THE LORDS' AMENDMENTS.
A S might have been expected, the Government has shown no disposition to allow the maiming of the Land Bill at the hands of the Peers. Any such yielding would, indeed, probably have been as much regretted by the professed oppon- ents of the Bill as by its supporters ; for the Bill, to do any good, must work ; and as amended by Lord Salisbury and his assistants, it would probably be worse than useless.
For to what do Lord Salisbury's amendments in the Fair-rent Clause amount ? They approach very nearly to the withdrawal from the consideration of the new Court of the tenant's in- terest in his holding, and that in Ulster, as well as elsewhere. In the first place (passing by the question of the conditions of the landlords' access to the Court, which is of minor importance), Lord Salisbury proposed to omit the words directing the Court to have regard "to the interest of the landlord and tenant re- spectively, 'and the significance of this omission he made clear by his subsequent alterations. As sent up to the House of Lords, the Bill declared that no rent should be made payable in any pro- ceedings under the Act in respect of improvements made by the tenant or his predecessors in title. This declaration,—with which it might have been thought that even the Conservative leader would have had more sympathy, since in his speech on the second reading he declared that any measure to secure to the tenants the full value of their improvements would have been welcomed by his party,—Lord Salisbury pared down to a statement that upon an application for the renewal of a statutory term—not upon the first application to fix a rent— no rent should be made payable for the tenant's improvements made during the term. And, having thus taken away the declaration in favour of the tenant, he went on to declare in favour of the landlord, that "the rent of a holding should not be reduced in any proceedings under the Act, on account of any money or money's worth paid or given by the tenant or his predecessors in title during the statutory term." This was the declaration which alarmed so loyal a Conservative as the Duke of Abercorn, and which would, undoubtedly, be re- ceived throughout Ulster as a blow aimed at tenant-right. The uneasiness of the Duke of Abercorn was in itself clear proof that the amendment was doomed ; Lord Salisbury's lieutenant in the Commons was anxious to limit its sweeping effect, and it is inconceivable that the Lords can insist upon it. But the question it raises goes to the root of the Bill, and is worthy of some consideration on its merits.
Lord Salisbury supported his proposal by a reference to the arguments which had been advanced in favour
of tenant-right and its free sale. " If,' he said in effect, "it is as you say,—if tenant-right does not come out of rent,—if the two things run side by side, and have no connection with each other ; then there can be no harm in directing the Court not to take into account in ' fixing ' the rent any payment made for tenant-right." This sounds fair, and we are bound to say that the supporters of the Bill in the House of Lords do not seem to have been very happy in meeting the argument, though even such an impar- tial observer as Lord Derby, and such a hater of the Bill as the Duke of Argyll, felt instinctively that the very principle of the Bill was in danger, and that to make such an amend- ment was quite inconsistent with giving the measure a second reading. But surely the difficulty of answering the question, "Does tenant-right come out of rent ?"—which perplexed the House of Lords so much—lies like many similar difficulties, in the ambiguity of the terms of the question. What rent is it to which the question refers ? If the full rack-rent, which might be obtained in the open market for the holding, with all the improvements effected by the tenant, is meant, no doubt such a rack-rent must represent the full letting value of the holding, and there is no room for any tenant-right by .its side. But then it is the distinguishing principle of Irish land-holding that such a rent is not exacted ; and apart from historical reasons for this, there is as Mr. Lefevre has shown more than once, an economical explanation of the fact. Where land is let in a great quantity of small holdings, the landlord cannot afford to maintain the necessary buildings and permanent improvements. The expense of so doing has been urged over and over again in England as a reason for throw-
ing farms together. In Ireland, an opposite course has been taken; the holdings have remained small, but the tenants have been left to do all the improvements. Of course, therefore, the tenant has something substantial to sell, something which he always has in some shape or other sold, but which it has been hitherto in the power of the landlord to confiscate, (how singular that that word is always used with reference to the landlords' interest only !). The principle of this Bill is to con- firm the tenant in the enjoyment of what is really his pro- perty. For this property he ought not to pay any rent, though owing to the fact that he has placed his property on the land of another, he cannot enjoy his property without paying rent for the land on which it exists. But the rent is paid for one thing ;—that which the tenant has to sell—the tenant- right—is quite another thing ; and therefore the value of the tenant-right does not come out of that fair rent which has obtained generally throughout Ireland, and which it is the object of this Bill to make universal and com- pulsory upon the landlord. As well might it be said that the value of a leasehold house in Belgrave Square came out of the Duke of Westminster's ground-rent. The Marquis of Waterford gives us the most remarkable evidence of the real nature of Irish land-holding. When supporting Lord Salis- bury's Amendment, he told the Lords that he had a property in the north of Ulster under the most unlimited form of tenant- right, and other property in the south free from it, and the rents upon both were almost identical ; but, curiously enough, in the south the rents were never changed, while in the north they were revised every twenty years. The Marquis of Waterford must, we should think, be looked upon as a sort of enfant terrible by Lord Salisbury and his colleagues ; for, hating the Bill as heartily as any one, he has furnished some of the most con-
clusive arguments in its favour. It would be impossible to give clearer proof than the statement just quoted that tenant-
right does not come out of Irish rents, or to furnish a more convincing reason for the extension to all Ireland of that right of free sale which it so much prized in Ulster. But the- more clearly the real nature of Irish tenure is seen, the- more imperative becomes the necessity for a tribunal for the adjustment of rents, and the more fatal to the just action, of such a tribunal appears the instruction Lord Salisbury wishes to give. In haste to gain a dialectical victory, the- Marquis seems to have forgotten that the object of the tribunal is to adjust unfair rents—rents not in accordance with Irish custom, and with the respective interests of landlord and tenant—and not to interfere with fair rents. But the declar- ation he has proposed would exactly prevent the Court from fulfilling the function for which it was created. The.
ground upon which a tenant will ask for the reduction of an excessive rent will be that his interest in the holding has not been sufficiently recognised. But there can be no better mode of estimating this interest than that which has always obtained in Ulster, the price which it fetches on a change of tenancy. To exclude this factor in the problem would indeed be to pro- vide for the performance of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
These amendments made by Lord Salisbury in the fair-rent clause are by far the most important of the alterations pro- posed by the Lords. But there are others which the Govern- ment could not but reject. To give a power of resumption, to the landlord during the first fifteen years after a judicial rent has been fixed, would be most impolitic ; and still more objectionable is it to enable the landlord, by buying up the tenant's right under his power of pre-emption, to get rid of a present tenancy, and, as proposed by the Lords, to
constitute a future tenancy, with all its disadvantages to the tenant, in its place. Such a provision would enable the Bill
to be cheated in the most wholesale way. Again, to shut out from the advantages of a present tenancy all persons who, at the passing of the Act, happen to be holding under a lease, would—considering the way in which leases are viewed in Ireland, merely as settling the rent for a definite period —be manifestly unjust ; and to prevent the revision of unjust leases forced on the tenants since the Act of 1870, would be to leave open a dangerous sore. The amendments in the clause relating to free sale were much less objectionable, and the Government have probably done no harm by accepting some
of them. But to allow the Lords, who have disclaimed all responsibility for the Bill, and have called it by every bad name
they could think of, to send it to Ireland in a powerless condition, would be a fatal mistake, and the country must rely on Mr. Gladstone's firmness to prevent such an unhappy result.
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