OBSERVATIONS. MOTION FOR RETURNS. (Hansard, 12 February 1872)

VISCOUNT LIFFORD
rose to call the attention of the House to the working of the Irish Land Act, and to move for Re-turns of the Land Cases decided in the counties of Antrim and Donegal, stating the amount of rent in each case and the sum awarded as compensation by the chairman of quarter sessions. The noble Viscount said that, notwithstanding the large promises held out by the passing of the Land Act in 1870, it seemed to him that the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland were at this moment in a more unsatisfactory state than ever, and great difficulties stood in the way of a complete settlement. Both parties were held in a state of doubt and anxiety as to the result. On the one hand, the landlords were in doubt in respect of the extent to which they might be deprived of their property; and, on 195 the other hand, the tenants were in doubt as to the extent to which they might make demands against the proprietors of the soil. Some of the tenants evidently indulged in the wildest hopes. He had always been in favour of giving fair compensation to the tenant for bonâ fide improvements; hut, under the Irish Land Act, entirely new conditions had been introduced in connection with the ownership of property. The landlord was supposed to be proprietor of the soil; but if you consulted an Irish lawyer, he would tell you that under the Irish Land Act the tenant had acquired a right in it. It was not extraordinary that those learned gentlemen should have arrived at that opinion, seeing the decisions which had been given on compensation claims by some of the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions in Ireland. The 1st section of the Irish Land Act legalized the Ulster tenant-right custom, which had been described by Mr. Thompson, the President of the Agricultural Society of England, and by other authorities, as an extraordinary anomaly. In some parts of Ulster it did not exist at all: and where it did exist there was an extraordinary difference as to the number of years' purchase sanctioned by the custom in one place as compared with another. The Chairmen of Quarter Sessions or assistant barristers in Ireland were nearly analogous to the County Court Judges in England, and while some of them were men of the highest talent and of great professional experience, all of them were not of that stamp. He would state what had occurred in two or three cases to show how the Act was working. A tenant-farmer in Antrim held 33 acres, and when he died he left two sons. The landlord did not care which of the sons had the farm, but left that question to be decided by a jury who sat on the father's will. That jury decided that the younger son should have the farm. The elder son had lived with the father, but had never paid rent. However, when the younger son was put in possession of the farm, the elder made a claim against the landlord for about £700, and the assistant barrister who heard the case awarded him £600. There was another case in which a landlord evicted a tenant who, he had every reason to believe, had fired a shot at his steward, because of an improvement which the latter was engaged in effecting 196 on the property. The rent of the holding had been £6 a-year, but on the claim for compensation the Chairman of Quarter Sessions awarded £250, or something more than 41 years' purchase, the ordinary rate of purchase for fee-simple in that part of the country being from 18 to 20 years. He did not say that the Chairman was wrong; it might be the fault of the Act; but for a man to be obliged to pay as compensation to a tenant double the value of the fee-simple of the holding was rather too much of a good thing in the way of tenant-right. Lord Derby said on a recent occasion that in Ireland the land had been surrendered to the peasants, and there was not the least doubt of it. In England if there was a dispute between landlord and tenant it could be carried from Court to Court till brought before their Lordships' House as the Court of Final Appeal; but in Ireland the appeal from the Chairman of Quarter Sessions was to a single Judge, who had the power of pronouncing a final decision if he did not think fit to reserve the case for the Court for Land Cases Reserved. One of the social effects of the Land Bill was an increased opposition to the laws of property, while its political results might be seen in the late elections for Galway and Kerry. Now, he thought the least the Irish landlords had a right to ask was that in all cases there might be the power of bringing an appeal to a tribunal constituted of greater numbers of Judges, whose decisions would carry-greater weight, and be authoritative in construing the Act.

THE EARL OF DUFFERIN
said, the Government would offer no opposition to the production of the Paper moved for by the noble Viscount; but the House would scarcely expect him to follow his noble Friend into the general controversy which he had sought to raise as to the principles and merits of the Irish Land Bill, and the results it had produced. He must say for himself that it would never have occurred to his mind to attribute the success of a particular candidate in Galway or in Kerry to the working of the Irish Land 197 Act. That was a mere matter of opinion upon which it would be unprofitable to waste argument. Indeed, he thought it would be altogether hopeless to think of founding any argument for or against an Act of Parliament on cases such as those which had been brought forward by his noble Friend, and which, however truly stated by his noble Friend, must of necessity have been derived from ex parte sources, while little reliance could be placed upon decisions brought to their Lordships' notice by means of the meagre accounts of trials published in the local newspapers. Even supposing the circumstances as communicated to his noble Friend to be quite accurate, the decisions might perhaps be presented under a very different appearance from that which they presented when stated without reference to other circumstances. If, for example, the tenant-right custom prevailed in one of the cases cited by his noble Friend, and if the landlord had consented to or connived at the tenant paying a very large sum for the possession of the farm, the assistant barrister might have founded his decision on that circumstance when the tenant was evicted. Undoubtedly an uncertainty did at present prevail which was painful to the minds of both landlords and tenants:—it was desirable that in respect of rights and claims such as those of landlord and tenant all uncertainty should be put an end to as soon as possible; but their Lordships would remember that no more difficult point had presented itself during the discussions on the Land Bill than the devising of machinery for dealing with those rights and claims. A large number of persons, including the greater number of the tenants in the North of Ireland, thought that Parliament ought to define what tenant-right was; but, on the other hand, a great reluctance was manifested by those who had considered the subject to lay down a fixed definition applicable to every case. Consequently, there was thrown on the Courts of the assistant barristers a very difficult, a very onerous, and, he believed, to them a very unwelcome duty; but, at the same time, it was a duty which they alone could discharge. There were so many different forms of tenant-right that they could only be disposed of by local tribunals capable of conducting a minute examination of the particular 198 case. Such being the nature and the variety of the different customs of tenant-right to be dealt with under the Act, he dared say that what the noble Viscount stated was perfectly true—namely, that in different Courts different decisions had been arrived at by different assistant barristers. That, undoubtedly, was an evil, but, unfortunately, it was a state of things for which, at the time of the discussions on the Bill, neither the noble Viscount nor any one else suggested a remedy. Again, though it was an evil, it was an evil which would certainly cure itself. The noble Viscount would recollect that there was an appeal from the assistant barrister to the Judge of Assize, and that it was competent to the learned Judge to refer any case of doubt to one of the best Courts that existed in any country—the Court for Land Cases Reserved. The noble Viscount was aware also that one of the objects of the Bill was to bring justice home to the doors of persons in even the humblest position, and he thought that Parliament, with much wisdom, determined not to give too great facility to the richer party for appeals, and so occasion both expense and vexatious delays. That was the reason power had been given to the Judge of Assize to pronounce a final decision; but no one could suppose that, if the appeal which came before any one of them involved a question of a really doubtful character, the Judge might not be relied on to reserve it. As he had said, there was no objection to the production of the Paper asked for by his noble Friend.

§ VISCOUNT MIDLETON
said, he regretted that the noble Lord (Viscount Lifford), who had introduced the subject had limited his Motion as he had done, because he (Viscount Midleton) believed that if he had taken a wider scope of inquiry he would have found that decisions had been arrived at in the South of Ireland which would be equally surprising to their Lordships' House. That it should be so did not at all surprise him, because while the Bill was passing through the Lower House, of which he was then a Member, he had predicted that the machinery provided by the measure must break down, more or less, on the points referred to by his noble Friend. Therefore he was not at all astonished at the cases brought under their Lordships' notice from Ulster. The fact was 199 that among the assistant barristers were some of the most distinguished ornaments of the Irish Bar; but there were also among them individuals whose legal eminence was not equal to their political claims on their party. They had been called upon to deal with a class of cases that they were before wholly unacquainted with; and hence, in spite of their honest desire to do their duty, a diversity of decisions had been given, productive of the most serious evil. Out of this state of things a second evil had arisen—namely, the appearance of a class of practitioners in the small towns of Ireland, whose business was, and whose livelihood mainly depended on, the trumping up of a series of fictitious claims, the items of which were piled one on the other in the hope that where so much was asked something at least would be obtained. This led to the adoption of similar tactics on the other side, and the result was a multiplication of details which would seem incredible to persons familiar only with the procedure of the English Courts. To give an instance. An assistant barrister had decided not very long ago that a claim might be entertained for the cartage of materials in buildings constructed many years since, and he had actually allowed a sum of 5s. per day in a claim for labour of this description performed 13 or 14 years ago, at a time when the price of labour was much lower than it is now. Everyone who knew the condition of Ireland would understand how unreasonable was such an allowance. Another grievance much complained of was the dilatory course of procedure in the Courts of Appeal. An instance had come under his own personal knowledge that was worth mentioning. In January, 1871, a case was brought forward at the land sessions at Fermoy in the county of Cork before the assistant barrister; his decision was appealed against, and the appeal was heard at the Spring Assizes, in the following April, by Chief Baron Pigott, six days being occupied over it. The learned Judge reserved his judgment, and from that day to this it had not been delivered. It was a leading case, upon which many others depended; no one who knew the Chief Baron could suppose that the delay arose from any want of learning or knowledge on his part, and the only solution he could suggest was that he 200 had forgotten all about it, or, at all events, that he had overlooked the importance of the case as a precedent. Whatever the original opinion the Members of this or the other House might have entertained upon the Land Bill, now that it had become law there could be but this desire on the part of men of all parties—that it should fulfil the objects of its authors; but he was convinced that unless they could secure more uniformity in the decisions, more regularity of practice, and more expedition, especially in regard to cases carried into Courts of Appeal, they would find that the Land Act had created difficulties and had caused heartburnings greater and more serious than those it was intended to remove.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
suggested that the noble Viscount should add to his Motion a Return of the number of appeals to the Judges of Assizes, and of the cases on which those learned Judges had reserved points for the Superior Court.

VISCOUNT LIFFORD
assented.