IRISH LAND BILL.

HC Deb 24 June 1903 vol 124 cc401-59

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

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

Clause 1:—

Another Amendment proposed— In page 1, line 28, to leave out the word "twenty," and insert the words "twenty-five."—(Mr. John Redmond.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'twenty' stand part of the clause."

MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN (Cork)

said he desired to continue the discussion in no unfriendly spirit, for he had no desire to add any additional element of difficulty to an already difficult situation—a situation sufficiently difficult for men of all parties to deal with. In discussing this question hon. Members should remember that they were now settling or unsettling the fate of the Irish landlords for many generations to come. Whatever might be the merits of the zone system, the zone system in respect of the first-term tenants was not being framed upon the same scale as the zone system which had been framed in reference to the second-term tenants. The Government were making a hostile discrimination against a class of tenants, who were 250,000 strong, and who for many years—most of them—never received any benefit whatever under the Land Act of 1881. If the land compromise of which hon. Gentlemen spoke with so much enthusiasm when it suited their purpose, and which when it did not suit their purpose they ignored—was to be judged at all, it ought to be judged in its entirety. According to the compromise come to at the Conference, the average bargain for second-term tenants would have been a reduction of 20 per cent., and the fair equivalent of that, at all events, according to the view of the representatives of the Irish Party at the Conference, was a reduction of at least 40 per cent. for first-term tenants. They did not attempt to define exactly what the fair equivalent should be. There were only two ways of ascertaining it: either the whole of the 250,000 should be allowed to go into Court individually—a course which no one would dream of proposing—or the second-term rents should be fixed automatically as the judicial rents were reduced under the Act of 1887. The Government adhered to the average reduction of 20 per cent. in regard to second-term rents, on the ground that they were carrying out the Conference scale, and it was unfair not to advance, at all events, as far as 40 per cent. in the case of first-term tenants. In common justice the right hon. Gentleman was bound to level up in this matter. If the Amendment of his hon. and learned friend erred at all it erred on the side of moderation. All through the proceedings there had been a desire to arrive at a fair compromise, and he submitted to the right hon. Gentleman that in resisting this claim he was really in contradiction not only with the Land Conference, but with himself, because if they were to admit that the scale for the second-term tenants was a fair one, then it would follow that the scale for the first-term tenants was unfair, and, what was more, the unfairness was practised against a category of tenantry who were at least three times as numerous as the others and who had never until very lately received any relief at all under the Land Act of 1881. He was convinced that already every sensible landlord had made up his mind to make sensible and moderate terms, irrespective of this impossible average of twenty-five years purchase. He would be only too happy to come to business. The acceptance of the Amendment, therefore, would hurt nobody. On the other hand an obstinate resistance counted for a great deal in helping to create that feeling of distrust which it was desirable to avoid if the Bill was to work smoothly.

With regard to the new bogey—the incumbrancers and mortgagees—which had been introduced, he thought it was pretty plain that the wrongs of the mortgagees were the invention of those subtle gentlemen the Irish lawyers. It was really hard enough to bring about an agreement between tenants and landlords, but now the tenants were faced with a new army of enemies and were being called upon to secure not only the landlord's rents but his debts. The tenants of Ireland had already suffered sufficiently in the shape of extortionate rents without being called upon not only to satisfy the landlords as to the landlord's interest, but to secure the landlord's creditors against any possible dishonesty on the landlord's own part. It was an intolerable burden to place on the tenants' shoulders, and all he could say was that if there was any danger as to incumbrances, the landlord might be allowed to repurchase his own domain, which would be ample security for the creditors. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not prove adamantine on this point. Let him give up his legal fiction as to the dangers to incumbrancers and give the tenant the very slight modicum of additional relief proposed by the Amendment. On these benches, at any rate, they had shown that they were not disposed to unnecessarily increase the difficulties of the Chief Secretary, and he hoped, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman in return would meet them in that matter.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,) Dover

said that his simple reason for rising was to recognise the spirit of the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Cork, who used words which were gratifying to him—though by no means unexpected—that they ought, all of them, to try, if they could, to arrive at a common ground of agreement upon the issue raised by this Bill. But if the hon. Member would bear with him, as this was a matter of major importance, he would ask what would be the effect of the Amendment if it were carried? It would not prevent certain bargains being made. On the contrary the bargains would be made under the new clause which he had already put upon the Paper, and the only effect, in practice, would be not to prohibit those bargains but to deny to any tenant who wished to enter into such a bargain the advantages of doing so in the most expeditious and cheapest way. The hon. Member went on to say that the general trend of the discussion had been towards giving, where that might be necessary, a greater latitude at the opposite end of the scale. The hon. Member said that if the Amendment were accepted nobody would be hurt; but he maintained that it might hurt a limited class of persons—viz., the large farmers who had enjoyed comparatively low rents, perhaps agreed upon between them and the landlords as first-term rents, and who might desire to buy and to pay a fair price, but which would represent a higher annual instalment than 25 per cent. He could not prevent them making such a bargain, and why should he say that they should not take advantage of the simplest and cheapest method of procedure? His opinion was that that would be a mistake; and that it was unnecessary to make the procedure cumbrous and expensive. Why not allow them to work up to the limit allowed them and make their bargains in the cheapest and most expeditious manner? That was his reason for adhering to the attitude he had taken up.

MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)

said he was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman could not make an advance on the point under discussion. He admitted that the situation was to some extent changed by the new Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman which appeared on the Paper, but hon. Members would understand that that did not alter their opinion that this Amendment ought to be accepted. He did not think, however, that anything was to be gained by longer discussion, as most Members were anxious to come to the consideration of the new clause, which really dealt with what was the crux of the situation.

*MR. BUTCHER (York)

said he entirely agreed with the hon. Member who has just spoken that the situation had been altered by the new Amendment put down on the Paper to-day by the Chief Secretary, the effect of which would be to meet the objection that they must do something to allow people, in proper cases, to go outside the strict limit of the zone imposed. In the absence of such an Amendment it might conceivably have been proper to accept a 25 per cent. instead of a 20 per cent. reduction. He did not think that that view could properly be urged now in view of the new Amendment proposed. The only effect of accepting the Amendment of Mr. Redmond's would be that a bargain on the footing of a 20 per cent. reduction could not be carried out without delay and expense, whereas if the Amendment were rejected the bargain of the 20 per cent. reduction would be carried through without reference to the Land Commission. Might he remind the Committee that in a very considerable number of cases first-term rents were as low as they would be if they were second-term rents determined in the Courts.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

A great many are the other way.

*MR. BUTCHER

, continuing, said that with the exception of flax and wool there had been a rise in the price of all produce in Ireland since the year 1887, and therefore, so far as they were concerned, there was no occasion for reducing first-term rents. But there were other cases of first term rents, the class of cases where, by agreement between the landlord and tenant, the rents were so fair and reasonable that it was not worth while going into the Courts again. If he were right so far he thought he had established the view that there were a great number of first-term rents which were as low as second-term rents.

AN HON. MEMBER

on the Irish benches:—No.

*MR. BUTCHER

did not deny that there were some first-term rents which ought to be reduced, but that would be done within the scope of the limits between 20 per cent. and 40 per cent. There was ample scope within the limits laid down by the Bill for the landlord and tenant to bargain together and fix upon a price and to allow the sale to go through at once. But in view of the new situation created by the Chief Secretary putting down his Amendment, there was really no need to press the present Amendment, for if it were carried it would operate to the prejudice of both landlord and tenant.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he quite understood that on many of these questions hon. Members holding strong views desired to go into the division lobby to emphasise their views; but if they were to divide on every question they would extend the discussion on the Bill to the end of the session. They should go on to the more important topic which everybody wished to discuss, and this question could be decided by a simple "Aye" or "no."

MR. JOHN REDMOND

said that in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had made what he regarded as a very considerable concession in the Amendment on the Paper, he had had no desire to prolong the proceedings. Of course the right hon. Gentleman would understand that it was rather difficult for some of his friends to abstain from going into the lobby, but in view of the fact that their views had been emphasised in the discussion and by the division on the previous Amendment, and that it would be somewhat churlish to refuse the right hon. Gentleman's request, decision he was agreeable to accepting a of the question on the voices.

Question put, and agreed to.

*MR. DUKE (Plymouth)

said that if it was the will of the Committee that he should not move his Amendment, but should await the Amendment of the Chief Secretary, he would gladly fall in with that arrangement. [Cries of "Hear, hear."] He gathered it was the desire of the Committee to proceed as quickly as possible to the consideration of his right hon. friend's Amendment. Under those circumstances he would not move.

MR. WYNDHAM

said it might be for the convenience of the Committee if he defined the attitude of the Government on his hon. and learned friend's Amendment, unless it were understood that his hon. and learned friend the Member for York would also not move his Amendment. It was the intention of the Government to take on itself responsibility in the matter, and to give guidance and advice to the Committee regarding it.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be permitted to move his Amendment at once. He would suggest to the hon. and learned Member for York to withdraw his Amendment.

MR. BUTCHER

said as it was the obvious wish of the Committee that the Chief Secretary should move his Amendment he would gladly assent to that arrangement.

MR. WYNDHAM

formally moved to omit in Clause 1, page 2, lines 1 to 7 inclusive.

Amendment proposed,— In page 2, to leave out lines 1 to 7 inclusive."—(Mr. Wyndham.)

Question put, "That lines 1 to 7 inclusive be there omitted," and agreed to.

*MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

said that his hon. friend the Member for East Down would not move the next Amendment standing in his name, but he reserved his right to deal with the matter on the Report stage.

MR. WYNDHAM

said the very fact that the hon. Members for Plymouth and York had waived their rights increased his obligation to explain very fully the attitude of the Government. But it must not be said that the Government were making concessions in order to meet the combined wishes of the Irish landlords and tenants to the prejudice of the general taxpayer. That object did not come in. What was the attitude of the Government? They had taken the unusual course of putting the Land Bill down for an afternoon sitting in the middle of the week because it was their desire to make progress, and they felt that there was the greatest danger in delay. It was self-evident that a Bill of this magnitude created a great number of questions of importance and a still larger number of questions of interest, upon any one of which most of those knowing anything of Irish affairs would wish to record their views. The work could not be carried on satisfactorily, however, unless they concentrated their attention on the main questions and avoided discussing matters of minor importance. The Amendments of his hon. friends showed that Members of that House who had constituted themselves, more or less, the representatives of the landlords were agreed, either on the merits of the principle, or else, if they had some doubts as to the advantages that would accrue by accepting the principle underlying the Amendments, that they should make some advances towards the position occupied by the representatives of the tenants. That was a very weighty matter which the Government had properly to consider. There might be landlords who doubted whether the Amendments would prove to be of any intrinsic value either to themselves or to the tenants, but who were willing to accept them in order to bring everyone into line. That fact was of great importance in determining the attitude of the Government. If the representatives of the landlords came forward to arrive at some basis of agreement in respect of the first clause, was the Government, when the interests of the general taxpayer were not concerned, to be the one party to decline to put its pride in its pocket and obstinately adhere to their own view that a great value was attached to the expeditious and cheap automatic process. The Government considered that to be a benefit to both landlord and tenant, and it had proved to be so in the past. But if the two parties, who he had to allow had much better opportunities of knowing their own interests, thought that in some cases the additional delay was a greater fault, their opinions were worthy of consideration. On the merit of the case there might be two opinions, but if the landlords and tenants were agreed that some such Amendment should be accepted, and no wrong was done to the taxpayers, general opinions became perfectly irrelevant. Therefore in accepting the principle underlying the two Amendments he intended to accept it in no grudging manner.

The Government provided by loans for security to the taxpayer, and they also provided protection for the interests in Irish land of all persons other than the landlords. They were bound in some way or another to give those two protection. Hon. Members naturally approached the subject in a spirit of advocates, and were not concerned with the interests of the other parties. The duty of protecting those interests rested on the Government, and he maintained that the admitted difficulty of passing such a measure was increased by the duty of the Government to safeguard them. As he had accepted this great change he hoped that hon. Members would do him the credit of believing that all through he had recognised the burden of responsibility that rested on the Government because this was a revolutionary measure which not only enabled but induced persons to sell a great deal of property which did not belong to them. No one knew exactly the capital value of the other interests in Irish land, but it was a commonplace to say that at least two-thirds or three-quarters of the estates in Ireland were either settled or heavily mortgaged; and taking the value of those mortgages and the prospective value of the settlement, it would not be surprising to learn that out of the £100,000,000 with which they were dealing, the capital value of the property which belonged to other people was greater than the capital value of the owners. Could any Radical or Socialistic Government sell £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 of other people's property without giving protection in the right of being heard and having full justice done to everybody. The Government therefore had to protect these interests in the Bill and to constitute themselves the guardians and trustees of posterity. They said that looking at the prospect of agriculture in Ireland and the effect of past legislation upon that agricultural prospect, ample protection was afforded if none of this property passed for less than twenty-one years purchase in the case of second-term rents. They were bound to adhere to the bargain in certain cases between the landlord and tenant upon terms suitable to both, but some alternative method to protect other parties had to be devised. It was clear that those interests must be in no degree prejudiced by the passing of this Bill, and they must not be bereft of any protection they now enjoyed. It was equally clear to him that if they substituted some form of protection other than the automatic protection of the zone they could not avoid greater cost and greater delay; for greater cost and greater delay were inherent in any method of protection other than an automatic method. Even under the automatic process it would be possible for a great English corporate body, knowing nothing of Irish affairs except that they had £1,000,000 invested in Irish lands, to obtain the services of the ablest lawyers in the land to see whether the bargains which were being concluded sufficiently protected their interests. But so long as the bargain was a statutory bargain, and, on the whole, was fair, they would lose their case, and nobody else would attempt a like procedure. If they opened the door to bargains of any character, there must be proper protection; and the last thing he desired to do was to penalise persons who chose to avail themselves of this Act. But certain penalties must inevitably attach to persons who availed themselves of the procedure under this Amendment. It would take them longer to get their business through, and it would cost them more to get their business through; and he believed that in a great many cases landlords and tenants would find it to their mutual advantage to adopt the short and cheap automatic process.

He thought that hon. Gentlemen who had studied the Amendments on the Paper would admit that the phraseology upon which he had hit, with the assistance of his legal advisers, was so simple that all persons concerned could at a glance understand what would happen if they adopted this alternative course. They would understand that all persons interested were to have an opportunity of being heard. Of course, "opportunity" meant due warning and notice, and so forth; but he held that the first clause was not the proper clause in which to indicate the extent of such warning. If need be, Clause 21 could be amended; or it might turn out to be preferable to deal with this matter in the rules which must in any case be drawn up if this Act was to be operative. But there was another difficulty. They would have to have another form of procedure. In his opinion they would have to make some alteration in this case in the allocation of the bonus. As the Bill was drafted, if a landlord agreed with his tenantry inside the zone it was assumed that other interests had been adequately safeguarded and posterity was not injured; and, according to the Bill and the Government's intention, the landlord became possessed of the bonus without any trouble in the matter. Where the landlord and tenant decided to take advantage of the alternative course, he thought that procedure could not be properly followed, and the bonus must be put in the pool of the purchase money. Of course the landlord would receive it in the long run if all the claims were satisfied, but he could not have it immediately. The proposals in the Bill were of a very revolutionary character, because, with the protection of the zone, he was prepared to say that there was sufficient protection for other interests, and therefore that the vendor could have the bonus. That was a great inducement, perhaps an undue inducement. It was, perhaps, an incentive to the landlord to be done with the matter on almost any terms and to take the bonus, but he adopted that course because he was anxious that purchase should proceed expeditiously in Ireland. He could not adopt that course where a certain number of bargains were made outside the zone, but the landlord would not be worse off than he was under the existing law. In these cases he thought the bonus must go into the purchase money.

He saw no grave difficulty in retaining the expeditious method where such bargains did not involve any great amount of purchase money. Supposing a landlord agreed with the great bulk of his tenants inside the zone, ant made bargains with ten, fifteen or twenty persons outside the zone, the best course would be to pay the cash difference up to the zone limitation, and then the whole matter could go through in a day, as it would do under the automatic process. In cases where a landlord sold the whole of his property outside the zone, would any hon. Member from Ireland contend that the landlord should take the bonus and leave the other parties interested to struggle for the purchase money. It could not be sustained. It could not be permitted, for a moment, and he did not think it put any penalty on the alternative course which hon. Members had suggested. They would minimise delay and seek to make the procedure as cheap as they could, but it would take a little longer and cost a little more. In cases where it was largely employed, and the landlord was not prepared to waive a very small percentage of his bonus for a short time only, probably two or three months, the bonus ought to go into the whole purchase money of the estate. This was a matter of so important a nature and so complicated that he thought it would be better not to proceed at greater length now, but to hear what hon. Members had to say. If they saw any difficulty with the procedure, perhaps before opposing it they would ask for further elucidation, in order to gauge whether one system would be unduly handicapped as against the other. In his opinion it would not be. The Government had gone a long way to meet what he understood to be the view held in common by the representatives of landlords and of tenants in Ireland. They were prepared to sanction this revised concordat between the parties mainly interested. They hailed it as a new testimony to the fact that all classes throughout Ireland desired a settlement of the land question. The danger of united Ireland resolving herself into constituent atoms had, he hoped, been avoided. There was one other danger—that of delay; he hoped that also would be avoided. He begged to move.

Amendment moved— In page 2, line 15, to leave out the words 'shall not sanction the advance,' and insert the words 'may, subject to the limitations in the Land Purchase Acts, sanction the advance if they are satisfied with the security, and if, after giving all persons interested in the estate an opportunity of being heard, they consider the agreed price to be equitable, having regard to the interests of all such persons as aforesaid.'"—(Mr. Wyndham.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."

MR. JOHN REDMOND

said there were two preliminary observations he desired to make. The first was as to a probable oversight. He thought it would be necessary to insert the words "as amended by this Act" after the words "Land Purchase Act," in order to secure the increased limit of the amount of the advance agreed to the other night. The other was that he found it difficult to enter into a discussion at present on the somewhat complicated machinery with reference to the bonus, as sketched by the right hon. Gentleman. That matter would have to come up as a definite Amendment on Clause 14, and the right hon. Gentleman must not take him as agreeing on behalf of his hon. friends to the exact proposal he had made on this point. Their only object in the matter was that in the class of cases referred to the incentive to sell should not be taken away from the landlord. The fear that occurred to his mind was that by dealing with the bonus as the right hon. Gentleman suggested that incentive might be taken away. He was aware that the right hon. Gentleman did not propose to abolish the bonus, but simply that it should be "hung up" pending an investigation of the claims of encumbrancers and so forth. Even that limitation might interfere with the incentive to sell. It was not necessary to discuss the point now; he would simply safeguard himself by saying that when they came to discuss the machinery they would approach the question with an open mind. Both sides had the same object in view, and he hoped they would be able to come to an agreement by which that object would be achieved.

Then as to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. Under the clause as originally drawn, free bargains between landlord and tenant were absolutely forbidden, as no bargain would be sanctioned unless the tenant paid a certain minimum price. The position of the Irish Party in reference to that provision was that it was monstrous, illogical, and oppressive; consequently, they did all they could, by speech, and by vote, to get the provision taken from the Bill. When, on the matter being discussed, the Chief Secretary adopted what seemed to be an absolute non possumus attitude, he took a very serious view of the situation. He honestly conceived that if the Government had said their last word on the question the passage of the Bill was seriously imperilled, and he did not shrink from the responsibility of plainly saying so in the Committee. At the same time, he expressed the hope that the right hon. Gentleman had not said the last word on the question, and he was glad to find that that hope had been justified. The right hon. Gentleman had made concessions which fundamentally altered the clause, and largely removed the objections which the Nationalist Party entertained to it. Under the clause as it would now stand a number of tenants, who he calculated at about half the tenantry of Ireland, would be excluded from the operation of the zone, the only tenants to whom the zone would apply being the judicial tenants, and its relation to them would be fundamentally altered by the present Amendment. The judicial tenants would now be free to make any bargain they liked with their landlord. If the bargain fell within the zone, the purchase would take place without delay or inquiry; if it fell outside the zone, the bargain would be sanctioned just as bargains were sanctioned under the existing Land Purchase Acts — after due inquiry into the security for the loan on the one side, and into the equities of the case on the other. The right hon. Gentleman, for reasons which could be appreciated, had emphasised the question of the inquiry into the equities of the case, but the inquiry would be no more severe, full, costly or prolonged than the inquiry in every case of purchase under the existing law. He and his friends recognised that in cases of this sort there must be inquiry into the equities of the case and the security for the loan; and they were not at all frightened by the provision. He heartily congratulated the Chief Secretary on the concession he had made, and he also congratulated Irish Members on both sides on having succeeded by argument in inducing the right hon. Gentle man to make the concession. The fact that the Amendment had been pressed by the representatives of both landlords and tenants was a most important consideration. The idea underlying the clause was originally suggested by Lord Dunraven; it had been supported all through by the "Conference" landlords, and he was exceedingly glad that it now had the support of all sections of Irish landlords. He hoped one result of the agreement would be that in the remaining portions of the Bill, where, as far as he knew, there were no vital points upon which differences of opinion or interest arose between landlords and tenants, the same united front would be observed in pressing necessary Amendments upon the acceptance of the right hon. Gentleman. The present Amendment would enormously shorten the discussion on Clause 1, and remove any danger of acrimonious discussion. Of course, the Amendment did not satisfy in full the demand that had been made. The Chief Secretary had met their protest against the existence of this zone, and they were now perfectly free to say that the Government had come half way to meet them, and although the proposed settlement was not absolutely satisfactory to them, it certainly went a considerable distance to meet their wishes. By making this concession he believed the right hon. Gentleman had smoothed the passage of this Bill, and they would reserve for the later clauses a full discussion of the machinery he had suggested.

*SIR JOHN COLOMB (Great Yarmouth)

said he wished to join with the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down in congratulating the Chief Secretary upon having, in a statesmanlike manner, found a way out of a very serious difficulty. It was always very difficult to reconcile the diverse interests of landlord and tenants, and while on certain points it might be anticipated that there would be acute differences, he thought the spirit shown by the right hon. Gentleman would enable them to feel confident that when those points arose he would recognise the views of both sides, and, looking to the responsibilities which rested upon him, would be able to find an equally satisfactory way out of the difficulty.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.)

said he did not wish to mar the happy family arrangement which had been come to by suggesting anything against the Amendment put before the Chief Secretary by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. That suggestion, in his judgment, would be a fatal Amendment in many cases, because, by inserting the words "as amended by this Act," they would at once import into the Land Purchase Code the whole of the exclusions which the right hon. Gentleman himself had imposed in the previous portion of the clause. This Amendment might be fairly described as Ashbourne Acts cum bonus. Under the Ashbourne Acts they might sell a house or other property, but under this Act such bargains and sales would be impossible. He thought some other means must be taken of meeting a point which naturally, on the spur of the moment, did not occur to the right hon. Gentleman. In adding his humble congratulations he asked the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he would be wise in involving the Committee in the discussion of a long series of enactments to safeguard the rights of the remainder men and mortgagees on the question of bonus. No doubt the Chief Secretary had correctly stated the view which would be taken of the trust deeds as to the disposition of the bonus, but he wished to point out that his Amendment would fully protect all those people by the addition of a very few words, because what would happen would be that the mortgagees and remainder men would not allow a sale to take place unless they were satisfied and got their share of the swag. The mortgagees and the remainder men would at once say to the tenant for life, "We won't allow you to sell this at all unless you make arrangements with us." He suggested the addition of the words "and the circumstances of the case." Surely one of the circumstances would be a case where a mortgagee or a remainder man might say if he got £5,000 he would agree to the sale. That would then be a matter taking place in the face of the Court, and there would be no mystery about it, and then the Court could ratify a bargain which had been come to between the parties. Upon this question he was anxious that they should not on the first clause get into a tedious wrangle upon what did not concern them. This was really a matter between the landlords and the owners of the various interests in the estates. Let them settle this matter by some simple words or some provision as to rules, but he hoped they would not lengthen this interminable Bill by further indirect provisions to safeguard interests which he thought could be adequately provided for under the words suggested by the Chief Secretary. In conclusion he wished to say how satisfactory it was to him to have noted the spirit in which the hon. and learned Member for Waterford and the hon. Member for Cork had received the undoubted concession made by His Majesty's Government, and he expressed the hope that these proceedings in their future course would be very much condensed and shortened by the very statesmanlike and admirable course taken by the Chief Secretary.

*MR. DUKE

said he should like to join in the congratulation which had been expressed to the Chief Secretary for the course he had taken. He did not express that opinion as anybody's advocate, for he was not required by the circumstances of his own constituency to be the advocate of any party in this great land war which was going on. As an English Member he thought he was entitled to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the course he had taken. Some few days ago the hon. and learned Member opposite had x-pressed what was evidently a concluded opinion that this Bill could not work under a cast iron system of zones. It was in that state of the case that his attention was called to the matter by a Member of the landlord class in Ireland, and he was assured that no one would dispute that upon certain holdings there ought in some exceptional cases to be larger reductions than the zone permitted. He congratulated the Chief Secretary upon having found a way out of this difficulty, and upon having put an increased motive power behind the Bill with a view to the permanent settlement of the land question. As to the disposal of the bonus he did not think it was essential that when an inquiry had taken place, and it had been found that the interests of the encumbrancers and reversioners were safeguarded, there should be a second inquiry to make sure that the money was dispose of in the right direction. He could not help thinking that once the assent of the encumbrancers and reversioners was obtained there would be an end to the difficulty.

MR. DILLON

said he joined with the hon. and learned Member for Waterford in the great gratification felt on the Nationalist Benches at the course pursued by the Chief Secretary. Although the Chief Secretary had not seen his way to do all that they asked in the earlier discussion of the Bill, he had gone a great part of the way to meet them; and it would not be fair or reasonable if they did not recognise the spirit he had shown in making that concession, and let him see that in handling the Bill in such a spirit its progress would be a great deal more rapid than otherwise. He accepted without reserve his statement that, in making this concession, he made it frankly and fully and without any reservation. He had specifically stated that he had no desire to penalise in any respect the bargains made outside the zones. In pursuance of that declaration he would ask him to consider, before they came to Clause 21, whether there was any necessity for dealing with the bonus in a different way as regarded cases where sales took place outside the zones and those which took place in the zones. There was no ground whatever for distinction. In the case within the zones it must be a heavily-encumbered estate, and there would be no inquiry before the sale was effected from the encumbrancers. The estate could be sold by the landlord or those entitled to act for him without obtaining any leave whatever, but the money to be paid would be tied up in Court until the various claims were ascertained. The only distinction that appeared to exist was as to the protection of the mortgagee and the remainder man. In the case of a sale within the zones it was held to be afforded by the limit of the minimum price, and in the case of a sale without the zone it was supposed to be afforded by the legal inquiry. They were both protected by different processes. He only mentioned these considerations now, but he presumed they would have to discuss them more in detail later on. The right hon. Gentleman asked the question—Could anybody maintain that, in the case of a sale under this ssction, without the zone, the landlord should be entitled to walk off with a bonus and leave the rest to be disputed over by others interested in the estate? That was exactly what was allowed to be done in the case of the large class of tenants excluded from the action of the zone, and in the case of the congested estates. He begged to impress on the right hon. Gentleman that it any alteration of the terms on which the bonus would be handed to the landlord was of such a character as to penalise a man making a bargain outside the zone as compared with inside the zone, that would be to take off with one hand the benefit which this clause gave with the other. The last point to which he wished to draw attention was the inquiry which was to take place as to the minimum price and the protection of all charges on the estate. He understood that the inquiry would be the same as existed under the present law. He gathered from the right hon. Gentleman that it was not to be in any way a more oppressive, extensive, or expensive inquiry, or one calculated to create more delay. If on further examination of the wording of the Amendment any verbal Amendment was found to be necessary, in order to secure that the inquiry should only be such as took place now under the 1896 Act, then they would reserve their right to move that Amendment. Although he had considerable objection to these zones at all, he acknowledged that the action now taken by the right hon. Gentleman revolutionised the opinion of men who, like himself, had a strong objection to the clause. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman would receive the recompense which ministers who took this course always received in the spirit of reasonableness shown by opponents.

*MR. BUTCHER

said that he spoke as an Irishman representing an English constituency, and as one who was sincerely desirous to see the Bill passed into law. He joined in congratulating the Chief Secretary on what he had done to meet the wishes of the Irish representatives. He was tempted to say, in the words of the Psalmist, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." He hoped they might go on in the same spirit in the further consideration of the Bill. He listened with great satisfaction to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, when he expressed his conviction, in which he himself might be permitted to share, that now that the difficulties connected with Clause 1 had been surmounted, there was really nothing in the remaining clauses of the Bill which need cause much controversy or delay. For himself he still adhered to the view he originally expressed, that the general principle of Clause 1 as to zones was sound and valuable in the interest of landlord and tenant. It was of enormous importance, to his mind, that landlord and tenant should be allowed to come together within reasonably wide limits, and that when the tenant bought his holding he should be put at once in possession of it. When they came to deal with the case raised by the Chief Secretary's Amendment, he agreed that more difficulty arose. There were many who thought that it would have been better to have left the zones as they stood, but speaking for himself, he could not help saying that there was considerable force in the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who said that there were exceptional cases which ought to be treated outside the zones, and that provision should be made in the Bill for dealing with them. The Chief Secretary had found a way of doing so. He thought it would be a calamity if this Bill, which was generous to Ireland on the part of the British Parliament, were to fall through by reason of any want of fair dealing or spirit of conciliation on the part of either landlords or tenants, or their representatives. He believed that danger had been averted, and certainly he regarded the Amendment to be an important one for the purpose of getting over what was a pressing difficulty. He hoped and believed that the Amendment brought forward by the Chief Secretary would have the effect desired, and that it would enable this Bill to pass into law, and not only to pass, but, what was to his mind most important, to pass with the cordial goodwill and co-operation of all sections in Ireland who were interested in the peace and happiness of that country.

*MR. HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.)

joined in the congratulations to the Chief Secretary for the manner in which he had met the opposition of his hon. and learned friends below the gangway. He thought the Bill had been considerably improved by the Amendments which were now put forward by the Chief Secretary. He considered these Amendments had been properly described by his hon. and learned friend the Member for Louth as rolling into one as it were the land purchase system under the Ashbourne Act with this new land purchase system governed by the zones. There was nothing, therefore, if parties did not choose to agree to bring themselves within the zones, to interfere with their present position. They were in exactly the same position as if this Act had not been passed. That was of considerable importance; it would ensure that the taxpayer would not suffer, and it would facilitate very much the support of those English and Scotch Members who did not affect to understand thoroughly the complications of the Irish land system. These Amendments made it clear that the State would be fully indemnified against the possibility of any loss, or any default on the part of the purchaser under this Act, but he must say that he could not altogether agree with his hon. and learned friend the Member for Louth that the Amendment of his hon. friend the Member for South Tyrone in regard to farms of the value of £3,000 or £5,000 as the case might be, was unnecessary.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

said it was unnecessary now.

*MR. HEMPHILL

said if it was unnecessary his observations fell to the ground. The only observation he wished to add was that he reserved altogether his opinion on the question of the bonus until he saw the Amendment in print which the Chief Secretary meant to propose. He thought it would be quite premature now to say that the bonus should be dealt with in a different way where the tenants agreed to bring themselves within the zone, and where they came within the new amended clause.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

said he joined heartily in congratulating the Chief Secretary on the proposal he had now made. He concurred with those who thought that the Bill was in great danger, but the right hon. Gentleman had found a way out. Undoubtedly there were counties in Ulster—and he spoke for the province of Ulster—where a majority of the tenants were judicial tenants, and if the Bill had passed as introduced, those tenants would have been remorselessly confined within the zones. He thought that would have been a great calamity, and he was exceedingly glad the Chief Secretary had found a way out of the difficulty. But, at the same time, hon. Members had better keep their heads. This question of the bonus was a very serious one. The Chief Secretary the other night in consenting to introduce a clause affecting the non-judicial tenants stated that he would take care that they were brought within the scope of the Bill—that was in order that the landlords should get a bonus and yet not be outside of the old Ashbourne Acts. He was bound to say that if the bonus was to be seriously tied up in any way—he did not deny that some arrangement would have to be come to—one of the great inducements to the landlord to sell would be taken away. Therefore, he hoped the Chief Secretary would give to this question the serious consideration it deserved.

MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN

said he wished to say that the statesmanlike and conciliatory disposition exhibited by the right hon. the Chief Secretary had gone a great way to remove any irritation that might have been caused among the representatives for Ireland. He did not think that the hon. Member for South Tyrone need be in the least afraid that they were going to lose their beads about this or any other matter. He must say, for himself, that he was not altogether satisfied with the arrangement, which would still leave the ultimate decision as to the purchase price to the discretion of the Estates Commission, instead of being settled by the parties between themselves. But the Estates Commission would undoubtedly start under more favourable auspices than perhaps any Government Commission had started before in Ireland. Some of them were, however, bound to remember what Government by Board or Commission had been in Ireland in the past. It was only fair to state that it would be the interest and duty of the Estates Commission, as the guardians of the British Exchequer, to exercise a wise discretion as to the bargains which would save the tenants much. They still held that it would have been wiser for the Government and the landlords to have left the bargaining free altogether; but they were all deeply sensible—and in this he was sure he spoke for every Member of the Irish Party—of the kindly and conciliatory spirit the right hon. Gentleman had shown in the enormous concession which he bad made on this matter, the more especially as very considerable concessions had already been made in excluding a vast body of tenants from the zones, and also in regard to the abolition of the perpetual rent-charge. He had been happy to hear the hon. Member for York re-echo what his hon. and learned friend said that evening, that once this clause was disposed of—as he hoped it would be during the afternoon sitting — there would be no longer any question of anything like vital conflict between land lords and tenants in Ireland. If the right hon. Gentleman only acted—as he was sure he was anxious to do—in the same generous spirit as he had done to the judicial tenants, with reference to the evicted tenants, to the tenants in the congested districts, and to the Irish agricultural labourers, there would be no disposition on these benches to discourage him from obtaining the full benefits of the Act for all parts of Ireland.

MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON (Hackney, S.)

said he wished to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the Amendment which he had introduced. The spirit and the actual wording of that Amendment appeared to him to be very much superior to the original Amendment submitted by the hon. Member for Plymouth; and in saying so he did not for one moment wish to forget that he was a representative of an English constituency. The Chief Secretary had said that the English constituencies which were concerned in this matter had agreed to accept the Bill on the understanding that it would work properly. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would tend to make the Bill work properly; and therefore every British representative should agree to it. The desire of the landlords of Ireland, all through the discussion, had been to come to an amicable arrangement with the hon. Gentlemen who represented the tenants, because they felt that unless the Bill worked well and satisfactorily, and to the satisfaction of both landlords and tenants, it would be unacceptable. Undoubtedly there were some landlords in Ireland who would have preferred to have the zones alone, and to have every agreement come within the zones; but he might say, on behalf of all the landlords with whom he came in contact, that they cheerfully accepted this Amendment, and on their behalf he heartily supported the right hon. Gentleman.

MAJOR JAMESON (Clare, W.)

said he wished to join in the congratulations to the Chief Secretary on the course he had taken, and to re-assure the hon. Member for South Tyrone that they would not lose their heads over this matter.

Question put and negatived.

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

MR. LEAMY (Kildare, N.)

said that the question to which the Amendment he wished to propose referred had been touched upon the other day, and the right hon. the Chief Secretary seemed to think that he could not advance any further than he had already gone. But it was abundantly clear that Members from all quarters of the House were in favour of extending the benefits of the Act to the large farmers of Ireland. His Amendment was of a very modest character. It was founded on a resolution of the National Convention, and applied to the case of large farms which had been partly used for tillage purposes and partly for grazing or dairying purposes within the last five years. In these cases the limitations should be extended, and the Estates Commission should be empowered to sanction an advance for the purchase of these farms. If the right hon. Gentleman accepted the Amendment he would find that he would be doing no violence whatever to the promise he had made to the British taxpayer when he introduced the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had shown that of the 80,000 smaller tenants in Ireland who had already purchased their farms there had hardly been a single defaulter; and surely if that were the case in regard to the poor tenants in some of the most wretched parts of Ireland, and that they had paid their money readily and cheerfully, there could be no doubt that the large farmers, who had such a great stake in the country, would not become defaulters. Whenever the Irish tenant farmer got fair play and was honestly dealt with, and was not forced into an unfair bargain, he did his level best to carry out his bargain. The question of the repudiation of these bargains was not worth taking into consideration. The honour of Ireland would be the best guarantee for the maintenance of the bargains. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 21, at end, to insert the words '(4) Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary contained in the Purchase of Land Amendment Act, 1888, an advance may be sanctioned under the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts exceeding the sum of three thousand pounds or five thousand pounds, as the case may be, to one purchaser where, in the opinion of the Land Commission, it is expedient to make any such larger advance for the purpose of carrying out the sale of a large farm which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, has been for five years before the passing of this Act mainly used for tillage or dairying purposes.'"—(Mr. Leamy.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. CAREW (Meath, S.)

said that unless the advance to the tenants to enable them to purchase were extended, a number of tenants who could purchase under the existing Acts would be excluded from the operation of this Bill. There was no doubt that the purchasing power of the £3,000 and £5,000, the amounts allowed under the law at present, would, under this Bill, be considerably reduced. He took the case of a tenant purchasing under the existing Acts and compared it with the case of a tenant purchasing under the Bill. He took eighteen years purchase as the average purchase price of first-term rents under the existing Acts. A tenant purchasing at eighteen years secured a reduction of 28 per cent. of his rent. The annuity to repay £3,000 advance was £120. Consequently, at eighteen years purchase an advance of £3,000 would reach all tenants whose rents were £166 a year and under. Similarly, under a £5,000 advance, the annuity to repay it would reach all tenants whose rents were £277 and under. Under the Bill he took 20 per cent. as the average reduction on second-term rents, and 30 per cent. on first-term ones. The annuity to repay £3,000 was £95 12s. 6d. A rent on which this represented a 20 per cent. reduction was £119, and 30 per cent. £136 in round figures. Under the £5,000 advance the annuity to repay it was £159. A rent on which this represented a 20 per cent. reduction was £199, and 30 per cent. reduction £227. It consequently followed on the basis of these figures that, if the limits of advance remained as at present, under the £3,000 advance, all first-term rents between £136 and £166, and all second-term ones between £119 and £150, would be excluded from the benefit of the existing Acts. Under the £5,000 advance, first-term rents between £227 and £277, and second-term rents between £199 and £250, would be excluded. It was only necessary to state such an anomaly to have it rectified. This was not merely a tenant's question, but a labourer's one as well. The tenants whom it was the intention to benefit, were the largest employers of labour in their respective districts. The least service the State could do to the country was to help the large farmer, for by so doing it stayed the tide of emigration. As he desired to see the Bill made law, he would only express the hope that the Chief Secretary would see his way to increase the advances so as to put the tenants, if not in a better, certainly in no worse position than under the existing Acts.

MR. KILBRIDE (Kildare, S.)

said he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment of his hon. friend. Otherwise, every judicial rent of £200 and upwards would, in his opinion, be excluded. He based his calculation on the average number of years purchase, as he did not suppose that rents of this character would be sold at the minimum price, nor did he imagine the maximum price would he paid, and he calculated that a £200 second occasion rent would be the extreme limit that would be covered by the provisions of the Bill as it stood. It was notorious that many farmers in Leinster and Munster, whose holdings were partly agricultural and partly pastoral, would be excluded if the right hon. Gentleman adhered to the present limits. They heard a great deal about Irish emigration, and they heard a great deal from labour representatives about the number of working men in Ireland who were obliged to seek work in England, with the result that they reduced the Standard rate of wages, because they increased competition. But if large farmers in Leinster who employed a considerable amount of labour, and also the dairy far hers in the Golden Vale were excluded from the benefits of the Bill, how could the working classes find employment in the rural districts. The benefits of the Bill should not be confined solely to the tenant farmers and the landlords. One of the great advantages of the Bill would be that it would enable large farmers to give an increased amount of employment. He would therefore impress on the right hon. Gentleman the absolute necessity of accepting the Amendment. The British taxpayer ran no risk. The money would be secure whether it was advanced to a large farmer or a small farmer. His hon. friend had rightly confined his Amendment to farms which were substantially tillage or dairy farms, and had not asked for the inclusion of grass farms. Other hon. Gentlemen might be more interested than his hon. friend or himself in keeping Ireland green to the eye at any rate, and would probably move Amendments to include grass farms. He, however, was not particularly interested in grass farms; and the Amendment was confined to a class of farmers who were a benefit to the country in which they lived.

MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent)

said he did not find any fault with hon. Gentlemen opposite in pressing their views on the Government. The Chief Secretary, however, stated the other day that he intended to adhere to the position he had taken up on the Second Reading, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not now increase the liabilities of the British taxpayer. The right hon. Gentleman was aware that the Bill was not popular on his side of the House, because hon. Gentlemen now found that they were not getting what they bargained for. A change had undoubtedly taken place. Hon. Gentlemen were willing to give £12,000,000 because they hoped and expected that the Bill would be a permanent settlement of the land question. Now, hon. Gentlemen opposite said that it would not be a final settlement. In those circumstances the liability of the British taxpayer ought not to be increased, and he hoped the Chief Secretary would stand firm.

*SIR JOHN COLOMB

said he regretted the speech of his hon. friend; but if he had studied the question his hon. friend would see that there was no question of increasing the liability of the British taxpayer. He had a right to say that, because he also represented the British taxpayer, whose interests he had to consider. But he would entreat his hon. friend not to intervene before he had looked into the matter. He would not repeat the arguments he had already used in favour of the limits being extended. All he would say was that he believed the landlords of Ireland were universally in favour of the principle of the Amendment, while not committing themselves to all the details.

MR. EDWARD BARRY (Cork County, S.)

said he rose to support the Amendment. His constituents were in favour of extending the limit to farms which were partly tillage and partly dairy farms. At the same time he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would draw the line at that, because the large dairy farms employed no labour except such as was required in the shape of dairymen.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he desired to intervene at this stage of the Bill for the sake of arriving at a proper definition of these farms. He had consulted his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject, and in his judgment some extension might possibly be made to secure an advance in such cases. The capital amount involved was insignificant when dealing with a problematical loan of £100,000,000. Therefore the Chancellor of the Exchequer and himself were agreed that some extension was desirable, but he could not agree to an unlimited extension and he thought £7,000 would amply meet the case. The only other observation he had to make was that he did not think they could profitably discuss this matter when a number of hon. Gentlemen who had opinions on the subject had not put their views on the Paper in the form of Amendments. As the matter of limit was important, he would move an Amendment to make it £7,000, and he engaged before the Committee ended to put down a definition of that to which they intended it should apply. He moved to put in after the words?' Purchase Acts" the word "not" and after the words "sum of" to omit "three" and insert "seven," and to omit in the next line" or £5,000, as the case may be," then they could omit "larger" in line 6, so that the clause would read as follows—"(4) Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary contained in the Purchase of Land Amendment Act, 1888, an advance may be sanctioned under the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts not exceeding the sum of £7,000 to one purchaser where, in the opinion of the Land Commission, it is expedient to make any such advance for the purpose of carrying out the sale of a large farm which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, has been for five years before the passing of this Act substantially used for tillage or dairying purposes." He would prefer to leave the rest of the clause as it stood to be considered on Report.

Amendment proposed to proposed Amendment— In line 3, after the word 'Acts' to insert the word 'not,' and after the words 'sum of' to leave out the word 'three' and insert the word 'seven,' and to leave out the words 'or five thousand pounds as the case may be in line 4, the word 'larger' in line 6."—(Mr. Wyndham.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to include the grazing farms.

MR. WYNDHAM

No, only the agricultural land.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was a very great one, but he would suggest with regard to those lands that were partly tillage and partly grazing land, whether the right hon. Gentleman could not use a word which would be quite plain to the Land Commissioners and call them "mixed farms." Except in the county of Dublin there was no such thing as a pure tillage farm and, according to the phrase the right hon. Gentleman used, a farm of 100 acres in extent, having only thirty acres tilled, would be a tillage farm. He would suggest the right hon Gentleman in defining these farms should find a word not capable of being misunderstood by the Land Commissioners.

*MR. KENNEDY (Westmeath, N.)

supported the suggestion of the hon. Member for North Louth. According to the Amendment as he now read it one third of a farm at least should be tilled. If that interpretation were correct, outside the county of Dublin there would not be a single farm over 120 acres in extent, which would be admitted to the benefits of this Act. What were the limits of tillage? He was a grazier, but he was not speaking on behalf of the graziers. The £7,000 limit put the graziers out of it altogether. They would buy out no grazier for £7,000. [An IRISH MEMBER: You know nothing about Connaught.] It was very unfortunate that every question which affected Leinster had to be viewed through Connaught spectacles. This question of tillage was not a question of yesterday. Two hundred years ago there was a law in force in Ireland that five acres out of every 100 should be kept under the plough. Would that be regarded as "substantial tillage" within the meaning of this Amendment? Yet it was those farms that employed labour. Who would give employment if they did not? Did the small farmers do it? On those farms there was only employment enough for the family. Did the graziers do it? The men who gave the employment were the large farmers, men who farmed 100 or 200 acres, whose annual rental ran to £200 or £300. It was the farmer who resided on his land and who I kept up a permanent staff, not necessarily engaged in tillage, who employed labour. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for North Louth.

MR. WYNDHAM

said the last speech had proved the wisdom of his advice that they should take the Amendment as it stood, and then hon. Members who had views on the subject should put Amendments on the Paper. He had no wish to exclude agricultural holdings, but he appealed to the Committee to bring the discussion to a close. They were all agreed as to the exclusion of grazing farms, and they were in substantial agreement as to finding a proper definition to cover agricultural holdings. That definition, however, could not possibly be framed at once, and it was only waste of time further to discuss it.

MR. LEAMY

was understood to say that he had been willing that this limit should be increased simply because under the Bill as it stood a large number of his constituents would be unable to take full benefit of it, but after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman he was quite prepared to wait.

MR. COGHILL

expressed a desire to have the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this Amendment. It would also be an advantage, as there were some questions on which the Cabinet were not altogether united, to have the opinion of the Colonial Secretary.

MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)

thought the announcement of the Chief Secretary entitled him, as a representative of the British taxpayer, to ask two or three questions. The first was, whether the right hon. Gentleman and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made any estimate of the addition to the £100,000,000 advance involved in the extension to £7,000. The second was as to the effect of the extension on the bonus. Would it have the effect of diminishing the amount of the bonus which could be assigned to the poorer estates, upon which it was desirable to facilitate purchase to an even greater extent than on the richer estates? The third was whether, supposing the bonus was affected, the right hon. Gentleman intended to increase the total amount of the bonus.

MR. WYNDHAM

said it was not intended to increase the bonus. It was impossible to make an estimate of the additional capital involved by this extension; it might possibly be £100,000 or £120,000, but in any case it was infinitesimal in relation to the £100,000,000.

*THE CHAIRMAN

suggested that the most convenient way in which to put the question would be for the Amendment to the Amendment to be withdrawn, and then he would put the Amendment in its amended form.

Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. TULLY

expressed the hope that no loophole would be left to the grazier through the word "dairying." Many graziers were now taking on cows and selling the milk to the creameries, and they might come in under the term "dairying."

Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

*SIR JOHN COLOMB

moved the omission of Sub-section (4). He pointed out that since the introduction of the Bill the framework and the principles of Clause 1 had been totally changed, and the state of things to which this subsection was intended to apply no longer existed. He therefore could not see the use of retaining the sub-section.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 22, to leave out Subsection 4."—(Sir John Colomb.)

Question proposed "That Sub-section 4 stand part of the clause."

MR. WYNDHAM

thought it would be better to retain the Sub-section, as possibly when the question of the congested estates was discussed some alterations would be made rendering the Sub-section necessary. It had to be borne in mind that these congested estates were not sold indiscriminately to the tenants, but were bought by a State Department; and there was a provision in the Bill authorising expenditure for the improvement of such estates. In the interests of the general taxpayers it was necessary to buy these estates as cheaply as possible, and they could not enact in one part of the Bill that public money should be spent on the improvement of these estates, and in another part put a statutory limitation on the price. He hoped the hon. and gallant Member would not press his Amendment.

*SIR JOHN COLOMB

said he would withdraw the Amendment in view of the statement of the Chief Secretary, but he hoped that if material Amendments were made on Clause 5 the right hon. Gentleman would re-consider the matter.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. DILLON

, in moving to extend Sub-section (4) to holdings on estates purchased by the Congested Districts Board, said he had some doubt as to the necessity of the Amendment. The considerations to which the right hon. Gentleman had just referred applied equally to these holdings, and he was sure that the Chief Secretary would accept the Amendment if it was necessary.

Amendment moved— In page 2, line 23, after the word 'Act' to insert 'nor in the case of holdings on estates purchased by the Congested Districts Board.'"—(Mr. Dillon.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

pointed out that there might be congested estates outside a congested district.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he was willing to accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill."

MR. DILLON

said that, at an earlier stage, he objected to the clause on two main grounds. The first was the illogical and intolerable proposition that a landlord should not be allowed to sell to his tenant at a price on which both might agree. He was glad to say that the Chief Secretary and the representatives of the more rational section of the Irish landlords had agreed to remote that objection, and, in doing so, had met one of the strongest objections to the clause. There remained, however, an objection which he felt bound to mention before the clause was disposed of; for though it had been largely mitigated by the Amendment of the Chief Secretary, it had not been altogether removed. That objection was the retention in the Bill, as regarded the whole body of the judicial tenantry of Ireland, of the two limits. These limits would set up an artificial and totally false standard of the price of land in that country. That standard, in the minds of many, would be, not the minimum price, but, he feared, the mean price of the minimum and the maximum, and that would be twenty-one and a half or twenty-two years purchase of the first-term judicial rents, and twenty-five years purchase of the second-term judicial rents. What was the present ascertained value of land in Ireland? The average price in 80,000 sales, extending over the last fifteen years, was between seventeen and eighteen years purchase on the basis of first-term judicial rents. Calculating the land stock at a selling price of ninety-two it represented, reduced to terms of cash, sixteen and a half years purchase of the rent. The average price of all the holdings valued for purposes of sale in Ireland in the Land Judge's Court for the year ending the 31st March, 1902, was 17.9. That fact was of special value, because it was based on the valuation of the Land Commission, and therefore acted as a check upon the bargains he had referred to. The Land Commission had to value the farms, and the price worked out at 17.9 years purchase on the average, but in that was included a year of cash ordered to be added in addition to the price estimated by the Land Commission. Therefore the average price put on was seventeen years purchase, and that had to be valued in depreciated land stock. Consequently, the real price was at the rate of fifteen and a half years purchase on a cash basis of the judicial rents. What he dreaded was that this might put into the minds of the Irish landlords the idea that they were entitled to claim these terms in all future sales. The importance of what the Chief Secretary had said to-day could not be exaggerated. He did not estimate the importance of what had taken place simply on account of the particular concession which had been made. What he valued more than that was that a condition of hostility and bitter animosity between the representatives of the landlords and tenants had been altered and changed in a most marvellous degree by what the Chief Secretary had done. He had been regarded by hon. Members as a hopeless irreconcilable, but now he saw light upon the Irish land question, and if the landlords would approach the tenants in the same spirit which had been shown by Irish representatives in the House, and by the Chief Secretary, and if they would abandon the idea that they were to use this Bill in order to get higher prices; if they would approach the working of this Bill in that spirit, in his opinion this measure would bring to an end the Irish land war. The importance of what had taken place, therefore, was by no means to be limited to the great concession which the Chief Secretary had granted. It might have far-reaching results, because if the Irish landlords dealt with the evicted tenants in a generous spirit, and if they were restored to their farms upon generous terms—if they approached the sale of their estates in a spirit similar to that displayed in the consideration of this clause, then he thought the day was near at hand when the question would be settled by the goodwill of the tenants and the landlords alike.

*MR. T. W. RUSSELL

said he desired to say at once that as Clause 1 was first introduced it would have been impossible for him to vote for it. He asked the Committee to look at what had been accomplished by three days discussion. They had got a £7,000 limit placed in the Bill instead of £5,000, and that would bring in a considerable number of large farmers, who ought not to be excluded from the Bill. They had also abolished the perpetual rent-charge. He thought that was another advantage. He knew there were differences of opinion upon that point in some quarters, but there were no differences amongst the Irish tenants upon that question. Besides this, they had got one-half of the Irish tenantry of Ireland taken out of the zone altogether. The non-judicial tenants numbered 130,000, and the tenants on the congested districts taken outside the zone would count up to 250,000. The great concession made this afternoon would leave the judicial tenantry free to negotiate their bargains either I within or outside the zone. That was a considerable achievement, and Clause 1 was now in such a shape that Irish representatives could return to Ireland and endeavour to make this Bill a success.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)

said it was only right that an "Outlander" of some sort should have a little say in this matter, especially at this most critical period in the history of the Bill. As it originally stood, this clause was of such a character that any one disposed to regard it from the point of view of the British taxpayer would have had some difficulty in voting for it. But there had been great transformations. After narrow shaves, and great dangers escaped, the right hon. Gentleman and his Bill had got into smooth waters. That must be a matter for unmitigated congratulation on the part of every one having the interests of Ireland or of the United Kingdom at heart. The attitude which he took up on the Second Reading was one of friendliness to the general purpose of the Bill, with a desire to look critically at the provisions as far as they affected the interests of the tenants; because the interests of the taxpayers were involved in the interests of the tenants. When he spoke of taxpayers he always remembered that there were taxpayers in Ireland, although, of course, the larger portion of the burden would fall upon those on this side of the channel, who were not directly concerned in the negotiations which had taken place. The interest of the taxpayer was wrapped up in the interest of the tenant, because if the conditions imposed on the tenants were in any way burdensome, there was every probability that as years went on difficulties would arise; and if there were not repudiation of a violent character, there might be great hardship, and, therefore, great difficulty in maintaining the financial interests of the Imperial Treasury. An arrangement had been come to after great difficulty, which did secure for the clause the acceptance of those who spoke on behalf of the Irish tenants; and that was a security that, when the Treasury was engaging to spend so large a sum of money, and to risk so large an amount of credit, the desired purpose would be attained—namely, peace, contentment, and prosperity among the different classes in Ireland. It had been quite understood on all hands that here and there landlords and tenants will be found outside the Bill. But that was a small matter compared with the equitable and reasonable relations established between the tenants paying instalments, and the Treasury receiving those instalments. It was satisfactory to those who regarded this matter from his point of view that those who were entitled to speak on behalf of the tenant-farmers of Ireland accepted cordially, and as a sufficient solution of the question, the proposal as it now stood. His hon. friend the Member for East Mayo, whose remarks had been more critical in their character than those of some of the hon. Members with whom he acted, had spoken of now seeing daylight in that matter, and expressed the hope that this Bill would put an end to the land war in Ireland.

MR. DILLON

Yes, if the landlords act reasonably.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said that was so, of course; but he was bound to say that so far as the landlords in this House were concerned he did not think they had acted or spoken unreasonably in the course of these debates. There had been a corresponding disposition for conciliation not only in the gushing moments of the Conference in Ireland, but throughout the trying tests of these debates on both sides. They must trust that the same spirit would be applied when the Bill became an Act and was put in force. He had said that he and his fellow "Outlanders" had no responsibility in this matter. He was bound to say that they had very little knowledge of what had occurred in the matter, because though they had seen some movements which indicated that there was a shifting of the scenes behind, the curtain had never been lifted. And they did not know at all how, or why, or by whom, the arrangements had been come to, but if the arrangements were satisfactory, although they were not in any way responsible for them, they would join their voices with those of the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Members from Ireland in expressing the earnest hope that the Bill as amended might bring all the blessings which were expected from it.

MR WYNUHAM

thought it was only due to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that he should express his satisfaction at the words which had fallen from his lips The right hon. Gentleman did not search too closely into the intricate secrets of Irish land legislation, but was satisfied with the result of their efforts. He was satisfied to this extent, in the first place, that he could continue an attitude of more than friendly neutrality towards the various controversies which sometimes divided them into different classes in Ireland, and that he could in fact give support to the measure so long as the spirit which prevailed this afternoon did still prevail. The right hon. Gentleman expressed satisfaction, in which he himself shared, at the fact that the representatives of the tenants accepted this clause. The right hon. Gentleman had stated, and he re-echoed his remarks, that the attitude of those who represented the landlords had been a remarkable attitude. It was important that both of those classes should continue to be actuated by the spirit which informed the proceedings of the Land Conference with the result to which they had attained. With that result they might not reach finality in the sense the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent attached to the word, but they would avoid a finality of another character which would have been disastrous to Ireland—a finality of any attempt made by the representatives of the tenants and the representatives of the landlords to meet on one common platform for the good of their common country.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 2.

MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.)

Moved an amendment to the effect that the limit should be increased from ten to fifty acres. His object was to give a wider area for the selection of tenants who were to be transplanted from their present bog holdings and put on better land. If they were to take the people out of what had been called the "agricultural slums," and move them on to the grazing lands, there must be a wider limit than the Chief Secretary had inserted in the Bill.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 30, to leave out the word 'ten,' and insert the word 'fifty.'"—(Mr. Tully.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'ten' stand part of the clause."

MR. DILLON

said he had an Amendment to the same Sub-section on the paper to leave out the words "acres in area, and five." He wished to say a word on his own Amendment, because it was affected by that now proposed by the hon. Member for South Leitrim. The limitation under this clause was very important, because for the first time there was inserted in a Bill a definition by the Government of an uneconomic holding. But anyone acquainted with the West of Ireland knew that to put the limit in this case at £5 rateable value was absurd. His Amendment was designed to raise the limit to £10, which he thought a very moderate demand indeed. He objected to a limit of £5 being set up, or to any check being placed on the action of the Commissioners in enlarging holdings valued under £10 a year. He would not support the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Leitrim, but he would urge the Chief Secretary to consider whether he could not make an announcement which would render it unnecessary to move his own.

MR. WYNDHAM

said the hon. Member had raised a rather large question here, and perhaps he had in his mind also the similar definition in Clause 5 of a congested estate.

MR. DILLON

They do not necessarily hang together.

MR. WYNDHAM

said they did not necessarily hang together, but when he came to that clause they would be able to discuss the limits involved. He would, warn the hon. Member that the limits in Clause 5 affected the taxpayers, and put a pecuniary obligation upon them, but he was prepared to say that in this clause the definition did not affect the taxpayers. Indeed, he was not sure that by acceptance of the Amendment less money would not have to be paid than would be paid under the definition as the Bill stood. They had now passed from holdings which were occupied, and they were dealing with land which wag unoccupied, and which might be sold to certain classes of people. In drawing up the clause he had had regard to the fact that the amount of untenanted or spare land was a limited quantity, and there was not enough to go round. If he accepted the hon. Member's words and left out of account the factor of area, there would be a presumption that this additional land, of which they had not too much, should be given to increase any holding worth £10 or under. But some of these holdings were very good indeed. He did not know that there was enough to go round, and the reason which led the Government to adopt this definition was that they should give the benefit of the untenanted land in the first place to those who needed it most. They thought they ought to have regard to the holdings which were indubitably of an undesirable character, and not include holdings from which the occupiers could gain a fair livelihood. He submitted these considerations as reasons for not hastily abandoning the provision in the Bill.

MR. DILLON

said what he desired was that tenants whose holdings were under £10 rateable value should get the preference where there was land which they required in the neighbourhood or within reasonable distance. He was perfectly willing to refrain from proceeding with his Amendment for the present to give the right hon. Gentleman time for considering the matter which he desired to see dealt with. He could afterwards move the Amendment in another form.

MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.)

said that the whole difficulty would be solved if a preference were given to the smaller holdings in cases where there was not sufficient land to give extensions all round. What was wanted was a system of leveling up.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he saw the great force of the argument of the hon. Member for East Mayo, and he would gladly consider the matter before the Report.

MR. TULLY

said that the clause assumed that the value of the holding would be 10s. an acre. His Amendment assumed that it would be 8s. an acre, because he knew hundreds of cases in which the holding consisted of fifty or one hundred acres of bog-land which required to be improved into good grazing land.

MR. WYNDHAM

said that all those who knew Ireland would agree that mere extent of land, even if it were bad, was better than a holding that was too small. The tenants often did wonders with such land. Twenty or twenty-five acres were often reclaimed by the tenant and his whole family working at it, and they could make a living from what was formerly uneconomic land. Their first care should be for those whose acreage was so restricted that, no matter how large the family, they could not turn it into an economic holding. He would consider before Report whether he could accept an Amendment, not going so far as suggested by the hon. Member for East Mayo, but in that direction.

MR. TULLY

said that after that assurance he would withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. DILLON

said he had an Amendment on the Paper to omit from Subsection (d) the words, "who is not at the date of the purchase the tenant or proprietor of a holding.' If these words were retained they would destroy the effect of the sub-section in the case of unhappy tenants who had been out of their holdings for fifteen or twenty years, and who had got a little cottage and a patch of land from a neighbour. That would be strictly called a holding, and the result would be that the Commissioners, when they came to re-instate them under this sub-section, I would find themselves unable to act.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 34, to leave out from the word 'apply' to the word 'Provided' in line 35."—(Mr. Dillon.)

Question proposed, "That the words; proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."—(Mr Herbert Robertson.)

MR. WYNDHAM

said he saw the force of what the hon. Member said, that a holding might be a mere patch by the roadside, and he was prepared to consider that matter. He was not, however, prepared to say that he would go the whole length of the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, but he would put down some definition as to what was a holding.

MR. DILLON

Put some Amendment down.

MR. WYNDHAM

I will put some Amendment down before the Report stage.

MR. DILLON

Then I will withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON

moved— In page 2, line 38, after the word 'made' to insert the words, 'to the legal personal representative of the deceased person, if any, or, if none, then. …'

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

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

said that the Amendment would be unworkable. The legal personal representative might have other avocations in life, and might be absolutely unable to take up the land.

MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON

said he would withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. O'SHEE (Waterford, W.)

said he wished to move as an Amendment the insertion of a sub-section bringing within the category of persons to whom advances might be made "a labourer as defined by the Labourers (Ireland) Acts 1883 to 1896, as amended by this Act, and residing upon, or within, three miles of the estate. "He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would accept his Amendment, because the labourers were looking forward to getting allotments of untenanted land, and they would be disappointed if they were not enabled to do so, particularly in the South of Ireland.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 39, at end, to insert the words, '(e) A Labourer, as defined in the Labourers (Ireland) Acts, 1883 to 1896, as amended by this Act, and residing upon or within three miles of the estate.'"—(Mr. O'Shee.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. WYNDHAM

said that whatever might be alleged as to the merits of the hon. Member's Amendment, he was quite clear that it could not be properly dealt with until that part of the Bill referring to labourers was reached. He intended when Clause 4, which referred to agricultural labourers, was reached, to put down an Amendment dealing with them.

MR. O'SHEE

said that in that event he would withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

*MR. HUGH LAW (Donegal, W.)

moved as an Amendment to Clause 2 that an advance might be made to a person who, in the opinion of the Land Commission, would be a suitable occupier for the holding. The Chief Secretary had told them that land was a commodity which was necessarily limited in certain districts. But there were districts in which it might happen that, after persons having prior rights had been satisfied, there was land remaining which was available for the creation of new holdings. Everybody in Ireland was becoming acutely aware of the evils that had been brought on the country by the continuous decrease of the population. It was obvious that while the settlement of the land question in the ordinary acceptance of the term would have important results upon the question of depopulation, inasmuch as it would increase the feeling of security in the country, at the same time it would not directly lead to the creation of more homes. That was the object at which this Amendment was aimed. A great statesman, for whom some of them at any rate had a great admiration, had said that what he was working for was. "more homes." That phrase was not then applied to Ireland, but he could say that was what they also desired to work for. During the last fifty years in Ireland there had been a great many fires put out, and he and his friends desired that the smoke of the turf fire might rise again from as many homesteads as, with due regard to the general economic welfare of the country, might be possible in the future.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 39, at end to insert the words '(f) A person who in the opinion of the Land Commission would be a suitable occupier of such holding.'"—(Mr. Hugh Law.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. WYNDHAM

said he would point out that Clause 7 of the Bill, which related to the purchase of untenanted land, fully dealt with the subject raised by the hon. Member. Their efforts would work better if they did not concentrate them on one district. Hitherto they had been hampered by dealing with only one estate or holding. He knew the difficulties that had to be faced, but he did not believe they could carry out his scheme if they included strangers from another county. He believed that on the lines of the Bill a great deal could be done, and practical assistance would not be given by adding to the category those persons who had nothing to do with the estate or locality.

MR. O'SHEE

supported the Amendment on the ground that the owner of the holding on an adjoining estate might be a useful occupier.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he was willing to develop the argument still further. That the son of the holder on an adjoining estate might be a suitable person he was quite willing to admit. He had given close attention to the subject and believed that they must proceed by estates and not work sporadically all over Ireland. It was doubtful whether there would be enough land available for all if the contemplated categories of hon. Members were to be included in the Bill.

*MR. HUGH LAW

said he would not press the Amendment if the right hon. Gentleman found, after full consideration, that he was unable to accept it. What he had in his mind was that the son of a small farmer or for that matter of a large farmer should, instead of being under the necessity of emigrating to America, be enabled, as far as possible, to marry and settle down in Ireland, although not necessarily in the neighbourhood of their fathers' holdings. After all, Ireland was not a very big place, and although it was true that schemes of migration of existing occupiers had not been so far successful, it would be a somewhat different matter to deal as he suggested with the young men who, in the natural course of events, would leave the parent nest and make homes for themselves elsewhere. However, if the right hon. Gentleman felt that the object in view would not be attained by the Amendment he would not press it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN

moved an Amendment for the advance to be made to a caretaker of a holding on the estate, or a person who is in occupation of such holding as tenant at will or tenant at sufferance.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 39, at end, to insert the words, '(e) A caretaker of a holding on the estate or a person who is in occupation of such holding as tenant at will, or tenant at sufferance.'"—(Mr. William O'Brien.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. WYNDHAM

said that under this clause they were dealing with the tenant class, and expressly with those who had ceased to be tenants but had been tenants within five years. He was unable to accept the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

*SIR JOHN COLOMB

moved to omit Sub-section 2, which limited the advance in respect of any particular farm to £500. He was a little troubled as to the real meaning of the words, but, no doubt in replying to the Amendment, the Chief Secretary would explain them. He thought the whole object of this clause was to give the Land Commission power to deal with a very complicated and difficult question. In such cases it was obvious that it was not desirable that the amount should be put so low as £500, and he would consequently like to see either no limit at all or an extension of the sum. His own feeling was to entirely omit the sub-section, but in any event there was a very strong feeling that a higher limit should be allowed.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 40, to leave out Sub-section 2.'—(Sir John Colomb.)

Question proposed, "That Sub-section 2 stand part of the clause."

MR. WYNDHAM

said he thought that perhaps the best plan would be to explain why the Sub-section had been included in the Bill. Clause 2 dealt with persons who had no estate, local or otherwise, on Irish soil, and who had no right under any Land Act, but who would like to become tenant farmers or peasant proprietors under this Bill. There was only a certain amount of land available, and therefore if it were to be handed out in large slices to those who had no right to it, there would not be enough for persons who had a right. Some limitation was necessary, and although it was very difficult to work out the problem successfully, a simple solution was found in limiting to a certain sum the advance to persons having no holdings at all. Assuming the case of a man with a very small holding who wished to increase it from seven to twenty acres, the Government said the new advance should not exceed a certain sum, and in that way they made the land go round further. Whether £500 was a right sum was open to argument, and he thought it would be possible to increase it to £1000.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN

said the Amendment he now moved was a vital Amendment. Its object was to put the evicted tenants on an equality with the others and not to confine the evicted tenants to an advance of £500 purchase money. As the Committee was aware, as the Clause stood it would shut out the whole of the evicted tenants with a valuation of over £20 a year if the advance was limited to £500. Even if the Land Commissioners saw fit to extend the limit to £1,000 it would only admit evicted tenants whose valuation was below £40, and would shut out the rest. He would not labour the point, because everybody who knew Ireland knew that the effect of that would be to leave this delicate and difficult question in a more unsettled and angry condition than it had ever been before. It would inevitably have the appearance of a deliberate policy of vengeance against the very class who naturally had the strongest claims on the sympathy of their brother tenants, because they were the men who had sacrificed their holdings for the sake of their brother tenants. He was quite satisfied neither the Chief Secretary nor the Irish landlords were animated by any such vindictive and stupid motive, and he with confidence commended the Amendment to the right hon. Gentleman's acceptance. He could assure him that if he would accept this Amendment frankly now, he would be sending a message of peace that would give more satisfaction in Ireland than the message he had sent that afternoon.

Amendment proposed— In page 2, line 40, after the word 'section' to insert the words 'to persons other than those mentioned in Sub-section one (d) hereof."'—(Mr. William O'Brien.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. DILLON

said he attached the utmost importance to this Amendment. After what had occurred he hoped to see the whole of the evicted tenants in Ireland restored to their old holdings. If they desired to affect the imagination of Ireland let the landlords only restore the evicted tenants, and if they would do that they would do more than anything else they could do to assist the passage of this measure. Let them do that and show that there was a general desire on the part of the landlords to close this chapter of war—and open a chapter of peace; and it would affect immediately the imagination of the people of Ireland and do more to make the working of the Act easy than anything else. It was not a question of money; it was a question of whether the war was to be prolonged or closed. He therefore desired to see before the Committee ended an intention on the part of Irish landlords to, as far as possible restore the evicted tenants to their old homes. This was a most important Amendment, and he hoped it would be accepted.

COLONEL SAUNDERSON (Armagh, N.)

understood the desire of hon. Gentlemen opposite to restore evicted tenants to their old homes, because the distressing circumstance of their eviction was mainly caused by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The landlords had no objection to restore an evicted tenant to his holding if it was not occupied, but they had the strongest objection to displacing a tenant for the purpose of restoring his predecessor who had been evicted.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

said he took it the hon. and gallant Member was in favour of the Amendment. The Amendment removed the disability which was in the Bill which applied to evicted tenants and not to other classes purchasing land. All they asked was that the condition of the evicted tenants should not be made worse than that of other people. He knew there was not the slightest feeling among Irish landlords against evicted tenants; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would tell the Committee that no distinction would be made.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he appreciated the importance of the point raised, but he could not see how it arose under this clause. He understood that it was desired that as many of these men as possible should return to their homes, and his hon. and gallant friend said that he desired that should be done. His desire would be to facilitate the solution of the question as much as possible, provided that no pressure was used to put in people who were not really farmers. He could accept no Amendment which would have that effect. He had intended to deal with the more important side of this question upon Clause 48, on which he should move at the end of the first subsection to insert the words—"Provided also that this sub-section shall not apply to the case of a former tenant or his representative purchasing his former holding." He could not go as far as he was here asked to go. They were dealing with the quantity of land that was available. He was, as he had said, prepared to alter the £500 to £1,000 or £2,000, which would make it possible for an evicted tenant to get an advance to make a start in life. But he could not make any advance to evicted tenants against others.

MR. KILBRIDE

understood the effect of the right hon. Gentleman's statement to be that, in the case of the evicted tenants who could not be restored to their former holdings, it would be impossible to give them an equivalent position to that which they had formerly held. The wounded soldiers of the land war must not be prejudiced by anything in this Bill if it was to promote a final settlement. In the case of a man who had had a holding at £100 rental, it would be impossible to put him in a corresponding position. By this limitation, a £100 evicted tenant would be turned into a £50 occupier. The whole case of the evicted tenants would be prejudiced. The main object of the Bill was to put an end to the land war, but if that end was to be achieved the wounded soldiers of the struggle must not be prejudiced by any provision of the Bill. The interest of the average Conservative Member in the Bill was to see the agrarian struggle settled in order that the Imperial interests of England all over the world might be settled. He really could not see why the right hon. Gentleman should refuse to give way on this point and leave to the discretion of the Estates Commissioners the amount to be advanced.

MR. DILLON

contrasted the minuteness of the point as regarded the cost of the amount of land involved with its immense importance, from the point of view of public feeling in Ireland. The Chief Secretary was proposing to say to the few tenants it concerned — and it was only a few tenants, but they were the men who had made the largest sacrifices in the course of the struggle—that if he could not restore them to their old homes he would penalise them, and make it impossible for the Commissioners to give them holdings as good as those from which they had been evicted. There were probably only a dozen or fifteen such men who would not come within the terms of the concession which the Chief Secretary had announced, but they were men who had a great hold on public opinion in their districts, and whose punishment would arouse the bitterest possible feeling. But what was it all for? The British taxpayer was not involved. The land was to be sold to somebody, and the British taxpayer would make the advance, no matter to whom it was sold. Moreover, the landlords had no objection. The sole point, according to the right hon. Gentleman, was that he had only a certain quantity of untenanted land, and that it would be a great mistake to give a large portion of that land to one man because he was an evicted tenant. He was influenced, not by the landlord's interest or the interest of the Treasury, but simply by a desire to do good to the Irish people. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to be guided in a matter of this kind by local opinion. No doubt this was a matter of sentiment, but he did not suppose there were more than 1,000 or 2,000 acres of land in dispute, and he was confident that the right hon. Gentleman, on consideration, would see that this was a matter vital in importance.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

said he would like to be allowed just to call to the mind of the Committee exactly what the Amendment meant. An overwhelming majority of the evicted tenants in Ireland were men who could be restored to their old holdings. The Chief Secretary had promised an Amendment which would deal satisfactorily with 99–100ths of these men. But there remained the one section of men whose farms had been "grabbed." Even of these cases the great majority would come in under the limitation of the right hon. Gentleman, and so it came to this, that they were now standing out for a limitation which would hit only a handful of men in Ireland. But in order to exclude these few men what were the Government going to do? They were going to leave a sore in Ireland which would not only have an evil effect in the localities where the men resided and where they were known, and where their old farms were, but also inflict injury on every part of Ireland, cause irritation all over the country, and militate against the chances of the Bill being satisfactorily received and worked. What were they doing it for? The Irish landlords had no interest in the matter—they were perfectly content that this handful of men should be treated on the same basis as the rest of the evicted tenants. Then in Heaven's name what did the Government mean by it? Why were not these men to be treated on the same basis as the rest of the evicted tenants? There was no substance in the case of the right hon. Gentleman. He could give way on this point and admit these men without injury to his Bill and without imposing any more liabilities on British taxpayers. It would be like losing the ship for a pen'orth of tar if they imperilled the Bill on this point. He could not conceive that the right hon. Gentleman would have any difficulty in giving way. He knew he was quite sympathetic on this evicted tenants question. He asked him not to stand on the mere symmetry of the clause; but to make this small concession which would be received, although so small, with even more satisfaction than the large concession given earlier in the evening. It might be a question of sentiment; but they could not leave sentiment out of the settlement of a question of this character, where they were trying to put an end to a social war and to bring classes together. He hoped, under the circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman would make the small concession they desired.

MR. BLAKE

said the purpose of this Bill was to create a sentiment of concord and conciliation in Ireland, but the right hon. Gentleman had declared that for reasons the force of which he quite appreciated he was unable to meet public opinion in this particular matter now at issue. That was extremely unfortunate, but if these people could not be restored to their own homes, they ought so far to be placed in the same position, that no pecuniary limitation should interfere with their getting holdings equivalent to those from which they had been evicted. He hoped these tenants would not be made the worst of their class. He thought it would be the height of unwisdom to mar the spirit and sentiment upon which this Bill depended by making thirty or forty martyrs and so many sources of disaffection without any question of the British taxpayer being involved. The least that could be done was to permit the new home to be of the same economic value as the old one. The number of persons affected was small, but the sentiment of the country was solid upon this question, and he implored the Chief Secretary to have regard to that sentiment and not mar the settlement of this question with a condition which one could not appreciate as being anything substantial at all.

*MR. HEMPHILL

appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. If the Committee had a free hand they would almost to a man vote in support of it. This proposal merely gave a discretion to the Land Commission to sell at the limitation price and to sell parcels of land to evicted tenants who could not be reinstated in their old homes. There was a provision to enable evicted tenants whose farms had not been occupied by other tenants to be reinstated. The object of this proposal was to give the Commissioners a discretion in regard to giving this land to men who had been driven out of house and home. There was no reason at all for making that invidious distinction. Under this clause they had authorised the Commissioners to sell to an evicted tenant a farm up to a certain limit, and by a subsequent clause they enabled evicted tenants to be restored to the farms which happened to be vacant. This third class of evicted tenants, who did not amount to more than twenty or thirty in the whole of Ireland, they were dealing with were a class whose farms had been taken by land-grabbers, and who were most anxious to be restored to their position of respectable tenant farmers, but who would be excluded if this Amendment were rejected.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would meet the view of Irish Members on this matter because it was really a very small question. He had taken the trouble in view of this debate to get a Return of the number of evicted tenants in the county he represented, and the number was not very large. He doubted if a single one of those tenants would be affected by the point under discussion. He was equally certain that there were districts where a good deal of bad feeling would be created if a single evicted tenant was not included in the benefits of this Act. It was a very small matter, but it was one which would leave a good deal of trouble behind if it was not dealt with. The question of evicted tenants was one upon which a great amount of attention had been concentrated, and if it was found that any large number of evicted tenants were made to suffer under this Bill, it would have the effect of making other tenants hold off in the hope that they might be able to get better terms for those who had fought their battles. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not make up his mind adversely, and if he was not prepared to accept the Amendment at the present moment, perhaps he would undertake to inquire for himself and see if he could not verify the statements which had been made.

MR. WYNDHAM

said he attached great importance to this question. Otherwise he should not have gone as far as he had done and suggested that the limit should be extended to £2,000, nor should he have drafted an Amendment on Clause 48 which would admit of any man who had lost his holding, returning to it. The question was not as simple as some hon. Members would have them suppose. They had in mind some definite class of men. His Bill dealt with all persons who had lost or surrendered their holdings during the last twenty-five years, and it would be invidious if the Government were to endeavour to select out of those who had lost their holdings for reasons good, bad, or indifferent, during that period, a limited number. His effort had been to draw no distinction—let bygones be bygones—in putting facilities before those who had lost their holdings, to put the same facilities before all, and to give the same facilities to those who had lost their holdings as were given to other persons in Ireland who had farms which were not adequate to support their existence. There was nothing vindictive or invidious in that. There was nothing in that which raised up a single memory of the bitter and unhappy past. The hon. Member for Clare had said that it would be regrettable if one evicted tenant were excluded from the benefits of the Bill. His words, perhaps, went somewhat further than his meaning. No evicted tenant was excluded from the Bill. But if they were to go up to a higher value than £2,000 there would be very great danger that some evicted tenants might be excluded from the benefits of the Bill. The amount at the disposal of the Government was limited, the classes to be relieved were many. Their means were small, their needs great, and he could not take the responsibility of asking the Committee to go further than he had indicated—viz., where it was possible to reinstate a tenant in his old holding to allow him to have the benefits which others enjoyed; but where it was not possible let him take his holding on equal terms with all other persons who sought the benefits of the Act, and come in on a scale which was higher than he had originally intended, and which would be dangerously high if he increased it to the exclusion of many who deserved to have their needs attended to, and, he believed, many of the evicted tenants.

MR. KILBRIDE

said he remembered a speech upon this question delivered two or three years ago by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, when he commenced his compulsory sale and purchase agitation. He did not pretend to quote the hon. Member accurately. What he meant was that he did not mean to quote him verbatim, but he intended to give the substance of what he said. The hon. Member stated that the landlord forgot the days when he was responsible for starting the Land Trust Company, and that was the medium through which evicted tenants were enabled to become occupiers. The Chief Secretary spoke about the amount of money being limited, but how much money would it take if he abandoned the £2,000 limit? Was he going to allow twenty of the wounded soldiers in the land war to continue in their present position because they were more active and more in the front of the battle than other people? Was he going to continue to make them believe that the landlords of Ireland had succeeded in inducing him to continue to persecute them? That would be the result if the right hon. Gentleman persisted in refusing to accept this Amendment. He was sure that later on, when the right hon. Gentleman came to the section he had indicated his intention to amend, he would have in the meantime changed his mind.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND

asked the Chief Secretary whether he could see his way to inquire for himself how many evicted tenants there were who could not be restored to old holdings of over £100, and who would be excluded from the benefits of this Act as it stood.

*MR. T. W. RUSSELL

said that he had been reproached for not having spoken on this subject. He refrained from speaking first of all because the subject under debate did not very much concern the part of the country he represented, and he therefore left the discussion to those who were likely to be interested He wished to say at once in justice to the Land Conference that he agreed there should be a settlement of this question, and he desired frankly to associate himself with hon. Members opposite in their contention. If he had not spoken it was because he did not wish to impede the progress of the Bill in a matter in which his own constituents and the province of Ulster were not largely concerned. It was perfectly true that in days gone by, when he thought proceedings were going on in Ireland which were not a credit to anybody, and which he thought were illegal, he took a strong line. He did not wish to go back on that. He desired to draw a sponge over those bitter memories. He did not think this was a large question, but he confessed that on the whole the words of the clause gave a chance of opening up a very great question because there was no definition of what an evicted tenant was save that he was a man evicted during the last twenty-five years. That was not the sense in which they understood the evicted tenants question. What they understood was that an evicted tenant was a man who had suffered during the prolonged agony of the land war, and tonight he desired to start with a clean slate on the question. He was with his hon. friends opposite, and he trusted that in the interests of peace and good feeling this open sore would not be left to mar the Bill.

*MR. CHANNING

said he wished to make an explanation. The Chief Secretary had indicated that he was prepared to accept the principle of the two Amendments he had on the Paper to enlarge the £500 limit to £1,000, and similarly £1,000to £2,000. He wished to explain to his hon. friends from Ireland that he had placed these Amendments on the Paper with the fullest intention of endeavouring from the point of view of an English Member to cover the case of the evicted tenants, the one point to which he attached almost more importance than any other in the Bill. He did not care to propose these Amendments now, as they might act in a restrictive sense. He thought the speech of the hon. Member for Cork and his Amendment did represent what was a fair and just line in dealing with this question. He most warmly supported as an English Liberal the demand that this open sore, which though small was irritating, should not be allowed to fester and create further trouble in the settlement of the Irish land question.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

said he entirely reciprocated the spirit in which the hon. Member for South Tyrone spoke as to the desirability of not mentioning those controversies associated with the past in the land struggle. Really, the reason they were pressing on the Government this apparently small point was the desire that a new chapter in the land question of Ireland should be opened in that spirit. He did not wish to use any language which might appear to be too strong, but at the same time he could not but impress upon the Committee the enormous importance to the future of Ireland of this comparatively small point with which they were dealing. In all wars there was a point of honour, which though apparently small itself had really infinitely larger results upon the future of the reconciled foes than many other points of greater magnitude and importance. The question of the evicted tenants was to the people of Ireland something like the exchange of prisoners in a campaign. The people expected the Irish representatives to see that these men were rescued from the position in which their patriotism and their desire for the good of their fellow tenants had landed them. The large holders who were evicted were a class who were entitled to appeal to them more strongly than those who had risked small amounts. Many of the smaller holders were face to face with chronic starvation, and if they risked their holdings they ran a comparatively small risk, but the large farmers in many cases were in a comparatively comfortable position. They were ready to risk, and in many cases to lose, good homes and farms in order to improve the position of their poorer brethren. It would be a shame on their part to desert these men. That was the feeling of the Irish people in regard to this matter. The spirit in which this Bill was received in Ireland would have a large amount to do with its success when it came into operation. The fight they had made on those benches had been inspired by the feeling that unless this Bill had the active co-operation of all forces in Ireland it would not have the great results they all desired it to have. They felt that if this question remained unsettled there would be a feeling of dissatisfaction, and, what was more, a feeling of strong and bitter indignation, which he was sure would have very serious effects indeed upon the future working of the measure.

That was the question from the sentimental point of view. Now he came down to concrete facts. The Chief Secretary seemed to be under the delusion that this was in point of numbers and money a large question; it was nothing of the kind. He thought he could count on the fingers of his two hands all the men to whom this question would apply. There were a few on the Luggacurran Estate, the Massereene estate, and the Clanricarde Estate. The Clanricarde Estate was a synonym for the fiercest aspect of the land war in Ireland during the last twenty years. There were 100 families evicted there, and they were still evicted. But there were just two of these families who would come under the Amendment with which they were now dealing. He took the Clanricarde Estate because there the landlord was most exacting in his demands and cruel in asserting them, and there the tenants made the strongest opposition. The right hon. Gentleman was giving to Ireland a great and revolutionary measure of reform. He was sending to Ireland a mighty message of peace; and was it worth while to deface and destroy to a large extent the kindly feeling and sense of relief with which the Irish people would see the end of this struggle of centuries, by excluding from the benefit of the Act two families on the estate in Ireland which had been the scene of the fiercest and wildest controversy? On the Luggacurran Estate there were six or seven families who were affected by this Amendment. That was the estate of the Marquess of Lansdowne, a member of the Ministry, and one of the men responsible for the introduction of this Bill. He was sure the noble Lord was most desirous that it should pass into law. He was a man of sense, judgment, and tact, and he did not believe that he would for a moment say that these six or seven tenants were to stand between Ireland and a satisfactory settlement of the question. He did not know what the figures were in regard to the Massereene Estate, but he knew that there was great bitterness of feeling on that estate, and he knew also that as long as there were some people not settled that part of the country would remain in a discontented condition.

And, it being half-past Seven of the Clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

Committee report Progress; to sit again this Evening.