§ LORD BRABOURNE,in rising, pursuant to Notice—
To call attention to the proceedings in the Land Courts established in Ireland under the Irish Land Act of 1881, and to the appointment to sub-commissionerships of Messrs. Cunningham, Weir, Wylie, Davidson, Meek, Greer, and others,said, that he had not given the Notice which stood in his name upon the Paper without grave consideration. He had taken no part in the debate which arose a short time since in their Lordships' House, and in which the fringe of that question was touched, because he felt that there was some force in the complaint of the Government that the debate had come upon them without due and adequate Notice. He felt, moreover, that until the final Report of their Lordships' Committee upon the Irish Land Act had been laid upon the Table, together with the whole of the evidence taken before that Committee, the action of the Sub-Commissioners could not be so fully and perfectly discussed as they could all desire. But, on the other hand, if there were mischief and injustice in that action, it must be remembered that it was a mischief and an injustice which were going on daily; and it might be well that the question should be subjected even to an imperfect discussion, rather than that they should leave unnoticed a state of things which was continually aggravating that keen and bitter sense of wrong which was felt by a class of Her Majesty's subjects which had confessedly as a class done nothing to 1176 deserve it. He ventured to think that they had all of them come under no slight responsibility as regarded that class. He meant the class of Irish landlords. In 1870 they revolutionized their position. They did so upon the most distinct and explicit assurance from the then and present Prime Minister that the measure which he proposed was a settlement of the question which, to use his own words, would "close and seal it up for ever." There were many men of both political Parties who objected greatly to that measure, but who fore-bore to press their objection, because they rested upon and were satisfied with that assurance; and their satisfaction was confirmed and increased by the solemn, deliberate, and emphatic manner in which the same high authority declared in the House of Commons that the valuation of rents throughout Ireland by the State was "impossible," that that, as well as the idea of "fixity of tenure," was, in his opinion, to be ranked in the category of extreme demands, to which neither he nor his Colleagues would yield, and which, to use again his own words, "the people of Great Britain would never have agreed to." If, in the early part of the year 1880, he (Lord Brabourne) could have been endowed with the spirit of prophecy—if he could have foreseen that these declarations were so soon to be abandoned, and a second revolution of the land system of Ireland proposed and carried through Parliament by the same Minister, he certainly should not have been there to address their Lordships to-night. For, great as was the honour of a seat in their Lordships' House, it was not an honour which he should have ventured to accept if he could have foreseen that he should feel absolutely bound within so short a time to oppose the policy of the Minister to whose spontaneous kindness that honour was due. But, far above all Party and personal considerations, he held this to be a fundamental axiom of a sound political faith—that it was utterly fatal to the strength, the peace, the good government, and the prosperity of any country in the world that once in every 10 or 12 years her system of Land Laws should undergo a revolution. And he believed, from the bottom of his heart, that the measure which Her Majesty's Government carried last year, in the lime and manner 1177 of its introduction, and in the provisions which it contained—one of the principal of which he was about to criticize that night—had inflicted an incalculable injury upon the people of Ireland, because it had unsettled their belief in the consistency of British legislation, had encouraged the evil-doers, the idle, and the disloyal at the expense of the loyal, the honest, and law-abiding; it had dislocated the whole framework of the Irish proprietary from the top to the bottom, and, for a time, at least, diminished the stability of British rule in Ireland. And if they were to weather the storm, it was not by shutting their eyes to what was going on, and hugging themselves in the self-complacent delusion that all would come right at last, but rather by scrutinizing carefully the signs of the times, by inquiring with anxiety into the complaints which came to their ears, and, above all, by making known to those who were engaged in the administration of the Land Act that they were working under the supervision of a Parliament which was anxious, indeed, that its own benevolent intentions should be carried out in the spirit in which they were conceived, but which was also determined that the measure which was intended as a measure of justice to one class should not be employed as an engine for the oppression and robbery of another. Now, what were the intentions of Parliament in the constitution of these Land Courts which were to deal with Irish property? He would call into the witness-box an unimpeachable witness in the person of the Prime Minister himself. Mr. Gladstone, on the 7th of April, 1881, in introducing his Land Bill, referred to the Bess-borough and Richmond Commissions, and said—Setting aside the single Report of Mr. Bonamy Price, the whole body of the Richmond Commissioners and the whole body of the Bess-borough Commissioners, without any exception, are agreed in making a recommendation of the most vital importance—I mean the constitution of a Court for the purpose of dealing with the differences between landlords and tenants in Ireland in regard to rent."—[3 Hansard, cclx. 896.]The Prime Minister then read a passage from the Report of the Richmond Commission, which mentioned no Court, but spoke of—The desire of the tenant for legislative interference to protect him from an arbitrary 1178 increase of rent, which desire (say the Commissioners) does not seem unnatural."—[Ibid., 897.]And hero he (Lord Brabourne) would ask their Lordships to note how great the difference was between a Court which was to "protect the tenant from an arbitrary increase of rent" and a Court which was to revise and overhaul rents long since agreed upon between landlord and tenant, which had been paid without complaint for a long series of years, and had been made the basis of charges and settlements which remained untouched by the action of the Court which reduced the rent. The one Court was contemplated by the Richmond Commission; the latter had, unhappily, been the result of legislation. Mr. Gladstone, after speaking of the Court as one to which the entrance should be optional, wont on to say—In any case, it ought not to be a one-sided Court. If a Court is to interfere, it must interfere for the purpose of doing justice. Therefore, speaking generally, we cannot lay down the proposition that it is to interfere for the protection and advantage of the tenant alone."—[Ibid., 908.]The intention, then, of the Prime Minister was that these Courts should do impartial justice between the landlord and tenant; and that while they should protect the tenant from an arbitrary increase of rent, they should also take care that the landlord should not suffer an arbitrary reduction of rents long agreed upon and paid. That being the view of the Prime Minister, and doubtless also the intention of Parliament, what sort of Court would their Lordships have expected to find? Let them remember what grave and delicate functions these Courts had to discharge. They were to arrange and regulate one of those ordinary transactions of every-day life which people had hitherto been thought competent to manage for themselves, and an interference with which was the most extraordinary violation of all the principles upon which this country had hitherto been governed. They were to develop and carry out a policy which was in itself an invasion and a destruction of private rights absolutely unheard of in a free country, and which, to an ordinary mind, closely approximated to a policy of confiscation. For what did this policy say to the landlords of Ire- land? It said this—"You are in pos- 1179 session of a commodity, the value of which is greatly increased by the desire which other people have to obtain it. This it is which constitutes that competition which we Free Traders hold to be a healthy and useful thing with regard to all other commodities. But we are going to treat you in an exceptional manner, not because you have taken advantage of competition to rack-rent your tenants, for of that, as a class, we entirely acquit you, but because the Irish tenantry must be made contented, and because there are disloyal and discontented people in Ireland who must be kept quiet by a sacrifice on the part of the loyal and contented. Therefore, this land-hunger—this desire to obtain your commodity, which in every other case, and according to all our principles in commercial life, should render your property more valuable, shall, by special legislation, be made to operate in a manner the reverse and opposite. Your rents shall be arbitrarily fixed by a Court, and the element of competition shall be eliminated from the consideration of the value to be affixed to your property." It would be seen at once that the difficulties of such a Court were great. In fact, they had to do that which the Prime Minister had, in 1870, declared to be impossible. But, in proportion to the difficulties which would attend the task to be accomplished by this Court, the greater should surely have been the care with which its members should have been appointed. One would have thought that no care could have been too great, and that no reasonable expenditure would have been grudged in order to obtain an impartial tribunal, which should command general confidence. What had been the case? He would say nothing to-night about the Chief Commissioners. Certainly, their action at the commencement of their proceedings was scarcely consistent with that of men appointed to hold the scales of equal justice between the two classes of suitors before them—namely, the landlords and the tenants; for they began by issuing a Circular to one of these two classes—namely, the tenants—pointing out the benefits which they would receive under the new Act, and thus giving them a practical invitation to bring their landlords into Court. Mr. O'Hagan, too, in his opening address, pointed out to the tenants that, at 1180 the cost of only 1s., they could bring their landlords into Court. But lie was now dealing with the Sub-Commissioners alone—that was to say, with those Courts of First Instance to which the Commissioners had delegated the powers entrusted to them by the Act. He would then first state what seemed to be the opinion of these Courts among those with whom they had to deal, and then he would inquire how far that opinion was or was not justified. He might quote a vast mass of evidence as to the estimation in which the Sub-Commissioners were held; but he would be content with one quotation, which appeared to embody very fairly the general opinion. It was contained in the answers to three questions given before their Lordships' Committee by Mr. John Young, a landowner, Justice of the Peace, and Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Antrim—3,087.—You were not opposed to the passing of the Act, as many landlords were?—I thought it a very arbitrary interference with the rights of property that any Court should fix the rent; but I did not contemplate that the fixing of the rents by the Courts would work the evil that it has done. 3,088.—Did you anticipate that the rents would be fixed by the present class of Sub-Commissioners?—No. We have all been greatly disappointed at the class of men appointed. The expectation was that, if Sub-Commissioners were appointed at all, the Chairman of each Sub-Commission would be a lawyer of repute, such as could have aspired to a County Judgeship. Many of them have been practising attorneys; very respectable, perhaps, in their own profession; but they are not a class of men that one expects to see presiding in a Court of Law. 3,089.—Is their experience of the value of land at all what it should be as regards men who have to fix the value for 15 years?—I do not think it could be—and they are fixing the rent now in a time of temporary depression, having no regard whatever to the past, hut every regard to what they think to be the certain depression of the future. I think it is a very great hardship to the landlords that, at the very bottom of the value, the rent should he fixed arbitrarily for the next 15 years. It is very different to a voluntary reduction given during a bad year; these reductions are given in what are considered the bad times, and are to continue for 15 years.Now, let them proceed to inquire—first, as to the class of men who had been appointed as Sub-Commissioners; secondly, into their principles of action and method of procedure; and, thirdly, into the results of their work, so far as they were yet known. And, first, as to the class of men. He knew that there might have been difficulty in finding men fit to 1181 undertake the duties of Sub-Commissioner; but he thought that there were two special conditions which should have been scrupulously observed in the selection. First, no man should have been appointed who was at all directly connected either with the landlord or tenant class in the district in winch he had to adjudicate; secondly, no man should have been appointed who was an active political partizan, or who had taken a prominent part in any of those county elections in which the contests had largely turned upon land questions—that was, upon questions relating to the differences between landlord and tenant. He regretted to say, however, that the evidence forced him to the conclusion that both of these conditions had boon sadly disregarded. He was now about to read to their Lordships a few only of the cases in which complaints had reached him, and he was assured that every word could be fully verified. The first name was that of Mr. Cunningham, who was described in the Return as "practical farmer—land agent." He resided at Buncrana, County Donegal, where he had corn mills. His place of business was in Derry, where he had large stores, and where he attended daily at his office, prior to his appointment as Sub-Commissioner. His firm had a traveller, who had been going about asking for orders in the same district at the time that Mr. Cunningham had been sitting in Court. His mills ground oats, bought at the weekly market from the farmers, either by himself or his agent, and there was a threshing machine attached to the mill, which threshed oats for the farmers for payment. Mr. Cunningham, therefore, was practically dependent upon the tenant farmers whose rents he had to determine; and it was scarcely fitting that such a duty should be allotted to him. He was a respectable man, but a strong partizan, and took an active part in the recent contests for Donegal and Londonderry. The next was Mr. Weir, who was described as a "Justice of the Peace and practical farmer." He was a respectable shopkeeper in Cookstown, County Tyrone, and occupied 26 acres of land. His practical farming, therefore, consisted in farming 26 acres of land. His chief customers were among the farmers. He had had no experience in the valuation of land. He was an active 1182 supporter and a nominator of Mr. Litton; a supporter of Mr. Dickson, and the Solicitor General for Ireland, and was a cousin of the latter. He was now on the Down Sub-Commission. The next was Mr. Wylie, who was a barrister practising on the North-West Circuit, of which Strabane and Omagh, where he gave decisions, were the most important places. He was only a yearly Sub-Commissioner, and would retire in November. He had announced his intention of practising again in the district whore he had been sitting as Sub-Commissioner. It was from the tenants, and the small attorneys who acted for them, that his employment must come, and he was a strong tenant partizan. It was obvious that his appointment to that district could not command the approval of any impartial mind. The next was Mr. William Davidson, who was described as a "land agent;" but he had been such for two years only. He was formerly, if not at present, a partner in a small timber, slate, and tile yard in Downpatrick, another partner being the brother of the secretary of the Down Tenant Farmers' Association. He was elected Coroner for the Northern Division of the county of Down. The trade of his firm was entirely among the farmers, and he had been a warm supporter of the extreme anti-landlord party. He was now on the Armagh Commission with Mr. Meek; and it would be interesting to know—first, under what circumstances and upon whose application Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald, the late legal Sub-Commissioner, was suddenly transferred to the Carlow district; and, secondly, whether his successor, Mr. Foley, had or had not expressed great dissatisfaction at the conduct of his two colleagues. The next case was that of Mr. Garland, "Justice of the Peace and practical farmer." He was a publican, as his father was before him, and also his grandfather, and he still carried on a general country shop under the same roof, and occupied about 60 acres of land. About six years ago, he was elected Coroner, and he (Lord Brabourne) had seen some of his speeches, in which he appealed to the tenant farmers especially to elect him as a "strong tenant-righter," and denounced the landlord power. This was the second Coroner appointed to sit upon the defunct body of landlordism in Ireland. In 1881 Lord 1183 O'Hagan made him a Justice of the Peace, in spite of the refusal of the vice-lieutenant of the county to recommend him. Mr. Garland was a strong Radical partizan, and always took a prominent part in the Tenant's Defence Association. The public-house was a wayside one, as was also the shop, and the principal customers were of the farming class. He now came to the case of Mr. Greer, who was Chairman of the Down and Antrim Sub-Commission from November, 1881, to April, 1882.
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)asked the noble Lord, if he would state from what paper he was reading?
§ LORD BRABOURNE,in reply, said, that he was reading condensed statements, which he had compiled from letters in which the information was given him. [Ministerial laughter.] He did not understand the laughter of his noble Friends. To read the letters would take a much greater time.
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)The statement does not give the names of the writers.
§ LORD BRABOURNECan the noble Lord expect me to give the names of Irish correspondents? There is too much danger in that.
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)We perfectly understand now.
§ LORD BRABOURNEsaid, he was perfectly ready to give the noble Lord privately the names of any individuals who supplied the information. Mr. Greer, up to the time of his appointment, was a partner in the firm of Greer and Mullan, practising solicitors at Newry. It was not known if he had still an interest in the firm; but he sat upon cases in which his partner, late or present, appeared as solicitor for the tenant, and in the case of Graham (tenant) v. Hall (landlord) he actually adjudicated on a case of his own landlord, reducing the rent from £68 to £55 10s,. Mr. Greer was the active agent of the Radical Party in Newry until appointed Crown Solicitor. Great complaints were made of the license which Mr. Greer had permitted in his Court to the solicitors for the tenants; and, on one occasion, when the tenant's solicitor cross-examined the landlord upon his alleged immoral life, and this was objected to as having no bearing upon the question of "fair rent," Mr. Greer ruled that in point of law it was 1184 one of the "circumstances" of the landlord referred to in the section of the Act dealing with fair rent. That was a sample of the cases brought to his (Lord Brabourne's) notice, in which language of an offensive and improper character had been allowed in Mr. Greer's Court. In another case (Creyston v. Nelson) Mr. Greer raised the rent by 3d., stating that "the Sub - Commissioners would have raised the rent to a much larger sum, but that the landlord did not ask them to do so." There was an appeal on the ground that the rent ought to be a "judicial rent according to the evidence;" but the Commissioners confirmed their subordinates' decision. Mr. Thomas Meek, described as "practical farmer," was on the Armagh Commission. He was the son of a horsedealer, and was first a small farmer, then a shopkeeper on a small scale in Cooks-town, and subsequently a tenant right agitator and an ardent supporter of the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Mr. Law, of Mr. Porter, the Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Dickson, and Mr. Litton, in their several election contests. He was one of the assenters to the nomination of Mr. Porter in December, 1881, and delivered several speeches denouncing the landlords in no measured terms, and upholding the cause of the tenants. He was most extreme in his political views, and at a meeting at Cookstown declared—"My grandfather carried a pike in 1798, and I am a chip of the old block. "In other words—"My grandfather was a rebel, and I inherit his opinions." When his neighbours heard that this man had been appointed a Sub-Commissioner, they thought it was a joke; and in his native place, Stewartstown, they frequently went in "to hear the nonsense he talked." He gave sworn evidence of the value of land in his own district, before the Cookstown Sub-Commissioners, who quite disbelieved and set aside his evidence, fixing the rents in once case at 25 per cent, and in other cases 36 per cent above his sworn valuation. This was the man of whom and of whose special disqualifications the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Chief Commissioner must have had full knowledge, and whom they had suffered to be appointed upon the Armagh Sub-Commission to value the estates of loyal men. It was no wonder that the de- 1185 cisions of this Sub-Commission gave the most profound dissatisfaction, and that this appointment was regarded as one which was simply disgraceful to those who were responsible for it. He (Lord Brabourne) might mention that out of 237 cases in which this Sub-Commission had fixed rents in the Union of Armagh, 167 appeals—or 70 per cent—had been lodged. He was compelled to say that he thought it a very unfortunate thing that three days after the poll had closed in Derry, three gentlemen who were among the most active supporters of the Solicitor General for Ireland should have been appointed Sub-Commissioners. In his opinion, it was a very great misfortune that small country attorneys, publicans, and farmers of 30 or 40 acres, or those who had taken an active part in attacks upon the landlords, should have been appointed to value estates in Ireland. He would put to their Lordships a simple and sober question—how would any of them like to have their estates valued, and their English rents fixed by the small attorneys in their country towns, by publicans, by men who farmed 30, 40, or 50 acres of land, or by prominent members of the "Farmers' Alliance," who had taken an active part in county elections against what was called the "landlord interest?" Yet that, and worse than that, was what Irish landlords had to submit to. His noble Friends might tell him that there was great difficulty in finding good men for the Commission; but every exertion should have been used by the Government to obtain the services of eminent professional valuators, of whom there were many in Ireland. If these men had been appointed, and had been assisted by barristers of standing and repute, there might have been a chance of obtaining an impartial Court. It would have been cheaper in the end to have had such men, and paid them higher remuneration; because their decisions, having greater weight, would have promoted the settlement of eases out of Court; but to expect impartiality from the class of men who had been appointed was to expect that which was never probable, and the existence of which was disproved by a mass of evidence. He now came to the principles on which these gentlemen had acted and their methods of procedure, and here he was encountered upon the threshold by 1186 a difficulty of no ordinary magnitude, for the Sub-Commissioners had confessedly acted upon no principle at all. The Commissioners, when examined, and closely pressed, before their Lordships' Committee, owned that they had some glimmering idea of a principle upon which to shape their own course of action; but they had entirely failed to communicate it to their subordinates. It was a serious thing that 30 or 40 men should be turned adrift to assess fair rents without any principles to guide them. The Bessborough Commission had attempted to give some definition of a fair rent. They said that the annual amount, and the value of the produce of the land, should be taken into account as one ingredient in fixing the fair rent. They also said that where rent had been paid for any 10 years during the last 20 years, that was a fair point to start from, taking from that point all the matters which might show the propriety of increasing or reducing such rent. No principle of any kind had been laid down, however, by the Commissioners under the Act. He (Lord Brabourne) maintained that where competition was entirely excluded, it was impossible to obtain the actual value of any commodity. Under the Land Act, a tenant could go into the open market and sell his tenant right (subject only to the landlord's right of pre-emption, which very frequently he would be unable to exercise) for the best price he could; but a landlord was excluded from competition. He did not mean that a landlord should put his farm up to auction; but that the relative value of a farm where competition for the tenancy was excluded was less than that of one where it was admitted. The value of land was more relative than absolute. It was worth more to one man than to another. An adjoining farmer might have land intersecting a farm, or he might have a small holding, and find that the addition of another would make both pay him better; or there might be a tradesman who had saved money in business, and who wanted a farm, not only for profit, but for health and recreation. To such men a farm would be of more value than to others; and half-a-hundred similar instances might be adduced. But supposing they took the test of the Bessborough Commission and ascertained the annual amount of the produce and its value, 1187 Still, without a guiding principle laid down, you were getting no nearer the mark. One man thought a third of the produce of a farm, and another that a fourth of the produce, should go to the landlord, whilst another thought he was only entitled to a sixth part. The result, of course, was that each man was guided by his own individual opinion, and the greatest inequality prevailed in the decisions of the different Courts. It was idle, however, to talk further of principle where none existed, and he would come to the method of procedure before the Sub-Commissioners. There were certainly some Courts in which the proceedings were conducted with great care. There were others in which the evidence appeared to be of the loosest character. Most of the tenants' witnesses as to value were their own neighbours, who were waiting for their own cases to come into Court. One would think that no great value would be attached to that evidence; but he was afraid more weight was accorded to it than would be accorded by their Lordships. Sometimes the Sub-Commissioners viewed the land and sometimes they did not. And when they viewed it, he found they often viewed in half-a day what it would take a professional valuer four or five (lays to value; and they viewed land in bad weather—sometimes when part of it was under water, and when it was impossible to judge of its real value; and this brought him to another point. It was said that the Sub-Commissioners were to take their vacation in August and September, which was the very best time for seeing what crops there were, and when tricks could not so easily be played. No one would grudge their holidays to these gentlemen; but it would be better that they should have double the time in the winter, when the work of surveying could not be properly done. In their Report Lord Bessborough's Land Commission said in their 64th paragraph—
If anything has been clearly established on evidence during this inquiry, the fact that the pro-sent Government valuation is not a trustworthy standard for the settlement of rents has been most thoroughly demonstrated. Fair as it may have been for the purposes of local taxation in the years when it was made, the evidence shows that even then it was considered as below the fair letting of the land. Those who argue to the contrary ignore the fact that, while there was nowhere any motive at work to cause the officials employed to value too highly, there was a universal pressure to force down the valuation, 1188 to which it was not unnatural for the valuators to yield. No injustice was done to anybody, while everybody was satisfied, so long as the under-estimate was general and uniform.All the evidence taken before the present Committee upon the Irish Land Act entirely confirmed that view; and, keeping this steadily in view, it was well to inquire how far the results of the action of the Land Courts and the decisions of the Sub-Commissions compared with the universally-acknowledged truth that this—"Griffith's valuation"—was a considerable under-estimate of a fair rent. He (Lord Brabourne) would refer to some cases in which judicial rents had been fixed to show the operation of the Land Act of last year on that question. He would take 61 cases that were decided with reference to holdings that were parts of estates in the counties of Armagh, Monaghan, Carlow, Clare, and Donegal. The whole rent concerned was £1,124—the Poor Law valuation £795, and the judicial rent fixed at £822. If he (Lord Brabourne) had manipulated the figures, and eliminated only one estate, the judicial rents of the whole were far below the Poor Law valuation. On one estate, of which only two cases were tried among the above, the present rent was £628, while the Poor Law valuation was £700. The rents had been paid punctually without abatement for upwards of 100 years. The number of acres was 575. The reduction made by the Sub-Commissioners in the rents of these 61 cases was, in the aggregate, 27 per cent. In the case of one farm on Sir Richard Wallace's estate the Sub-Commissioners had reduced the rent from £101 to £82 4s., the Poor Law valuation being £125; in the case of another farm on the same estate they reduced the rent from £83 14s. to £69; and in the ease of a third farm on the same estate they reduced the rent from £61 to £46, the Poor Law valuation in the two latter cases being much in excess of the rent before its reduction by the Sub-Commissioners. There had been no increase in these three rents for 70 years and upwards. The landlord had appealed. Then, to show for what small cause landlords were brought into Court, here was a case in which the rent paid since 1825 was £22 11s. The Sub-Commissioners lowered it to £18. On appeal the sworn Court valuator valued it at £21, and the Court of Appeal fixed it at 1189 £20. He would now refer to the case of a tenant named Stewart, in the county of Donegal. This man had 31 acres of land at a rent of £16. It was, proved that for only nine acres he made £.36 a-year by letting it in conacre for £4 per acre, and the Sub-Commissioners stated that they thought he would be able to continue that for 15 or 16 years to come. Yet this man's rent was kept at £16, he having brought his landlord into Court without the slightest reason, so that the Sub-Commissioners actually expressed their doubt whether they ought not to raise the rent. Of course, if rents were not raised to their judicial value, in such cases there was nothing judicial in the decision, and tenants were encouraged to drag their landlords unnecessarily into Court. With reference to cases on Lord Clanricarde's estate in Galway, about 50 cases were decided in May this year. The Poor Law valuation of the whole had been £811, the present rent £882, or about 8½ per cent. over that valuation, and the judicial rent was fixed at £799 11s., or l½ per cent. below the Poor Law valuation. As to the case of Captain Callaghan, that was an old estate in the County Clare. The rents bad been punctually paid for a great number of years. Upon the 5th of June 27 cases were tried at Killaloe. A rental of £813 was reduced to £552, or something more than 31 per cent upon the old rents. One other case be must mention, because it bore very strongly upon the inequalities of the decisions given by the different Courts. At Strabane, in February last, 20 cases from the Altnachree estate were heard before Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Comyn, and Mr. Mahoney. Three cases were dismissed, and upon the others 16 per cent. was given in reductions from a rental of £442. The Commission was changed before April, and the three gentlemen above-named were replaced by Mr. Wylie, Mr. Cunningham, and Mr. Ellis. About 20 more cases were tried from the same estate, and he was assured they were the same class of eases, the same scale of rents, and the same description of land. But the new Commission brought down a rental of £557 to £389, being a reduction of 30 per cent. How could men be expected to sit down quietly under such a state of things? Of course, there was an appeal, but the expense of appealing was considerable, and the result 1190 not always certain. Witness two appeals tried at Derry, before Judge O'Hagan and Mr. Litton. In a case heard on appeal at Derry, before Judge O'Hagan and Mr. Litton, the judicial rent fixed by Sub-Commissioners at £33 was confirmed, although the valuation of the sworn Court valuer was £39; and in two other cases the Court of Appeal fixed the rents at £562 and £352 respectively, although the valuation of the sworn Court valuer was £675 and £466 10s. respectively, the old rents having been £726 and £470. In two cases heard on appeal before Judge O'Hagan and Mr. Vernon, at Belfast, the judicial rent was fixed at £63 and £44, although the valuation of the sworn Court valuer was £70 and £58; and in the former case, the Sub-Commissioners having reduced the old rent to £55 10s., there appeared a dark suspicion that the two Commissioners had differed, and simply split the difference between that amount and the valuation of their own valuer. In the latter case Judge O'Hagan had said it was an "extraordinary and infatuated act" of the tenant to bring his landlord (Lord Kilmorey) into Court. He had a very cheap farm, and "the very lowest rent they could impose was £44."But why should a man who had acted thus have the "very lowest rent," when a proper judicial rent should have been fixed? His noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal would probably ask him what practical good he hoped to obtain by ventilating that subject to-night? He would endeavour to answer. The question was of far more importance than could be answered in the mere inquiry whether the reductions made by the Sub-Commissioners were fair or unfair. Harsh, cruel, and unjust as he (Lord Brabourne) believed them to be, if they were likely to settle the Land Question upon a firm and durable basis, he believed the landlords were imbued with a spirit sufficiently loyal and patriotic to submit even to that which was ruin to some and injury to all if it would obtain peace for Ireland. But the agitation to which the establishment of the Land Commission was one of the unhappy concessions was based on wider and broader demands than those which could be satisfied by the settlement of the Irish land system upon any basis which would preserve the present relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland, even in a strained and 1191 unnatural condition. That the land of Ireland ought to become the absolute property of its cultivators; that landlordism ought to be abolished, and that Ireland ought to be freed from the rule of England—these were the demands which had been formulated by the authors and loaders of that agitation. Those demands were yet unsatisfied, and although the voices which asked them were not loud and urgent at that moment, that was rather as a matter of policy than because they were relinquished or forgotten. The spirit cropped up now and again, as, for instance, when the landlords of Ireland had lately been called a set of thieves in "another place," and it was noticeable that the statement was not ruled to be out of Order. Not long ago, also, the Queen's Government was called an alien Government by an Irish Representative, and not one Minister rose to refute and denounce such an outrageous statement. Did the Government really believe that the reductions already made would content the Irish tenantry, and put a stop to the trade of the agitator? The whole experience of history negatived and falsified such a belief. What would be the language of the agitators to the tenants now? They would say—"See what has come of following our advice. In 1870 a great Minister told you that the Land Question would be closed and sealed up for ever. We told you to agitate. You agitated, you 'Boycotted,' you refused to pay your rents—and the consequence was that, in 1881, the question was reopened and re-settled upon terms more favourable to you. Can you doubt your policy now? You have the same men to deal with as you had before. You found them squeezable then—you will find them squeezable again. Agitate—'Boycott'—hoist the 'no rent' flag. A General Election cannot be far off, when the Irish vote will be essential to the Government. Press them hard, and as it has been in the past doubt not that so it will be in the future. "Did any noble Lord doubt that that advice would be given? Did no noble Lord fear that it would be followed? He had brought this subject forward because he held that immediate action should be taken and an opportunity given to those who were interested in the matter to challenge, if they could be challenged, the statements which were everywhere made respecting 1192 the conduct of the Sub-Commissioners. The two objects which he had in view were that wrong-doing might be exposed if there had been any, and, in connection with any fresh measures of relief, that their Lordships might refrain from giving the Commissioners additional powers, except with such restrictions as should render impossible a repetition of the evils of which he had complained. The Prime Minister had not long ago concluded a speech by saying—"Lot justice be our guide !"But what, he asked, could Irish landlords think of the justice of the Government? Let those answer who, having invested money in Irish land upon the faith of a Parliamentary security, and bought rents fixed by a Court specially established by Parliament for the purpose, found themselves plundered and robbed, as a punishment for their credulity in trusting to the good faith of a British Parliament. Let those answer, too, who, having inherited or acquired land upon which the rents had been duly paid for many years, and whose predecessors had created certain burdens upon the basis of their rents, now found their rents arbitrarily reduced by a Court which, if it had the will, had not the power, to reduce, at the same time, the burdens which were loft to ruin them. He (Lord Brabourne) craved pardon for having detained their Lordships with so long a statement. He was not an Irish landlord, and the only interest which he took in this matter was such interest as any man might feel when seeing a certain class of his fellow-countrymen treated with manifest injustice. Of course, he did not accuse the Government of wishing to do injustice to anyone, and he knew well the benevolent intentions of the Prime Minister; but benevolence sometimes misled people, especially when it was exercised at the expense of others. Nor did he believe that anyone more than the noble Lord (the Lord Privy Seal) desired the welfare and prosperity of Ireland. But in the legislation of the last few years the Government had abandoned principle and been guided by the expediency of the moment, and they had treated the Irish people as nurses treated fractious children, caressing them at one moment and threatening them with chastisement at another. The lavish concession of one moment had been succeeded by the spasmodic severity of 1193 the next. That being so, could they wonder that the whole of Ireland was unsettled and agitated, and that insecurity of life had followed insecurity of property? In conclusion, regret it as he might, he felt bound to express the opinion that no long time could elapse before the verdict which the country would pass upon the Irish policy of Her Majesty's Government would be that it was a policy which had discredited a Ministry and demoralized a people.
LORD CARLINGFOED (LORD PRIVY SEAL)said, that his noble Friend on the Cross Benches (Lord Brabourne) had truly told them that he was not an Irish landlord. That fact, indeed, was plain enough from his speech and his want of knowledge of Irish affairs. But, though his noble Friend was not an Irish landlord, his ardent zeal in the defence of the landlords of Ireland—who, by the way, as it always appeared to him (Lord Carlingford), wore very well able to take care of themselves—had led him to do some unusual things. It had led him to repeat, in fact and in substance, a question which had already been raised in the early part of the Session by the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Waterford), and to make attacks upon the same individual Commissioners whose actions and antecedents had been brought before the House on that occasion, and repeatedly brought to the notice of the other House of Parliament. The noble Lord's zeal had also led him to make a speech which was 12 months too late, as it was evidently a speech which ought to have been delivered on the Motion for the second reading of the Land Act of last year. For his part, he (Lord Carlingford) at the present time declined to discuss the policy and principles of that Act. The proper conclusion to the speech of his noble Friend ought to have been a Motion for the repeal of the Act. When his noble Friend should have the courage to take that course the Government would be prepared to answer him. It would, however, be difficult to argue the matter with his noble Friend, even if he felt inclined to do so, because between them there was no common ground. His noble Friend looked upon recent legislation as the work of the Evil One, and as amounting to spoliation, which, to say, the least, was not very compli- 1194 mentary to their Lordships' House, who passed the Bill into law; while he (Lord Carlingford), on the contrary, looked upon it as a necessary, though stringent, measure of Land Reform in Ireland—[Laughter]—a measure, however the noble Lord might laugh, which, in his (Lord Carlingford's) conviction, as well as that of many impartial judges in Ireland of all shades of political opinion, was rendered absolutely essential by the faulty nature of the Irish Land Law, which was so ill-adapted to the conditions and circumstances of that country, and so alien to the practice of good landlords, that many of them, for the benefit of their tenants, had practically changed the law or put it on one side. He had believed before the passing of the Laud Act, and he believed still, that the necessity for a reform—and a radical reform—in the Irish Land Laws was so great that a refusal of that reform by the Government or Parliament would have left no ray of hope for the future of Ireland. He assumed, therefore, that the present debate was not a debate on the Irish Land Act, but a discussion of the way in which the Act had been administered. He had to make another protest against some part of his noble Friend's speech, in that he virtually made that House a Court of Appeal from the decisions of the Irish Land Court. He thought that was obvious from the statements that had been made. His noble Friend had let him know, within the last two or three days, that there were certain cases he would mention, so that he might be prepared with explanations and replies; but was it possible for their Lordships to deal, with any semblance of justice, with the cases his noble Friend had brought before the House? Even if he had the full notes of the Sub-Commissioners before him, it would be impossible for him to do justice to their decisions, or to call upon their Lordships to sit in judgment upon them. Parliament had created a special Court of Appeal for the purpose; and, however much noble Lords on the other side might sneer at the appointments of the original Commissioners—and he had observed that even the new appointment that had been made—that of Viscount Monck—had not escaped a sneer in "another place"—the Government were convinced that it was impossible to have an Appeal Court more deserving of confidence than that presided over by Mr. 1195 Justice O'Hagan, in conjunction with Mr. Litton and Mr. Vernon. He therefore protested against those sneers. Some of the cases which the noble Lord had mentioned had not yet been heard by the Appeal Court; but others had been beard, so that his noble Friend, in the one instance, called on the House to anticipate the Court of Appeal, and, on the other hand, to reverse the decisions of that Court. He would now come to the attack that had been made upon several of the Sub-Commissioners. He was not sure that he could remember the names of all who had been attacked; but he was agreeably surprised at not finding a larger number, because he had been told by his noble Friend that his grievances against the Sub-Commissioners had been growing every day. His noble Friend seemed to have made himself a kind of "lion's mouth" to receive all sorts of personal charges which people who were interested or thought themselves aggrieved might send to him. That was the only view he could take of the great mass of matter from which the noble Lord had selected cases which he had brought before the House. As to the Sub-Commissioners, he would repeat what he had said on a former occasion—that he knew the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) had taken the utmost pains to make a proper selection of men. He knew that by inquiry, by personal interviews, by constant communication and consultations with the Land Commissioners themselves, without whose concurrence he believed he never acted in one single case, and whoso objections would have been fatal, his right hon. Friend had done everything a man could do to appoint thoroughly capable men; and he believed that, on the whole, in spite of all the stories that his noble Friend had told of them, Mr. Forster had been successful in his choice. He could almost have wished that his noble Friend had been still in the House he had so lately quitted, as then he would have had the advantage of making his attacks in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman who had made those appointments. In that case he would have been answered by his (Lord Carlingford's) right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) himself, whereas the answers he could give in this 1196 House could only be at second hand. With regard to the personal character and abilities of the Sub-Commissioners, it was the fact that Mr. Meek, who was a practical farmer, an arbitrator, and valuer of land, did give his evidence as valuer before one of the Sub-Commission Courts before his appointment, and that his valuation was considered by the Sub-Commissioners a low one, and that they fixed a rent considerably above his valuation; but it by no means followed that a gentleman of that kind, who was likely to take a favourable view of his client's ease, would act unjustly as an arbitrator. It was like the case of an engineer who might, on one occasion, give evidence in Courts of Justice, and, on another occasion, sit as an arbitrator. He could only say that Mr. Meek's case was very carefully examined by Mr. Forster, who had several interviews with him, and formed a very favourable opinion of his capacity and character. He had also high recommendations, including one from a largo landowner and a Conservative, Sir William Lenox Conyngham, who bore very strong testimony to his fitness for the office of Sub-Commissioner. If Mr. Meek had committed any errors, and put too high a value on the tenants' interests, no doubt they would be corrected by the Court of Appeal. The next name he would mention was that of Mr. Davidson. His case had been before their Lordships on a former occasion; and, as regarded him, it might be said that he was a man who was also highly recommended. He had been a practical firmer, a magistrate for County Down, and a Coroner for the county, and had been strongly recommended by persons belonging to both Parties in the district—by Lord Castlereagh, Lord Arthur Hill, Mr. Mulhollaud, and gentlemen of that class. He now came to the Tyrone Sub-Commission, of which Mr. Wylie was the legal member, and Mr. Cunningham was one of the other members. He was surprised to find that his noble Friend had been instructed by his correspondents to attack the capacity and impartiality of the legal Commissioners. He had been under the impression that no fault had been, or could be, found with the appointment of the legal Commissioners, who, as in the instance of Mr. Wylie, were men of high reputation and standing at the Bar, and he did not think that his noble Friend 1197 had any right to talk about low attorneys as he did.
§ LORD BRABOURNEI said small attorneys.
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)said, he thought it amounted to very much the same thing; but, little or big, there were only two solicitors appointed—- Mr. Greer and Mr. John George MacCarthy—both of whom were men of the highest standing in their Profession. The only fact that he knew of that could be brought against Mr. Wylie was, that he was a member of the North-West Circuit of Ireland, and that he might possibly practise there in future years; but the reason he and others were appointed in that part of Ireland was that it was found absolutely necessary for the work of the Land Court in Ulster that gentlemen should be selected who had some knowledge of the Ulster tenant custom. They found the greatest complaints among the Ulster men when gentlemen were brought from the South without any knowledge of the custom. That had, no doubt, been a difficulty; but the Land Commission had the most perfect confidence in Mr. Wylie, as had everyone who knew him at the Bar; they had not the smallest suspicion that he could possibly swerve one inch from his duty, because he happened to be a practising barrister on the same Circuit. But there was really nothing in such suspicions as that. They were not wanting on the other side of the question; they were precisely on a par with, and not in the least more worthy of regard than, those constantly produced by extreme advocates of the tenants in "another place." Such insinuations were very like what was said last night in "another place" with respect to the appointment of the noble Viscount near him (Viscount Monck), who was objected to on the score that he was a landlord, and had strong ideas on the subject of crime in Ireland. These insinuations, which might be made by both sides upon these burning questions, were not worthy of their Lordships' attention. Mr. Cunningham sat upon the same Commission with Mr. Wylie, and there was nothing in his record which should raise any doubt as to his competency and impartiality. He was a partner in a firm of corn merchants; he had no vote, and had nothing to do with the Derry Election; he had no business 1198 connection in the district or county in which he was acting, and the tenants were strangers to him. With respect to the action of the Tyrone Commission, he understood his noble Friend impeached it on the ground that, whereas a former Sub-Commission had made reductions in rent, the present one had made still larger reductions; but, to judge with the slightest fairness of the matter, they must know the nature of the cases which the Commissions had to deal with. He had a note from a friend of his who was the County Court Judge of Tyrone, and he said—
I made it my business to inquire into the subject, and in no case did I hear that the Sub-Commissioners had reduced the rents too much; while I heard many statements as to their not having gone far enough. Of course, I do not mean that everyone was satisfied. That would be impossible; but I did not hear any complaint to substantiate the statement that rents were reduced too much.As to Mr. Garland, he was perfectly competent by training and education for his position. He (Lord Carlingford) could hear nothing against him except that he was formerly connected with a large country store, a general shop, to which at one time a public-house had been attached. He was a magistrate of Armagh, was coroner for the county, had ceased to have any connection with the public-house seven years ago, and, upon his present appointment, had given up his connection with the store. But that which really qualified him for the appointment was the fact that he was largely engaged in farming, and had a most complete knowledge of the value and tenure of land. In the South Mr. Rice was a large landholder, holding under a long lease, and he believed that all who knew that gentleman would say that he was a thoroughly competent, straightforward, honourable man. He was removed from Cork to another county, not because of his conduct, or that there was any fault to be found with the manner in which he had discharged his duties, but simply to avert that vague kind of suspicion of which they had heard so much that evening. He was informed that the only quarter in which Mr. Rice's appointment was unpopular was with the Land League, and that he had incurred the displeasure of that organization, because he had held aloof from its proceedings, A great deal had been said 1199 about Mr. Weir in "another place;" but the charges made against him had been answered again and again. The letter of recommendation which was given him by the Solicitor General for Ireland was given at a time when there was no question of any election at Derry. Mr. Greer was one of the most eminent solicitors in the North of Ireland, a man of the highest position in his Profession, and his appointment was received with a chorus of approval from all quarters; and, if he (Lord Carlingford) thought it worth while, he could read many letters from the highest authorities in that gentleman's favour. He took no part in dealing with the tenants of Major Hall, because he was the lessee of the site of a villa on the estate; hut a tenant upon that property who was so ill-advised as to go into Court had his rent increased, and it was still further raised on appeal. With regard to the general action of the Land Courts, the noble Lord gave the House a number of particular cases, into which he (Lord Carlingford), for the reasons he had already stated, would not attempt to follow him. The truth was that the action of the Land Courts could not be judged either by the public or by the House except as a whole, and upon general considerations. There wore various ways of testing that action, it was right that it should be carefully examined, and he had endeavoured to test it by every means in his power. In the first place, he would compare the action of the Sub-Commissioners and of the County Court Judges. The average reduction of rents made by the Sub-Commissioners down to a very late day had been 21 per cent upon the rentals that came before them; whereas the reductions by County Court Judges had been 22 per cent upon the rentals that had come before them. It appeared, therefore, at all events, that the County Court Judges had made not less, but actually greater reductions, than the Sub-Commissioners. He took next the case of the rents that had been settled out of Court by arrangement between landlord and tenant, and he was happy to say that those cases were very numerous, and were becoming more enormous every day. The percentage of reductions upon these rents was not very different; it amounted to 18 per cent, as against the 21 per cent in the case of the Sub-Commissioners' Courts. Next, he 1200 would take the appeals from the Sub-Commissions and the County Courts. So many appeals were now heard that they could fairly test the action of those Courts by the decisions of the Court of Appeal. Up to a recent date the Appeal Courts had heard 416 cases, and the average increase upon the whole of those cases amounted to only 3 per cent and a fraction. In some cases they had considerably raised the rents fixed by the Sub-Commissioners; but in a large number no change had been made. His noble Friend, as usual, spoke of the indiscriminate reduction of rent. He seemed to think that these Sub-Commissioners set to work to reduce rents indiscriminately down to some standard of their own, or, he should rather say, without any regard to the circumstances of the different cases, and the nature of the rentals with which they had to deal. He (Lord Carlingford) contended that there was not the smallest shadow of evidence for that charge; on the contrary, all the evidence they had tended the other way. It was very difficult indeed to attach a distinct meaning to the charges made; but they amounted to this—that the cases already decided by the Commissioners represented the average reduction of rent that would take place all over Ireland, and that the landlords who had not yet been taken into the Court would have their rents reduced in the same way. There was no ground whatever for that apprehension. The presumption was that the over-rented tenants would be the first to seek the benefits of the Act, and he thought that they would find, except in the cases in which the Land League had exercised an influence, that the tenants who were reasonably rented did not take their landlords into Court. Of course, there were exceptions. There were a certain number of foolish men who ran the risk of endeavouring to obtain a reduction even of reasonable rents; but anyone who looked at the rents fixed would find a considerable number of cases in which tenants had failed to obtain a reduction of rents, and in which rents had been raised. Upon that he should like to give them what he thought was another interesting test as to the action of the Commission. This had been furnished him by a friend who had taken great pains on the subject, and who had made a very careful 1201 and a very able analysis of it. The comparison was this. Most of their Lordships would know that in the autumn of 1879 a Committee of Irish landlords was formed called the Irish Land Committee, which, at great labour, provided a great deal of valuable information for the two Commissions which were then sitting. Their Report contained, amongst other things, a table of the rents over a very large area of Ireland—some 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 acres—and it stated what percentages of those rents were found to be under or over the Poor Law valuation. It appeared that upon that large area there was only a percentage of between 6 and 7 per cent of the holdings let at rentals which were 40 per cent and upward above the Poor Law valuation. On the whole, there was only that small part which was let at that apparently high rental. By way of comparison, his informant had taken all the rents which had been fixed up to this date by the Land Commissioners. And what did he find? He found that the holdings which had hitherto been dealt with by the Land Commissioners had been paying, upon the average, a rent of no less than 43 per cent above the Poor Law valuation. The conclusion, therefore, was that there was only a very small proportion indeed of the area in the tables of the landlords' committee which was let at the average rent of those holdings which had hitherto come into the Court. He could not conceive of a comparison which could throw more light upon the case. The same document showed this fact also, in the same conclusive way—that an immense percentage of the land of Ireland was now let at rentals which were as low as the average of judicial rents which had hitherto been fixed by the Commissioners. He had again to repeat what seemed to be lost sight of—that in the nature of things the worst cases were sure to come first. With all these facts before them, he did not see how it could be said that the Commissioners had been indiscriminately reducing rents in Ireland. He could not agree with his noble Friend, if he thought he had done a public service by bringing forward this question. He did not believe that their Lordships would think it of advantage that these Land Courts should be discredited. It was essential to the restoration of peace and order in Ire- 1202 land, and for the safety of landed property itself, that the Courts under the Land Act should continue to do their duty; and he himself had confidence that those Courts, controlled by the Court of Appeal, would perform their work fairly and impartially, and according to the intentions of Parliament.
THE DUKE OF ABERCORNsaid, he thought that the answer of the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal to the able speech of his noble Friend (Lord Brabourne) had been a most lame and impotent conclusion. The noble Lord had certainly put the House in possession of a number of his convictions with respect to the excellence of the Court of Sub-Commission under the Land Act; but he had totally avoided the question raised by his noble Friend, whether fit and proper persons had been appointed as Judges under the Act, or whether it was just to appoint men for the work who had strong partizan views. The noble Lord had given the House no sort of information with regard to the Sub-Commissioners who had been referred to. He (the Duke of Abercorn) had nothing whatever to say personally against either Messrs. Cunningham or Wylie. Both of them, doubtless, were excellent men in private life; but the noble Lord was entirely misinformed as to the former when he was told that Mr. Cunningham had no mercantile connections with Londonderry. On the very day on which he sat in Castle Derg, his traveller was soliciting orders from the tenants in the same town, and the place was only 12 Irish miles from his office in Londonderry. As regarded Mr. Wylie, he (the Duke of Abercorn) had nothing to say against his character; but it was not the less true that he was a practising barrister of the North-Western Circuit, and that he had intimated his intention to return to practice at the end of this year, when, no doubt, he would be more than human if he did not look to receiving briefs from the solicitors and farmers who came before him.
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)And the landlords also.
THE DUKE OF ABERCORNdoubted it. After the promise given last year, that men would be appointed without a strong partizan bias, he thought the conduct of the Government in appointing men to judicial positions in such cir- 1203 cumstances of these was contrary to all precedent and to impartiality and justice.
LORD DUNSANYsaid, the noble Lord opposite (Lord Carlingford) looked at things through rose-coloured spectacles; he seemed to imagine that Irish landlords were happy under the present régime. The action of the Sub-Commissioners reminded one of what took place during the French Revolution. The French Revolutionists only cut heads off, and the Sub-Commissioners cut off fortunes, with equal levity and injustice. With reference to the legal qualifications of the barristers appointed as Sub-Commissioners, there was reason for not placing confidence in their decisions. They were not proper persons to be appointed to the office. Their salaries wore too small, and exposed them to the temptation of bribery, the legal Commissioners only getting £1,200, and the lay Commissioners £700 a-year. The noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal had not given them any definite reason why they should repose confidence in these independent gentlemen.
§ THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, his noble Friend (Lord Brabourne) had dealt with the administration of the Act. What they mostly complained of was the appointment of the Judges to decide upon the value of their property. He wished to draw their Lordships' attention to a case before one of the County Court Judges—that of "Egan v. Adair." The Judge was Mr. John Clark. He said he knew nothing of land, and if he went to see it he should not be a bit wiser than the Sub-Commissioners; but he would take the landlord's rent and the Poor Law valuation and take the average of the two. He informed the suitors that when he visited their district again they would know what to expect. Now, that was what a County Court Judge said of the Sub-Commissioners and as to his own intentions, and these were the class of Judges that the land-lords had to deal with; and it was not surprising that they should ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack whether he considered that was the manner in which justice should be administered, and whether it was a fair way of dealing with these cases? He understood the noble Lord (Lord Carlingford) to say that Mr. Mulholland and Lord Arthur Hill had given Mr. 1204 Davidson, one of the Assistant Commissioners, testimonials. He was instructed to say that there was no foundation for that statement.
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRIVY SEAL)I have no personal knowledge; my authority was Mr. Forster.
§ THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORD,continuing, said, he did not think the remarks of his noble Friend (Lord Brabourne) had been answered. Seeing the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Monck) in his place, he would take that opportunity of congratulating him upon his appointment as fourth Commissioner. Although every one of their Lordships, and the public generally, had the greatest belief in his high character, he (the Marquess of Waterford) would have been much more satisfied with the appointment, however, if it had been made from that (the Conservative) side of the House. The Chief Commissioners at present wore three strong Liberals; and, though it might not be said that the noble Viscount would be guided by a strong political bias, it could not be said that he was not a strong Liberal. As the noble Viscount was present he would appeal to him to carry out, in the Land Commission, the principles which he had so often laid down in their Lordships' House—that the rents of the landlords should not be reduced in the future as they had been reduced in the past.
VISCOUNT MONCKI never made any statement of the sort. What I stated was much to the effect of what my noble Friend (Lord Carlingford) has stated—namely, that it is natural to expect that the worst cases should come into the Land Court first, and that it would be rash, [from such a limited number of reductions of rent, to deduce any general conclusions as to what future deductions would, be made.
§ THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, he understood from the noble Viscount (Viscount Monck) that there would not be such sweeping reductions in future—in fact, he had understood him to say so on several occasions. He hoped that these promises would be carried out. At any rate, he thought that their Lordships ought to congratulate themselves, as he (the Marquess of Waterford) did, on the fact that the noble Viscount was to be one of the Commissioners, for as one of their number present in that House he would be able to 1205 explain, from time to time, some of the extraordinary decisions that had been pronounced.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that he rose for the purpose of dispelling the idea that any appeal could be made hereafter to any supposed promises or pledges which might be imagined to have been given expressly or by implication on this occasion by his noble Friend (the Lord Privy Seal), or by the noble Viscount (Viscount Monck). Of course, the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Waterford), who always spoke with the greatest possible good humour, could not have meant seriously what he said with regard to the noble Viscount as one of the Commissioners, when he suggested that any opinion expressed by the noble Viscount, as to what was or was not likely to happen hereafter, could have the slightest influence upon his judicial acts. The noble Viscount, being now appointed to a judicial office, would do what he (the Lord Chancellor) ventured to say no other Judge would ever do, unless he were impeached for his conduct in his office, if he undertook, before a tribunal which was not a Court of Appeal from his decisions, to explain, or, still more, to defend the decisions of his Court.
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYcomplained very strongly against the appointments to Sub-Commissioner ships made by the Government.