On Thursday, the progress was not so satisfactory, and a
great deal of time was wasted on an amendment, moved by a Liberal Member, Mr. Heneage, M.P. for Great Grimsby, and a great Land-law reformer, and supported by Mr. W. Fowler, another great Land-law reformer, Mr. Cartwright, Lord Edmond Pitzmaurice, Mr. Fitzwilliam, Mr. Portman, Sir John Ramadan, Mr. W. H. Leathern, (tc., as well as all the Conservatives, and defeated by the Government, by what is now thought a for- midably narrow majority of 25 (225 against 200). The object of this amendment was to exempt from the con- dition of free sale all holdings "which had heretofore been .maintained or improved by the landlord or his predecessors 11:1 title." It was admitted that under the conditions of a
future clause, the landlord who has made improvements may have some of the price paid to the tenant for the tenant-right allotted by the Court to himself; but, nevertheless, the wish was to forbid the sale of the tenant-right in the case of estates managed on what is called the English system,—i.e., the system where the landlord really does all the improvements. The debate was very warm, especially on personal points,—the condition, for instance, of the Fitzwillia,m estates, and of an estate in Wick- low said to have been sold by Mr. Parnell to an absentee pur- chaser, who found the rents so high that he had to lower them, a story to the truth of which Mr. Parnell absolutely denied all foundation. We have discussed the amendment rejected in another column.
