussing seems to be a very simple one, and though I have no doubt many Members of the Committee enjoyed the able statement, and the arguments of the Attorney General for Ireland, yet it seems to me that all his arguments are beside the question, and are more calculated to obscure the real question at issue, as all legal arguments do, rather than to render it clear.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. CHANCE, resuming

The position is simply this—by the Land Act of 1870, general provision was made for the payment of compensation to tenants at the termination of their tenancies, whether on the termination of their leases, or by the act of their landlords; but, unhappily, the provision was accompanied by limitations which are adverse to leaseholders of a certain description. The general provision giving compensation is, in the case of leaseholders, cut down by excluding leaseholders from all right for compensation under certain limitations. By the Act of 1881 leases terminating in 60 years are dealt with. Tenants at the expiration of those leases are to become present tenants, and still the disabilities contained in the Act of 1870 hung over them. They are still unable to receive compensation for a certain class of improvements. By the first clause of the Bill before us, it is proposed that lessees shall be entitled to come before the Court in order to break their leases, and to have a fair rent fixed. If they do that all the improvements for obtaining compensation for which they have been excluded by the Acts of l870 and 1881 will be deemed to be improvements of the landlords. The lessees, therefore, in getting a fair rent fixed will be rented for their improvements themselves. There is one objection raised to the Amendment. It is said that the Amendment may be a reasonable one, applied to tenants coming now to have their leases broken; because, undoubtedly, it puts them into the same position which the Act of 1881 already puts tenants from year to year. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland says that which amounts to this—that because there are tenants now holding under leases who are satisfied with their leases and prefer to remain under them instead of coming into Court, therefore we must continue a defective state of the law which enables tenants to be taxed for the improvements they have made and paid for out of their own pockets. That seems to me to be a fair statement of the case; but I think it is one which will not recommend itself to the Committee at large. The Committee is asked, by rejecting this Amendment, to continue the horrible principle of taxing industrious tenants for their own improvements. The Committee is asked to declare that the rent, which is fair for the thriftless tenant, is too low for the improving tenant; because he has made improvements for which the law gives him no compensation. That is a ridiculous state of affairs, and is directly pointed against industrious tenants—the class the Government are always telling us they desire to protect. The system the Government are desirous of maintaining is a system which can be advantageous to no one but the landlords, who say that they do not want to obtain that which does not properly belong to them. I trust the Committee will insist upon putting tenants who break their leases in the same position as those tenants who hold from year to year are put in.

MR. MAC NEILL (Donegal, S.)

I hope the Government will accept this Amendment. These improvements must be considered to be improvements as defined in the Act of 1870. If this clause be accepted without the Amendment, the leaseholder who breaks a lease will be taxed simply on the produce of his own labour, and the Government will be taking away with one hand what they give with the other. Clearly if this Amendment be not accepted, the benefit of this Act must be withheld from those who would otherwise take advantage, of its provisions, and I can well understand that it would be much better for a leaseholder to hold to his lease than to break it, and avail himself of the advantages of this Act. The question of the presumption in favour of improvements is dealt with in the 4th and 5th sections of the Act of 1870, and the provisions of the law, as it at present stands, must be considered and incorporated in this Bill. Let me take one of these sections only in which this is held to be the law—namely, that wherever there are improvements made in a tenancy held under a lease, the tenant himself is under the obligation of proving that the improvements were made by himself. It is within the knowledge of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House that improvements in the land of Ireland have been altogether the work of the tenant, therefore see what great injustice this section works. The Act of 1870 did not acknowledge co-owner-ship in the soil, but went on the presumption that the landlord was the owner, and that if the landlord intended to exercise to the utmost his territorial rights, none of which were taken from him, then he should pay for that exercise; but still, that even when he was compelled to pay compensation, he was only acting in pursuance of his strict right. This is only the preparatory step—see what you are doing; in allowing leases to be broken, you acknowledge that these contracts must have been made under some circumstances which you think inequitable on one side or the other. I will not weary the Committee by going through the elaborate provisions of the Act of 1870, which were designed to take away from the tenant the value of his own labour, and which must be incorporated into this Act. But on all these grounds I ask whether it is fair or reasonable that the tenant should be deprived of the fruits of his labour, and not only so, but mulcted for his industry—made to pay rent for being industrious? If he had been an improvident and careless man he would not have been thus taxed; in fact, a premium is placed upon idleness. Now that there is co-ownership in land in Ireland, now that this Bill has been introduced, for the benefit of the tenant, now that the provisions under leases have been held to be inequitable, and now that it is the special aim of the Government to root the tenant in the soil, I submit in the interests of justice that this small concession should be made, and that leaseholders should be placed in precisely the same condition as tenants from year to year.

MR. MOLLOY (King's Co., Birr)

Mr. Courtney, we seem to have been carrying on during the last half hour a highly techinical conversation—[Mr. GIBSON: Hear, hear !]—and I am bound to say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was the most technical of all. The right hon. and learned Gentleman gave us a learned dissertation, just as if he were addressing a Court of Appeal in Ireland. I think we may fairly throw aside all technical matters, and look at what is the intention of the Government in this matter. A certain number of leaseholders are to have their leases broken, and they are to become present tenants, for the purpose of having fair rents fixed. It has been shown that a certain number of improvements would become the landlords', and that in the fixing of a fair rent there could be added, in the shape of rent, or new rent, what should not be added. The Attorney General for Ireland endeavoured to show that these improvements should be added. What does it amount to? You are going to fix a fair rent. Let us suppose, therefore, that the Land Commissioners, after hearing the case, decided upon fixing a fair rent; let us say that a fair rent is £10. That is a fair rent according to the Commissioners, and that is what the Government say the tenant ought to be asked to pay. Then the contention of the Attorney General for Ireland amounts to this, that there is something else to be added to the fair rent on account of a certain class of improvements. Do you not see that if you added to the £10, which is the fair rent, another £5 on account of these improvements, which are not really the landlords' improvements, but which we will suppose are—if you add to the fair rent of £10 a further £5 on account of improvements, or on account of any other excuse you may make, you are not fixing a fair rent, but an unfair rent, and the whole object the Government have in view in breaking the lease for the purpose of fixing a fair rent is entirely destroyed. Either one of two things must happen. Either the Land Commissioners, when they are fixing the rent, must take into consideration the addition you are about to compel them to make, or else they must fix that which would be a fair rent, and add something to it which would make it an unfair rent. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour)—who certainly, as far as I am able to judge, is endeavouring to meet the views of everybody in this matter, and bring the Bill within the four corners of the intentions of the Government—will see the force of the argument I have advanced. I have tried to divest the matter of all the technicalities introduced, and to point out that it is really and simply a question whether or not this certain class of leaseholders shall have a fair rent fixed for them, or whether the rent shall be an unfair rent, and consequently of no value to them.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the Birr Division of King's Co. (Mr. Molloy), that the net question which this Amendment raises is a question whether or not, in fixing the fail rent, the tenant shall get the benefit of the improvements he has himself made; and lam sorry that, instead of addressing himself to that point—which is, I think, the substantial point raised by this Amendment—the Attorney General for Ireland should have contented himself with making what I may call aNisi Prius point. As to the correctness of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point, I am disposed to agree with him. I think he is right in saying that this Amendment, if accepted, would make a distinction between one class of leaseholders, who permit their leases to expire by time, and leaseholders who take the benefit of this clause, and go into Court for the purpose of having their leases broken. But I cannot think that the number of leaseholders who will take the former course, and, in face of the benefits this clause confers upon them, will choose to let their leases run out, will be very great, and I think that, in itself, is a sufficient answer to the point made by the Attorney General for Ireland. I do wish that instead of making a point of this kind, and instead of arguing the matter in the highly technical spirit in which he did, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured to enlighten us as to what the real views of the Government are on this important question of tenants' improvements. I do ask that, whether the Government accept this Amendment or not, we shall have some declaration from the Government on the question of tenants' improvements. There is no question in the whole scope of the Land Act which is more important, and it is simply idle to suggest that any better opportunity can ever be found for discussing and deciding the question than that which is now afforded.

THE CHAIRMAN

It would be irregular to go into that general question on the Amendment to the clause.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I assure you, Sir, I have no intention of dis- cussing the general question, save so far as it is strictly relevant to the matter before the Committee. The point made, as I understand it, by my hon. Friend the Member for North Donegal (Mr. O'Doherty) is, that leaseholders suffer a special grievance, and for that reason leaseholders think it right to press this Amendment to the 1st clause of this Bill, which is a leaseholders' clause. If I may say it with respect, Sir, I think you are quite right in the ruling you have laid down; but let me say that there is a larger question than any question which can be discussed in relation to this clause. It cannot be denied that with regard to this clause, and strictly relevant to it, the question referred to by my hon. Friend (Mr. Molloy) arises—namely, how is the Land Court in Ireland to proceed, when they are fixing the rents of the tenants who will be admitted to the benefits of the Land Act under this particular clause of this Bill? I hope the Government will see their way to give us some declaration of opinion on this point. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland did not presume to contest that the decision in the case of "Adams v. Dunseath" inflicted very grave injury on the Irish tenants. He did not attempt to contest that the decision of the majority of the Court in that case was come to in the face of the declarations of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had charge of the Land Bill, when it was passing through this House, and one of whom, Mr. Law, presided in the Court of Appeal in Ireland when the decision was come to, and assented to the decision of the majority of the Court. Under these circumstances, I ask if we may have from the Government some declaration of what their policy on this important point is. It may be said that the whole question can be more properly raised on a new clause which would deal with a general Amendment in respect to tenants' improvements, and I am not disposed to question that proposition; but I do think that when the issue was distinctly placed before the Committee the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) might very well have dealt with the broad general question, rather than with the narrow technical issue to which he confined his remarks. I sincerely trust we shall have some declaration of policy from the Government on this important point.

Question put, and negatived.

Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 2 (Judicial rent may commence on date of application to the Court).

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

the Amendment I have to move—[Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Agreed.] If the right hon. Gentleman agrees to it, I need not say anything in explanation.

Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 13, leave out the words "may, if they think fit," and insert the words "shall."—(Mr. John Morley.)

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

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

MR. FINUCANE (Limerick. E.)

I hope the Committee will adopt the Amendment which stands in my name, which is to leave out the word "after" in line 15, and insert the word "preceding." This Amendment relates to the date upon which fair rent shall take effect. Let us assume that the original notice is served on the 10th of May, and the fair rent fixed on the 1st of June following. According to this clause of the Bill, the tenant would not get the benefit of the reduced rent until the May of the year following, nearly eleven months after the time at which the fair rent was fixed. I think this is manifestly unfair, and my Amendment would enable the tenant, in the case I have put before the Committee, to demand that the reduced rent should be taken by the landlord on the following gale day, that is, on the first of the November following the fixing of the rent. I hope the Committee will adopt this Amendment; if not, tenants will be obliged to pay the old rent for some months after the fair rent has been fixed.

Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 15, to leave out the word "after" and insert the word "preceding."—(Mr. Finucane.)

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

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

The present state of the taw under the Act of 1881, is that judicial rent commences to run from the gale day next following the decision of the Court. It was proposed by hon. Members below the Gangway that the rule laid down in the Act of 1881 should be modified, so as to make the judicial rent run, not from the gale day next following the decision of the Court, but from the gale day next following the application, because very often after application, and without any fault or delay on the part of the tenant, the decision of the Court might not be given for upwards of a year, so that the result would be that the judicial rent would not be able to run until after a very protracted delay had taken place. It was proposed by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway more than once—certainly with great vigour in 1883—that the law should be changed so that the tenant should not be prejudiced by a delay which was a delay of the Court which was not attributable to him, that when the tenant had shown zeal and earnestness in prosecuting his demand the rent should commence from the gale day next following his application to the Court. Now, the Government have adopted that view, and have made the judicial rent, the reduced rent commence on the gale day next following the application. What is now proposed by the hon. Member (Mr. Finucane) is that the judicial rent should run from the gale day next before the application. In other words, that the principle of retrospective legislation should be applied to the proceedings under the Land Act of 1881. There are a number of Amendments which appear to relate in a greater or less extent to the same principle. This is the first Amendment of the kind. The next Amendment is one of a similar character; but I will not discuss it; it is sufficient to say that this measure of relief that we offer exactly corresponds with what was so earnestly asked for by hon. Members opposite in 1883. The proposal of the hon. Member (Mr. Finucane) certainly goes in the opinion of the Government beyond what is required.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

It may be quite true that the Amendment just moved goes a little further than any previous Amendment moved on the same subject; but why should not we move on as well as other people. The Government themselves have made great strides; they have progressed very considerably on this question, and I cannot understand why it should be supposed that the Irish Party should be the only Party stationary. [Mr. GIBSON: We do not want you to go back.] Neither do I attach much weight to the argument that this is an endeavour to make the Act retrospective, because the clause, as it stands, is retrospective. The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot deny that under the clause, as it stands, the judgment of the Court, whenever it is made, will date back. We have known cases in Ireland where the Court did not adjudicate on the application of the tenant for a period of almost two years. What has happened in the past might happen in the future; therefore, it may follow that the judgment of the Court under this clause may date back. If it is delayed for one year it will give two gale days; but we want to make it a little more retrospective, and we think there is equity in favour of our proposal. The tenant makes an application to the Court; he pleads that his rent is excessive; but, through no fault of his own, the Court delays the hearing of his case. Whether the Court delays it or not, what we say is this, that once the tenant has brought his case within the cognizance of the Court, he ought to have the benefit of the judgment of the Court in respect to every gale payable after the lodging of his application. If the tenant make application in April, and his next gale is payable in September, and if the Court ultimately find his application is a just one and that the rent should be reduced, how can it be contended that it is right that he should pay the old rent in November? I claim that equity is with us in this matter, the clause is retrospective, and we only want to make it a little more retrospective to make it a little more equitable.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

There is a consideration which ought to have great weight with the Committee, and which the Attorney General for Ireland entirely overlooked. The circumstances under which the Bill of 1881 was introduced and those under which this Bill is introduced are entirely different. The condition in which the tenants were in 1881 and the condition in which they are now are as different as it is possible for one thing to be different from another. We are face to face with this state of things in Ireland, that the tenants are sick with hope deferred. We have been asking for this relief for four or five years; but it has been denied to them, and now we hear hon. Members and Ministers of the Crown saying that they cannot, for the life of them, understand why Irish leaseholders were not admitted to the benefit of the Act seven years ago. In debating legislation of this kind we ought to have regard to the gross injustice done to those men. They have been held to unjust rents for seven years. Is it to be argued that we are bound by the precedent of previous Bills proposed five or six years ago? If you had consented to our Bill of 1883, and admitted leaseholders to the benefits of the fair-rent clause, it might have been considered that a clause which was slightly retrospective might suit the circumstances of the case; but when this justice has been denied until 1887, are we to have quoted against us the proposition we laid down in 1883? Nothing of the sort; on the contrary, in strict logic, we would be entitled to argue that the fixing of the fair rent should date back to the time that our Bill was introduced. It is perfectly fair, equitable, and just for us to ask greater retrospection in the Act based on the long delay, than we could reasonably have asked if the Act had been passed in 1884. I think there is a sound argument in favour of this retrospective provision; but I have another argument equally strong, but resting on a different basis. I find that Amendments have been put down to Clause 22 by some of those hon. Gentlemen who are supposed to be in the confidence of the Government, and whose Amendments will, no doubt, meet with a hotter reception than any Amendments we could put down. I am glad they have provided that a tenant in Ireland who is under ejectment for non-payment of rent, or who is under an action on the part of his landlord for the recovery of rent, is to have the right to appeal to the Court, and that when he makes his appeal, the Court is to be entitled to take cognizance not only of the rent falling due, but also is to have unlimited power of retrospection in regard to the arrears of rent. I hope this Amendment will be accepted by the Government, because nothing else will bring peace to Ireland. The Court will have power to deal with arrears. Are we to be told that the same remedy which is to be offered to the tenant who cannot pay his rent, and who has an ejectment taken against him, shall be denied to the tenant who is struggling to pay his rent, and that all a man has to do who has got into arrear, and whose rent has been cut down by the Court, is to refuse to pay his rent until an action is taken against him, and then he will come under the retrospective action of the Court, and the Court will be able to review his arrears and to apply the same reduction to the arrears as they have already decided to apply to the future rent? The only difference will be that if this Amendment is refused, the landlord will be kept out of his rent.

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

I quite admit the defence the Government have made; but there is a good deal to be said for the contention of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. It is acknowledged that the Irish leaseholders have been paying unjust rents. There is no reason, and I think the Government will be bound to admit that there is no reason, why the judicial rent should not date from the gale day preceding the application. I have been hard pressed by leaseholders to make this Act retrospective; I have resisted that, and have felt I was entitled to resist it; but I think this Amendment is one which the Government ought not to resist, seeing that the leaseholders have for the last five or six years been paying rents which are admittedly too high. Then take the ordinary tenant. I suppose this clause applies to the ordinary tenant as well as to leaseholders. What is his position? If he gets his rent reduced, why should he pay an old rent which is admittedly a rack-rent—if it be reduced, why should he pay it for the preceding six months? I am very unwilling to press the Government unduly; but I think that equity is all in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Limerick (Mr. Finucane), and I really think the Government ought to look into it and concede this very reasonable demand.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson), in arguing against this Amendment, seems to have forgotten the institution in Ireland known as the hanging gale. If he takes that into consideration, it will make an enormous difference in the circumstances to which this Amendment applies. What is the hanging gale? It is half-a-year's rent—practically,an irrecoverable half-year's rent—which nine out of every 10 tenants in Ireland have had hanging round their necks from time immemorial. It is half-a-year's rent which the landlord has never any intention of collecting. Let me call the attention of the Committee to the manner in which a hanging gale affects this Amendment. Take the present state of the law under which judicial rent does not begin to run until the gale day following the order of the Court. What this clause, as it stands, proposes is that judicial rent shall run from the gale day next following the date of the application. Let us suppose that a tenant makes an application in the month of February. I do not care for my purpose how soon, or how late, the order of the Court is made. My point under this clause is, what is the date of application to the Court? Well, the application is made in February, and the next gale falls due on the 25th of March. It falls due after the date of the application, but, notwithstanding that, the tenant must go on paying on the basis of the old rent. But the rent which is paid by the tenant in March is the rent which fell due in the September previous; consequently, Sir, this happens—the tenant pays the March rent, and then the November rent day comes, and still, though his application was made in February, he will have to pay the rent which is due in the month of September on the old rent. So it will amount to this—that in nine cases out of every 10, notwithstanding the amendment in the law which this clause will make, the tenant must pay two gales of rent after the date of his application on the old rent. I challenge any hon. Gentleman to stand up and deny that that is the state of things. I challenge anyone to furnish a reason why such a state of things should be allowed to continue. And I ask the Government, as they are making concessions in this matter, to go the whole length of the justice of the case, and not preserve this monstrous state of things, which would be unjust if this hanging gale did not exist, but which is simply monstrous in view of the existence of the hanging gale.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S)

The Amendment we are discussing will not make this clause in any degree retrospective As the clause stands, nine out of every 10 tenants would, in spite of the clause, pay two gales at the old excessive rate in face of the judgment of the Court declaring it was an excessive rent. Now, I ask the Committee to recollect what happened in 1886, when the Crofters Act was passed. I ask them to recollect how Parliament treated the Scotch crofters on this very question. By the 6th section of the Crofters Act they dealt with this question, and they did not confine themselves to the rent which accrued at the time of the application, or subsequent to the date of the application. But, by the 5th sub-section, they directed the Crofter Commissioners, when an application was made to them to fix a fair rent, to take into account the amount of arrears, and to decide how the arrears should be paid. I ask the House to recollect what happened under that section. It is undoubted that under that section the Crofter Commissioners, in fixing fair rents for the crofters, have struck off 60 per cent of the arrears which, were due. While you directed the Crofter Commissioners to go back as early as it chose—to go back to the very earliest days in which a penny of rent was due, and deal with that rent in a drastic manner—you decline to enable the Irish Court to go back to the date of the application. That is really all we ask; and I ask on the ground of consistency, and in face of the Government's own cry of equal justice to Ireland, that the Government will do for the Irish tenants what they have already done for the Scotch tenants.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON Kerry, W.)

I believe that if we had the advantage of the presence of a dozen Irish landlords on the Treasury Bench, we should find this Amendment accepted. It is not often we have a word of praise to say of the Irish landlords; but I think we should find them, ready to do justice in a case of this kind. What will be the state of affairs? We shall have the Court pronouncing the decision that these leaseholders have been paying rent 20, 25, or perhaps 40 per cent above that they ought to have paid. They will, as pointed out by my hon. Friend (Mr. Maurice Healy), have actually to pay two gales of rent on the old basis before justice is allowed to take its course. I think that is a perfectly indefensible position for Her Majesty's Government to adopt. The object of this Amendment is that the landlord shall be obliged to take the rent at the reduced figure, Fancy the anomaly of the position. A tenant goes into Court, and his case may or may not be delayed. I maintain that if it is not delayed one hour in the Court, if on the very day his case is brought into Court it is possible to decide it, and his rent is reduced 20, 25, or 40 per cent, as the case may be, he should not be required to pay another gale on the old terms. I do not pretend to say that Irish landlords are invariably disposed to do justice; but I do believe that if a Committee of Irish landlords, picked haphazard, were now occupying the Front Ministerial Bench, we should have this Amendment readily accepted. This Amendment is in no sense retrospective, because we are only dealing with the rent which is ordinarily payable after the decision has been come to. I am surprised that, after the unanimous appeal made from these Benches, Her Majesty's Government think it well to occupy their present obdurate position in this matter.

DR. COMMINS (Roscommon, S.)

Mr. Courtney, I rise to throw out a suggestion which Her Majesty's Government may, I think, feel inclined to adopt. It seems to me a very extraordinary thing that, at the time of the passing of the Act of 1881, the universal practice of the Courts in all ordinary cases was not followed. When a suit or action has boon introduced in a Court, the object of which is to determine the right of parties, the decision always dates back to the instant of the institution of the suit. I see no reason why the decision should not date back to the day of the original notice in all these cases. It is the easiest thing in the world to provide that when the Court has fixed a fair rent, that rent shall be made payable from the date of the decision. It is a mere simple sum of arithmetic. There is no difficulty at all in the matter. If what we propose is adopted we shall simply follow the usual custom of all Courts, and we shall be doing strict justice to the tenants. My suggestion is that we should, leave out the words "the gale day next after," in which case the clause would read— Such judicial rent shall be the rent payable by the tenant holding as from the making of the application. I merely throw this suggestion out as an alternative course for the Government to adopt.

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

I hope the Committee will recall the exact position in which we stand. This clause of the Bill carries out the provision suggested some years ago by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite for the relief of Irish tenants. The hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) says we live in a progressive age, and that the Government have just now reached a stage which the Irish Members reached three years ago, and, therefore, we have no right to complain if, in the meanwhile, Irish Members have themselves made advance, and if they press us to make that advance with them.

MR. DILLON

You would not agree to our suggestion three years ago.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Precisely; the suggestion was contained in a Bill which the majority of the Liberal Party rejected three years ago. I make no complaint, but am simply replying to the argument of the hon. Member for West Belfast. He does not deny that we have gone the full length of their Bill. What he says is that they themselves have altered their opinion in the meanwhile—that what they thought justice in 1883 they no longer think justice, and that we ought to follow them in this wild career. I want to know on what principle finality would ever be reached? It would be enough for the Government of the day, from whatever side it was drawn, to propose Bills in exactly similar terms to a Bill suggested in the interests of the Irish tenants by those who claim to represent such tenants, for the Members for Ireland to get up and say—"That was good enough when we proposed our Bill, but it is not good enough now when you propose your Bill." Hon. Gentlemen have founded their argument upon what they call the injustice of past rents. They seem to think there is some kind of immorality connected with any rent which, under any circumstances, is diminished by the action of the Court. I do not wish to introduce unnecessary controversial subjects upon this matter; but that is not the view which can be taken by Her Majesty's Government. I quite admit that the tenants under leases, for example, had made extremely bad bargains for themselves, and I also admit that this House, rightly or wrongly, has determined to relieve them of the consequences of their bad bargains, and has made an exception in their favour which, so far as I know, the House of Commons has never made in favour of any other class of the community. The House may be right or wrong in taking that course; but, as I am responsible for the Bill we have proposed, I hold the view that we have, on the whole, done the right thing. But I do not agree that we are doing well to relieve the tenants of the consequences of bad bargains. We do not admit, and we never have admitted, that those who have exacted legal rights in past times have been guilty of an act of injustice, and we have no right to rip up old and past bargains, and exact from, the people, who, after all, only use their legal rights, some kind of restitution in the name of justice. We do not admit that. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Kilkenny (Mr. Chance) has appealed to the analogy of the Crofters Act. It in quite true that by a very violent provision adopted to deal with a very violent and extreme state of things the Crofters Act did give power to deal with arrears. I again protest against the general principle laid down by hon. Gentlemen opposite, which is that every time this House, in the face of a great emergency, chooses, rightly or wrongly, to overstep the ordinary limits of policy which dictates its legislation, that is to be dragged into a precedent which is to regulate all its behaviour when it is dealing with a different state of things. If every time we pass what is admitted to be exceptional legislation for Ireland, it is to be used in justification of what is admitted to be exceptional legislation for Scotland, or if every time we adopt what is admitted to be exceptional legislation for Scotland, it is to be dragged into a precedent for further exceptional legislation for Ireland, we are entering upon a process which can have no determination whatever. I must point out that there is a great distinction between the case of the Crofters Act and the case we are now considering. When the House of Commons passed the Crofters Act they had to deal with a population which had universally got into arrear, under a state of things the exact cause of which it is not now necessary to inquire into. But we are now dealing in Ireland with a condition of law which has given the tenant for the last six years power of revision. We are dealing under this clause with two classes of tenants; firstly, with the class of tenants under leases, and secondly, with that class not under leases. Do I understand that the case is given up with regard to the class of those not under leases, because I think the argument I have put forward is conclusive with regard to the tenants not under leases? Now, it appears to me that in their dealing with the class of tenants under leases, the House has acted in a most generous manner. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: No, no !] The House has done for the leaseholders of Ireland what no Government in any country, as far as I know, has ever done before. We go the full length of anything which has been claimed for the leaseholders of Ireland by those who claim to represent those leaseholders, and all we ask now is that the action we have taken in admitting, by a violent departure from every recognized principle, the leaseholders of Ireland to the benefits of the Act of 1881, shall not be retrospective. Surely we are not making a great demand on the House when we ask them to assent to the proposal contained in our measure, which was also the proposal contained in the measure brought forward by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

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

I do not understand that the right hon. Gentleman has stated the true construction of this clause. I do not understand it is confined to leaseholders. It is intended to apply to all persons who have had judicial rents fixed. This clause is a specimen of that exceptional legislation to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. The position of the matter is this—that in passing what the right hon. Gentleman calls the exceptional legislation of 1881, Parliament enacted that the judicial rents should not commence until after the decree of the Court fixing the judicial rent. That has been felt in Ireland, as admitted by the right hon. Gentleman, to be a grievance. It has been felt that the judicial rents ought to commence at a much earlier date than the decision of the Court. It is simply a question of time. We are introducing retrospective legislation in saying that the judicial rent shall date back to the gale day next after the date of the application of the tenant—that is, one or two gale days preceding the date of the decision. The clause will be retrospective in any case. If upon the application of the leaseholder or other tenant, the Court decides that whereas his rent has been £30 it ought only to be £20, the question is when the payment of the £20 shall commence. The present law says it shall not commence until after the date of the judicial decision. The Government propose that it shall commence on the gale day next after the settlement. The hon. Gentleman the Member for East Limerick (Mr. Finucane) proposes that it shall commence on the gale day next before the application, and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins) proposes, as a compromise, that it shall commence on the actual day of the application. There can be no question of principle involved in this. The question is simply whether this Relief Clause shall be fairly and justly administered. Surely there can be some solution found which will save the time of the House, and, at the same time, do generous justice to the Irish tenants.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Generous justice at the expense of the landlords. In order to clear up the confusion, I wish to say that when I said the word retrospective, I used it in a very different sense to what the right hon. Gentleman thinks. I do not consider legislation is retrospective which says that a man shall make an application to the Court, and whatever the Court decides shall date from the date of the application. A man who comes to the Court does not say, "Relieve me of future payments;" but he says, "Relieve me of past payments which I have made, or which I ought to have made." [Cries of "No, no !"] I think I am putting the matter quite accurately. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman is that when a tenant comes to the Court, he shall ask the Court to relieve him of payments he ought to have made. [Renewed cries of "No, no !"] the proposal of the Government is that a man should only ask for relief in regard to the payment he is going to make or ought to make.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

The Amendment would not enable the Court to relieve a man from any liability which had accrued before the date of the application. That is perfectly clear. But what it would do would be to provide that the first rent payable by him after the date of application should be the new rent, and not the old excessive rent. It would not affect his prior liability to the extent of one farthing.

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

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary misrepresents the position. If an application is made in the month of July, the next gale will be payable in November. Under the Bill of the Government, the relief would date from the month of November; but under the Amendment it would date from the month of May. That is really the whole point.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

It appears to me that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. J. Balfour) used an expression just now which shows that the Government are in accord with us; but they are misrepresenting the effect of their own clause. We do not wish that the Amendment shall refer to sums payable by the tenant before the date of the application, and, in point of fact, it does not apply to them. If the right hon. Gentleman will read the words of his own clause, he will find that the clause, as it now stands, will compel a tenant, after the decision of the Court has been given reducing his rent, to make payments on the old scale, and not on the reduced scale, in some cases to the extent of a whole year's rent, and in many cases to the extent of six months' rent. That is absolutely so; and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland will not contradict the statement. How does the clause run? It runs as follows:— When the Court on application fixes a judicial rent for a holding, the Court shall order that such judicial rent shall be the rent payable by the tenant of the holding as from the gale day lest after the making of the application. Suppose the application is made anytime before the next gale day, and that the next gale day is the 1st of November, the new rent will commence to run from November; but the tenant will have to pay the old rent after the date of the application, because, recollect, that no agricultural tenant in either England, Ireland, or Scotland pays his rent upon the day on which it becomes due. Although the gale of rent in question may be due on the 1st of November, it would in no case be payable until the following May. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: No, no.] That is the custom on all the estates with which. I am acquainted. The right hon. Gentleman may know of some exception, but I never heard of the payment of a gale within a gale. In many cases where rents are payable yearly, they are not payable for 12 months after they become legally due. Let me take two cases, one of them payments of a gale within a gale, and the other a case where rent is payable on one gale day for the preceding gale. In the case of the rent becoming due next November, where the rent of the estate is ordinarily payable six months after it falls due, the tenant would pay, the next May, the old unreduced rent for the half-year. In the second case, where there is only one rent-day in the year, the tenant would pay the year's rent legally becoming due in November; that year's rent would also be the old unreduced rent. Now, I think that is a striking and a glaring injustice. This Amendment does not deal with payments which were made or can be made before the date of the judicial decision; but we say that this clause should deal with payments ordinarily payable immediately after the date of the judicial decision. I say that the rent ordinarily payable at the date of the application should be the reduced rent, and not the old unreduced rent. I think that it is a perfectly fair proposition; it does not import retrospective action into the Bill; it has been sanctioned in the case of the Arrears Act of 1882, and it is a principle which I submit the Committee should adhere to on the present occasion. The section of the Arrears Act provides that where it appears that in the ordinary course of dealing between the landlord and tenant, the rent has usually been paid on a certain date after it is legally due, the section in question shall apply to the date on which the rent is due. That is precisely what we want to have followed in this Bill; otherwise you will have, in the majority of cases, the old rent following on the tenant for fully six months after the date of the judicial decision, and in some cases for 12 months. I say that is a clear injustice and anomaly, and it is one which the Government are bound to redress. The way in which the Government have met this Amendment augurs very badly for any satisfactory solution of the arrears question, which comes on for discussion on Amendments to later portions of the Bill. But as regards this particular question, unless you wish to make the Bill a mockery, at all events for six months after it is passed, you will be obliged to adopt some Amendment in the direction indicated by the hon. Member for East Limerick (Mr. Finucane); and you must recollect that this period of six months will be that in which the tenants find it most; difficult to pay their rents. We should have been satisfied with the provision that the rent "shall be the rent ordinarily payable by the tenant of the holding on the gale day next after the making of the application." Would the Government agree to an Amendment of that description? It would got rid of the appearance of retrospective action incidental to the use of the word "preceding" in the Amendment of my hon. Friend. It is true that we cannot debate the whole of this question at the present time; but it would be possible to introduce the matter on Report. If the Government agree to what is now proposed, the clause would then run—"Shall be the rent ordinarily payable by the tenant of the holding on the gale day next after the making of the application."

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

I hope the Government will agree to this proposal. My hon. Friend wants to provide that this reduction shall take place on the hanging gale. The word "ordinarily" is in the Act of 1882, and I think the least the Government can do is to accept the proposal before the Committee. The matter is not one easily intelligible to hon. Gentlemen opposite, but it is one which, the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) can well appreciate. If the word "ordinarily" be inserted, it will make the Amendment effective without reference to the hanging gale. I think even the Parliamentary Under Secretary does not expect to get his rent before the usual time.

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

There is no hanging gale on my estates; it was bought up years ago.

MR. T. M. HEALY

That makes the case worse for the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because he must have expected it from the tenants long ago. [Colonel KING HARMAN: I bought it up.] All that the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) asks is, that the hanging gale shall not be a bone of contention between landlord and tenant in Ireland.

COLONEL WARING (Down, N.)

There is one statement that I wish to make—namely, that the hanging gale is not recognized, and does not exist in the North of Ireland, because it has been compounded for and bought up half a century ago. I am old enough to remember the occurrence on the estate of my grandfather.

MR. CHILDERS (Edinburgh, S.)

I had the honour of taking a part in carrying through this House the Arrears Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian, and I can say that this question of the hanging gale was thoroughly threshed out in the discussions which took place on that measure, and I think we may clearly infer, from the debates of that day, what the hon. Members for Cork (Mr. Parnell) and East Limerick (Mr. Finucane) desire. There is no question that, although on a few estates in Ireland the rents are paid within a few weeks of becoming due, on the vast majority of estates there the rents are not paid until six and twelve months afterwards. We have had the whole of that question thoroughly discussed on the Arrears Act, and precisely the same remarks were made by hon. Gentleman on the side of the House opposed to us then, as have been made to-night, and the conclusion come to was exactly in the terms of the statement made by the hon. Member for Cork. I would, therefore, press upon the Government to adopt these words which I think constitute a perfectly fair compromise.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I remember that so difficult was this question that when the Arrears Bill was introduced, it did not contain any provision with regard to it; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) had to ask the House to go into Committee pro formâ, in order to put in the provision about the hanging gale. The debate lasted four days, and the House resolved that the words of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) should be included. The word gale is always held in the minds of the peasantry to mean 12 months rent, and that is the meaning in the Act. Would it not be unfortunate if the tenant paid rent on the 25th March, 1889, getting a receipt to March 1888, and then after applying in May for a reduction of rent, that reduction were only to begin in 1889? That is exactly what will happen under this section. The tenant would not get the benefit of the clause till then, if the word gale were used in a popular sense. I trust the Government will give some reason for not adopting the Amendment of my hon. Friend, and I suggest, as they are desirous of increasing the loyalty of the people, that they should not in this case give with one hand while taking away with the other.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

I do not know to what extent the information and experience of the Government leads them to discover in the Amendment any large or adequate principle on which they ought to rely, and to which they think they ought to adhere; but if there is no principle of the kind I would advise them to accept the compromise which seems to be proposed from two quarters of the House. But I wish to be distinctly understood only to advise that compromise being accepted; because, so far as my information goes, there does not appear to be any very important principle involved; and to say that if the Government do not choose to accept the Amendment, without questioning their motives, I shall vote with them, because I think hon. Gentlemen opposite are dealing out very hard measure to the Government with, references to this clause. I was present here some minutes after 8 o'clock, and, having returned after 10 o'clock, I own that I am greatly grieved and exercised in my mind that the Committee should not have made greater progress than they have with the clauses of the Bill. I recollect that the boa. Member for East Mayo, in his speech on the second reading of the Bill, said, when he came to Clause 2, that he had no fault to find with it, and that he considered the clause to be satisfactory. He said the clause had the approval of the Irish Party, although the Government might have given way some time ago. I must also take into consideration that on many large and important matters the Government have, in spite of all kinds of hostile insinuations and imputations brought against them, come down and frankly met, and endeavoured to meet, the views of Irish Members on this question of relief of Irish tenants. Now, I put this to hon. Members opposite, and, in doing so, I think they may know I am not taking a partisan course, and that the observations I am making are perfectly unprejudiced and fair. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have at heart the interest of the Irish tenant, and in the interest of the Irish tenants they are disposed to cast aside and not allow themselves to be influenced by any memories of the past and former conflicts in this Session on the question of the Government of Ireland. But can the Government put themselves in that position? It is impossible. The Government of the United Kingdom is bound to consider the interest of all classes. It cannot altogether, on every point, sacrifice the interest of the landlord class. The point I wish to put is this—if we are to arrive at a harmonious Parliamentary Settlement of this question, hon. Gentlemen opposite must make allowances for the Government, and admit that they have made enormous concessions, which have not been obtained from any former Government. I appeal to hon. Members to reflect that they ought not, by discussing at great length Amendments on minor points, seek to screw the landlord class out of the protection of the Government. I think the remainder of the Bill may be discussed calmly and without serious difficulty; but, with regard to this Amendment, I appeal to hon. Members to consider the period at which we have arrived, the utter impossibility of carrying through this legislation in the present Session, if every point of detail is to be discussed, and the great interests involved. Unless some change in the attitude of hon. Members opposite takes place, I greatly fear that the interests of the Irish tenants will be most seriously compromised. I have been encouraged to make these remarks mainly by the tone of the hon. Member for Cork 'Mr. Parnell), and I venture to express a hope that, having regard to the great responsibility resting upon hon. Members opposite and upon the Government, we may make progress with the Bill as a whole, and allow to stand over points of a minor character.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

I certainly have a desire to approach the consideration of this Bill from the point of view recommended by the noble Lord who has just sat down, and I should be very sorry that either I or my hon. Friend should do anything in the direction he has indicated of preventing the passage of the Bill. I do not think we have unduly pressed the Government in anyway, so far as the Amendments we have put down are concerned, and since the announcement of the Government, I must say that we have abandoned the intention of moving many Amendments which are still on the Paper. I desire, as much as I possibly can, to make the passage of this Bill through the Committee as easy as possible, and that, I believe, is a feeling which influences all my Colleagues; but the question under consideration is a very important one, and we have put it to the Government very fully. It is a question of rents payable during the coming winter, and which will be on the old scale, unless the Government agree to the Amendment we have suggested as a compromise. Now, surely, that is the root and principle of the Bill. If the Bill is not to take immediate effect in Ireland, a very large portion of its ameliorative effect will be lost and destroyed. Surely, when we point out this fact, we are entitled to the consideration of the Government. Now, in order to show that I acknowledge the justice of the advice of the noble Lord, I shall suggest to my hon. Friend that he should withdraw his Amendment, and consider the question of compromise, and that the Government should announce their views on the subject. The question has been fully debated, and I shall be glad to hear what the Government have to say on the withdrawal of the Amendment.

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

The Government are unable to accept, at present, the suggestion of the hon. Member for Cork. They must oppose the Amendment which has been put from the Chair; but they will consider all the arguments that have been presented to them between the present stage and Report, and they will then say whether they think it is possible to make any approach to the settlement of the question in the direction which the hon. Member for Cork suggests. I must again ask the Committee to proceed as quickly as possible with the Bill, having regard to the very important issues which have been raised by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

DR. FOX (King's County, Tullamore)

It is, unfortunately, the fact that many of the Irish tenants are three years in arrear with their rent, and, if you are to give them a fair start, it will be absolutely necessary that they should be relieved of this onus. I propose that the Land Commissioners' Court should be able to deal with the rent duo in the manner proposed in my Amendment, because that Court is more competent to do so than the County Courts, which, as at present constituted, have not the confidence of the people, and because the procedure would, be far more simple.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 15, after "application," insert—"And if the application is made under the next succeeding section of this Act, then as from the gale day when any of the rent for the non-payment of which proceedings therein mentioned are brought began to run."—(Dr. Fox.)

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

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

This is a matter which involves the same principle as that contained in the preceding Amendment, and I think it had better remain over.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On the Motion of Mr. T. W. RUSSELL, the following Amendment made:—In page 2, line 16, to leave out "may" and insert "shall."

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 3 (Consolidation of proceedings in ejectment, and application for fair rent).

MR. PINKERTON (Galway)

I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.

Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 23, to leave out all after the word "where" to the first "of" in line 24, and insert the words "by reason of the non-payment of."—(Mr. Pinkerton.)

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

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

The object of this clause is this—it is intended to give a benefit to the tenant, and to enable the Civil Bill Court, when an action is brought for ejectment in a case in which a judicial rent has not been fixed, to fix a fair rent for the holding, and to dispose of the ejectment at the same time. A number of Amendments are now sought to be added to the clause which will divert it from its original purpose. Inasmuch as the Civil Bill Court has jurisdiction itself to fix a fair rent of the holding without the intervention of the landlord, it was considered desirable that the Court in which the ejectment was pending should fix a fair rent and stay the ejectment proceeding until that was done. That is the object of the section. It is not a very important section, and a number of Amendments have been put down which, as I say, would practically destroy it for its original purpose. We had intended to provide for the case of ejectments brought in the Civil Bill Court. Inasmuch as these proceedings in regard to a fair rent may be brought by a present tenant who has never come into Court on account of having a fair rent, it seems unreasonable that there should be a general power other than that which exists under general legislation by which tenants may have proceedings hung up when they are proceeded against for rent. Where an action is pending in a Superior Court against a present tenant, and that present tenant wants to have a fair rent fixed, he can get a stay of proceedings in that Court until his fair-rent question is disposed of. That is the law under the Act of 1881. There are a number of Amendments that it would be out of order to discuss dealing with ejectments and bankruptcy and overlapping the provisions already in force under the Act of 1881. I am afraid that if all those Amendments are moved and discussed the influence of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) will not have much weight in securing rapid progress of the measure, because it is obvious that a great deal of time will be spent upon these matters. It seems to me that it would be a very desirable thing, as this clause is not a very material one, for the hon. Member for Cork to act upon the principle ha has very fairly intimated, and to get the clause disposed of rapidly.

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

If the Government want to make progress, if the suggestion of excision which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made were directed against Clause 4 instead of against Clause 3 it would be valuable. If any clause is to be dropped it should be Clause 4. I would say this to the Government—if they will give us a guarantee that Clause 4 will be dropped, they can have this Bill, so far as we are concerned, at the most in a couple of days. I am sure that, considering the period of the Session and the odour that now prevails in this House, it is almost out of the question to expect us to carry on civilized proceedings here. I would suggest to the Government that they should give us some statement as to Clause 4—it might not be strictly in order, but, having regard to the state of collapse in which we are, I am sure that you, Sir, would allow them to say what they intend to do in the matter of this Clause 4, which deals with the substitution of a written notice for the execution of an ejectment, and Clause 19, which deals with the hearing of appeals under the Land Act. We are not within measurable distance of Clause 19 now; but I think that if we had a statement as to Clause 4 considerable progress might be made to-night. I would ask whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed with that clause?

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

I am afraid I cannot meet the request of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford in regard to Clause 4; and as to Clause 19, we shall deal with that when we reach it, or come within measurable distance of it. It does not appear to me that the consideration of Clause 4 is important in. the discussion of Clause 3. Clause 3, as we have said, is not a very important clause, and we would therefore ask the Committee to proceed with it rapidly, or to negative it.

MR. T. M. HEALY

For the information of the Government I must say that we have not as yet proceeded to put down Amendments to Clause 4; but a vast number are in course of preparation; and unless the Government are aided by the clôture in enforcing the clause, I believe it will take a long time, probably a week, in discussing this one question. I hope the Government will not think I am in any way exaggerating. Probably they will agree to postpone Clause 4. That would relieve the Committee to some extent; but, failing that, I must say that while as regards Clause 3, I in principle accept it, and do not think it need lead to a great amount of discussion. I feel that unless you postpone Clause 4, and thereby leave over all discussion on it, so that we may not address ourselves to it in a state of aggravation, I am afraid that great delay will be experienced on Clause 3.

MR. W. H. SMITH

I do not know that we are quite in Order in discussing what ought to be done on Clause 4. So far as I am concerned, I should wish to avoid every possible word in the nature of aggravation, and everything which could possibly produce ill-feeling on the part of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. But the Government feel it to be necessary to persevere with Clause 4. It is impossible for the Government to persevere with this Bill if protracted delay occurs upon any of the clauses. The responsibility, therefore, of wrecking the Bill must rest with hon. Gentlemen opposite, if protracted discussion and undue delay occurs upon any of these clauses. The Government are quite prepared to afford the most complete facilities for discussion, and fair discussion, upon the principles involved in any clause of this Bill but the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, and those associated with him, will sea that the nature of a discussion which is to last over a week on any one of these clauses is a matter the Government must fake into very serious consideration with re- gard to the further progress of the measure.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I should be very sorry to think that at this period anything in the nature of a threat was used on one side of the House or the other. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that I only referred to what might take place—I put it in a subjunctive way. As to what the right hon. Gentleman says about wrecking the Bill, I would point out to him that the life of the Government has been staked upon the passage of this measure.

THE CHAIRMAN

This discussion is wholly irregular, and it would be convenient if the debate wore confined to the clause before the Committee.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I admit, Sir, that you have allowed us considerable latitude in dealing with these clauses—as much latitude as we could claim in the discussion of a matter of this kind. But I think, Sir, you will agree that very frequently very substantial benefit has resulted from a little latitude having been given in such matters as this. If the Government will agree to postpone Clause 4—I am going no further than that. [Cries of "Order!"] The Committee will see that what I am saying is strictly relevant to this Amendment. I would advise the hon. Member who has moved the Amendment to withdraw it in order that we may be able to apply ourselves to the consideration of some important matters later on in the Bill. I think there is some force in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury that the Government have proposed this clause in the interests of the Irish tenants, and that if we do not accept it without considerable discussion they will feel inclined to withdraw it. I am not inclined to say that from their point of view there is not great force in the position, having regard to the necessity for making progress with Supply. I would remind the Government, however, that we should not feel inclined to press discussion upon this clause, or in Supply, if certain obnoxious proposals are withdrawn from the Bill. I would ask them whether, with the view of bringing about harmony, and without prejudice to their intention of proceeding with the succeeding clause, they could not agree to postpone it, and leave for the Committee only the discussion of those questions with regard to which we are all practically agreed?

MR. W. H. SMITH

I wish to make myself perfectly clear. I desire to avoid everything which would produce irritation amongst hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite; but the Government feel it to be absolutely essential to proceed with Clause 4. Under the circumstances, it would be unreasonable that we should postpone the clause and take it out of its proper order. We desire to give the Committee an opportunity for full discussion on the clause; but it certainly appears to me that it would be more fair and straightforward on our part to take it in its proper order, and to listen to any objections which, hon. Gentlemen may have to offer to us. We believe Clause 4 will be a benefit both to the tenants and to society in Ireland, and we advocate and support it on these grounds. That being our view of the matter, we are quite unable to accept the view of the hon. and learned Gentleman.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

Perhaps the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland will not object to tell us something more as to the meaning of this clause. Might I ask him this question? Whether the clause will enable the landlord, if he is in a position to bring an action for ejectment at all, to compel the tenant to get his rent fixed in the County Court? Supposing a landlord brings an action for ejectment, will this clause deprive him of the right which he ordinarily' exercises in the Land Court of getting a fair rent fixed by the Land Commission, if he prefers so to do? My attitude on this clause will be to a great extent influenced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer on that point.

MR. GIBSON

the clause will not displace the power which already exists. The defendant has an option in the case, but he need not exercise that option unless he likes. Where an ejectment action is brought in the Civil Bill Court, the defendant may give notice to have a fair rent fixed in that Court, if he likes.

MR. DILLON

It does not deprive him of any right in the Land Court?

MR. GIBSON

No; I do not think it does. Under Section 13 of the Land Act of 1881, where an action for ejectment is taken in any Court, whether the Civil Bill Court or otherwise, if the defendant wants a fair rent fixed he can apply for a stay of proceedings in that Court, without reference to these proceedings at all; and he may, under the Act of 1831, apply to have a fair rent fixed by the Land Court. That is his position under the Act of 1881, without the assistance of this clause. There is no doubt about the law as I understand it, and as I state it to the House. We intend, in this clause, that where there is an application pending in the Civil Bill Court for an ejectment, the defendant, without being limited as to time, and without being compelled to put the matter off to a distant period, might have his case of ejectment and his fair rent disposed of at one and the same time. That was our intention in introducing the clause. The rights that existed under the Act of 1881, giving the tenant power such as I have stated, are in no way affected by this clause.

MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

As I understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman, this is to enable the tenants to apply for benefits to the County Court Judges. Well, my experience of the County Court Judges is that they have, in all eases, refused to give that stay of proceedings which he contemplates, and which I have always urged they ought to give when asked for. They have invariably said that cases of this kind should be proceeded with on the determination of the tenancy. My position with regard to this clause and the Amendment is this, that the whole thing in not worth contending for, and that it will not be a particle of use except in some counties of Ireland. For us to think that the tenantry of Ireland would get anything like general relief from the County Court Judges is perfectly fallacious. I do not think it worth while to fight over this 3rd clause, or worth wasting a minute's time over it. I admit that in one or two of the eases in which the option might be taken there would be County Court Judges in whom the tenants would feel confidence; but in many other cases this would not be so. So far as I should be able to give advice to my hon. Friends around me, it would be better not to contend for this clause at all, and to have it struck out, in order to mark our appreciation of the value which we at all times set upon the consideration which the ten- antry receive at the hands of the County Court Judges.

MR. DILLON

I must ask one other question, because I am unable to understand what the effect of this clause would be. In reading the clause a doubt has arisen as to the effect it would have on the minds of the tenants. My doubt is this—the clause gives an additional right undoubtedly to the tenant to apply to the County Court to get a fair rent fixed when an ejectment is pending against him. The County Court may thereupon dispose of the ejectment and of the fair rent. I would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland whether, in his opinion, it might not seriously prejudice the tenant to get a stay of examination pending the decision of his application to the Land Court for the fixing of a fair rent; because the County Court Judge will be in a position to say—"Why should I give a stay of execution? The tenant has now a right to have his rent fixed by me without delay at all, why, therefore, does he not come to me? Why does he ask for a stay in order that he may go the Land Court? He will not trust mo to give a fair rent, therefore, I will not give a stay of execution." I put that question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. Does he really think that there is any force in that objection?

MR. GIBSON

I do not know that anything I could say would remove the prejudice which the hon. Gentleman seems to have against the County Court Judges of Ireland. For my own part, I do not believe that the Irish. County Court Judges, who ere honourable men, would be at all likely to act in the way the hon. Member suggests.

MR. DILLON

Allow me to explain my objection. The Judge might say that his only reason for not arresting the ejectment in order to enable the tenant to go to the Land Court was the delay which would be brought about.

MR. GIBSON

No doubt, if the County Court Judge saw that the tenant's object in asking for a stay was not a banâ fide desire to receive full justice, but merely a wish to bring about delay, he would take that into consideration. But the hon. Member's objection that the County Court Judge might be angry at the litigant going away from him, and preferring to have his fair rent fixed by another Judge, docs not seem to be one which should weigh with the Committee. It is a question upon which we must each form our own judgment; and all I can say is that, having known the County Court Judges of Ireland for many years, and knowing how they are respected by the people——

MR. T. M. HEALY

Oh, oh !

MR. GIBSON

Yes; knowing how they are respected by the people, I do not believe for a moment that they would be actuated by such motives.

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

I think it is admitted, even by those who think least of the County Court Judges in Ireland, that, at all events in some districts in that country, this clause may be of some use. Under the circumstances, I would ask my hon. Friends who have Amendments on the Paper not to delay the progress of the Committee by bringing forward their proposals. I would propose to them to allow the clause to pass quantum Valeat.

MR. DILLON

I will not pursue the matter any longer. I have explained that my mind is in a state of doubt. My doubts are not removed, and it is still a question with me whether the clause is of any value at all.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. LEA (Londonderry, S.)

I had intended to move the following Amendment:—Clause 3, page 2, line 26, after "prescribed," to leave out to the end of of the clause, and add— Give notice of an application to the Land Commissioners to fix a fair rent of the holding, and the Court should thereupon fix a fair rout, pending the fixing of such fair rent the proceedings in ejectment shall be stayed, and the Court in fixing such fair rent shall ascertain what would have been the fair rent of the holding during the period for which such arrears had accrued, and if it should be proved that the fair rent of the holding should be less than the sum sued for, then the Court will estimate the amount of such arrears upon the basis of such fair rent, and having ascertained the amount that would be due to the landlord, the Court in which the ejectment proceedings are pending may make an order for the payment of such arrears at such times and in such instalments as may to the said Court seem fair and reasonable. Having regard to the convenience of the Committee, I do not propose to proceed with this Amendment, though I think it is one which is very important, and would be very useful if the Government would accept it, Will the Government accept it? I do not wish to hamper them, and I will not move the Amendment unless they are prepared to accept it.

[No reply.]

Clause agreed to.

Clause 4 (Substitution of written notice for the execution of an ejectment).

MR. PARNELL (Cork)

I regret very much that the Government have introduced this clause into the Bill. I regret it now more than ever since the change which the Government have intimated their intention of introducing in the main structure of the Bill. It must be obvious to everyone that a Bill of this kind, of this complex character, involving as it does so many points of law, cannot be passed at this period of the Session by being treated as a whole, as an uncontentious Bill. But if in a conspicuous part of the Bill, on the very second night of the proceedings in Committee, the Government thrust upon us a clause of this obnoxious character which abounds in contentious matter, and which is entirely opposed to the whole principle and spirit of the Bill, it must be obvious that great delay—perhaps a fatal delay—in the passage of the measure may take place. Now, Sir, the blame of this position is not with us. The blame of the introduction of this clause into the Bill is not with us. The clause is entirely foreign to the rest of the Bill. It has no reference whatever to the rest of the Bill, which is admittedly, with the exception of the clause referring to leaseholders, a Bill of a temporary character. Why, since you refuse to introduce permanent matter into the Bill beneficial to the tenants on the ground that the Bill is of a temporary character—why do you introduce permanent matter hostile to the tenants and repugnant to the advocates of the tenants? Why do you introduce matter of that kind into the Bill at this stage? I would appeal to the Government to reconsider this matter, and if they will not strike this clause out of the Bill, I would ask them, at all events, to postpone it until the rest of the measure has been got through. After the rest of the Committee stage of the Bill has been disposed of, they will have ample time to consider what they will do—indeed, they will have in the meantime an opportunity of considering the arguments for and against the inclusion of this clause in the Bill. I think they ought to take into consideration the accelerated progress the Committee has made with the Bill during the last half hour, in fact since the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre). There is an old saying which was once made by a wise man, "Take the tide at its flood." I would request the Government to take the proceedings on this Bill at their flood, and to go on with the non-contentious clauses. I would urge on them to take advantage of the happy disposition which now prevails amongst all sections of this House, and to accelerate the progress of the Bill through Committee while everyone is in good humour. I am now arguing for a postponement of the clause. What in the world is the use of producing this contentious matter, like the famous apple in the olden heathen time, throwing it down on the floor of the House for the purpose of setting us by the ears. What is the use of doing this—what is the use of putting us all into a temper when they have an opportunity of dealing with this clause in a spirit of harmony? That spirit has undoubtedly characterized the proceedings upon this Bill since its introduction into Committee, and it has specially characterized our proceedings during the last half-hour, or since the appeal of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill). I would earnestly implore the Government to look on this matter from this common sense point of view—they are dealing with 670 Members of Parliament, and it is of great importance to keep these Members in good humour. It is of great importance while they are willing to make rapid progress, not to say anything or do anything of an obnoxious character, which will have the effect of damaging the good humour which prevails, and of delaying our proceedings. I speak words of wisdom, I am sure, when I implore the Government to hearken when I ask them if they are not willing to strike out the clause altogether, at all events to postpone it. I beg to move that the clause be postponed.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be postponed."—(Mr. Parnell.)

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

I do not undervalue or underrate the importance of what has fallen from the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell). I do not know whether I ought to describe it as a warning or as a threat. [Interruption by Mr. PARNELL.] I did not use those words in an offensive manner, but undoubtedly the speech of the hon. Gentleman conveyed, and I think it was intended to convey, a warning to say the least of it to Her Majesty's Government that if they persisted in going on with this clause in its present position they were preparing for themselves something that could not be described as a bed of roses during the next few days—during the discussion of this Bill. What is the ground which the hon. Member has brought forward as an argument to induce us to accept the suggestion which he has made? It is that we are superfluously and unnecessarily introducing by this clause contentious matter into the Bill. What, Sir, is the hon. Member's definition of contentious matter? It appears to me to mean matter which is not wholly agreeable to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. So far as I can understand it in no other sense of the word is it contentious. So long as we were merely interfering with the rights of landlords we were not introducing contentious matter. So long as we were cutting down privileges which have been secured to the landlords by custom and legislation, we were not doing anything of a contentious character. As soon as we bring forward a clause which, in our opinion, is certainly not a landlord's clause, but which we believe to be a clause well suited to facilitate the better government of Ireland, then we are accused by the hon. Gentleman of introducing what he calls contentious matter. All the threats and warnings which he has in his power to hold over our heads, all the various kinds of future difficulties which he has it in his power to put in our way, and which he now brings before our notice in order to induce us to drop this part of the Bill which we think of not less importance than many other parts of the Bill for the better government of Ire- land, and for the settlement, or, at least, the temporary settlement, of the Irish difficulty. It appears that if the course which the hon. Member suggests to the Government were pursued, the whole course of legislation in this country would henceforth be at the mercy of any section in the House who had it in their power to tell the Government of the day that if they brought forward certain clauses which that section were prepared to describe as contentious, they would have great difficulty in passing the measure, I think the hon. Gentleman has for a moment forgotten the enormous benefits which many parts of this Bill are calculated to confer upon the Irish tenants. The hon. Member apparently disliked this particular provision. It is not a landlord's provision at all; but, surely, the hon. Member must see that it is hard upon the Government, it is unjust to the Government, to applaud them so long as they merely carry out suggestions which commend themselves to hon. Members below the Gangway, and to accuse them of introducing contentious matter when they declare their intention of carrying through to the best of their ability a clause they sincerely believe to be of the first importance for the better Government of Ireland. The Government cannot yield to the temptation, great as it is, hold out by the hon. Member for Cork. Be it for good or evil we must adhere to the policy laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, which is in conformity with every declaration which the Government have made upon this question, and carry it through as best we can.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

I hope the Committee will pardon me trespassing upon their patience so soon after having addressed observations to them on other matters. I know very well—no one knows better than I do, how small, how exiguous, how almost nothing is my influence with the Government upon any single question of home or foreign policy. Bat in spite of this very discouraging circumstance, I still venture to offer some observations upon what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. I was given to understand—I suppose on insufficient basis—that the Government were prepared to contemplate with, an open mind the policy embodied in Clause 4, and I own that when I hoard of the changes which the Government were disposed to make in the general framework of the Bill nothing gave mo greater satisfaction or hope than the information which reached me, that in respect to Clause 4, the Government might be disposed to consider with an open mind any observations which might be made with regard, to the clause. Recognizing entirely that on this point I am not likely to gain the smallest support from any section of the House, I think it is my duty, owing to my experience—not very large perhaps—owing to the knowledge I possess of the relations which exist between landlord and tenant in Ireland, and the manner in which these relations are influenced by certain parties, to make my protest against this clause in its present form. With this preamble let mo say that what I would like the Government to consider is this—let them take this clause as a Bill by itself; let them put aside all the other clauses of the Bill. I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for a fair and candid consideration to this point. Would they be disposed to urge this clause in the form of a Bill? The Government attach enormous value to this clause; they think that it will produce a great amelioration in the state of social order in Ireland; they think it will avoid the disturbances which arise from evictions. I want to know from the right ton. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant if he would take up his present position if this clause stood by itself? What would this clause do? It would do no more than, and it could do no more than, postpone for six months the disturbances which now arise at the original evictions. If the clause stood by itself it would not produce any real or permanent amelioration of the state of social order in Ireland, as social order is affected by evictions. It would merely postpone evictions. Well, postponement under ordinary circumstances is a great weapon, but postponement with regard to evictions in Ireland hardly seems to me to be worth the trouble and bother which the Government are likely to give themselves in respect to this question.

THE CHAIRMAN

I am reluctant to interfere with the course the noble Lord is pursuing, but it is obvious that if on a Motion for the postponement of a clause that clause can be discussed, the labours of the Committee may be considerably enlarged. I think that on a Motion for the postponement of a clause, the reasons for postponing the clause are all that can be properly gone into.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I hardly recollect the postponement of the clause having been moved, but I bow at once to your decision, Sir. With respect to the postponement of the clause, I have an important argument to urge. What you want to do in Ireland, what the Government really and seriously want to do in Ireland, and I hold they have proved that such is their sincere desire, is to stop harsh and unreasonable evictions. If your Bill is passed, as I feel sure it will be, and as I am sure it ought to be, you can stop harsh and unreasonable evictions without this clause. You can stop them in their origin, and it is better to stop them in their origin than to postpone them in their progress. That is a point, I think, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary ought to consider. Well, now, Sir, it is quite true that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said just now, and I have not a word to utter against what he says—this Bill, as a whole, confers enormous benefits on the Irish tenants. Certainly it does, and no hon. Member below the Gangway opposite will disagree with the proposition. But still, if this Bill without Clause 4 confers enormous benefits on the Irish tenants, why should you not, as the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) suggests, postpone the consideration of Clause 4 until you can look at the Bill as a whole without Clause 4, and judge fairly of the effects of the clause? Is that an unreasonable proposition? I quite recognize that the Government have solid and good reasons for proposing Clause 4, but I do not think the Government will contradict me when I say that there are grave doubts as to the rises which may be made of Clause 4 by certain parties. Now, always sticking to the question of postponement, what I wish to point out is this, what the Government have to do at this period of the Session is to avoid as far as they can without a limitation of their Ministerial responsibility unnecessary conten- tious matters. What they have to fear in Ireland is not the action of the Irish landlords as a body, but the action of certain landlords. It has been only a certain section who have taken advantage of the law. Now, suppose the Government agree to postpone Clause 4; suppose they wait till the whole Bill without Clause 4 has been passed through Committee; and suppose they then consider the effect of the Bill on social order in Ireland with regard to the prevention of harsh and unreasonable evictions; and suppose they then say to themselves—"This Bill as it stands now will, in our opinion, not so adequately provide against harsh and unreasonable evictions, and against disturbance of social order from which harsh and unreasonable evictions may arise as we think it should," then it would be in their power to bring up Clause 4 at the end of the Committee. I do hold, and I venture to speak with some positiveness and confidence in this matter, that Clause 4 raises at this stage of the Bill unnecessary contentious matter, and raises, in spite of all the plausible reasons which may be advanced in favour of it, the gravest doubts as to the use to which it may be put by certain landlords, and remembering always that it is certain landlords and not the body of landlords who have continually exercised and given trouble to the Irish Government, I do appeal to the Government within the limits of the ruling of the Chair to consider, without prejudice, whether they would not get on rapidly with their Bill, whether they would not put the Committee into a most reasonable and harmonious frame of mind, and further, whether they would not secure great credit to themselves as an Administration capable of carrying through Parliament a Bill full of difficult and controversial questions without unnecessary discussion, if they consented not to the abolition of Clause 4, not to the abandonment of the clause, but merely consent to this, urged upon them by one who, whatever he may be, has not proved himself an enemy of theirs, to postpone this clause until the end of the Bill, and then, after considering the effect of their Bill as it stands without the clause, to make up their minds as to whether the clause is necessary or not. I pledge myself to the Government that, if they adopt the course suggested, and if after carrying the rest of the Bill through Committee they still consider it necessary to proceed with the clause, I shall not have one word to say against the clause.

COLONEL SAUNDERSON (Armagh, N.)

In the few remarks I have to make, I shall confine myself to the proposal that the consideration of this clause be postponed. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) has advocated the postponement of this clause, because, he says, that proceeding with its consideration now, may disturb the harmony which, to present appearances, reigns in this Committee. I must say, Sir, as an Irish landlord, as one of that unfortunate class which is now being dealt with, that the harmony which appears to exist in the Committee at the present moment is not such as gives me, at any rate, unbounded satisfaction. I sometimes feel inclined to compare myself to that well-known animal, the eel. If it could speak, I wonder whether the eel could feel any satisfaction at the fact that those who were about to skin it were in an exceedingly good humour in anticipation of the operation. I think that the Committee should deal with this matter quite apart from any feelings of harmony, should deal with it purely and simply as a matter of justice. I hope that the desire to maintain the harmonious frame of mind in which the Committee is said to be may not influence the Government to postpone one of the most important clauses of this Bill. My noble Friend the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) has advocated the postponement of the clause, although he does not appear to think he has much influence with the Government. If the Government consent to the postponement of this clause, we shall be led to believe that they adopt that exiguous policy, whatever that is, spoken of by the noble Lord. I must say I do not think it will redound to the credit of the Government if they consent to postpone one of the most important clauses of the Bill to satisfy the good humour which at present reigns for a short time—I am afraid only for a short time—below the Gangway opposite, or to satisfy the exiguous proclivities of my noble Friend. The hon. Members below the Gangway opposite hate this clause, and I well understand why. They live upon evictions, and they would have no ground for their policy if they did not have evictions. This clause does away, at any rate, with double evictions. It will, at any rate, prevent those evictions being made so admirably to suit the political ends of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

Are we discussing the clause now.

COLONEL SAUNDERSON

I hope the Government will stick firmly by this clause, that they will proceed at once to its consideration, and not allow themselves to be diverted from a course which I believe to be pursuant to the ordinary course pursued by the House, because the postponement of this clause would, to my mind, be tantamount to a consent to its abandonment.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

My noble Friend the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) has proposed to the Government a course which I fully anticipated—judging from the speech he made upon the second reading of the Bill—he would urge upon us, because on the occasion of the second reading he expressed views in regard to the clause by no means favourable to its general merits. I understand he has put before the Government two alternative policies. One is to embody this clause in a separate Bill.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

No, I never said anything about that. What I asked the Government to do was that if they wished to ascertain the true merits of this clause to consider it as if it were a separate Bill, and not connect it with the other clauses of this Bill.

MR. A. J. BALF0UR

I am rather surprised at that argument, because it appears to be contradictive of the argument the noble Lord advanced in a later part of his speech. He advised us to defer the clause until we could consider it in relation to all the other clauses of the Bill, and not as a separate clause. The argument he urged in the first part of his speech did not appear to be wholly consistent with the view he expressed at the end of his speech. What would the Government gain by postponing this clause? If we wished to abandon it, no doubt we might break our fall, so to speak, by postponing it. We might cover the appearance of giving up what we believe to be an important principle, and finally the abandonment of the clause might under the circumstances pass almost unnoticed. But if we do not mean to abandon the clause what should we gain by postponing it? The noble Lord has suggested that what we should gain would be the power of looking at this clause in relation to all the other portions of our measure. I do not think any alterations are likely to take place in this Bill which will in any way affect our estimate of this clause; our estimate of this clause might be affected if Clause 22 of the Bill were abandoned. If the Committee were to induce us to abandon clauses on which we rely for stopping harsh evictions, then it might be that we should feel that this clause should be abandoned. But from what I have been able to collect there is no section of this House, belonging to any Party they may, who desire us to modify, at any rate to weaken, any part of our Bill which is intended to stop harsh evictions. If the clauses of our Bill pass in their present form, or even, as I think they will, in a strengthened form, then no change is likely which can by any possibility induce the Government to think they were ill-advised from the point of view of Irish Government, in bringing this clause before the House. I really do not see what we should gain by carrying out the policy of the noble Lord, except those advantages to be derived from delay, which, I thought, in another part of his speech, he rather sneered at when they wore employed in a different sphere of Government. I should be entirely out of Order in discussing the merits of this clause; but I must enter my protest, at this early stage, against the doctrine laid down by the noble Lord to the effect that the clause will merely postpone evictions without diminishing their number. It is the opinion of the Government that it will diminish Irish evictions, and it is because we believe that, and because we believe it has other merits, that we shall be glad to dilate upon during the progress of the clause, that we feel we cannot abandon the direct and straightforward course; but that we must take this clause and pass it through in the order in which it appears in our measure.

MR. T. M. HEALY:

May I point out that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has somewhat understated the effect of postponing this clause. He has stated in reply to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) that the only effect of postponing this clause would be to break the fall of the Government if they meant to abandon it. The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten the point made by the noble Lord—namely, the effect upon the minds of the Irish Party of the passing of the subsequent stages of the Bill in relation to the clause now before us. It is just possible, after we have seen the rest of the Bill shaped and moulded, that we may look favourably upon this particular clause as a moans of doing something to stop harsh and unreasonable evictions, and it is upon that ground that I support the proposition for the postponement of the clause. the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson), whose incursions into these debates we are always happy to receive, has rather sneered at the fact that the Irish Nationalist Members are, as he says, in a good humour. That, to him, was a matter of no account. Surely we are the representatives of the Irish people, and it may be presumed that our good humour might radiate and affect the four and a-half millions of people we represent. It has been said we are in a good humour—I say nothing as to the quality of the good humour—and that being so, I ask, is it a, small matter that good humour should prevail on our part in view of the fact that the Irish Government have found themselves compelled to proclaim all the counties in Ireland under the Coercion Act? I invite the Government to look at the position assumed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell). It invariably happens that in all Parties there must be more or less division of opinion as to the way in which clauses should be contested or fought, as to whether particular points should or should not be pressed; but what the Government must have recognized is the reasonableness of the course suggested by the hon. Member for Cork. Seeing that the claim of the Government is that certain subsequent clauses of the Bill will prevent the tarrying out of harsh evictions, we are entitled to consider this clause not as if it were the 4th clause of the Bill, but as if it were the 36th. There are 35 clauses in the Bill, and the Bill, as a whole, is described as "A Bill for preventing harsh evictions." Surely, Mr. Courtney, this clause can only be a subsidiary clause, and from the point of view of draftsmanship, I urge upon the Government that we are entitled to have the full scope of the proposals of the Government before us before we address ourselves to the consideration of this clause. I hope I have said nothing which can import any element of unpleasantness into this discussion. The Government must remember that we are anxious in a high degree that this Bill should pass; we have not disguised from the Government that anxiety. When the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) was before the House in 1881, the Irish Party took up a certain attitude in consequence of the attitude of the House of Lords. We know that this Bill will pass their Lordships, and therefore there is no reason for disguise on our part. We, on the part of the people of Ireland at large, are anxious to prevent Irish evictions. We are anxious for the passage of this Bill in the best shape it can be moulded into. Under these circumstances, I consider the recommendation of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) ought to find favour with the Government. We have always found the noble Lord a practical politician. [Laughter.] I trust hon. Gentlemen will understand my words in the sense I intend them. I say we have always found the noble Lord a practical politician, and I mean that he is a man who understands the House of Commons, and he treats men as men, and not as statues or creatures without feeling or passion. Under these circumstances, I do hope the Government will not be heedless of his recommendations. A hostile attitude on the part of the Government in this matter can do no good, and may be provocative of much mischief. What is to be gained by refusing to adopt the suggestion of my hon. Friend (Mr. Parnell)? We will not accept the consent of the Government in any sense as a triumph, or in any sense as a virtual abandonment of the clause. We will simply accept it as a postponement of strife until we can see into what shape the rest of the Bill is moulded by the Committee. Seeing that we are almost at one upon the general scope of the measure, I earnestly hope the Government will agree to the present Motion. I must, in conclusion, deprecate one observation which fell, no doubt in a hasty moment, from the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith). The right hon. Gentleman, who is seldom hasty, said that if this Bill were delayed the Government would be obliged to drop it. I think he will find some difficulty in reconciling that observation with the previous declarations of Her Majesty's Government. Of course, it is difficult to reconcile all the declarations of Her Majesty's Government in regard to this Bill with the Bill as it is now proposed; but that is a matter I do not care to enter upon now.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

I have an Amendment on the Paper for the rejection of this clause, and therefore it may seem, to the Government that any advice or counsel of mine is more or less suspect. But I assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is with no sinister view upon the future prospects of the Bill that I venture to support the contention of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) and of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill). On the contrary, as has been stated by previous speakers, we are all deeply interested, and thoroughly intent upon the passing of this Bill in as efficient a shape as possibly may he for its great object—namely, the prevention of harsh and unjust evictions. Now, the Government have no doubt up to this point fairly met the spirit of the bulk of the Committee. There is no doubt that the reception that they have given to the various Amendments which have been proposed has been thoroughly fair, and on the whole animated by a just spirit. Why on earth should there now be any interruption of that spirit? As I understand, the hon. Member for Cork has stated a very good and business-like reason why this clause should be postponed. There can be no reason, on the other hand, why the clause should particularly figure as Clause 4. The clause will be just as operative if it comes at the end of the Bill as if it conies in the middle of the Bill. The care of the Committee is, and should be, that we should get as far on as we possibly can with the Bill, upon the clauses and provisions of the Bill upon which we can get the greatest amount of agreement. The great object of us all must be to get through the Bill as quickly as we can; but if a highly contentious matter of this kind be introduced now the thread of the discussion will be broken, and the harmonious spirit which has distinguished the discussion of the Bill last night and tonight will be seriously disturbed. So far as we in this part of the House are concerned, it is not merely because we object to the clause, but it is because we are in earnest in desiring the Bill to pass in an efficient shape that we strongly concur in the Motion of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell)

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

I assume it would be quite out of Order to discuss in detail the provisions oil Clause 4; but I hope that by the indulgence of the Committee I may be allowed to point out as an argument in favour of the postponement of this clause, that, so far as I can gather from the speeches made in this debate, the principle of this clause is completely misunderstood. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) and the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench who have spoken upon this question, have very plainly stated that the operation of this clause is not to diminish, but to postpone evictions. I think it will be found by hon. Members, if they read the clause carefully, that the whole postponement of evictions only amounts to three days.

MR. DILLON

I think it unfortunate, Mr. Courtney, that we should find ourselves, after two nights of very satisfactory progress of Business, plunged again, practically speaking, into the Crimes Act. Surely the Government might have been content with the Crimes Act for two or three months, and might have refrained from introducing into such a Bill as this an enactment which would far more appropriately find a place in that Act. If the Government wanted a clause of this character, why did they not place it in the Crimes Act instead of in the Land Bill? We have just heard a speech from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) in a tone which reminded me strongly of the Crimes Act debates—a speech full of menace and threat. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of pushing this clause through the House for better or for worse. That is a nice tone in which to approach the Irish Members. The clause is to be forced through this House, in spite of our most determined opposition, for bettor or for worse. In the beginning of his speech, the right hon. Gentleman let slip an old conventional phrase. For the thousandth time we heard the old familiar words "a clause necessary for the better government of Ireland." We have had enough of "the better government of Ireland," in the shape of the Crimes Act——

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out that the hon. Member is straying from the point, which is the postponement of the clause.

MR. DILLON

I may have been straying from the point, Mr. Courtney, and I hog your pardon. My reason for supporting the postponement of the clause is this, that, we can hardly exaggerate the evil effect on the temper of the Committee, and on its capacity for carrying this Bill through Committee in a proper frame of mind if we are to have a desperate fight over this clause, and the clause is to be shoved down our throats by the frequent use of the clôture. It would have an almost incalculably injurious effect on the temper of the Committee. From the time the Government indicated that they were about to change their policy and to offer some substantial concessions to the people of Ireland, we have endeavoured to meet them in a fair spirit. We have endeavoured to forget the past, and, although the time has been so short, to approach the consideration of the Bill as if we had not just been subjected to a Crimes Act. Now, this is all to be done away with, and we are to be plunged into the consideration of a clause like this which is contentious in the highest degree. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland asked for a definition of what was contentious matter, and he said that we regarded as contentious matter everything which was for the benefit of the landlords, whilst we thought that everything for the benefit of the tenants was non-contentious. Why, was not this Bill brought forward for the benefit of the tenants? I reply to the right hon. Gentleman by saying that when he introduces into a Bill, professing to be for the protection of the Irish tenants and for the prevention of evictions, a clause which I can only characterize as a fresh machinery for the facilitation of harsh evictions, I am inclined to characterize that as contentious matter in the highest degree. Hon. Members may have observed, some with regret, the continued absence from this Committee, and the dejected air when he was present, of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson). But to-night, when the postponement of this clause was proposed, he was cm his legs in a moment. There is not the slightest doubt in his mind as to what the object and intention of this clause is. If we wanted any evidence as to the contentious character of this clause, we had it directly we saw the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh in his regular Crimes Act attitude, with his war paint on and ready for conflict. That is evidence that we are now on the threshold of a provision which is in the highest degree contentious. And let me say, Sir, without at all entering into the details of this clause, but sticking strictly to the question of adjournment, that for my part I regard this clause as deadly to the interests of the Irish tenants, and, whenever it comes on for discussion, I shall exhaust every form of this House in order to convince my constituents that I have not failed to make every exertion in my power to guard them against one of the most deadly stabs ever aimed at the interests of the Irish tenant. I shall not enter into the merits of the clause, as you, Sir, have ruled that that would be out of Order; but I should like to mention one point. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland asked what would the Government gain by consenting to the postponement of the clause. I answer that they would gain enormously. In the first place, we should be able to deal with the whole of this Bill in the same spirit as we have dealt with the first few clauses. We should get through the discussion of the Bill without a wrangle or a fight. There cannot be a doubt that we should get through the Committee stage of the Bill much more rapidly. But that is not all that is to be gained. I maintain that, if we can come to any terms with the Government in the course of the discussion on this Bill, if we find ourselves at the end of the Committee stage justified in saying that we look on the Bill as a measure which will put a stop to harsh evictions in Ireland and afford real relief to the tenantry of Ireland, the Committee will perceive that there is no necessity whatever for Clause 4. What would be the necessity for a clause dealing with evictions, if you have carried a measure putting a stop to harsh evictions. There is never any other kind of evictions in Ireland than harsh evictions. There may be perhaps half a dozen evictions a-year of drunken and broken-down men, but the Irish tenant never leaves his home unless he cannot possibly help it; and, therefore, if you pass a measure which will have the effect of stopping harsh evictions, you will have no necessity for this clause. If this Bill shows any prospect of attaining its object, the universal opinion of this Committee will be that there is no necessity for Clause 4, because we shall be able to look forward to a breathing space, in which we shall be spared evictions in Ireland, and then, at the end of what I hope will be a peaceful and fruitful discussion, the Government will be able to say that the clause is entirely unnecessary.

MR. W. H. SMITH

The speech just delivered by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has made it quite clear to the Committee that the real object of endeavouring to obtain a postponement of Clause 4 is to postpone a dispute and a difference which would be as bitter at the end as at the beginning. The hon. Member for East Mayo has told us that, at whatever time this clause is taken into consideration, he will give it his most uncompromising opposition, because he regards it as a most deadly stab at the interests of the Irish tenant. We know, therefore, perfectly well that whether we encounter that opposition at the end of the Committee stage or now, we shall have to encounter it. If it was possible to disarm the opposition of hon. Gentlemen opposite without any sacrifice of principle, we should be glad to do so. But we believe this clause to be necessary in the interests of the tenant. [Laughter,] I never laugh at the observations made by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway when they take a view in opposition to my own, and I venture to think that I am entitled to say what I believe. I say we believe this clause to he necessary in the interests of the tenants of Ireland and in the interests of the peace of Ireland. We believe it will stop harsh and unnecessary evictions, and that it will save a vast amount of pain and sorrow and trouble. Holding that conviction most completely and thoroughly, we cannot abandon the clause; and if we are called upon to lace the uncompromising opposition of the hon. Gentleman and those who are associated with him—painful as it will be to us, and deeply as we shall regret having to meet it at all—we prefer to meet it in the order in which the clause stands in the Bill rather than appear to give way when we do not really intend to give way, and when we intend to hold to the principle involved in this clause. We prefer to meet the opposition now in the best temper we possibly can, and without desiring in the slightest degree to raise any angry feeling that can by any possibility be avoided, rather than meet it after discussion which may last one or two or three days. No, Sir; I hope and trust that this measure will be, as described by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley), a just and considerate measure, and a measure for the advantage of the tenants in Ireland. It has been proposed in that spirit by the Government, and is being carried through the Committee in that spirit by the Government. There has been no reasonable suggestion made by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway which we have not been desirous of adopting; and if it can be shown that there is any provision in the clause which is not necessary, we shall give any suggestion made with a view to Amendment the most careful consideration.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN (Birmingham, W.)

Mr. Courtney, I think there can be no doubt whatever that those who support the postponement of this clause do so because they are hostile to the clause. A postponement is only suggested as a step in the direction of a withdrawal of the clause. And this desire for the withdrawal of the clause proceeds from two separate reasons. It comes, in the first place, from those who consider that the clause is, in itself, a bad clause, and who see in it, as has been just stated by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), a deadly blow struck at the tenants of Ireland. They believe it to be wrong in every respect, and are prepared to give it an uncompromising opposition. They do not see their way at the present moment to defeat it, but they hope to postpone it, and probably they calculate that when the Committee is wearied with, the discussion, it may consent to its withdrawal. Another suggestion for the postponement is made by those who are not altogether—not necessarily, at all events—hostile to the clause as it stands, but who have in view the undoubted difficulties in which the Committee will be placed if the Government determine at once to proceed with it. No doubt, in its present shape, the clause is, I believe, under an entire misapprehension, opposed by the bulk of the Irish Members, who will give to it that kind of opposition with which the House is familiar. Well, Sir, under these circumstances, I can well understand that many hon. Members may think that the Government should take into consideration the time of the Session, and that, unless they can say that the interests of the country and their own position as a Government are intimately concerned in the maintenance of the clause, they should be prepared to abandon it as altogether unnecessary. That is a view which may be urged with great force on the Government, and which, I have no doubt, the Government have fully considered. It is a matter entirely for the responsibility of the Government. If they think it is impossible for them to yield to that consideration; if, after the threats of the hon. Member for East Mayo—we need not mince words, and we are bound to say distinctly that threats have been used——

MR. DILLON

What kind of threats?

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

The hon. Member has used threats which are familiar in the mouths of the Irish Members——

MR. PARNELL

I rise to Order, Sir. I wish to inquire whether the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to say that my hon. Friend has used threats?

THE CHAIRMAN

I do not observe anything out of Order.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

The hon. Member for East Mayo has said, in language which we have often heard from the same quarter, that if this clause were persisted in, he would think it his duty to exhaust every form of the House in opposing it. We all know perfectly well what that means. We have had experience of the capacity of the Irish Members to exhaust every form of the House, and to exhaust the House in the process. I say that it is a distinct threat; and, looking at this proposition in view of that threat, I shall accept the decision of the Government as final and satisfactory upon their responsibility. Well, now, I have said that the objection to the clause is of two kinds. There is the objection based upon the difficulty in which the Committee will be placed if the clause is persisted in; and there is also the objection on the merits. I think the Committee will be placed in great difficulty by the ruling which you, Mr. Courtney, have most properly given, directing us not to discuss the merits of the clause. I must, at the same time, refer to one statement of the hon. Member for East Mayo. The hon. Member says he believes this clause is a deadly blow struck at the Irish tenants. If he can persuade me that that is a fact, I think I shall be inclined to join him in exhausting every form of the House in opposition to the clause. I do not think, however, that this clause is against the interests of the Irish tenants. I believe it is in favour of the tenants; I believe that it is one of the most important provisions of the Bill, and that it carries out the object of the Bill in so far as putting a stop to harsh and unnecessary evictions is concerned. It is admitted, that what it does is to postpone—[An hon. MEMBER: No, no !] An hon. Member below the Gangway contradicts me before I have said anything. I suppose it may postpone something. Perhaps the hon. Member will wait to hear what, in my judgment, the clause postpones. I say I believe it is admitted that the effect of this clause will be, in some measure, to postpone the eviction. In place of the eviction which now takes place as the first proceeding, there will he the notice, and the eviction, when it comes, will come six months afterwards. [Cries of "No, no!"] Well, let hon. Members put their own view when their time comes. That is undoubtedly the intention of the clause. But it is said that the very fact that the first process is such an easy process, and that it does not lead to an evic- tion with all the odium which an eviction brings on the landlord, will induce a multiplication of the first process, and will in the long run lead to a multiplication of evictions. That is a serious objection if a justifiable one, and I want to ask one question. Am I not right in the assumption I make that before the first process, the serving of the notice, can take place, the equitable jurisdiction of the Court under Clause 22 will intervene? I am precluded from dismissing the matter in detail, but I do beg hon. Members below the Gangway to consider that point. That is my view, and that is the view of the Government. If the clause does not carry out that view, I have no doubt the Government will be prepared to amend the clause in order to carry it out. As regards the tenants who come under the Equitable Jurisdiction Clause, the equitable jurisdiction of the Court will be interposed before even the service of the notice can take place. I see that an hon. Gentleman below the Gangway shakes his head. I again impress upon him that that is the intention of the Government. I say let us get to the clause and discuss it, and if we find that the intention of the Government cannot be carried out, let us amend the clause so that it may be carried out. Now, I proceed one step further. If I am right, if the clause, as it stands at present, does interpose this equitable jurisdiction, and if the Government are willing to amend it in that respect if it does not, I ask the hon. Member for East Mayo, who is, I am sure, perfectly fair in matters of this kind, when he thoroughly comprehends the question, can he say that, under the circumstances, this is a measure which will not postpone evictions?

MR. DILLON

Clause 22 does not do that.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

Clause 22 interposes the equitable jurisdiction of the Court as to whether or not there shall be a stay of proceedings——

MR. DILLON

Up to £50.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

Yes, I know; and when we come to discuss the clause it will be very proper to consider whether or not that equitable jurisdiction shall be extended to cases of over £50. But I say that if we go up to £50 we shall cover 999 out of 1,000 harsh evictions. There are very few harsh evictions above £50; therefore it is hardly worth while to interfere with the argument for such a point as that. But the 22nd clause interposes the jurisdiction of the Court when the landlord proposes to serve a notice under Clause 4 to say—"No; under the circumstances that have been brought to our notice we order a stay of proceedings." Thereupon it intervenes in the method proposed under Clause 22. Then I say, under these circumstances, that I deny altogether that it can fairly be said that Clause 4 strikes a deadly blow at the tenant, or tends to encourage harsh evictions. One word more before I sit down. Suppose after we have dealt with the Bill and inside all the Amendments we can make in the interest of the tenants and in justice to all parties, suppose this clause still remains in the opinion of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway an objectionable clause, is it to be their contention that every line of this Bill—which is a large measure, a generous, a liberal measure, which they admit they desire to see passed—is it their contention that every clause, every line, every word, in the Bill shall satisfy their views? If so, I might complain of them as Canning complained of the Dutch— In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch Is giving too little and asking too much, It is all very well to talk of the harmony of our proceedings; but is that harmony only to be sustained by conceding everything to the view of a small section of the House of Commons? I think hon. Members will see that is really an impossible condition.

MR. SEXTON

We have been beaten in 10 Divisions.

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

The hon. Member interrupts mo to say they have been beaten in 10 Divisions, and that leads me to make another remark. What is the nature of the harmony that has accompanied our proceedings? Up to this time we have been dealing with the most magnificent concessions ever made to Irish tenants. [Cries of"No, no!"] Yes. I say the Government, with the assent of all Parties in the House, have now made concessions to Irish tenants that have been refused by all previous Governments; that when suggested by minorities in the House have been denounced by the Government of the day as breaches of economic law and of the sanctity of contract, that could not by any possibility be entertained. All that has gone to the winds, and enormous concessions are made by the Government. Well, it is upon these concessions that hon. Gentlemen have taken 10 Divisions, and complain that they have been beaten in them. Well, I do not see the force of the complaint of hon. Members below the Gangway. If they had said, when Clause 1 was under consideration—"Here is a magnificent concession; we admit its generosity; we will not haggle over it; we will ask for nothing more; we will take it for what it is;" then they would have some ground for saying, when we come to a clause they oppose—"Now we have cause to press our objections." But not a bit of it. They press for further concessions, and we know that that is always the case. In the first instance, a grievance is brought forward in moderate terms. It carries conviction to every mind in the House. But when the House of Commons agrees to deal with that grievance there is no acceptance of the settlement by hon. Members below the Gangway; but the concession is made the ground for further demands. Well, I have been drawn further into contentious matter than I intended by the interruptions to which. I have boon subjected; but I do not complain of them at all. In conclusion, let me say even if this clause, when the Bill is passed, is considered an objectionable clause by hon. Members below the Gangway, I ask them to treat this matter as one of account, and to consider the balance of the account.

An hon. MEMBER

How about the Crimes Act?

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

Well, Mr. Courtney, I do not think you would allow me to discuss the Crimes Act on the question of postponing this clause. But I will only say I know perfectly well what are the views of hon. Members about the Crimes Act; and if they think it necessary to throw them into the account, then I say it is absolutely impossible to satisfy them, and I would advise the Government not to try.

DR. CLARK (Caithness)

I beg to move that you, Sir, do report Progress. A very important measure is waiting to come on, and unless it is considered and passed without delay it will be useless We waited until 2 yesterday morning to deal with it, but could not do so, because of the time occupied in other Business. If the Government like to accept the responsibility of dropping the Bill let them do so; but if not, thon the Bill must be considered now. It is time to remember that there are other parts of the Three Kingdoms in existence besides Ireland. Scotland exists. The measure is one upon which social order in part of that country depends. I think, as it is now 20 minutes to 1 o'clock, and that we waited until nearly 2 yesterday, the Government should now give us an opportunity of considering the Lords' Reasons for disagreeing with our Amendments to the Crofters Bill.

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

MR. W. H. SMITH

I must ask the Committee to come to a decision on the question of postponing the clause. The discussion we have had has, I think, exhausted that subject, and that question being decided I shall then be prepared to consider the question of reporting Progress.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 112; Noes 220: Majority 108,—(Div. List, No. 323.)[12.35 A. M.]

Original Question again proposed.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

The right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) had concluded his observations by recommending the Government, whatever they might do in their Bill, to take care to do nothing to please the Irish Members. Of course, we who are familiar with the right hon. Gentleman's later manner are not surprised at his tone; but whatever his views may be, we have reason to be grateful to him for supplying an unanswerable reason why the Motion before us should be carried. He has given ample reason for postponing this clause, because hitherto we have been dealing with the proposals of the section as they affect subsequent proposals in. the Bill as it stands in its present form. But the right hon. Gentleman tells us, with that special knowledge he sometimes assumes as to what the Government are going to do—I do not know whether rightly or wrongly—that the Government have several valuable concessions to make that will entirely reconcile us to Clause 4. That is an unanswerable reason for postponing Clause 4 until we see what these valuable concessions are. We are quite willing to attach the greatest weight to what the right hon. Gentleman says as to the value of these concessions; but we desire to see them on the Paper, and know exactly what it is the Government propose. We do not wish to take all these important matters on trust, and to accept his observations, until we see exactly how we stand. That being so, I hope my hon. Friend will press his Motion, and that the Committee will accept it as a reasonable one.

MR. MAHONY (Meath, N.)

In listening to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain), I was very much struck by the great stress he laid upon Clause 22, and it did strike me as one of the strongest arguments that could possibly be brought forward for postponing the consideration of this clause until we know what Clause 22 is going to be. And I would call the attention of the Committee to another matter. In this Clause 4 the Government are not adopting the recommendations of their own Commission; they are adopting a perfectly different method of gaining the object the Cowper Commission had in view. I merely throw this out as a suggestion to the Government. Would it not be possible for them to assent to the postponement of this clause; would it not be possible—if the other clauses of the Bill are made a reality, and afford real protection to the tenants against harsh evictions—with the concurrence of the House, to adopt in some different form the recommendations of the Cowper Commission? I do not say it will be, but it might be, possible for them to protect the tenant to such an extent that our hostility to the recommendations of the Commission might, in another form, be a great deal less than it is as the Government now propose to carry it out. I throw this out as a suggestion to the Government to reconsider the clause, which, if they force in its present form, must meet with our bitter hostility. We do not know what Clause 22 is going to be, so the argument of the right hon. Gentleman falls to the ground. His argument was based on the protection afforded by Clause 22, as to which we know nothing at present. The right hon. Gentleman asked what the Coercion Bill had to do with the present clause, and why it should be thrown into the balance; but surely the Dissentient Liberals throw it into the balance with their own convictions when they voted for coercion as a balance to this remedial measure. We contend that you will, to a very large extent, destroy the remedial effects of this measure by this clause.

THE CHAIRMAN

This is not quite speaking- to the question of postponement.

DR. COMMINS (Roscommon, S.)

If the Committee willallow me a few seconds before we go to a Division I will not longer protract the discussion. I have listened attentively, but I have failed to hear one single argument in favour of the retention of the clause in its present position. The question is not on the merits of the clause. The panegyric on the great benefit it will be to the tenants of Ireland, so feelingly bestowed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), is altogether beside the mark. It may be all his fancy paints it, or it may be what we believe it to be, merely a further instalment of the Coercion Act; but the question is, ought it to be discussed now or at the end of the Bill? Now, naturally, and in the logical order of things, execution comes after sentence, and eviction can only take place after all attempts at reconciling landlord and tenant have failed. When all remedial measures proposed to be introduced have failed in their effect, eviction comes in the last scene of all. Why, then, introduce a discussion of the method of eviction in the middle of the Bill? Is it intended for the purpose of shipwrecking the Bill, that the Government might get the credit of the concession they are willing to make now, but which they are ready to throw over if we discuss this section longer than they think sufficient? Threats have been spoken of; is there a threat in this? Why not have this clause at the beginning or the end of the Bill; in the middle it certainly is not in its proper place. We ask you what is to be the position of the Irish tenant; what is to be the law that regulates his relations with his landlord; what is the procedure by which he may be protected from his harsh landlord? Let us know these things before we come to the method of exterminating him. I really cannot see any reason for inserting the clause here, and there are strong reasons for postponing it.

MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)

I beg, Sir, to move that you do now leave the Chair.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! The Question is, that this clause be postponed.

Original Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 150; Noes 212: Majority 62.—(Div. List, No. 324.) [1.5 A.M.]

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

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.