HC Deb 20 February 1900 vol 79 cc584-5
MR. M'CARTAN () Down, S.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, with reference to the appeals against the amount of the value of several holdings on the estate of the Earl of Gosford, whether the appeals were made to the Chief Commissioner's Court against the-amount of the true value fixed by the Sub-Commissioners; whether the law, as at present, obliges the Land Commission to fix a less amount for the true value than the price which the tenant could by competition obtain in the open market; whether he is aware that in the cases of Robert Carlyle, Stevenson, Glenny, and Patterson the gross amount of £ 765 fixed by the Sub-Commissioners was reduced by the Chief Commissioner to £ 520; and whether the tenants have any remedy or are entitled to any compensation for the large sum of which they have been thus deprived by the Appeal Land Commission.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N.

There were five cases on the estate of the Earl of Gosford in which appeals were recently heard by the Land Commission against the decisions of a Sub-Commission fixing the amounts of the true values of the holdings. The principles on which true values are fixed, and on which the Land Commission acted, are expressed in the judgment of one of the members of the Court of Appeal in the reported case of Curneen v. Tottenham. They may be summarised thus: The relation between the true value which the landlord must pay and the full price which the tenant might got in the open market is very similar to that which exists between the fair rent which the Land Commission is bound to fix and the competition rent which the landlord is no longer at liberty to exact. The gross amount of £ 765 fixed by the Sub-Commission was reduced by the Land Commission to £ 620, and not £ 520 as erroneously stated in the third paragraph. In such eases the loss sustained by the tenant is identical in character with that sustained by the landlord when the fair rent is fixed. Neither of the parties has any remedy, or is by law entitled to any compensation.