- A decision seriously affecting the working of the Irish
Land Act of 1903 was given in Dublin on Monday in the Land Judge's Court by Mr. Justice Ross. It is to the effect that the tenant-for-life ought not to be allowed to appropriate the bonus to his own use, but should hold it for all other parties who took under the settlement as well as for himself. The decision, as the Judge explicitly declared, runs counter to the declared intention of both Houses of Legislature, but his duty was simply to interpret the Apt, and he could find in it no words that could be legitimately interpreted to mean that the tenapt-for-life should receive the bonus for his own use. Without such a provision, he admitted that it might be quite impossible to make the Act work efficiently, seeing that its absence will remove in the case of many landlords their strongest inducement to sell. The introduction of an Amending Act is thus indicated as the only way out of the difficulty, and it is not anticipated that any objection would be offered by either landlords or Nationalists.
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