Lords Sitting of 17 February 1882

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
The Lord Chancellor acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had prepared and laid it on the Table: The same was ordered to be printed. (No. 15.)

PRIVATE BILLS.
Ordered, That this House will not receive any petition for a Private Bill after Friday the 10 th day of March next, unless such Private Bill shall have been approved by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice; nor am petition for a Private Bill approved by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice after Tuesday the 9th day of May next:
That this House will not receive any report from the Judges upon petitions presented to this House for Private Bills after Tuesday the 9th day of May next:
Ordered, That the said Orders be printed and published, and affixed to the doors of this House and Westminster Hall. (No. 16.)

LAND LAW (IRELAND).

  MOTION FOE A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, in laying before your Lordships the reasons which have actuated me in presenting the Motion which is now before the House, I shall endeavour to trespass upon your time for as brief a space as the magnitude of the subject will allow. At the same time, I feel that my task will be materially shortened if your Lordships will carry your recollections back to the debate which took place in this House on the first night of the Session, because in that debate one or two of the main points at issue were clearly stated and argued from both sides of the House.
  890
  And, before I go further, let me remind your Lordships of something which occurred last Tuesday week. My noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal, in stating his case broadly and generally as against the view held by my noble Friend beside me (the Marquess of Waterford), asserted that—
  "He did not believe for a moment that the cases which had been dealt with by the Land Court were fair samples of the mass of Irish holdings. On the contrary, he believed they represented holdings which had been exorbitantly rented, and that the general body of Irish landowners need have no fear of the operation of the Land Act."
  Now, here is a perfectly clear and intelligible issue raised, and one upon which we can argue. But see how complicated it has become! I want to know whether this is the opinion of the Government generally, or merely the view of the noble Lord, who adheres to his last year's statement that only cases of exorbitant renting would be affected. The noble Earl the Leader of this House told us, on the other hand, that we ought not to grumble at a 25 per cent reduction, because English landlords had to reduce rents to the same amount.
  EARL GRANVILLE: The noble Earl is attributing an argument to me which I never used.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: Well, all I can say is, that I am quoting from The Times newspaper of the following day; and my recollection is that when the noble Earl stated that reductions of 25 per cent made by English landlords were a ground for similar abatements in Ireland, I asked from this side of the House whether those reductions were being made in England "for 15 years?" That is my recollection of the matter. Well, here is another arguable point, involving, besides Mr. Parnell's American-competition theory put forward by the noble Earl, many other questions, such as climatic conditions, and the difference of seasons in England and Ireland during the last few years. But if it is of any use as an argument at all, it points to a universal reduction; and yet the noble Earl tells us in the same breath that—
  "It is exactly the worst cases of high renting which crowded first into these Courts, because good landlords came to terms with their tenants.
  To this last sentence I must distinctly

  891
  take exception. If the noble Earl had said "starved-out landlords" he might have been right; but I cannot admit that it is a necessary qualification of a good landlord to reduce rents voluntarily which have been unaltered and cheerfully paid for years upon years, and which have been admitted by all the most competent authorities to be below the fair letting value of the land. My Lords, it would be perfectly endless, and in no way useful, if I were to enter at length into all the arguments which were brought forward as necessitating the Land Act of last Session. Great as the differences of opinion were, and, for the matter of that, still are, as to its efficacy, and as to the real objects of the agitation which gave it birth, we have to deal with it as it is, the law of the land; and I am perfectly certain that, whatever may be said "elsewhere," no noble Lord, however eager he may be to make a case for the Act, will attribute its failure, if it has failed, to any want of public duty on the part of the Irish landlords. It was loyally accepted by them under pledges and assurances as to its operation which we now learn for the first time are not to be taken as such; and if any proof of this were wanted, it is to be found in a letter addressed by my noble Friend beside me (the Marquess of Waterford) to his tenants, which appeared some months ago in the English public Press. But the fact that it is the law of the land does not in any way, as I conceive, annul the necessity of subjecting it to criticism by your Lordships' House if its operation can be proved to differ materially from the alleged intention of its promoters and the faith in which it was passed by Parliament. What was the Act supposed to accomplish? It was to redress grievances, to remedy evils, to restore peace. Turbulence and outrage and murder were rampant in Ireland to an almost unprecedented degree, owing, it was said, to certain possibilities of hardship—possibilities only, it was acknowledged, in the vast majority of cases—which the occupiers of land might have to undergo. These hardships were exorbitant renting, in certain cases confiscation of tenants' improvements, and some vague general feeling of uncertainty which appears to be peculiar to the Irish tenant, and which seems to be justified by the fact that large num-
  892
  bers of them have remained in occupation of their farms for periods varying from 50 years to over a century. It was by dealing with the isolated cases which were supposed to have created these possibilities, and with this supposititious general feeling that peace was to be restored to Ireland; and the practical remedies proposed were the fixing of a fair rent by a judicial tribunal, stability of tenure, free sale, emigration, and the establishment of a peasant proprietary. The last four we may put out of our argument for the present—Aaron's Rod has swallowed them all up—and we are face to face now with the fair rent alone, its corollary, the question of improvements, and the turbulence in Ireland. But we will suppose for a moment that this universal feeling of insecurity really existed or was really justifiable. I presume—and I am strengthened in the assumption by the opinion expressed by the Lord Privy Seal the other night—that it was the intention of the Government, in passing their Bill, to remove every element of uncertainty in the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland. The noble Lord tells us landlords that we need not be anxious; and one of the Prime Minister's arguments was that the Reports of the two Commissioners pointed to rack-renting in a few cases, and from them was produced the feeling of insecurity which he pronounced to be general. But has that feeling of uncertainty been done away with? Not at all. You have only transferred it from one class to another. The landlord is the one who is uneasy now, and with excellent reason, too, as I shall endeavour to show the House. So far, at all events, your legislation has failed; the uncertainty has become dismay among Irish proprietors, and this dismay is justified as much by the manner in which the Act has been received by those whom it was intended to benefit as by the way in which those appointed to do so carry it out; and it has a further justification as well. I believe it to be quite impossible that any body of men, no matter how fairly they may desire to exercise their functions, can be entirely free from the influences occasioned by such a state of things as was allowed to exist in Ireland up to the opening of the Land Courts, and with which it is only now attempted to deal. It is the natural and

  893
  unavoidable result of yielding to the pretext for rebellion before rebellion is suppressed; and even a judicial tribunal of the highest character can hardly be expected to be entirely free from the effects of what is going on around it. These effects need not be created directly; they can arise indirectly in many ways—as, for instance, because of extraneous influences brought to bear upon suitors or witnesses by evilly-disposed or interested parties. Take valuators, for instance. I should be very sorry, if I was a valuator, to be called upon at the present time, and in many parts of Ireland, to value land in the landlord's interest. Apart from unpopularity and the consequent effect upon subsequent practice, it is, in many cases, absolutely dangerous; and you have had instances already of landlords' valuators threatened and warned off farms. Valuators and agents, after all, are only mortal men like the rest of us; and I look upon it not only as unfair to them, but most unjust to their clients and employers, that they should be called upon to give evidence under a state of things where calm and impartial judgment is almost impossible. But the real question at issue is, are these Sub-Commissioners' Courts really judicial tribunals or not? We know they were to be composed of people in sympathy with the Act; but that does not, of necessity, mean sympathy with the tenant alone; that would have been a very dangerous proposition to make to Parliament, and one which, I believe, would have been fatal to the Bill; and yet I defy anyone to show that there are more than half-a-dozen out of the 39 gentlemen who are carrying out the Act who are not distinctly tenants' men. This assertion has been made before, and it has passed unchallenged. And how about Mr. Morrison and Mr. Weir, the former of whom stood beside the Solicitor General for Ireland at Coleraine, when he appealed to the self-interest of the people in the matter of the Land Act? The Solicitor General for Ireland says he spoke for himself, and not for the Government; but the fact remains that Mr. Morrison was appointed immediately after the election. I should like to know why he was appointed. There is a rumour afloat that he had been long anxious for employment—that he had been refused once, if not oftener. Whence came this sud-
  894
  den zeal for his services? Then there is Mr. M'Devitt, with his extraordinary ideas of co-proprietorship; Mr. Garland, the ex-publican; and Professor Baldwin, with his, up to the beginning of the Session, at all events, invisible contradictions, and his extraordinary interpretation of some of the most important provisions in the Act. A question was asked the other night whether it was right that a Sub-Commissioner should be employed in his own district. The appointment in question was that of a certain Mr. Bomford; and Mr. Forster said, very properly, that he did not approve of such an arrangement, and would communicate with the Land Commissioners. But the case then referred to is not the only one. A Mr. Rice has been appointed, and as, some of these days, Mr. Rice may have to take a practical interest in me, I made some inquiries about him. What do I find? Mr. Rice adjudicates in the County of Cork. My informant tells me that his father kept a shop at Kilworth, Co. Cork. He has four brothers—one, an attorney at Fermoy; another, an attorney at Tipperary; a third, parish priest at Charliville, Co. Cork, and not, as I understand, unconnected with the Land League; a fourth, a farmer at Conna, Co. Cork. He has three cousins—one, parish priest of Fermoy; another, an attorney in the same place; and another, Land League Treasurer at Kilworth; while, my informant goes on to say—
  "He has more cousins in Glanworth, close to Lord Donoughmore's property, all Land Leaguers, and active ones against Fleming, his bailiff, as he will probably have heard through his agent."
  I know very well that it is Government, and not Parliament, who are responsible for these appointments, and we are told they were made after careful examination by the Chief Secretary; but I maintain that both the class of appointments made and the result of them as shown by the decisions given constitute a distinct case for inquiry. The Solicitor General for Ireland justified his language at Londonderry by saying he thought there was no harm in showing people what the Act was doing, and that is precisely what I want your Lordships to do. Among other things, we shall be able to judge whether it is possible to secure the services of what the First Minister calls "the most

  895
  competent, the most experienced, and the most impartial men" for a tenure of one year on a salary of £1,000 or less, and to consider the point which has arisen on my noble Friend's (the Marquess of Waterford's) question the other night, which certainly took me by surprise, and which I believe to have been the result of an oversight, whether the important interests at stake are to be decided upon by sworn Judges, or merely by officials of a very inferior calibre, but still analogous to the Wreck or Railway Commissioners in this country. One more point arises for your Lordships' consideration, which has not, so far as I am aware, been alluded to before, at least in this House. How long is this investigation going to last? You have now some 70,000 originating notices served; some weeks ago 600 cases had been settled by the Sub-Commissioners, out of which there were 400 appeals; now some 1,300 are dealt with, and, no doubt, the appeals are in like proportion, and only 40 appeals have been decided. And now, my Lords, may I just allude, in passing, to the latter part of my Notice, where your Lordships are asked to grant a Committee to inquire into the effect of recent legislation in reference to land upon the condition of the country. Well, nobody denies, I suppose, that from the time the Act became law down to the end of last year, there was a steady increase of crime and outrage in Ireland. The outrages were 367 in August, and 574 in December, and elaborate arguments were used to show us that things were not so bad after all, as they compared favourably with 12 months before, when there was no Coercion Act. "The Land Act has effected something," says the Prime Minister, "the case presents encouraging features." Noble Lords in this House discern signs of improvement, and, two days afterwards, out comes the official Return of outrages for January, showing a greater monthly increase than ever was known before—from 574 to 811. I really think noble Lords opposite may reasonably feel annoyed that the Irish Office did not save them from the responsibility of those statements by the exercise of a little more despatch in getting out their Return. And now, my Lords, I come to what is the most important portion of the case which I desire to establish—the analysis of the
  896
  cases which have already been decided. My Lords, if the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal and the noble Earl (Earl Granville) are correct in their assumption that they are only such as were contemplated by the Act, these cases can only have come before the Courts in two ways, either by selection from the lists by the Court itself, or by the natural tendency—and I believe this is really the contention of noble Lords opposite—of rack-rented tenants to be the first to come before the public. As regards the first, I do not believe, as at present advised, that it has existed to any great extent. It would constitute a novel mode of procedure; and a denial to any inquiries on the point has been repeatedly given at the Offices in Dublin. As regards the second, however, it is a different matter. Your Lordships will remember the Land League test cases. Well, it was perfectly well known in Ireland that these were selected by the Land League, not because of rack-renting, but because they were moderate rents. What the object of this selection was, was differently interpreted; it was made with consummate skill, either for the purpose of securing a reduction in these moderate rents, or in the hope that they might be materially increased, and so bring discredit upon the operation of the Act in the eye of the Irish tenant farmers, and afford a further argument to the extreme party, who would thus be able to show what the result of Liberal legislation was. But what happened? On the very day the Land Court was opened, the campaign began against Mr. Parnell and his associates. The Land League has been suppressed, as we all very well know; but its effects are still there, and are still working, and many of this class of cases have been pushed forward, and brought into Court, and decided upon; and, what is more, one of the desires, at least, of the Land League has been accomplished—these moderate rents have been reduced! And the noble Lord told us the other night that "not any of the estates of the Peers or of the other great Irish landowners had been touched." Well, I must plead guilty to considerable astonishment, to very great astonishment, when I heard that statement; but the noble Lord is in an official position, and has opportunities at his command which I have not, and

  897
  I felt naturally chary, without further particulars, of venturing to differ with him at the time. My Lords, I hold in ray hand a list of something between 40 and 50 proprietors from every part of Ireland, upon whose properties over 200 cases have been dealt with. Let me read a few names on the list, so that your Lordships may judge whether it contains Peers and great landowners or not. Here I find Lady Margaret Charteris, Lord Enniskillen, Lord Antrim, Knight of Glin, Lord Clarina, Lord Egmont, Lord Kilmaine, Sir Roger Palmer, Lord Lucan, Lord Claud Hamilton, Lord Bantry, Lord Mountgarret, Lord Waterford, Count Edmund de la Poor, Lord Crofton, Lord Digby, Lord Clonmell, Colonel Alcock, Colonel Clements, Mrs. Deane Morgan, Sir. E. Burrowes. I think there are a few Peers and great landowners even in that selection of a selection; and what do we find?—that the percentage of reduction upon these cases amounts to 23·2, within one decimal of the general reduction over the four Provinces of Ireland taken altogether. My Lords, is this not in itself enough to justify inquiry? Is it true that the same ignorance as to the actual facts, which it was supposed last year drew the admission from the Prime Minister that, besides himself, there were only three people in Parliament who understood the Act, still to prevail in the support of the manner in which the Act has been carried out. But I protested the other night, and I protest again, against the argument, even if it were correct, of the noble Lord. Are small landlords not to be considered at all? Are they to be entirely sacrificed? They have suffered more than any by the lapse of law and the cessation of order, and are they now to be utterly swept away? Here is a case which illustrates many. It struck me as so monstrous, that I asked to have it put in writing, and I will give your Lordships the proprietor's own words—
  "All the lands held by the tenants have always been looked upon as town parks, and as such not within the Act. The Sub-Commissioners, however, decided otherwise, and immediately reduced them 25 per cent. This reduction is utterly ruinous to me, as my property is heavily charged, and I have no other source of income to support myself and my family except what I derive from land. I was so much behindhand in the payment of family charges
  898
  owing to my tenants not paying their usual rents, and their also 'Boycotting' some meadows of mine last August, that the mortgagees, taking alarm at the action of the Sub-Commissioners, have placed a reserve on the estate. I may mention, in conclusion, that the tenants have not had their rents raised for over 40 years, nor was any of them ever ejected. They have now lodged an appeal against the decision of the Sub-Commissioners, not being satisfied with this sweeping reduction."
  I should like to know whether this or similar cases were contemplated by the Act—whether it was ever intended by noble Lords and the right hon. Gentlemen who declared their convictions over and over again that rents would in many cases rise; that rents would not be generally altered or reduced; that the value of property to the landlord would be enhanced and not diminished; that some large proportion of the Irish landlords should be inevitably ruined by the foreclosure of mortgages for the payment of charges which they had not created themselves? But it is not only every class of property, but every class of rent, that is touched. I could show your Lordships, if time would permit, cases where rents fixed prior to 1840 have been reduced by 22 per cent; rents fixed between 1840 and 1850 reduced 19 odd per cent; between 1850 and 1860, 25per cent; rents fixed subsequently to 1870 reduced 23 per cent. The same with rents voluntarily reduced by landlords and subsequently reduced by the Court. And every day reductions at the same ratio are reported. The universal principle of 23 per cent or thereabouts is being applied everywhere, and our experience leads us to believe it will be sustained by the Chief Commissioners on appeal, if ever in the course of the next two or three lustres the cases come before them. But, to give your Lordships a practical exemplification of the application of this universal principle, let me take one case of a property in the County Mayo—the Thompson estate. I choose it because it is in the same district as Miss Knox's estate, which the President of the Board of Trade made so much of the other day, and where the rent was reduced, but still left considerably over the Government valuation. Here is an estate where the old rental is practically the same as it was in 1842—£679, as against £675, only £4 difference. In 1868 a re-valuation was made by which the rental would have been raised some

  899
  £200 or £300; but this was never acted upon by the landlord, who, at the same time, is proved to have spent considerable sums of money in making roads, building, and otherwise improving the estate. Seven holdings upon this property came before the Sub-Commissioners at Ballina; the statute measure was 157 acres, the rent in round numbers £39, valuation £33, judicial rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners £30; so that in one case—Miss Knox's, where the rent was very high—you have a reduction to something considerably over the Government valuation. Here, where the rent was never more than 18 per cent above the valuation, it is reduced from that to 10 per cent under it—a reduction of 28 per cent altogether on precisely the same class of land. And I have here a whole sheaf of cases, over 100, of the same nature, showing similar and greater reductions upon every class of rent; but there is one extraordinary judgment which I must bring to your Lordships' notice, as it appears to me to demonstrate the fixed intention of the Sub-Commissioners to reduce rents generally. It was given by Mr. Commissioner Reardon, at Urlingford, on the 21st of December. He begins by giving some reasons why the rents should be considered fair, which may be classed as follows:—1. The lands were only a mile from Castlecomer. 2. The rents had not been altered during this century. 3. They were always paid with regularity. 4. The soil was of excellent quality. 5. The holdings were bounded on two sides by the river. 6. The tenants and landlords were on the best of terms. 7. There was evidence that a vacant holding had been purchased in 1880 for a considerable sum at the old rental. "All these facts," says Mr. Reardon, "appear to point to one conclusion, and that is that the rents of this estate are fair." But here comes the extraordinary part, and we begin at once to see the effect of Mr. Justice O'Hagan's "live and thrive "principle, whatever he may have meant by it, and how Griffith's Valuation is to be taken as a standard of rent after all.
  "I am satisfied that the present rents are not fair rents according to my interpretation of the term. There is evidence that the landlords gave the tenants a substantial reduction in a bad year. This is sure evidence that the present rents are too high to be paid by the tenants through bad years and good. It appears
  900
  to me, from evidence and personal inspection, that though the tenants have paid their rents they have not thriven."
  Then he goes on to talk about
  "These circumstances, with the fact that the Government valuation, made by sworn and skilled valuers, is little more than half the rent,"
  And says that landlords and tenants have
  " Supplied a kind of measure by which a fair rent could be fixed by what the landlord offered to take and the tenants were able to pay after the bad season."
  Can there be a greater absurdity than this? Landlords gave an abatement of 15 per cent in the bad years, and, therefore, the Commissioners proceeded to reduce at the rate of 16·8 per cent. I really do not think I need trouble your Lordships with any more cases. I could occupy your time, if you would permit me, with many more. I have them here by me; but I really think I have said enough to establish this part of my case. There are many other arguments which might be brought forward as a further inducement to your Lordships to accept my Motion—for instance, there is the whole question of procedure, the rules promulgated by the Commissioners, the extraordinary pamphleteering propensities of the Central Office in Dublin, the question of the interests of mortgagees and encumbrancers, which, owing to the unforeseen consequences of the Act, is becoming one of the highest importance, and which seems, for all we hear, to have been treated in the most cavalier manner by the Commissioners, and there is the question of costs. I do not mean the cost of the establishment, so to speak, which is, I suppose, a matter not entirely within the cognizance of your Lordships' House, but one about which the British taxpayer will, no doubt, make inquiries later on, but costs in Court and expenses incurred out of Court and imposed upon suitors mainly by the rather erratic wanderings of the Sub-Commissioners. And there also arises, with regard to improvements, the question of the operation of Healy's Clause, to which, as the matter is still sub lite, I will only make a passing allusion—and that is that, whichever way the decision of the Court of Appeal goes, there is ample matter for investigation on your Lordships' part. Either you are establishing a new principle that lapse of time

  901
  and enjoyment of a low rent cannot compensate a tenant, or the old principle still exists. In the former case compensation arises at once on the retrospective action of the clause; in the other, the whole question of valuation comes in—whether the 15 years' period is to be taken as analogous to the whole period under a lease seldom less than 21 years and the variety of contingent circumstances. But, if your Lordships will bear with me for a few minutes longer, I should like to say a word about an argument which has already been, and no doubt will again be, made use of by noble Lords opposite, and that is what I may call a voluntary reduction theory. The noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville) contends that it is the good landlords who are making this arrangement out of Court, and that, thereby, the action of the Sub-Commissioners—that I understand to be the noble Earl's contention, and I have no doubt he will correct me if I am wrong—is more or less justified. As far as I know, there are no official data to tell us what is the sum total of these arrangements; and even if we had them, unless there is the express statement in the Returns to that effect, it would be impossible to discern which were meant by good landlords and which by others; and I have no doubt some good landlords have made some extra judicial statements, and with very good grounds for doing so. The noble Earl seems to forget altogether what the state of the country has been for the last 18 months and more, and its disturbing effects. Landlords will make an arrangement in such times as these for many reasons—to avoid litigation, for instance, or costs, or the creation of further bad feeling, or because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that a voluntary arrangement, even at a loss, will insure a better and more punctual payment of rent in the future—for the Act does not give any greater facility for the recovery of rent—than if the judicial rent were fixed by the Court, in which, to begin with, they have no confidence, and against whose authority both the Land League and the Tenant Eight Associations of the North of Ireland have protested, as not going far enough in its reductions. And surely we may include a few rack-renters in this class as well, men whose cases were really contemplated by the Legislature, and who have
  902
  screened their affairs from the public view by arranging matters with their tenants out of Court; and, lastly, there are those men whom circumstances have driven to make what arrangements they could to save themselves and their families from utter destruction—men who could not afford to wait any longer, whose credit was exhausted, who could not have found the £20 needed to employ a defending counsel before the Sub-Commissioners—these are the vast majority. I know there is an opinion in the minds of Englishmen—I do not say in your Lordships' House—that this struggle in Ireland is brought about by the efforts of great and wealthy territorialists to regain some small portion of their incomes of which they have been deprived for State reasons; but it is nothing of the sort. It is men fighting for their lives, for very existence, for subsistence for themselves and their families. And when the noble Earl talks of landlords settling out of Court, it is those men, who are the chief victims of the iniquities which some of his Colleagues justify, and which have remained so long unchecked, that he cites in support of his case. My Lords, in the present state of affairs, this voluntary settlement argument is perfectly worthless. I do not say that it might not have been otherwise; it might have been different had the Land Act been given a fair chance in normal times, and in that case it may be I should not have been presenting this Motion for your Lordships' consideration to-night. And now, my Lords, I leave the matter in your Lordships' hands. I have endeavoured to compress into as brief a space as possible the more salient points of the enormous mass of evidence by which my case is supported. I have endeavoured to justify my appeal to your Lordships on the grounds I have stated, which, broadly summarized, amount to this—that the Land Act as now administered is not the Land Act as originally intended by Government or Parliament. That this is so arises from one or all of three causes—either the maladministration of those appointed to carry it out, or from some inadvertent wording of the Act itself, or by the operation of circumstances which renders its just administration impossible. It may be objected that investigation now would be premature. I am not of that

  903
  opinion; on the contrary, I firmly believe that if something is not done at once, more general and widespread wrong must ensue. I therefore sincerely hope that your Lordships will not refuse to grant a Committee of Inquiry, which I seek, and will so take some steps to check, before it is quite too late, that "heavy loss" and "ruin" which the Prime Minister himself repudiated and disavowed, but which is being inflicted day by day upon an admittedly guiltless class, the landlords in Ireland. The noble Earl concluded by moving for the Select Committee of which he had given Notice.
  Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the working of recent legislation in reference to land in Ireland, and its effect upon the condition of the country."—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
  LORD CARLINGFORD: My Lords, I do not propose to follow my noble Friend in all the parts of the speech he has just made, and certainly not as to the policy of the Act of last year. My noble Friend was very much inclined, at the beginning of his speech, to get upon that ground; and he even told us that there was no evidence whatever furnished to Parliament that the Irish tenants laboured under any rational feeling of insecurity. Into that matter I will certainly not now go. That question has been decided once and for ever by overwhelming evidence and by an Act of Parliament. And, my Lords, I do not propose to go into the question of Irish crime since the passing of the Land Act, or the connection of that crime with the Act. I do not quite know what my noble Friend meant by the allusions which he made to that subject. My noble Friend appears to be of opinion that if there had been no Land Act the cry of the orphan and widow would not have existed. If he thinks that, the state of his mind must be really extraordinary. The fact is, as everyone knows, that the passage of the Land Act was the signal for the renewal and exasperation of the action of the Land League, and of all the disturbing elements throughout the country. Why that was so is perfectly evident. It was simply this—that the passing of the Land Act was the signal for a new departure on the part of the agitators in Ireland. They felt the enormous danger to their own system and to their
  904
  own agitation that was caused by the passage of the Act, and they set themselves at once, with renewed ardour and virulence, to defeat it. Whatever increase of crime there may have been since the end of last Session has, I venture to say, not been produced by the Land Act, except in the sense in which I have described the matter, as the last and violent effort made by the revolutionary and anti-landlord propaganda in Ireland to defeat the effects of a remedial measure. Now I come to a point on which my noble Friend has scarcely said anything at all—namely, the appointment, at the present time, of a Committee of this House to inquire into the working of the Land Act. I was curious to see whether my noble Friend would advert at all to the fact that he was asking us to inquire into the working of an Act which has not been four months in operation. It did not occur to him to advert to that circumstance until he had got to the very last sentence of his speech. It is an extraordinary proposal that we are asked to sanction. I shall be sceptical as to its being supported by the Leaders of the Party opposite until I see it happen. A more unreasonable proposal, it appears to me, was never made to this House, and it can only be explained as due to panic and passion on the part of those who make it. What kind of inquiry are we to make into the working of this Act which has just begun its operations? My noble Friend did not attempt to tell us anything at all about this, nor did he give us the slightest inkling as to the kind of inquiry he intended to institute, or as to the kind of evidence which was to be adduced. Are the Land Commissioners and the Assistant Commissioners to be summoned here to answer as to their own conduct and operations? I cannot imagine how such an inquiry can be conducted without bringing them before the Committee. Does my noble Friend intend to re-open and re-near the cases which have been heard, and which, in fact, are only half heard, as they have not yet come before the Court of Appeal? My noble Friend, I presume, would put the Commissioners themselves upon their trial as to the decisions they have given. None of these points has my noble Friend condescended to explain. Nor has he

  905
  stated whether these Courts, which we are told ought, in the interests of Ireland, to press forward their business as actively as possible, are to be closed while their labours are being inquired into by a Committee of this House. That is a matter which does not seem to have occurred to the mind of my noble Friend. The extreme inconvenience, the violence, and the unprecedented character of such a course are such that no Government could consent to it unless the most overwhelming evidence were given as to its dire necessity. The only ground that can be given by my noble Friend for his Motion is, that the Commissioners are violating the Act of Parliament which they have to administer. They must be doing so in the opinion of those who propose to support the Motion for this unprecedented inquiry. It must be that the Commissioners are violating either the letter or the spirit of the Act. That is to say, they are not fixing fair rents. [Opposition cheers.] That is a very fair issue, though I believe it was not raised by my noble Friend. But are we to assume that the mere fact that a certain small number of rents have within the last four months been reduced in Ireland is a reason for us to conclude that the Commissioners have been violating their duty and the spirit of the Act? That appears to be the view of my noble Friend and of those who have published their opinions. We are told that Parliament never intended that so many rents should be reduced in Ireland as appear now to have been reduced. But what is the meaning of that assertion? Parliament intended that fair rents should be fixed in Ireland, and that unfair rents should be converted into fair rents. Supposing, however, it were to turn out—I do not say that it will or will not—that unfair and excessive rents in Ireland are more numerous than any of us suspected, would that be any reproach to Parliament or to the Commissioners? Would that be any proof that Parliament had made a mistake in adopting this remedial measure, or that the Commissioners had violated their duty? I will assume that such a state of facts would be no reproach to them and no reproach to us. In my opinion, it is too soon for any of us to decide. We may possibly have underrated the extent of rack-renting
  906
  in Ireland. Two of the causes which have led to this are well known to all who know Ireland well—namely, the wonderful submissiveness hitherto of the Irish tenant in occupation, who was ready to accept or endure any rent rather than leave his holding. On the other hand, there was the intense desire of land which led the Irish tenant not in occupation to offer almost any rent. But, my Lords, leaving that question and its decision for the future, which appears to me quite as premature as the Motion of my noble Friend, I confidently say this—that so far, in my opinion, these Land Courts have not seriously affected the good estates, and that there is still less reason for thinking that the Assistant Commissioners have been recklessly and indiscriminately cutting down rents in Ireland without regard to the circumstances of each particular case. What are the proofs that these gentlemen have been so acting? First of all, we are told that the appointments were bad. Well, my Lords, that part of the matter has been much more largely and hotly dwelt upon than the far more important question of the conduct and decisions of these gentlemen. It is far easier to make personal charges against the antecedents and status of these Commissioners than fairly to criticize their decisions, and prove these decisions to be harsh or partial. With respect to these appointments, the Irish Government have, no doubt, had no little difficulty. The Irish Government had to find a certain number of gentlemen for the position of Assistant Commissioners, either legal or lay; and the great burden of that responsibility fell upon my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who had to inform himself of the qualifications of the candidates, and who asked advice at every point and consulted the Law Officers of the Crown, especially with regard to the legal Sub-Commissioners, who are the most important members of these bodies, under whose presidency the others act. With respect to the other Commissioners—the lay Commissioners—he consulted the members of the Land Commission themselves. The responsibility for these appointments, of course, rests with the Irish Government, and especially with my right hon. Friend; and that responsibility he fully assumes. But in the discharge of that responsi-

  907
  bility he has made the most ample use of the assistance and advice of every member of the Land Commission. His task was to pick out a small number of competent men, well acquainted with the value and management of land, and with the relations between landlord and tenant, out of a mass of candidates exceeding 800 in number; and at every point, over and over again, he availed himself of the advice and the assistance of the Land Commission. My right hon. Friend believed, and still believes, that he did succeed in securing the services of fully competent and upright men, thoroughly understanding the matter with which they had to deal, and fully capable of doing impartial justice as between landlord and tenant. My Lords, I have heard that the appointments of the legal Sub-Commissioners have given very general satisfaction; at least, I have heard very little complaint on the subject. The lay Commissioners, acting under their guidance, of course take the law from them and render the assistance of their practical experience in testing the evidence and visiting farms, and so on. Most of these lay Commissioners are both farmers and owners of land in their own persons. Several of them are land agents. I think only one of them, who was mentioned just now, is a tenant farmer and nothing else, and only one of them is a landlord and nothing else. But all were chosen as men of practical experience of the value and management of land. With respect to one of these lay Commissioners, who, as I said, is the only tenant farmer pure and simple, and was alluded to by my noble Friend, and who happens to be known to me because I served some months on the Royal Agricultural Commission, I can say that he is in an excellent position in his own county, holding a long leasehold interest in land, and quite capable of taking independent views on the subject of land; and I may add that, so far from being a Poor Law Guardian, he lost his seat as Poor Law Guardian simply because he refused to join the Land League in that part of the county. But, my Lords, the real question in respect of these Commissioners is, How have they done their work? That is the question we have to consider. My Lords, I believe—I thoroughly believe, after endeavouring to satisfy myself by inquiry, both public and private, by watch-
  908
  ing constantly, with a care which many noble Lords even from Ireland do not seem to have exercised, the decisions and utterances of the Land Courts from day to day since the time when they started—that, upon the whole, these Assistant Commissioners have done their duty laboriously, conscientiously, and impartially. My Lords, this is the testimony which has constantly been afforded by the representatives both of landlords and tenants who appear before these Commissioners, and who are better capable of judging their conduct than any of us in this House. It is to be remembered that these Commissioners are constantly acting with the sense that their decisions are liable to be re-heard. They know perfectly well that their conduct, if it is partial or incapable, is liable to be exposed to public opinion in Ireland before the Land Commission, and they act under that responsibility. But, my Lords, we are told that these Commissioners have made such indiscriminate reduction of rents that, apparently, in the minds of some gentlemen in Ireland it can only be accounted for by that gross fiction of an instruction given by the Chief Secretary. But what is the meaning of this indiscriminate reduction of rent? The only truth in the statement is that some reduction, large or small, has been generally made in the trifling number of cases—some 1,400 in all—which have been brought before the Sub-Commissioners. Well, but that state of things appears to me to be easily accounted for by the natural supposition that, for the most part, cases in which excessive rents were paid were those that first came before the Land Court. My Lords, we have often heard lately of an "average reduction of rent," and we have heard of it again to-night; we have been told that the Commissioners have made up their minds to make an ''average reduction" of rent. But what is the meaning of this average reduction? What light does that throw upon the matter? The fact is the reductions have been most various—varying from nothing at all up to something like 100 per cent in some cases.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Are there any cases of 100 per cent?
  LORD CARLINGFORD: No, not that; but I have noticed a considerable number of cases in which the amount was 70 or 80 or 90 per cent.

  909
  These extreme cases, I find, are precisely those about which there is the least question. The reductions appear to have been expected, and the cases seem to have been exceptional cases of exorbitant rents, in which the Land Courts have done their duty. These extreme cases considerably raise the average of the whole. There is a very large number of cases in which there has been a very moderate reduction. I have carefully gone through all these judicial decisions, and I am sorry that the Return is not in your Lordships' hands before to-day. There has been a large number in which small reductions have been made; a considerable number in which there was no reduction; and there have been a few cases in which the rent has been raised, since the case, of which we have heard so much, of Sir Oriel Foster. It appears to me that the number of cases in which rent has not been reduced is quite as large as we had any reason to expect. Those who know the Irish tenant know that he is not likely to go into Court if there is any risk of having his rent raised. I will illustrate what I mean by the decisions of the North-Eastern Sub-Commissioners, where I find the reductions average 23 per cent. How much information does that give you? When you come to go into particulars, these are the facts—rents have been reduced from 27 per cent to 40 per cent in many cases, while, of course, in many others they have only been reduced 5 per cent, or even less. This shows that the Sub-Commissioners are not adhering to an absurd rule, as has been suggested; but have considered all the facts and circumstances of every particular case. I find that in Queen's County, in a number of cases, rents have been reduced by an average of 30 per cent; but in some of these there has been no reduction at all, and in some others there has been a reduction of as much as 64 per cent. This shows that here, also, the Sub-Commissioners considered carefully all the varying circumstances of each particular case. We are told, also, that the Sub-Commissioners had cut down rents to Griffith's valuation, or something near it. [Opposition cheers.] That is an absolute misconception. It is not the fact. When we look at the Returns in Ulster we find, no doubt, that that is the case. I believe that it is just and right
  910
  that that should be so, and everyone knows that the case of Ulster is different from that of the rest of Ireland. The valuation of that Province is more recent and much higher than that of any other, and the value of the tenant's interest is greater there than elsewhere. There, it is true, judicial rents are, upon the whole, as closely as possible down to Griffith's valuation, a reduction with which the Ulster tenants are not satisfied. In the other Provinces judicial rents are considerably above the valuation. In 258 cases in which the rent has been fixed in Leinster the valuation amounted to £6,600, while the judicial rent was £7,500. Again, in Munster, 300 cases were heard to the end of January. The valuation was £7,500, and the judicial rent was fixed at £9,200; so that the statement that there is a general reduction to Griffith's valuation is totally inaccurate. I was much struck with a report I saw lately in The Northern Whig. Fifteen cases were decided at one sitting the other day by the Sub-Commissioners at Ballymena. It is well known that rents in that part of Ireland are, as a rule, very little indeed above Griffith's valuation; but what were the rents in these cases? They amounted to an average of 77 per cent, and there was one case of even 92 per cent, above that valuation. My Lords, there are several tests by which we may fairly try the action of the Sub-Commissioners. One of these is the settlement of rents between the landlord and the tenant out of Court. It appears to me it is vain to say these settlements, which have gone on largely, and, I am happy to say, are increasing, have been resorted to under duress, as has been said, and because the landlord could not afford to fight his own case before the Court. Anyone who will observe the circumstances will find ample evidence of voluntary settlements, brought about by the good sense and good feeling of both parties; and there is this remarkable fact—that in many cases the settlement has resulted in exceptionally large reductions of rent. Many of the largest reductions have taken place in this way. For instance, I take the Return of judicial rents for the county of Cavan. On one page I find the rents of half-a-dozen holdings moderately reduced by the Sub-Commission from a total of £120 to £108.

  911
  I look to the next page, and I find a like number of "rents fixed by consent," where the reduction is from a total of £64 to £25, or more than 50 per cent. I must give your Lordships one other case which occurred in Wexford. It was settled by consent, and these are the extraordinary figures. The rent was £80, the Poor Law valuation was £19, and the judicial rent, which was fixed by the parties and sanctioned by the Court, was £22 10 s. It is vain, therefore, to say that the cases settled out of Court are not matters of great significance. The second and stronger test of the action of the Sub-Commissioners is the landlords' valuation. This is of the greatest possible interest and importance. The landlords' valuators and agents, and the landlords themselves, have constantly admitted, in the cases which have come before the Courts, that the rents were too high, very often that they were much too high. When you add to that the fact that the valuations made on the part of the landlords generally included everything upon the holding, including the tenant's improvements, it is most remarkable, in a great number of cases, how nearly the valuation made on the part of the landlord approximates to the judicial rent. I have been told within the last few days that the valuations of landlords and tenants approach one another much more closely since the Courts have come into full operation. A third test of the Sub-Commissioners is the action of the County Courts. Your Lordships are aware that the County Courts exercise a concurrent jurisdiction with the new Courts created by the Act of last Session. The result of the cases brought before those Courts is worthy of remark. I have watched them carefully, and there seems no distinction to be drawn between the reductions there made and those of the Sub-Commissions. Quite lately, in two counties—Mayo and Wexford—a number of rents have been reduced by the County Courts, and the reductions have averaged 30 per cent. Another decision is worthy the attention of the House. The Judge was the Recorder of Cork, who could not be suspected of dealing unfairly towards the landlord. The estate belonged to a Member of your Lordships' House, and for some time past a high rent had been paid by the tenant. In that case a very large reduc-
  912
  tion of rent took place—from £79 to £56, the judicial rent fixed by the Recorder. All this, I contend, shows conclusively that there is no cause for panic or alarm. My Lords, there are a few matters connected with the action of the Sub-Commissioners which have given rise to a great deal of reproach and suspicion; and I should like to deal with them for a moment. One of these matters is what is called the valuation of holdings carried out by the Sub-Commissioners, who go out and visit the farms. We have heard these visits spoken of as "bird's-eye valuation," and so on, and a great deal of reproach and ridicule has been poured upon them. But these visits to the farms, under a rule of the Irish Land Commission, do not necessarily imply any regular valuation of the farm. The directions which the Sub-Commissioners have received from the Land Commission are that they shall visit the farms and satisfy themselves by their own inspection, where there is a doubt in the matter. That is a very different matter from a valuation made by some gentleman who has never heard of the farm before he visits it. These Sub-Commissioners have been listening beforehand to the evidence of the parties and the valuer on both sides. They have their attention pointed to every circumstance of the holding, and, where there is a doubt, they go out on the land in order to see it for themselves. This is the reasonable and natural explanation given by the Assistant Commissioners themselves. Here is what Mr. Wylie, a legal Assistant Commissioner, says—
  "We visit the land in compliance with a rule laid down for our guidance; and, further, our object in visiting the land is not to form our own opinion as to its value, but to enable us better to estimate and weigh the evidence of the different witnesses, "whose opinions vary as to the value, and as to other matters of fact material to the case."
  And I shall venture to give your Lordships a specimen of how this work is done by the Assistant Commissioners. Here is a case in Newtownards, on the estate of Colonel Forde. Mr. Greer, the legal Commissioner, says—
  "The tenant had given us details of improvements in draining and otherwise. One Commissioner had visited the farm; but the evidence was so conflicting that the three Commissioners thought it their duty to visit it. We therefore

  913
  drove 26 miles and inspected it this morning, and we have failed to discover any existing drains or improvements which add to the letting value of the holding. The present rent is, in our opinion, a fair rent."
  That was the way in which this case was decided, and I have no doubt on that largo estate it would put an end to applications on the part of the tenants. The existing rent was fixed as the judicial rent. Such a case shows very clearly the great advantage of these inspections of farms which stand on quite a different footing from ordinary valuation. Then we are told that the Sub-Commissioners have recklessly reduced old rents which have been paid for many years; and that, I believe, is one of the things which has created the greatest amount of prejudice and reproach against them. I need not remind your Lordships that no limitation based upon the duration of rent is to be found in the Land Act. But, my Lords, no doubt the fact of a rent having long existed unchanged is a matter of great weight, and so the Courts have treated it. I find, over and over again, that these Courts have stated in the strongest terms that the fact of the rent having remained for a long time unchanged is, in their minds, a very important consideration, and they throw the onus of proof in such a case upon the tenant; yet, in a considerable number of cases, they have been driven to the conclusion that such a rent may be and is an excessive rent; and in many such cases this view has been admitted and supported by the landlords themselves. I should like to give your Lordships a few examples of the action of the Sub-Commissions in this matter of old rents long paid without change. Mr. Commissioner Roche says—
  "It is admitted that the rent has not been raised within living memory. On the other hand, the tenant has made very substantial improvements. He has vastly improved a farm naturally poor and sterile. The very intelligent agent of the landlord frankly admits this. We were greatly impressed with his evidence. We have tested it in various ways, including a personal examination of the holding. We consider him a trustworthy witness, and we fix the fair rent very slightly below his estimate."
  Here, again, is a decision by Mr. Commissioner Kane—
  "No doubt the rent being paid regularly and without demur for a long period constitutes a primâ facie case that the rent is a fair rent; but we do not consider that it can be treated as conclusive evidence. We know there has been a great competition, which has existed for a
  914
  long time in this country, which caused people not only to submit to increases of rent, but to continue paying a rent which might be considered a high rent."
  And again, Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald, legal Commissioner, says—
  "The fact of an existing rent being an old rent is a consideration to which we attach great weight. But yet, after examining the holdings, we have come to the conclusion that the existing rents are excessive."
  Now, in this particular case, the conduct of the landlord confirmed the decision, because he had had a valuation made by a well-known and experienced valuator, who was sitting in Court; but yet he declined to produce him. I refer to these cases to show that the Sub-Commissions have not acted in the reckless and indiscriminate way supposed. In these cases they gave full weight to the circumstances of the case, and endeavoured to do their duty; and only arrived at a conclusion after the fullest and fairest inquiry. I cannot help wishing that noble Lords would give their attention rather more to the conduct and decisions of the Commissioners instead of fixing their minds upon two or three phrases used by two or three of these gentlemen some months ago, and over and over again denied. I saw to-day in the newspapers a report of a case in a Northern Commission, of which Professor Baldwin is a member, where an eminent valuator, employed on the part of the landlords, said he had understood from the first and was satisfied with the doctrines laid down by Professor Baldwin. Surely, my Lords, under these circumstances, there is no justification for the proposal of my noble Friend, the effect of which must be to interrupt the proceedings of the Commissioners, to close their Courts, and bring them over here to be overhauled by a Committee of this House. It appears to me that noble Lords who are attacking these Courts are blind to the real nature of the case. They are fixing their minds upon the percentage of these reductions of rent. But Irish landlords have something more and something else to think of. They are mistaking their enemy. Their enemy, they think, is the Land Act of 1881. Their real enemy is the Land League, which they seem to forget. This is not a time for Irish landlords and those who support them in this country to throw all their energies

  915
  into the work of casting contempt and disparagement on the Land Act of 1881, an Act which, in my conviction, is the best safeguard of the essential rights of property in Ireland in the state of tremendous peril to which landed property in that country is exposed. My Lords, no one believes that more firmly than the Leaders of the Land League themselves. I remember an expression used by a Land League orator—I believe at the National Convention in Dublin. When denouncing the Land Act and exhorting the tenants to have nothing to do with it, he said—"Fixity of tenure is fixity of landlordism." That means that in the present unexampled danger to landed property in Ireland, a strong, stringent, nay, even a violent and radical reform of the Land Laws is the only safety for that property. And another orator said that revolution—meaning, of course, the revolution at which he aimed, the abolition of landed property—is not to be made with rose-water. I say the remedies against revolution are not to be made with rose-water. If noble Lords think the Land Act of Last Session, administered, as I believe it is, conscientiously, and in accordance with its original intention, is violent, it is violent only in the sense of a violent cure for a still more violent disorder. But, however that may be, Her Majesty's Government have a duty to perform, and that is firmly to oppose the Motion for this premature, hasty, passionate, and unprecedented inquiry. Whether we succeed or not, it is our duty to resist it, and I certainly shall resist the proposal made by my noble Friend.
  THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, he hoped his noble Friend would persevere with his Motion, as he had stated many facts which proved how necessary it was to consider the working of the Land Act. The Lord Privy Seal had asked whether they meant to infer that the Courts had violated justice in fixing what was called fair rents? They decidedly did mean to infer that to be the case. In the case of ordinary Acts of Parliament it might be necessary to wait longer before an inquiry was made; but this was an exceptional Act; there never was such an Act before; and it had been administered in a different manner from what had been promised; and, therefore, they maintained that it was necessary to have
  916
  an inquiry into the acts of the Sub-Commissioners, and also into the way in which many of them had been appointed. He maintained that they were most biasse dappointments; and he was surprised that noble Lords opposite should make any difficulty about granting the fullest and fairest inquiry into the administration of an Act passed by them with such fair promises, and into the nomination of its administrators, over which they had had the most entire and unfettered control. Surely there must be something which the Government wished to hide, or else they would not object to this inquiry. If the pamphlet which he had the honour to bring under the notice of their Lordships was to be taken as a sample of the way the Act was being administered, that alone would be sufficient to entitle them to have a Select Committee. Mr. Fottrell, the Solicitor to the Land Commission, had now stated not only that he was responsible for the pamphlet, but that he wrote it himself; and he seemed to say that the only blunder he made was in allowing the name of the "Queen's Stationery Office" to be printed on it. He did not appear to think there was anything wrong in a person in his position writing a seditious pamphlet. It had been reported in Ireland that another official in high position, and having enormous power over the landlords' property, revised and corrected the pamphlet before it was sent to the Press. He wished to ask this direct question, Whether that was the case, and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government would give the gentleman's name?
  LORD CARLINGFORDdissented.
  THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, his noble Friend opposite shook his head; but the report that this was the case prevailed largely in Ireland. He had listened with great attention to the arguments of his noble Friend (Lord Carlingford), who, as far as he could gather, seemed to say that rents in Ireland had not been reduced much up to the present time, and would not be reduced to anything like the same extent in the future. His noble Friend stated that rents on the large estates had not been reduced. What his noble Friend beside him (the Earl of Donoughmore) mentioned with regard to his estate would show that that was not

  917
  the ease. He could himself bring forward many instances in which rents had been reduced on large estates. His noble Friend (Lord Carlingford) stated that the 1,300 cases tried were no sample of the rest, and that the highest rack-rent cases would come into Court first. But the Courts were open to the whole of Ireland, and the tenants of all Ireland were invited to come in. Besides, the Land League had selected a large number of cases of low-rented tenants, in the hope, too soon to be realized, that they would have their rents reduced, and that that would form a precedent for the general reduction of all rents in Ireland. Did his noble Friend wish to lead their Lordships to believe that rents in the greater part of Ireland would not be reduced in the future to a large extent? because his arguments meant that or they meant nothing at all. He was satisfied that their Lordships would not be deluded by any such statements. His noble Friend had said that the landlords' valuators had reduced the rents in some cases. No doubt that was true; but it was most difficult for the valuators to value at all. They had to be brought from a distance, and he had been told by some of them that there was no use in putting on a fair value, because, if they did so, the Sub-Commissioners would not listen to them at all, but would decide the case on the tenant's valuation, saying the landlord's valuator's valuation was ridiculous. Again, it must be remembered that the valuators had to value for 15 years in the most depressed times they had ever seen, not caused by the severity of the seasons, but by the diabolical agitation going on in Ireland. His noble Friend said that the rents had not been reduced to Griffith's valuation. In Ulster they had been reduced below it; on the average, however, they might be a little above it. But they repudiated Griffith's valuation altogether; it did not represent the fair letting value of the land at all. It was made over 30 years ago, and if they went upon that valuation, 33 per cent ought to be added to it. The noble Earl opposite had said the other day that it was necessary to take into account the fact that large reductions of rent had been made in England; but those reductions had been made only for a time, and the value of land would improve, and the rents be again increased,
  918
  when better times came; whereas in Ireland the judicial rents were fixed for 15 years, and would, in all probability, never be raised again. It was argued by the Lord Privy Seal that, as many landlords had made agreements out of Court giving large reductions, that was a proof the decisions of the Courts were fair. He considered it proved exactly the reverse. Why had the landlords agreed to these large reductions? Because of their intense fear of the unfairness of the Courts; that, and that alone, has made them agree to reductions not by any means justified by the value of the holdings. A curious case had come to his knowledge—a case in which their old friend Professor Bald win re-appeared. It was reported in The Down Recorder of the 24th instant. A Mrs. Allen had a case before the Court, and her counsel had made out a very strong case for her. The House might judge his astonishment at finding, when the case came on for decision, that a settlement had been arrived at out of Court and behind his back; and that the two Sub-Commissioners, of whom Professor Baldwin was one, had been present on the land with the tenant's solicitor when the agreement was signed. The presence of the Professor had apparently been enough to terrify the lady out of her senses, and she had signed an agreement conceding a large reduction. Her counsel, to use his own words, "thought the whole proceeding so monstrous that he retired from the case." That was the way in which landlords were terrorized into settlements out of Court. He himself had made such agreements, though his estates had always been looked upon as rather low-rented than otherwise; but he had done so to avoid the enormous expense, to say nothing of the ill-will, that would have been incurred by litigation. He put the expense of a moderate ease in the Court at about £10, and it might easily cost £20 or £30; it was clear, therefore, that a landlord who had received no rent for many months would be most unwilling to contest 50 or 100 such cases. Again, it was expensive for the landlords to have to produce the evidence of valuators. Many of the cases went by default, and the Sub-Commissioners had declared that if the landlord did not bring forward proper proof of the value of his property they would take the valuation of the

  919
  tenant; besides, the expense was enormously increased by the fact that the claims of the tenant were never stated before the case came into Court, so that the landlord did not know what the tenant's claims were, and, of course, did not know what evidence to produce. As for the County Court Judges, it was certainly not the case that their decisions were always similar to those of the Sub-Commissioners. The Lord Privy Seal read some remarks of Mr. Wylie's, a Sub-Commissioner, just now; it was a pity he did not read what went before in the same newspaper report. If he had done so, he would have shown their Lordships what an unbiassed County Court Judge like Dr. Darley had said on the subject of the proceedings of these Courts of the Sub-Commissioners. He said that he could not follow their course of procedure, and could not expect a hasty visit to a farm to result in a true idea of its letting value. He believed this same Mr. Wylie had stated that the valuators were to go to the land, not to value it, but to see whether the witnesses had spoken the truth, so that the Sub-Commissioners made themselves into Judge, jury, witnesses, and all. In so doing he said he was acting under an imperative rule; and if that was so he (the Marquess of Waterford) would like to know who laid down the rule? He understood from what had been said by noble Lords opposite that no such directions whatever had been given. Then who laid down this imperative rule? He heard with astonishment that the Sub - Commissioners took no oaths, and he could not understand why oaths should be dispensed with in the case of men exercising such important functions. A County Court Judge took a most stringent oath, and he should like to know why the Sub-Commissioners did not? As an instance of how the oath was looked upon with regard to the evidence given before these Courts, he had been told of a valuator who fixed the rent of a farm at 17 s. 6d. per acre, but who changed his views on being told that he would be sworn, remarking that that altered the case, and he would put the rent at £1. Part of the duty of the Committee, if it were granted by their Lordships' House, would be to inquire into the state of Ireland and the effect of the Land Act on the condition of the
  920
  country. He had never said that the Act had produced crime; but they were told it would do away with crime; and the result had not been satisfactory. He did not think it had produced the slightest improvement in the state of Ireland; and he did not see how it was to be expected that it should, when they remembered that the dying embers of the Home Rule agitation had been kindled into a blaze by the words of the Prime Minister the other night. The Home Rule agitation was superseded by the Land League, because that went a great deal further, and for an entire separation of Ireland from England. What was to be hoped for the unfortunate country, when on one side there was Mr. Parnell keeping up the Land League agitation, and, on the other hand, there was the Prime Minister toying with the spectre of Home Rule? The strongest case had been made out for inquiry, and he hoped their Lordships would grant it. The landlords demanded full, fair, and impartial inquiry. They had lost much already, and they did not wish to lose more. They had lost the pride and pleasure they used to feel in their happy homes, and the estates and tenantry handed down to them by their ancestors. All this had passed away from them for ever. They had no hope, no belief in the future of their country. The day might not be far distant when they might be swept away from the land of their birth, and their homes left ruined and desolate. But as long as they did exist they would make their demand, their cry heard for justice, and that this Act should be administered in accordance with the promises of the Government, and in accordance with the intentions of Parliament.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the Motion of my noble Friend (the Earl of Donoughmore) appears to involve two distinct propositions—first, the proposition that the facts which have come to our knowledge, and which he has laid before the House, require investigation; and, secondly, the proposition that a Committee of the House of Lords is a body to which such an investigation may properly be confided. I look upon these two propositions with widely different feelings, and I wish to say a few words in regard to each of them.
  As to the first, I cannot conceive that

  921
  there should be much difference of opinion; the two noble Lords who have addressed you from the opposite side of the House have upon this point, I think, fully made out their case. And I do entreat Her Majesty's Ministers not to suppose that we view the administration of the Act of 1881 with distrust, merely, as the Lord Privy Seal put it, because there have in consequence of it been large reductions of rent. We all knew that there were eases of rack-renting in Ireland, and we all expected to see rents largely reduced in some cases. The matter, however, goes a great deal further than that. We have, in the first place, to consider the character and constitution of the Courts which are carrying out this work. I do not mean to inquire too minutely into the personal history and conduct of these Sub-Commissioners, although the theme is tempting enough. We have heard enough of Professor Baldwin and his remarkable utterances: my own feeling for the Professor is one of sympathy rather than anything else. Ill-luck has dogged his footsteps from the first. At the very outset of his philanthropic errand he had the misfortune—somewhere in the neighbourhood of Clones—to fall into a bog-hole. After his extrication he was obliged to borrow a suit of clothes from the tenant on whose land the accident happened; and from the time that he assumed this disguise he has never been quite recognizable by his friends.
  The indiscreet utterances of individual Sub-Commissioners are, after all, comparatively immaterial. The question which we have a right to ask is this. Is the Court the sort of Court we were led to expect when the Land Act was hurried through this House? Is it the sort of Court which, upon principle, ought to be intrusted with the immense responsibility of revising the rental of Ireland?
  I may very likely be met by the rejoinder that the Sub-Commissioners are only a Court of First Instance, and that the ultimate responsibility rests, not with them, but with the Chief Commissioners in Dublin. This is, no doubt, perfectly true in theory; but the practice is different. Consider the position. You have 70,000 originating notices to be dealt with by 12 Sub-Commissions. I have never heard it anticipated that these will get through the work except upon
  922
  the assumption that 19–20ths of the cases will be settled out of Court upon the basis of the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners. If they are to be settled out of Court, what becomes of your appeals? The appeal is a reality so far as it is open to decisions involving points of law, or affected by any exceptional circumstances; but for the ordinary run of cases it is physically impossible that the Appeal Court should really be open to all. And I believe that it is not only physically impossible for the Chief Commissioners to revise these decisions, it is politically impossible also. Consider the effect of anything like a general reversal of these decisions in the landlord's favour. Do you seriously believe that a whole country side is to have its rents lowered amid the applause of the delighted population, and that five years later you will be able to take back from the recipients the boon you have presented to them. This conclusion was one which had forced itself upon my mind at an early stage of the proceedings, but I was very much strengthened in it by the perusal of the remarkable judgment recently delivered by Mr. Justice O'Hagan in an appeal case. I will not detain the House by quotations from that judgment; but I will say that it is difficult to read it without the impression that the learned Justice intended to give a very broad hint to the suitors not to come to him merely for a re-hearing of their cases.
  It is, therefore, these Sub-Commissioners who are re-casting the rental of Ireland; and, that being so, we have a right to ask whether they are competent for the duty that has been committed to them.
  Consider the nature of that duty; consider its extent: it is co-extensive with the area of the country; consider its importance: it affects pecuniary interests valued by the million, and it involves the very existence of the class which has hitherto depended upon income derived from the ownership of land; can we, as loyal subjects of the Crown, view without some anxiety the progress of a measure which is tending towards the extirpation of the only class which has till now throughout continued loyal to the British connection? Consider, again, the enormous difficulty of this process of valuation. If you tell me that such and such a farm is worth 20 s. an acre because 10 individuals are ready to give that sum, and no one will give much more,

  923
  you have proved your case; but if you start by excluding the market value of a commodity and then attempt to determine its price, you at once embark upon a sea of difficulties without a compass to guide you or a beacon to direct your course. You fall back upon the merest guess work. You depend entirely upon the opinion of the individual whom you call in, upon his experience, upon the amount of confidence with which he inspires those for whom he has to decide. Mr. Commissioner Litton says with truth that—
  "The estimate of a fair rent is, within certain limits, as uncertain as the character of the man to whose judgment the question is submitted."
  And, if this be so, is it not fair to require that in this case those individuals to whom you intrust these plenary powers should be tried men, men possessing the general confidence of the public—experts? Should not the remuneration be such as to attract men of this kind? Is it not, above all, necessary that their tenure of office and their professional status should be such as to raise them beyond the suspicion of partizanship, or dependence on the favour of political patrons?
  Such is the kind of Court to whom the duty of revising rents ought to have been committed; and such is the kind of Court which we were beyond question promised—if not, why did Parliament insist that the names of the Commissioners were to be printed in the Bill? They were printed in the Bill, and we believed that, in determining fair rents, the new Court would have the advantage of Mr. O'Hagan's knowledge of law, Mr. Litton's sound judgment, and Mr. Vernon's wide experience of all matters connected with land. Something was, indeed, said about assistants; but did anyone anticipate the creation of this judicial octopus, with arms and legs covering every Province of Ireland, which we have had called into existence? What is the tenure and what the remuneration of these gentlemen? Their tenure—that, at any rate, of 24 of them—is yearly; less secure than that of the tenants upon whose claims they are to adjudicate. Their remuneration is less than that of many clerks in the Public Offices. What man of any standing in his profession would interrupt his career and undertake arduous work for such a
  924
  salary as was received by these gentlemen, and such prospects as theirs? And what has been the consequence? You have obtained very much what you had a right to expect, considering the inducements offered. I wish to speak with all respect of the members of these Sub-Commissions. Among them are several lawyers of fair position, and several laymen with a sound knowledge of agriculture. By the way, I think the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal is in error when he says that the legal member usually "guides" the Court in its decision. I read the other day a report of a decision given by Mr. Reeves, at Limerick, in which he stated that, in his opinion, the tenant had no claim, but that his Colleagues thought differently, and, accordingly, the tenant's rent was reduced. Be this, however, as it may, it is said, and, I think, with good reason, that these Sub-Commissioners are not, as a general rule, persons commanding public confidence. I wish the Lord Privy Seal had endeavoured to dispose of the charge, which has been again and again repeated, to the effect that several of them were open to a strong suspicion of political partizanship. There is another matter as to which I should like information. I hear it said that these Sub-Commissioners are not to be allowed to travel the same Circuit twice—I presume for fear of their decisions being called in question. That is a sorry compliment to pay the Sub-Commissioners. The effect of the arrangement will be this—that just as they are beginning to acquire a little acquaintance with a particular part of the country, its system of agriculture, and the character and credibility of the people, they will be spirited away to a different district, in which their former experience will count for absolutely nothing. I should like to know, again, what guarantee we have that these gentlemen know anything about the science of land valuation? We are assured that they were examined by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. I have a great respect for the Chief Secretary, and I am sorry for the rough experience through which he has lately passed. I am still more sorry for him when I am told that, at a time when his hands must have been full of work, he was required to conduct a sort of Civil Service Examination, in order to select from the numerous candidates

  925
  who offered themselves the persons best qualified for these Sub-Commissioner-ships. At the time almost every man in Ireland who could spell, and a good many who could not, were candidates for these appointments; and I suppose Mr. Forster had to select from amongst these, or, at any rate, from the 700 or 800 who have been referred to to-night, the elect who are now at work upon our estates.
  Having said something of the construction of the machine, I want to know from Her Majesty's Government how it is going to get through its work. If there is a failure in this respect, it will not be due to want of industry on the part of the Sub-Commissioners. Whatever their imperfections, these gentlemen are no idlers. They work early and late—too early and too late, unless public opinion is misinformed; and, with all this haste, what impression have they made upon the great mass of work which remains to be disposed of somehow or other? There are 70,000 originating notices already. When the pressure of the Land League is diminished, as we must all hope that it will be diminished, the number will be enormously increased, for, in many parts of Ireland, the tenants are keeping out of Court in consequence of the action of the League. For all we know, we may have 140,000 notices instead of 70,000. What will you do then? Will you appoint more Sub-Commissioners? Will you go out into the highways and by-ways, and press into the service everyone who has been chairman of an election committee, or who is a member of a "chemical society?" And, in the meantime, what will the position be? Are we going to prolong indefinitely the suspense of the tenants, with all its exciting hopes, and the suspense of the landlords, with all its fears and forebodings? Is that your settlement of the Irish difficulty? It is not a settlement, but an unsettlement. Will the tenants settle down peaceably to their avocations; will they commence that course of industry and thrift, which their insecurity is supposed to have checked, while they are in ignorance of their future? Will they pay their rents until they have been told what those rents are to be? One of the Sub-Commissioners has given us some important information on this point. Here is an extract from a judg-
  926
  ment delivered by Mr. Sub-Commissioner MacCarthy, at Ballina—
  "Every day's delay in disposing of a case is an injury to all concerned. It is an injury to the tenants, because it keeps them hanging about the Court-house, and defers their obtaining the benefits which the Legislature had intended to confer on them, and which we, for our part, desire, in all suitable cases, promptly and unstintingly to give them. It is an injury to the landlord, because, when once an originating notice has been served, the recovery of rent becomes practically impossible until a fair rent has been fixed and a statutory term created."
  A pretty plain intimation to the landlords that they cannot expect to receive, and to the tenants that they are not expected to pay rent, until the Courts have disposed of the cases before them. I wish the Lord Privy Seal had shown a little more appreciation of the gravity of this block in the business of the Land Court.
  I pass from this point, which has reference to the quantity of the work before the Court, to the quality of that work, so far as we are able to judge of it. I am well aware that as to this great caution is necessary in forming one's opinion. It is not easy to judge of the merits of a particular case without knowledge, acquired on the spot, of the whole of the circumstances under which it was decided. Some general conclusions, however, we are perfectly able to form. To begin with, we have the fact that many of these valuations have been made in a very hurried manner, and under conditions which rendered impossible an accurate estimate of the capabilities of the soil. Sir Richard Griffith lays it down as an axiom that mountain pasture can only be valued in the spring or early summer, when the grass is growing and the valuer can judge of the number of head of cattle which the land will carry. The Sub-Commissioners have been valuing such pasture at a season when the grass is not to be seen, and when, therefore, no opinion can be formed of its quality.
  Again, we have, I think, reason for complaint, because the Sub-Commissioners, in their decisions, leave us absolutely in the dark as to the principles upon which their awards are based. The Chief Commissioners in Dublin, no doubt, lay down such principles; but we want to know how the Courts below apply them. Can we detect those prin-

  927
  ciples from their awards? We are urged to settle with our tenants out of Court; but how can we do so in ignorance of the basis upon which those awards are founded?
  Then there is the question of reduction. We find ourselves face to face, not with the reduction of a few exceptionally high rents, but with a universal reduction; and this in spite of the fact that all those who had the best opportunities of judging told us that the bulk of the rents in Ireland were low. We were told so again and again by Ministers, whose speeches have been quoted to-night. I know very well that those speeches were not intended as pledges that there should not be more than a slight reduction, and that, even if those who delivered them had been desirous of giving such pledges, they would not have been binding on the Courts. Statements of this sort, however, when made by Ministers of the Crown, should be made with a sense of the responsibility which they involve. They are not to be regarded as on the same footing with a statement made by a noble Lord moving or seconding the Address; and we have certainly the right to believe that they would not have been made unless those who made them had good reason to know that they were well founded. The Bessborough Commissioners expressed the same opinion, and so did every other competent student of the question; and yet we find that in every county, on all estates, large or small, the process of reduction is going forward. It was conceded on all sides that the Poor Law valuation was, as a rule, below the fair letting value. The relation of the two differed, no doubt, in different districts; but even the Bessborough Commissioners admitted that the valuation was a "general and uniform under-estimate." And yet we find the Courts again and again reducing rents below the level of that valuation.
  I have seen, with great surprise, that in many cases the Commissioners have made reductions in rents which have, beyond question, been regularly paid for long periods of years. Now, I can conceive that there may be some cases where old rents have been exorbitant and exacted by great pressure, and where it has, therefore, been necessary to reduce them. But where a rent which, judging from the award of the Sub-Commissioners themselves, cannot have
  928
  been exorbitant, has been paid for a generation of men, then, I say, it is mere wantonness to reduce that rent by a few pounds. If land valuation were an exact science, and you could demonstrate that £40 was the fair rent of a given holding, and that £42 was an iniquitous demand, then, I would say, by all means reduce it to £40. But land valuation is not an exact science, and the Sub-Commissioners awards are, after all, no more than the expression of opinion arrived at on imperfect data by erring human beings. If this be conceded, it appears to me to be a gratuitous unsettlement of the existing order of things to alter rents in favour of tenants whom the landlord has never disturbed, and who, by paying them for many consecutive years, have proved that those rents cannot have been excessive.
  I will pass from these matters to a different count in the indictment. My noble Friend opposite says that the Act has had consequences which we none of us foresaw at the time when it passed through this House, and I agree with him. Some of its consequences we were able clearly to foresee. We were able to foresee that it would deprive the ownership of land of some of the incidents which rendered such ownership most valuable, by taking away from the owner the right of determining whether he will let his land or not, and the right of selecting the person to whom he lets it. We were able to foresee that it would compel us to admit upon our estates customs which we had made large sacrifices to exclude, and which we believed to be incompatible with their proper administration. We were able to foresee, too, that it would make land absolutely unsaleable, except to the person who happened to be the occupying tenant of it. Upon that point there will, I think, be no controversy. It has been disposed of by the famous pamphlet to which reference has been so often made. Its author had such exceptional opportunities of studying the dynamics of the Land League on the one hand, and the Land Court on the other, that his opinion upon a point of this sort must be taken as conclusive.
  All these consequences we expected; but the Act has had others which we did not expect. Not only do you force the nominal owner of land to let it against his own wishes, and to a person whom

  929
  he would rather not have as his tenant, but you force him to let it upon terms unrecognized in any other civilization—terms which, undoubtedly, involve the confiscation of valuable interests never seriously threatened until six months before the Government committed themselves to this new departure in Irish policy.
  What are those terms? Land has been bought, or inherited, in every part of the United Kingdom, subject to the condition that its value was to depend, like that of other commodities, upon the price which it would command in the open market. We discover that, owing to excessive competition, the price charged in Ireland has occasionally been exorbitant, and has encroached upon the interest of the tenant. In order to protect the latter, we determine to put an end to exorbitant rents by regulating them through the means of public tribunals. And how is this end to be achieved? In order to avoid the abuse of unhealthy competition, we suppress all competition, healthy and unhealthy, and we substitute for the test of demand and supply a purely arbitrary criterion, depending on no known principles, and determinable according to the variable estimate of these Sub-Commissioners whose fitness for their work we have been discussing.
  Now, observe that this complete repudiation of the competitive value formed no part of the original scheme of the Government. When the Bill was first printed the test of the fair rent was the price which a solvent tenant would pay for the farm. The Bill encountered foul weather in ''another place;" a good deal of deck cargo was thrown overboard, and the solvent tenant went with the rest. Observe, also, that although competition disappears as far as the landlord's interest is concerned, it is to be studiously kept alive when the tenant's interest is dealt with. Here are Mr. Litton's words—
  "While, then, we should endeavour to ascertain the commercial or market value of the holding as it stands, we should exclude the competition value."
  I wish Mr. Litton would tell us how he arrives at the commercial value of a commodity without reference to the competition value. He proceeds—
  "The owner of land about to let a holding in his own occupation may demand whatever rent
  930
  he pleases, and take whatever rent he can procure …. He has a perfect right to the competition rent. But in estimating the rent between the landlord and the present tenant—that is, the tenant in occupation—whatever might be procured from the motives I have referred to beyond the commercial rent belongs to the tenant who holds the possession, just as it would belong to the landlord if about to let his land for the first time."
  In other words, Mr. Litton says to the landlord—"You may obtain for your share in the enterprize a price which I shall determine, and no more;" but to the tenant—"You may go into the open market and sell your share for the highest figure which competition, no matter how exaggerated, will obtain for you."
  But, my Lords, not only is competition to be thus excluded for the landlord, but another restriction, undreamed of as yet in our agricultural economy, is to be imposed upon his already restricted rights.
  Until now every acre of land in this Kingdom has been let upon this assumption—that the latent capabilities of the soil were the property of the landlord; that he had a right to let that soil to a tenant, upon the condition that the tenant should develop those latent capabilities by the expenditure of his own capital and labour; and that when he had enjoyed his improvements for a time sufficient to recoup him for his outlay, those improvements were to pass back to the landlord and become his property. That has been the well-understood principle, and it has been again and again affirmed. It was affirmed when we passed the Irish Land Act of 1870. What else was the meaning of the enactment that a 31 years' lease was to bar the claim of the tenant? What else was the meaning of the enactment that in dealing with the tenant's claim for compensation for improvements the Court was to have regard to the time during which he had enjoyed them? It was affirmed again when the English Agricultural Holdings Act was passed by the late Government. That Act was based upon the idea of what are known as compensatory periods. It was criticized from this side of the House, but not, so far as I am aware, on account of its admission of the principle that the tenant's interest in his own improvements was exhaustible by effluxion of time. I was in Scotland

  931
  last autumn. The Scotch newspapers were full of a lease which had just been granted by a noble Friend of mine, a Member of this House (the Earl of Dalhousie), a strong Liberal, and an excellent landlord. The lease was accepted as a most equitable and generous adjustment of the respective claims of the landlord and the tenant. Its clauses, however, contained the most stringent covenants upon this point. Here is the clause applicable to buildings—
  "The tenant is to receive for all buildings of brick or stone and roofed with slates, erected at the entire cost of the tenant on sites and after plans approved in writing by the proprietor or his factor, the amount of the cost of such buildings (including therein the carriage of material performed by the tenant, which must not exceed 10 per cent of the gross amount expended) after deducting there from one-thirtieth part thereof in respect of each year that shall have expired since such buildings were completed."
  There is a like clause in respect to drainage executed by the tenant. Perhaps I shall be told that these principles are admirable for England, Scotland, and Wales, but that they are poison for Ireland, and that we must adopt Irish ideas for that country. Unfortunately for this theory, the idea in question is an Irish idea, and eminently congenial to the Irish mind. Anyone familiar with that country will tell you that nothing is more usual than for a farmer to sublet a portion of his holding upon the condition that the sub-tenant reclaims, tills, and manures it, and then, after taking three or four crops off the land, which repay him for his outlay, he hands it back in its improved condition to the original occupier, against whom he is not considered to have any surviving claim. I suppose no authority upon a question of this sort is much higher than that of the late Mr. Butt. Here is a passage from his work on the Act of 1870; it was quoted a few days ago in The Dublin Express—
  "The additional value is not the creation solely of the tenant; it is the creation partly of the expenditure and skill of the tenant, and partly of the inherent capabilities of the soil. It so happens that these inherent capabilities, when undeveloped, do not always enter into the calculation of the letting value of the land, as will at once be understood from the fact that it has frequently happened that land valued at 2s. an acre has been, by a trifling expenditure, made worth as many pounds. There are instances, not uncommon, in which the reclamation of a bog, or land on the edge of a river or lake, has repaid the expense of the process in
  932
  the crops which were raised in the course of it. In instances like these the property is not created by the expenditure of the tenant, but by the latent powers of the soil. These powers are the property of the landlord, who has a right to have them returned to him when the tenant's interest expires."
  Such was the universally-admitted principle on which we have proceeded till now—a principle which was heedlessly sacrificed at the eleventh hour when the Land Bill was sent back from this House to the other. The facts are within your Lordships' recollection. The measure came up to us containing the well-known Healy Clause. Lord Monck put upon the Paper an Amendment which virtually transformed that clause by limiting its operation to a particular class of case which might arise hereafter. Lord Monck is a trusted supporter of the Government, but, for some unexplained reason, he was not in his place when we came to the clause. His Amendment was, however, moved for him by the noble Marquess opposite. What happened? Did the Lord Privy Seal protest or object? He sat silent, and the clause was amended. But when the Bill went back to the other House, words restoring to the clause its original sense were once more inserted, upon the ground, as explained by the Prime Minister, that he had declined to accept—
  "The doctrine accepted at the time of the Land Act of 1870, … …. the tenant's improvements were the tenant's own property, and he would not admit the principle that the time during which he had enjoyed those improvements was any reason for their passing away from him."—[3 Hansard, cclxv. 1490.]
  I have now endeavoured to make good these three propositions—that the Courts which are re-casting the rental of Ireland are not so constituted as to be fit for that duty; that the manner in which they have administered the Act is open to suspicion; and that, apart from this, the Act has produced consequences which were not foreseen at the time of its passing. If there is any foundation for these statements the case in favour of an inquiry is conclusive. It appears to me that those to whom it is committed ought to keep before their mind a twofold object—on the one side, the extrication of the parties from the position in which, owing to the block of business in the Land Court, they find themselves involved; on the other, the redress of the undoubted injury which one of those parties has sustained.

  933
  And here the question arises whether that redress ought to take the form of pecuniary compensation granted to the landlords for the loss which they have sustained. I own that I see enormous difficulties in the way of any such step as a measure of general relief.
  If you are to endeavour to give to A. B. and C. a solatium proportionate to the loss of each, endless complications meet you at every step. Although, in some cases, the rents cut down have been paid without a murmur for more than a generation of men, in others they have, beyond all question, been cruelly extortionate. How much of the confiscated rental has been based on extortion? How much has not? Where are you to draw the line? Where does competition end and exaction begin? Again, how much of the rental was actually received, and how much only nominal? How, again, are you to deal with eases where the rents might have been, but have not been, raised; and where the landlord will now certainly be unable to raise them?
  I own that I see difficulties, which appear to me to be almost insuperable, in the way of compensation bestowed upon the landlords generally in the shape of a grant out of public funds. There is, however, one case in which such a payment might, I think, fairly be demanded.
  I am speaking of the case in which estates have been purchased under the Encumbered Estates Act, and in which the rental at which they were purchased has been recently reduced by the action of the Courts. In these cases the purchaser acquired, under an absolute conveyance from the Court, a statutory title to the land and everything upon it—every interest, latent or apparent, was transferred to him. What right has the State, which was the vendor, to turn round and retract from the bargain to which it was a party? I know it has been said by the Prime Minister that these sales, including, as they did, a part of what might be held to be equitably the tenant's property, involved a confiscation of that property. I will not inquire into that, for one thing is clear—that if there was confiscation it was not perpetrated by the purchaser, but by the vendor. It appears to me that unless some direct relief is given to those who acquired land relying upon
  934
  the good faith of the Government and the stability of a Parliamentary guarantee, a very great wrong will be done.
  In all other cases the relief should, I am disposed to think, be indirect in character. Such relief might easily be given. I would place in the forefront of the measure a modification of the Purchase Clauses of the Act—such a modification as would, on the one hand, enable those landlords who believe that you have rendered the situation unendurable for them to emancipate themselves from their estates, and would, on the other, give the Purchase Clauses some chance of coming into general operation.
  What chance have they of coming into general operation as matters stand now? Why should the tenant desire to become a purchaser? His position as a tenant is unassailable; he has all the pleasures of proprietorship, without the pains and the responsibilities. Government, I have no doubt, were sincere in their desire to increase the number of proprietors; but, in their enthusiasm, they behaved like a man who loses his head in an auction room and bids against himself, and they outbid themselves. They offered the tenant great temptations to convert himself into an owner, and then they offered him still greater temptations to remain a tenant.
  But that is not all. Supposing the tenant wishes to purchase, upon what sort of terms is he likely to be willing to acquire his holding? Remember the lesson of the pamphlet. The tenant has been taught that he is the only customer in the market, and he will shape that market to suit his own convenience. What is to prevent him from depreciating his holding by mismanagement and agitation, and then endeavouring to force it upon his landlord at a few years' purchase of the depreciated rental?
  And that brings us to another question. Supposing the tenant to be willing to buy, can the landlord afford to sell? His income has, in all probability, been from the first not more than sufficient for his support; the Sub-Commissioners reduce his nominal income by a quarter; the diminution probably reduces his net income by one-half. Can he afford to reduce that reduced income still further by selling at 16 years' purchase, and investing the proceeds in Government Securities, or by paying off debt at 5 per cent?

  935
  To some landlords, no doubt, such a transaction would be possible enough. Men with large incomes, who have been in the habit of spending liberally in the improvement of their estates, but who will now readily relieve themselves of such obligations, will gladly avail themselves of the chance, and will, perhaps, be content with 16 years' purchase of their rentals, gaining in so far as they will henceforth cease to spend any part of their income in improving their property. But the needy, the embarrassed landlord, the man who has done nothing for his tenants, and for whom his tenants have no sympathy, will be forced to cling to the relics of his property, of which he will not be able to divest himself, except at a ruinous loss. And thus your Act will, by a process of natural selection, remove from the land the very landlords whom we should be most anxious to retain, and anchor upon it those whom we could best afford to spare.
  My Lords, it is, I think, the duty of the Government to do something towards the improvement of this state of things; and I will venture to make a suggestion with this object. Let the period over which the repayment of principal and interest which the tenant is to make be extended from 35 years to 50, or even to a longer term. I will explain to the House the results which would follow. Under the existing rules, which require the repayments to be completed within 35 years, a tenant whose rent is £10, if he buys his farm for 20 years' purchase, or £200, will have, for 35 years from the date of the purchase, to pay annually to the State £7 10 s. on account of the £150 which the State will advance him. He will also, if he borrows the remaining £50 at 5 per cent, have to pay £2 10 s. annually as interest to the lender. In all, he will have to pay £10, or a sum exactly equal to his old rent. But, in addition to this, he will be responsible for the payment of all rates and taxes which the landlord has hitherto been in the habit of paying. The bargain will, therefore, at the outset, not be a very tempting one for him; and I question whether many of the tenants will be found ready to buy on such terms for the sake of securing to their successors the reversion of the fee. Suppose, however, that the period becomes extended to 50 years; during those years the
  936
  same tenant, buying, as before, at 20 years' purchase of the rent, will pay to the State £6 7s. 10 d. annually, and he will pay to his creditor, as before, £2 10 s.; or, if the landlord chooses to leave the money on mortgage at 4 per cent, £2 annually. His annual liability will, under this arrangement, not exceed £8 7s. 10 d., a sum considerably below his rent, and leaving a margin for rates and taxes. Upon such terms as these the tenants would, I believe, be very ready to buy their holdings, and we should have a fair prospect of seeing the structural weakness of Irish society removed, and a large increase effected in the number of the proprietary.
  I see no solution other than this, and I earnestly hope Her Majesty's Government will consider it. If it were thought fit to make such a change, I would suggest that every owner of a farm upon which a judicial rent has been fixed should be allowed to require his tenant to purchase the holding from him upon some such terms as those which I have sketched. If the tenant declined, then I would give the landlord permission to buy out the tenant, paying him the specified value of his tenancy, as fixed by the Court.
  These are subjects which require investigation; there remains the question whether they should, as my noble Friend proposes, be investigated at once, and by a Committee of your Lordships' House. I did not agree with a great deal of what was said by the Lord Privy Seal; but I share his opinion that there is a great deal to be said against the immediate appointment of such a Committee. I foresee great difficulties in the way of instituting what will virtually amount to a re-trial of these land cases in a room upstairs. Are we to send over for the Commissioners, the Sub-Commissioners, the valuators, the witnesses, and the parties to these suits? Where will this end if we once embark on such a course?
  Besides this, I see considerable objection to committing the investigation of these matters to what will be regarded as a Committee of landlords, a Committee which, however honest its action, will inevitably be suspected of approaching the inquiry with biassed minds.
  For these reasons I should much prefer some other form of inquiry, when the time comes for instituting one. When

  937
  purchase was abolished in the Army, a Royal Commission was appointed to report upon the extent to which the officers' pecuniary interests had been affected. The Commission was a strong one, consisting of only three Members, of whom Lord Penzance and Lord Justice James were two. I should like to see such a Commission, one upon which the legal element would be well represented, appointed to investigate the claims of the landlords; and I should be well content if Ministers could hold out to us a hope that such a Commission would be hereafter set in motion. I will go even further—I will be content if Her Majesty's Government will undertake themselves to take into consideration some such scheme for the amendment of the Purchase Clauses as that which I have suggested. I implore them not to turn a deaf ear to our entreaties, or to think that it is derogatory to their own dignity to review, in some particulars, the settlement of last year. Let them remember that they had to deal with one of the most intricate problems which has ever been submitted to English statesmanship, and their judgment is, after all, the judgment of fallible mortals. Let them remember, above all, that that justice to which they are so fond of appealing in the perorations of their speeches knows no difference of station or profession, or race or creed, and that they are profaning her name, when, professing to be guided by her, they seek to redress the wrongs of one class of the community by inflicting a not less cruel wrong upon another class.
  THE EARL OF KILMOREYsaid, the noble Marquess had stated that he was impressed by the words which fell from the Lord Privy Seal to the effect that this Motion was premature. No doubt, in an ordinary case it would be unusual to apply for a Select Committee to inquire into an Act which only came into operation last October; but this was one of the most extraordinary and unusual cases that had ever been presented to their Lordships' House. As one of those interested in landed property in Ireland, he had strong feelings on this question, and to his mind the point was whether they should have an inquiry now or wait until such time as the Government thought it convenient to amend the Act. He was strongly of opinion that that opportunity should not be lost. He
  938
  hoped a division would be taken, and the Government obliged to afford them what they asked—an inquiry into the working of the Act. What they considered the grievance was not so much that the Act was a bad Act as the working of the Act. The Land Act as administered in 1882 was not the Land Act of 1881. The change was very extraordinary and unexpected. A great change had also come over the utterances of Her Majesty's Ministers. When the Prime Minister introduced the Bill he exonerated the large landed proprietors; he declared that they had been found not guilty; and that they left the Court without a stain upon their character. It was not, the Prime Minister said, the administration of the estates of large landowners which brought all the distress on Ireland; it was not the great landowners who had rack-rented their tenants. And the right hon. Gentleman then travelled to Jamaica to find a parallel, not, indeed, for the purpose of proving that the Irish landlords should be compensated. The Bill was, however, carried into law. It was accepted by their Lordships—reluctantly, no doubt, but still it was accepted. He had discovered the reason why it was accepted by their Lordships. It was accepted because of the speeches of the Lord Privy Seal, of the noble and learned Lord, and of the President of the Council. The Lord Privy Seal distinctly stated that the property of the landlords would not be injured, and that he believed the Bill would not inflict any loss of income, except in a certain number of cases in which landlords had imposed excessive rents upon their tenants. When their Lordships received those assurances, and were told that their fears were entirely unfounded, they allowed the Bill to pass, to the great surprise and great regret of many. It would be an unheard of thing for him to doubt the sincerity of the Lord Privy Seal and other noble Lords who had supported the Bill. On the contrary, he believed that they were perfectly sincere in what they said. But that only showed that everyone was disappointed by the results of the Act, and that was why they asked for a Select Committee. The noble and learned Lord said that if the Act were administered conscientiously and honestly, little injury would be done. He cordially agreed with that remark; and

  939
  what they wanted now was entirely to revolutionize the working of the Act, and to secure that steps might be taken to insure honest and fair rents. He maintained that the administration of the Act was not conscientious or honest, and he could adduce hundreds of instances in proof of that, only he did not wish to weary the House. It was said that the Assistant Commissioners were not valuators; but, if not, what were they? They went through the process of valuing. It could not be considered just on the part of the Assistant Commissioners to do a thing in a tenth of the time that professional men of the highest reputation would take to do it. But if they were not valuators, why did they not act up to that section which said that they "may" or "shall"—he did not know which word was used—have qualified valuators to assist them? Except in very few cases the services of valuators had been dispensed with; and the Assistant Commissioners visited the farms and examined into the nature of the soil, the draining, fencing, and so on. If that was not a valuation, he would like to know what was. He had derived some consolation, in the terrible prospects before him, in having secured the services of a very eminent valuator, Mr. Edward Murphy. That gentleman assured him—and not one in the House would question his veracity—that no valuator would risk his reputation by valuing more than 300 acres in a day; but he was told that the Assistant Commissioners had valued as many as 700, 800, and even 1,100 acres. The Chairmen of the Sub-Commissioners were generally briefless barristers, while the Sub-Commissioners themselves were taken from all classes, the one qualification they seemed to have being the wish to reduce the rents of the landlords in Ireland. From all quarters had been heard the most extraordinary assertions and contradictions with respect to the Assistant Commissioners. It had been distinctly stated that they had no special instructions; but, on the other hand, Professor Baldwin had alleged his adherence to the principles laid down as the determining consideration in a decision given by him at Downpatrick. Now, it would be the main object of the Select Committee to get a satisfactory answer to that and similar questions, especially as there was a singular differ-
  940
  ence of opinion on this point between high officials and the under-strappers, who defended their conduct on the ground that they had followed the principles laid down for their guidance. He was sorry to mention again the name of Professor Baldwin in connection with cases in which, as it appeared to him, the Act was not administered in the best and most conscientious manner; but the facts of the case obliged him to do so. That gentleman had hardly held a single Court in which he had not made himself conspicuous for some act or dictum. In the beginning of November last the very important case of Major Hall had come before him. The landlord had a good case and a good solicitor, and it was, undoubtedly, the opinion of all his tenantry and his neighbours that the tenant in question had the land on very easy terms. However, the tenant brought the case into Court and made out his claim. During the trial of the case Professor Baldwin, in the most unnecessary manner, interlarded his examination of the witnesses by such remarks as, "This is a meritorious man;" "This is a tenant any landlord would be proud to have." Now, was not that an attempt on the part of the Judge to prejudice his Colleagues? The result, of course, was that such observations were vociferously applauded by the peasantry by whom the Court was thronged. The Lord Privy Seal had complained that the noble Earl who had opened the debate had not made out his case, and had omitted all reference to the object of his Motion. The House, however, was perfectly aware of the reasons for that Motion. It was made because they were of opinion that the great remedial measure, not of the Session, but of the century, had failed. It had promised the complete pacification of a distracted country, and a settlement of the Land Question for ever and ever. The Lord Privy Seal had exhorted the House to accept a measure that would produce peace and loyalty in Ireland; and the House had not resisted that appeal, which was strengthened by the assurance of the noble Earl opposite that the Court would be a Court of Conciliation for landlord and tenant. He held that the House had acted wisely in accepting that statement, and in passing the Bill with the promise of unusually good results. But, as it happened, Ire-

  941
  land had not been rendered peaceful or loyal. On the contrary, they had had a most extraordinary exhibition in "another place." A man who had been arrested as a "suspect" and put into gaol, but who was liberated because of a supposed affection of the heart, was able to take part in the proceedings of the House of Commons, and to make a speech which lasted over two hours. He presumed that there were good reasons for arresting that man. Consequently, if illness was a good excuse for letting him out, the moment he gave evidence of the fallacy of that excuse he ought to be relegated to prison. There were a great many more people in gaol now than there were last year; there were a great many more outrages; and far fewer rents were paid. How could peace exist in a country where there was a continual war between two parties, one of which owed the money, and the other could not get it? There was no doubt that, in many cases, the tenants of rack-renters had been relieved, and no one regretted that result; but the good done in this way had been swamped by the concurrent injury done to the property of other classes of landlords. There had been only three cases—one of them his own—in which rents had been raised. Such a very small percentage was, however, obviously insufficient to inspire the landlords with confidence. He had come to the conclusion that the Motion for the appointment of a Select Committee was not unreasonable, for his opinion was that the Land Act was not carried out to-day in the same spirit in which it had been passed through their Lordships' House.
  LORD EMLYsaid, how anyone could imagine that a country in a state approaching revolution could, by passing any measure, be at once brought to a condition of peace passed his comprehension. But the question before the House was the Motion of the noble Earl opposite. He certainly was quite as anxious as his noble Friend could be that, at the proper time, the fullest investigation should take place into the working of the Act; but he ventured to say that his noble Friend, by precipitating this inquiry, was really defeating the object he had in view. There could be no complete or satisfactory inquiry into the working of an Act which had only just commenced its
  942
  operation. Only a very few appeals had at present been heard, and the most important question as to the interpretation of Healy's Clause had not yet been settled by the Supreme Court. As to there having been such great reductions of rent, he joined issue on that point with his noble Friend. The last Return brought the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners down to the 28th of January; and it showed that the cases adjudicated upon had been, on the average, somewhere between 42 and 43 per cent over Griffith's valuation. In well-managed properties in Ireland, where the land was chiefly grass, the amount to which the rent exceeded Griffith's valuation was rarely more than 20 to 25 per cent. [Cries of "No!"] Well, he knew that the property of a noble Earl in the county of Wicklow was somewhere about 10 per cent over Griffith's valuation; and he could mention another property in the county of Limerick where the amount over Griffith's valuation was about 15 per cent. It might naturally be anticipated that the persons who were suffering most would be the first to avail themselves of the remedy provided. And that they had done so was shown by dividing the Returns so as to separate the cases before Christmas from the cases after Christmas. Before Christmas the aggregate of the former rents was £14,063; the valuation was £9,311; and the rents were reduced to £10,592. To the end of January the aggregates were—former rent, £37,441; valuation, £25,849; reduced rentals, £28,586. It thus appeared that the cases dealt with before Christmas were 51 per cent above Griffith's valuation. These figures showed that those who suffered most went first for the remedy. As regarded an estate to which the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Waterford) had referred, and the particular farms that were brought into Court and adjudicated upon, there were 12 cases in which the rent was 36 per cent above Griffith's valuation. It was probable that on every well-managed estate in Ireland there would be found exceptional cases of high rents. If large numbers of tenants on these estates had appealed to the Courts the average reduction would not be so large; and the explanation entirely demolished the whole case for inquiry on this account.

  943
  As to the way in which the Sub-Commissioners had discharged their duties, he would quote the statement of Mr. Hamilton, one of the Sub-Commissioners. He said that in one county 24 cases were decided by adjudication. In three cases a fair rent was fixed by consent, and in these cases a far larger reduction was made than in any decided by the Sub-Commissioners. In the Queen's County, in 14 cases out of 21, the average reduction decided upon by the Sub-Commissioners, on the evidence of the landlords' valuers, was 25 per cent on the old rent, these reductions varying from 8 to 55 per cent. In Carlow many eases were settled out of Court at reductions varying from 25 to 40 per cent. Mr. Hamilton said—
  "In the county of Carlow the rents adjudicated upon were, on an average, 33 per cent over Griffith's valuation. We examine in each case field by field, checking the most trustworthy valuation produced before us as we go along. When we have ascertained the present value of the holding as it stands, we go through the evidence of the tenant's improvements, and put a value on them. According to Judge O'Hagan's interpretation of Healy's Clause, we deduct the tenant's improvements—those which add to the letting value of the farm—from the valuation, and thus arrive at the judicial rent. Of course, in arriving at this we take into account all the circumstances of the case—proximity to markets, &c. In cases of small tillage farms, we find it often necessary to make a substantial reduction of from 25 to 33 per cent. Many cases are settled out of Court, and come before us for ratification only. The reduction in these cases varied from 20 to 45 per cent. In many cases which do come before us for adjudication the representatives of the landlords admit the existing rents to be too high."
  Everybody would admit that Griffith's valuation was a measure by which the rentals of different estates could be judged. ["No, no!"] That it was not was an entirely new doctrine. He believed they under-estimated the extent to which excessive rents had been reduced, and the fact that most of the cases adjudicated upon had been exceptional. To produce a contrary impression was to do as much injury to the interests of the landlords as could be done by any of the imprisoned "suspects." He hoped the House would delay inquiry until circumstances were ripe for it, and would not take a step calculated to impair the usefulness of the Commission.
  THE EARL OF DUNRAVENsaid, he had no special information on the sub-
  944
  ject; but it appeared to him that a clear and conclusive case had been made out for inquiry. If the Government had promised to grant it at a later period he would have supported them now; but, as they had not done so, he would support the Motion, on the principle that it was better to have an inquiry too soon than not at all. It was not objected that rents had been reduced; but many had been reduced in a most extraordinary way. As to Griffith's valuation, it was a fact that that had to be stated in the application. The Lord Privy Seal had mentioned cases in which rents had been reduced very slightly, and others in which the reduction had ranged from 80 to 90 per cent. If such high rents had been paid, the presumption was that the Sub-Commissioners had overlooked some element of value. The Lord Privy Seal spoke as if he would not have been surprised if a rent had been reduced to less than nothing, and the landlord ordered to pay an annuity to the tenant. There were many reasons why an inquiry was necessary. It was not astonishing that rents had been reduced. It was very probable that the worst cases came first into Court. But there could be no doubt that rents would very generally be reduced all over Ireland. That was a great reason for the inquiry, as one of two things, he believed, were inevitable. Either rents would be reduced, or there would be serious danger of a civil war. The inquiry would enable them to see clearly upon what principles the Commissioners had acted. The Lord Privy Seal had told their Lordships that the reductions were greater than had been expected. The matter was important; and it was not only necessary to do justice to the landlords, but to find out the real cause of the recent agitation in Ireland. The Lord Privy Seal had commented strongly upon the fact that the agitation was against landlordism. He entirely differed from that view. The object of the agitation was separation from Great Britain—some form of Home Rule—Nationalism in some form or other. It would have been simply impossible to get up this agitation against landlords, who had been pronounced acquitted as a body. The landlords had suffered much for loyalty's sake—in a pecuniary sense, and otherwise. He did not know whether they would be inclined

  945
  to do so much longer. They had been too long placed between the nether millstone of the people and the upper millstone of the Government. They had been attacked by the Government to appease the people, and attacked by the people to annoy the Government. If the Government had announced their intention of appointing a Committee later in the Session he should not vote for the Motion; but as they had not done so, and it appeared they would not do so, he should support the Motion.
  EARL SPENCER: I certainly cannot hold out any hope to the noble Earl that the Government will make any compromise upon this important matter. He tells us that if we hold out any hope that later in the Session we should appoint a Committee of Inquiry he would vote against the present Motion. But, as he at once supposes, we cannot accede to it. Well, now, my Lords, I feel that this question is one in which it is very difficult for those who defend to meet every point. We have to defend a very extensive position; it extends over a very large space; our front is very great. We have to consider that between 1,300 and 1,500 cases have been brought before the Land Courts in Ireland. It is therefore very easy for those who live in Ireland, and have such ample means of obtaining information, to make attacks upon numerous points which we cannot foresee. I think, therefore, from the nature of the discussion, that the attacking party is in an advantageous position. We have had from this side of the House some very able and practical speeches in defence of the Commission. My noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant of the County of Limerick (Lord Emly) made a speech which I think ought to convince all dispassionate hearers by arguments of a practical kind. But, my Lords, I must attempt to follow the arguments made during this discussion before going into the general arguments. I should like to take one or two matters of discussion not necessarily connected with the main argument for the Motion, which, I think, it is necessary for me to answer. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Waterford), who spoke early, and who always speaks with much force, and with all the advantage which his influence carries with it in Ireland, referred, I regret to say, to the pamphlet which has been
  946
  more than once the topic of conversation. I really regret that I am obliged again to refer to this subject. The noble Marquess has said that the facts which came out from that unfortunate pamphlet and its discovery have thrown grave doubt upon the impartiality of the Land Commission. I read the cheers with which that statement was received as the opinion of the majority. I cannot understand how the impartiality of the Commission can be touched, when it has been stated repeatedly that these Commissioners had no knowledge whatever of what had taken place, and that the mistake, however grave a mistake, was committed by the Solicitor to the Commission. Noble Lords opposite seem to think that the Commissioners are still in some way inculpated by the grave error committed. But I repeat again—and I am sure noble Lords will not wish to impute to Ministers a desire to mislead on this matter—the Commissioners entirely repudiate all knowledge of this business. They have withdrawn the pamphlet, and expressed their grave displeasure at what had occurred.
  LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE: In Lord O'Hagan's letter it is stated that Mr. Litton knew of the pamphlet some days before it was published.
  EARL SPENCER: The pamphlet was new to him. Perhaps the noble Lord is referring to another matter. He referred to the revision of the pamphlet. I know that none of the three Commissioners knew anything whatever of the facts.
  THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: I did not say it was a Commissioner. I say it was reported to be a high official who corrected the proofs before this pamphlet went to the press, and I asked noble Lords opposite for his name.
  EARL SPENCER: I can only assure the noble Marquess that we know nothing of the matter. I really think I have a right to ask the noble Marquess who the high official is? I must say another word with regard to this unfortunate affair. I am sorry to detain the House; but I have been driven to this position by what has been said on the other side. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland took a great interest in the appointment of Mr. Fottrell; and he was, no doubt, responsible for the appointment. The right hon. Gentleman was totally unaware

  947
  that Mr. Fottrell had had any connection with the Land League. He only-looked at the recommendation he had received in the gentleman's favour. If your Lordships were to see the names of those who had recommended that gentleman to this position, I think you would admit that the Chief Secretary had some ground for the appointment. I do not quite like referring to these matters of private reference as to qualifications; but an attempt has been so often made to drive us into a corner that I am obliged to go further than I should do on ordinary occasions. Would the noble Marquess think the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) a judge of those matters? Would he think the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Dr. Ball) a good judge? Perhaps the noble Marquess is not aware that both these distinguished Gentlemen recommended Mr. Fottrell. I will now turn to another matter. My noble Friend who spoke last but two made some very severe strictures on Professor Baldwin. In my opinion, it is not very wise for lay Members to attempt to lay down the law. I do not know what is the practice of the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) at Quarter Sessions; but my experience has taught me, in giving judgment, that the less you say the better. I am not speaking of lawyers of known ability, but of those who are not members of that Profession. With regard to Professor Baldwin, I believe that on several occasions he has disclaimed the interpretation placed on his words in the most distinct and pronounced manner. I will read an extract from a speech of that gentleman which occurs in a Belfast paper of the 11th of February on this subject. He there says—
  "My own name has been frequently used during the last week."
  He was referring, I suppose, to the debate in Parliament.
  "In no spirit of controversy or contention I take this opportunity of making a few remarks. One of the charges made against me is that I said somewhere that in estimating the rent of land we must not take into consideration its proximity to towns or cities. If that were so, an acre of land in Dublin would not be at a higher rent than that in any other district. No one who knows me would be likely to think me capable of uttering such a sentiment. I can only say hero, in the presence of my Colleagues, that I have never uttered a sentence that could be so construed. The second charge
  948
  was that in estimating land we must take into consideration, not the capacity of the land, but of the farmer. According to this doctrine, farms in the hands of an idiot ought to be at no rent. This doctrine has been repudiated by me several times."
  So that Professor Baldwin has given the most unqualified denial to the statements that had been made. I was surprised at one of the statements made by my noble Friend (the Earl of Kilmorey), in which he said that Professor Baldwin had stated that he would only act according to the principles laid down. Professor Baldwin had also repudiated that statement. The noble Earl has also complained that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary had given instructions to the Commissioners or Sub-Commissioners. My right hon. Friend has repudiated in toto any such thing. In my opinion, a Minister making an appointment, especially a judicial or semi-judicial one, and directing the person as to how to fulfil his duties, would be guilty of the grossest crime against the country; and, as was said by an hon. Member in "another place," he would be liable to impeachment. The noble Earl appears to imply that the instructions referred to by Professor Baldwin had been received from the Chief Secretary. I must protest against such an assertion as that.
  THE EARL OF KILMOREY: I do not wish to impute to the Chief Secretary that he gave the instructions. I simply quoted Professor Baldwin's words, and left the noble Earl to explain what he meant.
  EARL SPENCER: I am not here to answer for Professor Baldwin, and I have had no opportunity of referring to him; but, if I were to interpret his words, I should say that ''the principles laid down "were those either of the Act itself or the general regulations issued by the Land Commission. I must now pass to another personal matter. My noble Friend referred to one of the Sub-Commissioners (Mr. Reardon), and quoted words from him, which certainly seemed to want explanation. I am unable to answer this without referring to him. But I can only say—and I challenge noble Lords to contradict me—that although a few unfortunate utterances may have been made by the Commissioners, they will find a great many more utterances made by them of the greatest possible good, which would be approved by the other side of this House

  949
  as much as they are on this side. I happen to have by me an extract from a paper dated the 17th of February, which contains a statement just the opposite to that to which the noble Earl has referred. I had no idea that Mr. Reardon was going to be attacked here to-night; but, as he has been, I ask leave to read the following extract to the House. Mr. Reardon said—
  "The impression seems to have got abroad that our duty was in every case to reduce the rent to a lower figure than it now was. That was not their duty nor jurisdiction. Their business was to declare a fair rent, and if they found the present rent a fair rent they would so fix it. If it was a rack rent they would reduce it; if too low, they would increase it."
  This shows that he approached the subject in a spirit of which your Lordships will approve, and I do not know anybody in this House who could more simply state the duty of the Assistant Commissioners. I will now come to the exact question before the House. This is not the first time that a Motion of this kind has been made. In 1872 the noble Viscount (Viscount Lifford) moved for an inquiry into the administration of the Act of 1870, and that Committee was carried against the opinion of the Government of the day. I looked, as your Lordships may suppose, to, amongst other speeches, the speech of the noble and learned Earl (Earl Cairns), who always speaks with such authority in this House. The noble and learned Earl supported the Motion, but supported it in a very qualified manner. He said that, unless the question were urgent, the Act ought to be allowed to go on working a little longer before any definite conclusions were drawn with respect to its operation. I adopt the views then expressed by the noble and learned Earl. I think this Act ought to be allowed to go on some time longer before anything of this sort is done. The Committee with regard to which the noble and learned Earl spoke was appointed two years after the passing of the Act. Contrast that with the present occasion. Instead of two years the Land Act has been in operation only four months. I therefore think that the case is very much stronger now against proceeding hastily by the appointment of a Committee. In 1872, if I read the debate correctly, the complaint was that there was a want of uniformity in the decisions of the Court. It is said now that there is too great uni-
  950
  formity in the decisions of the Court. Therefore, it is an entirely different issue. I do not know whether we are to be asked to alter an Act passed after great consideration. The Land Act occupied nearly the whole time of Parliament last year. Your Lordships most carefully considered that measure, and I hold your Lordships just as much responsible for the Land Act as the other House. [A laugh.] Yes; I hold that opinion. Are we, then, within four months of the Act coming into operation, at once to say that the Act requires revision? The only possible excuse for this would be that the Judges who administer it found some clauses in it perfectly inconsistent and unworkable. Is there anything of the sort now? Nothing of the kind. The only reason advanced is that many of your Lordships are not satisfied with the decisions given by the Assistant Commissioners. I believe you would be aiming a blow at the impartial and high position which all Courts of Justice in this country have hitherto held if you carried out this idea. You are not only throwing a stigma—making an attack—on the Assistant Commissioners; you are also making an attack on the Judges who are hearing appeals. These three Chief Commissioners were appointed not only by the Government, but their appointments were ratified by Parliament itself. Their names were given to Parliament before the Bill was passed, and their suitability for the position was canvassed in this House. But I will go a step further. You are throwing a stigma on the Commissioners who are hearing appeals. There is now an appeal before the High Court in Dublin. It seems to me a most extraordinary proceeding that before these matters are decided in Dublin your Lordships should say that a Committee shall be appointed to revise the whole administration of the Act. It would be a reflection on the Judges; it would amount to a declaration that you either have no confidence in these Judges, or that you do not care the least what opinion they may come to, and that you wish to go quite irrespective of that. One of the noble Lords who addressed your Lordships spoke about small estates, and he said—"Are the small landlords in Ireland to be ruined by this Act?" This is not the view of Her Majesty's Government. They wish that the Act should be fairly administered, whether

  951
  with regard to large or small proprietors. One of the noble Lords spoke of the large landlords—that they were going to have their rents reduced just like all other landlords in Ireland. I will not prophesy. I admit there are a few more cases of high rent brought forward than I expected; but I think it is natural that at the outset the highest rented tenant should come first. I cannot understand why the inference is drawn, because in a certain number of cases the rents were reduced, that, therefore, all the rentals of these estates are immediately going to be reduced by the operation of the Court. I certainly was not prepared for that argument; but I happen to have the Return here, and I ran my eyes down the names of some of the large owners quoted by the noble Earl. He quoted Lord Enniskillen, the Knight of Glin, Lady Margaret Charteris, Lord Digby, and Lord Antrim. I find on the estates of these large landowners there are very few cases. I find 6 cases under Lord Enniskillen, 4 under the Knight of Glin, 3 under Lady Margaret Charteris, 1 under Lord Digby, and 11 under Lord Antrim; and it cannot be urged that these cases will govern, even in the case of Lord Antrim, the rental of the whole estate. I agree with the noble Lord behind me that on nearly every estate, when you are obliged to look into the rental, you will find some instances where the rents are too high. Cases of great hardship may occur without the tenant having the courage to come forward and bring his case before the landlord. I know an estate in County Kildare. It is most liberally managed. A case there was recently brought under notice. A tenant owed four years' arrears of rent. Nine years ago his rent was £36, and he complained of this as being exceedingly high. When the agent—not the present one—was told that it was a high rent, he retorted that he would secure the tenant a spirit licence, and, the place being near to the Curragh, he would reap a great advantage, and that then his rent would not be too high. From that day to this no spirit or other licence was ever given, and the present agent reported to the landlord that he had investigated the case, and found the true rent to be £16 a-year. That was a case of extreme hardship, which no English tenant would have endured quietly. It merely shows
  952
  that on different estates in Ireland the tenants, rather than create any disturbance, or get into difficulties with the agents, will suffer hardships of this sort in preference to coming forward and submitting their cases to the agent. I come now to the question of the appointment of the Assistant Commissioners. My right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) took the greatest possible care in inquiring into the eligibility of these gentlemen. The noble Marquess behind me said that when it was known that these appointments were to be made there was hardly a man in Ireland that could read and write who did not think himself qualified. That, no doubt, is an exaggeration; but it is perfectly true that my right hon. Friend had the greatest possible difficulty in sifting the applications. There were 700 or 800 applications to my right hon. Friend, he went through them, and when he had reduced them to a small number he consulted persons who knew these gentlemen, and I deny entirety that he appointed anyone because he was a political partizan. He appointed those who he considered would administer the Act impartially between landlord and tenant. It was impossible to say that some mistakes had not been made in this large number of appointments, but no case of incompetency had been proved; and those who would throw a slur on the Commissioners by voting for this Committee ought to be able to establish some direct charges against them. It was said that the Assistant Commissioners were valuators, and acted as such. On that point your Lordships cannot have a better authority than the Chief Commissioner. Lord Justice O'Hagan says—
  "The Agricultural Commissioners are not valuers, but Judges, appointed either as being members of the Profession of the Law, or from their acquaintance with the value of land in Ireland. They decide, like other tribunals, on sworn evidence. It is true that by one of our rules they ought personally to visit the lands in every case in which they deem such visit will conduce to a just decision, and that duty they have, I believe, in every case discharged. By the 'so-called valuations' I can understand nothing but their judicial decisions, based not alone on their own inspection, which would of itself be an insufficient guide, but assisted in such inspection in discovering the whole case upon the evidence."
  I can conceive nothing more likely to conduce to a sensible and sound decision than that those who have to give it

  953
  should personally visit the farm the rent of which is to be determined. Your Lordships, as landlords, though you do not undertake to value the land yourselves, go to see what your tenant wants, and in what position his farm is; and that is a wise and judicious practice. One of my noble Friends brought a most serious charge against Professor Baldwin, who, he said, went to intimidate a lady against whom there was an appeal, and forced her to come to an agreement. That is a most serious charge; and I think it is only fair to Professor Baldwin that your Lordships should not condemn him without hearing what he has to say on the matter. The noble Marquess behind me said that it was impossible there should be any actual revision of the value of rent on appeal. I wish to deny that altogether. The Commissioners have appointed two most experienced valuators to be their assessors and valuators, and the decisions of the Commissioners have been founded upon their Report.
  EARL CAIRNSdissented.
  EARL SPENCER: The noble and learned Earl opposite shakes his head; but I am prepared to maintain it. Now I come to the question of Griffith's valuation. I have heard it said, in "another place," that the only rule which the Land Commissioners appeared to have was to get as near Griffith's valuation as possible. In "another place" this was said to be like a Will-o'-the-Wisp hovering over an Irish bog. I entirely deny that the Commissioners have adopted Griffith's valuation as the rule in every case. But though Griffith's might not be the proper valuation throughout Ireland, in some localities it might be a suitable measure of rent. There was a Commission, of which Mr. Kane was the legal Chairman, and which sat in Fermanagh and Monaghan, and also in Tipperary. In the former counties the judicial rent was nearly the same as Griffith's valuation, which was 19 per cent less than the old rent; while in Tipperary the judicial rent was fixed 9 per cent above the valuation. One of my noble Friends opposite has twitted me with having made the remark, during the passing of the Land Act, that the Land Courts would be Courts of Conciliation. It is true I did make that remark. I did so on this ground—that it was clear that great differences existed between landlords and tenants on this
  954
  subject, and that some intervening Court was needed where they might settle their differences. I do not even now withdraw the words; because, although there is every impediment at present thrown in the way of a Court acting in a conciliatory way, I believe the Land Court will eventually be a Court of Conciliation in the country. During the course of the debate it has been said the Act has not stopped agitation and outrage. That I do not deny. I, for one, never expected that agitation and disaffection, which has so long existed in the country, would have disappeared, as it were, by the stroke of a magic wand, on the passing of the Act. We have great difficulties to contend with at the present moment, and whoever happens to be in Office will have immense difficulties to contend with in the future. The administration of Ireland will require a firm hand; but, at the same time, it will require perfect justice. We fully admit our responsibility; but I still hope and believe that, if justice is administered with firmness, with fairness, and with impartiality, the day will come when we may call these Courts in Ireland Courts of Conciliation between the landlords and the tenants of that country.
  EARL CAIRNS: My Lords, my noble Friend just behind me (the Earl of Donoughmore) moves for a Committee to inquire into the working of the Land Act of 1881, and but for one circumstance, which I will shortly refer to, it appears to me that that would be simply a Motion of course. The Land Act of 1881 I certainly am not going now to argue about. Many of your Lordships approve it; a greater number, I think, disapprove it; but I do not want to enter into that question at all. All, whether they approve the Act or not, agree that it was an Act of unexampled severity. It has been described by some noble Lords sitting opposite me as a most grasping Statute; and I believe, for my part, that there is not to be found in Europe a parallel for any legislation of the kind. It was expected to have, and it has had, a very great effect in Ireland; and, as I said just now, but for one circumstance, I should have thought that the feeling of either House would be in favour of an inquiry. But in the present case there is one circumstance that is unusual about this demand for in-

  955
  quiry, and I do not want to disguise it: this inquiry is moved for very soon after the Act has come into operation—three or four months; and that is much sooner than inquiries of this sort are generally moved for; but then, on the other hand, in that respect, the Act itself is entirely without precedent. It is doing what I never knew any Act of Parliament to do before; it is setting to work machinery sub-divided into a great number of separate machines, 12 or 14 of them, working every day of the week; and these various machines are at this moment doing, what? They are alienating—for that is the proper expression—a portion varying from one-quarter to one-third of the ownership of land in Ireland from those who have hitherto held it to those who have never held it at all. ["Hear, hear!"] Why, if a tribunal lops off 25 per cent of the landlord's income for 15 years, and hands it over to the tenant, that is an alienation for 15 years of the corpus or fee-simple of the property. And every day the sun rises these 12 or 14 bodies are doing their work; it may be necessary, but that is what they are doing. Now, has that any bearing upon, or any reference to, the Act of 1870, to which the noble Earl the President of the Council (Earl Spencer) has alluded? I pointed out with respect to the Act of 1870 that it was an unfortunate thing to have a premature inquiry; but that Act had this peculiarity—that no person could suffer from its operation unless he liked, no owner of land could come under the Act unless he evicted a tenant, and therefore nothing was going on which demanded an early or rapid inquiry. If there are things to be inquired into in the present case, I want to ask those who object to an inquiry now, how do the Government propose, when it suits them hereafter to hold an inquiry, to undo the evil, if it be evil, which is being done by these bodies? The noble Lord opposite said we might have an inquiry in the month of May, and so, for the matter of that, you may next year; but what we want to know is, how the evil once done is to be undone. That is the first reason why I say that this is an exceptional case; but there is also another reason. There are many Acts of Parliament which, in their infancy, are very weakly, though they gather strength as they
  956
  grow older; but this Act is again exceptional in this respect. The Prime Minister, with his great knowledge of classical learning, has been unable to find any similitude for the Act, but one; he says it is like the infant Hercules: it is in its cradle; it is like a giant, and that it has already taken to the process of strangulation. It has done so, undoubtedly; but the question is, whom has it been strangling? The Prime Minister says it has completely strangled the Land League. Well, I hope that is true; I do not know whether your Lordships think so or not; but I do not think that anyone in Ireland thinks it has been so successful, and I have heard that the once trusted official of the Landed Estates Court, the confidential adviser of the Government, is not of that opinion, for he says that the Land League is the greatest, the most beneficent, and the most enduring institution the world has seen. I am afraid, therefore, that the infant Hercules has been strangling the wrong object. It has strangled the landowners rather than the Land League; and I fear that when we deal with a giant of this kind it may exert its strength against the wrong party. I think here we have an exceptional case, and that it would be well to lose no time about it. But there are other reasons which I think call for inquiry in this House. The Act may be working well or ill; but one thing is perfectly clear, that it is not working in the way intended by Parliament. I say this because there are two respects in which I am satisfied that nobody last year thought it would work as, in point of fact, it has worked. It was a very strong piece of legislation. It was intended to have a very great effect on the land of Ireland; but there was in particular one complaint which it was designed to cure—it was to settle the question of rents in that country. This one matter was all-important, and Parliament had been persuaded to pass the Act on the assurance that the rents to be settled were to be fair rents, and that, if only the proper persons could be found to undertake the duty, the settlement of a fair rent was easy enough. That was the inducement offered to Parliament by the Government. They said—"We will name three persons in whom Parliament can have confidence, and they shall be

  957
  the persons to settle the rents." These three eminent persons being appointed the Chief Commissioners, what would have been the natural thing for them to have done in settling the rents of Ireland as they would have to do? They might well say—"We cannot go to every part of Ireland." I should then have said—"There is one thing Parliament might fairly expect you should do; if you are not able to do the whole work yourselves, if deputies must be appointed, at all events Parliament may expect you to set an example and make a beginning. Why should you not go down, you three Commissioners, to each Province in Ireland, and sit in each Province for two or three weeks, try a certain number of cases, and lay down, as far as possible, the principles upon which you would proceed. Set the example how the Courts should be conducted, and in that way you will at once establish uniformity all over the country with regard to the decisions; you will give the best form of instructions to those who are to succeed you as your deputies; and you will not leave persons who have never had work of this kind to do to find out the principles upon which they are to decide." Parliament might fairly have expected they would have taken these steps in order to give confidence in the work done. But the remarkable thing is, that from the day this Act received the Royal Assent till now, these trusted Commissioners have no more settled the rent of any single estate in Ireland—I am not now referring to the appeals—than I or any one of your Lordships have. We are told that there are the appeals. With regard to them, I must say that I agree with the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Lansdowne) that if you were to send Sub-Commissioners through the length and breadth of Ireland to reduce rents as they have been reduced, and leave the tenants for three or four months under the impression that their rents were to be reduced, it would be impossible for you, politically or mechanically, I may say, to undo what the Commissioners had done. There could not be a greater danger than to attempt anything of the kind; and the Commissioners would be more than flesh and blood if they could attempt it. The noble Marquess referred to the judgment of Mr. Justice O'Hagan,
  958
  and the conclusion I draw from it is that he meant to say—"You may appeal to us if there is a doubt upon a question of law or fact; but, if it is only a question of opinion as to value, there is not much chance of our doing anything." And that is so; it is so in this country, and must be so everywhere; there is not much use in taking a question of value to a Court of Appeal. But Mr. Justice O'Hagan made a speech, as to which I have been embarrassed. He was reported to have said that the Act was to be of great benefit to the tenants, and that the value of a holding should be ascertained by finding out what the rent should be, so that the tenant might live and thrive on the land. I was very much surprised when I read those words, and I wondered what rent Mr. Justice O'Hagan would put upon a holding of three or four acres, so as to allow the tenant to live and thrive on it. But my embarrassment is made still greater by what has occurred since, for, when reference was made to these words in this House, it was, as I understood it, entirely denied that Mr. Justice O'Hagan had used the words, or if he had, it was said that he had repudiated them. My embarrassment was still greater when the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in the other House, adopted and defended them, affirming that they were the proper words to use, and that they expressed what was said by everyone in Parliament, and it was still greater when I turned to the authentic version of the speech in the official report, which has been published, and found—will your Lordships believe it?—that the words which have so pleased the right hon. Gentleman are entirely omitted. Mr. Justice O'Hagan, on second thoughts, leaves out the sentence altogether. I hope that, before the discussion closes, the Government will throw some light even yet upon the question, and tell us what Mr. Justice O'Hagan did say, or whether he said anything at all. I am quite sure that Parliament never expected what has happened about the Sub-Commissioners. It is true that the Act mentions something about Sub-Commissioners; if it did not, they could not have been appointed; but little was said in Parliament on the subject, and nobody suggested that the question of rents in Ireland was to be settled by the Sub-Commissioners, and not by the

  959
  Chief Commissioners. Well, 36 Sub-Commissioners have been appointed, and they are virtually doing the whole of the work, which was the only important work under the Bill—namely, the settling of fair rents in Ireland. They have been actively engaged in reducing the rents. That is to say, they have the power of alienating property in Ireland; and, with regard to it, I do not think that in our Civil Courts at Westminster there is a greater or a higher duty to which a Judge can address himself. Well, what are the qualifications of the Sub-Commissioners for this high function which they have to discharge? Have they had a test or examination of any kind? None, so far as I know. Have they had any experience? Judicial experience they certainly have not had. Even the legal members of the Sub-Commission have had no judicial experience in this matter, much less have the others who are not members of the Legal Profession. Upon what principle, then, were they appointed? I am told they are described as impartial, and as men who would inspire confidence. In whom would they inspire confidence? In the tenants of Ireland, or in the landlords of Ireland, or in both? I should have liked to see people appointed who would inspire confidence in both; but I do not find it is so. I understand, however, that the right hon. Gentleman and the Solicitor General for Ireland made it a point in their speeches that these Sub-Commissioners should inspire confidence in the tenants of Ireland. But who are these Sub-Commissioners? I wish to speak with all respect for them, for, personally, no doubt, they are very upright men. Some are shopkeepers, and others are tenant farmers. With reference to Mr. Weir, it was said "he was an active agent on the side of the Attorney General." It is said that the Chief Secretary for Ireland consulted the Commissioners and the Solicitor General as to these appointments. No doubt one of the Commissioners and the Solicitor General gave a very good report of Mr. Weir. I must say that I think it extraordinary that in the place where these men are exercising their jurisdiction two of the three Sub-Commissioners, as described by a gentleman residing in the locality, whom we all know, were tenant farmers in the very district where they were settling the
  960
  rents. That statement is made by a gentleman who gives his name, and who has never been contradicted. What would have been thought if two landlords in that district had been appointed? One of your Lordships has said that Mr. Rice was a member of the Commission. No doubt he is, and that is the place where he ought to be. The object of that Commission was to embrace men of every possible view. That Commission had no judicial function to perform, but the object was to get the views of extreme men. It does not at all follow that Mr. Rice is a proper person to settle the rents of a district of which he is a tenant farmer. Therefore, I say, in my opinion, some of these gentlemen, who are described as being impartial men, are, if the statements made about them be true, much more deserving the character of stout partizans. I do not think that the mere fact of Judges entertaining strong opinions on political matters is of any importance. My experience is that, on the whole, men who are appointed to high judicial office, when they come to deal with law or facts, may be trusted to act fairly; they do not allow their private opinions to bias them in one way or another. But it makes all the difference when you have persons to judge who are not judges either of fact or law, but have merely to decide, without rhyme or reason, what they may think right from time to time, and to lay down without reason their own opinion; and you need not be surprised, under the circumstances, if they give scope to their partizanship. It is from that point of view that I look with considerable suspicion upon some of the appointments which have been made. Mr. Fottrell, for instance, who, I daresay, is a very good man in his way, was obviously a most distinct partizan, and those who appointed him must have known it very well. It was perfectly clear that he had been connected with the Land League, and consequently a thorough partizan.
  EARL GRANVILLE: Why, then, was he recommended by persons in such high authority?
  EARL CAIRNS: I am coming to that. My noble Friend said that he was recommended by my right hon. and learned Friend the late Attorney General for Ireland and by Dr. Ball, late Lord Chancellor of Ireland. But I am sorry to tell the noble Earl that that statement is

  961
  certainly untrue. I hope the noble Earl is satisfied with the answer to the question. Well, let us pass on from Mr. Fottrell. I want to ask this question, if I may be allowed to do so. Suppose last year there had been a clause in the Bill putting in the names of the 36 Sub-Commissioners; do you think that the Bill would have ever received the Royal Assent? I do not; nor do I think the Government did. They knew that if they had put in the Bill the names of these persons, the Bill would have had no more chance of passing than some other Bill not yet in existence, and about which I will say nothing. I want your Lordships to consider the state of things under which some of these Sub-Commissioners have been proceeding. The tenant goes into Court, and wants a fair rent fixed. I am the last person to propose that technical pleadings should be required from the tenants. But common justice does require, even in dealing with a landlord, that the tenant should intimate in some way or other what it is that he is going to prove. But he is allowed to come before the Sub-Commissioners, keeping the whole of his case to himself, without disclosing anything to the landlord, who has not the slightest idea what he has to meet. The question of improvements makes all the difference to the present owner; the present owner was not owner when the improvements were effected, and knows nothing about them. I will give an instance of the way in which proceedings take place. It refers to a case that occurred in the South of Ireland. From the report which appeared in The Times, the Sub-Commissioners, by their Chairman, said the evidence of the tenant was marvellous, and perfectly ridiculous. The landlord said he had applied to several valuators; but they had all refused to value the land. A Sub-Commissioner then said—"You object to give evidence as to value yourself?" The answer was—"I do;" whereupon the Commissioner said—
  "It is a lamentable state of things. A tenant comes in with a certain valuation, and then we find that no gentleman in the country is ready to value the land. It is a strange thing;"
  and in that state of things the Commissioners proceeded to deal with the case. I do not remember what was the result of the case; but it shows what the Sub-Commissioners have to struggle against
  962
  in the way of getting evidence. Now, references have been made to the Encumbered Estates Court. I do not want to go into that general question; but I will notice one point which is very germane to the matter—the position of the purchaser in that Court. On the completion of the purchase the purchaser is presented with a small piece of paper, which is his title to the land. He does not hold the deeds, and he has not had the slightest evidence or knowledge of the previous dealings with the title. He knows nothing in the world of what happened before he became owner. But now he may be summoned by the tenant to the Court, and asked to give a history of the land for the last 40 or 50 years. Of course, he cannot have any knowledge of such a thing; and the result is that the tenants are masters of the situation, and the landlords are powerless. I think that is a special reason why some inquiry should be instituted. There is another point which I am sure will strike your Lordships with surprise, and that is with regard to the question of the valuation of the land by the Commissioners. With regard to it, the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal began by saying that these persons were not valuers at all; and he quoted a judgment in support of his statement, and then he went on to say that when one side was of one opinion and the other of another the Judge must go and see what was the real value of the property; so that the Lord Privy Seal began by a violent denial of the statement that the Judges were valuers, and ended by approving that statement.
  LORD EMLY: They went to the land for the purpose of checking the valuation.
  EARL CAIRNS: Exactly so. The noble Lord opposite says it is merely checking the valuation—they go in order to see whether the rent is fair or not; but that is not the case of the Lord Privy Seal; and in either case, what is it but putting their own value upon the farm? How do they make these valuations? Here is a statement by a Member of your Lordships' House—
  "I am aware of a case where the Sub-Commissioners went to value a farm of about 1,100 acres. They went in the short days of December 30 statute miles out, and the same distance back. They arrived at the farm at a quarter-past 2 o'clock, and left the ground at a quarter-

  963
  past 4. Upon this cursory and haphazard examination they reduced the rent 20 per cent below the Government valuation, which was nearly the same as the original rent."
  That is called checking the valuation. In another case a Sub-Commission is described as valuing a farm in this way. He goes on to the farm in one of these hurried visits about a quarter-past 4 on a December evening. When called upon to express an opinion as to the value, he thrusts his stick into the ground, after the manner of a cheese-taster, and said "15 s. an acre." Another matter to which I would refer is that of costs. Speaking from my own judicial experience, my opinion is that there is nothing in law in which greater injustice may be done than by a heedless disposal of the question of costs. If you decide a case wrong, probably you will hear further about it, for somebody or other will, perhaps, pick a hole in the judgment; but, practically, you can do what you like with costs and hear nothing about it, because public opinion is not easily attracted to the subject. Yet a good deal of mischief and suffering may result in this way. Now, what do these Sub-Commissioners do? I find from the Reports that even when a tenant fails to prove his case the landlord is ordered to pay both his own and the tenant's costs. That appears to me to be a most monstrous thing to do, and yet it seems to have been done by the Sub-Commissioners in hundreds of cases. I am told that this is now modified, and that, the attention of the Chief Commissioners having been called to the matter, they have ordered a change to be made. But the change is most extraordinary. The Chief Commissioners say that the landlord is not to be ordered to pay costs unless in extreme cases, or when the tenant applies for a fair rent, but does not succeed in having an alteration effected. That also appears to be a most monstrous rule. I do not know what extreme cases may mean; but it seems to me a monstrous injustice that where a tenant comes into Court to obtain a fair rent and fails he is to put the landlord to the expense of coming into Court; and also that the landlord is to have no costs. There is another way in which great injustice may be done in this matter of costs, inasmuch as there is a body in the country called solicitors, who have a great deal to say
  964
  with regard to these proceedings; and if there is one thing more than another which would make the solicitors put the tenants into motion it is this—by establishing a rule that the tenant is to come into Court without any risk as to paying costs; and not only that, but with the certainty, almost, of having his costs provided. If that is the rule, you will find plenty of persons to induce the tenants to go into Court, even if the tenants are not the least anxious to do so. I appeal to your Lordships—I do not appeal to one side more than the other—I appeal to the judgment of both sides on this question; are these matters in which it can be said that the working of the Act is satisfactory, and that they stand in no need of inquiry? Are your Lordships prepared to say that you are satisfied that this should go on; that no notice should be taken of it; that whereas now 1,400 cases have been decided, in the course of a few months 14,000, or in the course of the year 140,000, should be decided, and then, when the evil has been done and is irremediable, we should have an inquiry which will not produce anything at all? With regard to the reductions, I maintain that they have been made, not on the principle which Parliament intended—the principle that a fair rent should be fixed for the land. What I mean is this. The noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal rather ridiculed this matter, and he said—
  "If you take the decisions you will find that some rents were raised, some reduced a little, and some reduced considerably, and that thus the average was made up."
  I have not seen the printed Returns, but I have the Returns down to 1,300 cases; and, I ask, where does he find those cases where the rents have been raised?
  LORD CARLINGFORD: It occurred in two cases.
  EARL CAIRNS: We may put that aside. I do not want to come down to the half-crown case. Practically, there has been no raising of rent. Now, as to the small reductions, they are comparatively few; but, speaking from an examination of the Paper, I should say that in the vast body of the cases the reduction is not less than 20, and not more than 30, per cent. The reductions range between 20 and 30, and they gravitate to a central point. That is the great peculiarity. Another pecu-

  965
  liarity is this—that where the rents exceeded the Poor Law valuation there they are pulled down; but where the rents are the same as the Poor Law valuation they are reduced just as much. The Assistant Commissioners seem to set out with this idea—there must be a reduction if the rent is over the Poor Law valuation; if the rent is under, or at the Poor Law valuation, we must have a reduction all the same. I, for one, look with alarm on the reductions, not because they are reductions simply, but because I find here that the reductions are made upon the rule of thumb principle. Then, again, I find some of these cases very old; some of the tenants very new. In the first, the landlord has, after some years, raised the rent from time to time. I find, in other cases, he has lowered it at different times; but whether it is an old letting or a new one, whether the rent has been raised or lowered, I find the reduction goes on just the same. I should like to say a word about the Encumbered Estates Court cases. I will confine myself to cases where the rents have been unaltered or reduced since the purchase, and what do I find? There are 10 cases, the aggregate rent of which was £793 at the time of the purchase. The purchasers lowered it to £763; and the Sub-Commissioners lowered it from £763 to £575, thereby mulcting the purchasers in the Landed Estates Court to the extent of about 24 per cent of the rental. I may refer to another instance. There was a case heard at Newry on the 3rd of December, 1881; the farm was one of 68 acres; the old rental was £68; it had been paid since 1838, upwards of 40 years; the Poor Law valuation was £67; Mr. Quin, the agent of the property, who had never increased the rent, and two valuators, swore that the rent was fair; and yet the Sub-Commissioners reduced it to £55 10 s. In another case, trustees invested trust money in the purchase of land in the Encumbered Estates Court; the Poor Law valuation was £49 10 s.; and the Commissioners reduced the rent to £44. There was a case heard at Swineford; there were four holdings; and the aggregate rental was reduced from £19 10 s. to £8 15 s. The owner said that on the 2nd of December the case came on late in the evening; the Commissioners took a cart and rode to the place; they stood on the land
  966
  while a man dug a small hole; and they fixed a rent less than the turbary was worth, and one-third of what the holdings would bring if they could be let now. He added, that on account of the state of the country he could not get a surveyor to value the land, and on that account he applied for an adjournment, which was refused. Another case, a most remarkable one, was on the property of the noble Marquess behind me (the Marquess of Waterford). There were four holdings, comprising 436 acres; the old rent was £148; the Poor Law valuation was £136; the rent had been reduced in 1837, and it had been punctually paid ever since; there had been outlay on each holding by the landlord; and the rent was reduced to £130, which was considerably below the Poor Law valuation. The idea that the Commissioners had kept above it is, therefore, an erroneous one, although, in the aggregate, they may have done so. What are the excuse and the answer? It is said that these are exceptionally bad cases. It has been shown they were not. They are cases where the rent has been paid for 30, 40, or 60 years with perfect punctuality. What better test could there be of a rent which a solvent tenant would pay one year with another? It is also said that in some cases landlords have made valuations which agree with those of the Commissioners. Where the landlord really has agreed nothing more can be said. But when it is said that landlords out of Court have come to agreements by which they have made the same reductions, that is like adding insult to injury. Do you suppose they do it voluntarily and freely, with delight as it were? I do not think so. I will toll you why they do it. What is the position of the smaller landlord? He has to face 20 or 50 notices from tenants, paying, perhaps, £5 to £10 a-year. He has got to meet each case, one by one. From what has been done in the case of his neighbours, he knows that the rents will be reduced, and that he will have to pay costs. Those amount altogether to £500, taking each case, at the lowest calculation, at £10. With that prospect before him, it is much the best thing for him to sacrifice one quarter on the small holdings, instead of sacrificing five years' rental; and yet he is said to make these agreements voluntarily. It is said some

  967
  of the decisions have been confirmed on appeal; but how? Tour Lordships will remember that the Act says the cases shall come before the Chief Commissioners for re-hearing—that is, as I understand it, that the Commissioners shall hear them as if they heard them for the first time. We find they did not re-hear the cases. The Sub-Commissioners went on the land, but the Chief Commissioners did not; it was not a re-hearing, but an appeal on the materials provided by the Sub-Commissioners. The Prime Minister, in his speech last night, referred to the question of tithes. He said that no one complained when 25 per cent was knocked off the amount of the tithes; but I wonder whether the Prime Minister had leisure to give a thought to the question of whether that analogy was any analogy at all. What happened in the case of the tithes was this—that in the 100 per cent was never calculated the cost of getting the amount, or the trouble; and the fact is that Parliament presented the clergymen with a bargain which was an extremely good one. The whole burden of the tithe was taken from the tenant and placed upon the landlord, where it was as safe as if it had been placed on the Consolidated Fund. They said to the Irish clergy—"You shall have 75 per cent well secured and regularly paid, in place of 100 per cent which you cannot recover." Now, if the Act provided a new way of recovering rents, then I could have understood the argument that there is some analogy between the Act and the case of tithes. But the Chief Secretary for Ireland put it that the reduction only showed that the land in Ireland was highly rented and ought to be reduced; and that is clearly begging the question, as it assumes precisely that with respect to which we wish to ask whether the decisions of the Courts are on a right principle. The statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland filled me with surprise, considering the Report of the Bessborough Commission, and the words in which the Prime Minister acquitted the landlords of Ireland. Parliament was assured that the general rental of Ireland was in a satisfactory condition, and the Bessborough Commission said that with rare exception the landlords in Ireland had fixed at, or even lower, than what could be considered a fair rent; and the Prime Minister himself said the
  968
  landlords were acquitted as a body. Then, as to Griffith's valuation, if there was one thing more than another proved to the Bessborough Commission, it was that Griffith's valuation was no standard whatever of valuation except for purposes of taxation. We have also the opinion of Members of the Government as to what, in their opinion, would be the effect of the Act. With respect to the clause dealing with fair rents, Mr. Bright said—
  "My view of the operation of that particular clause is that, in reality, the rents in Ireland will, for the most part, in nine cases out of ten, be fixed very much as they are now."—[3 Hansard, cclxi. 103.]
  The noble and learned Lord' on the Woolsack said—
  "If you compare the state of things under this Bill with that which would exist if nothing of the kind were done, the Bill may he expected to restore and increase, not diminish, the value of the landlord's property."—[Ibid. cclxiv. 534.]
  And the noble Lord opposite the Lord Privy Seal, in introducing the Bill, said—
  "I maintain that the provisions of this Bill will cause the landlords no money loss whatever. I believe that it will inflict upon them no loss of income, except in those cases in which a certain number of landlords may have imposed upon their tenants excessive and inequitable rents, which they are probably vainly trying to recover."—[Ibid. 252.]
  Those were very remarkable statements—I do not call them assurances, for I know that no Minister can give an assurance as to the working of an Act of Parliament—but they are not more remarkable than the disclosure made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland of his own private opinion while he was persuading Parliament and his Colleagues to pass the Bill. In a recent speech the right hon. Gentleman said—
  "It will, as I believe, turn out that the rents were higher in Ireland than many in the House expected. They are not higher than I expected. The information I got many years ago during the Famine, and which I have tried since to check, made me believe that the rents in Ireland were high. Things had got to that state that to check it the House find it necessary to break through the general rules of political economy; and in order that you should have, as a general rule, tenants who live and thrive, it was requisite to declare what was a fair rent; and in declaring what was a fair rent there was a larger reduction than was generally anticipated. But what does that mean? It means, after all, that there was greater ground for the

  969
  Land Act than we who brought it forward—some of us, and of those who accepted it more or less reluctantly, were aware of."
  Thus we find that while his Colleagues were making the remarkable statements I have given, the right hon. Gentleman knew that the land of Ireland was highly rented, and knew, at the same time, of the arguments used by his Colleagues to induce Parliament, and especially this House, to pass the Bill. If anyone but the right hon. Gentleman himself had said it, I could not have believed it; but it is his own statement. The noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Lansdowne) objected to the appointment of the Committee, because he said that there was danger that it might hamper the action of the Courts if the Judges were to be examined as witnesses; and, further, that there was danger that the Committee of this House might appear to be sitting as a Court of Appeal upon the merits of some individual cases. I must point out that that is not an argument against an earlier appointment of a Committee, but against the appointment of any Committee. You might just say the same thing in the month of May as in the month of February. But I think your Lordships may trust a Committee of your House that they will not do either of those two things. If it should be desirable to call any of the Judges before them they will take care that they do not interfere with the judicial business of the Court. And in like manner I deprecate the opinion of a Committee of this House sitting on appeal from a particular decision, although it may be very necessary to look at the general character of the decisions in order to see how the Judges work. Then the noble Marquess said he preferred a Royal Commission. If we were offered a Royal Commission the same end might be attained. But we were told by the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council that there would be no Royal Commission. I believe that the facts I have laid before your Lordships are quite sufficient to justify inquiry, that the case is exceptional as regards the time the inquiry is moved for, because there is no time to put the inquiry off. I believe it will be found, on inquiry, either that the accusations are groundless, and then a confidence will be engendered in
  970
  the Act which does not exist; or, if it be found that the charges are well founded, then I have no doubt that steps will be taken to correct in time the evils complained of. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will agree to the inquiry.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if there was one part of the speech of my noble and learned Friend (Earl Cairns) more than another unlike what I should expect from him, it was the last part, in which he dealt with the practical objections to the appointment of this Committee. To those objections my noble and learned Friend gave one of the most feeble answers I ever remember to have heard from a man of so great ability. The appointment of a Committee is admitted by my noble and learned Friend to be asked for at an exceptional time—a time which ordinarily would be much too soon for entering upon such an inquiry. The case which justifies the asking of a Committee is one, we are told, depending upon a variety of exceptional circumstances, which, in an ascending scale, my noble and learned Friend enumerated, beginning with a number of small points, which I will not occupy time by entering into, and gradually rising to every objection which has been taken to the appointment of the Commissioners, to their qualifications, their rules, their mode of procedure, the way in which appeals are heard, and the general results of the operations of the Commission; my noble and learned Friend bringing forward a number of particular instances of alleged wrong procedure, or erroneous judgment, and then making deductions to show a general miscarriage of justice. These were my noble and learned Friend's grounds for holding this to be an exceptional case, justifying that operation said to be performed sometimes by children who plant flowers and who take them up a day or two afterwards in order to see whether they are growing. He justifies the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry before the proceedings of the Commissioners have got beyond their very earliest stage; and, having stated all these exceptional grounds, when he comes, in the last sentence of his speech, to address himself to the question how this Committee is to proceed, and what this Committee is to do, "Oh,"

  971
  he says, "it is a mistake to suppose that we need send for the Commissioners, or for the Sub-Commissioners, or interrupt at all their proceedings. It is a mistake to suppose that we need review and sit in appeal upon their decisions, and that we need inquire whether they were right or wrong. It will be enough for us to take a general view of the matter, and we shall know how to manage the inquiry when we get it." Now, my Lords, if anything in the world could be calculated to unsettle and disturb the proceedings of the Commissioners, and dissatisfy everybody, it would be that sort of half inquiry—nay, less than half inquiry—the infinitesimally small inquiry—which my noble and learned Friend suggested would be enough, and which would avoid the necessity of calling those witnesses. I say, with the utmost confidence, that if you are going to impeach the justice, the fairness, the impartiality of the Commissioners, and to accuse them of not acting according to the intentions of Parliament, you must bring the Commissioners here, and they will be upon their trial as Judges or judicial officers accused of miscarriage of justice. And if you institute an inquiry it will be very nearly an inquiry of a criminal nature—an inquiry demanding the most thorough investigation and the most absolute justice to everybody; and after what has been said, I do not see how you can conduct it properly without taking upon yourselves to review all those decisions which this man or the other man complains of and says were unjust. Then my noble and learned Friend himself admits, in the outset of his speech, that he has to justify this proceeding at this time. Nobody denies that the course of events may make inquiry in such a case justifiable or necessary. Nobody denies that after the proceedings of the Commissioners have reached that stage in which you are really in a situation to judge of them and to ascertain their results, there might be inquiry. The only part of the speech of my noble Friend (Lord Emly) which I did not hear with satisfaction, and with which I did not agree, was the suggestion that, though a Committee would be premature now, it might, possibly, not be premature before the end of this Session; and the noble Marquess
  972
  (the Marquess of Lansdowne) suggested that a Royal Commission would be better than a Committee. To me it seems that a Royal Commission or a Committee a few months hence, if it is premature now, would also be necessarily exposed to substantially the same objections. Now, my Lords, there is one thing which I have to acknowledge with thanks in the observations of all who have referred to myself or my Colleagues. You have given us credit for sincerity in what we have said now, and in what we have said in the last Session of Parliament. Therefore, I do not doubt that you will believe me when I say that not only I personally, but all my Colleagues, are as desirous that justice should be done to the landlords in Ireland, as that it should be done to the tenants. For my own part, I think that any really partial or one-sided administration of this law might go far to frustrate and destroy its good effects; and I share in any anxiety which may be felt by your Lordships, whether you are interested in property in Ireland or not, that the administration of this law should be unimpeachable, and should do full justice to the tenants and also to the landlords. But I cannot see anything that would be less in the interest of the landlord than a disturbance, by the intervention of this House, in which the landlords are strong, of the working of this Act, before it has been four months in operation, and when only about 1,300 out of 600,000 tenancies have been brought into the Courts. Language has been quoted which was used by one of Her Majesty's Ministers (Mr. Bright), when the Bill was passing through the other House, implying a belief that in nine out of ten cases rents would not be reduced. Well, we have not approached the nine out of ten cases. From the small number of cases decided any inference of a general character is, as yet, absolutely impossible. The most that can be said is that, inasmuch as in some cases there has been considerable reduction, and in most cases some reduction, if all other cases were decided in the same manner, then certain consequences would follow. But for that hypothesis there is no ground whatever. Those who look at the cases will see that the decisions vary enormously. I have observed the differences in the different Provinces, as compared with Griffith's valuation. In Ulster the rents

  973
  fixed are upon the average on the line of the valuation, in Leinster 7 per cent, in Connaught 9 per cent, and in Munster 20 per cent above it. Taking the decisions for the whole of Ireland, so far as they have gone, they give about 10 per cent above Griffith's valuation. I will not go into detail, but I will refer to some of the decisions given by two Sub-Commissioners, Messrs. Bomford and Weir, whose fitness for their appointments has been criticized, and not very generously criticized, in this House. They fixed the judicial rent in several of these cases at 25 and 33 per cent, and in some even more, above Griffith's valuation. But the rent before had been 100 per cent above that standard: so that there was, at the same time, a considerable reduction on the existing rents. I think that after the very small number of cases which have been decided, if your Lordships endeavour to go back upon what you have done, and disturb what you last year agreed to before anyone can estimate fully, or fairly, or sufficiently, what the general result will be, you will be taking a most unwise and a most perilous step, which will tend to compromise and imperil the interests of those on whose behalf you are acting. It is too much to suppose that the carrying out of the Act is to be suddenly stopped, simply because a majority of this House does not approve of some of the decisions that may have been given by the Sub-Commissioners. You cannot safely reason from the fact that rents have been reduced in some cases where reduction might not have been expected; for in particular instances, even on the best managed estates, there may be, and there undoubtedly are, some cases in which the rents are larger than they ought to be, and much larger than it could ever have been the intention of the landlord that they should be, if he had been aware of the facts; and, if that be so, there is no reason why those rents should not be reduced. If it were really the fact that the majority of the landlords of Ireland had let their land at rack-rents, I think the argument for the Bill would have been increased. Does the noble Marquess seriously mean to say that because Mr. Gladstone or some other Minister stated that he did not think the reduction of rent would, on the whole, be large, the majority of this House, in re-
  974
  liance on that expression of opinion, determined that the Bill should become law? Noble Lords will have great difficulty in persuading us that they were so soft, or so easily to be persuaded by any such opinions expressed, with however perfect good faith, by any Members of Her Majesty's Government. In this House, at all events, they had decided upon the course which they would take before a single speech was made. I cannot help referring to what my noble and learned Friend said concerning Mr. Forster. Mr. Forster lately stated in the House of Commons that he had received an impression, at the time he visited Ireland during the Famine, that rents were higher in that country than people here generally imagined, and that this impression had never been removed. My noble and learned Friend considers that he was guilty of some want of candour because, having formed that opinion, he did not last year state that he differed from the opinions expressed by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. But my noble and learned Friend should remember that the statements of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright were based upon the evidence which came before the Earl of Bessborough's and the Duke of Richmond's Commissions, of the effect of which all men were equally competent to judge; while Mr. Forster's opinion was founded on personal observation. I have very great respect for Mr. Forster and for his opinions; but they do not convince me, even now, that the greater part of the land in Ireland has been over-rented. A complaint has been made that the landlord's rent has been reduced, on the average, from 23 to 25 per cent; but how does my noble and learned Friend propose, by the action of his Committee, to undo that evil? I wish my noble and learned Friend would answer that question for us. How is it to be done by this Committee? I am at a loss to understand how the appointment of a Committee can be of any advantage, or how it could undo any evil, if evil has been done. Is it proposed by this Committee to repeal the Act, or is a new Act to be passed? If not, its effect will be nothing, while it will have a great deal of work to do, because I cannot see what will be the result of it, unless it really assumes the functions of these valuators, Commissioners, and Sub-Commissioners, and

  975
  attempts to do what those officers are appointed to do. I cannot see what that is likely to lead to. As to the rest, the effect upon the Commissioners and upon the country will, I think, be disturbing and unsatisfactory. But it is said by my noble and learned Friend that the Commissioners have not done the work which Parliament intended they should do, because they sent the Sub-Commissioners to different places to operate in the first instance. The facts, however, on that point, are perfectly well known to your Lordships; and if any conclusions are to be founded upon them, you will be able to arrive at them without the Committee. We know that the Commissioners did remain in Dublin until they had appeals to hear. We know that the work in detail was done by the Sub-Commissioners. We cannot get further information on that point. The mere quantity of the work rendered it impossible that the Commissioners could have done it all. It is suggested by my noble and learned Friend that the Commissioners should have started the work by visiting the different Provinces, and by establishing some sort of principles. Perhaps that might have been a good plan; but it is too late now. Neither can you undo it by any resolution of your Committee. It was said the Sub-Commissioners did not properly perform the office of valuators; but the criticism is founded upon a mistake as to the purpose of the personal visits which they paid to particular farms. They visited the farms where there was conflicting evidence before them, to see, by personal observation, whether the allegations as to improvements and the state of the land were correct. It is suggested that they did so in too hurried and cursory a way. Well, the instances brought forward do not seem to be strong. Two hours' visit to a farm may be quite sufficient in a case where it was only necessary to decide which set of witnesses spoke the truth. To appoint a Select Committee to inquire into this—to ascertain how many hours were spent on a farm by this or that Sub-Commissioner—is, I think, not a thing that any of your Lordships would seriously entertain. I cannot understand what new light your Committee will throw on that question. But the Committee is also to go into the general condition of the country. What
  976
  the effect of such an inquiry upon the general condition of the country, under present circumstances, may be, it is for your Lordships to judge. I cannot myself anticipate good from it. It is said that the good effects which some of us, and myself among others, held out to your Lordships as likely to follow from the passing of the Land Act have not been realized; but I am not aware that anybody held out the prospect of their immediate realization. I certainly did not. What I said, when I ventured to recommend the Bill to your Lordships, was, that there existed a state of things dangerous to Ireland and to the position of the landlords, and that I believed the passing of the Act would lessen that danger and strengthen their position. I did not say that these consequences would be realized the moment the Act came into operation. I knew that time would be required. I said I did not care to prophesy; but if I must, I hoped that a happier prospect was before us. I said, as beyond all doubt is the fact, that the Bill would improve the moral position of the Government in the administration of the law in Ireland; and the Government are confident that there is a real, substantial, and progressive improvement in the state of that country. I was astonished to hear from a noble Lord that there was no increase in the payment of rent; the information of the Government is to the contrary. I believe that both in that respect, and in regard to the greater power of the Government to carry on the administration of justice by the ordinary law, and by the extraordinary means obtained from Parliament, there has been a steady advance towards that state of things which all of us desire. I said the measure would, at all events, secure the loyalty of Ulster, and prevent it being drawn into the vortex of turbulence; and I said I believed it would have a beneficial effect in all parts of Ireland. My expectations are still the same. No one would be more disappointed than myself if that should not be the case; but nothing has occurred to justify any one of your Lordships in despairing of that effect. I heard some expressions from the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Waterford) which I was surprised to hear from a man of his high spirit; but I venture to hope that the time will come, and is not far off,

  977
  when the noble Marquess will himself admit that the case is better than he now supposes.
  On question? Their Lordships divided:—Contents 96; Not-Contents 53: Majority 43.

  CONTENTS.

  Beaufort, D.

  Clanbrassill, L. (E. Roden.)

  Leeds, D.

  Norfolk, D.

  Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

  Richmond, D.

  Abercorn, M. (D.Abercorn.)

  Clifton, L (E. Darnley.)

  Clinton, L.

  Exeter M.

  Cloncurry, L.

  Hertford, M.

  Colville of Culross, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Cottesloe, L

  Winchester, M.

  De Freyne, L.

  De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

  Bathurst, E.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Digby, L.

  Cairns, E.

  Donington, L.

  Caledon, E.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

  Clarendon, E.

  Dunsany, L.

  Dartrey, E.

  Ellenborough, L.

  Ellesmere, E.

  Forester, L.

  Kilmorey, E.

  Gormanston, L. (V. Gormanston.)

  Lanesborough, E.

  Lathom, E.

  Grey de Radcliffe, L. (V. Grey de Wilton.)

  Leven and Melville, E.

  Lytton, E.

  Harlech, L.

  Redesdale, E.

  Keane, L.

  Rosse, E.

  Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.)

  Rosslyn, E.

  Sandwich, E.

  Ker, L. (M. Lothian.)

  Selkirk, E.

  Leconfield, L.

  Stanhope, E.

  Londesborough, L.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Lovel and Holland, L. (E. Egmont.)

  Waldegrave, E.

  Oranmore and Browne, L.

  Cranbrook, V.

  Hawarden V. [Teller.]

  Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

  Hood, V.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) [Teller.]

  Ormathwaite, L.

  Poltimore, L.

  Polwarth, L.

  Melville, V.

  Raglan, L.

  Templetown, V.

  Ranfurly. L. (E. Ranfurly.)

  Bangor, L. Bp.

  Rossmore, L.

  Gloucester and Bristol, L. Bp.

  Saltersford, L. (E. Courtown..)

  Peterborough, L. Bp.

  Saltoun, L.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

  Amherst, L.(V. Holmesdale.)

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Ashford, L. (V. Bury.)

  Balfour of Burleigh, L.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Bateman, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Borthwick, L.

  Botreaux, L. (E. Loudoun.)

  Strathnairn, L.

  Templemore, L.

  Brabourne, L.

  Tollemache, L.

  Braybrooke, L.

  Tyrone, L. (M. Waterford.)

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Ventry, L.

  Carleton, L. (E. Shannon.)

  Vernon, L.

  Wentworth, L.

  Carysfort, L. (E. Carysfort.)

  Windsor, L.

  Wynford, L.

  978

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Selborne, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Crewe, L.

  De Mauley, L.

  De Tabley, L.

  Bedford, D.

  Dormer, L.

  Westminster, D.

  Emly, L.

  Ettrick, L. (L. Napier.)

  Northampton, M.

  Hammond, L.

  Hatherton, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  Hothfield, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

  Granville, E.

  Kimberley, E.

  Leigh, L.

  Morley, E.

  Lyttelton, L.

  Northbrook, E.

  Methuen, L.

  Spencer, E.

  Monson, L. [Teller.]

  Sydney, E.

  Mount Temple, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Gordon, V. (E. Aberdeen.)

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Sherbrooke, V.

  Ribblesdale, L.

  Romilly, L.

  Aberdare, L.

  Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)

  Auckland, L.

  Blachford, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.) [Teller.]

  Strafford, L. (V. Enfield.)

  Braye, L.

  Sudeley, L.

  Breadalbane, L,. (E. Breadalbane.)

  Suffield, L.

  Thurlow, L.

  Carlingford, L.

  Tweeddale, L. (M. Tweeddale.)

  Carrington, L.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  Coleridge, L.

  Wrottesley, L.

  Resolved, That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the working of recent legislation in reference to land in Ireland, and its effect upon the condition of the country.
  And, on February 24, the Lords following were named of the Committee:—

  D. Norfolk.

  E. Clarendon.

  D. Somerset.

  E. Cairns.

  D. Marlborough.

  V. Hutchinson.

  M. Salisbury.

  L. Tyrone.

  M. Abercorn.

  L. Carysfort.

  E. Pembroke and Montgomery.

  L. Kenry.

  L. Penzance.

  E. Stanhope.

  L. Brabourne.

  House adjourned at One o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.