§ Order of the Day for receiving the report of the Amendments read.
The EARL of LUCANmoved, as an Amendment, that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. If the Bill were a fair and just Bill, and one calculated to bear inquiry, he did not see what objection there could be to submitting it to the additional scrutiny which he proposed. He entertained stronger objections to the Bill, so far as it applied to leasehold tenures in towns than in the country; but, above all, he objected to that part of its machinery which enacted references to a Master in Chancery. The provision would be productive of delay and expense. In proof of this, he might mention a case which occurred to a relative of his own. A purchase was made of a piece of land, but the tenant stood out, the difference between the parties being only 50l. or 100l. It was referred to a master; but, although the reference had been made in 1836, it had not been concluded in 1848, whilst during all that period the landlord's interests were sacrificed. The only argument for the measure was, that it had been recommended by the Commission over which the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Devon) presided; but on examination it would be found the recommendation of that Commission applied only to permissive and not to compulsory arrangements between lessors and lessees. His great objection was to the compulsory clauses; and with the view of amending them, he thought it would be advisable to refer the measure to a Committee upstairs. If he failed in carrying that proposition, he intended to move, on the third reading, that the Bill should not apply to leases where there were special covenants, nor to leaseholds in towns. His Lordship then moved that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, the Bill was 1151 introduced by his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor on the 2nd of April; that it was read the second time on the 26th, and ordered to be committed on the 10th May. In order to give time for objections to be made to the measure, the Committee was put off from the 10th to the 18th of May, when it passed through that stage, after considerable discussion, during which various amendments were made in the clauses. The report was ordered to be brought up on the 25th May; but, owing to the indisposition of his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, it was put off until to-day. His noble and learned Friend had all along bestowed great consideration upon the measure, and he had just received a note from him stating that in his opinion it ought to be proceeded with without further delay. There had thus been abundance of time afforded for a full consideration of the Bill. The noble Earl opposite, however, moved that it be referred to a Select Committee. It would be observed, that all the arguments he had urged in support of that proposition applied really against the principle, and that they would have been more applicable to the Motion for the second reading than they were at the present stage. The noble Earl objected to the clauses being compulsory. If they had not been made compulsory, the whole measure would have been utterly valueless; and he reminded the House that the principle had been deliberately affirmed by their Lordships upon the second reading. They had been made compulsory, because the existing tenure was most mischievous both to landlords and tenants. He did not concur in the objections raised by the noble Earl to references to the Master's office. Everything had been done to guard the interests of the landlord under the operation of the Bill, and he could only say that it had been generally approved of. He had himself received applications from various quarters to press it forward without delay; and in the full conviction that it would be a useful and beneficial measure, he hoped their Lordships would now consent to receive the report.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEapprehended that many cases of hardship were likely to arise from the provisions of the Bill. He did not acquiesce in the proposition for a reference to a Select Committee. The Bill affected a very large class, not landlords and tenants in the ordinary sense of these terms, but of landlords in the proper sense, 1152 and a very numerous class in Ireland, quasi landlords or tenants holding on leases for lives renewable for ever. To the principle of the Bill he was not opposed, for he had supported it throughout all its stages; but he thought it might be modified so as to give the proprietor in fee in Ireland bettor security for the assertion of his particular rights. If the Bill was referred, he anticipated that many suggestions of great importance would be submitted to them; and a few hours above stairs could not perhaps be more advantageously occupied. It might not be strictly regular at that stage of the Bill to refer it; but such things had often been asked and assented to. He should, for his own part, be sorry to support any proposition adverse to the Bill; but if their Lordships would consent to refer it, its progress in the other House would, in all probability, be greatly assisted.
LORD CAMPBELLhad the utmost confidence in the sincerity of the professions of the noble Lord in favour of the Bill; but he should still resist the recommittal of the Bill, as it would lead to no possible use.
§ The EARL of DEVONsaid, his objections to the Bill related not so much to particular clauses as to the general principle, which, he contended, had never been fully discussed in that House. Explanations had not been given of the practical evils which usually followed the existence of the present tenures. There might certainly be cases in which it would be desirable to make commutations; but he had seen no evils arising from existing tenures to render it advisable, in all cases, to enact that the middleman should have the power of changing the tenure. If there were any public grounds upon which it was desirable to alter the existing tenures, they must be with a view to improve the land, and secure better cultivation; but he doubted whether, in the ordinary class of cases, such would be the result. Land was let to a middleman on the condition of paying once in every seven years, or some other stated period, a certain fine. The middleman immediately underlet it to the occupier. This Bill proposed that the landlord, instead of letting to the middleman in this way, should be compelled to let it to him, not upon a periodical fine, but upon a fixed rent. Now he (the Earl of Devon) wished to know in what manner the occupying tenant, the cultivator of the soil, would be benefited by the change? At all events, it would be wiser to let the change be voluntary, 1153 instead of compulsory, because there were many cases in which the power now enjoyed by the owner of the fee was found extremely advantageous to the occupying tenant.
§ LORD REDESDALEsaid, that what had fallen from the noble Lord was not strictly correct as to the introduction and progress of the Bill, for he recollected that considerable discussion occurred upon the second reading, and that he himself took part in it. He recollected that upon the occasion of the second reading, he asked in what relation the provisions of the Bill stood in regard to copyholds in England, and received for answer, that copyholds in this country were quite a different question—that the two cases were not at all similar, and bore no analogy the one to the other. He said he was then satisfied, and being an Englishman, and less acquainted with matters as they stood in Ireland, and therefore scarcely entitled to express any opinion on these matters in the sister country, and understanding that the Bill did not affect the principle of the enfranchisement of copyholds in this country, he was not disposed to oppose the second reading; but since this discussion things had come out which had induced him to take a different view of the Bill from that he entertained before. At the time of the second reading they had heard nothing of the Irish Society, and nothing of these covenants which were said to be in existence in Ireland. He would advise caution, then, and due consideration of the provisions which they proposed as a remedy for certain admitted evils in Ireland, because when they proposed getting rid of an objectionable tenure, the tenure which was to succeed it ought to be unobjectionable. He understood that this Bill proposed to reserve to the original lessor power of enforcing the performance of covenants where any such existed in the lease—it professed to give the lessee a fee-simple, but subjected him to the condition of performing those covenants; and in case he failed of such performance, it gave the lessor power to enter upon the lands. The Bill, therefore, in all such cases, failed to create in reality a fee-simple, and established instead a new and anomalous description of tenure, never before known in this country or in Ireland, which, as the right to enter for the purpose of enforcing the covenants would run over the whole estate comprised in the original grant, might lead to great inconvenience and injustice in the event of the 1154 property being sold to different parties—if, indeed, it did not act as bar to any such sale. He said that these were matters on which opportunity should be given to all parties to be heard before a Select Committee; and if the Bill should be delayed another year, it would be nothing unusual; nay, he believed that there was not a single instance of a Bill affecting tenures being passed the same year it was introduced. All the alterations that had been effected in the copyholds, partial as these still were, occupied for years and years the attention of the Legislature before they were established, and he thought the caution was proper and desirable. Were the Bill drawn by the ablest lawyer, it was still a reasonable proposal to refer it to a Select Committee for consideration—a proposal that was likely to produce a good Bill upon the subject. Considering, besides, the small beneficial effect that would arise to the tenant, and that it would have no tendency to promote the improvement of agriculture, and that the middlemen only would benefit under it, he saw no evil which was likely to be occasioned if it were postponed to another Session.
The EARL of GLENGALLsaid, although he was rather favourable than otherwise to the principle of the Bill, he must yet state that it was not until the Bill became known in Ireland, and had been considered by the lawyers there, that many of their Lordships were exactly aware of the effect on different matters which the provisions of the Bill were likely to have. On this account, and besides, when they considered the astonishing quantity of property which was so circumstanced as necessarily to come under the operation of the Bill, he thought it would be but reasonable that it should be referred to a Select Committee.
The EARL of WICKLOWsaid, that notwithstanding the remarks which had been made by noble Lords, he thought in all his experience he never had heard a Bill more fully discussed than this measure. It might not have been exposed to all the opposition which other measures occasionally went through, but then the reason of that was, that noble Lords would not attend in their places when the Bill was in progress through their Lordships' House. He said he had not heard a single reason advanced that night for sending it to a Select Committee; he had not heard a single argument advanced, except such as went against the principle of the Bill, and he was therefore of opinion that no 1155 case had been made out for the proposal. But as one of their Lordships had asked how this Bill could have any tendency to promote the better cultivation of the soil, he would reply that it would do so because the better cultivation of the land depended—as a general principle—upon the interest which the landlord had in the soil which he let to the tenant. If the interest of the landlord was weak and limited, it was evident he could not extend that amount of assistance to his tenant in making improvements, which a landlord more favourably situated could give. Now, as one of the objects of the Bill, so far as it went, was to put the landlord more in possession of his property than before; so far as it went it would be likely to encourage the better cultivation of the land. He hoped, therefore, their Lordships would not entertain the proposal which was now made to them for sending it to a Select Committee.
The EARL of LUCANsaid, in consequence of the state of the House at that time, he would not press his Motion to a division; but he gave notice that, on the third reading, he should move to introduce a clause making the Bill permissive, not compulsory.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn; Amendments reported; further Amendments made.
§ Bill to be read 3a on Friday next.
§ House adjourned.