HC Deb 20 July 1896 vol 43 cc192-204

(1.) Where an application is made to the court to fix a fair rent for a holding, the court shall ascertain whether any improvements on the holding—

  1. (a) if claimed by the tenant have been made wholly or partly by or at the cost of the tenant without his having been paid or otherwise compensated by the landlord; and
  2. (b) if claimed by the landlord have been made wholly or partly by or at the cost of the landlord; 193 and shall record any improvements so made which they consider to be capable of accurate record, and that record shall be admissible in evidence on its mere production from the proper custody.

(2.) No rent shall be allowed or made payable in respect of an improvement made by the tenant on a holding, by reason only of the work constituting such improvement not being suitable to the holding.

(3.) In fixing the fair rent for a holding where it appears to the court that, after an allowance by way of interest has been made to the tenant on account of the present value of an improvement, such allowance falls short of the return equitably due to the tenant in respect of any benefit to the holding from such improvement, the court shall make such further allowance to, as having regard to the nature of the improvement and the interests of the landlord and tenant respectively, and considering all the circumstances, the court may deem just.

(4.) For the purpose of an application to fix a fair rent, a tenant shall not he deemed to have been paid or compensated for any improvement not coming within the provisions of any contract, except to the extent to which, in the opinion of the court, any money or money's worth has been given by the landlord in respect of the improvement.

(5.) A contract by a tenant not to claim on quitting his holding compensation for an improvement made by him, if money or money's worth was not given in respect of the entering into that contract, shall not authorise the allowance of any rent in respect of any improvement.

(6.) Section four of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, shall not authorise the allowance of any rent in respect of any improvement, provided that rent may be allowed in respect of an improvement made by the tenant—

  1. (a) if made in pursuance of a contract for which money or money's worth was given; or
  2. (b) if made twenty years before the passing of the said Act, and not being a permanent building or reclamation of waste land, and if the said section four would but for the passing of this Act have been applicable to the holding.

(7.) For the purpose of this section, money or money's worth shall be held to have been given where from all the circumstances of the case the court are of opinion that the rent was reduced or abated, or that the land was let to a particular tenant at a lower rent than he would otherwise have paid; Provided that where the tenant of a holding had, before the passing of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, made improvements on a holding held by him under a tenancy existing at that passing, tile court, in determining whether and to what extent money or money's worth has been given in respect of such improvements, shall take into consideration the time during which the tenant enjoyed the advantage of the improvements, the rent of the holding, and any benefit received by the tenant from his landlord in consideration, expressly or impliedly, of the improvements so made, but as regards improvements whenever made, neither the letting of the land on lease or otherwise, nor the mere enjoyment of any improvement, shall of itself, apart from other considerations, be held to be money or money's worth.

(8.) Sub-sections two and four of Section five of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, shall not have effect in the case of applications to fix a fair rent.

* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS

said the question wag that Clause 4 stand part of of the Bill.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Montrose Burghs)

On a point of Order, Mr. Chairman. The Committee stands in rather a peculiar Position. The question before the Committee is that Clause 4 stand part of the Bill, but you, Sir, pointed out on Thursday night last, that the Committee was in a position of difficulty, and that the regular way out of this difficulty would be for the First Lord of the Treasury to withdraw his Motion that Clause 4 stand part of the Bill. Then we should find ourselves face to face with Clause 4 with the Amendments to it. But now the First Lord of the Treasury has upon the Notice Paper a Motion to withdraw Clauses 4, 5, 13, 14, and 15, I think. I want to ask you, Sir, in what position the Committee stands in regard, first of all, to the question you have just put from the Chair; and, secondly, how the First Lord of the Treasury can make the Motion which stands in his name. Upon that Motion I shall submit two points of Order afterwards.

* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS

The position in which the Committee stands at present is this. We are now resuming the Debate which was interrupted by the ordinary Rule last Thursday, and, therefore, I put the question to-day that Clause 4 stand part of the Bill. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has stated, I pointed out last Thursday that the position would be regularised if the Leader of the House would withdraw the Motion which he then made, and then the clause would come up for consideration. When that point is reached the Motion of the Leader of the House which stands first on the separate Paper would then come on in due course, and I could then deal with any subsequent point of Order which the right hon. Gentleman desired to raise.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

After what has fallen from you, Sir, I would under any circumstances withdraw the Motion which we were discussing on Thursday night. I beg, therefore, to ask leave of the Committee to withdraw my Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. MORLEY

desired to submit two points of Order. In the first place he submitted that under the new Sessional Order the withdrawal of the clause was meant to be final and definite. In the next place, he urged that notice of the withdrawal should have been given two clear days before the clause was reached and discussed. The clause had been reached and discussed for some 20 minutes on Thursday.

* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS

On the first point submitted by the right hon. Gentleman, I have to say that the form of words specially laid down in the new Order is, "That a certain clause or certain clauses shall cease to form part of the Bill," and the ordinary form of words after any Amendments have been disposed of is, "That the clause stand part of the Bill." I confess that I do not see myself any distinction of effect between these two forms of words. The ordinary practice of the House, when it desires that a clause be withdrawn, is that it is negatived. This is sometimes done in order that a similar clause may afterwards be brought up as a new clause. That is by no means a new form of procedure. Sometimes it has been discovered that an Amendment, which should have been inserted in an earlier part of a clause has not been inserted—that the clause does not carry out the intention of the Committee. Thereupon the clause is negatived in order that a corrected clause may be reintroduced as a new clause. I do not see that I can draw any distinction between the two forms of words to which I have referred. In these matters it appears to me that I ought to consider what is the intention of the House in negativing the clause. If a Committee negatived a clause because it desired to deal with it in an amended shape as a new clause, I think it would be in order to consider such revised clause when it comes up as a new clause. If, again, it should be the intention of the Committee to reject a clause because it does not approve the principle of the clause, then it would not be in order to reintroduce a clause to the same effect at a later period. With regard to the other point raised by the right hon. Gentleman, I do not read the Rule in the same way that he does. I read the Sessional Order in this way. When a Member in charge of a Bill in Committee desires to withdraw from a Bill any clause he may, after two days previous notice move, either at the commencement of public business at any sitting before such clause is reached to leave out such clause, or he may make the Motion when such clause comes on for consideration in Committee. There are two opportunities afforded an hon. Member after he has given two days' notice to deal with the clause or clauses. The first is at the commencement of public business—that is to say, after the termination of Questions. The hon. Member may then move that such clause cease to form part of the Bill, or he may make the same Motion in Committee when such clause or the first of such clauses comes on for consideration. That is the way I read the Rule, and upon that reading I shall hold that if the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury moves the Motion which stands in his name it will be in order for him to do so.

MR. J. MORLEY

said he bad no desire whatever to dispute the ruling of the Chairman, but he would suggest whether the word "consideration" did not refer to procedure on the Report stage.

* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS

The word "consideration" does frequently bear the interpretation suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, but it often bears another meaning. In the Standing Order referring to the Closure, for instance, the words are "if a clause be then under consideration" these obviously apply to the Committee stage, and not to the Report stage only. I have considered the point suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. J. MORLEY

said his only object in raising these points before the Speaker and the Chairman was that the matter was a very important one, and because this was the first time in which this important Resolution had been applied, and he thought it was very desirable that the whole question should be clearly understood. ["Hear, hear!"]

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

said the right hon. Gentleman had only done his duty in raising a doubtful point for decision by the Chair. He would now move the Motion standing in his name— That Clauses 4, 5, 13, 14, and 15 cense to form part of the Bill. In doing so he wished merely to reiterate the statement that while Clause 4 was abandoned only to be brought up in another form the other clauses included in the Motion were to be permanently abandoned.

MR. EDWARD CARSON (Dublin University)

suggested, as a point of Order, whether it would not be a more convenient course to take the clauses separately.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said that the House had now seisin of the question. ["Hear, hear!"]

* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS

I have put the question as it stands upon the Paper. Two forms are sanctioned by the Rule—namely, that the said clause or clauses cease to form part of the Bill.

MR. J. MORLEY

said he had no objection to offer to the withdrawal of Clauses 5, 13, 14, and 15, but Clause 4 stood in an entirely different position. Everybody knew that Clause 4 formed the most debateable part of the Bill. It affected the question of improvements, and whether they took the landlords' or the tenants' point of view the clause certainly formed the most disputable part of the Measure. It had long been a well-known practice in introducing Bills to place the disputable clause or clauses—the principle upon which the Bill was going to be framed—in the very forefront of the Measure. ["Hear, hear!"] It could not be alleged that anything like obstruction had been offered to the 4th Clause when the Bill was before the House on Thursday, nor to any other part of it. The 3rd Clause, which dealt with sub-letting and was a very important clause, was disposed "of in half an hour. He was, therefore, bound to ask what motive the Government could have in making this change—postponing all discussion on Clause 4, by means of its withdrawal, until the end of the Bill? He knew the argument the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House would use—namely, that the clause in the Bill and the Amendments on the Paper were obscure and intricate, and that the Committee would not have the advantage of discussing the clause with all the provisions of the Bill in full view. On Thursday night he thought there might be something in that contention, but when he looked at the Bill and the Amendments he could not conceive a weaker foundation for such a course as the Government had taken in this case. As far as he could make out there were Amendments proposing six changes, mainly in the Improvement Clauses of the Bill, and none of those Amendments were of an intricate, obscure, or complex character. He contended that the issues raised by the proposed changes were made perfectly clear and intelligible by the language and terms of Amendments submitted, and there was no sufficient reason, therefore, to postpone the 4th Clause to the end of the Bill. For instance, the change to be proposed in regard to the 1st Sub-section, which referred to the question of fixing fair rents, was to be made in a very simple way—by striking out the sub-section as it stood, and inserting a perfectly clear sub-section in its place. Then there was the 3rd Subsection, dealing with the vital question of whether any extra allowance was to be made to the tenant over and above the allowance by way of interest for his outlay. It was proposed to deal with the Amendment relating to that subsection also in a very clear and simple way—namely, by omitting the subsection. There was nothing obscure or difficult in that. Again, in the 6th Sub-section, the right hon. Gentleman proposed to substitute the phrase "valuable consideration" for that of "money or money's worth." Amendments of the simplest character would place the issue before the Committee and enable them to come to a decision upon it. The same kind of remark applied to the 7th Sub-section, which related to improvements. That was capable of one Amendment which was perfectly simple of comprehension. He was at a loss to know exactly why it was that the Government withdrew the clause. The reason advanced—namely, that the clause was put by the Amendments in such a state of confusion that the Committee would really not be able to make their way through the intricacies—was clearly not a solid or valid one, or one for which either of the two right hon. Gentlemen concerned in the Bill would seriously argue. His submission to the Government was that the issues raised in Clause 4, which, in his view, were vital to the worth of the Bill, ought to be raised now. In his opinion the worth of the Bill depended entirely upon the shape which the Improvement Clauses took. He asked the Committee to consider how they stood with the reforms compared with the Government compared with the reforms proposed by the Select Committee. The Statutory term was not to be abridged, and there were to be no provisions for making future tenants into tenant tenants. The only thing, apart from the Purchase Clauses, which made the Bill worth caring about, was a satisfactory form and shape being given to the Improvement Clauses. The one fact which was pressed upon the Committee more than any other was the state of uncertainty in which the law was left upon the great question how the increased letting value, over and above the interest allowed to the tenant for his outlay, was to be apportioned between the landlord and tenant. All the witnesses, including two learned Judges, urged that the matter should be put at rest. There was a sub-section in the Bill as introduced, dealing with the apportionment of the increased letting value. The Government were so sensible of its importance that it appeared in the separate draft, and now it was withdrawn. If that sub-section was withdrawn, if the Bill left the House without any attempt to deal with that crucial point, he would not care one straw whether the Bill were withdrawn or not. He was not very sanguine as to the improvement of the Purchase clauses, but, from his point of view, the Tenure Clauses were vital. He did not know what course hon. Members from Ireland would take, but his course was perfectly clear, and it was that unless they had some assurance from the Government that Clause 4 would be restored in something like the shape in which it originally stood, and in which it appeared in the first separate draft, he would cease to care whether the Bill became law or not, because if the new Amendments were adopted the Bill would have lost its value from the point of view of the tenants. These remarks were in order, because they supported his contention that they ought to take Clause 4 in its proper place. When they found what the attitude of the Government was upon that clause they would be able to decide whether it was worth while to try and amend the other parts of the Bill. He strenuously objected to this departure from the ordinary practice.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREA-SURY

hoped that whatever view the Committee might take as to the propriety of the course the Government had suggested, they would come to a decision at once and proceed with the discussion of the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman regarded not one clause but one sub-section as vital to the Bill. He was convinced that that was a view which no one acquainted with the Irish Land Question, either from the landlords' or tenants' side, would for a moment take. The right hon. Gentleman said it was the custom to put the contentious parts of a Bill first. That was a draftsman's practice, but there was no constitutional usage in the matter. The Government thought the clause would be better discussed if brought up in the form in which the Government desired. The right hon. Gentleman replied that the Amendments were so simple that any human being could understand them, and that it was not necessary to wait until the end of the Bill. If they proceeded with Clause 4, they would simply have to discuss Amendments to Amendments to Amendments, and they would be landed in a most complicated position. He trusted the Committee would feel that the Government conscientiously wished to make progress with the Bill, and that whether the course proposed was well advised or ill-advised it was to the interest of everybody they should come to an immediate decision on what after all was not a question of substance, but of procedure. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. JOHN DILLON (Mayo, E.)

objected to the postponement of Clause 4, owing principally to the shape of the proposed new clause. He and his hon. Friends were placed in a very extraordinary position by the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman. If they were to oppose the Motion it might be taken that they were opposed to the dropping of some of the most objectionable clauses of the Bill. But the proposal in Subsection 2 of Clause 15 was a most useful one, and if the present Motion were adopted that sub-section would be lost. He protested against the course proposed to be adopted by the Government with respect to Clause 4. There were many clauses in the Bill which were desired in Ireland. They were good clauses, inasmuch as they would benefit a limited number of tenants who had been excluded hitherto from the operation of the Land Acts. But there were other grievances needing remedy, and among the most important was the grievance respecting improvements. The public in Ireland were intensely interested in this question. The Government now proposed to drop Clause 4, after all the permutations and combinations to which it had been subjected, and to reintroduce it in an altered form at the end of the Bill. That course taken in connection with the language which the First Lord of the Treasury had used conveyed the impression that the Government had abandoned all hope of solving the improvements question. The right hon. Gentleman had intimated that it was only by general consent that a clause like Clause 4 could pass, and that if a large section of the House were opposed to it in its altered shape it could not become law. That was practically an invitation to the opponents of this legislation to show their hands and to oppose the clause.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

said that the position of the Government had been explained over and over again. The basis upon which they had acted from the first was that if the Bill was treated as controversial it could not be passed, but that they hoped it would not be opposed controversially.

MR. DILLON

said that the law as it stood empowered a landlord to exact a large amount of rent on the value of the tenants improvements. Was it not absurd to say that if the Landlord Party would not agree to a clause remedying that grievance the clause would be dropped? (The FIRST LORD of the TREASURY: "That is not what I said.") Undoubtedly the impression which would be caused by the action of the Government was that they intended to abandon the attempt to solve this great question during the present Session, and that by postponing Clause 4 until after the purchase clauses they hoped to carry a purchase scheme in which the landlords were interested, with the result that tenants would have to buy their own improvements in the land. Such a conclusion as that would cause a great amount of dissatisfaction. The Government would break their pledges if they did not legislate on the improvements question. The clause was now quite different from the original version, and the changes it had undergone had made it considerably worse. They were entitled to ask the Government for some declaration of their policy with regard to the whole question of improvements. Was the law to be left unchanged, or was it to be made worse? Were they threatened with this use of the great power they had now placed in the hands of the Government that at some hour late at night, when they were all tired out, Clause 4 might be driven through Committee in such shape that the tenant would be left worse than he was under the present law?

* SIR JOHN COLOMB (Great Yarmouth)

thought the Government, so far as Clause 4 was concerned, had taken the wisest course. He must say, however, he thought it deplorable that the Government should embark in Irish land legislation without having definitely fixed in their own mind the principles they were going to follow. He was one of those who were ready to support any Measure which would promote a reasonable settlement of this question in Ireland, if it be possible, but he thought the difficulty was largely increased by the oscillation of the Government, not in matters of detail, but in matters of principle, involving enormous issues. An hon. Gentleman opposite said he would vote to amend Clauses 5, 13, 14 and 15, but against omitting Clause 4. He was in favour of exactly the opposite course, because he thought the Clauses 5, 13 and 14 were necessary and useful clauses. He regretted that they were asked to give one vote on a whole heap of clauses, because, in his opinion, they were worthy of discussion separately.

MR. J. C. FLYNN (Cork, N.)

asked what was to prevent hon. Gentlemen opposite who wished the law as laid down in "Adams v. Dunseath" to remain as it is, forming themselves into such a large section of the House as would lead the Government, in the words of the right hon. Gentleman, to abandon Clause 4? In discussing the remaining clauses the Committee were more or less groping in the dark. The Government were taking a course most unsatisfactory to the tenants. It would have been far better, in his judgment, to have reported progress even for a few hours, and for the Government to have come up to-morrow with Clause 4 in its proper shape, so that they could see what they were about.

* MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.)

thought Clause 4 should be postponed until the other sections of the Bill were considered. He apprehended that, after the other portions of the Bill had been discussed, measures would be taken by the friends of the landlords on the other side the effect of which would be to throw overboard Clause 4 altogether. Should that be the result, it would be eminently unsatisfactory to the tenantry of Ireland. Clause 4, as it stood in the original Bill after six months' deliberation, and with the assistance of the Law Officers of the Crown, was considerably better and more favourable to the tenants than the Amendment which appeared now upon the Notice Paper.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

asked if it was in order to discuss the comparative merits of the Bill as originally introduced and the Amendments now on the Paper?

* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS

I do not think that when the House passed this Order it was intended that the details of clauses should be gone into at any great length. On the other hand, it is open to hon. Members to refer to the clauses which are proposed to be postponed in order to state the reasons why they should desire them to be proceeded with in due order, but it would not be in order to go into detail on the various sub-sections.

* MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL

explained that he was simply contrasting the two clauses for the purpose of showing that the second Clause 4 was more unfavourable to the tenants than the clause as it originally stood, and in order that the position of the Government should be clearly ascertained before the country with regard to the question of improvements.

Clause 5,—