§ Order of the Day for resuming the adjourned debate, on the Motion for the Third Reading, read.
§ Debate resumed accordingly.
§ And after short debate, on Question, "That the Bill be read 3a" Resolved in the Affirmative; Bill read 3a accordingly.
§
LORD GREVILLE moved the Proviso to which he had alluded on the previous evening—
491
Nothing in this Act contained shall be deemed to affect the rights of tenants on estates conveyed prior to the passing of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, under the provisions of the Acts twelfth and thirteenth Victoria, chapter seventy-seven, and twenty-first and twenty-second Victoria, chapter seventy-two.
§ LORD CAIRNSobjected to the clause as unnecessary, and likely, moreover, to be mischievous. The Act of last Session gave existing tenants certain rights without any reference to the manner in which the estates had been dealt with or had come into the hands of the owners; and the only doubt which had been suggested was whether those rights might not be lost or endangered since the passing of the Act by their being unnoticed in conveyances since executed by the Landed Estates Court. The object of the Bill was simply to provide that such rights should not be thereby jeopardized; and to add a clause of a qualifying or cautionary character as to the rights conferred by the Act would raise more doubts than it would allay. He thought the noble Lord's object would be met by a verbal Amendment in the Preamble.
THE LORD CHANCELLORconcurred in the noble and learned Lord's statement. A panic had been created by Lord Justice Christian's judgment, of which there was now an authentic statement, and which was certainly couched in terms extremely unfortunate. No serious doubt, however, had been raised except as to conveyances executed since the passing of the Act.
§ LORD GREVILLE, after this explanation, said, he would withdraw his Amendment.
§ Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.