HC Deb 28 July 1896 vol 43 cc934-5

Nothing herein contained shall prejudice or affect any right, benefit, or presumption exercised or enjoyed under or by virtue of the Ulster tenant-right custom or any usage corresponding thereto.

MR. DILLON

proposed, at the end of the clause to insert the words— In the province of Ulster a holding shall, until the contrary is proved, be deemed to be subject to the Ulster tenant-right custom. This matter had been fully debated in Committee, and he would now like to hear whether the Government were prepared to make any concession upon the subject.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

said they had turned this question about in every way to see what could be done with it, but the objections which had been stated in Committee seemed quite fatal to its acceptance. They could not define the Ulster custom except by referring to some common point which would represent the minimum of the Ulster custom. In each case the tenants would be obliged to prove the particular custom under which they held their farms. If they could prove their particular custom, then there was no advantage in giving them a presumption in regard to the minimum custom.

MR. MURNAGHAN

desired to know why the tenant farmers of Ulster should be placed in a worse position than the tenant farmers throughout the rest of Ireland in regard to this matter. Was this the penalty that the Ulster farmer had to pay for having two representatives on the Treasury Bench? He claimed that the tenant farmers of Ulster ought to be placed in a better, and not a worse position than the farmers of the rest of Ireland. [Laughter.] Hitherto the farmers of the North had been regarded as the petted children of fortune, and he was curious therefore to know the cause of their having now to take a back seat to the other farmers of Ireland. [Laughter.]

Amendment negatived.

Clause 43,—