confer upon the Irish tenant property | Amendment were more independent than which he had not got. It simply enabled those below it, and that statement of him freely to use the property which his hon. Friend would be perfectly inhe had. Her Majesty's Government telligible to him if they had anything to thought that the 13th clause of the do with the freedom of contract which Land Act of 1870, which they regarded he spoke about. But they had nothing as an unwarrantable interference with to do with freedom of contract here, the tenant's interest, ought to be re- or with the rules of political economy, pealed. By the Land Act of 1870, pro- except that it seemed to him a very tection was given by Parliament to the sound economical principle that a man Irish tenant from year to year against should be at liberty to sell his property disturbance by notice to quit-an opera- for what it would fetch. The hon. tion which the purchaser or assignee of Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Biddell) the yearly tenancy had to fear. The had said that the clause would prejudice effect of the 13th clause was that if the whole generations of Irish tenants, who, landlord did not choose to accept the he thought, would be damaged by the intenant, however unreasonably, the as- creased amount they would have to pay signee had no protection whatever. The for their farms. It seemed that hon. other House established a hard-and-fast Members could never get rid of the rule that the landlord might, without notion that tenants in Ireland were conany reason whatever, refuse to accept stantly buying and selling their farms. the assignee of the tenant, and, serving That idea was utterly unfounded. The the dreaded notice to quit, put him out number of sales was extremely small. without any compensation, the effect of In Ulster, where free sale had always which, of course, was practically to de- existed, there was not more than one stroy the right of assignment, because sale in two generations. But he had the purchaser, knowing that, though as- still another objection to the Amendment signee, he would thus be at the mercy of of the hon. Member, and it was thisthe landlord, would give nothing for the that on farms of over £30 one looked tenancy. Her Majesty's Government for a better class of tenants, as well as thought that the landlord should have for the greatest amount of improvement power to object to the new tenant, but in cultivation; but what possible encouonly on reasonable grounds; and that ragement would a tenant have to adopt power, accordingly, they proposed to improvements if he was not to be alleave to him. More than that he did lowed to sell his interest to the best not think that any fair landlord would advantage? The right of sale had acted ask for. The proposal of his hon. Friend admirably in Ulster, where it not only the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) secured the landlord his arrears of rent, would establish a limit to the operation but the tenant a valuable, because saleof the 1st clause of, say, £30. But the able, interest in his holding, and the objection to all these arbitrary lines was result was that land was cultivated far that they were founded on no real prin- better in Ulster than any other part ciple. Why should they do for a man of the country. For these reasons he who was rented at £30 what they would trusted the Committee would not accept not do for another rented at £30 108.? an Amendment which, he believed, would Another objection to the proposal was only sow afresh the seeds of disconten that it was not to limit the clause by the and disorder amongst the tenant farmers valuation, but by the rent of the hold- of Ireland. ing, so that there would be the strongest inducement for the landlord to carry on the process of raising his rent in order to get the farm above the prescribed limit. Further objection to the Amendment was that it might encourage the attempts of owners to avail themselves of hard times, when tenants could not pay, to consolidate their farms for the purpose of placing them beyond the operation of the Bill. His hon. Friend said that the tenants above the limit named in the MR. BRODRICK said, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had omitted to state some of the most important items which the farmers would have to contend with. He had told the Committee that the effect of limitation on the landlord would be merely to remove the landlord's control from his property; but he had not stated that the landlord would have no security against the imposition of a bankrupt tenant upon him, inasmuch [Fourth Night.] as it was impossible to prevent a sum greatly in excess of the value of the holding being paid. A case came before him a few days ago, which showed that the Bill as it stood would work unfairly to the landlord. A man, five years ago, took a farm on the English system for £500 a-year. In consequence of his not succeeding in his operations his landlord made him a reduction of £50 a-year for the last four years. The tenant in a short time had the farm in such an impoverished condition that he was willing to get out of it on any terms. He had never been able to put money, so to speak, on the soil, for he had lost his capital elsewhere. He (Mr. Brodrick) asked what interest that tenant had to sell in his holding, except, perhaps, the reduction in the rent which the landlord voluntarily made him? It seemed to him a bad principle to deprive the landlord of the power of choosing a tenant who would be able to pay a fair average rent. The Solicitor General for Ireland cited a case of a man being willing to expend £1,100 on an £80 holding, or about £20 of capital per acre. He (Mr. Brodrick) asked whether that was a typical case, especially in Ulster, where, if they could get a tenant with a capital of £7 or £8 per acre, it was the utmost they could get? He entirely denied that the present system had produced the vast amount of injustice on large holdings which the language of the Prime Minister had implied; and he challenged anyone to prove from the Reports of any Commission that such a condition of things existed. With regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite, exception had been taken to the term "rent," as distinguished from the term "valuation." Upon this point he wished to say that if the tendency would be for landlords to push up their rent in order to get above the operation of the clause, then he thought it would be better to substitute the term "valuation." The Amendment was one which he believed the Government ought not to reject without the fullest consideration, and if the hon. Member carried it to a division he should give him his support. MR. SHAW pointed out that in nine cases out of 10 the persons who took large farms in Ireland had not the capital to work them. This class of farmers Mr. Brodrick was not generally successful throughout Ireland. Unfortunately, there was such a liking for sport there that almost immediately a man got possession of a farm of 400 or 500 acres he purchased a hunter and indulged in other luxuries. The custom of selling farms had become very general all over Ireland, by permission of the landlords, and it was therefore unwise to limit the right, because it would work very great injustice, and would, moreover, stir up the elements of another agitation. The men who were most prominent in the present agitation were those who were excluded from the Act of 1870. MR. R. H. PAGET considered there was great force in the remarks of the hon. Member who had just addressed the Committee. It was only right, when the Attorney General for Ireland argued that every man should have the right to sell that which he possessed, and that there should be no limitation placed on that right of sale, to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman how many limitations of the kind there were in the Bill? The clauses of the Bill abounded in exceptions and limitations of the right of sale. Clause 9, with reference to leases, had these words "And the tenancy shall during the continuance of such lease be regulated by the provisions of that lease alone, and shall not be deemed to be a tenancy to which this Act applies." The holders, therefore, of judicial leases were excluded from the right of free sale. Again, Clauses 10 and 11, where the right to create fixed tenancies was given to the landlord, and the payment of fee farm rent by the tenant, provided-"The tenancies so created were not to be deemed tenancies to which this Act applied." The Committee had just heard from the Attorney General for Ireland that it was wrong to establish a limit of £30, because it was not founded on principle, and there was no reason why the limit should not be placed at £30 108.-in short, that it would create immense difficulty to introduce into the Bill any limit whatever. But it must not be forgotten that in Clause 17 the limit of £150 was set to the power of contracting out of the Act; and it might, on precisely the same principle, be argued that the line of £150 was wrong, because there was no reason why it should not be extended to tenants rated at a less annual value tionally or unintentionally, was incomplete, and the Government were now prepared to give him a complete right. To do that might be right or otherwise; but he (Mr. Paget) ventured to submit that the argument by which it had been supported by the Prime Minister would not for one moment bear examination. He, therefore, contended that the argu on behalf of the tenants were untenable plainly so as a matter of logic-and that there was no reason why limitations of the application of the clause should not be introduced if necessary. MR. HENEAGE said, it was clear that the general feeling of the Committee was, at any rate, against the figure named in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk. He hoped, therefore, that the Amendment would be withdrawn, especially as the general question of limitation would be raised by another Amendment on the Paper. For his own part, he had no wish to sit into September, and ventured to hope that the Committee would not have to listen to a discussion of the same point two or three times over. than £149 108. If the clause did not fix a distinct limit, he was entirely at a loss to know what the word "limit" meant. There were again, in Clause 46, a number of limitations relating to the demesne lands and other property to which the Act did not apply, and Clause 47 provided that existing leases "should remain in force as if the Act had not passed." Why, the Bill through-ments by which this claim was supported out bristled with clauses referring to tenancies "to which this Act does not apply," and when the right hon. and learned Gentleman based his argument against the Amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk upon the statement that it was wrong, as a matter of principle, to attempt to introduce any limit because all limitations were wrong, he (Mr. Paget) said he had entirely forgotten the character of his own Bill. There was one point raised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman which he thought worthy of a moment's consideration. He understood the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to be that, previous to the Act of 1870, any Irish tenant had the right to assign his holding at Common Law, and that this right was destroyed by the Act of 1870. Now, what was the nature of this right? The right hon. and learned Gentleman had himself answered that question when he told the Committee that "it was of no commercial value, because the moment it was assigned the assignee could be turned out," and therefore the commercial value of the legal right to assign, which existed previous to the Act of 1870, amounted to nothing at all. But the Prime Minister went further, and the Committee were told that, by the Act of 1870, real property was created for the tenants. But the Act must then have created what it was never intended to create; and the Prime Minister, in his first speech on the Bill made this Session, told the House that it was a surprise to the Government to find that the result of the Act of 1870 was to give to the tenants of Ireland that which he and the then Government never intended to give them. But now, because the tenant had got by accident something which the Prime Minister had said it was never intended to give him, they were told that this right of the tenant must be completed because it was at first necessarily incomplete. Undoubtedly what was given to the tenant rightly or wrongly, inten MR. GIBSON desired to guard himself against any possible concurrence with the statement of the Attorney General for Ireland, that the Government had made up their minds to yield to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford to strike out Clause 13 from the Act of 1870. That must not be allowed to pass without challenge, and it must not be supposed that it was a proposition that would be yielded to without a large amount of discussion. The clause was deliberately framed, and he was strictly accurate in saying that it was placed in the Bill on the Motion of Earl Granville, and that it came before the House at the time accredited from the Government of the day. It would not be a matter of surprise, therefore, when the subject came on for discussion, that hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House declined to agree to its withdrawal without full discussion. LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE appealed to the hon. Member for Falkirk to withdraw his Amendment, and, if necessary, to move it in the form of an Amendment to the proviso at the end of the clause. The proviso, he reminded the hon. Member, would afford a much more suitable opportunity for the discus[Fourth Night.] sion of the question of limitation than the part of the clause at that moment before the Committee. The limit was so low, and would exclude so many tenants who had an undoubted right to come within the provisions of the Bill, that if the present Amendment were carried to a division he should be obliged to vote against it. MR. W. FOWLER said, he held in his hand the Bill of 1870 as it came down from the House of Lords, and with notes of the particular changes which were there introduced. It had been said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland that Clause 13 of that Act forbade all assignment by the tenant; but that was confined to tenancies held from year to year existing at the time of the passing of the Act. Without going into the question of the right of limitation, he thought the Committee ought not to run away with the idea that the 13th clause of the Act of 1870 was a general forbidding of assignment by the tenant. He was disposed to think that it was exceedingly difficult to place any limit to this section. If they once admitted that they were about to make a new code of law as between landlord and tenant, and then attempted to set up limitations, it was extremely difficult to do so unless they applied them to whole classes of estates and people. He had on the Paper an Amendment which proposed a limit of a different kind from the present. Again, he thought the limitation by a money figure would work very awkwardly; indeed, he did not see how it would work at all in the present state of confusion and dispute which existed throughout the country. While he felt that the question was one of immense difficulty and that there were others arising from the new code which were in themselves so difficult that they must not be discussed in a hurry, but with care and patience, and with a desire to get to the bottom of the whole matter, still he recommended the hon. Member for Falkirk not to press his Amendment to a division. If a division must be taken on the question of a money limit, he thought it would be taken with greater advantage on the limit of £100. MR. WARTON said, he honoured very much the spirit shown by the last speaker, and wished it were more common on the Benches opposite. He deLord Edmond Fitzmaurice precated most earnestly any attempt to hurry the discussion on the Bill, such as was shown by hon. Members opposite when they constantly cried "Question!" and "Divide!" This had been very obvious during the speech of the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Biddell), who, in criticizing the clause, had stated his case with such complete fairness, and who had never wandered by one word from the point raised by the Amendment. For his own part, he believed that the more carefully the Committee discussed the important matter contained in the early part of the Bill the sooner the end of the Bill would be reached. On the other hand, if the work was scamped, so to speak, and the clauses hurried through, it would be found when they got a little further into the clauses that the confusion in which the Bill was at present involved would become a great deal worse. One of the strongest reasons why the Committee should not be so anxious to save time was that they had not got their definitions in order. He had himself heard the Prime Minister say they had created a "tenant right;" but when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) repeated those words, the Prime Minister said he had used the term "tenant interest." Therefore, he regretted to remind the Committee that they did not even then know what it was they were discussing. Again, that which had been called by the Prime Minister both "tenant right" and "tenant interest," he had himself also described as "goodwill" by an analogy which might be supposed to hold between a tenancy and certain trading occupations. Therefore, according to the varying phases of the Premier's mind, they had every possible definition and every sort of difference of idea. Then with regard to Clause 13 of the Act of 1870. They found the Attorney General for Ireland making use of a most extraordinary argument, in saying that in a normal condition of things there was not more than one sale in two generations. But that, he contended, was not a normal condition of things. As they had, according to the Premier, confirmed tenant right, the moment that right was confirmed by this Bill the tenant would want to sell it, because it was only the present tenants who would get any benefit from the Bill; it would not be MR. GLADSTONE: I dissent alto the tenants who wanted to become the | own Friend and supporter the Member landlords of the future. When it was for Falkirk the courtesy which is genefully understood that 200,000 people rally extended to Members when they were going to have the power to sell desire to amend their proposals. I would what they had never paid for, the ab- point out that the hon. Member for Falsurdity of the argument of the Attorney kirk, in his opening remarks, said he General for Ireland that only one sale had no exclusive preference for a parwould take place in two generations ticular limit, although he argued on the was very apparent. But he must re- assumption that there should be some mind the Prime Minister that when the limit. I think it would be but courtesy, Compensation for Disturbance Bill was in accordance with the ordinary practice before the House last year, he himself of the House, that the hon. Member accepted a limit, he believed, of £30 should be allowed to withdraw his beyond which that Bill was not to apply. Amendment and re-submit it to the It might be that £50 was a more con- Committee in the form which he devenient figure than £30 in the present sires. Of course, the Committee will instance; but as the principle of limita- exercise their discretion as to the mode tion was introduced into the Bill he had in which they will deal with the Amendreferred to, and was considered a good ment; but I think the best course will one, it was difficult to see why it should be to allow the hon. Member to withnot be also admitted in the present Bill. draw it. MR. RAMSAY thought he was entitled to address the Committee after the re-gether from the statement of the right presentation which had been made in hon. Gentleman, which is founded upon opposition to his views on that side of an entire misapprehension of the facts of the House. He had no objection, if the the case. It is perfectly true that it is Committee would allow him, having re- usual to allow a Member who proposes gard to the difficulty which had been an Amendment to make alterations in it, stated as between rent and value, to even at the last moment, for the purpose amend his Amendment by substituting of making it clear. But this is simply for the words on the Paper the words a case of proposing an Amendment en"which does not exceed the annual rent tirely different from the original. The of £50." He reminded hon. Members Committee will see that a holding rented who had listened to the discussions on the at £30 is one thing and a holding valued Compensation for Disturbance Bill that at £50 is a totally different thing, and the argument of limitation was sup-means a holding rented at between £60 ported on the sole ground that there and £70. were two classes of tenants in Ireland, and that there must be some line at which to draw a distinction. There was one class of men so dependent that there was no possibility of their making a free contract, and there was another so independent that they were perfectly well able to make a free contract with the owners of the land in Ireland. The Bill was intended to benefit a poor class which demanded the sympathy of the people of this country; but he believed that no measure would do much to alleviate the distress of the small occupiers, to whom he believed it would do no good to give the lands even without money and without price. MR. GLADSTONE said, he thought the Amendment had better be disposed of. SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I must say I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should not extend to his SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he accepts the principle involved in the Amendment? If that is so his observations will be in point; but if he declines to accept the principle, I contend that he should allow the hon. Member for Falkirk to put his proposal in the form which the hon. Member considers most favourable. MR. GLADSTONE: The Government think that the only safe method of limitation is by introducing at a certain line freedom of contract; and we intended to propose, if there were to be any limitation at all, that it should be in that shape. But my point is, that when a particular proposition has been made to the House, and has been debated for a couple of hours, it is better that it should be disposed of instead of being passed by without any judgment being pronounced by the Committee. [Fourth Night.] |