at the expense of the future tenant, and | is it hard upon the incoming tenant would be thereby laying up for the that he should pay for a thing that future tenant a mass of injustice far which he is willing to pay for it?" A greater than that which they proposed more conclusive argument against the to remove. The only way to remedy principle of the Bill could not have been this evil was to insert in the Bill some adduced. The necessity for the Bill provision for securing to the incoming was based upon the fact that the landtenant the value of the money he paid; lords were receiving, and the tenants and if they did that, neither the land- paying, a higher rent than the one ought lord nor the incoming tenant would be to receive and the other to pay; that aggrieved. The Amendment specified there was such a land hunger, and that the tenant would be entitled to sell such a desire to possess land and enter the interest he had in unexhausted im- upon a farm, that the tenant was willing provements, and the value of his unex- to pay any rent which might be depired term of the 15 years in which the manded. Therefore the right hon. Genrent could not be raised. His right tleman was unwilling to allow freehon. Friend the Prime Minister told dom of contract to exist between the them there was another interest beyond landlord and tenant. He would not these, and that was the right of con- allow the landlord to take the rent tinued occupancy. He agreed with the which the tenant was willing to pay; right hon. Gentleman that the right of but the moment he came to deal with a continued occupancy was something of contract between tenant and tenant, he value which they were conferring upon threw all this argument over, and said— the tenant; but he disagreed with the "The proper price for a tenant to pay right hon. Gentleman that that was and for a tenant to receive is what the something which the tenant ought to outgoing tenant can get and the incoming have the right to sell. He assumed tenant is willing to pay." Now, he Mr. that it was intended by the Bill to confer Ritchie) should like to know what differthat right of uninterrupted occupancy ence there was in the two positions, so not only on the present tenants, but on far as the tenant was concerned, whethe tenants of Ireland present and ther the tenant paid a high rent to the future; but the result of allowing the landlord, or a low rent and a high present tenants to sell would be to take premium to the outgoing tenant? The away from the future tenants the boon only difference was that the money, they were conferring by the Bill. It instead of going into the landlord's would be no boon at all if, while con- pocket in the shape of rent, went into ferring it, on the one hand, upon the that of the outgoing tenant in the shape present tenant, they declared that it of premium, and the incoming tenant should be paid for by the future tenant. paid rent to the owner as interest for They did not propose that the present the money he borrowed to pay the pretenant should pay anything to the mium; and the position of the tenant landlord for this right of continued was really worse, owing to the exorbioccupancy; but they proposed that tant interest he had to pay to the usurer. the man who succeeded him should He held that if they were to allow pay for it, although the present tenant free contract to exist the necessity for paid nothing. Now, it seemed to him this Bill was done away with altogether. that, while appearing to confer on the If the tenant was to be a free party to whole of the tenants of Ireland for the the contract, as between tenant and future the right of continued occupancy, tenant, then there was no earthly reason they were taking away the value of the why they should destroy the freedom of gift by saying to the incoming tenant-contract between him and his landlord. You shall pay for it when you come into possession of the holding." The right hon. Gentleman, in support of his position, used one argument which told conclusively against the Bill. Speaking of the payment the incoming tenant was to make to the outgoing tenant, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said, with vigour and energy-" Why Mr. Ritchie

There was another argument used by the right hon. Gentleman in support of the position he took up, and that was the comparison which he made with reference to Ulster. They had heard, over and over again, comparisons made between the condition of Ulster and other parts of Ireland; but in Ulster tenant right had been bought and sold

for generations. There was no question | right of occupancy. He challenged conof conferring something new on the tradiction on that point, and he contenant, but something which had been tended that a great majority of the bought and sold for a long series of tenants in Cork and Kerry were now in years; therefore, there was no analogy possession of a right which some people between the two cases. It must be valued at seven years' purchase, and borne in mind, also, that the habits of some at 10 years. They were in possesthe people were different from those in sion of a certain right totally irrespecother parts of Ireland, and that there tive of improvements, and the question were manufacturing and other interests was whether Parliament was going to in Ulster which existed in no other part take away that right, or to allow the of Ireland. But even in Ulster tenant tenant to sell it. Judge Longfield, who right was not unrestricted, as was pro- was originally an opponent of tenant posed by this Bill. The proposal in right, starting from the Act of 1870, the Bill was that the sale of tenant right and viewing the matter in the light of between tenant and tenant should be coming legislation after an experience unrestricted. ["No, no!"] Then, all of 10 years of the working of the Act he had to say was that that was a feature of 1870, said that that Act did give to of the Bill he had failed to understand. every tenant a certain qualified right of He wished to point out that in Ulster the occupation and security to enjoy it at a tenant right had been by no means fair rent. Judge Longfield went on to unrestricted. If this Bill did what say that, having given that right, the it professed to do, two things were right of free sale followed as a matter necessary. Some definition must be laid of course. The learned Judge argued, down as to what it was the tenant had and, in his opinion, most conclusively, to sell, and in that definition the ques- that of all the "three F's" the right of tion of quiet possession should be en- free sale was the one that injured the tirely excluded, or else they were con- landlord least and conferred the greatest ferring an immense boon on the present benefit upon the tenants generally. How tenantry, but no boon on the future tenwas the right worked in Ulster? He antry of Ireland. He trusted, if the would quote the evidence of Mr. Vernon, right hon. Gentleman would not accept one of the largest land agents in Ireland. the proposal which had been made by He was asked by Sir John Lesliehis right hon. Friend (Sir R. Assheton Cross), that he would indicate some means by which the tenant's interest might be defined, and that he would be prepared to support the proposal that it should not be free sale in the open market; but that there should be some kind of tribunal to settle the price between the outgoing tenant and the incoming tenant, so that the incoming tenant should not lose a great part of the benefit intended to be conferred on him by the Bill.

MR. GLADSTONE: I never said a

single word in favour of an absolutely unrestricted tenant right; but we shall come to that point by-and-bye, and then it will be seen whether the Government are in favour of unrestricted tenant right or not. The sole question now has reference to the propriety of attempting to define tenant right.

COLONEL COLTHURST said, there could be no doubt whatever that the effect of the Act of 1870, as far as the South of Ireland was concerned, was to create a tenant right, or some sort of

"Are not these large sums so much capital subtracted from what the tenant ought to have in order to manage the farm properly?". The answer was

of Monaghan. A man pays the fee simple of "Perhaps it is; but look at your own county the land for the right of occupation, and still he will thrive."

Sir John Leslie asked no further questions. The late Major D'Alton was examined in reference to land belonging to Lord Headfort in one county where the tenant right was worth 18 years' purchase, and land in another county where there was no tenant right allowed, the tenants being of the same class in each county. He was asked which tenants were the most prosperous, and his reply

was

"The tenants of the county of Cavan, who paid 18 years' purchase for tenant right, are more prosperous than those who have paid nothing."

On being asked to account for it, he said that he could account for it in no other way than that there existed a sense of

[Fifth Night.]

1870 was, therefore, the equivalent given | best introduced by adopting the Amendto the other Provinces for the Ulster ment of his hon. and learned Friend the tenant right. And if the tenants in the Member for West Staffordshire (Mr. Province of Ulster had profited under Staveley Hill). the right of free sale, surely the tenants in the other Provinces were entitled to sell the right given to them by the Act of 1870. If the tenants of Ulster had the right of free sale of their holdings, why, he asked, should the tenants of the rest of Ireland be placed in a worse position under the present Bill by taking away from them the right of free sale in respect of the equivalent given to them by the Act of 1870? He contended that no such power ought to be given to the landlord. The effect of this Bill would be the taking away of those dishonest and improper restrictions which landlords had put upon tenants in the way of cutting down their tenant right; and, therefore, it appeared to him that the wording of the clause was wholly unobjectionable. There was no tenant in Ireland who had not some kind of interest to sell, and the clause simply implied that it might be sold. He thought the only proper way of dealing with this matter in order to give the tenant that free right which he was so anxiously looking for, and in order to take from the landlord the temptation of introducing office rules and thereby causing irritation to the tenants on his estate, was to allow the explicit language of the clause to remain without alteration.

MR. GREGORY thought that some alteration of the wording of the clause was needed. That had been admitted, to a certain extent, by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), who had substituted the word "holding" for that of "tenancy;" and he (Mr. Gregory) thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman might have gone a little further in the same direction, because, after Clause 44 had defined "tenancy" to be "the interest in a holding of a tenant," it went on to say "and his successors in title." There could be no doubt that the Bill did contemplate a succession of interests in the present holding; and, therefore, if the Committee agreed to the word "tenancy" standing in the clause, they would be admitting the principle of succession, which would have to be discussed hereafter. Some qualification was therefore necessary, and he thought that necessary qualification would be

MR. H. DAVEY said, it appeared to him that, under the guise of an Amendment for the purpose of making clear the meaning of the Bill, the Committee were asked to agree to a restriction of that right of free sale which it was the object of the Bill to give to the tenant. For his part, he saw no necessity for giving any further definition than was contained in the Bill of that which the tenant was to sell. His answer to the question-"What is it that the tenant has to sell?" would be-" He is to sell whatever he has got." The object of the clause was not to define the interest of the tenant, but to allow him to make a free sale of his tenancy, whatever his tenancy might be. Further definition was, therefore, unnecessary. For his own part, he found no difficulty in defining that which the tenant had to sell. He would endeavour, as well as he could, to follow the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir R. Assheton Cross) in discussing what it was that the tenant had to sell. The right hon. Gentleman had stated, with perfect accuracy, that the tenant, before the Act of 1870, was a tenant from year to year. But it appeared to him (Mr. Davey) that when the right hon. Gentleman made that statement, he omitted a very material factor in what constituted the interest of the tenant before the passing of the Act of 1870. Because, not only was he a tenant from year to year, but he was a tenant from year to year with the reasonable expectation that he would be continued in his tenancy; and he (Mr. Davey) regarded that reasonable expectation as just as a valuable incident to the legal right to his farm. That reasonable expectation was founded on a deeprooted tradition, and on a sentiment which pervaded the entire Irish people, which few landlords could afford to ignore, and which most landlords did, in fact, recognize. The Committee would remember the strong terms in which the Report of the Bessborough Commission spoke of that deep-rooted tradition and that sentiment which pervaded the whole Irish people, that a man in the possession of land, so long as he continued to comply with the terms of his tenancy, had a right to continue to occnpy it. It was [Fifth Night.]

therefore necessary to look facts in ample justification of the legislation in the face, and admit that what the ten-which they were then engaged; and, ant had, even before the passing of therefore, if it became necessary to conthe Land Act of 1870, was something sider what it was that the tenant had to more than a mere tenancy from year to sell, it was impossible to leave out his year. He felt sure the experience of reasonable expectation of being conthe hon. and learned Member for Laun- tinued in his tenancy. The hon. Memceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) would ber for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie) confirm the statement that in cases of had argued that the Bill would take claims for compensation in London the away a portion of the landlord's interest resonable expectation of being continued merely to give it to the future occupant; in occupancy had been treated as ground but to that he (Mr. Davey) replied, that for compensation. A great deal had the experience derived from the operabeen said by hon. Members opposite by tion of the Ulster Custom showed that way of comment on the language used this was not so. The hon. Member also by the Prime Minister in the course of asked what difference did it make to the the debates upon the Land Act of 1870; occupier whether he paid in the form of but it appeared to him (Mr. Davey) increased rent, or in the form of purquite irrelevant to consider whether chase money? It appeared to him (Mr. in the speeches of the right hon. Gen- Davey) that the difference lay in the tleman, especially when divorced from fact that in one case the tenant paid for the context and the circumstances under something which became his own prowhich they were spoken, there might perty, while, in the other, he paid an not be found some inconsistency. The annual charge for nothing beyond the statement of the right hon. Gentleman annual enjoyment. It was the payment that the Land Act of 1870 did not confer by the incoming tenant to the outgoing any new estate or interest on the tenant, tenant which gave a sense of property but was intended merely to protect that to the tenant, and it was the want of estate and interest which he had already, this which was said to lie at the root of in his opinion, described exactly what the discontent in Ireland. It made a was the object and effect of that Act, very great difference to a man whether inasmuch as it gave a legislative recog- he paid for something in the nature of nition to that reasonable expectation on property which he could sell, or whethe part of the tenant of being continued ther he paid simply in the form of rent in his tenancy. It also gave, as far as to the landlord. The unearned increthe compensation clauses went, a statu- ment upon which the right hon. Gentletory protection to that interest. What man the Member for South-West Lanthe tenant had to sell, then, would be cashire had addressed the Committee his position as tenant from year to year, was a subject of extreme interest. He coupled with his "reasonable expecta- (Mr. Davey) had no doubt in his own tion; " and when the right to sell this mind that the idea of the tenant's getting interest was proposed to be given to him, the whole of that increment was perfectly why should it be said-"We will give illusory. There could be no doubt that you the right to sell part of your interest, in the case of a tenant with a statutory but not that part which is the most term the landlord would, at the expiravaluable?" Therefore, as he had before tion of such term, be able to reap a porpointed out, the right hon. Gentleman op- tion of the unearned increment. The posite (Sir R. Assheton Cross), in moving unearned increment would be divided the Amendment before the Committee, proportionately between the landlord omitted to give consideration to a fact and the tenant, according as the tenwhich was one of the most material ele- ant was an ordinary tenant or a tenant ments in this discussion. He held that under this Act. On the whole, he rethe neglect of that sentiment referred garded the definition attempted to be to in the Report of the Bessborough given in the Amendment of the right Commission lay at the root of all agrarian hon. Gentleman as both insufficient and crime in Ireland. It was the fact that inaccurate, and he was of opinion that this tradition and sentiment existed, the Committee would do well not to and that the reasonable expectation define exactly what the tenant might founded upon it had been disregarded, sell. The intention of the clause was that presented to his mind the most that he should sell his tenancy, and Mr. H. Davey