A very interesting debate on the Government's "Tenure and Improvement
of Land (Ireland) Bill" took place on Thursday night, in which there was another duel between Mr. Lowe and Mr. J. S. Mill, the latter defeating his able adversary con- spicuously on every point, in one of the most telling speeches delivered during the present session. The great point at issue is whether the tenant should, or should not, have the right to claim compensation for improvements made without asking his landlord's consent, if there be no specific written contract between the land- -lord and tenant excluding this right. Mr. Lowe of course took the landlord's side. This change in the law, he said truly, was a concession in the direction of fixity of tenure, of tenant right. He was opposed to all such concession, on the English ground that the ideas of Irishmen about landed tenure are utterly wild, that they are fools enough to be Fenians, and to expect revolution, and all sorts of impossible events, and that the ideas of such men ought to be broken down by the steady pressure of English ,
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