HC Deb 28 July 1896 vol 43 cc868-9

"Where at any time between the twenty-first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, and the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, a holding was held by a tenant under a letting made by a judge or master of the Supreme Court or the Lord Chancellor, and the tenant or his personal representative, on the determination of such letting by the cesser of the control of such judge, master, or Lord Chancellor, continued to be the tenant of the holding, and has so continued until the commencement of this Act, the tenancy existing in such holding at the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to be a present tenancy unless the contract under which the same was created expressly provides otherwise."

He pointed out that the argument used in Committee was to this effect—that it would be unjust, where a letting was treated by the Court of Chancery, to thrust the letting on parties who had no part in creating the tenancy. He accepted that doctrine for the purposes of this clause; but all he asked was that where the parties themselves, of their own volition, deliberately recognised the tenancy, then the effect of the Act of 1881 should not be a ground for saying that there was no present tenancy.

* THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND

said that the Government could not accept the clause, because it would be unjust to the person entitled, after the determination of the cause or the litigation, to fix upon him as a present tenant anyone who might be found in possession of the holding, who had no claim upon him, and whom He was not bound to recognise.

Clause negatived.

MR. MAURICE HEALY moved the following new clause:—