MR. GERALD BALFOUR'S BILL. T HE important, the fundamental, part of
the new Irish Land Bill is that section which deals with purchase. It is the desire of the Government to accelerate the process by which Irish occupiers are being turned into freeholders. A good deal has been done under the Ash- bourne Acts, but, unfortunately, the main attempt to carry out the policy of making Ireland a land of peasant- proprietors, the Purchase Act of 1891, has proved an almost complete failure. That measure was loaded with guarantees and insurances against default until it became entirely unworkable,—or at any rate so unintelligible to the ordinary tenant that he avoided it as he would a bog. The measure was, no doubt, sound enough in theory, but its lack of simplicity made it most unattractive, both to landlords and tenants. Mr. Gerald Balfour proposes to make the Act do the work it was intended to do by a process of amendment. In the first place, he intends to simplify and cheapen the procedure by which the Act is put into operation. Next, he intends to make it more attractive to the tenant by greatly increasing the period of repayment. It is now forty-nine years. He intends to make it seventy. But, as we understand him, he does not mean to give the tenant the immediate advantage of this. At the beginning the tenant will get only a 20 per cent. reduction on his present rent, provided that he buys at less than twenty years' purchase. The advantage of the extension will be chiefly felt in the later stages of the process. After the first ten years the tenant will get another 10 per cent. reduction, and at the end of the second and third periods of ten years another 10 per cent. will be cut off. At least that is how we understand Mr. Balfour's explanation. If that is so, he has hit upon an admirable device for making the scheme attractive to the tenant. What an Irishman loves is a reduction. He does not much mind what the rent is so long as he can be sure of a reduction in the future. Bat here is a beneficent State which arranges that he shall have a reduction every ten years. See how the plan works out, and then consider whether the Irish farmer is not a very fortunate person. The man who can arrange matters with his landlord begins by getting a reduction of 20 per cent. on the fair rent and a present of the freehold in addition. Next, he is told that for the next seventy years his rent will be continually shrinking, until it ceases altogether. The explanation of this apparent paradox is of course simple enough. The State borrows at 2,1 per cent., and buys, as an investment, Irish land, which, if it was held, would yield it 5 per cent. But it only wants its 2; per cent, and does not want to hold. Accordingly, it, resells to the Irish farmer under a scheme which secures to it its interest, but spreads repayment over seventy years. But even if the State exacts 3 per cent. in order to make everything secure, it has 2 per cent. out of which it can make a Sinking-Fund and reduce the tenant's rent. It will be readily seen that any number of plans for forming Sinking-Funds can be made out of this 2 per cent. In our opinion, the best yet devised is that of the new Bill, for it hardly leaves a loophole for the tenant of the future to declare that instalments and interest due to the State are, " in reality," a heavier burden than the old rent. By the time the first thirty years are out so large a block of money will be paid back that the rent will be nearer a ground-rent than a rack-rent. As we have said above, we are not quite sure of the exact details of the scheme, for we write before the Bill has appeared, but as to the main idea there is no doubt. The payments made by the tenant are gradually to decrease, and so the difficulty of falling prices and profits is anticipated. Another aspect of Mr. Gerald Balfour's scheme is much to be commended. He intends to get rid of the purchaser's insurance-fund, which has proved a stumbling-block rather than a help. The county percentage is also to be abolished, and to fall into the Sinking-Fund. In other words, the arrangement under which the tenant is lent money to buy his holding is to be a simple instead of a very complex one. These reforms will make the Purchase Act more attractive to the tenant. It is to be made simpler and more attractive to the landlord by the abolition of the guarantee deposit, which is now retained by the Land Commissioners and deducted from the purchase- money. The existing deposits are to be released, and in future deposits are only to be required if and when the Land Commission consider that the security is insufficient without them. We should, we confess, have preferred a. total abolition, but in practice we do not suppose that the guarantee deposits will ever be demanded. The landlords will also be attracted by a scheme for the redemption of tithe on lands sold. An incidental reform in the purchase portion of the new Bill must be mentioned as specially important. Mr. Gerald Balfour has wisely taken note of the opportunity for creating peasant-proprietors which exists in the Encumbered Estates Court. There are at present about 1,266 estates pending for sale in the Court, and over these estates receivers have been appointed. The rent-roll of these estates is " at least £648,000 a year," and many of them have been for years in the hands of the Court. At present, it is nobody's interest to get these bankrupt estates transferred into the hands of the tenants. Indeed, as Mr. Gerald Balfour hinted, the very reverse is the case. " It is not to the interest of the receivers who are appointed by the Court to promote sales." Mr. Gerald Balfour's proposal for dealing with these estates can best be given in his own words :—" What we propose is briefly this,—that where an absolute order for the sale of an estate has been made, and either a. receiver has been appointed or the estate is so circum- stanced that it would in any case be sold without the consent of the owner, it is to be the duty of the Land Commission, at the request of the Land Judge, to report as to the price at which, and the conditions on which, the estate might properly be offered for sale. The Land Judge, after considering this report and giving an oppor- tunity to all parties interested to be heard, is to make an offer to the tenants. We have added a provision that if the tenants to the extent of three-fourths in number and in valuation of holdings accept the offer, the Land Judge may, if he thinks it expedient, declare the remainder to be purchasers under the Act." Mr. Balfour added that there was no clause in the Bill on which he built higher hopes than this. We entirely agree. If the officials are made to understand that their business is to clear the Court of Estates by selling to the tenants—pro- vided of course, as Mr. Gerald Balfour pointed out, that the landlord's just rights are properly protected—we believe that a very large body of owner-occupiers may be created with great benefit not only to themselves but to the State. The hand of the receiver appointed by the Court is the very worst possible form of mortmain. Mr. Gerald Balfour's last provision in regard to purchase confers on that excellent and successful body, the Congested Districts Board, the right to borrow to the extent of £1,500,000 for purchase purposes.
Though we hold that the purchase portion of the Bill is by far the most hopeful and important, we must not omit to say something as to the amendments of the Act of 1881 which it proposes. In the first place, procedure is to :be simplified and cheapened. Let us hope that on this ,point there will be no disappointment ; but we must con- fess to our fears on the subject. The Irish are the .-most attorney-ridden race on the face of the earth, and we very much doubt whether the Nationalists are sincere in their desire to cut down costs. At any rate they, like the rest of their countrymen, hold it most dangerous to quarrel with the lawyers. Another point of importance is Mr. Balfour's scheme for allowing fair rents, if both sides agree, to be settled for thirty years, with possible variations every five years in accordance with the prices of certain scheduled commodities. If we understand the process rightly a certain rent will be fixed as fair. 'Next, it will be decided that the rent on the farm in question will be made out of certain commodities. Finally, it will be agreed that the rent may be re- adjusted every five years by the Land Commission (using their discretion), in accordance with the amount of varia- tion required, owing to the change that has taken place in the prices of the commodities originally fixed on as governing the rent. The last and most controversial point in regard to the alterations in the Act of 1881 has to do with the vexed question of tenants' improvements. 'What Mr. Balfour's Bill proposes to do is to presume all improvements made since 1850 to be the tenant's improve- -meets, unless the landlord can show the contrary. As to the question of what allowance is to be made for improve- • meats when the rent is being fixed, we will quote his own words. " What," he says, " we propose is this :—If, after an allowance has been made to the tenant by way of interest in respect of any improvements that he has made, it appears to the Court that the tenant has not received an equitable compensation for the benefit which that im- provement has conferred upon the holding, the Court shall be, in such a case, allowed to make such further allowance as they, considering all the circumstances and the nature of the improvement and the interests of the landlord and tenant respectively, may consider just." We should not like to pronounce definitely upon this matter till we have seen the Bill, but we may venture to lay down the general principle which ought to be followed. The arrangement must not, of course, rob the landlord of anything that is justly his, but it must at the same time be of a kind which will give the strongest .possible inducement to the tenant to make future improvements. The tenant is the only person who can or will now make improvements, and he must be given the full benefit of them.
On the whole we believe that the Bill is a good Bill, and also that it will pass. No doubt there will be a certain amount of factious opposition, but at the same time the Bill will, we believe, be supported by the Irish farmers as a class. Look at the reception of the Bill in Ireland. The Nationalist newspapers do not venture to attack it openly. The most they do is to hint faults and hesitate dislikes. Unless, then, we are very much mistaken Mr. Gerald Balfour will score a success by his Bill. Most certainly he deserves it, for we do not believe there was ever a more elear.seeing and fair-minded Irish Secretary than the 'statesman who at present occupies that office.
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