HC Deb 11 December 1906 vol 167 c142
MR. GINNELL

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will obtain, through the Department of Agriculture, a Report on the condition of typical future tenants and of the farms they occupy, with a view to showing the effects of excessive rent, insecurity, and exclusion from the Land Courts except with the unobtainable permission of the landlord; and if he can hold out any hope of legislation next Session of admitting the 70,000 tenants of this class to the benefits of the ordinary law applicable to other tenants.

MR. BRYCE

The operation of the Land Law Acts is not a matter with which the Department of Agriculture have any official concern; and the Land Commission inform me that they have no information which would enable them to make a report upon the subject of the Question. The Act of 1881, which provided for the judicial fixing of fair rents, deliberately excluded future tenants from its operation, and, as I have repeatedly stated, I am not prepared, in answer to a Question, to discuss the difficult and intricate subject of the possibility or desirability of legislation in regard to these future tenants.