§ A contract of tenancy entered into, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, by a landlord in violation, either of the Act of the seventh year of the reign of King George the Fourth, chapter twenty-nine, intituled "An Act to amend the law of Ireland respecting the assignment and sub-letting of lands and tenements," or of an agreement against subletting in his lease, shall not as between him and the tenant holding under such contract be, or be deemed to have been, void or voidable, and a superior landlord shall be deemed to have expressed a sufficient consent, in the manner in which the consent is required by law to be expressed to a sub-letting made in violation of such Act or agreement, unless within a reasonable time after the sub-letting came to the knowledge of himself, or his agent, he served on the lessee or sub-tenant notice of his dissent from the sub-letting, or instituted a proceeding against the lessee founded upon the said violation.
LORD MONTEAGLEmoved, after the words "of this Act by," to leave out the word "a" and to insert the words "an immediate." He had put down the Amendment merely for the purpose of raising a drafting question which he put to the noble Marquess in Committee. To the ordinary layman he thought it would appear obvious that the words "landlord" in the second line of the clause and "lessee" in the last-line but two, which words seemed to refer to the same person, would be more conveniently covered by one expression. He therefore suggested the insertion of the words "an immediate landlord" in both cases. In both cases the middleman was the person referred to.
§ *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEadmitted that at first sight the wording was a little puzzling, but he had had the point inquired into, and he was assured the wording of the clause was perfectly correct as it now stood.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause 15,—