§ (1.) Where the court fixes a fair rent for a holding, the court shall ascertain and record in the form of a schedule—
- (a) the annual sum which should be the fair rent of the holding on the assumption that all improvements thereon were made or acquired by the landlord;
- (b) the condition of the holding and the buildings thereon;
- (c) the improvements made by the tenant wholly or partly by or at his cost, and with respect to such improvement—
- (i) the nature, character, and present capital value thereof, and the increased letting value due thereto;
- (ii) the date (so near as can be ascertained) at which the same was made; and
- (iii) the deduction from the rent made on account thereof;
- (d) the extent (if any) to which the landlord has paid or compensated the tenant in respect of each such improvement;
- (e) the improvements made wholly or partly by or at the cost of, or acquired by, the landlord:
- (f) such other matters in relation to the holding as may be prescribed; and
- (g) the fair rent of the holding;
§ (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.) For the purpose of an application to fix a fair rent, a tenant shall be deemed to have been fully paid or compensated for every improvement made by him in pursuance of a contract entered into for valuable consideration.
§ (4.) For the purpose of an application to fix a fair rent, a tenant shall not be deemed to have been paid or compensated for any improvement not made in pursuance of a contract entered into for valuable consideration, except to the extent to which the court, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, are of opinion that valuable consideration 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 any improvement made by him, shall not authorise the allowance of any rent in respect of any improvement except to the extent to which the court, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, are of opinion that valuable consideration has been given by the landlord in respect of the entering into that contract.
§ (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, if made twenty years before the passing of the said Act, and not being a permanent building or reclamation of waste land.
§ (7.) For the purpose of this section valuable consideration shall not be held to have been given by reason of the mere letting of the land on lease or otherwise or the mere enjoyment by the tenant of any improvement where the rent of the holding was not fixed, reduced, abated, or, after the improvement was made, allowed to remain unaltered with the object of recouping the tenant for his expenditure of capital and labour in making the improvement; and in the case of an improvement made in pursuance of a contract entered into for valuable consideration, such object shall be implied where not expressed.
§ (8.) Sub-sections one, 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.
§ MR. KNOX moved in Sub-section (1), after the word "court"—("Where the court")—to insert the words "if the applicant so demand at the hearing."
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid that he could not accept the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. KNOX moved, in Sub-section (1) after the word "shall" to insert the words "if either the landlord or the tenant so requires."
§ MR. KNOXsaid he would accept the words the Chief Secretary had suggested, "unless landlord and tenant agree in asking that such schedule shall not be filled up."
MR. DILLOXsubmitted that it would be to the advantage of the tenant that the schedule should be filled up.
§ MR. JORDANcontended that the schedule would deprive small tenants of the protection of the statute.
§ MR. KNOXsaid the schedule in its present form, instead of being an advantage to the tenant, would be a great disadvantage. However, he asked leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. KNOX moved, in Sub-section (1), after the word "schedule," to insert the words "unless both landlord and tenant concur in asking that such a schedule shall not be filled up." Believing this sub-section was the worst thing in the whole Bill for the tenant, he hoped the words would be accepted.
MR. T. M. HEALY, in supporting the Amendment, observed that the schedule was prepared by the Government in favour of the landlords; it was a landlords' schedule, and was obnoxious to the tenants' interest.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Mr. KNOX moved, in paragraph (g), Sub-section (1), after the word "and," to insert the words "a certified copy of the record shall be sent by post to each party, and."
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. KNOX moved, in paragraph (g), Sub-section (1), after the word "record," to insert the words "or a certified copy thereof."
§ Amendment agreed to.
879
§
MR. KILBRIDE moved, in paragraph (g), Sub-section (1), after the word "custody," to insert—
For the purpose of an application to fix a fair rent the word "improvement" shall, notwithstanding anything in the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, be construed to mean any increased letting value due to or arising' out of any expenditure of labour or capital on or in respect of the holding.
The hon. Member said he moved this Amendment in order to give the Government an opportunity of reconsidering their position on the question of improvements. If the Bill was to pass in its present form it could not be accepted by the tenant-farmers as a final solution of the land question, and especially on this matter of improvements, around which the whole question centred. As the law now stood, for every pound which the tenant had expended, and which increased the letting value of his farm by one shilling, part of that shilling had to go to the landlord. He should like to hear whether the interest the tenant was entitled to on the capital he had expended was to go up and down according as money was dear or cheap. The Land Commission might hold that the rate of interest to which the tenant was entitled on the capital value of his expenditure was 2½ or only 2 per cent. Money expended in land reclamation or improvement did not, in the great majority of cases, bring in a large percentage. He thought the tenant was entitled to the full increased value of the land on the money he had spent in improving his holding. As the Bill stood, the tenant-farmers were to be told that whore the expenditure was remunerative that expenditure was to be taxed in the interest of the landlord. That was to say, where the tenant created something very valuable, the landlord was to have a slice, but where the tenant created anything that instead of being valuable resulted in a loss, the landlord was not to bear any share of such loss. The Bill gave the sanction of statute law to the decision in Adams v. Dunseath. He thought that was an entirely one-sided arrangement. If the increased letting value was to be divided between landlord and tenant, and the latter got a certain percentage on the capital he had expended, then, where the tenant made
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an unfortunate speculation, and where, instead of increasing the letting value and getting interest on the money he expended, he made a dead loss, there should be a provision for the landlord to share the loss with the tenant. The Bill, however, contained no such provision. They heard a great deal about the inherent capacity of the soil. He did not dispute that the inherent capacity of the soil was the property of the landlord, but what he did say was this. When a tenant took a farm it was because of his knowledge that the farm possessed an inherent capacity, and for which alone he paid the rent. But the landlord ought not to get two rents upon the inherent capacity, namely, for the natural inherent capacity of the soil and the inherent capacity which had been developed and made more active by the skill and improvement of the tenant. According to the Bill, the more the tenant developed the inherent capacity of the soil the more rent had he to pay for it. As a holding was rendered more valuable by the improvements effected at the expenditure of much capital and labour by the tenant, the Land Commission might, under the Bill, say that he was to pay a higher rent. He was thus to be mulcted for having succeeded in making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. He contended that inherent capacity ought to pay one rent only. The tenant-farmers of Ireland would not be satisfied with the Bill as it at present stood. The tenant-farmers, rightly or wrongly, believed that the increased letting value due to their expenditure of capital and labour in developing the inherent capacity of the soil was their property, and their property alone. If they were to encourage industry, if they were to encourage the tenant-farmer to improve his land, they must secure to him the whole benefit of that improvement. There was no other means by which the soil of Ireland could be thoroughly developed. The Bill, as it stood, did not foster industry, but, on the contrary, it almost discouraged the tenant to go on improving his land and making it as remunerative as possible. What this House ought to do was to impress the tenant-farmer of Ireland with the fact that the best bank he had
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for his savings was the land he cultivated. The Bill, in its present form, did not do that.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYwas sure the hon. Gentleman would not think him guilty of any disrespect to him when he said he would strongly advise the House not to enter into the complex discussion involved in this Amendment. The policy of the Government had been laid down with great distinctness on a previous stage of the Bill. There were hon. Gentlemen opposite who took the view of the hon. Member who had just spoken, and had pressed very strongly that the law should be modified in the sense of the Amendment. There were other hon. Gentlemen who had pressed the Government to modify the law in precisely the opposite direction. The resolution they had come to was not to modify the law in this particular at all, and not to attempt any definition in regard to the inherent properties of the soil. They had, if he might remind the House, a deal of work before them that night, and He thought it would be desirable that they should consider some of the big questions that had been so fully debated before as now being finally settled, and that they should not discuss at great length the very difficult problem which the hon. Gentleman had raised in his speech. He hoped he would not press his Amendment, but if he did he trusted the House would not be betrayed into a long and elaborate discussion over ground which had been so often trodden before.
§ MR. DILLONadmitted that this subject had been very fully discussed on the Committee stage, and He should be glad to see the advice of the First Lord of the Treasury accepted, and a Division immediately taken. He had not the slightest intention of traversing ground already covered, but he desired to warn the House that the farmers of Ireland could not and would not regard this question of the protection of the tenants' improvements as settled until the law was altered in the sense aimed at by this Amendment. This was a question which affected the whole body of farmers, and he believed nothing short of this Amendment would give full and ample protection of the tenants' improvements.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 102; Noes, 181.—(Division List, No. 355.)
§ MR. MAURICE HEALY moved to leave out the words, "an application to fix a fair rent," and to insert instead thereof the words, "the Land Law Acts." He said this was simply a drafting Amendment, and therefore he promised there would be no objection to it. There were continual references in the section to improvements, and obviously the amendment of the law in the clause should extend to any proceeding under the Land Acts.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid he really did not quite see at the first glance what was the purport of the Amendment.
§ MR. MAURICE HEALYasked the right hon. Gentleman to take the case of the pre-emption clause. When a tenant exercised his right of pre-emption, the Land Commission fixed the value of the land. One element for consideration was improvements. It would be absurd that there should be two definitions of improvements.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. FLYNN moved, in Sub-section (3) to leave out the words "valuable consideration," and to insert instead thereof the words, "money, or money's worth." When they found that sections of the Act of 1881 had been turned against the tenant, and the word "consideration" misinterpreted, it was necessary they should guard against a similar failure of justice under this Bill.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid that in the first draft of the Bill they had the words "money or money's worth," but they had deliberately left them out. They could not go back on that decision.
MR. T. M. HEALYcomplained that the words were omitted because they were understood to be in favour of the tenants. The change was made to carry out the views of Mr. Justice Bewley.
§ Amendment negatived.
883§ MR. FLYNN moved, in Sub-section (6) to leave out the word "twenty" and to insert instead thereof the word "fifty." There was a strong feeling that this change was necessary to protect the interests of tenants.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid he had already explained this question of improvements.
§ MR. DILLONsaid that there was a great deal of land in Ireland which was of a semi-waste character, the tenant of which was debarred from the exemption in favour of the reclamation of waste land.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. FLYNN moved in Sub-section (6) to leave out the word "waste." Reclamation of waste land was a very important feature in connection with the improvements made by the tenantry of Ireland, but unless land was technically waste, i.e., without any trace of cultivation whatever, the tenant could be rented upon his improvements. In many districts of Ireland mountain land had been reclaimed by the tenants from a state of nature and made fit for grazing by means of lime, and there were many thousands of acres which had been so reclaimed by constant expenditure and unremitting industry.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid the hon. Member seemed to suggest that they were altering the law, but the law had been so ever since the Act of 1881 was passed. The expression "reclamation of waste land" was now thoroughly understood; it was perfectly clear from the rulings of the Courts, and to omit the word would lead to much difficulty.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. FLYNN moved in Sub-section (7) to omit the word "fixed." It must be apparent to everyone that the words "valuable consideration" would bear a meaning of dangerous import to the tenant if the word "fixed" were retained.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURthought the hon. Member misinterpreted the application of the words. He could not accept the Amendment.
§ MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid that if the Amendment were not accepted a tenant might be compensated for his improvements by having his rent increased.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. FLYNN moved in Sub-section (7) to leave out the words "allowed to remain unaltered," in order to insert the words, "reduced substantially." The clause as it stood assumed that if a tenant's rent was not raised it was a "valuable consideration."
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURrefused to accept the Amendment.
§ MR. DILLONsaid it would be open to a landlord, who charged a higher rent than other landlords in the district, to argue that he did not impose a still higher rent in order to recoup the tenant for improvements.
§ MR. HARRINGTONthought the meaning of the clause was clear; it would be imperative on a landlord to prove that he allowed the rent to remain unaltered for the purpose of recouping the tenant.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThat is so.
§ * MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILLthought the Amendment was substantial, and hoped the Government would accept it. He very much feared, otherwise, that mere acquiescence by the tenant in the old rent after he had made improvements, would be taken as proof that he had received compensation for those improvements.
§ Amendment negatived.
§
MR. MAURICE HEALY moved, at the end of Sub-section (7), to insert the words—
unless it shall be proved to the Court that the tenant in fact received no consideration for making the improvement.
He said that there were to be certain cases in which the landlord was to get rent on improvements for which the tenant had not been compensated. That was one defect of the clause. Another was contained in the words at the end of Sub-section (7)—
and in the case of an improvement made, in pursuance of a contract entered into for valuable consideration, such object shall be implied where not expressed.
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It was one thing for the tenant to enter into a contract to make an improvement, and quite another thing to agree to pay rent on that improvement. No tenant in making an improvement would contract to pay rent on it, and his Amendment declared that, where the tenant proved that he had received no compensation, the landlord should not have power to rent the improvement.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid the Government could not undertake to enter into those cases whore a contract had been made by the tenant to make an improvement. To break through that rule would be to open the door to a vast amount of litigation. The only way to prevent that litigation was to accept the general principle that, where an improvement had been made in pursuance of a contract, it should be held that he had been compensated for the expenditure of his capital. The Government must adhere to the clause as drafted.
MR. T. M. HEALYcited a case where a tenant had an agreement with the right hon. Member for South Hunts, by which he was bound to build a house. The tenant built the house, and expended £600 upon it. He then sold the tenancy to Richard Maloney for £600. Richard Maloney went into Court, and though the right hon. Gentleman had not expended a shilling on the building, he claimed rent on the house. The Sub-Commissioner said it was a monstrous thing that rent should be claimed in such a case, and it was adjourned for some days in order that the right hon. Member for South Hunts might be communicated with. The right hon. Member telegraphed back—"Certainly; demand rent on the house." What remuneration or consideration did Richard Maloney get in that case? The Government were using the words "valuable consideration" in an antiquated and mouldy chancery sense.
§ MR. SMITH-BARRYsaid that the case referred to did not really come under the Land Act at all. It was a case where a gentleman built a house under a contract on a small plot of land as a residential holding, and after his death the executors sold it. An attempt was then made to use the farmhouse, and to get the whole farm brought into Court as an agricultural holding, but the 886 house and land were never an agricultural holding, and they were, besides, outside the Act altogether.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. T. M. HEALY moved, in Subsection (8), after "1870," to insert the words" and, as regards buildings, Subsection three of said section." He said that admittedly the landlords of Ireland had not built the tenants' houses; if they had, then they were a disgrace to them. This Amendment was intended to bring the law into accordance with the fact. If the landlords had built the houses they would be able to prove the fact, but for one landlord who had built a tenant's house, there were thousands of houses which had been built by the tenants. If in any case the tenant was entitled to a presumption it was in the case of buildings.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURagreed with the hon. Member that for the most part the buildings on the holdings in Ireland had been erected by the tenants; but he did not think this was a desirable Amendment to accept. Buildings were surely a form of improvement whose origin was easy to trace, and therefore there was no necessity for the Amendment.
§ MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid that the right hon. Gentleman failed to remember that the tenant under this Act included the tenant and his predecessors in title. If the house was built by a tenant's grandfather who was unable to read or write, and who kept no records, the suggestion was that the tenant, born long after the house was built, and living at a time when every contemporary present at the building of the house was dead, could have no difficulty in proving the fact. The right hon. Gentleman and the landlord party had willingly enacted that the tenant should have no necessity to prove the building of the house if it was built any time after 1850, because the odds were that the existing tenant remembered the circumstance. The Government, therefore, gave a presumption which was not of the smallest value to them, and because a presumption was wanted in 887 the case of a dwelling-house erected before that time, and when the present tenant could not possibly prove the building of the house, they were told that the presumption could not be granted. This was what happened in the Land Court. The tenant walked into the witness box, and when he proceeded to give evidence as to his improvements he was asked, "Who erected the buildings? "and he replied," It was my father or grandfather." The landlord's lawyer asked, "Where you there when the buildings were erected"?" and the tenant, of course, replied," They were built before I was born." Thereupon arose a shout of derision, and the tenant's answers were struck out as not being evidence. It was in these cases, where the buildings were erected before 1850, that the presumption ought to be in the tenant's favour. The Amendment would bring the law into consonance with the notorious facts. In the majority of cases there was no pretence that the landlord had erected the buildings, and in exceptional cases where they had been erected by the landlord the fact could be easily proved. Unless the Government accepted this Amendment they would be handing over to the landlords nine out of ton of the buildings erected by the tenants before 1850.
§ MR. VESEY KNOXsaid that the presumption of fact in Ireland was that the tenant had made the improvements himself. Why, then, sanction a presumption of law which they all knew to be contrary to the facts? The Government were asking them to lay down an artificial rule, and thereby to go out of their way to perpetrate injustice. If the facts were that in nine cases out of ten the tenants or their predecessors had built their houses, why declare that the landlord must be presumed to have erected the houses unless the contrary was proved? That was a ridiculous presumption, and he trusted that the Government would reconsider the point.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. T. M. HEALY moved, in Subsection (2), after the word "fix," to insert the words "or has fixed." He said the Irish Members would consider themselves very badly treated if the 888 Government did not accept this Amendment. He had already established by argument that it was a most unfair thing that where a tenant had been delayed for years in getting a fair rent fixed, those years should be added on to the statutory term. There were cases in which men had for five years been rapping in vain at the doors of British justice in Ireland and had failed, not through any fault of their own, but because the British janitor would not open to them. He would suggest that the Government should now agree that such tenants should not suffer, after being kept waiting for four or five years, the additional hardship of having a 20 years' term put upon them.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that, of course, although there were strong arguments in favour of the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Louth, there were also arguments on the other side. If agricultural prices had gone up instead of falling, the adoption of short terms for judicial rents might have operated disadvantageously to the tenants. No doubt Parliament had, rightly or wrongly, so acted as to make everyone in Ireland believe that no bargain, whether made with the State or otherwise, was of a permanent character, and they should therefore be very cautious not unduly to extend the principle of this clause. The grievance that tenants had not had freer access to the Land Courts, though a real was a diminishing and would ultimately be a vanishing one, and it must not be supposed that by declining to accept this new subversion of an accepted agreement that the Government were doing any permanent injustice or permanent hardship to any class connected with the tenure of land in Ireland. The Government were not unsympathetic in the matter. They had fully considered it, and had been reluctantly driven to the conclusion that this hardship could not be remedied without inflicting greater injuries in another direction.
§ MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid the tenants in Cork and Kerry would not receive them with much favour if the only excuse they could give them for their grievances was that they were the fault of previous Governments. There was not one word to be said against the 889 Amendment. It had been said that its acceptance ought to depend upon procedure. But procedure had not one atom to do with it, and certainly it was an extraordinary thing, when dealing with an Amendment of this kind, that even hon. Gentlemen opposite—the Irish landlords themselves—should not rise in their places to protest that they, at any rate, would be no parties to inflict injustice on their tenants merely because the Administration in power from 1881 to 1887 were not permitted by the British Treasury to employ an adequate number of Sub-Commissioners to fix fair rents with sufficient speed.
§ Amendment negatived.
§
MR. GERALD BALFOUR moved, in Sub-section (3), after the words "payable by him," to insert the words—
unless the judicial rent exceeds fifty pounds a-year, in "which case the difference may be deducted from any rent subsequently payable by him.
He explained that he brought forward the proposal in consequence of a promise made at an earlier stage to deal with this question.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 3,—