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Amendment proposed—
Page 31, line 1, leave out from 'canal' to the end of the clause."—(Viscount Temple-town.)
*THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELANDI do not like in the least to check my noble Friend, especially as I believe that this is the only Amendment he has put down, but I am afraid this is an endeavour to make an enormous increase in the agricultural grant, and that would be a substantial interference with the privileges of the House of Commons.
VISCOUNT TEMPLETOWNThe noble and learned Lord has anticipated what might have been said by most people, but it was not my intention to produce the effect with which he has credited me. I merely intended to draw the attention of the noble and learned Lord to the very great damage done to land which is outside the borough boundary, and therefore derives no benefit from being in proximity to a large town. If this clause stands as it is now in the Bill, it is very clear that land which can derive no possible benefit from being in proximity to the town on one hand will be handicapped as against the land immediately outside it by not receiving the agricultural grant, an amount which might make a difference in increasing the agricultural grant in a way that has not been contemplated. But could not Her Majesty's Government see their way to put in a definition into this clause which would permit land to receive the benefit of an agricultural grant if it could be shown clearly that it derived no benefit from being in the borough boundary. The task of differentiating would not be very difficult, and if the noble and learned Lord in charge of the Bill would try and meet the Amendment in some form by saying that the agricultural grant, for instance, might be given where land was mountain land, or something which cannot be compensated for. I am not particularly anxious to exclude the whole of the words mentioned, I only seek to qualify the clause to such an extent, so as to allow the grant to be given to land which cannot get any benefit by being in the borough boundaries.
*THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELANDThere was nothing discussed in 1043 the House of Commons more keenly than all these matters of lands which are to be taken into account, and some of the land had, of course, to be disregarded. The line had to be drawn somewhere, and it was drawn in the way indicated in the clause—
The provisions of this Act with respect to agricultural land shall extend to every here-ditament entered as land in the valuation list within the meaning of the Valuation Acts, which is not part of a railway or canal, but shall not extend to any here-ditament situate within the boundary of any borough or of any town which is (for the time being) an urban sanitary district.It was quite recognised that it did work out, to a certain extent, in an arbitrary way, and that there would be some cases of hardship. But it had to be done on the lines indicated, so as to exclude the urban sanitary districts, and the grant was calculated on that basis, and we cannot enter into it now.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.