BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 5 June 1882)

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY,
in presenting a Bill to amend the Law of Entail in Scotland, said: My Lords, I am 52 very sorry to bring the House down from the somewhat spicy personalities of the last discussion to the prosaic level of a discussion upon a Scotch Bill. The nature of the House at this moment does not encourage me to think that any protracted statement such as I should have thought it perhaps necessary to make under other circumstances would be favourably received at the present moment; and, under these circumstances, I shall, with your permission, confine myself to lay before your Lordships, as briefly as possible, the proposals of the Government on this somewhat important subject. I would not even have done this; I would have postponed the Notice which I have on the Paper, had it not been for the fact of the numerously-signed requisition—signed both by Scotch Conservatives as well as by Scotch Liberals—which has been presented, asking Her Majesty's Government to bring in, as quickly as possible, a measure which is loudly demanded by the great mass of public opinion of Scotland, and which will be of great advantage. Of course, the whole fabric, of entail in Scotland, which has not yet lasted in a legislative form for two centuries, has been piecemealed and worn away by successive enactments. The last great enactment which dealt with the question in the form of the Act under which we at present exist in Scotland was the Rutherford Act. The Act, while dealing in a stringent manner with entails existing at the passing of the Act, did not in the same way give free trade to persons affected by entail after the passing of the Act. It is with the view of redressing that condition of things that Her Majesty's Government propose to bring in the Bill on the present occasion. They propose, in the first place, to put the heir of an entailed estate made subsequent to the Rutherford Act in the same position as an heir of entail before the passing of that Act. The 3rd clause of the Bill which I propose to lay on the Table provides—"That heirs under new entails may disentail by the same consent as an heir of an old entail"—that is to say, that with the consent of the three next heirs, whoever they may be, the heir of entail in possession will be entitled to disentail his estate. The next provision which is of importance is that under the Entail Act of the year 1875 power was given to force, as it is technically called, the con- 53 sent of two of the next heirs, but not of the nearest heir—that is to say, by paying them the value of their interest in the succession, and getting rid of their consent. The Bill which I shall submit to your Lordships will go one step further. It will propose to buy out the interest of the nearest heir, as well as of the two others, if necessity is shown, and in that way to get rid of the necessity of obtaining his consent so long as his interest be compensated. The third and leading provision is this—that the tenant of entail will be enabled to sell the estate which he holds under entail, and to convert the same into money or Consols, to be held under the same trust as the entail of land. With regard to this, it will be lawful for an heir who wishes to sell his estates to apply to the Court of Session for permission, and the Court shall order intimation to be made to the heirs of entail affected by this announcement, and such heirs and creditors shall be entitled to appear for the purpose of seeing that their respective interests are protected; but they shall not be entitled to oppose the application. The next step will be that the Court shall procure a report of the value of the estate, and, unless it shall appear that any pecuniary interest is involved injuriously, they shall have power to order it to be sold. Then there are clauses as to the way in which the money shall be paid into the Court of Session, as if it were paid into the Court of Chancery, and the way in which it may be held under the same trusts as the land is held. There are other minor provisions which enable the heir in possession, or a minor with the consent of his curators, as if he were an heir of entail in possession, and of age, to make this application. There will be also provisions for curators to appear on behalf of persons suffering legal incapacity of another kind. And, lastly, there will be clauses enabling the Court to dispense with the consent of an heir who has been absent from this country for a certain time. We know there are estates in Scotland of which the possessor has been absent 30 or 40 years, and it is thought, under these circumstances, there should be some power to administer without his consent. I shall not further detain your Lordships at this hour of the evening, except to ask you to give a first reading to this Bill, because I believe it would be a great boon to the community at large in 54 Scotland, not merely to the class affected, whom it will, indeed, directly benefit, but it will be a great benefit to the owners of the land, and will benefit the occupiers, who will find landlords able to effect improvements on their estates which in their present hampered condition they cannot do; and, in the third place, it will be a boon to the community at large, as promoting that free circulation of land which is desirable in every country. I beg to ask your Lordships to read the Bill a first time.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
did not wish to criticize the measure, but to make a suggestion. When a Bill such as that presented by the noble Earl contained matters of a complicated character, it was ordinarily accompanied by a memorandum explaining its practical effect, which was drawn up, of course, by a legal gentleman. The difficulty, of course, in this case was that the law was not very clearly understood by a large number of Members of the House, and being a Scotch law it was still less understood. If ever there was a case whore a memorandum would be advisable, this was one, although the impression was that the Bill was an innocent one.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, that though there was some speciality in the Scotch law on which it might be well to receive proper information, the more important part of the Bill, which related to the power of sale, was really in substance what was proposed, as to settled estates in England, to be given by his noble and learned Friend (Earl Cairns) in the Bill now before the House of Commons.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY
said, he knew the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) had a fancy for memoranda, and on this occasion he would provide him with one.