§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,) Leeds, Centralrose amidst cheers to ask leave to introduce a Bill to further amend the law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto. He said: Mr. Speaker, in asking the House to sanction yet another Measure relating to what may well seem to be the interminable question of Irish land, I am fully conscious of the difficulty of the task I have undertaken, and of how greatly I shall need the indulgence of the House in executing it. The subject is, indeed, in itself one of great difficulty, and any legislation dealing with it cannot be easy either to frame or to expound. The difficulty is immensely increased by the extreme intricacy and complexity of the Act already on the Statute-book which constitutes at present the law in regard to Irish land, and without some knowledge of which the provisions of any fresh Measure must needs be to a considerable extent unintelligible. Any Irish Land Bill at the present day must of necessity be in the nature of an amending Bill. He who desires to build on that ground must follow not only the lines of the existing foundations, but practically the lines of the existing structure also. He may add here and take away an excrescence there. He may remove defects which experience has brought to light. He may increase conveniences and facilities, but he is not and cannot be in the position of an architect planning and constructing with a free hand on vacant ground. [Cheers.] The result is that any Irish Land Bill must to a very great extent run into details. It must be more like the collection of small Bills than a comprehensive Measure framed in order to carry out a single well-defined principle. To use a proverbial expression, "one is apt to lose the wood in the trees." In addition to those difficulties arising from the complexity and technical character of the subject, I am aware that there is another difficulty against which 780 I shall have to contend. In view of the immense amount of time that Parliament has spent during the last 15 years in dealing with the question of Irish land, it is inevitable that any fresh demand upon the attention of Parliament in order to deal once more with the same subject should be met with a feeling of weariness and impatience.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURIf the hon. and learned Gentleman had kindly waited a moment he would have seen that I do not altogether sympathise either with the weariness or with the impatience. I think the feeling is a natural one, but it does not seem to be altogether reasonable. ["Hear, hear!"] I should remind the House that when Parliament consented to pass the Act of 1881 it gave its sanction to what was nothing less than an agrarian revolution—a transformation of the system of land tenure which up to that time had existed in Ireland. Now, a revolutionary transformation of the land system of a country is not a thing to be accomplished at a single stroke. It could not be accomplished at a single stroke even under the most favourable circumstances; and the more anxious the Legislature is not to do injustice in individual cases, the more impossible it becomes to carry out such a revolution at one stroke. But as a matter of fact the circumstances were not favourable. They were most unfavourable. I do not refer particularly to political difficulties. There were such difficulties, no doubt, but I will not dwell upon them, as I wish to avoid as far as possible topics of a controversial character. But, in addition to political difficulties, there were economic difficulties of a serious kind. During the last 15 years we have had to face a reduction in agricultural values which certainly nobody had anticipated. We have had during that time to face a reduction in the rate of interest which no one had anticipated. The seasons have, on the whole, been bad seasons. Looking, then, to all the obstacles to a smooth carrying out of the policy of the Act of 1881, I am on the whole disposed to think that its success, limited as it has been, might very easily have been more limited still. But, Sir, there is another consideration which I wish to put before the House. The Act of 1881 does not 781 exhaust all the aspects of the land question in Ireland. It is no part of my business to-night to criticise the Act of 1881, or to discuss the principles which it embodied. The Act is a fact, and we must be content to accept it as such. If it is defective in detail, then it might be a wise policy on our part to remove these defects so far as we can. If we refuse to do so, we do not, at any rate, cure any of the faults of principle that may be inherent in that Measure; and we leave these defects and faults of detail to cause friction, to create irritation, to prevent the smooth working of the Act, and ultimately, probably to give rise to demands for more extensive changes than were ever contemplated by those who were the authors of that Act. But, side by side with the establishment of a system of joint or dual ownership there has been from the first a desire for what I venture to consider a better and more excellent system—namely, the establishment of a peasant proprietary in Ireland. This desire found expression even in earlier Land Acts, and since 1881 it has been, I may say, the key-stone of the Unionist policy in regard to land in Ireland. The goal—the final goal, at which in our judgment land reform in Ireland must aim—namely, the substitution of simple ownership for dual ownership, is far distant, and it would be still far distant even if the Purchase Acts had worked more rapidly and more effectively than, as a matter of fact, they have worked. The moral effect, indeed, of those Acts has not been exaggerated, and where the tenant farmers have purchased their holdings the testimony is invariably that it has tended to make them thriftier and better citizens than they were when they were mere tenants. ["Hear, hear!"] That is all the more pity that the Acts have not worked more satisfactorily; and if we study the figures it unfortunately appears that the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1888 seem to have been more efficacious in bringing about purchase than the subsequent Act of 1891. During the first year of the Act of 1885 there were 3,021 applications for loans received. The next year this number was doubled, the applications received being 6,195; and in the following year there were 4,786. An additional fund having been provided by the Act of 1888, the applications in the 782 following year were 5,533. The year after that they fell to 3,813; but in the next year they increased again to 4,526. In other words, the average annual number of applications during the six years these Acts were in operation was 4,645. Compare that with the transactions that have taken place under the Act of 1891. In the first year after that Act was passed, there was still available a small residue under the Acts of 1885 and 1888, and in that year the applications were about 3,000. The number in the following year was only 2,503. In the year after that they were 2,782, and in the year now closing they were about 1,800 only. It will thus be seen that the average number of applications during the four years of the Act of 1891 is only about 2,600, against 4,645 under the Ashbourne Acts. I hope the House, in view of those facts to which I earnestly call their attention, will feel that, quite apart from the fact that we stand pledged, and have been pledged ever since the Government came into Office, to deal with the question of Irish land, that quite apart from that we should still, pledged or unpledged, be bound not to neglect it. As Unionists we have always maintained that the Imperial Parliament is capable of legislating for the legitimate wants of Ireland. As Unionists, most of us, at all events, believe that the land question is the root of much of such vitality and force as the demand for Home Rule in that country, as I freely acknowledge still possesses. [Ironical Nationalist cheers.] No Measure is more keenly desired by the people of Ireland than one dealing with the defects of the Land Acts; and though I suppose that any Minister who has to do with legislation for Ireland, very early in the day discovers that the expectations which are formed in that imaginative island— [laughter]—very much outrun any Measure possible, still it is our duty to give effect to the wishes and desires of the people of Ireland so far as it is possible to do so consistently with justice and expediency. [Ironical Nationalist cheers.] At this point I may say a few words in reference to the Bill that was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose (Mr. J. Morley) last year. That Bill was avowedly founded upon the Report of the Select Committee which investigated the working of the 783 Land Acts during the year before, and which reported at the end of last year, not without some heat of controversy. The Committee was confined by its terms of reference to the fair rent and free sale provisions of the Land Acts, and in their Report far more attention is devoted to what I may describe as miscellaneous amendments of the Land Law, than to amendments of practice and procedure. But the right hon. Gentleman's Bill went very much further in that respect, because it was devoted entirely to miscellaneous amendments of the Land Law, and did not deal with procedure in any one of its clauses.
§ MR. J. MORLEY (Montrose Burghs)I said in my speech I was open to consider the matter.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURIt is perfectly true that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his speech that he was prepared to deal with procedure; but there was nothing of that kind in the Bill itself. At the end of the Report of the Select Committee this recommendation was made:—
The Committee beg to express their opinion that it is highly desirable that they should be reappointed in the next Session of Parliament for the purpose of inquiring into the working and administration of the Purchase Acts; the working of the Land Judges' Court, and the distribution of business amongst the various departments of the Land Commission.That recommendation was not, as a matter of fact, acted upon; and the Bill of last year left all those important subjects untouched. In fact of the three main divisions of the Irish Land Question—namely, amendment of the Land Law, amendment of procedure, and purchase, only one—and that I humbly venture to think not the most important—was dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. We have not thought it possible to follow the right hon. Gentleman's example in this respect; and accordingly the present Bill not only traverses the ground covered by the Bill of last year, but also contains a series of provisions designed for the amendment of procedure and for facilitating the working of the Purchase Acts. I will now take these three main divisions in order, and endeavour to describe as succinctly as I can the proposals which we intend to bring forward under each head. So far as the present Bill deals 784 with the question of the amendment of the Land Law it must, of course, challenge comparison with the Bill brought in last year by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. There are, however, several provisions in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which we regard as practically non-contentious, and which, therefore, we have included in our Bill. In this category we place the provision for the legal position of the tenant at the end of the statutory term—a provision which everyone agrees to be necessary in order to settle the question of the revival of the old rent if no proceedings are taken at the end of the statutory period. Such a revival is defended by no one, but the question requires to be dealt with. Another proposal which we have substantially incorporated is one making valid the sub-tenancy—notwithstanding a clause in the contract prohibiting subletting without the consent of the superior landlord—where it appears that there has been a tacit consent or acquiescence on the part of the superior landlord. Since the Committee reported some time during 1895 a singular case occurred showing the necessity for this provision. It was the case of a middleman who had received rent from a subtenant for no less than 37 years, and who afterwards defeated proceedings for the fixing of a fair rent by proving that his lease from the superior landlord contained a prohibition against sub-letting without consent, and that, therefore, there was no legally subsisting tenancy on the part of his sub-tenant. Another provision which will be regarded as non-contentious in principle, and which is common in both Bills, has for its object the saving of the sub-tenant's interest when the interest of the middleman is determined by notice to quit or the effluxion of time. Where the middleman's interest is terminated by surrender, then the position of the subtenant is already protected by the law; and there seems to be no sufficient reason for making a distinction between that case and the former. The fourth provision common to both Bills is for amending the Redemption of Rent Act, so as to prevent the lessee or grantee, after the fair rent is fixed on this holding, from being rented on his improvements—a thing which is obviously in accordance with the general principle of 785 the Act of 1881. We have adopted two proposals contained in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which are of a somewhat more contentious character—though in both cases we have safeguarded and limited them by means of some not unimportant modifications. The first of these relates to turbary and other such privileges. The Bill of last year gave power to the Court, where the tenant enjoyed these privileges, either by right or by the permission of the landlord, to secure them to the tenant in perpetuity. Where there is a right of this kind already existing, no amendment of the law is required to secure it to the tenant. It would be secure by the ordinary proceedings of the Land Commission. But where this privilege is only enjoyed by permission of the landlord, it will be seen to be a somewhat harsh proceeding and not altogether just to the landlord to give it in perpetuity to the tenant, when it may have been intended as an essentially temporary privilege. The Report of the Select Committee stated that the, tenant is sometimes compelled to pay back for turbary as much as he gains in the reduction of rent. [Nationalist cheers.] It may be so. I do not know where the Select Committee got it from. Not from the evidence—at any rate, I have not been able to discover it there. What we propose—and I think the suggestion will commend itself to the House—is that where the enjoyment of such privilege is necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of the holding itself, there it shall be secured to the tenant, and not otherwise; and we have introduced saving words of that kind. The second of the two proposals of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which we accept with modification refers to lettings by persons who are not absolute owners. At present a tenancy from year to year created by a tenant for life comes to an end at the expiration of the life tenancy, notwithstanding that a fair rent may have been fixed. On the other hand, when a leaseholder creates a tenancy from year to year on a holding under the Acts, the tenant, at the expiration of the lease, becomes the tenant of the next superior landlord. This distinction, again, appears untenable, and we provide that the lettings by a life tenant shall be binding on the remainder-man. But we do not go as far as the clause in 786 the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. We have not applied this provision to lettings by a Judge of the High Court, and by the Chancellor sitting in lunacy. These lettings are of a temporary character, and injustice might be caused by including them in the provision.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThey are included in our Bill. The Bill of last year contained an arrears clause which we cannot accept as it stands. The clause in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill would have had the effect of wiping out all arrears of rent extending beyond two years, but the provision was not to come into operation until after a two years' period of grace. The limit of two years would appear to be a drastic proposal, and I am not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman thought it necessary to give a period of grace before that proposal should come into operation. But I am afraid that that period of grace would, in practice, constitute a direct invitation to the landlord to evict for arrears while it was still in his power to do so. ["Hear, hear!"] We propose to deal with this question by providing that the tenant shall be able to redeem in all cases by payment of two years' arrears, but that it shall be left to the landlord to recover any arrears beyond those by any procedure open to the ordinary law. I must refer to three provisions in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which we have not been able to accept. The first is the abolition of the landlord's right of pre-emption. The second is the conversion of certain future tenancies into present tenancies, and the third is the establishment of the presumption that holdings in Ulster are subject to the Ulster custom of tenant-right. [Ironical Nationalist cheers.] With regard to the right of pre-emption, it has to be noted that this is the one provision in the Act of 1881 which put any check whatever on the extravagant prices constantly paid in Ireland for the tenant-right. It is a curious instance of the topsy-turvydom of the land system in Ireland that, whereas the Act of 1881 was passed in order to neutralise the evil consequences of what is known as the "land-hunger" by means of fixing the fair rent, that Act is only a back door to the introduction of those very evils of 787 free sale. All the evidence goes to show that, in the majority of cases, the landlords in the past have not exacted from the tenants the competition rent. [Nationalist laughter and Ministerialist cheers.] That is the effect of the evidence given before all the early Commissions, and that was stated by Mr. Gladstone himself when he brought in the Bill of 1881. The tenant, on the other hand, invariably seeks to obtain for his tenant-right the full competition value, and he generally obtains it. The effect is that the purchaser of the tenant-right has generally to pay in interest on his purchase money much of what he gains by reduction of rent. ["Hear, hear!"] The only check upon this by the Act of 1881—and it was, I believe, deliberately provided as a check—was the existence of the landlord's right of pre-emption. This check we are not prepared to give up. Similarly, with regard to the compulsory conversion of future into present tenancies. If we were to consent to this provision, it would destroy the clause which the authors of the Act of 1881 sedulously designed for the preservation of free contract between landlord and tenant. As to the presumption in favour of the Ulster tenant-right custom, the difficulty in Ulster in that connection has been this. The Ulster custom differs in different parts of Ulster, and it has never been defined. Definition was carefully avoided by the Act of 1870, and was never attempted in any later Act. If we are to enact that there shall be a presumption in favour of the existence of the Ulster tenant-right, it is necessary to define what we mean by it. If we define it, we shall have to do so in reference to the minimum form of that right. I am inclined to believe that the minimum form of that right is something less valuable than was absolutely given in the Act of 1881 to all tenants in Ireland. Therefore, if we were to attempt this definition, it would rather injure the Ulster tenants than otherwise. ["Hear, hear!"] I now come to the question of exclusion from the benefits of the Act and sub-letting. These are subjects which are very intricate, and very difficult to grasp, and I must be content with a general outline of our proposals, pending the opportunity which Members will shortly have of examining the actual words of the Bill. 788 And first with regard to exclusion. Under the existing law the benefits of the Acts of 1881 and 1887 do not extend, first, to holdings which are not agricultural or pastoral; secondly, holdings consisting partly or wholly of demesne land; thirdly, holdings coming under the description of town parks; and, fourthly, holdings valued at over £50 a year, let or used wholly or mainly for pasture. With regard to the last class we extend the limit to £100. The Report of the Select Committee, I believe, proposed £200, and that was also the limit named in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. The limit of £200 does not seem to me to be called for; I think £100 a more reasonable limit to fix. With respect to holdings not agricultural or pastoral, I may point out that, while the substantial part of the holding may be agricultural or pastoral, or mixed, nevertheless a substantial part of it may be non-agricultural. To meet such cases we propose to give relief to the tenant by allowing the Court to treat the non-agricultural part as a separate holding, and to fix a fair rent upon the remainder. The same provision we also apply to cases where part of the holding consists of demesne land. Where, on the other hand, part of the holding is non-agricultural, but that part is non-substantial and trivial—in that case we propose to enact that the holding shall be treated as if this trivial sub-letting did not exist. As to holdings consisting of demesne, we have attempted to define demesne land in such a way as to make the law clearer than it is at present. Next, as to town-parks, this is a most thorny and complex subject, as anyone who has had to do with the Irish Land Acts very well knows. To be a town-park, a holding must, at the present time, fulfil three conditions. It must adjoin a city or town; it must bear an increased value as accommodation land; and it must have been occupied at the time of the passing of the Act of 1881 by a person residing in the town or neighbourhood or in its suburbs. A holding may be in all essentials a town-park, and yet it might be excluded from the category by the mere accident that in 1881 the occupier was not residing in the town or in its suburbs. There was one very curious case where a holding was brought within the Land Acts 789 and excluded from the category of a town park because it happened that the occupying tenant in August 1881, was an inmate of a lunatic asylum. We propose to do away with this condition; at the same time, we protect what I may call vested interests by providing that wherever the fair rent has already been fixed upon a holding it shall not be excluded from having a fair rent refixed by the mere fact that this third condition is no longer to be in active operation. The other two conditions we retain, but in 1887 it was felt that a holding might come within the definition of a town-park, and yet be in all essentials an agricultural holding. The problem is—How are you to deal with holdings which are let and used as agricultural holdings which are agricultural or pastoral, and in all essentials really are farms, but which, if included within the benefits of the Act may hinder the development of the town in their immediate neighbourhood? The Act of 1887 provided one way out of the difficulty. It excluded holdings of that description if in the opinion of the Court their inclusion would injure the development of the town. We have adopted a somewhat different proposal. We reverse the practice under the Act of 1887. That Act provided for the exclusion of such holdings unless in the opinion of the Court their inclusion would not interfere. We say "Let a fair rent be fixed upon them, and then, if afterwards it is found that they interfere, the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession." The other two conditions remain, and we do not propose to define a city or town.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURWe do not propose any limit; we leave that to the Court. I next come to the question of sub-lettings, which, in Ulster especially, are the frequent causes of exclusion from the Act. The Legislature, in pursuance of what is no doubt a wise and proper policy of getting rid of middlemen, has declared sub-letting to be a bar to the fixing of a fair rent, unless the sub-letting has been made with the express consent of the landlord, or unless it is trivial or for the benefit of labourers required for the cultivation of the estate. But the last two relaxations only apply 790 to sub-lettings before 1887. In the case of sub-lettings made subsequent to 1887, though they may be trivial and for the benefit of labourers required in the cultivation of the estate, yet, unless the express consent of the landlord has been obtained, such sub-lettings are excluded from the benefit of the Act, and that although the sub-lettings may have been in substitution for sub-lettings that have taken place before 1887. This state of the law has been found to inflict great practical hardships, and we propose to amend it accordingly. We suggest that sub-letting by a tenant should be divided into two classes. I think also in this we follow the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. Sub-lettings of dwelling-houses are the first class. Where a dwelling-house, not being the dwelling-house of the tenant, and not having been erected in breach of a contract of tenancy or a statutory condition, is sublet to or in the occupation of another tenant, that subletting is not in future to be a bar to the fixing of a fair rent. In the other class of sub-lettings, that of sub-letting of part of the holding other than the dwelling-house, we retain the limit of date; we do not give exemptions where a subletting comprised in this second class has been made subsequent to 1887, unless it has been in substitution for subletting existing before that date. Sublettings of this second class are not to be excluded from the benefits of the Act, provided two conditions are fulfilled—first, that seven-eighths of the holding still remain in the occupation of the tenant; and, secondly, that the subletting is in substitution for a subletting made before the passing of the Act of 1887. These provisions, I think, meet, as far as I know, almost all the real cases of hardship in connection with subletting by tenants; but to guard against any possible abuse of them, we have further provided that the Court shall not entertain applications of this description unless it considers them reasonable. There remain the cases where sub-lettings have not been made by the tenant, but found by the tenant. In these cases we provide that the Court may treat the part so sublet as a separate holding, and fix a fair rent upon the remainder of the land which is in the occupation of the middleman. I have next to ask the attention of the House to a subject which 791 has been more fruitful of controversy than all the rest of the Act of 1881 put together—I mean the protection of tenants' improvements. Subsection 9 of section 8 of the Act of 1881 provides that no rent shall be allowed in respect of any improvement made by the tenant or his predecessor in title to which no payment or their compensation has been made by the landlord or his predecessor in title. What are improvements? What is compensation? On what principles is it to be ascertained in doubtful cases what may be improvements? These questions and another which is more or less connected with them—namely, whether the occupancy right of the tenant is something which is to be deducted from the fair rent or not—have been debated forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, till they have become the despair of everybody who has had anything to do with the Land Acts. It is impossible for me in a preliminary statement to enter into all these controversies or to argue whether the Court in the famous and terrible case of "Adams v. Dunseath" were right in reading into the Act of 1881 the provisions of the Act of 1870. I must be content to touch briefly on the direct issues involved and to explain in what way we propose to amend the law where it seems doubtful or defective. Everyone is agreed, I believe, that the tenant ought to be protected from being rented on his improvements; but the questions to be answered are, "What are improvements, and on what principle is the ownership of those improvements to be ascertained?" The answers given to these questions, both by the Select Committee and in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, would do far more, in my judgment, than merely protect the tenant's improvements. They would transfer from the landlords to the tenants a large slice of what always has been, and still ought to be, the property of the landlord. [Ironical laughter from the Irish Members.] According to the report of the Select Committee and to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, improvements should be held to include not merely the work done, but also the whole increased value which is due to the tenant's expenditure of labour and capital [Nationalist cheers], in conjunction with the inherent capacity of the 792 soil. Further, both the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman and the Report of the Select Committee agree in this that all improvements, however ancient, are to be presumed to have been made by the tenant or his predecessor in title [Nationalist cheers], unless the landlord has satisfied the Court to the contrary. [Ministerial cheers.] I say, without hesitation, that those two propositions taken together reduce practically all agricultural rents in Ireland to what is called prairie value. [Ministerial cheers and "No, no!"] The first of the two propositions taken by itself—that which makes improvements include the whole increased value due to the tenant's expenditure — would not necessarily of itself bring about this result, but it might still be open to the landlord to claim in respect of improvements made before 1850. Or again, doing away with the present presumption limit would not of itself reduce rents to prairie value, because it might still be open to the landlord to claim that the capacities of the soil had something to do with the value, and to the increased letting value arising from the inherent capacity of the soil the landlord is entitled. But, if you take the two propositions together there is no escape whatever. The two propositions taken together reduce the rent of the holding to prairie value. This is not merely opposed to equity, but contrary to the spirit of the Act of 1881, and the intentions of those who framed that Act. ["Hear, hear!"] In this connection I should like to refer to the Debate in this House on a Bill introduced by the late Mr. Parnell in 1883. The Bill was drawn avowedly in view of the decision of the Court in "Adams v. Dunseath," and the intention of the Bill was to undo the effect of the judgment in that case. In fact, the definition of improvements contained in the Bill was, I think, almost the same definition as that which had been adopted by the right hon. Gentleman in the Bill of last year. But we are considering whether the proposals contained in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill did or did not carry out the intentions of the authors of the Act of 1881. We could not have a better source of information than the Debate which took place in 1883, in which those questions are directly and specifically 793 raised. First of all, what had Mr. Gladstone to say on this Bill of Mr. Parnell? He said—
I am bound to say that we differ organically from the Bill as it stands. The Bill, as I look at it, amounts to a virtual reconstruction of the Irish Land Act in its most important provisions.And again—We have at no time since the passing of the Land Act used any word or done any acts which would justify in any way any one in supposing that we are prepared to concur in or, so far as we are concerned, to allow any disturbance of its fundamental provisions.But the real opposition to the Bill and the grounds of it were most fully developed by the late lord Chancellor, at that time Sir Farrer Herschell. The late Lord Chancellor said:—As to the Bill before the House, what were its main principles? It was, in effect, a complete revolution of the provisions of the Act of 1881. He might claim to know something of that Act, as he was present during the whole of the discussion that took place upon it, and he said that the Bill was deliberately brought forward for the purpose of re-opening matters which were settled by the Land Act, and to completely revolutionise the character of that settlement.… Suppose a tenant spent £100 upon his land, and, by reason of its improvable character, which was part of the value of the land, made it worth £20 a year more; that was not all to be regarded as the property of the tenant, because it was not all produced either by his money, his industry, or his skill. It resulted from that which was the property of the landlord—the improvable character of the land (itself. Suppose two tenants spent each £100 upon his tenancy, and applied equal skill and energy to the work. In the case of the one the £100 so invested made the land worth £20 more, but in the case of the other it enhanced the value only by £5. What made the difference? Simply the inherent qualities of the land. That gave the extra value, and these no more belonged to the tenant than the land itself. Therefore, the judgment in 'Adams v. Dunseath' on that point was perfectly correct. He maintained that the provision in Clause 5 was not only opposed to the decision in that case, but was manifestly unjust. They must take this scheme as a whole, and, taking it in that way, it came to nothing but this—that everything beyond prairie value would be deemed, unless the contrary was proved, to be the property of the tenant, and on the basis of that alone ought fair rent to be fixed.I think, in face of these quotations, the right hon. Gentleman will hardly maintain that he is carrying out the intention of the framers of the Act of 1881. I 794 know that the right hon. Gentleman holds some strange doctrine with regard to the logical development of a principle. In his judgment, as the Act of 1881 was the logical development of the Act of 1870, so the Bill brought forward last year was to be regarded as the logical development of the Act of 1881. I am bound to say I have a little distrust of the logical development of political principles. At the best the logical development of political principles appears to me to mean the carrying to an exaggeration a principle which may be good enough up to a certain point, but which is mischievous when carried beyond. According to the right hon. Gentleman, not only is the thick end of the wedge a logical development of the thin end, but the logical development of the thick end is a second wedge twice as thick as the first. I am as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman, or anyone else, that all legitimate protection should be given to tenants' improvements, and I believe that is done by our Bill; but I cannot follow the right hon. Gentleman in those somewhat dangerous courses. As regards the question of presumption, I think it is necessary to have some limit, otherwise it is impossible to put a bar against fictitious or obsolete claims. The year 1850 appears to me, on the whole, not to be an unreasonable date to fix for that purpose. As regards the term "improvement," we must decline to give it that extended meaning which it had in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, but, in order to guard against all possibility of injustice, we propose to expressly declare that rent shall not be paid on improvements merely by reason of the fact that they are unsuitable to the holding, and we are also prepared to declare in the Bill—what I personally believe to be the law at the present time—that theobiter dicta of the Judges in "Adams v. Dunseath," giving to the Court, in cases where they thought the tenant had not received his fair share of benefit accruing to the holding from the labour expended by him, power to make such further allowance as they, having regard to the nature of the improvement and the interest of landlord and tenant respectively, may consider just.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI define a good deal in this Bill, but I do not think that I am called upon to define the obiter dicta of the Judges.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI do not quite understand what the effect of the obiter dicta may be. I do not follow the right hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI have no doubt it is my fault that I have not put it with sufficient clearness. What we propose is this: If, after an allowance has been made to the tenant by way of interest in respect of any improvements that he has made, it appears to the Court that the tenant has not received an equitable compensation for the benefit which that improvement has conferred upon the holding, the Court shall be, in such a case, allowed to make such further allowance as they, considering all the circumstances and the nature of the improvement, and the interests of the landlord and tenant respectively, may consider just. It is practically indicating what I believe Lord Justice Fitzgibbon declared was the judgment in "Adams v. Dunseath,"
§ MR. J. MORLEYIt would be an apportionment of a margin of increased letting value left after the allowance?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman has interpreted my meaning correctly. As to the subject of compensation, I find myself more in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman. It appears to us that neither the mere letting of the land nor the mere enjoyment of improvements for a certain length of time, apart from other considerations, should count for compensation. We have, therefore, followed the right hon. Gentleman and adopted the term "money or money's worth," and we define it so as to exclude the mere letting of land or the mere enjoyment of improvements. Under our Bill a tenant is not to be held to have been paid or compensated for an improvement unless money or money's worth in this sense has been given for it. If the improvement has been made in pursuance of a contract entered into for money or money's worth compensation is to be held to have been given. If the improvement is not the subject of any contract then the Court is to inquire, not merely whether money or money's worth 796 has been given in respect of the improvement, but also into the question of the extent to which money or money's worth may have been given. Now, as to the length of the statutory term. The Select Committee reported in favour of shortening the term to ten years, and they also considered, but rejected a proposal to make this shortened term retrospective and to allow any tenants of whose current term ten years had already expired to re-enter the Court in order to have a fair rent fixed again. I think this last proposal was rejected by the Select Committee by the casting vote of the right hon. Gentleman himself, but it reappeared, nevertheless, in his Bill. I may say at once that we consider it inadmissible. It is no doubt true that rents fixed between 1881 and 1887, if now refixed, would in all probability be fixed lower than the figure at which they stand. I believe that would probably be the case, but the existing term of 15 years represents one of the conditions of a statutory contract deliberately imposed upon tenants and landlords by Parliament, and to break such contracts simply because prices have fallen and the contract has turned out less favourable to the tenants than was expected would be an extremely grave step to take. It would not be any less grave because something in the shape of a precedent can be quoted in favour of it from the Act of 1887. It will be found that the revision of rent clauses under that Act, though they may have been justified by the necessities of the time, were in themselves objectionable and dangerous, and if to that dangerous precedent we were to add a second the sanctity of statutory contracts in Ireland would be destroyed altogether. That is one ground for resolutely rejecting the proposal; but there is another ground of equal urgency. If tenants whose rents were fixed ten years ago and upwards were all now to come into Court the machinery provided by the Act of 1881 would be totally inadequate to cope with the work. The Land Commission have supplied me with some figures on this point. It appears that, if this shortened statutory term with a retrospective effect were to come into operation during the autumn of the present year, the applications to refix rents that might conceivably come in would 797 amount to a gross total of 238,720. I do not say that all these applications would come in, for many of them might be anticipated by voluntary agreements between landlords and tenants. That, however, is the total possible figure. It is estimated that the legal assistant commissioners cannot efficiently dispose of more than 2,400 cases in a year, and, supposing that 200,000 new cases came into Court, in order to dispose of such cases within the year we should require 83 legal assistant commissioners and 664 lay assistant commissioners, or in order to dispose of them in five years we should require 16 legal and 133 lay commissioners. Even if only 100,000 cases were to come into Court in one year, it would be impossible for the Land Commission to get through the work. [Cries of "No, no!" from the Irish Members, and laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but I think I shall have the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman opposite when I say that I should be very sorry to have the task of finding and appointing so many commissioners. It appears to me, then, that this administrative objection is by itself enough to justify the rejection of the proposal. Future cases are on a different footing, but, on the whole, the balance of consideration appears to be against the ten years' term even in future cases. A ten years' term is, in fact, either too long or too short. The example of 1887 shows us that it is too long to give the tenant immunity from the effects of falls in prices of agricultural produce. Then the shortness of a ten years' term would certainly tend to keep both landlords and tenants in a state of constant unrest, with the result that their mutual relations and the proper cultivation of the land would suffer. Litigation would also increase proportionately. On the whole, therefore, we have come to the conclusion that it is undesirable to shorten the term of 15 years. During the discussion of the Bill of 1881 some expressions of opinion were heard in favour of a longer term than 15 years.
§ At this point Mr. SPEAKER left the Chair.
§ After the usual interval Mr. SPEAKER returned.
798§ MR. GERALD BALFOUR, resuming, said:—I was about to refer to certain expressions of opinion made during the Debates on the Act of 1881 in favour, not of a shorter term, but of a longer one. Some of these expressions of opinion I should like to quote. Mr. Litton said that if Ireland was an agricultural country composed of nothing but arable land he should be content to accept the terms of the Bill. Those who knew most about this matter were those personally interested, and it had been pointed out that the farmers at a representative meeting in the north of Ireland were strongly of opinion that a shorter period than 31 years would be prohibitive. A petition was presented by the Presbyterian ministers of the north of Ireland to the effect that a fair and judicial rent having been fixed, no alteration should take place at a less interval than 31 years. A similar opinion was expressed by Mr. Russell, now Lord Russell, who moved an Amendment to substitute for the 15 years in the clause of the Bill of 1881 31 years. The latter period, it seemed to him, would possess important advantages. The matter had been discussed, he said, at a very important and representative meeting in Belfast—a meeting, he might say, representing the whole of the farmers of the province of Ulster, and the unanimous decision was that 31 years would be a most satisfactory term. He also pointed out that the length of the term was not inconsistent with the shorter periods for the remission of rent. But the most remarkable expression of opinion came from the late Mr. Parnell. Mr. Parnell said it would have been better if the Amendment, instead of proposing to substitute 31 for 15 years, had proposed to give the tenant a very much longer lease, say of 100 or even 200 years, with the right of the remission of rent according to prices at very much shorter periods. The great difficulty of any system of fixing the rent that tenants should pay by the Court was to arrive at a valuation from which to fix a starting point. If the Court, on the application of the landlord or the tenant, succeeded in fixing a rent satisfactory to both parties he could not see why the statutory agreement should not continue for 1,000 years as well as 15. Sir, this expression of opinion, coming 799 from Mr. Parnell himself, was certainly a very remarkable one, and it was all the more remarkable in that it practically coincided with the recommendation made by the Cowper Commission, who held that rents should be fixed in the first instance by inspection, and that these rents should be revised at intervals of five years, but that the only question in the revision of judicial rent in future should be that of higher or lower prices. Judge Milligan, who was at that time Recorder of Cork and a member of that Commission—[Mr. HARRINGTON: "President"]—in his evidence before the Committee, explained that the Report of the Cowper Commission had been based on the assumption, afterwards acknowledged to be impracticable, that judicial rents should be revised automatically by reference to the variation of prices for five years. Now, Sir, the advantage of any automatic system, or even partially automatic system, that would work equitably is so great that probably every one that has paid attention to this subject has tried to consider whether it would not be possible in Ireland to apply some such automatic system. ["Hear, hear!"] It is a very hard nut to crack—of that there can be no doubt whatever—and it may be deemed very rash of me to devote time to this subject where so many others have despaired before me and still more rash of me to venture to put the scheme which I have tried to think out into the Bill. My boldness, at all events, does not extend so far as to lead me to think that I shall be able to make my scheme perfectly clear to the House before they have the words of the Bill accurately before them; still, I must do my best. I think it can be demonstrated that no general automatic system is possible which could be applied equitably to every holding. One holding will necessarily differ from another holding. The products of one holding will not be the same as the products of another holding, and even where holdings raise the same products those products will not be raised in the same proportion. Not only that, but if we consider the circumstances of the particular holding I think it will be clear to the House that one holding will differ from another, not merely in respect of its products, and not merely in respect of the proportion in which 800 those products may be raised, but also in this respect—that one holding will be nearer to what is known to economists as the profitable margin of rent and another further from the profitable margin of rent. Therefore, if you are to apply a perfectly uniform system the reduction or raising of rent might be fair in the case of one holding, but might be absolutely unfair in the case of another holding.
§ COLONEL WARING (Down, N.)What is meant exactly by the profitable margin of rent?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI think it is rather unfair to ask me to go into a question of that kind, which is a very difficult and abstruse question. ["Hear, hear!"] I have come to the conclusion, after considering this subject with very great care, that no system of fixing rents according to prices can be satisfactory which leaves out of account the peculiarities of the particular holding. ["Hear, hear!"] I will now proceed to describe the scheme which I have endeavoured to think out, and, in order to disarm criticism as far as I can, I can only begin by saying that it is not proposed in this Bill that the scheme should be imposed compulsorily on tenant or landlord; if adopted at all, it must be adopted by the common consent of both parties. The term that I propose is to be of 30 years' duration; the rent in the normal case is to be fixed by the Land Commission in the ordinary way at the outset—that is to say, that it is to be fixed after inspection, and, if necessary, after hearing in Court. But it is to be variable every five years, on the application of either party, if the variation in. prices in the opinion of the Land Commission justifies a variation in the rent. At the end of 30 years either party is to be entitled either to have a fair rent fixed in order to enter upon a new 30 years' term or to apply to the Court to fix a rent for the ordinary term of 15 years; or, if they like, they may continue the agreement for quinquennial periods, with variations from time to time, without having the new rent fixed upon inspection or by hearing of the Court. Suppose an application is made under this section of the Bill to fix a fair rent for a period of 30 years. The Assistant Commissioner will then have to determine, not merely the fair rent 801 which is to be the standard for the period of 30 years, but he will also have to determine what are the accustomed, products of the land and what are the relative values of those products. These terms are, of course, defined in the Bill. The definition of customary products practically leaves it open to the parties to include or exclude what they will. All these matters may be fixed, if the parties prefer it, by voluntary agreement. At the commencement of the 30 years' term they may, if they please, by arrangement fix the fair rent which is to be the standard during the term; they may also fix the customary products by agreement; they may also fix the proportions in which those customary products are to be reared upon the land. Let us suppose that a fair rent has been fixed in this way, and the parties have agreed to another 30 years' term; five years elapse; then upon the application of either of the parties, within 12 months of the termination of the five years, the Land Commission, having before them the record made by the Assistant Commissioner who has inspected the holding, may, without inspection and without rehearing by the Court, compare what in this Bill is called the gazetted prices of the year in which the standard fair rent is fixed with the gazetted prices in the year in which the application is made to vary the rent. In varying the rent they may have regard to two things—first, to the variation in prices, and, secondly, to the effect which that variation, in their judgment, has had upon the fairness of the rent of the holding. It will be observed that, according to this system, the Land Commission has not to vary the rent necessarily in the same proportion in which the variation of prices has taken place. Let us say that the variation in prices has been 10 per cent.; on one holding it may be a fair arrangement to vary the rent in direct proportion—that is to say, by 10 per cent; on another holding it may be fair to vary it by 15 per cent.; on a third it may be fair to vary it by 20 per cent., while the prices have fallen 10 per cent.; all that is to be left in the discretion of the Land Commission. By gazetted prices I mean not the average prices of the particular year, but the average prices of the five preceding years. For instance, for the year 1896 the 802 gazetted prices will be the average of the average prices for the years 1890–95. If an original rent were fixed in 1896 and a revision were demanded in 1901 the Commissioners would have to compare the gazetted prices of the customary products of the holding in 1896—the average of the prices for the previous five years—with the gazetted prices of 1901—the average for the preceding five years. It will be observed that the scheme I have sketched is strictly automatic—it is left to the discretion of the Land Commission to determine what should be the variation corresponding to the variation in prices. At the same time this decision of the Land Commission is to be taken without reinspection of the holding and without a rehearing by the Court, which immensely simplifies the operation. I conceive there may be cases in which one party or the other would not like to leave so much discretion as is implied in this arrangement to the Land Commission; and accordingly I have introduced a provision whereby, if the landlord and tenant prefer it, they may make a variation in rent proportionate to the variation in prices, not necessarily in direct proportion, but in any proportion they choose to fix.
§ MR. J. MORLEYThe Land Commission are to make no general order, but they are to give a decision on each application.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOUROn each individual application, without reinspecting the holding and without rehearing. In order that this scheme may be adopted as widely as possible, I have also provided that it may be adopted under certain conditions, notwithstanding that a judicial rent is current. But if the landlord and tenant agree to break the judicial term in order to adopt this system I propose this condition—either that they must agree together upon the preliminary matters—that is to say, upon the standard rent, the customary products of the holding, and the proportionate value of these customary products—or else as regards the fair rent that it is to be calculated from the actual rent fixed upon the holding exactly as it would be calculated by the Land Commission at the end of the quinquennial period. It will be clear, from what I have already stated, that it would be impossible to allow the 15 years' term to 803 be broken in order to adopt this system if the breaking of the term involved a full inquiry by the Land Commission into what the fresh judicial rent ought to be. That would present administrative difficulties it would be impossible to overcome. Therefore, if this automatic system is to be adopted in breach of a statutory direction, the parties must agree together and the standard of rent must be fixed exactly in the same way as a variation of rent would be fixed at the end of a five years' period. If tenants who have had fair rents fixed between 1881 and 1887 can agree with their landlords — [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "Hear, hear"]— to adopt this system— [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "No such jackasses are to be found"]—they will obtain many of those advantages that they would secure by a revision of rent. I very much think that system, although difficult to describe, will nevertheless not be by any means impossible to work; on the contrary, I am rather inclined to think it would work well; I hope there will be many such arrangements between landlords and tenants; and I venture to recommend it to both classes on those grounds. It is a practical attempt to accomplish what we are constantly asked to do—namely, to vary rents according to variations in prices. Tenants availing themselves of this system would have the full benefit of all their improvements for 30 years and possibly for much more. Landlords would gain if this system were adopted by saving those expenses which are now thrown upon them by the necessity of fighting applicants in Court. To the House at large I may recommend the scheme as likely, if it were generally adopted—[ironical cheers]—to save a great deal of what I can only describe as expenses unnecessarily incurred in the administration of the law. I now pass to the question of general procedure in cases of application to fix fair rent. Everybody will admit that some reform is possible whereby unnecessary litigation, with all its consequent delay, expenses to the parties and to the State, and friction between landlord and tenant, may to a considerable extent be avoided. The Report of the Select Committee spoke with no uncertain voice on this question. They recommended that in any case in which the parties so desired the holding should be 804 inspected by one or two valuers, and if the valuation were accepted by the parties it should be fixed as a fair rent. If either party declined to accept the valuation the case should then be heard by the Sub-Commission in the ordinary course. In this event the Committee were of opinion that, where the valuation did not exceed £20, and where the judgment of the Sub-Commission was unanimous, there should be no rehearing by the Land Commission of any question of value. With respect to the latter part of the Committee's recommendation, I shall have something to say presently, but, as regards the first part, I have no hesitation in accepting the view they express. Although the former Chief Secretary did not include any provision of that kind in his Bill, I understand he would have been prepared to accept some arrangement of the kind.
§ MR. J. MORLEY"Would have been," but I informed the House of the exact way in which I proposed to carry out the recommendation of the Committee, although it is true the scheme was not in the Bill.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI accept what the right hon. Gentleman says—that he was prepared to bring forward some scheme of the kind. The result, I believe, of the practical working of the Act of 1881 is conclusive that in the great majority of cases which have come before the Sub-Commission no real question of law requiring the adjudication of a legal member has arisen, and disputes, even as regards questions of fact, have been infrequent. But, notwithstanding this, in ordinary cases where no question of value has arisen it appears that, as a rule, the expenses of the parties have amounted to between £4 and £5, due to the fact that both sides have been represented by solicitors and counsel.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURIt appears to me that what is wanted is some form of procedure to save the parties where there are disputes in fact or law by provision to obtain the decision of the Court as at present constituted upon such questions. Under the procedure proposed in this Bill the fair rent of the holding must be determined in the first instance by a conditional order of the 805 Land Commission made in pursuance of; a detailed report after inspection of the holding by one or two Assistant Commissioners. This Report has, among other matters, to contain the statements following. First, the fair letting value of the holding as between the parties, inclusive of the value of all the improvements thereon.
§ MR. J. DILLON (Mayo, E.)Including buildings?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURYes, including buildings. Secondly, it must contain improvements made wholly or partly at the cost of the tenant which require to be recorded by the Act, in respect of which rent be allowed or made payable. Thirdly, the full sum which should be the fair rent of the holding; fourthly, the improvements made wholly or partly at the cost of the landlord are required to be recorded. The Assistant Commissioner has to report all these matters at length and in detail to the Land Commission. If no objection is made to the fair rent so fixed by the valuer sent down to inspect the holding, then, in the ordinary course, that would become the fair rent of the holding, and the Commissioners will make an order forthwith. If, however, either party serves notice of objection to the order's becoming absolute, then the Chief Commissioner may hear the parties and dispose of the case or remit it to the Sub-Commissioners, as is now done. In this way there is reason to hope that the great majority of the simple cases will be sifted out without coming before the Sub-Commissioners at all. ["Hear, hear!"] Suppose, however, a case did come before the Sub-Commissioners, then, under the procedure we propose, if either party is dissatisfied with the decision of the Sub-Commission it will be the duty of the Chairman of that Sub-Commission to certify whether or not any question of law or of mixed law or fact arises. If such is the case, then the question may be heard by a Judicial Commission sitting alone or with others. If, on the other hand, the decision of the Sub-Commission involves value only, an appeal is to lie to the Chief Commissioners. But they may arrive at a decision without rehearing the case, unless one of the parties insists on the case being reheard and lodges a sum for costs.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI am sorry to hear that exclamation, but in practice I do not think it will be found to be so. The effect of these changes in procedure will be to sift out simple cases and enable them to be decided without coming before the Sub-Commission at all. The appeal from the decision of the Sub-Commission will be twofold—first, to withdraw all questions of law from the jurisdiction of the lay commission— a most important object to attain—and, secondly, to discourage the rehearing of questions of fact. We do not prevent the rehearing of questions of value, but short of that we do everything we can to discourage it. Sir, the Report of the Select Committee, which I have already quoted, recommends that in certain cases there should be no appeal from the decision of the Sub-Commission on questions of value. I hope that such appeals will not be numerous, and that when made the parties will be content with the decision of the Chief Commissioners when requiring that there should be a rehearing. The conclusion I have formed is that the existence of the power of appeal has a steadying effect on the Assistant Commissioners, and that without it great injustice might be done in individual cases. I may call the attention of the House to this —that we shall probably have to appoint a large number of additional Commissioners. There is one other important provision in the Bill, which has reference to the jurisdiction of the County Courts. It is quite clear that either this jurisdiction must be reformed or abolished. The practice of the County Court has been severely criticised in the Report of the Select Committee, which reported to the effect that the number of cases heard in the County Courts was comparatively small, and the practice was not always uniform Under the County Court system only one valuer goes on the land, and he is not, as a lay Commissioner is, a member of the Court with a voice in its decision. He fills a consultative position, is paid by the day, and not by salary. One County Court Judge informed the Committee that the Judge knew nothing of the facts himself, and had no other mode of arriving at a conclusion as to the value of the land than adopting the Court valuer's opinion; 807 and he felt himself morally bound to accept the valuation of the Court valuer. Notwithstanding this criticism the Report goes on to recommend that landlords should he deprived of the power they at present possess of having a fair-rent application transferred from the County Court to the Land Commission. These two utterances of the Select Committee appear somewhat inconsistent. Certainly it is an inequitable thing to give the tenant uncontrolled choice of the tribunal in every case. I have considered this question as regards County Court jurisdiction, and I have had great difficulty in coming to a conclusion. On the whole, I am inclined to think the County Court jurisdiction had better be abolished altogether. I admit that there is a great deal to be said on the other side, but the reason which has principally determined me in coming to a conclusion is that it would be difficult to fit the new procedure into the procedure of the County Courts. But this not a vital point, and if the procedure of the County Courts can be accommodated to the new procedure under the Act, I should be prepared to consider whether that jurisdiction should continue or be brought to an end. I am afraid I have detained the House at great length—[cheers]—but I must still bespeak its indulgence while I explain the part of the Bill that deals with purchase. It is our policy to stimulate the purchase of holdings by the cultivators of those holdings as far as possible. But the question may be asked, and has been asked in Ireland, if that is our policy would it not best be gained by making purchase compulsory and universal. ["Hear, hear!"] Propositions of this kind have been so much mooted of late that it may be desirable to state a few of the reasons why I consider it impossible to proceed on those lines. If purchase is to be compulsory and universal, it would involve a financial operation upon a gigantic scale. To carry out such a scheme of purchase, applicable to all the agricultural land in Ireland, would certainly require more than £100,000,000, possibly more than £200,000,000. The sphere of the State in the case of universal and compulsory purchase would be to fix the price, and presumably it would have to be an average and uniform price, based upon the existing rents. This of itself would 808 undoubtedly create inequality of treatment between one tenant and another and between one landlord and another. On the other hand, the alternative of inquiry into the merits of each case would involve a very long transitional period and cause awkwardness and trouble. But, if an average price were fixed in view of the fact that the sale by the landlord was to be compulsory and in order to avoid injustice to individuals, it is obvious that an average price would have to be fixed somewhat higher, probably, than the average of the transactions entered into voluntarily between landlord and tenant, and, I think, the guardian of the public purse might very well look askance on a proposal of this kind, quite irrespective of the political danger that would be involved if the State were constituted the sole landlord of agricultural holdings in Ireland. But that was not all. Even if a high average price were fixed and the tenants were willing to pay it—which is by no means certain—such a provision would work most oppressively in regard to individual cases. If the purchase money were fixed at even so large a figure as 25 years—[Irish laughter]—I am not for a moment suggesting that, but if it were fixed at 25 years it would represent something like 4 per cent. to the landlord at present in receipt of the rents. Supposing it were fixed at what I think a more reasonable figure—namely, 20 years' purchase—the landlord who sold his estate at the present time to the tenants in occupation may be calculated to have practically invested his money at 5 per cent. But, in the place of his lands and the rents he obtains from them, he now has the money to invest. In a large number of cases he would be unable to invest the money at more than 3 per cent. Suppose such a landlord has charges upon his estate. In a large number of cases this difference between the 5 per cent., at which his money is practically invested so long as he is in receipt of the rents, and the 3 per cent., that is all he might be able to get if he were to take the money instead of the lands, represents the |entire margin upon which such a land- lord has to live, and if you compulsorily deprive him of this, compulsory purchase would mean compulsory ruin. ["Hear, hear!"] I have thought this subject over and over again, and I have never 809 seen my way out of these difficulties. Suppose you try to get rid of the financial difficulty by retaining the compulsory principle but only applying it partially instead of universally, you will not have got rid of the second difficulty, which consists of the compulsory reduction of the landlord's income to 3 per cent. on his capital instead of 5 per cent. But, apart from that, if the operation is no longer to be universal, but only partial, you have imposed upon yourselves the necessity of determining the matter upon a principle of selection. How are you to select the holdings which are to be favoured and which are to be left out? It appears to me that if, instead of making purchase universal you make it only partial, the difficulty in the way of making it compulsory would be almost impossible to overcome. I am not prepared to prophesy what may happen in the future, but at present, at all events, I am convinced we must be content to proceed gradually and by arrangement between the parties. It is only in this way that the financial difficulties can be overcome and, at the same time, that a kind of national selection may be effected of cases which are most suitable for purchase, having regard to the interests of all the parties. What is the present position? There are some £30,000,000 available for advances to tenants, and at the present rate of procedure it would take 60 years or more before the whole of this money was advanced. How are you to quicken the pace? First of all we must try in every way we can to oil the machinery. We must study the various impediments in the existing system which make tenants slow to buy and the landlords slow to sell. We must, if possible, remove those impediments and try to make purchase more attractive to the tenants and sale more attractive to the landlords. We have in this Bill made various proposals with a view of effecting this object. I may divide the proposals into three classes. The first are those which are designed in the interest of both parties, the second those which are intended to encourage landlords to sell. The first of these consists mainly of amendment of the procedure, so as to obviate delay and cheapen the expense. Avoiding technical language, I may say that from the commencement 810 of the transaction by agreement to purchase, down to the time of the conclusion, the registration of title and the distribution of money, we have done our best to cheapen and quicken the procedure. ["Hear, hear!"] The proposal we have to make in order to encourage purchases demands more attention. In the first place we wish to promote purchase by making the terms of repayment as easy as possible, so far as can be done consistently with proper security. We accordingly intend to extend the term. ["Hear, hear!"] But the mere extension of the term ab initio, which has been constantly pressed upon me, is open to one grave objection—namely, that it will diminish the sinking fund in the earlier years of the advance, and therefore diminish the amount of the principal repaid during those years. This will not be financially sound, and accordingly we have sought a plan that will give relief to the purchasers, not at first when their needs less require it, because after the purchase transaction the effect will be to reduce the rent by 20 per cent., but to give relief when they are more likely to require it, namely, some years after the advance has been made, and when the purchasers may be suffering from the effects of a fall in agricultural values. ["Hear, hear!"] Under the existing Irish Land Acts advances are repaid by an annuity of 4 per cent. on the amount advanced, payable for 49 years, after which the tenant is relieved of all further obligation, whether the actual operations of the sinking fund have been sufficient or not. The present Bill proposes to modify the existing arrangement. First of all it provides for the reduction of the amount at the end of the first three decennial periods by the amount of the accumulations of the sinking fund during those periods, making the tenant to pay his annuity of 4 per cent. on the outstanding amount. Thus, supposing the advance to have been £100, and the accumulations of the sinking fund to have amounted in the first ten years to £14, during the second ten years to £12, and during the third to £10, the effect would be that the purchaser would during the fiart ten years have to pay 4 per cent. on £86 instead of £100, at the end of the second ten years, 4 per cent on £74 instead of £100; and at the end of the 811 third ten years 4 per cent. on £64. It will be seen that this is a material reduction, and, if prices have fallen in the meantime, will be very welcome to the tenant. ["Hear, hear!"] The Bill provides that from the 31st year—that is, after the three decennial periods—the purchaser shall continue to pay the annuity on the outstanding debt, not for a fixed term of years, but until the actual accumulations of the sinking fund have equalled the original advance. These two proposals are to be taken as part of a whole. The effect of the first will be to relieve the purchaser of his part of the burden at the end of the first, second, and third decades of the period of repayment, but it will of course lengthen the term of repayment from 49 to something like 70 years, or perhaps a little more. The second provision is intended to protect the guarantee fund from any loss. I was asked by an hon. Member whether this arrangement was to apply to past as well as to future cases. Yes, it is intended to apply to past as well as to future cases, and therefore the House will understand that it will give immediate relief to all those purchasers from the State from the time of the Church Acts onwards who have paid their annuities for ten years or upwards. [Cheers.] If this scheme is adopted by Parliament the annuity of every purchaser who buys on less than 20 years' purchase will start with a reduction of not less than 20 per cent. upon the rent which he now pays. This annuity will be further reduced in 10 years time by not less than 10 per cent., and again at the end of each period of 10 years. This is the proposal which we have to make in order to make purchase more attractive to tenants than it has hitherto been. But we also propose to give further relief to purchasers by abolishing the purchasers' insurance money—[Irish cheers]—and by diverting the county percentage to the sinking fund. As regards the purchasers' insurance money, I think there is a great deal to be said for it in principle, and if the arrangement had worked well in practice, I, for one, should have been unwilling to surrender it. But it has not worked well in practice. [Irish cheers.] As a matter of fact it has complicated arrangements under the Act of 1881, and it has to a very large 812 extent prevented the tenants from purchasing. Not only that, but as a matter of fact, it has failed of the object intended, because in practice the Lord Commissioners have so administered the Act that the amount of purchasers' insurance money has been practically a negligeable quantity. ["Hear, hear!"] It has not been, to any extent, what it was intended to be—a real insurance in case of the inability of a tenant to pay his annuities regularly. The Commissioners have generally fixed the true annual value at such a figure that as a matter of practice the annuities of tenant purchasers under the Act of 1891 amounted to something like £80,000, while the amount of insurance money up to the present time has been only between £3,000 and £4,000. Under these circumstances, it seems hardly worth while to continue a system which has greatly complicated the working of the Act, which is extremely difficult to understand, and which, undoubtedly has had the effect of deterring tenants from purchasing. As regards the county percentage, when the arrangement was made that the county percentage should be paid out of the tenants' annuities, it was probably anticipated that the money provided by the Act of 1891 would be applied for by the tenants much more rapidly than, as a matter of fact it has been. This fund also, is up to the present time very small in amount. I do not think that, so far, more than a sum of £5,000 a year has been received to be divided among the different counties from this source. During this year, the annual sum of £40,000 becomes, for the first time, available for the purpose to which the county percentage was to be devoted—namely, the erection of labourers cottages, and therefore anything taken from the resources of the county in this respect will be very much more than replaced by the Exchequer contributions which now begin for the first time. As I shall presently explain, there exists special reasons at the present time why we should divert this county percentage from the purposes to which it is at present devoted, to the strengthening of the sinking fund. I think the House will agree that these are important and valuable concessions to the tenant-purchasers. We also propose to make some 813 not unimportant concessions to the vendors. The Bill provides that in future guarantee deposits shall only be required where the Land Commission are of opinion that the security is insufficient without them. I have no doubt in practice it will be found that this will mean that the guarantee deposits will be dispensed with in future altogether. ["Hear, hear!"] As regards the guarantee deposits which have already been made under the Act of 1891, it is proposed to give power to the Land Commission to release these deposits where they have not, as a matter of fact, been utilised for the purpose of meeting their debts. The Act of 1885 forms a somewhat different case. Under the Act of 1891 the real security to the State is the guarantee fund. Under the Act of 1885 there is no guarantee to the State except the guarantee deposit itself; but, seeing that we intend to allow the tenants who have purchased under the 1885 Act, after ten years have elapsed, to pay only on the outstanding amount of principal at that time, we think it only right that the guarantee deposit paid under that Act should be released to a corresponding amount. I believe that that corresponding amount will be something like half of the guarantee fund. In other words, where the tenants under the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1888 have paid their annuities for ten years, the guarantee deposit in respect of those advances will be released, at the end of ten years, to the amount by which the tenants have repaid the principal of their debt. I think these proposals with respect to the guarantee deposits are amply justified by the experience which we have actually had under the Ashbourne Acts. ["Hear, hear!"] The total guarantee deposits under the Ashbourne Acts up to March, 1895, was £1,938,446. This was in respect of 24,900 tenants, and the total amount applied in discharge of irrecoverable debts up to December, 1895, was the insignificant sum of ƒ3,625—(Irish cheers) and this only in respect of 22 defaulters on 18 estates. ["Hear, hear!"] The application to make a guarantee deposit has largely discouraged landlords from selling, and I trust this provision will have a corresponding effect in encouraging selling. ["Hear, hear!"] Another concession which we propose to 814 make to landlords selling to their tenants has reference to the redemption of tithe rent-charge in case of sale. Under the Act of 1887, the Land Commission were empowered to allow the landlords to redeem the tithe rent-charge in case of sale at less than the statutory period of 22½ years provided the Treasury gave their consent. The Land Commission have, as a matter of fact, repeatedly applied to the Treasury to give their consent, and the Treasury have always refused it. (Irish cheers.) Under this Bill the Land Commission are to be empowered to allow the landlords to redeem the tithe rent-charge at anything over 20 years' purchase without asking the consent of the Treasury.
§ SERJEANT HEMPHILL (Tyrone N.)Does the Bill provide compensation for those who have redeemed at 22½ years' purchase, for I am one of those myself? (Laughter.)
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman has anticipated what I was about to say. There are many cases in which landlords are now redeeming tithe rent-charges by means of annuities. We propose, where the landlord sells to tenants, that, where the tithe rent-charge is in course of redemption by means of annuities, the outstanding amount which has to be compulsorily redeemed is to be calculated on the basis that the annuity will discharge the debt in 45 years instead of 52 years. This is to be taken as an admission of a general principle. There is no doubt whatever that the landlords have been very harshly dealt with—[Nationalist cries of "Oh!"]—in this matter. When the landlords redeemed tithe rent-charge, what is supposed to be redeemed is the net tithe rent-charge, exclusive of the poor rate. As a matter of fact, the annuity which they now have to pay— namely, £4 9s. for 52 years—would, on the supposition that the interest is calculated at the rent of £3 10s. per cent., pay off not the net, but the gross tithe rent-charge. ["Hear, hear!"] That is, to my mind, a manifest injustice, and, if I could have done it, I would have introduced into this Bill a provision by which, not merely in case of sale to tenants, but 815 in all cases, the period should be reduced from 52 years to 45 years. In other words, I should have introduced a provision by which the amount to be redeemed should be the net tithe rent-charge and not the gross tithe rent-charge; but I think it may be taken that the proposal we have inserted in this Bill is an acknowledgment of the general principle, and that at some time or other that general principle will be given effect to by legislation.
§ MR. VESEY KNOX (Londonderry)Does the right hon. Gentleman make any provision for compensation to the Church Fund?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNo. I do not see that there is any compensation due to the Church Fund. I think I have already referred to the loss of income which the landlord may sustain by selling to his tenant. It may happen that instead of receiving 5 per cent. on the capital value of his property he may receive only 2¾ per cent. On the other hand, in cases where there is a mortgage on the estate, say, of 5 per cent., by paying off that mortgage the landlord would really be investing his money at 5 per cent. Let us take the case of an estate where a mortgage is not up to its full value. In such a case the landlord may be willing to sell his interest to his tenants, partly in consideration of cash down, and partly in consideration for the rent-charge when he could not afford to pay cash down for the whole. The Bill recognises transactions of this kind, and allows the Land Commission to advance money, under certain limitations, to the extent of the cash payment to the landlord. I am not without hope that this provision may be taken advantage of to a considerable extent, especially in Ulster. I must not omit to mention a change we propose to make in the financial arrangements of the Act of 1891, not with a view to promoting purchase, but in order to secure the solvency of the guarantee fund. It will be remembered that the guaranteed land stock when first issued was considerably under par, and the view which was then expressed by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton and other Members that this stock would rise considerably above par has been realised. Of course, the landlords have reaped advantage by the appreciation of this stock, but the dangers 816 of this appreciation were not foreseen by anybody in 1891. Arrangements between the landlords and the tenants are on a cash basis, and between the State and the vendors are on a stock basis. The appreciation of stock above par obviously involves the result that the sinking fund portion of the tenants' annuities could not be invested at 2⅓ per cent., and consequently could not be accumulated to redeem the stock. Therefore the stock would not be redeemed in 49 years, although the annuities of the purchasers would end at that time. Again, the tenant purchaser is entitled to redeem in cash, but the cash so paid cannot purchase an equivalent amount of appreciated stock, nor can it be invested at a sufficiently high rate of interest to pay a dividend on the stock. At present the loss falls upon the guarantee fund—that is to say, that it will ultimately fall on the Irish ratepayer. Such a state of things was clearly never contemplated, and a remedy must be found for it. We provide a remedy in the first instance by requiring the annuity payers to continue paying their annuities until the debt is discharged, and not merely for a given period. But this would be hard on the annuity purchasers unless other measures were taken to succour the sinking fund. The throwing in of the county percentage will help to a considerable extent, but the real remedy is to issue no more land stock, but to revert to the system of cash payments. Under this Bill, therefore, we propose to give up issuing guaranteed land stock and to revert to cash payments. The only other proposal we have to make in connection with purchase has reference to the Congested Districts Board and the Landed Estates Court. At present, if the Congested Districts Board purchases land with a view to reselling to tenants, it has to purchase it out of its limited income, and it is obliged to sell it again to the tenants as quickly as possible in order that it may realise its available funds for other purposes. We propose to extend the powers of purchase of the Congested Districts Board by allowing it to borrow money for that end to the extent of the capital sum—namely, £1,500,000—from which it at present derives its income. As regards the Landed Estates Court, we have proposals to make which I think as important, if not more important, than 817 any others in the Bill. We think it desirable that more should be done than has yet been done to promote the sale to tenants of bankrupt estates. To do that, and also in order to strengthen the legal element on the Land Commission, we propose not exactly to amalgamate the Land Commission with the Landed Estates Court, but to make provision for the interchange of functions within certain limits between the Land Judge and the Judicial Commissioners, and also between the officers of the two Departments respectively. The statistics for 1894 showed that there are, in round numbers, about 1,500 estates pending for sale in the Land Judges' Court, and that there are 1,266 estates over which receivers have been appointed. Excluding the estates of minors, the rent-roll of the estates represented by these receivers is at least £648,000 a year. Most of them have been in the Court for years, and have been vainly offered for sale to the public. It is clear from these figures that the Court has, to a large extent, ceased to exercise the functions of a Court to facilitate the sale and transfer of land—[Nationalist cheers]— and has drifted more and more into a State department to collect the rentals of bankrupt estates. ["Hear, hear."] This state of things is clearly not in the public interest—[Nationalist cheers]—and much will be gained in every way if sales of holdings on these estates can be effected under the Land Purchase Acts at prices which are reasonable, having regard to all the circumstances of the case. Under present arrangements I see no prospect of this being brought about. It is not to the interest of the Receivers who are appointed by the Court to pro-mote sales. [Nationalist cheers.] What, then, do we propose? We propose briefly this—that where an absolute order for the sale of an estate has been made, and either a Receiver has been appointed, or the estate is so circumstanced that it would in any case be sold without the consent of the owner, it is to be the duty of the Land Commission, at the request of the Land Judge, to report as to the price at which, and the conditions on which, the estate might properly be offered for sale. The Land Judge, after considering this report and giving an opportunity to all parties interested to be heard, is to make an offer to the 818 tenants. We have added a provision that if the tenants to the extent of three fourths in number and in valuation of holdings accept the offer, the Land Judge may, if he thinks it expedient, declare the remainder to be purchasers under the Act. It will be seen that we have modelled our proposals on the sale clauses of the Irish Church Act of 1869 rather than on the Bright clauses of the Act of 1870. The Bright clauses have proved a failure, whereas the Report of the Church Commissioners issued in 1876, conclusively shows the success which had attended their plan. They point out that the secret of that success was, first, the advantageous terms which were offered to the tenants, and, secondly, the fact that the farmers themselves were relieved from taking the initiative in the negotiations for the purchase of their farms. In short, the Church Commissioners acted as administrators in their dealings with their tenants, and, therefore, they succeeded, while the Land Judges' Court has from first to last acted as a Court, and consequently has failed. Some idea seems to have got abroad that the Government intended to deal with encumbered estates, and the landlords have jumped to the conclusion that our intention was to sacrifice the estates by making a forced sale to the tenants at any price the tenants thought fit to give. That is not our intention. [A laugh.] We have taken every precaution—[Irish ironical cheers]—that all interests shall be consulted. In order to show how groundless the fears of the landlords in this respect are, I would again refer to the Report of the Church Commissioners for the whole period of their administration from 1869 to 1880. It appears that the total number of purchasing tenants was 6,057, the annual value of the holdings sold to tenants was £73,759, the purchase money was £1,674,841, the average years' purchase under this system which we now propose to adopt was no less than 22⅔, and the average price realised by the Church Commissioners by sale afterwards was about 22⅓. I am perfectly willing to state that there is no clause in the whole Bill on which I build higher hopes than this clause. I have now only to trouble the House on one more topic—that of the evicted tenants. We have already made it clear we will 819 not consent to the expenditure of public funds in order to help the evicted tenants to stock their farms and pay up their arrears. So far as money is required for that purpose we think it ought to be provided from private sources, and I for one would be very glad to see it provided; but I intimated in the course of the Debate on the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Waterford that we were prepared once more to re-enact the 13th Clause of the Act of 1891, and also to empower the Land Commissioners to act as mediators between the parties. We propose the 13th Clause should be re-enacted for a further period of twelve months, and in connection with this I may mention that under the re-enactment of the 13th Clause at the end of the last Session of Parliament there have been 104 applications to purchase, and that, so far, none of those applications have been refused. The powers of the Land Commissioners to act as mediators are to be exercised either on the application of both parties or on the application of one party with the tacit consent of the other; and when these conditions have been fulfilled the Land Commissioners are empowered to ascertain and inform the parties what, in their judgment, would be a fair rent in the case of re-instatement, or what advance they would be prepared to make in case of purchase. I hope and think the question is settling itself, but if we can quicken the settlement, so much the better. Now, Sir, my task is ended. It only remains that I should thank the House for the patient attention with which they have listened—[cheers]—to what has been a long and, I fear, inevitably a tedious statement of so technical a subject matter. I have no doubt that this Bill will be criticised, and severely criticised by hon. Members representing Ireland on the Benches opposite. The fate of the Bill or, at all events, the fate of the Bill as it stands, having regard to the state of public business in this House— [Irish ironical cheers]—will lie entirely in their hands—[laughter]—and I would like to remind them, howeer, that this Bill will probably be criticised no less severely by the friends of the landlords both in this House and in another place—[cries of "What for?"]—and that although it may not give to hon. Members opposite all that they ask for, still it does confer 820 boons of substantial value on the tenants of Ireland. To the House at large I would commend the Bill as being, on the whole, a fair and beneficial Measure for both parties, and as being, at all events, an honest endeavour to do what it sets out to do—[cries of" Oh!"]—namely, to amend the defects which experience has brought to light in the working of the Act of 1881, to cheapen and simplify the procedure under that Act, and last, but not least, to promote and facilitate the gradual substitution of peasant proprietary for dual ownership, which appears to be the one great object of public policy in connection with the Land Acts on which all parties in this House are agreed. [Cheers.]
§ MR. JOHN MORLEYIt is in no conventional sense that I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the patience, the skill, the clearness, and the ardent candour and sincerity with which he has laid these very important, almost, I may say, momentous, proposals before the House. I had to travel last year, in the Measure to which he has so often referred, over only a portion of the same ground, and therefore I am well able to judge of the skill that has been required to enable him to cover his much larger area of ground with so much success, and to travel through most intricate and complex matters in a way in which, on the whole, we were able to comprehend what the purport of the Bill was likely to be. At the same time, of course, it would be most irrational for any one, without seeing these proposals in the Bill, to say how many we should approve of and how many we should dissent from and why we dissent. ["Hear, hear!"] At this point I am afraid that congratulations must end and disappointment begin, because the right hon. Gentleman in his closing sentences referred to the state of business as to the future prospects of this Bill this Session. What does the Bill do? It is not like the Bill of last year, which only attempted to deal with one particular section of a large subject, and yet I was warned by the present Leader of the House and taunted with overlooking English agriculture; and he prophesied that June, July, and August would be passed in the arid discussion—those were his words—of the everlasting claims of the Gentlemen below the 821 Gangway. But our Bill last year was a trifle compared to this Bill. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has placed his speech broadly, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Louth when he impatiently ejaculated "Why?" after the remark of the right hon. Gentleman that he was afraid the House would be wearied of the subject. We have a right to say "Why?" too. You insist upon governing Ireland—[Irish cheers]—and in making all these arrangements for Ireland. I agree that the Bill to a considerable extent concerns the British taxpayer. Nevertheless, by bringing in a Bill of this scope and magnitude the right hon. Gentleman admits that the whole of this great Irish land problem needs consideration by Parliament in the fixing of Fair Rents, in the department of Land Purchase, in the Congested Districts Board, in the problem of the Evicted Tenants, and in the reorganisation of the Land Department. Here are five or six ample topics, every one demanding the attention of the House. I say it does not depend on the Gentlemen below the Gangway whether this Bill, in any of its larger and more organic portions, shall make its way through this House in time to go to the other House. [Irish cheers.] If it is to make its way then it will have to be put before the Education Bill—["hear, hear!"]because no one who knows anything of our procedure can suppose that we shall not have a very long Committee stage on the Education Bill. [Cheers.] After the Second Reading of the Land Bill we shall have the Committee stage on a Bill covering so many topics, and away will go all those visions of the House rising at the beginning or middle of August. The right hon. Gentleman asked last year why I did not bring in a small Bill which would pass with comparative rapidity. Does anyone suppose that this Bill will pass with comparative rapidity? The right hon. Gentleman dealt for the last half-hour with the most serious interests of the landlords, and therefore every one of those financial details which he explained so clearly will deserve consideration. Unless we are to have an enormously prolonged Session, four-fifths of the contents of the Bill, which he has so industriously and to his honour prepared, will have to be thrown overboard. 822 The right hon. Gentleman left off with the evicted tenants, and the proposals he makes were in our Bill of last year.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNot quite the same.
§ MR. J. MORLEYNo. I am sure that those who advised him were acute enough to alter a comma here and there. [Laughter.] Yet my proposals met with determined opposition from learned and hon. Gentlemen opposite. Amendments were proposed; and now the learned Gentleman sits opposite, as if nothing had happened, and is a party to a Bill which brings in nearly all the important proposals in our Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] As to the Member for the University of Dublin, I may remind him that we had a Committee last year, and the minority brought forward a Report of their own, and walked out, leaving us, not entirely to our disadvantage, to go on with our Report. The one recommendation of those three Gentlemen who are now sitting on the Bench as Her Majesty's Ministers, and who are parties to this Bill was, after 30 sittings, that the status of the judicial tenants should be properly and authentically defined. [Laughter.] Those three Gentlemen have travelled a very long way since those days. [Laughter and cheers.] Yet, I dare say, some of them still talk of the political profligacy of the Home Rule Party; but we need not look to that Party for something which deserves to be called by a not much milder name than that. ["Hear, hear!"] Then there is the hon. Gentleman whom I will still call by the old familiar designation of the Member for South Tyrone. I am bound to say that this Bill covers most of the demands—though not quite all—of that hon. Gentleman. There are some points which I believe that at the time of the Committee he considered important, which I did not gather from the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman to be included in the Bill; but, still, I freely admit that the Secretary to the Local Government Board has not much to reproach himself with. It would be cruelty to go at this time through all the provisions of the Bill; but I would say generally—and I hope it is not over-complacent—that so far as the fair-rent portion of the Bill is concerned—which is by far the most important portion of it, and which most 823 interests the population of Ireland, and not least, but perhaps most, the population of your own favourite province of Ulster—it is taken, as the right hon. Gentleman very candidly admitted, from the Bill I had the honour to introduce last year. As for the other parts of the fair-rent department of this Bill, which were not included in the Bill of last year, I will very cheerfully make the right hon. Gentleman a present of the copyright of them, because I do not conceive that they are in any sense improvements—but rather the reverse—upon the proposals which were made last year. One of the most important points of all, undoubtedly, was and is the question of procedure. Every one that has considered the Irish land question and the operation of the Land Courts, must feel that there can be no object which a Statesman ought to have more at heart than the simplification and cheapening of that procedure. I ventured last year to explain to the House a plan which had been suggested to me for an automatic readjustment of rents. But I told the House candidly that I did not believe it would work. The right hon. Gentleman has expounded a scheme very complex in itself, which is to come into operation upon detailed individual applications, not by any automatic process at all, but according to the judgment and discretion of the Land Commission. I think that plan is even more unworkable than the scheme for which I was responsible last year. Then, so far as I could understand, the proposal of the Bill in regard to procedure in ordinary cases is exactly the same as that which I myself explained last year to the House. But, as I have said, I believe the elaborate so-called automatic procedure described by the right hon. Gentleman will prove unworkable, and that you will have to fall back upon the scheme which I proposed last year, and which, I gather, the right hon. Gentleman himself regards favourably. There are two great branches of the fair-rent question—the question of exclusion and the question of the tenants' improvements. So far as I understand, the question of exclusion—that is to say the exclusion of holdings the tenants of which were not allowed under the Act of 1881 to have fair rents fixed—is to be largely modified by the Bill, and modified in the main as we proposed to do it 824 last year. In regard to the legal status of the tenant, sub-letting, the middleman's interest and the redemption of rent, there is no difference of opinion between us. As to the question of turbary, I do not think that the extra qualification by which the right hon. Gentleman has guarded it is an improvement. Indeed, I think it is the reverse. Then as to arrears, we know the mischief that has been done in Ireland in the past and is done every day now by allowing great masses of arrears to accumulate. I regret that he has not accepted that proposal. What I understood his alternative proposal to mean is this—that the tenant is able to buy himself in by paying two years' arrears; but I did not understand that he was to have a clean receipt. If he does not provide that, the right hon. Gentleman is simply playing with the subject. My object was this—and I believe it is the object of all those, whether landlord or tenant, who know Ireland and who are impartial—that these tenants should have the millstone of arrears removed from their necks. I do not think that this provision will have that effect; and, if not, the right hon. Gentleman might just as well leave it out of the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] As to the landlord's right of pre-emption, we proposed to abolish that last year, and the right hon. Gentleman insists upon retaining it. I am quite familiar with, and recognise the force, of all the points which the right hon. Gentleman made as to the paradox—if you like to call it so—of forbidding competitive rent, and allowing competitive prices for the tenant-right. But it is not the only paradox in Ireland. [Laughter and "Hear, hear!" from the FIRST LORD of the TREASURY.] I wish it were. [Laughter.] But I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to two facts. The first is that in Ulster the landlord's right of pre-emption does not exist; and the second is that in the rest of Ireland, where the right does exist, it has hardly in a single case been resorted to or relied upon. I think that decision is a serious error; and it will be felt as an error in Ulster, because there are estates there where the custom does prevail, and where the retention of the landlord's right of pre-emption will not smooth the reception of this Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] If 825 the tenant has an interest called tenant-right, why on earth should he not sell it for the best price he can obtain? I regret that the Ulster custom is not to be presumed. I know that it is very difficult to define it; that if you attempt definition you will probably have to take it on its narrowest footing; and that if you did that it would not have a satisfactory effect on the Irish Land question. As to town parks I am not sure that I clearly gathered what are the provisions of the Bill. Is the population limit retained in the definition of a town?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThere is no population limit.
§ MR. J. MORLEYThen I am bound to say that I think that an improvement. We had a population limit in our Bill, but I indicated that if I had to bring in a new clause I would provide that wherever within the prescribed zone a holding was occupied with the bonâ fide intention of making a profit by farming the tenant might claim to have a fair rent fixed.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThat is practically the provision of the Bill.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI am glad to hear it; but, of course, I doubt the word "practically" in dealing with Irish Land Bills. [Laughter.] It is these "virtual" and "practical" intentions of Ministers which leads to disasters like "Adams v. Dunseath." I hope the intention will be expressed verbally and legally; but I have never understood why the landlords have made such a case of this whole question of town parks. What is there to hinder a landlord within the zone from insisting that every one of those tenants shall hold as annual tenants? As to sub-letting, though there is a great deal to be said on details, and though Amendments in abundance are likely to be moved in Committee, I think that on the whole the right hon. Gentleman, who has followed in the main the clause of last year, has fairly met the difficulty. I do not know whether it is satisfactory that he should define a "substantial portion" of the holding as seven eighths; but that is a detail. As to improvements, there are, as the right hon. Gentleman says, two questions to be answered. What are improvements? And upon principle are you going to exempt classes of improvements from 826 having a rent fixed upon them? The right hon. Gentleman went into that most thorny and difficult subject, and even he, with his metaphysical and philosophical aptitudes, must have found perplexing the problem of increased letting value. Practically it is a considerable improvement; I admit; but you will never get to the points of real importance by going into these quasi- metaphysical discussions. The right hon. Gentleman fairly quoted against the Bill of last year the speech made by Lord Herschell in 1883. I was thoroughly familiar with those points; but Lord Herschell, as a member of the Cabinet, was as responsible as I was for the Bill of 1895; and therefore the right hon. Gentleman pays no compliment to Lord Herschell's astute and accomplished mind if he does not discern that Lord Herschell detected no discrepancy between the propositions which he advanced in 1883 and our Bill of 1895. There is no irreconcilable antagonism between the position taken up by an authority which the right hon. Gentleman rightly rates so high and the position taken up in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman taxes me with being what I have too little pretensions to be—a logician; and he said that if I could show this or that proposition to be the logical development of certain other propositions I was content. That is not so. I have been 13 years in this House, and I have become tolerably indifferent to logical developments. [Laughter.] But it is upon practical observation of the fact of which we have to deal that I have come to the opinions on increased letting value in last year's Bill, and from that, after all, the right hon. Gentleman himself does not largely dissent in principle. As I understand, the right hon. Gentleman's Bill upon this vexed and difficult point is to embody the suggestions of Lord Justice Fitz-Gibbon, made in his evidence before our Committee. Now, Lord Justice Fitz-Gibbon said that when the Land Commissioners fixed the rent they looked, amongst other things, at the tenant's improvements, they found out what addition those improvements made to the letting value of the land, how much was entirely due to the expenditure of time, labour, and so forth by the tenant, they put a certain exemption of rent upon 827 that, and then there was an apportionment by the Commissioners of the margin of the increased letting value over the portion so far allowed for and yet still remaining. That principle of increased letting value found its way, as clearly as words could do, into our Bill of last year, and I understand from the right hon. Gentleman his Bill is to embody it too. That is a very remarkable advance, and, though we shall have to watch very carefully the interpretation put upon that principle and the way in which the principle is to be carried out in valuation, still it is a great thing to have got a Conservative Government to have made this advance. On another point I thought it was agreed last year that an abridgement of the statutory term was indispensable. Now, the Cowper Commission recommended an abridgement of the statutory term, and the right hon. Gentleman himself gave away his case, in fact, for maintaining the term at 15 years when he allowed that rents fixed in the earlier of the 15 years' statutory term now expiring were excessive rents.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNo. To say that those rents have been reduced is not equivalent to saying that the term ought to be shortened, unless the right hon. Gentleman means to imply that whenever a particular bargain or contract turns out in favour of one party it ought in the interests of the other party to be revised.
§ MR. J. MORLEYThe right hon. Gentleman was very emphatic. He said that these judicial rents are statutory contracts. Yes; but what became of the statutory contracts of 1887, 1888, and 1889? For three years you entirely suspended your statutory contracts. Apart from that, what is the right hon. Gentleman's position? His position is this—I agree, he says, that the rents fixed in the earlier years were too high; nevertheless, a contract is a contract.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNo, Sir; not were too high, but ought to be reduced if revised now.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI see the right hon. Gentleman's distinction. They must have been too high or else they would not have been reduced in 1887, 1888, and 1889. I traverse entirely what the right hon. Gentleman is assuming now, that though rents might 828 happen to be too high for the agricultural circumstances of 1887, 1888, and 1889, and though they might be too high for the agricultural circumstances of to-day, yet you ought not to break a statutory contract. I say you reduced rents in those three years because they were too high, and therefore you admit in full the principle which we thought on the Committee and which I thought in framing the Bill of last year
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNot on the Committee.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI beg pardon. I am wrong about the Committee, but there can be no logical consistency in refusing to allow rents to have the benefit of revision now if you admit that in 1887, 1888, and 1889 they ought to have been revised. The altering of the purchase provisions is a serious affair, and there was something fratricidal in the operation which the right hon. Gentleman performed. [Laughter.] When the Leader of the House brought in his Bill in 1890, and which became law in 1891, I am sure he has not forgotten that we, sitting on this side of the House, then as now, warned him that the device of the tenants' insurance fund would prove a complete barrier to anything like an extensive set of operations under the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] The Chief Secretary now admits that, and I understand the tenants' insurance fund is to go. The landlord's guarantee deposit of one-fifth is to go; and, thirdly, the landlord is to have cash instead of stock. Those are financial operations which will need very careful observation. The term for repayment also is to be extended from the present period of 49 years to something over 69 years, perhaps over 70 years. The British taxpayer insists upon governing Ireland, and he must look out for himself; but I think he will be told that his security is not exactly improved by these operations. Take one point only—the extension of time. I think one may feel that if one's security is to be improved for the better the end is scarcely attained by giving about 45 per cent more time in which to pay the debt off. The guarantee deposit of the landlord was a very considerable security and safeguard. The tenants' insurance fund I always thought a very ingenious but useless device. All these 829 matters will come up for abundant and copious consideration. I am greatly pleased with some portions of the Bill — those portions which were in our Bill of last year. [Laughter.] Other portions of the Bill are disappointing. Some of the methods of dealing with points we attempted to deal with are also disappointing, and I cannot prophesy for the fight hon. Gentleman anything like a smooth passage for his Measure. I suspect we shall find at the end of the Session that we shall have a fair-rent proposal possibly passed through this House in a largely improved form, and all the rest of the Bill will be left, like many scores of other proposals for the good of Ireland, to such time as this Parliament has spare time to deal with them. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ MR. DILLONremarked that the English Parliament had been engaged now for 96 years in the attempt to legislate upon the subject of Irish land. It was a very significant, striking, and instructive fact that at the end of this period the House should have to listen to the longest, most complicated, and most difficult to follow of all the speeches ever delivered in connection with Irish land. What had become of all the statements made in the speeches of Unionists, including the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who, in December, 1894, had addressed a manifesto to The Times? The best proof that this Parliament was not capable of legislating for Ireland and removing grievances in connection with the land was to be found in the speech of the Chief Secretary. If this question had been dealt with at any time this last half century by the Irish Members in Committee upstairs, if not in Ireland itself, it would have been settled as peaceably and set as much to rest—[ironical laughter]— as the English land question had been. A sinister observation fell from the right hon. Gentleman at the close of his speech. He spoke about the condition of public business, indicating that it was doubtful whether this Bill would be allowed to pass into law. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to use that as a threat to the Irish Benches, and that it would depend upon them whether the Bill passed? Was that a fair observation to come from a Minister with a majority of 150 behind him? In reply to that obser- 830 vation he said that it would be the duty of the Irish Members to attempt to improve the Bill in some important particulars. But why ought there to be this danger as to the future progress of this Bill? He could conceive of no reason except that it was to be put behind the enormous and complicated Education Bill. While the Irish Members were determined to claim justice for the Roman Catholics in respect of that Bill, he said that it would yet be their duty to protest against the action of the Government if they proposed to postpone the Committee stage of the Land Bill until after the Committee stage of the Education Bill had been brought to a close. The Committee stage of the Education Bill was likely to take up considerable time if an attempt was to be made to pass it in its present form. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman would cause great disappointment in Ireland. The Land Acts Committee said in their Report that the evidence brought before them as to prices and the cost of production proved that the rents fixed between 1881 and 1885 had been since 1886, and were at the present time, materially excessive; and they added that the statement was applicable in a still higher degree to the agreements made before 1886. In that paragraph to which the hon. Member for South Tyrone was a party, it was placed on record that a body of tenants, numbering he should say, upwards of 200,000, had been paying excessive rents ever since 1886. Yet this Bill, which was supposed to settle the land question, offered no remedy whatever to those tenants. The right hon. Gentleman, using a singular expression, had said that this Parliament would deal with the position of the Irish tenants so far as was consistent with justice and expediency. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by this use of the term "expediency"? The Dublin Daily Express had warned the right hon. Gentleman that, if he listened to the proposals of the right hon. Member for Montrose Burghs and his Nationalist allies, he would alienate the support of every Loyalist in Ireland. He supposed that was what the right hon. Gentleman had in his mind when he determined to qualify justice by expediency. To judicial tenants who were over rented this Bill offered no relief. It did not shorten 831 the judicial term and it did not break the judicial contract, which was not a real contract, but an obligation enforced by the State upon the tenant, who was entitled to ask the State to relieve him from it. The second main point in considering the question of fair rents was the question of improvements, and while the right hon. Gentleman on that question had made some slight concession and advance in the direction of the recommendations of the Land Acts Committee, he had only gone a very short way. No doubt the proposal in the Bill was an improvement on the present condition of things, but only a very limited improvement. It certainly would not settle the question, for as long as Irish tenants were compelled to pay rent in respect of the value they had added to their holdings by their labour, they would never rest contented. He was perfectly convinced that the day would come when the provision in Mr. Parnell's Bill of 1883, which was one more proof of the great foresight of Mr. Parnell, would become recognised as the law of the land. It was said that it would produce a prairie value in Ireland. Was the right hon. Gentleman aware that when this question of prairie value was raised before the Land Acts Committee, one of those learned in the law who were engaged in the administration of the Land Acts— Mr. Doyle—stated in evidence that in his opinion if a prairie value were introduced into Ireland it would raise the rents of the landlords. In the paragraph of the Report of the Committee which dealt with this question it was strongly recommended that the full added letting value due to the work of the tenant should go to the tenant, on the ground that owing to the condition of the law and the established practice of Irish landlords no improvement would be made in the country except by the tenant. If a landlord who had land of an inherent capacity which would return a fair interest for the labour and capital laid out on it, deliberately abstained from laying out his labour and capital, he had no moral right to come down on the tenant who did risk his labour and capital and take away the benefit of it from him. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to make one alteration in procedure, which he confessed he thought a great improvement, in the shape of a 832 report to be made by the sub-commissioner or valuer, in which he was to set forth what would be the fair letting value of the farm between man and man and from that he was to deduct the allowance made in respect of improvements, but in connection with this matter there was one all important question which the right hon. Gentleman had not touched. The right hon. Gentleman did not give the House the principle on which these deductions were to be made. They must fix upon some principle of valuation of improvements if they desired to make the Measure in any degree a satisfactory one. There were only two ways by which valuation could be arrived at—either they must look to the value of the improvement as it stood, or else they must look at the amount of the cost of the improvement. In the case of thousands of farms, if the tenant were to receive anything like 3 per cent. interest upon his outlay not only would the whole of the rent disappear, but the landlord would be found to be indebted to his tenant. The Land Acts Committee in their Report had said that it was of great and urgent importance that the law with regard to the tenant's right to improvements should be made clear, because agricultural improvements were of the utmost consequence to the country. It was not only in the interests of the tenants alone, but also in the interests of the landlords that the tenants should be encouraged to invest their capital in the land, and that they should be secured the value of their capital and of their labour. The Report further said that it often happened that the cost of improvements was not repaid by the result. Indeed, those who were well acquainted with Ireland knew that such was often the case. The fact that when an improvement turned out successful the landlord could claim an increased rent as a consequence of the improvement was not encouraging to the tenant to invest his capital in the land, but the reverse. It sometimes happened that by a stroke of good luck an improvement brought in a return of from 10 to 15 per cent., and sometimes it happened that the investment turned out to be a dead loss. Was it to be said that in the former case the landlord was entitled to share in his tenant's good 833 luck, but he was not to bear his share of his ill fortune. Was such a proposition just, or was it calculated to encourage the tenant in his industry. He said on the contrary, that, to adopt such a principle would be to penalise industry amongst Irish tenants and to prevent them from investing their capital and labour in the land. Up to now the Irish tenants had been absolutely deprived of all the advantages that had resulted from their outlay. It was in the interests of the tenants and of the country, and it certainly was not against the interests of the landlords, that the former should be secured the fruits of their investment of capital. There was another question of very great importance to which he desired to draw the attention of the House, and that related to the subject of the presumption with regard to who had effected the improvements. He must say that upon this point the Measure would be received with great disappointment in Ireland. He knew that tens of thousands of pounds had been invested by the Irish tenants in their land without their having any record of the fact, and by all principles of moral law the value of those improvements ought to be vested in the tenants. They were, however, told that the onus of proving that they had effected improvements ought to be thrown upon the tenants. Commission after commission had recommended that all improvements should be treated prima facie as though they were the tenants, improvements. The Commission of 1843, which certainly was not a tenants' commission, it being representative of the landlords' interests, had reported that the improvements in Ireland of that day were the work of the tenants and not of the landlords. In that case he asked why the tenants should not have right of presumption. The rich landlords would in all probability have kept a record of their expenditure upon improvements if they had made any, whereas the poor tenants would be most unlikely to have kept such a record. The landlord would of necessity be fat more capable of proving his case, therefore the presumption ought to be unlimited in favour of the tenant. It was notoriously the fact, and had been stated by Earl Cowper in the House of Lords, that improvements in Ireland were, and 834 always had been, made by the tenants, and not by the landlords. Why then should not the poor tenants in Ireland have the benefit of the doubt in this matter. With regard to the Ulster tenants, very strong feeling existed in Ulster. They had been informed by the Commissioners who had administered the Act in Ulster, that in Ulster, practically speaking, the Ulster tenant was compelled to prove that he held under the custom. He did not propose to go at any length into the details of the other provisions of the Hill, which, of course, would be discussed in Committee. It would be impossible, after listening to so lengthy a speech, and before they had read the Bill carefully, to say whether certain exclusions were satisfactory. There was one point, however, in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman's statement was very unsatisfactory, and that was the question of town parks. He did not understand why they should be excluded from the operation of the Act. The Cowper Commission recommended that no question of town parks should be allowed to arise in respect of a town of less than 30,000 inhabitants; then in 1887 the Tory Government proposed a limit of 2,000 inhabitants, and now the right hon. Gentleman, as far as he could understand, proposed to make it lower still. Of course they all knew that there was a provision in the Bill giving to the landlord ample power to resume the town parks if they were required for an extension.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNot for accommodation?
§ MR. DILLONsaid, in the whole of Ireland there was no land which had been so immensely improved at the expense of the occupiers as had town parks. He did not see why these occupiers should not be entitled to enjoy the same protection as the country farmers, always reserving to the landlord the increased rent he was entitled to ask on account of the proximity to the town. There never had been in the world any set of towns so barbarously treated as the Irish towns had been by the Irish landlords. The idea that they should have the power of resuming the town parks for the benefit of the town people, and not for their own benefit was the greatest hypocrisy. With regard to the changes in procedure, 835 of most of them he strongly approved; but as they were technical in character he would leave the discussion of them to members of the legal profession. One change set forth was that the value at starting was to be ascertained and improvements allowed for, and what was desirable was that the statement of value should be made evidence in Court. Most of the provisions suggested with regard to purchase would he was sure secure support from all sides. Alluding to the Bill of 1881 the right hon. Gentleman said it was an agrarian revolution; so it was; and it was unfortunate that they could not have justice done without revolution The right hon. Gentleman stated that from 1881 the Unionist Party had had a policy which was the substitution for dual ownership of peasant proprietorship. But he remembered the time when they opposed tooth and nail every proposition of the kind. That principle, when first introduced, was opposed by the Tory Party in every possible way. It was first proposed by that much abused organisation, the Irish National League, The Nationalists had always held that there would never be peace and prosperity in Ireland until landlordism was brought to an end. Therefore they had always supported and would support any well-considered measure of purchase, lie would not go into the details of purchase except in answer to what was said about the estates which were in the Land Judges Court. The people of Ireland were justly discontented with the action of that Court. It had ceased to be a Court to facilitate the sale and transfer of land in Ireland because it had refused to sell estates, and it had become a machinery for the maintenance of the price of land by refusing to allow estates to go on the market. A Court set up for the sale of the estates of bankrupts had become choked and held 1,500 estates with a rental of £600,000, excluding the estates of minors. Why was this? Because at a certain period, in the interests of landowners, the Court refused to sell; it exercised a jurisdiction never contemplated, that of withdrawing estates from compulsory sale if it considered that fair prices were not offered. The judges had delivered orations from the Bench declaring that the prices that were offered they could not accept. He had always advocated that measures 836 should be taken to inaugurate a system of compulsory sale, and he could not share the alarm of the right hon. Gentlemen at the idea of compulsory sales unless it were accompanied by machinery for securing a fair price. The right hon. Gentleman said the Irish Church Commissioners had sold with celerity the farms committed to their care; but so well safe-guarded were the interests of the landlords that the farms were sold at an average of 22 years purchase. It was an outrage to talk of such a price as that now; and if the Government had a plan for selling estates he hoped it would be a popular one.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI said nothing about the prices likely to be paid under this scheme.
§ MR. DILLONcontinued that the observations of the right hon. Gentleman would be received with alarm, because he quoted the prices obtained, and unless he had some idea of realising them again it was difficult to see the point of his argument, which was apparently that as landlords had previously got 22 years purchase they would again get a high price. Let him consult the unfortunate tenants who had bought, ascertain their view of their position, and see whether it came up to the pictures of the earthly paradise he described. The tenants were in a state of desperation and many of the Irish Members had received petitions to come to their relief. The Chief Secretary stated that the Land Commission was to report to the Judges of the Land Court on what terms they thought these estates should be sold. Seeing how that Commission was composed it could not be expected that Nationalists would have much confidence in it to settle the matter. He did not base his views as to the competence of the Land Commission to fix rents or their right to the confidence of the people on his own opinion, but on that of the Member for South Tyrone. That hon. Member asked anyone who knew anything about Ireland to imagine an Irish tenant standing before such a tribunal. Where was he to look for sympathy? Mr. Justice Bewley he said was an accomplished lawyer, and he impeached neither his rectitude nor ability. Mr. Wrench was simply a land agent. Mr. Fitzgerald's appointment as Chief Commissioner was 837 received in Ulster with dismay. In Armagh and Tyrone, where he was known, the tenants were in revolt against such a man.
The fact that the Irish landlords, aided by the evil brood of high placed lawyers which infested Dublin Castle, had succeeded in capturing the tenants' seat on the Commission would not be forgotten in Ulster.[Nationalist cheers.] The most urgent and pressing question was that of fixing fair rents, they could not have satisfactory purchase until they had disentangled the landlord's property in the soil from the tenant's property, and it was certain that the tenant would not be compelled to buy back his own improvements as well as the landlord's interest. The first thing necessary to promote purchase under a satisfactory and just basis was to fix a fair rent in a satisfactory way. In his opinion the Bill fell short of giving them a promise that this would be done. As to the guarantee deposit, the tenant's interest being fully half of the value of the holding, the State ran no risk in advancing the full price of the landlord's interest, because the tenant's interest would secure payment. He regretted that the Bill did not do more for the evicted tenants, and that the Chief Secretary had not made up his mind to give a moderate sum of money to make a really effective settlement. The Chief Secretary refused assistance to the evicted tenants out of the Irish Church funds, whilst in the same breath he practically offered the landlords a considerable sum of money out of the same funds. He regretted the right hon. Gentleman had not made an effort to settle the question of the evicted tenants in a satisfactory manner, and expressed the hope that the Government would give the Bill a fair chance of passing into law and the Irish Members an equal chance of proposing Amendments. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYhoped that hon. Members would now allow the present stage of the Bill to be taken. The Chief Secretary had given a clear exposition of the Measure, but owing to its necessarily complicated character it was absolutely impossible for hon. Members to understand the whole bearing of the proposals until they had the print before them. ["Hear, hear!"] 838 Bill to further amend the Law relating to the Occupation and Ownership of Land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland; presented accordingly, and read 1° to be read 2° upon Monday, 22nd April, and to be printed. —[Bill 177.]
THE FIRST LORD or THE TREASURYwas afraid he could not hold out any hope that the Bill would be effectively proceeded with on the 22nd, nor could he fix any time just now at which it would be taken.