§ (1) No advance shall be made under the Land Purchase Acts in respect of the purchase of a holding if the tenancy was created after the first day of January in the year nineteen hundred and eight.
§ (2) This Section shall not apply to tenancies created by the Land Commission or by the Congested Districts Board.
§ The Lords Amendment standing next on the Paper was: Leave out "first day of January in the year nineteen hundred and eight" and insert "fifteenth day of September in the year nineteen hundred and nine."
§ Mr. CLANCYI rise to a point of Order. This is an Amendment which proposes to add to the public charge. It may involve an advance of public money, not only for the purchase of land, but also for the purpose of flotation and the payment of bonus. The Amendment, therefore, I sub- 44 mit, according to the Constitution, if the Constitution is worth anything at all now, is one which the House of Lords is absolutely incompetent to move. I ask your ruling upon the point.
§ Mr. MOOREThe position of affairs was this. Under the existing law all tenancies were entitled to advances, and the Clause which the Government proposed was to restrict them to tenancies created after the first of January, 1908, but that never became law. What the Lords have done is to bring the date forward from 1st January, 1908, to 15th September, 1909. The effect of that is to diminish the charge to be made on the Exchequer, because at present every holding is entitled to an advance. Therefore I submit that the point of Order does not arise, either as a matter of privilege or in any other way.
§ Mr. CLANCYThis Amendment will increase the charge proposed by the Bill.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI wish to hear the views of the Irish Government on the point.
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe view we take of this is that the Amendment does not in any real sense increase the charge, because in the case of tenancies between the two rival dates—the one inserted in the Bill, and the one which is being inserted by the House of Lords—are tenancies on which no advance could be made to the tenants. Still the land comprised in such a tenancy might be the subject of an advance under the Land Purchase Acts. Therefore in reality it cannot, in my opinion, be said that there is any real increase of the charge, because there was a possibility of the land being made the subject-matter of an advance. This Clause provides that no advance should be made for tenancies created after a particular date. Therefore it limits the number of tenancies which can be made the subject-matter of advances under the Land Purchase Acts, and the only difference between the two Houses is as to what date should be inserted. I submit that there is no possible increase of the charge.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI should like to say that these Amendments only came into my hands at 3.30 to-day, and that I have not therefore had time to give that amount of attention to them which I have given to other Amendments made by the Lords. The matter is somewhat complicated to me, although it is clear to hon. Members from Ireland, who are very familiar with the subject, but after the statement of the Chief Secretary that no increase of advances will arise under this Amendment I feel bound to accept his view and say that the Amendment is one which can be discussed by the House.
§ Mr. CLANCYDoes the right hon. Gentleman mean to say——
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Member has already spoken, and he can only deal with the merits now.
§ Mr. CLANCYI do not understand the point of Order has been disposed of, and it is not on the merits at all that I wish to speak at present. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that if an advance is made not to the Congested Districts Board or to the Estates Commissioners, but to a tenant, there will be no increase of charge? I think that is a fair question.
§ Mr. BIRRELLI do not think there could be, except in the most roundabout way, any increase of charge at all, but it 46 is very difficult categorically to say "No" to the question put by the hon. Member. I certainly say that if there was any question of privilege in the matter the House should waive it.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ 5.0 p.m.
§ Mr. BIRRELLThis Clause provided that no advances were to be made where a tenancy was created after 1st January, 1908, and it may be remembered by those who took part in the discussion that there was a certain amount of uncertainty as to what would happen. Consequently, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin (Mr. Long) asked me to put in two Amendments, of which this was one. It was thought that for safety it was desirable that the Bill should be re-committed in respect of these Amendments, because the one did clearly involve a charge. It was a matter of controversy between learned persons whether this Amendment did involve a charge or not. The right hon. Gentleman, when he asked me to put down the Amendments, said with perfect good faith that they would cause no criticism whatsoever. I put them down without giving so full consideration to this particular Amendment as I ought to have done. Having put them down, the right hon. Gentleman and his friends divided the House against the recommital of the Bill. Although I am one of the mildest mannered men, I confess that irritated me almost beyond the point of endurance. These Amendments were put down to meet the views of the right hon. Gentleman and they involved the recommital of the Bill. The recommital having been opposed, I did not move the Amendments in terms of excessive cordiality when they came to be moved. This Amendment gave rise to an animated discussion. It showed that this Amendment, so far from being popular with those who represented particular views, was most unpopular, and I therefore voted against it. Then when it went up to the other place what I quite foresaw would happen did happen —namely, that the other place put into the Bill the words of the Amendment. Now I cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. I cannot come to terms with the other House and do what I am anxious to do, and what I know can be done—secure the passage of the Bill—without making concessions. Therefore, although my 47 reason does not pretend to be convinced, nevertheless I think that the proper course is to agree with the Lords in their Amendment. After all, if this Bill does not become law there will be no limitation at all. It is only if the Bill becomes law that there will be the limitation from the altered date. I think, under all the circumstances, that that is well worth securing, and I now move that the House do agree with the Lords Amendments.
§ Mr. CULLINANOn a previous occasion, after the strong line of action taken by the representatives of the Irish party, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary voted against his own Amendment. He was then the object of very strong attack from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House. We are very much accustomed recently to very fine though unparliamentary expressions being used by Leaders on the Front Opposition Bench. I was reading the speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Mr. J. H. Campbell) in Lancashire lately. He made a very strong attack upon members of the Irish party, and said that owing to their action his country was reeking with crime and blood and outrage. His language was enough to make Irish Nationalist Members of Parliament feel most indignant. He used an expression with regard to the Chief Secretary for Ireland which I then thought rather strong, but which I think this evening I cannot any longer object to owing to his action in accepting this Amendment of the House of Lords in face of the decision arrived at by this House after full discussion on a previous occasion. Let me tell right hon. Gentlemen on both sides that if this Amendment is passed it will inflict a most glaring injustice, and the Chief Secretary will put a premium upon the Gentlemen above the Gangway and their friends in Ireland who have tried to make his rule of government impossible in Ireland for the last couple of years. When this Bill was first introduced the date fixed for limiting advances was the 1st January, 1908. You have since then seen a lot of those people, under the patronage of Lord Ashtown and the outrage mongers in Ireland, bring in bogus tenants on their properties in order to prevent the old evicted tenants being put back. You have lots of that land which the Estates Commissioners in Ireland might have acquired under the Evicted Tenants Act 48 given to such parties, and you have charges made on the Irish County Council for extra police in different parts of Ireland, and in my own county, Tippe-rary, they have had extra police charges. The Chief Secretary says that he has no control, that the laws are there, and that he must enforce those charges on the people. But here you have in this Bill not only a recognition of those bogus tenancies but you have a tax put upon the whole district for extra police who are brought in on account of this effort to prevent evicted tenants and deserving people getting those lands. It has been said that I have, used strong expressions. If I did so all I can say is that I could not possibly make them strong enough to express my indignation as to the consequences of this Amendment. If you accept this Amendment of the House of Lords people in Ireland will understand that you are simply playing the game of those men who have created these bogus tenancies. I have no hesitation in saying that in my division, where there are some of these cases, and in other divisions, if this Amendment is included in the Bill you will have reason to remember it.
§ Mr. WALTER LONGIn reference to the Chief Secretary's criticisms of the Opposition for the action which they took in regard to the Motion for recommittal, may I say it is perfectly true that he was good enough to tell me that one of those Amendments would require a Motion to recommit, but he also said it would be necessary to recommit the Bill in respect of other matters. It was in respect of these that the Opposition resisted recommittal, as they were proceeding under a closure by compartment resolution, which limited the time to two hours, and it was, they thought, extremely unfair to take a Motion for recommittal and then go through the Committee stage of the Bill in the time reserved for the general debate without recommittal. That is the reason we opposed the recommittal. In regard to the action of the right hon. Gentleman now, I do not believe that the insertion of this Amendment will have the dire consequences which are foretold by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. I believe it is an Amendment which lessens hardships that otherwise would have been created by this Clause, and I am grateful to the Chief Secretary for Ireland for accepting it.
§ Mr. DILLONI sympathise strongly with the view put forward by the hon. 49 Member for Tipperary. This Amendment is another of those made by the House of Lords with which this Bill is studded all over, and which hamper the work of relief of congestion. There is no more disgraceful action on the part of Irish landlords since the Act of 1903 passed than their action in parts of Ireland, where it is notorious that the amount of unoccupied grazing land was insufficient to deal with the problem of congestion. In these places the landlords proceeded to create new tenancies on grazing land, and did a thing which I have always denounced as a fraud, and still condemn as a fraud. They let these lands more or less at moderate rents, which I believe in some cases are turned by agreement into judicial rents. Then they put them up at these rents to auction and took large fines, and they have sold them to the incoming tenants or graziers, whichever they were, for these fines. They then proceed to come to the Government to get advances of public money to sell to the grazing tenants. I think that is an absolute fraud on this House, and on the whole system of land purchase in Ireland. Public money was never voted for that purpose, and the purposes for which the money was voted, and for which all this machinery was set in motion, are defeated by these fraudulent proceedings; and that the Government should approve of this to me is most deplorable, and is, I confess, a thing which I am entirely unable to understand. This Clause, as it stands in the Bill was undoubtedly demanded by public opinion in Ireland. It is no answer to tell us that there are certain groups of tenants in Ireland who support the landlords Amendment. We know there are. They are the tenants who have taken this land. I say without hesitation that the whole of that proceeding is a fraudulent proceeding, and utterly opposed to the whole purpose of the House, and if the House of Commons had been told when they were passing the Act of 1903 that any such proceeding was contemplated I am perfectly certain that they would have put in a provision to make it impossible that it should be done. The House of Lords over and over again in the course of the Debates on this Bill proclaimed their zeal for the enlargement of congested holdings, and wanted to make out that the Irish party were championing landless men and doing other dreadful things; but by this Amendment, as well as by many other Amendments, they have added to the difficulties of relieving congestion, and have 50 created machinery for limiting considerably the already insufficient supply of grazing land in the congested districts of the country.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYI have no very strong opinion upon this matter. If the Government had included in the Act of 1903 a provision that no public moneys should be advanced on tenancies created after that date, that would be a perfectly reasonable proposition, and one to which no one would have objected. On the other hand, there is always some objection to retrospective legislation. That is the only criticism which I make on that ground. I do not rise to continue a general discussion on it; but I do rise to point out that under the Clause in its present form it appears to me that a very gross injustice may be done to a class of persons whom I am sure nobody in this House desires to hurt, and I wish to move a consequential Amendment to get over the difficulty. As the Clause stands it contains an absolute prohibition against the advance of public money for the purchase of any holding the tenancy of which was created after 15th September. It contains an exception in favour of tenancies created by the Land Commission of the Congested Districts Board, but it contains no exception for the case in which a landlord voluntarily reinstates a tenant whom he has evicted. I cannot conceive why Parliament should deliberately pass an Act providing that where a tenant has been out of occupation for some years and where ultimately he makes an arrangement with his landlord and is reinstated in his holding he should get no facilities for purchasing his holding. Take another case. We all know that the Irish courts in the matter of land legislation carry technicalities very far, so that the mere sub-division of a holding is held to create a new tenancy, and the smallest change in the subject matter of the tenancy at once creates a new tenancy. It is now provided that no advance is to be made in respect of a tenancy created after 15th September, 1909. That was not what Parliament meant in 1903. In 1903 we all know there was a limit on the amount which could be advanced in the case of new tenancies—that is to say, the case of tenancies created after 1st January, 1901—but there was a qualification to that providing that this Section should not apply in the case of a former tenant or a person nominated by the Land Commission as his personal 51 representative. Whereas the former tenant was carefully protected under the Act of 1903, here we have an absolute prohibition against him. I wish now to make a consequential Amendment, if the Lords Amendment is adopted, so that there may be some qualification such as was enacted in the Act of 1903 providing that the former tenant shall not be excluded.
§ Mr. MOOREThis is a very important Debate, I do not say to hon. Members above the Gangway but to hon. Members below it. On the night the Chief Secretary made a memorable surrender, it turned out how very important it was from their point of view, and I want to know whether they still maintain the same opinion with regard to it. The Member for Tipperrary (Mr. Cullman) in the previous Debate on this Amendment, which is now in the Bill, said if the Amendment were passed:—
I unhesitatingly say that there could be no more outrageous piece of weakness upon the part of the Chief Secretary, and one which would cause greater dissatisfaction in Ireland, and I warn the Attorney-General he may find it necessary to put the engines of his law and legal power into force against us, and if yon do consent, on the suggestion of hon. Members above the Gangway, to insert such a Clause, then let the consequences be on your own heads.The Hon. Member for Kildare said:I say this deliberately, and I say it in the best of good faith to my colleagues, that even should they, after due consideration, think it better to accept the Bill with this provision, than that the Bill should be rejected, that the Irish people will not accept the Bill, neither across the Shannon, not in many of the Leinster comities.The Hon. Member for Mayo said:If the right hon. Gentleman insists on the Amendment, he may as well abandon the Bill altogether, because it will not be accepted by the people, and will only lead to a renewal of the land war.
§ Mr. DILLONI did not say that.
§ O'Dowd). I want to know whether those lion. Members still entertain that view on this very important Amendment. The whole course of policy on the part of hon. Members below the Gangway during this Session has been to render to the Government support in other matters in order to get as a reward a Land Bill such as this. And now when they come to discuss this Land Bill for themselves, and see what advantages they are getting, it is interesting, if not amusing, to us above the Gangway, to observe how much powder they have got to swallow with the jam. We have heard Amendment after Amendment denounced; we have seen sham fights with regard to them, for they are only sham fights, but hon. Members below the Gangway know very well that the Government on this occasion can outvote them, and they can go home and sleep in their beds perfectly comfortably, knowing that their opposition had done nobody any harm. I do not think their efforts at opposition will impose upon anybody. At any rate, this Bill is the reward of their political virtue, and though hon. Members say that this Amendment, if accepted, will damn the Bill and render it unacceptable in Ireland, yet they dare not go back to Ireland with empty hands; they dare not refuse the Bill now, although it contains this Clause which is so objectionable to them. The Chief Secretary knows that for once he has them in his hands, and he knows that the Amendments which he is now moving will be accepted, and that hon. Members below the Gangway will have to swallow them.
§ Question put: "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ The House divided: Ayes, 215; Noes, 88.
55| Division No. 898.] | AYES. | [5.20 p.m. |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Beauchamp, E. | Carlile, E. Hildred |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Carr-Gomm, H. W. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Bellairs, Carlyon | Causton, Rt. Hon. Richard Knight |
| Astbury, John Meir | Berridge, T. H. D. | Cawley, Sir Frederick |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Bertram, Julius | Channing, sir Francis Allston |
| Baker, Joseph A. | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cheetham, John Frederick |
| Balcarres, Lord | Bignold, Sir Arthur | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Boulton, A. C. F. | Clark, George Smith |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Bowles, G. Stewart | Cloland, J. W. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Branch, James | Clough, William |
| Barker, Sir John | Bright, J. A. | Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. |
| Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset) | Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Butcher, Samuel Henry | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Hill, Sir Clement | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Hobart, Sir Robert | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Holland, Sir William Henry | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Cowan, W. H. | Holt, Richard Durning | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Cox, Harold | Hooper, A. G. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Horniman, Emslie John | Radford, G. H. |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Hunt, Rowland | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Idris, T. H. W. | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (Gloucester) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Illingworth, Percy H. | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Jackson, R. S. | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.) | Jardine, Sir J. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighshire) |
| Doughty, Sir George | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Dumphreys, John | Kerry, Earl of | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Kimber, Sir Henry | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Erskine, David C. | Lambert, George | Rose, Sir Charles Day |
| Essex, R. W. | Lamont, Norman | Rowlands, J. |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Sears, J. E. |
| Falconer, J. | Levy, Sir Maurice | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Fell, Arthur | Lewis, John Herbert | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Fenwick, Charles | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) | Steadman, W. C. |
| Forster, Henry William | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Lynch, H. B. | Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Sunderland) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury) |
| Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham) | Maclean, Donald | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | M'Arthur, Charles | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | M'Micking, Major G. | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr) |
| Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds.) | Maddison, Frederick | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Gulland, John W. | Marnham, F. J. | Teulmin, George |
| Hancock, J. G. | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | Masterman, C. F. G. | Walters, John Tudor |
| Harcourt. Robert V. (Montrose) | Menzies, Sir Walter | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Molteno, Percy Alport | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester) | Moore, William | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Morpeth, Viscount | Wiles, Thomas |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Morrell, Philip | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Morse, L. L. | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.) | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. W. | Nicholls, George | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Parkes, Ebenezer | Younger, George |
| Henderson, J McD. (Aberdeen, W.) | Paul, Herbert | |
| Henry, Charles S. | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Captain Norton. |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon. S.) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | |
| Higham, John Sharp | Percy, Earl | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.) | Ginnell, L. | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Glover, Thomas | Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.) |
| Alden, Percy | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Mooney, J. J. |
| Ambrose, Robert | Harrington, Timothy | Muldoon, John |
| Barnes, G. N. | Hodge, John | Murnaghan, George |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romford) | Hogan, Michael | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Boland, John | Hudson, Walter | Nolan, Joseph |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Jordan, Jeremiah | O'Doherty, Philip |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Jowett, F. W. | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Joyce, Michael | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, West) |
| Crean, Eugene | Kavanagh, Walter M. | O'Dowd, John |
| Cullinan, J. | Keating, M. | O'Grady, J. |
| Delany, William | Kekewich, Sir George | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) |
| Dillon, John | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | O'Malley, William |
| Duffy, William J. | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster) | O'Neill, Charles |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Lundon, T. | Philips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Lynch, A. (Clare, W.) | Pointer, J. |
| Ffrench, Peter | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Reddy, M. |
| Flynn, James Christopher | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.) | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Fullerton, Hugh | M'Kean, John | Richardson, A. |
| Gilhooly, James | Meagher, Michael | Roche, Augustine (Cork) |
| Roche, John (Galway, East) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Scanlan, Thomas | Summerbell, T. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) | Tsylor, John W. (Durham) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Sheehan, Daniel Daniel | Thorne, William (West Ham) | |
| Sheehy, David | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Patrick O'Brien and Captain Donelan. |
| Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) | Wardle, George J. | |
| Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALY moved, as a consequential Amendment, to add at the end of the Clause the words, "or in the case of a former tenant of a tenancy created before the first day of January, 1908, or a person nominated by the Land Commission, or his personal representative, purchasing his former holding, or part thereof." That is simply adopted from the Act of 1903.
§ Mr. MOORE seconded the Amendment.
§ Mr. CHERRYI really think that those words are unnecessary. I understand that the point the hon. Member raises is as to the case of those who have been evicted and who have been reinstated.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYWhere there has been a technical breach of the tenancy.
§ Mr. CHERRYI do not think that that arises. As I understand the law, the landlord who has evicted a present tenant is entitled on reinstating him, even though the period of redemption has passed, to reinstate him in his old tenancy, and to continue the old tenancy. I know of a great many cases where, after the six months for redemption had expired, the landlord reinstated the tenants in their old tenancies, and restored them to all their rights. In a great many cases the landlords have preferred to reinstate them in future tenancies. They have done that with their eyes open, and if they wish they will take care to reinstate them in such a way that they can sell to them under the Purchase Acts. Even if that were not so, and if there were any doubt in the matter, they can always sell the land, as untenanted land for the purpose of having the tenant reinstated, to the Estates Commissioners.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYNot as a tenancy.
§ Mr. CHERRYInstead of reinstating the tenant they would sell the land occupied by the tenants to the Estates Commissioners, and then the evicted tenant or his representative could be provided for under the Acts of 1903. I think the Amendment would be dangerous, and I ask the House not to accept it.
§ Question, "That those words be there added," put, and negatived.