§ MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)I beg to ask the Attorney General for 1528 Ireland in how many cases has Lord Waterford, when selling land to tenants under the Purchase Acts compelled them to reserve to him rights of game, hunting, fishing, and sporting generally; how many agreements containing such reservations have been sanctioned altogether by the Purchase Commissioners; do some of the London Companies conveyances under the Purchase. Acts contain reservations of mines or quarries; and will the Government either deal comprehensively with such questions, or void all covenants whereby the landlord merely sells to the occupier the right of agricultural possession, and still retains to himself other privileges attaching to the fee simple?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN, Dublin University)The Land Commissioners report that in the cases of 74 out of 230 holdings sold upon the estate of the Marquess of Waterford the rights of game and fishing were reserved. These reservations appear to have been agreed upon between the contracting parties in the cases of all holdings adjacent to the demesne of Curraghmore, where the vendor resides, and upon mountain holdings in the same district where there were game. The Commissioners are unable to state the number of the agreements referred to in the second paragraph; but they point out that such reservations must be made in all cases in which the landlord himself holds under a fee farm grant containing those reservations, or where the shootings or fishings were leased. The Commissioners see no objection to a residential landlord, or a landlord having an estate with valuable sporting rights, contracting with his tenants for the reservation of such rights upon sale; but they are of opinion that in the cases of sales of ordinary agricultural holdings or non-residential estates these reservations should not as a general rule be made. In the cases of the estates of the Salters' and Skinners' Companies there are such reservations, these companies themselves being subject to them in their grants from the Irish Society. In the cases of the Drapers' and the Fishmongers' Companies, who appear to have acquired these rights by conveyance from the Irish Society, there are no such reservations.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYI beg to give notice that I shall move an Amendment to the Land Purchase Bill to make such reservations impossible.