NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THERE have been one or two important modifications in the Land Bill during the week,—though more important, we 1)elieve, in their effect on parties, than in the change they really make in the working of the Bill. The first of these is the an- nouncement that the Government will not object to let the land- lords apply at once to the Court to declare their rent fair,—a change which Mr. Gladstone maintains, and as we believe truly, to be a change of form, and not of substance, since the landlord always had the means of getting the judgment of the Court on any proposal, either of his own or of the tenant. Further, he agreed to make the second subsection of Clause 3,—by which the landlord who raises his rent so as to depreciate the selling value of the tenant-right, pays an equivalent for that depreciation of value,—apply only to " future " tenancies, i.e., to tenancies not derived in unbroken succession from tenants holding at the time of the passing of the Act. He also declared that "the question of leaseholders would require consideration during the progress of the Bill," and that he did not think farmers should cease to be "Fes • rd tenants "—i.e., should cease to have the right of applying to tht ii/urt to fix a fair rent—simply because they happen to be in at tr at the time of the Bill passing. In other words, such arrears must not furnish a ground for exempting the owe of the tenant in arrear from the protection accorded to "present tenancies." He* added, on Monday, that he had no "unfavourable bias" on the subject of the mode of dealing with arrears, but that it could only be properly dealt with by a completely new clause. Mr. Gladstone's notice that he will withdraw the special considerations as regards the tenant's interest submitted to the notice of the Court for the determination of a "fair rent," in Clause 7, has created much needless alarm in Ireland, as we have elsewhere argued.
