HC Deb 15 June 1903 vol 123 cc1008-35

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

[MR. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]

Clause 1:—

Another Amendment proposed— In page 1, line 15, to leave out from the word 'advance' to the end of sub-Section (2), and insert the words 'provided that the purchase annuity payable under this Act will be, in the case of the purchase of a holding, subject to a judicial rent fixed or agreed to since the passing of the Act of 1896, not less than 15 per cent. below the existing rent, and, in the case of the purchase of a holding subject to a judicial rent fixed before that date, or of a holding which is not subject to a judicial rent but the tenancy in which is one to which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, the Land Purchase Acts apply, not less than 25 per cent. below the existing rent.'"—(Mr. John Redmond.)

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'or,' in line 18, stand part of the Clause."

MR. MURPHY

, continuing his speech, contended that whether this question was looked at from the larger or the smaller point of view these limitations ought not to be retained. On large estates the difference in the condition of the various tenants was enormous, and nobody but the tenants themselves could say what were fair terms. The landlords in Ireland had vast power, which could be exercised most successfully under the Bill as it at present stood, when dealing with the tenants who were not financial experts and who desired to become the owners of their holdings, to induce them to give a price without considering whether it was such a price as they could pay. Every argument which had been adduced showed the price fixed in this Bill was greater than the average rate that had been paid by the tenants under any previous Act. In the county of Kerry several purchases had taken place of estates equal to any in the country, and the highest price had never exceeded eighteen years purchase and the price had dropped as low as 12.9 years. Under the present Bill tenants would have to pay twenty-two years purchase, a most extravagant price compared with that paid by their neighbours, and that would result in a feeling of unrest which would culminate in another land agitation. It was desirable, therefore, that the maximum limit of reductions should be swept away. The minimum limit should be retained because the State must have some protection. If the maximum limit was removed the landlord would not be compelled to sell, whereas on the other hand the tenant would be able to say what price he was able to purchase at. This Bill dealt with the first-term, second-term, and ordinary tenants as if they were all the same class, but as a matter of fact they were very differently situated. He could not see the use of this limitation. Why not give the tenants the opportunity of deciding for themselves in the matter of these reductions? In the best interests of the government of the country it was desirable that the Government should commence to display to the Irish people some sign that they were willing to conciliate Irish feeling. This Bill was looked forward to with hope and impatience, and the Government should show that they desired to conciliate the Irish people. He was an extreme advocate of the tenants in this matter, and under the Bill the and lords were getting a good deal more than he would have given had he had the power, but the Irish Party had come to the conclusion that there ought to be some give and take in this matter, and they were willing to give up everything to secure peace for the Irish people, and if those were the signs of conciliation displayed by the extreme advocates of the tenants surely there should be similar signs of conciliation on the other side.

MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON (Hackney S.)

said every person in Ireland who wished to live in peace in Ireland would echo the sentiments of the hon. Member. The hon. Member was very much mistaken if he supposed that the landlords objected to the zones. He had not come across a single landlord who was not distinctly friendly to the Bill, but at the same time, he had not come across one who desired to get rid of the zones. It was desirable that they should be retained. With regard to each class of tenants receiving separate treatment he would point out that in all the recent legislation passed for Ireland, Ireland had been treated as a whole, and all these estates had been attempted to be placed on the same footing. It did not matter that one estate was particularly bad land, and another was good land—that had been taken into account in the fixing of the rent. If the 1881 Act had had any success at all it was because the land had been assessed at its real value, therefore the separate treatment of each individual estate seemed to be absolutely unnecessary. The Bill did not treat all estates equally. In the treatment of estates there was a very wide margin in this Bill between the 10 per cent. and the 30 per cent. reduction. Many landlords thought the limitation was too wide, but to say that the treatment of all estates in Ireland was the same was an entire mistake. The Amendment itself was divided into two separate parts; one portion increased the minimum reduction, and the other abolished the maximum reduction. In both cases the tenant was to be favoured. The tenant, in every case, was to be in the position of being able to say to the landlord, "You must give me this or that reduction." But the Committee must bear in mind, in considering this question, that the whole success of the Bill depended on the landlords working in friendly accord with the tenants. If the Bill was made so that it would not work, nothing would be got out of it. In considering this Bill he had never lost sight of the British taxpayer, who was, in settling this question, making an excellent bargain. The hon. Member for Plymouth had said that all that the people of England required was to see that this question was really settled. It appeared to him that the taxpayer was perfectly safe. If he got the minimum reduction he got his consideration for the advance he was making. He got the security of the landlords' interest in the land, and he got the tenants' interests. Nobody suggested that the rents now fixed were the full rents of the holdings. It had never been suggested that the tenant could not let his holding for more than he was paying, and the difference between the amount paid and the rent at which the holding could be let, plus the landlords' interest, would be the State's security. In the working of this Bill he did not think this Amendment would affect an enormous number of holdings in Ireland. Bargains would not take place either at the maximum or the minimum, but at some intermediate point, and, therefore, in the bulk of the cases, it would be no use to the tenant to increase the maximum reduction. But what was clear on the part of the landlords was that a certain number of people who did not care about their property, and who would like to be relieved of it, might sell at a low rate and establish a kind of precedent, and that would be a dangerous thing.

In his opinion, the maximum reduction was no benefit to the landlord. He did not argue this matter from the point of view of the landlord alone, but from other points of view as well. From his own point of view he should prefer that the only sum mentioned in the Bill would be 10 per cent.; that the bargain should commence on that basis and be decreased downwards. The landlords of Ireland, as a whole, distinctly thought that the mention of 30 per cent. was an advantage to them. There was a much more important reason for retaining the zones. If they were once abandoned, the position between the landlords and the tenants would be so vague that he himself did not anticipate that they would come to any agreement at all. The great advantage of the zones was that they pointed to both landlords and tenants what the effective limit of their power was; it did not leave it perfectly indeterminate as to what was to be sold and bought. Again, under the Bill, as framed, the landlord and the tenant might settle the matter between them. The landlord might say, "I will give you 15 or 20 per cent.," and the tenant would say, "I agree." Now they knew that the Irish landlord was very seldom absolutely unencumbered; there were either mortgages or family charges, and in addition to that there were, in a large number of cases, reversionaries. In other words, the landlord was only a tenant for life. One of the great advantages of the Bill would be that these persons need not be consulted in negotiating the price. If the zones were destroyed altogether, and the maximum reduction taken away, it could not for one moment be said that the price to the tenant could be fixed in the absence of the mortgagee, or the chargee, or the remainder man. They would have to bring in all these persons to say whether or not they approved. It might be said, would not these persons have to come in at any rate? The answer was, No; because the reduction being a certain agreed sum, the mortgagee, chargee, and remainder man got all the benefit out of the property which could be got, and so the transaction could be completed without their presence. Another argument hinted at was what might be called the De Freyne Estate argument. That was, there might be a certain number of people who had no particular interest in the property not being sold at a very low rate; and while people on the estate would be benefited, the whole turmoil raised on the Dillon Estate would be repeated. It was not desirable to bring about that state of things. What was wanted was to make Ireland a comfortable place to live in, and he held that the Bill would not work well unless they brought it into conformity with the wishes of the landlord, as well as the wishes of the tenant.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

said he wished to make his protest once for all against the doctrine of a minimum price. His hon. friend who had just sat down had made the best defence of the minimum price during the discussion, but it was a very bad one at the best. The hon. Gentleman had a great interest in Ireland, and though his relations with the Irish people were of the best, he did not speak in the House with the power and force of an Irishman. He sat for an English constituency, and however great his experience of Irish questions might be, his sentiments on Irish questions were simply his own. He pointed out that no Irish Member had spoken a word in favour of the minimum price. There was a spectre at every feast, and the two learned Gentlemen who alone, at the moment, represented the Government on the Treasury Bench, were silent. He had seen it stated that the Irish law officers were in favour of a minimum price, and that if that doctrine were destroyed they would resign office. He would be really as much amazed if either of these learned Gentlemen resigned their situations as if an earthquake shook Primrose Hill. The Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General for Ireland made contradictory speeches and used contradictory arguments in favour of the minimum price. The Attorney-General had criminal combination on the brain, and he said that if there was not a minimum price there would be a criminal combination to reduce the price. The members of the Estate Commission could not join with the tenants in a criminal conspiracy to reduce the purchase money, or force an unfair bargain on the landlords. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had made a speech to the Commercial Unionists — what a delightful expression — and defended the minimum price exactly on the ground on which he assailed it. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that unless the minimum price was retained, there might be a spendthrift landlord anxious to get the bonus who would get rid of his estate at any price; and that the price he received would rule the market in the district. Why on earth should it not rule the market? Under the old system of the Ashbourne Acts the land itself was security for the repayment of the advances, whereas, by fixing a minimum price, the British taxpayer became the security. The landlords were to get independently of the minimum price £12,000,000, while they only got £3,000,000 sterling for carrying the Union, with a few peerages thrown in by way of consolation stakes. He wondered if the Chief Secretary had considered the case of the British public. They wished this Irish Land Question to be settled finally, once and for all; but the British public would not consider it settled if there was any sense of wrong on the part of the Irish tenant. He was no particular protector of the British Exchequer, but he believed that the British public who had given £250,000,000 for the South African War would give a few millions for the settlement of the Irish Question.

The leading objection to a minimum price was that it was utterly contrary to the principle of a voluntary Bill. The bonus to the landlords exceeded by 60 per cent. the compensation given wherel and was taken for railways, or other public improvements. Another objection to a minimum price was that while it inflated the price it diminished the security for the repayment of the advances. It would also prevent the landlord from settling the transaction in a way satisfactory to himself. Everyone knew what an enormous bait an immediate reduction of 20 per cent. would be to the tenant; but there might come changes—competition with America, a fall in markets, possibly preferential tariffs—and the tenant would find he was bound to his price for ever. That might lead not to independence and solvency, but to bankruptcy, and bankruptcy meant that the price must be paid by the British Government. He was not anxious for the British taxpayer, but for the Irish tenant; and he thought they should not bribe the tenant into making a bargain which he might bitterly repent of. He could not help thinking that fixing a minimum price was intended and designed, and whether intended and designed or not, it would have the effect of minimising the disparity between the tenant purchaser and the ordinary purchaser. He could prove that this Bill without the minimum price at all, embodied the landlords' proposal of last October as far as they could be embodied in a voluntary Bill. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had been constantly drawing comparisons between this measure and the Bill of last year. Could the Chief Secretary give them any voluntary Bill in which there was a restriction in favour of one party as regarded bargain and sale? The minimum price was suggested in the Act of 1891, but in that case the legitimate conditions of sale and purchase were invaded, and provision was made that a purchasing tenant could not obtain for the first five years an annuity less than twenty per cent. of his original rental. Of course the surplus would go to the Sinking Fund. From the year 1891 to 1896 purchase decreased, and the moment these irritating conditions ceased the purchase of land increased in Ireland until the South African War commenced. That showed that anything like a restriction in reference to the annuity to be paid restricted land purchase. He did not think it was fair between man and man to give to the 2,000 Irish landlords not merely £12,000,000 of money, but also by a legislative contrivance mulct the Irish tenants to the extent of a sum of £28,000,000 more. This was not fair either to the tenants or to the Irish landlords, because it made them the creatures of privilege, and was calculated to give a fallacious peace to Ireland, and would not settle the Irish question. The Ashbourne Acts should be left as they were, and the Irish landlords ought to be content with £12,000,000, cash down, which would enable them to pay off their mortgages with public funds and renew them at about half the rate of interest. Besides this, the landlords were getting five years purchase beyond the ordinary market price of the moment.

*MR. BUTCHER (York)

said if anyone who had never read a line of this Bill had heard the speeches of hon. Members opposite, he would have come to the conclusion that this was a Bill to confer enormous benefit upon the landlords and no corresponding benefit upon the tenants. Nothing could be further from the truth. If a sale were carried out upon the most favourable possible terms the landlord would receive less than he would now; and if the sale was carried out on the terms most unfavourable to the tenant, he would have to pay less than at the present time. The second-term tenant was already paying 40 per cent. less than his original rent, but under this Bill he would get from 10 per cent. to 30 per cent. reduction upon his rent, and at the end of twenty-two years he would become the owner of the land. Was there any tenant in this country who would not gladly accept such terms? Even the hon. Member for South Tyrone was obliged to admit that the second-term tenant, who paid in purchase instalments 20 per cent. less than the second-term rent, was in an exceptionally favourable position. He asked the Committee to affirm that these limits were really necessary for the successful working of this Bill. The existence of a limit ensured the fixing of a price without delay and expense, and without the tedious and troublesome investigations which had to take place under former Acts. Under the former Acts it was open to the landlord to make any bargain he liked with the tenant, but it did not follow that that bargain was necessarily carried out, because it had to come before the Land Commission for sanction. He thought that was a very great disadvantage, because it meant delay and often a refusal to sanction sales which would otherwise have taken place. Again although the landlord and tenant might have come to terms they had still to give notice to the other parties interested in the estates, with the result that the sale could not be sanctioned without enormous delay. It was one of the leading features of this Bill to avoid all that delay, and to ensure that when a price was fixed within the limits the sales should be carried through and sanctioned at once, and carried through automatically. In the majority of cases in Ireland, the man who was called the owner and who made the bargain was not the absolute owner at all but a strictly limited owner. Often there were mortgages on the estates, and unless they had the limits fixed in the Bill, it would be necessary to resort to the old procedure and give notice to the mortgagees and everyone else interested. One of the great advantages of this Act was that by ensuring a reasonable price within the limits laid down they ensured the sale being carried out without delay. The question had been asked why they did not adopt the procedure under the Ashbourne Acts? The answer was that there was no reason whatever why a landlord and tenant who desired to utilise the existing machinery should not do so. He had listened to the speech of the hon. Member for South Tyrone with the most profound dissatisfaction. The hon. Member had spoken about the number of years purchase, but that had nothing whatsoever to do with the question so far as the tenant was concerned. The question which affected the tenant was how much reduction he would get upon his present rent? It was most unfortunate that hon. Members professing to lead public opinion in Ireland should divert the tenant from the real question to a wholly erroneous and false issue as regarded the number of years purchase. The hon. Member for South Tyrone said that eighteen years purchase was enough.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

said he did not say whether it was enough or not.

*MR. BUTCHER

said he was afraid he did not understand the views of the hon. Member, but in another part of his speech the hon. Member admitted that a tenant who obtained a reduction of 20 per cent. on his second-term rent was in a favourable position. If a tenant purchased on these terms it would mean twenty-five years purchase for the landlord. He thought, therefore, he was justified in calling the hon. Member as a witness that twenty-five years purchase was a reasonable amount. He wished to point out that eighteen years purchase would mean a loss to the landlord of something like 42 per cent. of his income. The hon. Member for South Tyrone signed his name to a certain proposal in the Conference Report the very basis of which was that the landlord should get such a sum of money as if invested would bring him in 90 per cent. of his former income. He should like to know if the hon. Member still adhered to that view. The hon. Member appeared to suggest that the price might in some cases be too large, because there would be landlords' pressure on the one hand and tenants' weakness on the other; but he seemed to remember speeches of the hon. Member in former days the staple of which was not landlords' pressure, but tenants' tyranny. He was very sorry to have entered upon controversial channels, because he was extremely desirous that they should come to an amicable arrangement. [An HON. MEMBER: You are not doing much to promote it.] But for his part he did not see where landlords' pressure was likely to come in; he thought pressure was rather likely to be exercised upon them than by them.

*MR. HEMPHILL

regretted the line of argument adopted by the last speaker, and said the House had something more to deal with on the present occasion than the opinions or changes of opinion of individual Members. The clause with which this Amendment dealt was the keystone of the present Bill. The Bill purported to be a voluntary measure for transferring the land from the landlords to the tenants by voluntary agreement. For his part he believed that without the element of compulsion the effort would never be a complete success. But still it would go some way towards achieving that which they were all anxious on both sides of the House to see—viz., that the land question should once and for all be settled in Ireland. Hon. Members, of course, wished to deal fairly with both landlords and tenants, and they would naturally ask why, in a voluntary Bill, there should be what were called zones. Why should there be any restriction on the volition of the landlord and the tenant. He thought the hon. Member for the City of Waterford—the leader of the Irish Party—was to be congratulated on the moderation of his Amendment retaining the minimum reduction and the maximum price. Why did he retain these? In the interests of the tenants and in the interests of the Exchequer, it was necessary that there should be a maximum price fixed by Act of Parliament, because in the absence of any inquiry or investigation such as was made under the Ashbourne Acts, there would be no security that the tenant in his anxiety to become the purchaser might not undertake a burden which he was unable to discharge. That was the reason for pressing for the minimum reduction or maximum price at 15 per cent. in the case of second-term rents, and 25 per cent. in the case of other rents. Though it might operate harshly on the tenant it was only fair to the House of Commons and to the public because they must recollect that one of the peculiarities of the Irish tenant always had been his anxiety to get possession of the land. That led to the exorbitant rents which had originally necessitated Land Reform in Ireland, and unless there was some restriction that land hunger would lead to the tenant in his anxiety to become the owner, offering a price which, [...]is cooler moments, and when he came to farm the land, he would find was so high that he could not possibly pay it. Therefore, it was only right, although it might be inconsistent with the idea of voluntary purchase that the maximum price should be retained. He did not gather that any hon. Member who had spoken had objected much to that part of the argument, indeed the hon. and learned Member for York hardly touched upon it, although it was the very gist of the Amendment.

This was a subject which it was not easy for any but Irish Members fully to understand. He would like very much to impress upon the House how much the hearts of the Irish people were set on having this question put into a proper train for settlement. He well knew that if the Bill should pass in its present shape it would wholly fail in what he believed was the intention of the Government; it would, in fact, prove to be still-born. In his own constituency—North Tyrone—the tenant farmers were by no means enamoured of the Bill as it stood, and he had received many representations strongly urging him to object to the first clause. Indeed, he was not sure that he had authority to support the very moderate Amendment of the hon. Member for Waterford. It so happened that in that part of Ireland there had been, under the Ashbourne Acts, several estates sold at rates varying from sixteen to seventeen years purchase. These purchasers had all the benefits of the decadal reduction, and they were in a far better position than purchasers would be under this Bill, and the result would naturally be that would-be purchasers would realise the difference, and the object of passing this Bill would be altogether defeated. Care must be taken that the burden accepted by the tenant was not too heavy for him. As this Bill now stood without any provision for decadal reduction the tenant purchaser undertook for sixty-eight and a half years to paya fixed immutable rent, immutable no matter how prices fell or how bad the times might be. He would have no means of escape from his obligation except by surrendering his holding. He should not, therefore, be allowed to agree to pay an extravagant price. He had the utmost respect for the landlords, but they could not expect, when their income was to come from gilt-edged securities, to get as much as they nominally did from their rents under the old system of landlord and tenant. They were to get a bonus as an inducement to sell, a bonus which would go into their own pockets, irrespective of the remainder man and encumbrances, and with which the tenants had no concern whatever. The great point was the capacity of the tenant to bear the burden for sixty-eight and a half years, and, seeing that the Irish Party had shown much moderation in this proposal, he should give it his hearty support. There was no similar limit imposed under the Ashbourne Acts and he failed to see any reason for introducing one here. If this clause were retained in its present form the Bill instead of being received with pleasure and satisfaction by the tenants of Ireland would only lay a new foundation for increased discontent and dissatisfaction with the policy of the British Parliament in dealing with the Irish land question.

*MR. DUKE

regretted to hear the concluding words of the last speaker, for if the result of passing this measure was to be a recrudescence of the agitation which had existed for so many years in Ireland the British people would feel inclined to withdraw the consent they had given to it as a measure of conciliation. A very considerable cost was to be incurred under the Bill, and the electors of this country had only consented to bear it because they believed it would be a good thing for this country as well as for Ireland that a settlement of the land question should be brought about. But if at every stage in the discussion they were to be told that the Bill would not be accepted by one party to the bargain, they were not likely to go very far in the way of amicable discussion. Now he had no interest, direct or indirect, in Irish land, and he, like most English people, supported the measure on the ground that there had been a concordat between the landlords and tenants of Ireland. But it was complained that the Government were not carrying out that concordat in its entirety. He would like to point out that even if that were so the Government, on the other hand, had not released the landowners of Ireland from the most onerous clause of all and had not permitted them to make the best terms they could with their tenants irrespective of the interests of the State. The first governing condition of the operation of the Bill was that there should be compulsory loans of public money. The second governing condition of the Bill was that its operation should be automatic. If public money was to be compulsorily loaned to persons who made a certain class of agreements, that class of agreements must be defined. It was conceded on the other side that the agreement must be so defined that the landlord should not be able to impose upon the tenant such a rate of purchase as would extinguish the economic security of the State. What was the landlord to get in exchange? In order to placate the British taxpayer, the one party to the bargain agreed to the minimum of reduction, and, in return the other party conceded the maximum of reduction. If the mean of those limits of reduction was preserved in the Bill, it was impossible to say there had been a departure in spirit from the agreement arrived at in the Conference. If the alteration of the minimum from fifteen to ten was a possible advantage to the landlord, the shifting of the maximum from twenty-five to thirty was in favour of the tenant. The Amendment, however, proposed to retain the limit against the landlord, while abolishing that against the tenant.

Freedom of contract in the matter of Irish land had long passed away, and one of the objects of this Bill was to restore it. But this was not a question of freedom of contract: it was a question of fair dealing with the landlords, the great body of whom were not in favour of this maximum of reduction being withdrawn. That was a practical objection to the Amendment. It was said that if this provision were retained the tenant would be unable to negotiate freely with his landlord. But the very men who advanced that argument declared that the landlords had such control over their tenants that they would be able to compel the purchase of their land at the maximum price. If the landlords had that overwhelming influence over the tenants the absence of the upper limit would not matter, because the tenant, being at the mercy of his landlord, would be compelled to buy at the minimum reduction. On the other hand, it was said that the maximum of reduction would operate as the minimum on which the tenants would insist. Would not the striking out of the maximum reduction be taken as a tacit assertion on the part of the Government that the minimum of price was too high, and that the limits of the bargain ought to be outside those now proposed? Again, would it be a fair thing in the case of settled lands to omit the maximum of reduction? The fact could not be lost sight of that, for the sake of public peace, an astounding bonus was being offered to a large class of persons in Ireland to induce them, in many cases against their will, to sell property which was only partly theirs. If in any other country than Ireland such a proposition were made, capped with the promise that the transaction should be carried through compulsorily, and no questions be asked, it would be characterised as a monstrous inducement to acts of commercial immorality. It was now said by the other side that the landlords were proof against such a temptation. They were not so credited in all quarters. The hon. Member for South Tyrone had said there were among the Irish landlords a lot of "scallywags" who, for the sake of such a bonus, would sell the land of which they were the tenants for life at any price that could be got. Was it possible for the State to leave the matter in that condition?

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

said he expressly stated that that ought to be provided for. His contention was that the price by which it was to be provided for was excessive.

*MR. DUKE

was afraid that if the question was discussed purely from the pounds, shillings, and pence point of view, as a hard commercial transaction, this Bill would not go much farther. It was notorious, however, that they were not considering this matter on the doctrines of Adam Smith, or seeking to drive the hardest bargain that could be arranged; but the same measure must be applied all round The Chief Secretary in his Second Reading speech instanced the case of a large estate in the West of Ireland, the life owner of which for eleven months in the year was an inmate of the workhouse. Would Parliament offer a bonus of 10 per cent. upon the purchase price of a considerable property and give it to that gentleman without inquiry as to the incumbrances on that estate? It would be impossible. Then there was the case of a man of sixty or seventy years of age, with an encumbered estate worth £50,000 or £100,000, of which the greater part of the beneficial interest was obviously in the remainderman. Was it fair to offer that man £5,000 or £10,000 to induce him to come to terms with his tenants, and leave the remainder-man to shift for himself? The policy of the Bill was to avoid the necessity for elaborate investigation, in order that the operation of the Bill should be automatic. It was therefore essential in order to guard against such dangers as he had suggested to have such limits as those proposed in the Bill. He was told though, and he fully believed, that in the case of estates where there were no judicial rents, and where there were isolated holdings not held on economic terms, the Bill would have an unintended operation. Those were the exceptional cases no doubt, but there could be little doubt that they existed in large numbers, and ought to be dealt with. The Land Conference agreed that there were certain limits within which the operation of the Bill might be treated as normal, and the State might safely make the advances proposed, and under which the remainder men would be fairly dealt with. While it was essential that those limits should be retained, he hoped the Bill would not be marred by the exceptional cases to which he had referred being left unprovided for. The view of the Government was that these limits were of the essence of the Bill. He suggested as a compromise that while those limits were retained where the operation of the Bill would be compulsory, some means should be provided for dealing with the exceptional cases. But it had to be borne in mind that the Bill had been so drawn that its operation wholly depended upon the mutual effect of its several parts, and unless the limits which were here in question were retained he did not see how the Chief Secretary's scheme could be carried into effect.

*DR. THOMPSON

said he had taken a great interest in the land question for many years, and had discussed this question with many people, but he had never met a tenant who gave much consideration to the number of years purchase. What the tenant considered of importance was the amount he would get back on purchase and the number of years he would have to pay his rent, though this was a minor consideration. The tenant would not mind how many years purchase the landlord was given provided he himself got 6s. or 7s. in the £ reduction on his first-term rent. As to the matter before the Committee, surely some compromise would be possible if exceptional cases were referred to the Land Commission for settlement.

MR. EMMOTT (Oldham)

contended that the limits suggested in the Bill were not likely to work out satisfactorily. While he deprecated comparisons of the benefit landlords and tenants respectively were likely to secure under the Bill, he asked whether it was not the fact that the tenants who had bought during the last five years had in most cases done better than they could possibly do under the present proposals, and that the landlords would have enormously improved their position by waiting? On the point of the necessity of these zone limits, the Commissioners would be unable to refuse the ratification of a bargain provided it came within the limits of the Bill, and possibly tenants who were in arrears with their rent would be compelled to accept a 10 per cent. reduction for fear of being turned out of their holdings. In the interesting report of Mr. Bailey, attention, was called to the one class of cases in which purchase had been unsatisfactory—the cases in which tenants had had insufficient capital. Such tenants, being in arrears, might be forced to make a 10 per cent. bargain, and they would be in the position of impoverished occupying owners, likely to fail. If many tenants were to be placed in that position there would be a danger of a serious breakdown. The interest of the general taxpayer was that there should be safety, that the price should be reasonable, that the two parties should bargain on equal terms. He preferred that the minimum reduction put down at 10 per cent. should be made 15 per cent. With regard to the side of the landlord he asked, did it seem to be an unfair bargain for the landlord? Upon that point he was short of information. What instances were there of recent years where such a bargain would have been passed by the Land Commission? On the other hand they had been told of many cases where such a bargain, or even more favourable bargains, had been refused by the Land Commission. In reference to the maximum reduction he thought there ought to be no barrier to a free bargain. Many recent bargains allowed a reduction of more than thirty per cent. In face of this fact why should a greater reduction than thirty per cent. on second-term rents be debarred. Looking at it from the standpoint of the general taxpayer, he thought there should be no limit to the reduction made on a fair bargain between landlord and tenant. Take the position of the landlord, for it was no use passing a voluntary Bill unless the terms were fair. What would the landlord get? The landlord would get in hard cash under this Bill, by the intervention of State credit, five years' more purchase at least than anything he had ever got before; and by the lower rate of interest and the increased number of years for repayment the landlord got an extra five years' purchase above what he would have got at the present time. Take a case where the rental was £100. Under the old conditions the advance would have been £2,500.

MR. WYNDHAM

Yes, if it had been agreed.

MR. EMMOTT

said the landlord would get in this case between £3,000 and £3,100. That was the difference between 4 per cent. under the old Act and the 3¼ per cent. interest he would have to pay under this Act.

MR. WYNDHAM

When my hon. friend takes £100 as the amount it is difficult to follow. I would suggest that he should take £80.

MR. EMMOTT

said he would call the old rent £100 and the new rent £80, and that would represent an advance of £2,000. Under the new Act upon a 3¼ per cent. basis that would allow of an advance of something like £2,500. Therefore the landlord got five or six years' extra rent in cash over what he would get under the old Act. Under these circumstances he thought the landlord as well as the tenant was getting a fair inducement even if the maximum reduction were struck out of the Bill. Looking at the matter from the standpoint of the general taxpayer, and having regard also to the position of the landlord, he supported the Amendment.

*MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.)

said the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth generally spoke from behind the Front Bench, and judging from the promptings he received he imagined that the Front Bench supplied him with his facts and figures.

*Mr. DUKE

denied that he had received any promptings from the Front Bench. The Chief Secretary had been good enough to communicate with him through an hon. friend sitting near him to ask what precisely an Amendment which he had set down meant, and he had endeavoured to explain what he thought the Amendment meant. Beyond that he had had no communication with the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.)

said that according to the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument it would appear that a great boon was being conferred upon the tenant. If they judged this measure from past experience in Ireland it could be shown that this Bill was a great boon to the landlords, and one which they ought to be very ready to accept. The hon. and gallant Member below the gangway had spoken on behalf of the landlords in a manner which showed that his great affection for the tenant farmers of Ireland was to get as much as he could out of their pockets for the benefit of the landlords. The arguments of the hon. and gallant Member for Yarmouth had been met in a friendly and conciliatory manner, but the hon. and learned Member for York had imparted a bit of that spirit of hostility which was behind the remarks of a great many gentlemen like him, who spoke on behalf of the landlords. He did not wish to introduce anything bitter into this discussion, but when the hon. and learned Member opposite spoke of the tyranny of the past, and ridiculed the idea that landlords could put pressure upon the tenants, all he could say was that he remembered the first occasion when the hon. and learned Member came over to Ireland—when they were having a big fight with the landlords—as the political emergency man, and he went on behalf of the Crown to give evidence against his fellow Nationalists. That was the hon. Gentleman who now imputed petty tyranny to Irish Nationalists. The hon. Member for York spoke of the facilities given for the sale of estates, and said this would be a great saving to the tenant. On the contrary, those facilities, instead of being a benefit to the tenant, were altogether a benefit to the landlord. The hon. Member said that they ought not to deal with the number of years purchase, but this was distinctly a question of purchase, because it was on the basis of the number of years purchase that all the sales had proceeded up to the present time. Hon. Members who thought that this was not so were making a very serious mistake. In his own constituency a great number of sales had taken place, and from the first year after the passing of the Purchase Acts up till last year the highest number of years purchase obtained had been nineteen, and some of them had been as low as fifteen years. In 1902 a number of sales took place, and the average was 17.4 years purchase. He thought those tenants who had not purchased in his own constituency would find it very hard that under this Bill they would be expected to pay twenty-two years purchase when their neighbours had bought at from fifteen to nineteen years purchase. This Bill with Clause 1 was not at all the great boon which hon. Members tried to dangle before the eyes of the tenant. With regard to the argument that landlords could not put on pressure he would point out that for years past Irish land lords had been working to deprive the tenants of a great many of their privileges. He had known of landlords who had gradually been depriving their tenants of certain privileges which they had hitherto enjoyed in order to gain by purchase. In his own locality a landlord offered to sell at twenty-two and a half years purchase to his tenants who were paying exorbitant rents, and in order to get out of their arrears the landlord induced them to buy at twenty-two and a half years purchase. When the Land Commission sent down a representative they distinctly refused to advance the money at such an exorbitant rate. If the Land Commission refused to sanction twenty-two and a half years purchase how was it that the Government were now fixing twenty-two years purchase as the lowest price? He thought it was most unfair and unreasonable that this reservation should be in the Bill at all.

MR. J. P. FARRELL (Longford, N.)

said this Amendment asked the Committee to give the tenants of Ireland a free market, and not bind them to a minimum or a maximum price, but leave them in a position to make their purchase agreement in a free market. What good was it to a tenant farmer to be able to purchase his holding with the prospect of having only a 10 per cent. reduction of his rent for a series of sixty-eight and-a-half years. It would be madness for an Irish tenant farmer to make such a bargain, and they would get very few Irish farmers to avail themselves of this provision if they were tied down to a 10 per cent. reduction.

*SIR JOHN COLOMB

They are not tied down.

MR. FARRELL

said he was afraid that his hon. and gallant friend did not quite understand the provisions of the Bill. The 10 per cent. limit would not be put there if it was not intended to affect the position of the tenants. He should like to know if the Chief Secretary had studied the interesting tabular statement which had appeared in the Freeman's Journal, giving the whole figures for voluntary purchase in Ireland for the last seventeen years. The statement showed that in the county of Longford the purchase agreements for the last seventeen years averaged between 12.5 and 17.5 years purchase. How had the second-term rents been fixed? A storm of indignation was arising amongst Irish tenant farmers at the way in which a regular conspiracy amongst the Land Commissioners had arisen, for they appeared to have resolved not to give reductions on the first-term rents, and in certain cases they had increased the second-term rents. He was expressing his own honest conviction upon this subject as the representative of a body of tenant farmers, very many of whom had purchased upon the terms he had mentioned, namely, between twelve years and seventeen years purchase. If they kept this restriction in the Bill, of a 10 per cent. minimum and a 30 per cent. maximum reduction, they would be taking the surest way of rendering this Bill practically inoperative. The Chief Secretary said in the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill that it was hoped that this would finally settle the Irish land question. The British House of Commons had been tinkering at the question during the past fifty years. Nobody would be more glad than himself to see the right hon. Gentleman having the credit of finally and satisfactorily settling the land question, but if he listened to the bad advice he received from Irish landlords representing English constituencies, who sat behind him, he would never settle the question. The Bill as it stood contained clauses which were retrogressive as to their effect even on the existing land legislation, but no clause was more absolutely repugnant to the ordinary tenant of the country than Clause 1, which as it stood practically gave compulsory powers to bind the tenant with respect to the price he was to pay for the land. Let them look beyond the present. It might be that agriculture was paying better this year than it did some years ago, or than it would do in the future. Foreign competition was daily increasing, and he did not think there was any prospect of the Imperial Zollverein materialising as some gentlemen fondly hoped. Perhaps it would do Ireland no harm if it did. It had been suggested that by a system of motor-cars farm produce would be brought quickly to the markets in future. He did not know how far that would materialise, but he hoped it would do some good. He had no great faith in it personally. He thought the Chief Secretary could not complain that any member of the Irish Party, whether leader or humble ranker, had done anything to thwart his design or to meet his policy in a spirit of nagging, but there were certain conditions which they could not accept the responsibility of seeing passed into law without protest. He warned the right hon. Gentleman that if he persisted in giving effect to them a great deal of his labour would be in vain.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)

said it had been shown in many speeches that under the operation of the existing Land Purchase Laws, tenants had been able to buy at a much lower figure than they would have been able to do under this Bill. The hon. Member for North Longford had shown that in his own constituency twelve to seventeen years purchase was given by a number of tenants for their land. Of course, all were agreed that if these terms could be generally applied to Ireland they would be better than the terms offered by this Bill, but unfortunately they knew too well that the process of sale and purchase in Ireland under the existing Purchase Acts had pretty well come to a standstill. The position they were in was that if they were to induce the landlords to sell they must offer terms considerably in advance of those which had hitherto prevailed, and it was altogether a question for the tenants themselves to consider whether in order to obtain the sanction of their landlords for purchase they were prepared to give something in excess of the prices which had hitherto prevailed. The question how much more should be given was one which the tenants would be perfectly free to decide for themselves under the provisions of this Bill, but the Amendment which was at present before the Committee dealt with a particular point which was very justly regarded as one of the most important in the Bill, namely, the proposal that under no circumstances whatever could the tenants obtain more than a certain reduction of the instalments in the purchase transaction. The hon. Member for Oldham had pointed out with perfect truth that under the existing Purchase Acts many of the tenants had obtained for themselves terms equal to a great deal more than a 30 per cent. reduction upon the rents they had hitherto paid, and there could be no doubt whatever that there were a certain number of tenants who would, because of the nature of their holdings, be justly entitled to receive a settlement which would be more to them than 30 per cent. on the rents they were paying at the present time. He was perfectly satisfied that, taking into consideration the bonus which was to be provided by the Government under this Bill, many of the landlords—he did not say the whole or anything like the whole of them—would be quite prepared to make settlements with their tenants upon terms which would mean more to the tenants than the 30 per cent. maximum reduction provided by the Bill. Could it possibly be argued that in a case where landlord and tenant were perfectly willing to come to terms which would mean more than 30 per cent. reduction of rent, it was not perfectly reasonable that they should be allowed to do so?

It might be said that in a great many cases in Ireland a reduction of 30 per cent. would not be reached, but the Chief Secretary knew that in some parts of the country where the land was not so rich there were cases where it would not be unreasonable for tenants to expect, on a final settlement such as everybody hoped this would be, to receive more than the 30 per cent. which was allowed by the Bill. Why in the name of common sense should a hard and fast line be drawn in this Bill which would have the effect of preventing a settlement in cases where the landlord would very likely be glad to come to an arrangement which would mean more than 30 per cent. reduction to the tenants? It was the desire of all parties in Ireland that the settlement under this Bill should be of a satisfactory and permanent character. As far as he was personally concerned, he could tell the Chief Secretary without the slightest hesitation that he would be extremely sorry to see a single estate sold or purchased in Ireland upon terms which were not in themselves likely to stand well the test of time, and to be, as far as one could humanly judge, permanent and satisfactory to the tenants who bought. What was there sacred or magical about the figure 30 in regard to the reduction which the tenant might hope to obtain? Why 30, instead of 31, or 29, or some other figure? There was no argument by which this hard and fast rule could be justified. He asked the Chief Secretary to look at it from a reasonable point of view, and to realise that there must be numbers of the most deserving people excluded from the operation of the Bill if this hard and fast rule was made. It had been said that this particular zone had been agreed to by the landlords and tenants in conference, but it was only one item in a general agreement. He thought it was unreasonable and unfair to expect the representatives of the tenants to accept one particular portion of the Report to which they agreed, when it was admitted that other portions of the Report had been repudiated by the representatives of the landlords and by the Government. He had been asked over and over again why this particular figure of 30 per cent. had been adhered to by the Government, and he had never been able to answer the question. He would look forward with the greatest interest to the explanation of the Chief Secretary why this particular figure had been chosen. He was perfectly convinced that if the right hon. Gentleman maintained this figure the Bill would not provide a satisfactory or permanent settlement for very many tenant farmers, and that the result in some cases to men who might be induced to purchase would be disastrous. They would find themselves in difficulties in the future, and then this Bill would have to be amended. He appealed to the Chief Secretary to consider this important point seriously, and to see whether a change in the proposal could not be made whereby landlords and tenants would be left perfectly free. He could understand the proposal to fix the limit if this were a compulsory Bill, but under a perfectly voluntary Bill landlords who were willing to give more than 30 per cent. reductions to tenants should be free to make that arrangement.

Motion made, and Question "That the Chairman do report Progress; and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Dillon.)

Put, and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.