§ (1) The Estates Commissioners may make proposals and enter into negotiations—
- (a)for the purchase, under Section six of the Act of 1903, of any estate not situated in a congested districts county, notwithstanding that an application has not been made to them by the owner under that section;
- (b)for the purchase, under Section eight of the Act of 1903, of any untenanted land not situated in a congested districts county, whether required for the purposes mentioned in that section or for the purpose of resale to any persons to whom parcels, of land may be sold under this Act.
§ (2) For the purpose of enabling the Estates Commissioners to ascertain the 2510 boundaries, extent, and character of any estate or untenanted land which they propose to purchase and to estimate the price to be offered for the same, any inspectors or other persons appointed by the Commissioners may, after notice sent by post to the person who appears to the Commissioners to be the owner thereof, enter upon the estate or untenanted land and make all such inquiries and do all such things as may be necessary for the purpose aforesaid.
This new Clause recasts to some extent Clause 39. It takes out Sub-section (6) from Clause 39, and makes a fresh Clause of it. The new Clause is important: it modifies Section 6 and Section 8 of the Act of 1903.As the law now stands under Section 6 the Estates Commissioners have no power to originate proceedings for the purchase by them of estates or untenanted lands. Their power to make the purchase only begins to be operative when the owner of the estate makes application in the prescribed form to the Land Commission to inquire into the circumstances of the case. This new Clause gives the Estates Commissioners power to enter into communication for the purchase under Section (6) of the Act of 1903 of an estate not situated in a congested district. It is part of the scheme of the Bill that the Estates Commissioners shall not operate within the area of the Congested Districts Board, but outside, under this Clause, they may originate proceedings. We have had experience under the Act of 1903, which I confess, as an administrator, I should be foolish not to be guided by, and it is the fact that the Estates Commissioners have in many cases been the originators of the negotiations which have resulted in sales under Section (6) of the Act of 1903. It is quite true that, in order to bring the law in to operation, the owner of the estate has to make an application in a prescribed form, but negotiations and overtures have been begun before that, and in the majority of cases, I think I am right in saying, they have been instituted by the Estates Commissioners themselves. The Estates Commissioners throw out a suggestion in a friendly way to a landlord, and ask whether he thinks it is likely that they may advantageously effect a purchase under Section 6, these overtures have resulted in an agreement to proceed under that section, and then the landlord puts himself right and makes an application in the prescribed form. I think that now after all these years we know how these things actually work in practice, we ought to give the Commissioners the right to act 2511 at once and to make proposals and enter into negotiations. Then also there is the purchase of untenanted land, and that also comes under the same consideration.
There is a power in this new Clause which was in the old Clause 39, enabling the Estates Commissioners to ascertain the boundaries, extent, and character of any estate or untenanted land, which they propose to purchase; and I think the time has gone by for anybody to represent that such a provision as that is an outrage upon the rights of property. We have got into a far more rational frame of mind both in England and in Ireland—certainly in Ireland, upon such a subject as that, although 40, 50, or 60 years ago it would have excited, I have no doubt, violent opposition. But now landlords have got accustomed to recognise that their property like that of anybody else is subject to inspection and investigation, and I do not think anybody will make much to do about a question of that sort. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that everybody wants to sell, and that he is advising his friends to sell as soon as possible, and there is a general recognition of the fact that those were the wisest landlords who have already sold, and that those will be the next wisest landlords who will sell as soon as they possibly can. We all regret that land purchase is delayed because of the block, not merely in the Treasury, but in the Land Commission, because if the right hon. Gentlemen were to come into office to-morrow they could not, even if they provided fifty millions of money, get rid at once of the heavy block in the Land Commission and enable purchasers to be put upon the land. However that may be, we all agree that the thing is to be done as soon as possible, and this Clause facilitates and enables the Commissioners to make a bond fide offer. You cannot make a sensible or rational proposal until you know the nature of the property you are dealing with. You can, in Ireland, get from the valuation books a large amount of information as to the rent and other details of the property, but still it is necessary to have some inquiry before the Estates Commissioners can make a bonâ-fide offer. I do not think anybody will object to the powers given in the new Clause. Everybody in Ireland has been treated to inspectors, and they have found they have less of terror than they 2512 thought. The Congested Districts Board has already got, under the existing law, the power of initiation, so it is not necessary in their case to confer it upon them. They have full power over proceedings for the purchase of property, and it is not a condition that the owners should, first of all, make application to them. Under the Clause they also acquire a power of entry and inspection. I therefore think a clause of this kind, though, no doubt arguments can be found against it on the ground that it leads up to compulsory purchase, is not really in any way necessarily connected therewith. All it does for the moment is to allow initiation to begin with the Estates Commissioners, as it does at present. Then there is the alteration in Section 8 of the Act of 1903, because the powers of the Land Commissioners for the purchase of untenanted land are limited and restricted to the manner provided by that section. There is no such limitation or restriction stated in this Clause. Subject to that, all that the Clause does is to simplify and make obvious to everyone the powers of the Estates Commissioners.
§ Mr. WYNDHAMThe Chief Secretary, whilst inviting the Committee to consider the new Clause on its merits, has frankly recognised that it must appear in our eyes what, indeed, it is, the initial stage in the compulsory machinery which the Bill now embodies. We have not had an opportunity of discussing compulsion, and we have not that opportunity now. We believe that the introduction of compulsion into a voluntary system will prove inimicable, and perhaps fatal, to that voluntary system, and all that was said yesterday confirms us in that opinion. Holding that view we are bound to oppose this Clause. But I have another ground for opposing the Clause in its present shape, which I think the Chief Secretary will take into consideration when I remind him of some of the undertakings which he gave in the course of yesterday's Debate. We urged that, waiving for the moment the question of compulsion, no direction should be given in this Bill favourable to what, for the sake of brevity, I may call the landless men, and in a manner which was prejudicial, as we think, to the interests of those who are now occupiers under existing Irish Land Acts. We have always maintained that the primary purpose of land 2513 purchase is twofold, to put an end to the system of dual ownership and to cure congestion in its worst forms where it exists—that is to say, to do something more than to sell his holding to the occupier where that holding is what is called uneconomic in its character. This new Clause of the Chief Secretary, as it stands, seems to us to favour the idea which he has more or less discountenanced, namely, that this Bill will be used on behalf rather of men who are not, and never have been, occupiers, who are neither present nor future nor evicted tenants, but are men who merely think they would like to try their hand at farming. We think it a danger to bring this new element into the already sufficiently crowded scene of Irish agrarian conflict. This Clause as it stands is distinctly against the interests of occupiers, and on behalf of the interests of the new men. Paragraph (a) gives these originating powers to the Estates Commissioners in respect of "any estate." It is the initial stage of a process which gives the Estates Commissioners a freer hand in respect of "any estate" than they have in respect of a "congested estate." I wish to make that point clear, because I think from what fell from the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) he does not quite appreciate it. My position is that our primary duty is to the occupiers, and next to the occupiers of the congested holdings on the congested estates. That has been recognised, and that policy has not been repudiated. Under the Act of 1903 congested estates are defined in Section 6, and certain directions are laid down as to how they are to be treated with the view to meeting the general wants of those upon them. There are certain financial limitations restricting the power of the Estates Commissioners in dealing with congested estates so devised. What I said in respect of Sub-section (a) is that you give the Estates Commissioner wide roving powers in respect of "any estate" without any direction with regard to meeting the wants of the tenants and without any financial limitation. I say, again, that you are throwing your weight into the scale on behalf of those men who are not tenants at all, and you are putting your weight into the scale against those who are tenants, and, above all, against those who are tenants of congested holdings. I hope I have made that quite clear to the hon. Member for East Mayo.
§ Mr. DILLONQuite plain.
§ Mr. WYNDHAMThe hon. Member agrees with me. In the case of a congested estate the Commissioners may only lose 10 per cent., but in the case of "any estate" they may lose 100 per cent.—that is, 90 per cent. against the interest of the tenants of the holdings on congested estates. I come now to paragraph (b). I do not think the hon. Member for East Mayo will deny that that paragraph as it stands is a plain direction on behalf of the landless men, and consequently against the interests of the occupiers, and, above all, of the congests. It is an Amendment of Clause 8 of the Act of 1903, which states that in the purchase of untenanted land such land is to be purchased as the Commissioners think necessary to facilitate the resale or distribution of the estates purchased or proposed to be purchased by them. Re-distribution means, of course, the curing of congestion. That is the meaning throughout the Act of 1903. I think the Chief Secretary says that under the new Clause, in purchasing untenanted land, the Estates Commissioners may have no regard to the direction given in Clause 8 of the Act of 1903 as to facilitating resale and distribution of estates, but for some other object, namely, the selling of it out of hand to other persons who figure in this Clause as they figured in the notable Clause 17. On Clause 17 we objected to the inclusion of any persons, and we were told by the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General that that meant very little. If that is so, why do you bring up a new clause expressly relieving the Estates Commissioners of the limitations, and particularly empowering them to buy land for the benefit of those celebrated "any persons," whose inclusion in the benefits of land purchase we think will not be a blessing, but an evil?
§ Mr. DILLONI will only deal with the direct challenge made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover. I am of course, and always have been, interested strongly in the safeguarding of the interests of congests, but having given most careful consideration to the wording of the new Clause, I think it is more favourable to congests than the Act of the right hon. Gentleman. We know perfectly well that owing to the loose wording of his own Act all this trouble arose. The wording of the new Act, so far as it is operative, will have a distinct effect in checking that; it will be favourable to the 2515 congests and the occupiers of the poor holdings. This particular Clause and Subsection have really no bearing on the congests at all, because they only operate on the Estates Commissioners, who will now operate outside the congested districts, where the vast majority of the congests live. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is quite mistaken in supposing that this particular Sub-section will be operative to any large extent on congested estates. Even with the restrictions to which the hon. Member alludes work has been done by the Estates Commissioners in these districts, apart from the Congested Districts Board, in my opinion most admirable and useful work, under which large tracts of land in Tipperary, Meath, and Westmeath have been purchased, and have been distributed to landless men under this Act. I think they are most properly distributed to these landless men, or so called landless men. There has been a great deal of nonsense talked about them. They have been described as men who would like to try their hands at farming. The best farmers in the country are the sons of farmers who have been working on their father's land; and if there was sufficient land in the country to go all round, I do not know any better work than replanting these men in the country and repopulating the country, which was desolated by the laws which England enforced. We must always keep dealing with the problem of these great districts which, to some small extent, have been repopulated by the working of his Act, of which he should be very proud, as far as it has gone in putting the population back. But that is a totally different work in the eastern provinces—in Tipperary, Meath, Westmeath, and King's County—from the problem west of the Shannon, to which this Section does not apply at all. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken in the view which he takes of this matter. There is one other point in his speech which appears to me to show the failure of his memory in dealing with his own Act, with which he should be very familiar. This idea appears lo be a kind of obsession with him. He speaks
§ about the power under this new Act for the Estates Commissioners to lose 100 per cent. on estates which they purchase. There is no such power. The Estates Commissioners will be in the future as they have been in the past. They will be held very tightly by the Treasury to reproduce in the case of an estate which is not a congested estate, on the sale, the amount of money that they have paid for it. I am perfectly convinced that nothing in this Act will cause them to lose more, as he seems to imagine, in the process of buying and selling a non-congested estate, than they are now losing on a congested estate. It is perfectly absurd, and he may dismiss that fear from his mind. The Clause is good so far as it goes, but I urgently seek to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that it does not go far enough. The compulsory Clauses of this Bill will have brought against them every device of the law in order to defeat them. It is true that they are not intended for the great bulk of landlords of Ireland who are willing to sell voluntarily, but they are none the less necessary if peace is to be brought to Ireland, because the men who keep the country in hot water are the men who will not sell. It is these men, who have large resources, many of them landlords like Lord Clanricarde among others I could name, who will employ every device that the ingenuity of lawyers can suggest, to get over these Clauses. Therefore, I would impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the necessity of conferring with his draftsmen and advisers in order to devise, in addition to this Clause, some means by which recalcitrant landlords may be subject to the same penalties as the Land Judge's Court in Ireland now imposes, and by which they shall give particulars as to rents, maps, and general information, which will be absolutely essential to the carrying out of these Compulsory Clauses. The present Clause, so far as it goes, is an excellent and important one.
§ Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes,160; Noes, 28.
2517| Division No. 543.] | AYES. | [4.58 p.m. |
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.) | Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Branch, James |
| Ambrose, Robert | Bell, Richard | Brooke, Stopford |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. | Bryce, J. Annan |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Buckmaster, Stanley O. |
| Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset) | Boland, John | Burnt, Rt. Hon. John |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Bowerman, C. W. | Carr-Gomm, H. W. |
| Causton, Rt. Hon. Richard Knight | Healy, Timothy Michael | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon. S.) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Hodge, John | O'Doherty, Philip |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Hogan, Michael | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
| Clough, William | Holden, Sir E. Hopkinson | O'Dowd, John |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Hooper, A. G. | O'Grady, J. |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Horniman, Emslie John | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) |
| Cooper, G. J. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | O'Shaughnessy P. J. |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Idris, T. H. W. | O'Shee, James John |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Jackson, R. S. | Partington, Oswald |
| Crean, Eugene | Jordan, Jeremiah | Paul, Herbert |
| Crooks, William | Joyce, Michael | Philips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Kavanagh, Walter M. | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Crossley, William J. | Keating, Matthew | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Cullinan, J. | Kekewich, Sir George | Radford, G. H. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Kettle, Thomas Michael | Reddy, M. |
| Delany, William | Kilbride, Denis | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Devlin, Joseph | Lamont, Norman | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Dillon, John | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | Roche, Augustine (Cork) |
| Duffy, William J. | Lehmann, R. C. | Roche, John (Galway, East) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lundon, T. | Rose, Sir Charles Day |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Lupton, Arnold | Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W. |
| Elibank, Master of | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Lyell, Charles Henry | Scanlan, Thomas |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Sears, J. E. |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Seddon, J. |
| Falconer, J. | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Farrell, James Patrick | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Sheehy, David |
| Ferens, T. R. | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.) | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Ffrench, Peter | M'Kean, John | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Field, William | M'Micking, Major G. | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Mallet, Charles E. | Steadman, W. C. |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Marnham, F. J. | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Gilhooly, James | Massie, J. | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Ginnell, L. | Masterman, C. F. G. | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Wardle, George J. |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.) | Waring, Walter |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Molteno, Percy Alport | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Gulland, John W. | Mooney, J. J. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Muldoon, John | Wiles, Thomas |
| Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Murnaghan, George | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Murphy, John (Kerry, East) | Young, Samuel |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Harrington, Timothy | Napier, T. B. | |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Nolan, Joseph | |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Nugent, Sir Waiter Richard | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Captain Norton. |
| Hazleton, Richard | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) | |
| Healy, Maurice (Cork) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Ashley, W. W. | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | MacCaw, Wm J. MacGeagh |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Fletcher, J. S. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Gordon, J. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Gretton, John | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hamilton, Marquess of | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Hill, Sir Clement | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Viscount Valentia and Mr. H. W. Forster. |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) |
Question, "That the Schedule be added to the Bill," put, and agreed to.
§ Clause added to the Bill.
§ Mr. BIRRELL moved the following as a new Clause:—