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T H E TRISH TAND BITT, L909 A BITUTL TO AMEND THE LAW RELATING TO THE OCCUPATION AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND IN IRELAND, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES RELATING THERETO WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND EXPLANATIONS BY THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF MAYO, K.P., P.C. AND H. D. CONNER, M.A., K.C. AUTHOR OF “THE FISHERIES, IRELAND, ACTS ’’ # 0 it iſ 0 it HUGH REES, LTD., 119, PALL MALL, S.W. LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SóNS, LIMITED, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W. ( iii ) }s&; \ W. s S. PREFACE. THIS pamphlet has been written in order to explain the effect of an Irish Land Bill entitled “A Bill to amend the law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Ireland and for other purposes relating thereto.” Presented by Mr. Birrell, supported by Mr. Attorney- General for Ireland and Mr. T. W. Russell, and ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 15 March, 1909. The Bill has since passed a second reading in the House of Commons by a large majority. It is for the most part identical in terms with the Irish Land Bill of last Session, which was read a second time in the House of Commons on 8 December, 1908, and for this reason Mr. Birrell did not think it necessary, when moving either the first or second reading of the Bill in the present Session, to enter fully into its provisions or the reasons upon which they were grounded, and those who wish to obtain party views upon the Bill generally should study the Parliamentary Debates of last Session, Authorized Edition, commonly known as Hansard, No. 2, Vol. CXCVIII. (16th Vol. of Session), Tuesday, **) RFC 4. iv. IRISH LAND BILL. December 8, 1908, and No. 10, Vol. CXCVI. (14 Vol. of Session), Monday, November 23, 1908, which can be obtained from Wyman and Sons, 32, Abingdon Street, Westminster, London, S.W., and E. Ponsonby, 116, Grafton Street, Dublin, the December part, No. 2, costing 1s. 3.}d., and the November part, No. 10, costing 18. 8%d. The Bill affects mainly six classes of persons. 1. Landlords who have already agreed to sell their estates to the tenants under the Purchase Acts. 2. Tenants who have already agreed to purchase their holdings from their landlords under the Purchase Acts. 3. Landlords who have not yet agreed with their tenants for sale to the latter. 4. Tenants who have not yet agreed to buy their holdings under the Purchase Acts. 5. Owners of land who either farm it themselves or make temporary lettings of it for grazing or otherwise. This class of land is referred to in the Bill as “un- tenanted land.” 6. Tenants and occupiers of land in the portions of Ireland, known as “Congested Districts,” which in- clude the whole or portions of eight or nine counties in Ireland. The interests of all these classes of persons are vitally affected by the Bill, and it is not without interest to the British taxpayer. We do not desire to offer criticism upon the objects of the Bill, but have endeavoured to explain its meaning and effect, and in PREFACE. V order to make it comprehensible to those who may not be fully conversant with Irish Land Legislation we have by way of “Introduction ” given a resumé of the existing Land Purchase Law and the present position in Ireland with regard to it. MAYO. H. D. CONNER. ( vii ) INTRODUCTION. WITH a view to enabling anyone interested in the subject, but not thoroughly familiar with Irish Land legislation, to understand the position of affairs in regard to Irish Land and to appreciate the effect of the proposed Land Bill, it is necessary to give a short retrospect of the Irish Land Purchase Acts, and before dealing with the Purchase Acts themselves to state briefly the exceptional advantages now enjoyed by the Irish tenant farmer. The land law in Ireland prior to the Land Act of 1870 was based upon freedom of contract, landlord and tenant could make whatever bargain they wished. In 1870 the first inroad was made upon this principle, and the tenant if evicted was enabled to obtain large sums from the landlord under the name of “Compensation for disturbance,” in addition to being paid for improvements made on the holding by the tenant. No tenant of a holding of an annual valuation of less than £50 could contract out of the Act. In 1881 an enormous change was made in favour of the tenant. The Land Act of 1881 completely swept away freedom of contract in respect of every existing tenancy from year to year, so far as agricultural holdings were concerned. viii IRISH LAND BILL. The tenant of a tenancy existing at that date could, if he thought his rent was too high, apply to the Land Commission to get it reduced, and this was universally done, and sweeping reductions of rent obtained, the rents so fixed lasting for fifteen years, when the tenant could again apply. The Act further prevented a landlord from putting an end to the tenancy so long as the rent was paid, thus practically converting yearly tenancies, the most usual tenure in Ireland, into perpetuities at rents fixed by the Land Commission every fifteen years. The value of the property transferred by this enactment from the landlord to the tenants does not admit of calculation, but may be partially gauged from the fact that the interests of yearly tenants, which formerly could be put an end to by notice to quit in the usual way, and were of trifling value, soon increased enormously, it becoming quite common for tenants to obtain on a sale of their interests sums amounting to ten, fifteen, and even twenty times the amount of their annual rent, this fact showing that the rents placed upon the land by the Land Commission were extremely low, and such as to leave the tenants a very large profit. How or upon what principle the Land Commission arrived at what are called “fair rents * has never been satisfactorily ascertained, no principles having been laid down in the Act for their guidance in this respect. In the year 1887 tenants holding under leases, who up to that time were held bound to their contracts, were empowered to apply for reductions of rent in the INTRODUCTION. ix same manner as yearly tenants, and the present position of the Irish tenant farmer is one of exceptional advantage, as he has a perpetuity in his holding at a rent which he can get varied every fifteen years if he thinks it too high. There can be no question of landlords being harsh or unreasonable in their dealings as regards rent, as they have no voice in the amount of the rent, nor can they turn out a tenant so long as he pays the annual sum fixed by the Government Department appointed for the purpose of seeing that the rent is a fair rent. This situation of affairs was, however, productive of many evils; the landlord was reduced to the position of a mere rent-charger, having no power over his property and subject as to the amount of the rent to the operations of a tribunal acting upon no fixed principles, and on the other hand the tenant was tempted to allow his farm to become deteriorated towards the end of each fifteen years' term so that a lower rent might be placed upon it for the next fifteen years, and it was seen at an early date that it would be better for both parties if facilities were given to tenants to become the absolute proprietors of their holdings. In the Act of 1881 a provision was introduced enabling the Land Commission to advance to a tenant three-fourths of the sum required to purchase his holding, the tenant supplying the balance, but little was effected by this, as tenants were not willing to make any payments in cash for the purpose of buying the fee simple, and the first really effective step was taken by the Purchase Act of 1885 known as X IRISH LAND BILL. “The Ashbourne Act,” which enabled the Land Commission to advance to a tenant who wished to purchase his holding, the entire purchase money on being satisfied that the holding afforded good security for repayment, and on the further condition that the landlord deposited with the Land Commission as security for the repayments of the advance made to the tenant a sum equivalent to one-fifth of the purchase money. The advances to the tenant were repaid to the Land Commission by an annuity running for forty-nine years calculated at four per cent. on the amount of the pur- chase money. “The Ashbourne Act ’’ was availed of to a very considerable extent, transactions being carried out under it to the extent of several million pounds; it was supplemented and extended by Acts passed in 1887, 1891, and 1896, by the latter of which the tenant was enabled to get reduction in his purchase annuity after each period of ten years. The result being in effect that the tenant usually obtained a reduction of about twenty per cent. at once, with decennial reductions as time went on. The defects in these Purchase Acts which prevented any general adoption of them was that though the Land Commission had power to advance the entire purchase money, yet this could only be done where the Land Commission was satisfied with the security for the advance, and as Security for an advance was something different from the fair purchase price, being only what a prudent mortgagee would reasonably advance, it was as a general rule only in cases where landlords were by their pecuniary difficulties absolutely INTRODUCTION. xi compelled to realise that they were willing to enter into negotiations for sale at all, and there was the further difficulty that one-fifth of the purchase money had to be left with the Land Commission as a deposit, so that landowners if they determined to sell had to do so at such a price as the inspectors of the Land Commission might deem adequately secured, and then could only obtain payment of four-fifths of that price ; and the consequence of this naturally was that no landowner who could avoid doing so was desirous of disposing of his estate on such terms, and as soon as the hoplessly encumbered estates were got rid of, it was felt that if Land Purchase was to go on some other arrangement should be made. A great and important step was then taken, unpre- cedented in the history of Ireland ; a number of promi- nent public men, representing the landlords and tenants respectively, met together at what became known as “the Round Table Conference,” and agreed upon a basis of Land Purchase which they considered fair to all parties and which would give the landlord something like his former income, due allowance being made for expenses of collection and losses, and would also permit the tenant to become the proprietor of his holding in fee simple by obtaining an advance of the entire purchase money from the state and repaying the principal and interest in the form of an annuity, the annual amount of which would be considerably less than his fair rent. The result of the operations of the Conference was the Land Purchase Act of 1903, and in order to understand xii IRISH LAND BILL. the effect of the provision of the Irish Land Bill of 1909 it is necessary to bear in mind the main features of the Act of 1903 and the reasons of its great success as compared with the former Purchase Acts, and we will shortly state what those features are and how that Success was attained. Firstly, under former Purchase Acts each tenant was dealt with by the landlord separately, and no provision was made to facilitate the sale of an entire estate to all the tenants at the same time. - Under the Act of 1903 the scheme was quite different. Tenants were not to be dealt with individually but by estates, the word estate meaning not necessarily the entire property, but such portion of it as would conveniently form a unit to be dealt with by the Land Commission. It will be seen at once that it was highly inconvenient to the landlord to sell a bit here and a bit there according as he might be able to come to terms with each indivi- dual tenant, and that there also were difficulties arising from the fact that mortgages, head rents, and so forth, generally affected the whole estate, and that trying to deal with these in a piecemeal fashion was always expensive and often impossible. Under the Act of 1903, the tenants knowing that the estate was to be dealt with as a whole, were willing to come together and arrange terms so as to enable the entire body of tenants to obtain the advantages of the Act. Secondly, the financial advantages offered to the tenants were very great. Under former Acts the tenant had to repay the purchase money advanced to him and INTRODUCTION. xiii the interest by making an annual payment equivalent to four per cent in the amount of the purchase money, which annuity discharged principal and interest in forty-nine years. Under the Act of 1903 the tenant obtained much better terms of payment. The advance to him was to be repaid by means of a purchase annuity calculated at the rate of £3 5s. for every £100 of the advance, which annuity was to repay to the State both principal and interest in about sixty-eight and one-half years. This low rate of annuity meant that a tenant (to take an example) could agree that the purchase money of his holding should be twenty-three times the annual rent, i.e., £2,300 for a rental of £100, and pay twenty-five per cent. annually less than he did before, because his purchase annuity on an advance of £2,300 would be only £75. And he had the further advantage of feeling that he was paying off both principal and interest and gradually acquiring the fee simple of the land free from any annuity. 3. The landlord, selling his estate did so under much more favourable conditions than previously, principally in two ways. (a) A system was introduced to obviate the necessity for the Land Commission to obtain a valuation of each individual holding in the estate to see that it was security for the advance proposed. Inasmuch as in every case where a judicial rent had been fixed by the Land Commission, officials sent by that body had inspected the holding and ascertained what was the fair rent which the tenant ought to pay, it was reasonably xiv. IRISH LAND BILL. considered that, if the purchase annuity was substantially less than this fair rent officially ascertained, there ought to be no necessity for a second valuation, and, therefore, that when a fair rent had been fixed it might be assumed that the tenant could very well pay a purchase annuity, if such annuity was substantially less in amount than the fair rent he had previously been paying. Accord- ingly the Act of 1903 provided that within certain limits, which have become known as the “zones,” the Land Commission were to be bound to advance the purchase money agreed upon. The limits were as follows:-- If the fair rent had been fixed since 1896 the purchase annuity should be not less than ten or more than thirty per cent. below the rent. If the fair rent had been fixed before 1896, then the annuity should be not less than twenty or more than forty per cent. below the rent. The reason that a difference was made between rents fixed up to 1896 and those fixed subsequently was that in 1896 a tenant whose fair rent term of fifteen years dated from 1881 could have his rent revised, and that the rents fixed from 1896 on were substantially lower than the rents fixed before that date. This arrangement was of enormous advantage, it did away with the expense and delay incurred in relation to the valuation of each individual holding, which would have taken an enormous amount of time, and what was quite as important, it enabled a landlord to calculate what amount of purchase money he could depend upon INTRODUCTION. XV getting. Formerly he never could tell beforehand whether the Land Commission would advance the pur- chase money, or whether they would not. After having agreed with his tenants and incurred great expense he found that the Land Commission declined to advance the money, and his affairs were thrown into complete confusion. The “Zones' obviated this disadvantage and immensely facilitated the working of the Act. (b) The second advantage secured to the landlord by the Act of 1903 was what is called the “Bonus.” Tenants for life and other limited owners had been prevented from selling under the former Acts by the fact that their income was always much reduced and that during the carrying out of the sale they were put to great expense and inconvenience. Limited owners, unless absolutely compelled to do so, were therefore generally adverse to selling, preferring to go on getting rent from the tenants, and it was found that something should be done to induce such owners to sell to their tenants, and for this purpose Parliament provided for a fund of £12,000,000 to be applied in giving a “Bonus" of twelve per cent. on the amount of the purchase money to each landlord who sold his estate under the Act. This twelve per cent, gift, which a tenant for life received for his own use and was not subject to the trusts of his settlement or to mortgages affecting the estate, operated as a great inducement to tenants for life and other limited owners to give their tenants the benefit of the Act, and to agree with the tenants for sale at much lower prices than could have been expected if the b xvi IRISH LAND BILL. limited owner had to undergo the inconvenience and loss attending a sale without any corresponding advan- tage. Of course, the “Bonus * operated as an induce- ment not only to limited owners but to every landlord, especially those who were financially embarrassed and living on a small margin, and the consequence was that it formed a bridge to bring landlords and tenants together, and to the “Bonus’ must be accorded the principal credit for the enormous extent to which the Act, has been availed of. Fourthly, the voluntary system was preserved, no element of compulsion, on the face of the Act at any rate, was introduced or hinted at. Each party, landlord and tenant, was to be free to make his own bargain and agree upon the price which he could accept or give, as the case might be, according to the infinitely varying circumstances of estates or pecuniary position of the parties. It was not the fault of the Act itself that under its administration complaints arise that pressure is endeavoured to be put upon landlords to sell when their circumstances prevent them from doing so, and that difficulties have arisen with respect to grazing and other lands in the landlord's own occupation and not in that of tenants, but looked upon with greedy eyes by those who desire that the Land Commission should compel the owner to part with it in order to dis- tribute it at a cheap rate amongst persons who had no previous tenancy or interest in it. The weak point of the Act, as subsequently turned out, but which could hardly have been foreseen at the INTRODUCTION. xvii time, was finance. The calculations made as to the raising of the necessary funds were based upon the idea that Two and three-quarters Guaranteed Land Stock could be issued at the price of at least £95 for each £100 stock, which seemed reasonable enough, but which owing to the conditions of the money market proved to be an over-estimate. The Treasury had to find the money required by issuing stock at a much lower price than 95, and the consequence is that certain funds and income called the Guarantee Fund, which were intended and thought to be amply sufficient to provide for any possible loss in the issue of stock, have been so seriously depleted that at an early date it would practically disappear and the loss would then, under the Act of 1903, fall on the ratepayers of Ireland, a result never intended or contemplated. This has delayed and hampered the working of the Act, because the Treasury are naturally unwilling to issue more stock at a loss than they are absolutely forced to do, and have not increased the staff of the Land Commission to anything like the number necessary to keep pace with the sales. The Land Commission Staff can only deal with about five million a year of purchase money, and the sales under the Act have accumulated to such an extent that there are now arrears of purchase money to be dealt with amounting to over fifty million pounds. This bears very hardly upon both landlords and tenants. The landlord who has sold but has not got his money is for several years only getting interest at a low rate, in lieu of his rents, while he has to continue paying head b 2 xviii IRISH LAND BILL. rents, tithe rent charge and interest on mortgages at a high rate just the same as if he had never sold. This in many cases entirely wipes out the margin on which he had to live. Nor is the “Bonus * paid to him till the sale is actually completed and the purchase money distri- buted. The tenant also suffers, because during the years which elapse between his agreement to buy and com- pletion of the sale he is paying interest on his purchase money, at a rate (generally three and a half per cent.) which is higher than his purchase annuity, which is three and a quarter per cent. It is therefore in the interest both of landlords and tenants that some arrangement should be come to by which the block would be removed and funds provided. Whether the scheme suggested in the Irish Land Bill of 1909 (Section 3) adequately meets the case may be doubted. One matter in particular should not be left out. of sight. The success of the Act of 1903 has been to a great extent marred, so far as the expected result of bringing perfect peace and quiet to the country is concerned, by causes for which the system of the Land Purchase Acts is not really responsible. The ground and basis of these Acts was the excellent principle that it would be good for Ireland that the man occupying the land should be the owner of it in fee simple, and so far as this leading idea has been kept to the results have been excellent in every way and the operation of the Act has made for peace and contentment. Unfortunately from time to time INTRODUCTION. xix powers and provisions were introduced enabling the Land Commission to depart from what should have been their sole or main duties and to enter into land transactions having no reference to landlord and tenant but dealing with the distribution of lands not in the hands of tenants at all. The idea went abroad that the Land Commission could by various means bring direct or indirect pressure to bear upon landowners to sell the lands in their own occupation to the Land Commission for the purpose of distribution amongst neighbouring tenants or even persons who never were tenants or had any land. Hence the agitation for the breaking up of the grass lands, cattle-driving, and so forth. Everyone in Ireland knows the desire of the landless man to obtain land for himself; it is his one idea of advancement in life and status, and the mixing up of two things in no way necessarily connected, viz., tenants becoming proprietors of their holdings which is one thing, and the acquisition and distribution of untenanted land which is quite another, has nullified much of the beneficial effect of the great measure of 1903. Enough has been said to indicate the present position of Land Purchase legislation in Ireland. A study of the terms of the new Bill, taken in conjunction with the explanatory matter which will be found opposite each clause, will it is hoped enable the reader to see the changes in the present system which it is proposed to make by the Bill. It is not the object of this publication to criticize the general policy of those changes further than is XX IRISH LAND BILL. necessary for the purpose of pointing out their legal effect and some of the less obvious consequences. -*t 8--- it * * INTRODUCTION TO PART III. OF BILL. CONGESTED DISTRICTs. LORD MAYO. Part III. of the Bill commences with Clause 32 and deals with the Congested Districts. To understand what the present Statutory Congested Districts are in Ireland one must quote figures and define areas. - f In the evidence given before the Royal Commission presided over by the Earl of Dudley, and which began its labours in the year 1906, the following evidence was adduced to the Commission : “The population of the Statutory Congested Dis- tricts, i.e., the districts at present established by Statute or Law, is 505,700, and the acreage of these districts is 3,626,000 statute acres. Thus one-ninth of the whole population of Ireland live upon one-sixth of its area, and this sixth is valued at one-nineteenth of the total valuation of Ireland.” There are 85,000 holdings in these districts. The valuation of about 74,000 of these holdings is below £10, the valuation of 45,000 out of this 74,000 is below £4, and the average valuation of these 45,000 holdings is £2 5s. 5d., or under ten shillings per head of the population living upon these holdings. t INTRODUCTION. xxi The before-mentioned Statutory districts may be divided into three classes. (1) The Maritime class, i.e., the population living on the sea-board. (2) The Intermediate class, half maritime and half landsmen. (3) The Inland class, which cultivate small holdings and never go out on the deep waters of the ocean nor reap the harvest of the kelp and other sea-weed, this latter used as manure for the potato, that nourishing tuber, so entirely and so sadly associated with Irish latter-day economic history. The renumeration of the three classes before mentioned is as follows: (1) The Maritime class has a population of 175,000 souls, or 33,700 households. (2) The Intermediate class has a population of 123,000 souls, or 23,600 households. (3) The Inland class has a population of 208,000 souls, or 42,800 households. It will be observed on examining these figures just quoted that the total number of households, namely 100,100, does not correspond with the total number of holdings, namely, 85,000. - This no doubt is due to the exclusion of holdings from the latter figure which are not agricultural. It is well to note and examine what has been done to deal 32 with these “Congests * in Ireland. This word “Congests,” coined for present use, accurately describes the heaped-up and con- xxii IRISH LAND BILL. fused population of Ireland's Statutory Congested Districts. The so-called Congested Districts Board established by the Purchase of Land Act of 1891, has as a per- manent Chairman the Chief Secretary to the Lord- Lieutenant for the time being, who owing to his official position and Cabinet rank brings some influence to bear over this Board's policy and financial system. The members of this Board are unpaid, but the Secretary is a paid official, and there is a paid Travelling Inspector. The Board is nominated by the Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland. This body of Irishmen, who work hard and give their time and energy in ameliorating the condition of these Irish “Congests,” have with the moneys voted by Parliament bought some 13,000 holdings in the congested districts, and have resold to former occupiers about 6,000 holdings, and a certain number of holdings have been dealt with by the Estates Commissioners under the Land Purchase Acts. The result of these operations being, that about 64,000 holdings remain to be dealt with, but of these about twelve per cent. are above £10 valuation, and therefore cannot truthfully be classed amongst the very hopeless poor of the Statu- tory Congested Districts; in fact, they can take care of themselves. Deducting this twelve per cent. of £10 valuation peasant occupiers, there remains 56,320 holdings to be dealt with. It is admitted by those who have studied the question of the Congested Districts in Ireland that INTRODUCTION. xxiii there has been a great improvement in the condition of the population of those districts as a whole. Within the last fifteen or twenty years parish priests, who as a rule are not inclined to underrate the poverty of their flocks, admit that there is no longer any question of starvation amongst them even during periods of distress. This improvement is largely due to the judicious labours of the Congested Districts Board, the Department of Agriculture, and the Irish Agricultural Organization Society. Critics of the policy of these Boards, when they worked together under Sir Horace Plunkett, say or said there was overlapping, that money was lost in buying holdings and reselling them to former occupiers. Be it so, “Something accomplished, something done,” can be writ large on the rugged rocks that guard the shores of Ireland and on which the Atlantic waves break unceasingly. Sir Horace Plunkett was a member of the Congested Districts Board, the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture, and the Founder and moving spirit of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society. The machine worked, and worked for good. That, the sourest critic will admit. But other causes must be sought to confirm the fact that these Irish “Congests * condition have ameliorated of late years. (1) The advance in the general wealth and con- suming power of Ireland. (2) The development through the parcel post, and other agencies and facilities for the cheap, rapid and xxiv. IRISH LAND BILL. regular dispatch of goods from these remote places, although I myself, if I may venture an opinion, do not set much store on these developments. No doubt the parcel post is an undisguised blessing, but those who use it for sending plucked fowl, spring chickens, eggs and butter, are not “Congests.” e I believe that where the Congested Districts Board have scored successes in their ventures is in improving and developing the fishing industry round the Irish coasts, and also in bringing out the natural aptitude of Irish young men and girls, to learn trades, and in teaching them to work with their hands during the wet and dreary months of the winter, and during the fishing seasons. Let me point out the lines along which success has marked the efforts of this useful . Board. (1) The providing of nets and boats to fishermen on the partly payment by instalment plan. (2) The organization of stations on the coast for the salting in barrels of the herrings caught. (3) The salting of mackerel for the American market—in some seasons a very lucrative business to the fisherman and those employed in packing the fish in barrels. - Leaving the coast and its fisherman, we come inland. g (4) The establishment of lace schools, in villages where the girls come to work in classes; There is a never-ceasing demand for good Irish lace. INTRODUCTION. XXV (5) The making of lace curtains after the manner of French lace curtains. - (6) The making of hand-tufted carpets. This work is done by girls and is paid for per so many tufts set in. (7) What is known in the trade as White Embroidery. It is in these Industries that the Congested Districts Board have established, helped, and also in some cases resuscitated, lost and forgotten village industries. Not Only do the peasantry make money at these industries but it all means education, and in the wild and out- of-the-way districts of Ireland. One may truly say of education “Emollit mores nee simit esse feros,” which being translated runs thus, “Softens men's manners nor allows them to become savage.” These remarks on the present state of the Statutory Congested Districts would not be complete, without quoting Mr. Birrell's (the Chief Secretary to the Lord- Lieutenant) words when introducing the Irish Land Bill of 1908 in the House of Commons on November 23rd, 1908:-“When I come to the question of the relief of congestion in the west, it is not merely a question of time and patience, it is also a question of policy. The whole of this most difficult problem was in 1906 referred to a Commission presided over by Lord Dudley. I know that he is suspect in certain quarters with regard to his political opinions, but surely nobody will deny, and particularly now that he has gone from that West Atlantic and is ‘by the long wash of Australasian seas,' that he devoted to this task pains and self-sacrifice xxvi IRISH LAND BILL. which in a man of his position and past habits of life I have never seen equalled. He threw himself into it and worked and slaved, and quite apart from any political opinions, he is entitled, especially when he is serving the Empire abroad, to the thanks and considera- tion of this House. The other commissioners were all distinguished men. They held 116 public sittings, spent forty-eight days in travelling all over the country with four motor cars, examined 560 witnesses, asked 60,386 questions, and the answers are to be found recorded, and the House will eagerly seek them, in eleven volumes of evidence. In addition there are 1,779 pages of memoranda, synopses, diagrams, and the like. I can only say that that Commission attracted an enormous amount of attention and excited great interest in Ireland, and if this House or any Ministers imagine that they can refer a question of such vital importance and deep interest to a com- mission of this character and then pay no attention to their Report, they are repeating the evil behaviour for which unfortunately there are some precedents in the past.” Let the reader who has read the findings of the Commission now study Part III. of the Bill as explained in this pamphlet, and he or she will then understand how it, the Bill, is a complete negation of the finding of the Commission on Congestion, and how the whole personnel and therefore the policy of the Congested Districts Board is thrown into the melting-pot of Irish politics. ( xxvii ) IRISH LAND BILL. ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSEs. *- PART I. LAND PURCHASE FINANCE. CLAUSE. - 1. Alteration of amount of purchase annuity and of rate of interest payable to National Debt Commissioners. r 2. Power to raise new guaranteed three per cent. Stock, and provision as to investment by savings bank depositors in stock. 3. Power to make advances by guaranteed stock under certain circumstances. 4. Temporary borrowing by bills or bonds. 5. Amendment of provisions as to percentage. 6. Provision as to making good deficiency in respect of stock issued at a discount. - 7. Bonus dividend to be treated as expenses of issue of stock. 8. Advance dividend. 9. Remission of stamp duty. 10. Repayment of advances under Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906. 11. Substituted agreements. 12. Interpretation. 13. Power to make rules. xxviii IRISH LAND BILL. PART II. LAND PURCHASE. CLAUSE. 14. Exclusion from provisions as to zones. 15. Limitation on amount of advances to tenant purchasers. 16. Prohibition of advance. 17. Advances for purchase of parcels of land. 18. Trustees for the purposes of turbary, pasture, &c. 19. Facilities for the planting and preservation of woods. 20. Equitable price of holdings. 21. Congested estates. 22. Powers for facilitating re-sales. 23. Power of Land Commission to determine disputes between tenants of holdings. 24. Power to exchange tenancies. 25. Amendment of 59 & 60 Vict. c. 47, s. 35. 26. Certain powers and duties of Land Commission to be exercised by Estates Commissioners. - 27. Delegation of powers of Estates Commissioners. 28. Investment of purchase money on Sales to Land Commission. 29. Restriction on amount expended by Land Commission on purchase of congested estates. 30. Provision of money for expenditure on improvements by Land Commission, and closing of reserve fund. 31. Provision as to money spent by Land Commission on improve- ments of estates purchased by them. - 32. Expenses of improvements by Land Commission on land sold by landlord to tenant. 33. Amendment of S. 48 (4) of the Act of 1903. 34. Restrictions on acquisition of holdings and removal of trees. 35. Recovery of interest. 36. Extension of 3 Edw.7, c. 37, s. 69 (2). 37. Payments out of interest on purchase money before vesting. 38. Amendment of 7 Edw. 7, c. 38. 39. Procedure of the Estates Commissioners on failure of negotiations for purchase. ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES. xxix PART III. CONG ESTED DISTRICTs. CLAUSE. 40. Incorporation of the Congested Districts Board. 41. Reconstitution of the Board. 42. Duration of office of representative members and casual vacancies. 43. Administrative committee. Q 44. Congested districts counties and local authorities. 45. Transfer of certain powers and duties of the Board to the Depart- ment of Agriculture. 46. Consultative Committee for purposes of fisheries. 47. Provision of money for Board and Department of Agriculture. 48. Provisions consequential on transfer of powers and duties. 49. Orders in Council. 50. Grant of superannuation allowances by Congested Districts Board. 51. Sales of parcels of land by Congested Districts Board. 52. Extension of 3 Edw. 7, c. 37, s. 19, to sales by the Congested Districts Board. 53. Extension of 3 Edw.7, c. 37, s. 15 (6), to sales to the Congested Districts Board. 54. Rents and profits recoverable by the Congested Districts Board. 55. Restriction on purchases by the Board. 56. Restrictions on sales of land in congested districts counties. 57. Procedure of the Board on failure of negotiations for purchase. PART IV. COMPULSORY PURCHASE. 58. Compulsory purchase. 59. Restriction on compulsory purchase of certain land. 60. Orders for framing list of assessors. XXX IRISH LAND BILL. PART V. CLAUSE. º LAND LAW. 61. Future tenants. PART VI. SUPPLEMENTAL. 62. Definitions. 63. Construction. 64. Short title. 65. Repeals. SCHEDULES. IRISH LAND BILL. 1909. A B I L I, TO Amend the Law relating to the Occupation and Ownership of Land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto. PART I, LAND PURCHASE FINANCE. 1,–(I) In the case of advances made in pursuance of future purchase agreements, three pounds ten shillings shall be substituted for three pounds five shillings as the rate of the purchase annuity under section forty- five of the Irish Land Act, 1903 (in this Act referred to as the Act of 1903). (2) So far as respects advances made for future purchase agreements, the rate of interest to be paid by the Land Commission to the National Debt Commis- sioners under section thirty-six of the Act of 1903, shall be three per cent. per annum, instead of two-and- three-quarters per cent. per annum. (3) The National Debt Commissioners shall, in the accounts kept by them of the Irish Land Purchase Fund, distinguish between advances made in pursuance of pending purchase agreements and advances made in pursuance of future purchase agreements. NOTES ON CLAUSE I. 3 Page 2. Clause 1, sub-clause (2), after words “section 86 ° insert, “and by the Congested Districts Board to the Iland Commission under Section seventy-two.” \ PART I. LAND PURCHASE FINANCE. CLAUSE 1. Under the Act of 1903 (section 36) the rate of interest at which the Land Commission could obtain advances from the National Debt Commissioners was two and three-quarters per cent., and (under section 45 of that Act) the tenant paid off the advance by an annual annuity calculated at the rate of £3 5s. for each hundred of the advance, which annuity paid off both principal and interest in about sixty-eight years. By clause I these provisions are repealed, the tenant's annuity is raised from £3 5s. to £3 10s., and the rate of interest charged to the Land Commission by the Treasury is raised from two and three-quarters per cent. to three per cent. This means that in future the tenant buying his holding would have to pay to the government five shillings more per annum for each hundred pounds of this purchase money than he would have to do under the 1903 Act. B 2 4. IRISH LAND BILL, 2—(1) The power of the Treasury to create stock for the purpose of raising noney required for the Irish Land Purchase Fund (including the Land Purchase Aid Fund) shall include power to create a new capital stock to be called guaranteed three per cent. Stock, and the Treasury may at any time create for that purpose either guaranteed two-and- three-quarters per cent. Stock or guaranteed three per cent. stock as they think fit. (2) The provisions of the Act of 1903, relating to stock, shall apply to guaranteed three per cent. stock created under this section as they apply to the guaranteed two-and-three-quarters per cent. stock created under that Act, with the substitution of three per cent. for two-and-three-quarters per cent. as the rate of dividend, and of thirty years from the passing of this Act for thirty years from the commencement of the Act of 1903, as the period after the expiration of which the stock is redeemable. (3) The definition of Government stock in sub- section (2) of section five of the Savings Bank Act, 1893, shall be read as if stock issued under the Act of 1903 or this Act were included in the First Schedule to the said Savings Bank Act, 1893. 3.—(1) Notwithstanding anything in section twenty- seven of the Act of 1903, advances for the purposes of the Land Purchase Acts may, subject to the pro- visions of this section, be made in whole or in part by means of stock in the manner and under the cir- cumstances for which provision is made by this section. NOTES ON CLAUSES 2 ANL) 3. 5 CLAUSE 2. By clause 2 the Treasury is given an option, which would be exercised according to the state of the money market, to raise the necessary funds for financing future purchase transactions, by issuing either stock bearing two and three-quarters per cent. interest or stock bearing three per cent. interest. Under the Act of 1903 (section 28) only two and three-quarters per cent. stock was issuable. Subclause (2) of clause 2 applies to the new stock proposed to be issued under the Bill—the conditions mentioned in the Act of 1903 (section 28) with respect to the stock issuable under that Act. The new stock, however, would not be redeemable till thirty years from the passing of the Bill, instead of thirty years from the Act of 1903. The holder of this Stock has the advantages that he cannot be compulsorily paid off by the Treasury till after thirty years have passed, and if during that period this stock goes above par he can sell in the open market. CLAUSE 3. This is one of the most important clauses in the Bill. It affects not only agreements already arrived at between landlord and tenant and which are in course of completion, but also all purchase agreements to be entered into in future. This clause practically means the abrogation of section 27 of the Land Act of 1903, 6 IRISH LAND BILL. (2) For the purpose of carrying into effect pending purchase agreements advances may, if the vendor agrees, be made by means of the issue to the pre- scribed persons, in the prescribed manner, and subject to the prescribed conditions, of such an amount of guaranteed two-and-three-quarters per cent. Stock, as, at the market price of the day of issue (as certified in the prescribed manner) is equivalent to the sum to be advanced if that price is not below ninety-two pounds (ex-dividend) for an amount of stock of the nominal value of a hundred pounds, or if the stock is below that price by the issue of such an amount of stock as would be equivalent to the sum to be advanced if the stock were at that price. (3) For the purpose of carrying into effect future purchase agreements advances may, if the Treasury think fit so to direct, be made by means of the issue of an amount of guaranteed three per cent. Stock equal in nominal amount to the sum to be advanced and carrying dividends as from the date of the advance. (4) Stock issued in pursuance of this section as the equivalent of an advance shall, as between the vendor and the purchaser, be accepted by the vendor as the equivalent of the corresponding amount of purchase money, and a vendor, although he is not an absolute owner, may agree to advances being made by stock under this section for the purpose of carry- ing out any pending purchase agreements, and any person having power to sell under the Land Purchase Acts, although he is not an absolute owner, may enter NOTES ON CLAUSE 3. 7 which runs as follows, “Advances for the purposes of the Land Purchase Acts shall in the case of agreements entered into after the passing of this Act, be made by means of money and not by means of guaranteed Land Stock.” This Section is not however repealed, so that the Treasury would have still the option of making the advance in cash. Under the Act of 1903 all vendors were to receive the purchase money of their estates in cash, and were able to make bargains with their tenants on a basis of payment in cash. Clause 3 of the Bill proposes to alter this both as to agreements between landlord and tenant which have already been entered into, but which owing to the block in the office of the Estates Com- missioners, have not yet been completed, and also as to all agreements for purchase to be entered into in the future. The provisions as to the two classes of agreements are however different. In respect to pending purchase agreements the Bill (clause 3 (2)) purports to give an option to the vendor to receive his purchase money in two and three-quarter per cent. Stock, but if he does elect to exercise this option he is to be compelled to take instead of every £100 cash an amount of stock as would be equivalent in value to £100 cash if the market price of the stock is not below 92; but if the market price is below 92 the vendor, notwithstanding this, must accept stock as if it was at 92, although in fact it may be only at 85. The present price of guaranteed two and three-quarter per cent. stock is from 86 to 87, and the following statement and table kindly furnished to Lord Mayo by the Irish Office shows the loss incurred by the 8 IRISH LAND BILL. into any future purchase agreement, notwithstanding that the purchase money may be payable in stock in pursuance of this section instead of in cash. NOTES ON CLAUSE 3. 9 vendor if he exercises the option granted to him by the Bill. “A vendor who exercises his option of accepting two and three-quarter per cent. stock at 92 receives, for every £100 purchase-money, stock to the amount of £108-7. “Assuming that he turns his stock into cash, if the market price of the stock is 92, he receives £100 cash.” The vendor loses on If the price is:– every £100 of purchase- money :- £ £ 9I I 08 90 2 - 17 89 3 - 25 88 4 3 87 5 4 86 6 - 5 85 7 : 6 84 8 - 7 f “(Omitting cost of brokerage.)” It is to be observed that though the vendor loses if the stock is under 92, he does not get the benefit if it is over that price. The price of 92 fixed as the minimum price at which the vendor is to receive an amount of stock equivalent in value to his purchase-money, is an arbi- trary figure apparently selected because, if the market price of the stock is 92, the vendor for each £100 of the purchase-money would receive £108 14s. of guaranteed land stock which would return to him an income of three per cent. On the amount of his purchase-money. I 0 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 3. | 1 The figure of 92 is evidently taken from the Report of the Treasury Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into Land Purchase Finance in connection with the provision of funds required for the purposes of The Irish Land Act, 1903, commonly known as the Runciman Report. Should the vendor decline to exercise the option of taking stock in the manner already explained, he may, if he has only recently agreed with his tenants to sell his estate to them, have to wait for twelve or thirteen years before he receives his purchase-money. This will appear from the follow- ing facts. Upon the 23rd of November, 1908, there were outstanding contracts of sale by landlords to the amount of fifty-three millions (vide Hansard, No. 10, vol. cxcvi., 14th vol., Session 1908). The Chief Secretary stated on the 23rd of November, 1908, that it was “not the present intention of the Treasury to issue more stock on terms involving loss than will be enough to raise £5,000,000 in cash each year,” and also that “seeing that the work of the Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners must go on, £1,000,000 per annum out of the cash raised must be allotted to those departments.” The effect of this is that only £4,000,000 per annum would be available for the payment of the £58,000,000 purchase-moneys already referred to. With respect to what the Bill calls “future purchase agreements,” which are defined by the Bill (clause 12) to mean “agreements lodged with the Land Commission or entered into by the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board ” 12 IRISH LAND BILL. 4.—(1) Any money which may be raised by the creation of stock under the Act of 1903 or this Act may be temporarily raised by the issue of bills or bonds in such form and for such period not eaceeding seven years, and bearing such rate of interest not eaceeding three per cent. as the Treasury may determine. (2) The interest on or in respect of any such bills or bonds shall be charged and paid in the same manner as the dividends on stock under section twenty-nine of the Act of 1903, and the provisions of that Act respecting the income account of the Irish Land Purchase Fund shall apply as if the interest on or in respect of the bills or bonds were dividends on stock. (3) The principal money of any such bills or bonds shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be repaid out of the Irish Land Purchase Fund, and, if the capital NOTES ON CLAUSES 3 AND 4. I 3 after the 1st of March, 1909, all advances may “if the Treasury think fit * be made by the issue of three per cent. stock equal in “nominal amount " to the purchase-money. The way this would work in practice is that if the three per cent, stock was below par the Treasury would make the advance in stock, but if it was above par would make the advance in cash. Subclause (4) of clause 3 is inserted mainly for the purpose of enabling limited owners and trustees to exercise the option of taking payment in stock instead of cash in the case of pending transactions, and in the case of future transactions to agree to be paid in three per cent. Stock. CLAUSE 4. This clause enables the Treasury to raise money for the purposes of Land Purchase by the temporary expedient of issuing bills or bonds bearing interest at three per cent. redeemable at a period not exceeding seven years. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate that the power does not apply to pending as well as to future purchase agreements, and it is presumed it does, and the provision is a useful one. Subclause (2) of clause 4 has the effect of charging the interest on the temporary bills and bonds, before referred to, upon the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. I4 IRISH LAND BILL. account of that Fund is insufficient, shall be charged on and payable out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom or the growing produce thereof. Stock or fresh bills or bonds may be issued for the purpose of raising the principal money required when necessary. (4) Subsections (6) and (7) of Section thirty-sia, of the Act of 1903 (which relate to the deficiency arising from the issue of stock at a discount and the surplus arising from the issue of stock at a premium), shall apply in the case of the issue of bills or bonds under this section as they apply in the case of the issue of stock. 5.—(1) The percentage payable under section forty- eight of the Act of 1903 shall be calculated at the rates specified in the First Schedule to this Act, and for the purposes of that section the percentage at the rates so specified shall be deemed to be the percentage under that section : Provided that.-- (a) the percentage payable on the purchase money of an estate, which consists of or includes lands in respect of which there are purchase agreements entered into or deemed in pursuance of this section to have been entered into on or before the twenty-fourth day of November nineteen hundred and eight shall (so far as the percentage is payable in respect of the purchase of those lands) be calculated at the rate of twelve per cent. instead of being calculated under this section ; and Page 14. Clause 5. The bonus schedule (schedule 1) as originally in the Bill has been altered in the House of Commons. The schedule as passed by the Commons is as follows:– Number of years' purchase represented by the Advance. 2) Rate of Where the Rent is a Judicial Where the Rent is a Judicial Percentage. Rent fixed or agreed to since Rent fixed or agreed to before the passing of the Act of 1896, the passing of the Act of 1896, or the Land is untenanted. or a Non-Judicial Rent, 26 and upwards . . . . . 24 and upwards . . . . Nil. 25 and under 26 . . . . . 23 and under 24 . . . . 3 24 3 5 25 . . . . . 22 3 × 23 . . . . 4 23 } % 24 . . . . . 9]. 2.5 22 . . . . 6 22 5 9 23 . . . . . 20 3 × 21 . . . . S 21 2 3 22 - . . . . 19 3.5 20 . . . . 10 20 2 3 21 . . . . . 18 } ), 19 . . . . 12 19 } % 20 . . . . . 17 3.) 18 . . . . 14 18 9 3 19 . . . . 16 5 5 l? . . . . 16 Under 18 . . . . . . . Under 16 . . . . . . 1S It will be seen that instead of one scale of rates of bonus applying to all cases of purchase, a distinction has now been drawn between cases where the rent has been fixed since the Act of 1896 or the land is untenanted and other cases. The result is that the bonus would be slightly higher in the former class of cases than under the scale first proposed and a little lower in the other cases, viz., those where the rent has been fixed before the Act of 1896 or is a non-judicial rent, NOTES ON CLAUSES 4 AND 5. I 5 Subclause (4). The deficiency is to be made good out of the Guarantee Fund, and the surplus repaid to that Fund. CLAUSE 5. By section 47 of the Act of 1903 a fund was estab- lished called “The Land Purchase Aid Fund,” to be raised by the issue of two and three-quarter per cent. stock, out of which fund sums not exceeding twelve million pounds could be drawn for the purpose of what is now known as “The Bonus.” Under section 48 of the 1903 Act, this bonus was a sum of 12 per cent. on the amount of the purchase money of each estate sold, which the vendor received over and above his purchase money. This grant of 12 per cent. On the purchase money operated as a great inducement to tenants for life and owners of heavily encumbered estates, who otherwise could not have afforded to sell to their tenants under the 1903 Act, and to this grant much of the success of the 1903 Act may be attributed. Clause 5 of the Bill entirely alters the provisions as to the percentage or bonus. Instead of a uniform rate of 12 per cent. a sliding scale is introduced. This scale is set out in the First Schedule to the Bill, which is as follows. I6 IRISH LAND BILL. (b) where any percentage calculated under this section is payable at a higher rate than five per cent., any sum by which the amount of percentage exceeds the amount which would have been payable if the percentage were calculated at the rate of five per cent. shall be added to the purchase money and not paid to the vendor. (2) An agreement for the purchase of any estate or land, though not entered into on or before the twenty- fourth day of November nineteen hundred and eight, shall be deemed, for the purposes of this section, to be a purchase agreement entered into on or before that date, where on or before that date— (a) the vendor has lodged an originating request in manner provided by rules made under the Act of 1903 with a view to the purchase of the estate or land by the Land Commission under section six of that Act or by the Congested Districts Board under section seventy-nine of that Act ; or (b) the vendor has accepted a preliminary estimate of price made by the Land Commission with a view to the purchase of the estate or land under sections six or eight of the Act of 1903, or entered into a preliminary agree- ment with the Congested Districts Board with a view to the purchase of the estate or land under section seventy-nine of that Act ; Or Page 16. limited owner obtain for himself, NOTES ON CLAUSE, 5. 17 FIRST SCHEDULE. Number of *... ºpened Rate of Percentage. 25 and upwards . . © & Nil. 24 and under 25 . . © º 3 per cent. 23 5 9 24 tº gº tº º 4 , 22 9 9 23 & © & Cº. 5 , 2I 9 3 22 tº ºt © tº 6 , , 20 3 3 2I tº ºt © º 8 ,, I9 9 9 20 tº º tº gº I0 , , I8 5 3 I9 © tº ge e 12 , I7 35 I8 tº g e e 14 , Under I gº º tº e tº gº 16 ,, The number of years’ purchase represented by the advance is to be calculated in manner prescribed by the Treasury. It will be found that in future an owner selling to his tenant at a price which amounts to twenty-five times the annual rent of the farm sold is to receive no bonus at all, and according as the sale price becomes lower the bonus is increased from three per cent, in the case of a sale at the price of twenty-four times the rent to sixteen per cent. in the case of a sale at a price of less than seventeen times the rent. To explain the difference that this charge would make to vendors, we give the following instance. Under the Act of 1903 if a vendor sold a farm paying £100 rent per annum at the rate of twenty-four times the amount of that rent, he would have received £2,400 purchase money and bonus at the C 18 IRISH LAND BILL. (c) the Land Commission under section seven or the Congested Districts Board under section Seventy-Seven of the Act of 1903 have made an offer (which is eventually accepted) to the Land Judge for the purchase of the estate or land ; or (d) the Estates Commissioners have made an offer for the purchase of the estate or land under subsection (4) of section two of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907. (3) So much of section forty-seven of the Act of 1903 as limits the total of the sums payable to the Land Purchase Aid Fund to twelve million pounds shall cease to have effect. ſ’age 18. Clause 5, sub-clause 2 (c), sub-clause 2 (c), now stands as follows:– (c) the Land Judge in the course of proceedings in which the estate or land is eventually sold to the Land Commission under section seven, or to the Congested Districts Board under section seventy-seven of the Act of 1903, has caused the Commission or Board to be furnished with particulars and documents respecting the estate or land in pursuance of either of these sections; or The effect of this is to continue the 12 per cent. borºus to cases of sales in the Court of the Land Judge where he has before the 24th of November, 1908, furnished particulars to the Land Commissioner with a view to a sale, although no offer has been actually made, NOTES ON CLAUSE 5. 19 rate of twelve per cent., amounting to £288, making a total of £2,688 cash. Under the proposed schedule in the Bill, the vendor in the like case would receive £2,400 3 per cent. stock and £72 bonus at the rate of three per cent., making in all £2,472, or £216 less than he would have received under the Act of 1903, assuming that the 3 per cent. Stock would be at par. It will be seen from the Schedule that the operation of it would be that the lower the price charged to the tenant the higher would be the percentage or bonus payable to the vendor. Any such arrangement would of course act as a direct inducement to vendors who are tenants for life of their estates to sell at a very low price to the injury of the remainderman, as they would thereby obtain a benefit for themselves at the expense of the persons coming after them, or interested in the estate as mort- gagees, because the vendor (except in some special cases) takes the bonus for himself, unfettered by either settle- ment or mortgage. To meet this obvious objection, subclause (b) of clause 5 (1) is introduced, which proposes to limit the amount of bonus taken absolutely in any event by the vendor himself to five per cent., the residue (if any) of the bonus being made an addition to the purchase money and subjected to the trusts and mort- gages affecting the purchase money; some such provision is probably necessary if a sliding scale of bonus be adopted, but it largely takes away the inducement given by the Act of 1903 to tenants for life and incumbered owners to come to terms with their tenants and sell under the Act. C 2 20 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 5. 2} The sliding scale proposed by the Bill seems to have been taken in substance from the terms of an amend- ment given notice of by Mr. John Redmond when the 1903 Act was passing through Committee, the only substantial difference being that Mr. Redmond's scale proposed to give a bonus of at least five per cent. in any event, even if the rate of purchase exceeded twenty-five years of the rent, and went down to fifteen per cent. when the rate did not exceed fifteen years' purchase, whereas the scale now proposed gives nothing when the price reaches twenty-five years' purchase and goes up to sixteen per cent. where the rate is under seventeen years' purchase. 5 (2) Under Section 48 (3) of the Act of 1903 the Treasury were given power at the expiration of five years to revise the scale of bonus. This they did as from 24th Nov., 1908, reducing the scale from twelve per cent. to three per cent. Clause 5 (2) excepts from this reduction the cases mentioned in subclause (2), which it will be observed are all cases of sales to government departments, which have proceeded to a certain stage but have not arrived at that of complete agreement. If a preliminary agreement with the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board is sufficient to entitle the vendor to the large bonus, it may be argued that preliminary agreements between the owner and his tenants should have the same effect. In cases 5 (2) (a) (c) and (d) no agreement of any kind has been arrived at upon the crucial date of 24th November, 1908. See also clause II, post, for further provision making the original rate of bonus payable in some instances, 22 IRISH LAND BILL. 6.—(1) The charge on the Guarantee Fund for any deficiency in respect of the issue of stock or bills or bonds at a discount shall extend only to the amount of the Ireland Development Grant which forms part of the cash portion of that fund ; and the deficiency, so far as it is not made good out of that amount, shall be made good out of moneys provided by Parliament. (2) Any deficiency in interest arising by reason of money being raised by means of three per cent. stock for the purpose of advances in respect of which interest is payable by the Land Commission to the National Debt Commissioners at the rate of two-and-three- quarters per cent. Only shall be made good in the same manner as a deficiency arising in respect of the issue of stock at a discount is to be made good under subsection (6) of Section thirty-six of the Act of 1903, as amended by this section. 7. —(1) Where stock is created for the purposes of the Land Purchase Acts, and issued under conditions which provide that the money to be raised thereby shall NOTES ON CLAUSES 5, 6 AND 7. 23 5 (3) Under Section 47 of the Act of 1903 the total amount available for payment of “the Bonus" was limited to twelve million pounds. This limit is to be removed. CLAUSE 6. Under the Purchase Act of 1891, sections 5 and 6, a Guarantee Fund was established for the purpose of supplying possible deficiencies arising under the operation of the Purchase Acts. It was divided into two parts (1) A cash portion which was primarily liable, and (2) A contingent portion which consisted of the Irish share of customs and excise duties and certain local grants in aid of rates, educational purposes and maintenance of lunatics. The cash portion of the Guarantee Fund was increased under section 38 of the Act of 1903, taken in conjunction with “The Ireland Development Grant Act, 1903,” by an annual sum of £185,000. By clause 6 of the Bill, the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund is relieved from any liability to make good losses caused by issuing stock at a discount, and any deficiency in that respect is to be made good out of moneys voted by Parliament. 6 (2) This is a roundabout way of stating that the deficiency is to be made good out of the Guarantee Fund. CLAUSE 7. The object of this clause is to enable dividends to be paid on Stock issued under the Purchase Acts from the date of the actual issue of the stock, although the 24 IRISH LAND BILL. be paid up by instalments, dividends may be paid on the total nominal amount of the stock from any date fixed at the time of issue, although the instalments, or some or one of them, may not have been payable until after that date ; and if the amount so paid by way of dividend exceeds the sum which would have been payable on the portion of the stock representing the money actually paid up, the difference shall be treated as part of the expenses of the issue of the stock. (2) This section shall apply to any stock created and issued since the first day of July nineteen hundred and eight, as well as to stock issued after the passing of this Act. 8.—(1) Any person to whom an advance is made after the passing of this Act shall pay on the first gale day on which any payment in respect of the advance is due (in addition to the interest, or instalment of purchase annuity, due on that day), interest on the advance in respect of the period between the said gale day and the day on which the next dividends are payable in respect of the stock issued under the Act of 1903 or this Act. (2) The interest payable shall be at the rate at which the Land Commission pay interest to the National Debt Commissioners in respect of the advance, and shall be recoverable as if it were part of the purchase annuity. 9.—(1) The exemption from stamp duty given by section twenty-three of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, shall extend to any stamp duty payable on any mortgage or other security given by a rural district council in respect of an advance by the Irish Land NOTES ON CLAUSES 7, 8 AND 9. 25 money raised by such issue is only payable up by instalments, and also to provide that any loss caused thereby is to be treated as expenses of issue of stock. CLAUSE 8. Inasmuch as a dividend may become payable on stock issued for the purpose of advances under the Purchase Acts, the amount of which covers a period not provided for by repayment received from the tenant, a loss occurs which it is proposed to avoid by making the tenant pay with his first instalment a sum equivalent to the amount so lost. CLAUSE 9. The exemption from stamp duty given by section 23 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, only covered instruments whereby the land was vested in the District Council or relating to lettings of cottages, and did not extend to securities given for advances to the District 26 IRISH LAND BILL. Commission under section sixteen of that Act, or payable under section eight of the Finance Act, 1899, in respect of such an advance as being loan capital within the meaning of that section. (2) The Commissioners of Inland Revenue may remit any such duty which has become payable since the commencement of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, and return any such duty which has been paid since that date and before the passing of this Act. (3) The exemption from stamp duty under section fifty of the Act of 1903 shall extend to any instruments the stamp duty on which is payable as expenses of the Land Commission in the same manner as it applies to the instruments mentioned in that section. 10. Advances made under section sixteen of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906 (which are by virtue of that section repayable in like manner as advances under the Land Purchase Acts), shall be repayable as respects advances made before the passing of this Act in like manner as advances made in pursuance of pending purchase agreements, and as respects advances made after the passing of this Act in like manner as advances made in pursuance of future purchase agreements, and in the latter case the rate of interest paid by the Land Commission to the National Debt Commissioners shall be three per cent. per annum instead of two-and-three- quarters per cent. per annum. 11–(1) Where by reason of the death of the pur- chaser or the transmission of the purchaser's interest in a |Page 26. Clause 10. This clause has been altered so as to give to the authorities borrowing for the purpose of the Labourers Acts the benefit of the lower rate of interest. It now reads as follows:– 10,-(1) Advances made under section sixteen of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906 (which are by virtue of that section repayable in like manner as advances under the Land Purchase Acts), shall, whether made before or after the passing of this Act be repayable in like manner as advances made in pursuance of pending purchase agreements, and as respects all such advances the rate of interest paid by the Land Commission to the National Debt Commissioners shall be two-and-three-quarters per cent. per annum. (2) The payment charged on the Ireland Development Grant under section seventeen of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, shall, so far as that grant is insufficient to meet the payment, be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament instead of being charged upon that grant. Provided that the total amount of the payment to be charged on the said grant, or to be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament, shall not exceed twenty- eight thousand pounds in any year. NOTES ON CLAUSES 9, 10 AND II. 27 Council by the Land Commission. Section 50 of the Act of 1903 referred to in 9 (3) exempted from stamp duty documents whereby lands were vested in, or conveyed to any person under the Purchase Acts; the exemption is to be extended to other dutiable documents which the Land Commission have occasion to enter into or issue. CLAUSE 10. Under section 16 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906, the Land Commission were empowered to make advances to Rural District Councils for the purposes of building labourers’ cottages, etc., to the extent of £4,250,000, such advances to be repayable in the same manner as advances to tenants under the Purchase Acts. Clause 10 would put an end to any question which might be raised as to whether Rural District Councils might not, as regards future loans, be in a better position than tenant purchasers. CLAUSE II. (1) In certain cases fresh agreements had to be entered into with respect to the purchase of holdings 28 IRISH LAND BILL. holding, or in pursuance of a declaration of the Land Commission under section fifteen of the Act of 1903 with respect to a sub-tenancy or a sub-divided holding, a fresh purchase agreement is entered into in substitution for an original purchase agreement previously made, any such fresh agreement shall, for the purposes of this Part of this Act, be deemed to be substituted for the original agreement, and, whenever lodged with the Land Commis- sion, to have been lodged with the Land Commission at the date on which the original agreement was so lodged. (2) Where a vendor at the request of the Land Commission enters into an agreement with the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board for the sale to them of an estate consisting of or including lands, which he had proposed to sell to persons other than that Commission or Board and in respect of which purchase agreements have been lodged with the Land Commission on or before the twenty-fourth day of November nineteen hundred and eight, the percentage payable on the purchase money of the estate, or on that portion thereof which represents the purchase money of those lands (in the case of an estate comprising other lands) shall so far as the purchase money or the portion of the purchase money is not in excess of the aggregate of the purchase money fixed by the original agreements be calculated in the like manner and the purchase annuities payable on the re-sale of those lands shall be payable at the like rate as if the agreement for the sale of the estate had been entered into on or before the twenty-fourth day of November nineteen hundred and eight. NOTES ON CLAUSE II. 29 under the Acts, and such agreements, though merely in substitution for the original agreements, would, owing to being dated or lodged after 24th November, 1908, have been subject to the reduced rate of bonus. Clause II (I) is designed to obviate this and puts the substituted agreements on the same basis as the old ones, both as to bonus and rate of repayment of the advance. (2) Cases occur where the owner has agreed with his tenants or some of them and has lodged the agreements and application for sale of the estate before November 24th, 1908, and the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board desire to purchase from the same owner untenanted land not comprised in the application. In such cases the Land Commission or Board would probably desire to deal with the estate as a whole and buy it from the owner in one lot. Clause II (2) would enable the owner to fall in with such an arrangement without losing the benefit of the old rate of bonus, so far as he had actually lodged agreement before November 24th, 1908, and the tenants whose agree- ments had been so lodged would get the benefit of the old rate of repayment. It is to be hoped that this clause is not designed to encourage the Estates Com- missioners to exercise the arbitrary power which they claim to possess of stopping sales by refusing to declare the lands in respect of which agreements have been lodged, “an estate’ within the Purchase Acts, and thereby compelling the owner to sell to the Land Commission or Board and not directly to the tenants. 30 IRISH LAND BILL. 12. In this Part of this Act, unless the context Otherwise requires,- (a) The expression “pending purchase agreements * means agreements lodged with the Land Commission on or before the first day of March nineteen hundred and nine, or entered into on or before that date by or with the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board ; (b) The expression “ future purchase agreements” means agreements lodged with the Land Commission or entered into by the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board after that date: Provided that purchase agreements entered into at any time on the re-sale by the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board— (i) of land purchased or agreed to be purchased by them on or before the first day of March nineteen hundred and nine; or (ii) of land being land in respect of which or comprised in an estate in respect of which a purchase agreement, though not actually entered into on or before the twenty-fourth day of November nineteen hundred and eight Page 30. Clause 12 (a). The crucial date which decides whether agreements are to be considered “pending” or “future,” which stood originally as March 1st, 1909, has been changed in the Commons to September 15th, 1909, the words “fifteenth day of September" having been substituted ifi clause 12 (a) and (b) for the words “first day of March.” NOTES ON CLAUSE 12. 31 CLAUSE 12. The difference between “pending purchase agree- ments * and “future purchase agreements” has reference to the provisions of clauses 1 and 3 ante, which see. The rate of annuity payable by the tenant in the case of “pending purchase agreements * is £3 5s. per annum for each £100 of purchase money, while in the case of future agreements it would be £3 10s. per cent. In the case of “future purchase agreements "the vendor is to be paid (if the Treasury think fit) in three per cent. stock, to be taken at par value, while in “pending purchase agreements "vendors have either the option of waiting an indefinite time to get cash, or of consenting to the somewhat complicated arrangement detailed in clause 3 (2), by which they can take two and three- quarters guaranteed land stock at a loss, and probably obtain somewhat speedier payment. When the sale has been made by the owner to the tenants direct, the crucial date of March 1st, 1909, applies to the date of the lodgment of the agreements with the Land Com- mission ; when the sale is made to the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board the date of the agreement for sale regulates the matter. (b) The proviso in 12 (b)(i) is inserted in order to meet cases where the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board have prior to March 1st, 1909, purchased an estate for the purpose of resale to tenants or otherwise, but have not carried out the resale or distri- bution of the land, and the object is to allow the purchasers from the Land Commission or Board to 32 IRISH LAND BILL. is deemed for the purposes of the provisions of this Part of this Act relating to the percentage payable under the Act of 1903, to have been entered into on or before that date; shall be treated for the purposes of this Part of this Act as pending purchase agreements and not as future purchase agreements; (e) An order of the Land Judge under section Seven or section seventy-seven of the Act of 1903 vesting any land in the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board, and an order of the Estates Com- missioners vesting land in the Land Commission under section two of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, shall for the purposes of this Part of this Act be treated as an agreement entered into by that Commission or Board as the case may be: (d) The expression “prescribed ” means prescribed by the Treasury. 13. The power of making rules conferred on the Treasury by the Land Purchase Acts shall extend to the making of rules for carrying the provisions of this Part of this Act into effect, and for adapting to the requirements of this Act such provisions of the Land Purchase Acts passed prior to this Act as relate to finance. NOTES ON CLAUSE 12. * 33 obtain the old and lesser rate of annuity, notwith- standing that their agreements are made after March 1st, 1909, it being apprehended that otherwise there would be a difficulty in disposing of the land, the tenants being unwilling to pay the higher annuity. (b) (ii). This has reference to clauses 5 (2) and 11 ante, which see. (c). Under sections 7 and 77 of the Act of 1903 the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board may require the Land Judge to furnish them with particulars of any estate for sale in his court, and may, if they think fit, make an offer for it. If the Land Judge accepts the offer, his order has the effect of vesting the estate in the Land Commission or Board as the case may be. Under the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907, sections 2, 6, and 7, the Estates Commissioners, in the case of land taken for the purposes of that Act, make an order vesting the land in the Land Commission. I} 34 IRISH LAND BILL. PART II. LAND PURCHASE. 14.—(1) Where after the passing of this Act applica- tion is made under subsection (1) of section one of the Act of 1903 for an advance of the whole purchase money of any holding, if the Land Commission are Satisfied that circumstances exist which, in their opinion, necessitate inquiry as to the security for the advance or the equity of the price, they may by order declare that the provisions of the said subsection shall not apply, and may deal with the application accord- ingly in like manner as if those provisions had not been complied with. (2) The Judicial Commissioner and the Estates Commissioners may make rules under section twenty- three of the Act of 1903 providing for the furnishing of such particulars with respect to rent and arrears and of such information with regard to the estate as may appear necessary for the purposes of this section and for the verification of the particulars and information in such manner as they think fit. NOTES ON CLAUSE, 14. 5 5 PART II. LAND PURCHASE. CLAUSE 14. In order to explain Clause 14 and the vital effect which it may have upon the future of Land Purchase in Ireland it is necessary to refer to Section I of the Act of 1903. Prior to 1903 before an advance could be made by the Land Commission for the purchase of any holding by the tenant, there had to be an inspection and valuation by an officer of the Land Commission, to ascertain whether the holding was good security for the proposed advance by the Government, not, be it observed, whether the proposed price was a fair one, but whether the holding afforded good security for the repay- ment of the advance, which was a wholly different matter. This operated adversely to Land Purchase in two ways, (1) very great delay was caused by the necessity for this inspection; (2) though the price agreed upon between the landlord and tenant might be perfectly fair and reasonable, the inspector might consider that it was more than a prudent mortgagee would advance on the security of the holding and decline to sanction an advance of the entire of such price. Section I of the Act of 1903, in every case where the Land Commission had previously, under the Land Act of 1881 ascertained the fair rent of the holding, entirely swept away the necessity for valuation and compelled the Land D 2 36 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 14. 37 Commission to advance the price agreed upon between landlord and tenant within stated limits; the purchase annuity payable by the tenant was to be at least ten per cent. less than his former judicial fair rent, and where the judicial fair rent had been fixed before 1896, then at least twenty per cent. below that rent. These limits within which it was made obligatory on the Land Commission to make the advance are known as the “zones,” and enabled vendors to calculate with compara- tive accuracy what they would receive on sale of their estates, and rendered it possible for sales to be carried out without the great delay and expense of an inspection and valuation of each holding. Clause 14 of the Bill places it in the power of the Land Commission to decline to act upon the principle adopted in the Act of 1903—that where the Land Commission have themselves ascertained or sanctioned a certain rent as being a fair rent for a holding, it may be assumed that if the tenant is only asked to pay a purchase annuity of considerably less amount (a transaction on that basis may safely be carried out) clause 14 providing that the Land Commis- sion, if they think proper to do so, may proceed on the old lines. The clause gives no indication as to the nature or description of the “circumstances " which are to justify the Land Commission in entering upon an inquiry as to the security for the advance, or the equity of the price. It is conceivable that in the case of certain classes of tenants occupying very small and what are called “uneconomic " holdings, although fair rents may have been fixed, the means of livelihood of such tenants 38 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE I4. 39 is so precarious that in bad seasons they might not be able to pay anything, and that therefore no public money should be advanced to them to buy their holdings, but if this is the class of holding aimed at, the clause would appear to be unnecessary, as it is held by the Land Commission that under the Act of 1903 they have absolute power to declare whether or not an estate should be the subject of Land Purchase. If they think that by reason of its being composed of a number of small and uneconomic holdings it cannot properly be the subject of advances, they can, and do, decline to declare it “an estate’ for the purposes of the Act, a declaration without which no estate can be made the subject of proceedings under the Act of 1903. Any interference with what is called the zone system, upon which the success of the 1903 Act is so largely based, needs close examination, and the limits within which it is to be allowed should be strictly defined. It seems difficult to suggest any better test as to “security for the advance ’’ than the amount of the annual rent fixed by the Land Commission themselves as the fair rent. A second valuation of the holding merely means one official of the Land Commission occupying time in ascertaining whether the former official was competent or not, and the first official is just as likely to be right as the second. It has not, it is believed, ever been shown that the purchase annuities under the system introduced by Act of 1903 have been excessive, and it has over and over again been authorita- tively stated that they have been and are being paid 40 IRISH LAND BILL, 15.--(1) No advance exceeding the sum of three thousand pounds shall be sanctioned under the Land Purchase Acts to any tenant for the purchase of a holding unless he resides on the holding, and the Land Commission consider that an advance of a larger amount not exceeding five thousand pounds may properly be sanctioned. (2) A person shall be deemed to reside on a holding within the meaning of this section if he occupies a house in the immediate neighbourhood for the purpose of working or managing the holding. Page 40. Clause 15 (1). This clause has been altered by not prohibiting an advance of over £3,000 in certain cases not originally provided for. Clause 15 (1) as passed in the Commons is as follows:– 15.--(1) No advance exceeding the sum of three thousand pounds shall be sanctioned under the Land Purchase Acts to any tenant in pursuance of an agreement for a purchase of a holding entered into after the passing of this Act unless— (a) the tenant resides on the holding, or such holding is ordinarily used with the holding on which the tenant resides; or (b) a substantial portion of the holding has been tilled in each of the five years next preceding the date of the agreement and the Land Commission consider that an advance of a larger amount not exceeding five thousand pounds may properly be sanctioned. NOTES ON CLAUSES 14 AND 15. 4I. with great punctuality. There will always be a certain number of cases in which the tenant purchaser, from causes personal to himself, will be found unable or unwilling to discharge the purchase annuity, be it large or small. This is inevitable, as every one having any acquaintance with Ireland will recognise, but it affords no ground for interfering with the “Zone” system which has worked so admirably. CLAUSE 15. Clause 15 (1) reduces the amount which can be advanced to any one purchaser to the sum of £3,000 unless he resides on the holding, and the Land Commission consider that a larger advance (not exceeding £5,000) ought to be sanctioned. It is to be observed that this restriction would apply to pending purchase agreements unless subclause (3) post, prevents it from doing so. This clause for the first time introduces the limitation as to residence on the holding. Under the Act of 1903 advances up to £7,000 could be made without any condition as to residence. Clause 15 (2) This subclause is very crude. Why should a tenant be denied benefits under the Act because he happens to be, say, living with his parents or relatives and not in the strict legal sense “occupying ” a house, or because he resides at a shop 42 IRISH LAND BILL. (3) Section two of the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Amendment Act, 1888, and subsection (4) of section One of the Act of 1903, shall cease to have effect save as regards advances in pursuance of purchase agree- ments entered into before the passing of this Act. 16.--(1) No advance shall be made under the Land Purchase Acts in respect of the purchase of a holding if the tenancy was created after the first day of January in the year nineteen hundred and eight. (2) This section shall not apply to tenancies created by the Land Commission or by the Congested Districts Board. NOTES ON CLAUSES 15 AND 16. 43 or manufactory in the immediate neighbourhood of the farm, which he could not be said to be occupying for the purpose of working or managing the farm, though he in fact does so efficiently. It seems to be some- what discouraging to enterprise of any kind to insist on a farmer's actual residence being upon the land farmed. Clause 15 (3) The section proposed to be repealed allowed advances up to £5,000 to any one purchaser, where such was desirable for the carrying out of the sale of an estate, and up to £7,000 where this was the case and the holding was one which came under the Land Acts, i.e. not demesne, residential or taken for temporary purposes. CLAUSE 16. It seems difficult to see what objection there is to allowing Land Purchase to take place where the tenancy happens to be created after January 1, 1908. The distribution of land and the multiplication of occupying tenants is one of the great objects of the Purchase Acts, and the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board are doing every day, and propose to do in the future, the very thing which by this clause is forbidden to anyone else. The clause has an important effect not obvious on the surface, because it would in fact place a penalty upon the landlord if he ejected any tenant for non- payment of rent, as if he did so the holding would be for ever removed from the possible operation of the Purchase Acts. 44 IRISH LAND BILL. 17. —(1) In the case of the sale of an estate to the Land Commission advances under the Land Purchase Acts may be made for the purchase of parcels thereof by the following persons:— (a) A person being the tenant or proprietor of a holding not exceeding ten pounds in rateable value ; (b) A person being the son of a tenant or proprietor of a holding on or in the neighbourhood of the estate not exceeding thirty pounds in rateable value ; (c) A person who has surrendered his holding for the purpose of relieving congestion ; (d) A person who within twenty-five years before the passing of the Act of 1903 was the tenant of a holding to which the Land Law Acts apply, and who is not at the date of the purchase the tenant or proprietor of that holding, or in case such person is dead, a person nominated by the Land Commission as his personal representative; and (e) Any person to whom in the opinion of the Land Commission after considering the require- ments of persons mentioned in the preceding paragraphs of this sub-section an advance ought to be made. (2) Advances under this section shall not, together with the amount (if any) of any advance under the NOTES ON CLAUSE 17. 45 CLAUSE 17. This clause is to take the place of section 2 of the Act of 1903 and sets forth the classes of persons to whom advances of purchase money may be made. It does not deal with advances to a tenant for the purchase of the holding of which he is tenant, but with advances for purchase of what are called throughout the Bill “parcels” of land, the word “parcel ” being used to express a piece of land not subject to a tenancy and which the Land Commission are free to distribute as they choose provided they keep within the provisions of Clause 17. Under section 2 of the Act of 1903, the only classes of persons to whom they could give a “parcel ” of land were: (a) A tenant of a holding on the estate; (b) A son of a tenant on the estate; (c) A proprietor or tenant of a holding in the neighbourhood not exceeding £5 in rateable value ; (d) An evicted tenant. It will be seen that Clause 17 proposes to extend the powers of choice very widely. Under it the Land Commission could sell a “parcel” to any tenant or proprietor of a holding not exceeding £10 rateable value not necessarily on the same estate at all, to sons of tenants in the neighbourhood of the estate ; to persons who have surrendered holdings for the purpose of relieving congestion ; to evicted tenants, and last, but not least, to any person whomsoever 46 IRISH LAND BILL, Land Purchase Acts, which has been made and is then unrepaid by the purchaser, or for which an application by the purchaser is pending, exceed one thousand pounds : Provided that the limitation in this subsection may, subject to the other limitations in the Land Purchase Acts, be exceeded, where the Land Com- mission consider that a larger advance may be sanctioned, to any purchaser without prejudice to the wants and circumstances of other persons residing in the neighbourhood. (3) The Land Purchase Acts shall, subject to the provisions of this section, apply to the sale of a parcel of land in pursuance of this section in like manner as if the same was a holding and the purchaser was the tenant thereof at the time of his making the purchase ; and the expression “holding” in those Acts shall include a parcel of land in respect of the purchase of which an advance has been made in pursuance of this section. (4) Section two of the Act of 1903 shall cease to have effect save as regards the sale of any parcels of land in respect of which purchase agreements have been entered into before the passing of this Act, and any reference in any enactment to that section shall be construed as a reference to this section. NOTES ON CLAUSE 17. 47 to whom the Land Commission after consideration think an advance ought to be made. The term “evicted tenant’ is used to describe shortly the class mentioned in 17 (d), but so far as the Clause goes the person need never have been evicted, he might have left voluntarily or sold his tenancy, and if any such person is dead an advance could be made to any person the Land Commission choose to nominate as his personal representative. Clause 17 emphasizes and carries to further lengths a principle which never should have found its way into the Act of 1903, viz., that of enabling the Land Commission to purchase land and distribute it amongst persons who never were tenants or occupiers of land before. The proper object of the Land Purchase Acts was to convert tenants into proprietors and not to institute a general scramble for land. In the Act of 1903 this class of person was confined to sons of tenants or proprietors of small holdings in the immediate neighbourhood of the estate, but even this harmless looking provision has been largely the cause of dis- turbance and cattle-driving. The power possessed by the Land Commission to distribute land to persons not previously the occupiers of that land or of any land has excited the land hunger of the population generally and induced the commission of outrage and violence with a view to compel landowners to sell to the Land Com- mission for the ultimate purpose of distribution amongst persons who had no claim thereto. Clause 17 (1) (e) takes away all limitations as to the 48 II* ISH LAND BILL. 18–(1) It shall be lawful for the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, or the council of any county or of any rural district, to purchase any parcel of an estate under section four of the Act of 1903 for any of the purposes mentioned in that section, and the said Department or any such council, or any other body corporate having power to acquire land, may act as trustees for those purposes, and may obtain advances for the purchase. (2) Where any land is purchased by the said Department under this section, the scheme for the user of the land mentioned in section twenty of the Act of 1903 shall be framed or approved of by the Department, NOTES ON CLAUSES 17 AND I 8. 49 person to whom land may be sold by the Land Commission, and is calculated to encourage the em- ployment of intimidation with a view to compelling owners to sell to the Land Commission. Clause 17 (4). The words at the end of this sub- clause “ and any reference to any enactment in that section shall be construed as a reference to this section " were not in the Land Bill of 1908. The effect of them is to make some change in the construction of some previous Act, probably section I of the Evicted Tenants Act of 1907. There is no indication of what this change is, and if an alteration is desirable it should be done directly and not by enacting that a reference to a section in a former Act should be deemed to be a reference to a different section in a subsequent Act. CLAUSE 18. Section 4 of the Act of 1903 permitted, in the case of the sale of an estate, advances to be made to trustees approved of by the Land Commission for the purchase of lands for the purposes of turbary, pasturage, the getting of sand, gravel, or seaweed, the planting of trees, the preservation of game, fish or plantations or for the purposes of the Labourers (Ireland) Acts. The transactions under that section have been inconsider- able. The present clause (18) is designed to extend the operation of section 4 by enabling the Department of Agriculture or Local Bodies to buy land for the purposes mentioned. Clause 18 (4). The provisions of section 4 of the F. 50 IRISH LAND BILL. and the requirements of that section with regard to the framing or approval of the scheme by the Lord- Lieutenant shall not apply. (3) Where land is purchased by a county council or rural district council under this section, the amounts required for payment of the instalments of the purchase annuity shall be raised in the case of the county council as a county at large charge, and in the case of the rural district council as a district charge. (4) It is hereby declared that the provisions of section four and of section twenty of the Act of 1903, as amended by this section, apply as well in the case of the sale of an estate to the Congested Districts Board as in the case of the sale of an estate to persons other than the Congested Districts Board. 19 —(1) Where a parcel of an estate is purchased or proposed to be purchased by trustees under section four of the Act of 1903 for the purpose of the planting of trees or the preservation of woods or plantations, and the parcel is subject to any grazing rights or easements appurtenant to holdings on the estate the Land Commission may, if they think fit, on the application of the trustees, make an order releasing that parcel from all or any of those rights and easements upon such terms as to compensation and otherwise as may be agreed upon by the parties interested or, in default of agreement, may be determined by the Land Commission ; and any such order shall be effectual to release the parcel from those rights and easements in the manner and to the extent therein specified. NOTES ON CLAUSES 18 AND 19, 51 Act of 1908 have already been mentioned. Section 20 provided for the framing or approval by the Lord- Lieutenant of schemes under which lands purchased under section 4 were to be administered. CLAUSE 19. Some such enactment as this is absolutely necessary if the provisions of section 4 of the Act of 1903 are to be made workable. It is doubtful however, whether the Land Commission will be willing to deprive tenants of easements enjoyed as appurtenant to their holdings, and certainly most exaggerated claims for compensa- tion would be made, Nº. 2 IRISH LAND BILL. (2) Where any land is resold to the owner of an estate in pursuance of section three or section seventy- six of the Act of 1903, and the land is subject to any such rights or easements as aforesaid, the Land Commission may on the application of the owner exercise the powers conferred on them by the last preceding subsection as regards those rights and easements, if and so far as they are satisfied that the land, or portion thereof is required by the owner for any of the said purposes. 20–(1) The Land Commission in determining under subsection (2) of section one or under section five of the Act of 1903 whether the agreed price of a holding is equitable shall have regard to the respective interests of the landlord and tenant in the holding and in the improvements thereon, and the price shall not be deemed to be equitable if it appears to the Land Commission that any substantial part thereof represents the value of improvements made by the tenant or his predecessors in title for which he or they have not been paid or compensated by the landlord or his predecessors in title. (2) Any question which may arise under this section as to— - (a) whether an improvement was or was not made by the tenant or his predecessors in title; or (b) whether the tenant or his predecessors in title have or have not been paid or compensated for any improvement; NOTES ON CLAUSE 20. 53 CLAUSE 20. Under subsection (2) of section one of the Act of 1903 and section five of the same Act the Land Commission in cases outside the “Zones " need not sanction the advance unless they deem the price equitable. Clause 20 introduces a further condition which does not seem to be either necessary or equitable to the vendor and which will cause great delay and difficulty in practice. The meaning of it is, that in all cases not covered by the “zone" system, the Land Commission, although the agreed upon price may be absolutely secured upon the holding as it stands, may institute an investigation as to what part of the value of the holding is due to improvements made by the tenant, and cut off a proportion of the price corresponding to what they deem to be the value of the tenant's improvements. This is objectionable for two reasons. First, it cuts at the root of the principle of the Act of 1903, viz., voluntary agreement as to price, and an advance of that price provided the state is adequately 54 J IRISH LAND BILL. may (subject and without prejudice to any previous determination under the Land Law Acts) be determined by the Land Commission, who may, in their discretion, refer the question to a Legal Assistant Commissioner, and the determination of the Land Commission or such Commissioner, as the case may be, shall be final. 21.-(1) In subsection (5) of section six of the Act of 1903 (which defines a congested estate) “ten pounds” shall be substituted for “five pounds”; and the consent NOTES ON CLAUSES 20 AND 21. 55 secured. Secondly, all tenant's improvements are and Operate as security for the landlord’s rent, and the better the rent is secured the higher the price that the landlord may reasonably expect to be paid for it, and if the tenant is satisfied with the price and the state is well secured there is no reason for special legislation. It would be quite impossible to say that any particular portion of the purchase money represents the value of tenant's improvements; the value of the rent sold may be greater because it is better secured, but that is unobjectionable and fair. The effect of clause 20 would be to give a landlord whose rent was badly secured by reason of the fact that there were no improvements a similar price to one whose rent was well secured. The tenant is the best judge as to whether he is getting a bargain worth taking and fair. The procedure would in practice mean the fixing of a fair rent by one Assistant Commissioner without appeal, and it is to be noted that there is no exception made as to contracts already entered into. The meaning of “equitable price’ has been decided to be in law what it is in common sense, viz., a price agreed upon voluntarily by the landlord and tenant, the transaction being absolutely free from coercion or fraud. CLAUSE 21. The material change made by this clause is to enlarge the number of estates, which the Land Com- mission are to be allowed to purchase at a loss. In 56 IRISH LAND BILL. of the owner required by subsection (4) of that section shall cease to be required. (2) Where an estate not being a congested estate within the meaning of the said section as so amended, comprises within its area one or more congested townlands, the Land Commission, or in the case of townlands situated in a congested district county, the Congested Districts Board, may declare all or any one or more of such townlands to be a separate estate for the purposes of the Land Purchase Acts, and such townland or townlands shall thereupon be deemed for those purposes to be a separate congested eState. (3) An estate which consists exclusively of one or more congested townlands shall be deemed to be a congested estate. (4) The expression “congested townland’ means a townland in which more than one half of the holdings 3.I’6”— (a) congested holdings; or (b) holdings whose aggregate rateable value when divided by their number gives a sum of less than ten pounds for each holding: The expression “congested holding ” means— (a) a holding not exceeding ten pounds in rateable value ; and (b) a holding held in rundale or intermixed plots. 22. The powers for facilitating re-sales conferred on the Congested Districts Board by section one of the NOTES ON CLAUSES 21 AND 22. 57 the case of what are called “ congested" estates, the Lord-Lieutenant has power, under section six of the Act of 1903, to relax the general condition imposed On the Land Commission when buying an estate, that there should be a prospect of resale without loss to the state. Under the Act of 1908 in order to bring an estate within the term “congested estate’ at least half the area had to consist of holdings not exceeding £5 in rateable value, or of mountain or bog, or a quarter of the area should be held in rundale. Clause 21 brings in estates half the area of which consists of holdings of under £10 valuation. Subsections (2) (3) and (4) are necessary to enable estates consisting partly of large tenancies and partly of small to be divided so as to deal with a townland as a “congested estate’ without having to bring into consideration the area of the entire estate. CLAUSE 22. Under the sections mentioned in Clause 22 the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board 58 IRISH LAND BILL. Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1901, and on the Land Commission by section twelve of the Act of 1903, may be exercised whether the request mentioned in the said section one or in section eighty-two of the Act of 1903 is or is not made. 23. The powers of the Land Commission under section twenty-two of the Act of 1903 to determine disputes between proprietors of holdings may be exercised on the application, in the prescribed manner, of any tenants on an estate in respect of which purchase agreements have been entered into or negotiations for sale are pending, and the provisions of that section shall apply accordingly in like manner as if the tenants were proprietors of holdings. 24.—(1) When an estate is purchased or agreed to be purchased by the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board, any person having power under the Land Purchase Acts to enter into an agreement for the purchase of a holding on the estate shall have power in the prescribed manner to enter into an agreement with the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board, as the case may be, for the exchange of the holding for any other holding which NOTES ON CLAUSES 22, 23 AND 24. 59 have power to put an end to tenancies on estates purchased by the Board, with a view to migrating the tenants to other holdings, but this power could only be exercised in respect of townlands where a request to exercise it had been received from three-fourths in number and rateable value of the tenants on such townland. Clause 22 does away with the necessity for such request, which no doubt was in many cases difficult to obtain. CLAUSE 23. Section 22 of the Act of 1903 enabled the Land Commission to determine disputes between the pro- prietors of holdings which had been purchased. Owing to the great delay caused by the block in the Land Commission, it has become desirable that the determina- tion of disputes as to boundaries and so forth should not be postponed till after completion of the purchase, which may not be for several years. CLAUSE 24. The power to exchange tenancies is desirable, but subsection (2) may cause serious difficulties. In Ireland the mortgages and other charges affecting a holding previous to purchase are discovered by a search in the Registry of Deeds, and if charges are transposed en bloc to a new holding without any ascertainment of their nature or amount, a person buying the tenant pur- chaser's interest would have to try and investigate the title of some other holding, situate perhaps, in a 60 IRISH LAND BILL. is in the opinion of the Commission or the Board of not less value than the original holding and to surrender the original holding to the Commission or the Board accordingly. (2) Upon the surrender of a holding by any person under this section all charges, liabilities, and equities affecting the tenant's interest in the holding shall, without any conveyance or order, be transferred to the interest acquired by that person in the new holding. (3) The lands comprised in the original holding shall, notwithstanding the surrender of the holding, continue to be subject to all easements and profits a prendre to which they were subject at the time of the Surrender. (4) For the purpose of any application or order under subsection (6) of section one of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1901, with respect to charges, liabilities, and equities affecting the tenant's interest in a holding, it shall not be necessary to specify the several charges, liabilities, and equities, or any of them. 25. Where the tenant of any holding charged with the repayment of any moneys expended or to be expended by the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board in erecting or improving buildings on the holding enters into an agreement with the Commission or the Board for the purchase of the holding under the Land Purchase Acts, he shall not by reason of anything contained in section thirty-five of NOTES ON CLAUSES 24 AND 25. 6] different county as well as the title to the holding he was buying. Page 60. Clause 24, a new sub-clause (5) has been added, apparently with a view of meeting the difficulties raised in respect of investigation of title where a holding has been exchanged. The new sub-clause is as follows:– (5) When a holding to which any charges, liabilities, or equities have been transferred, whether under this section or under section one of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1901, 1 Edw. 7. c. 34, is sold under the Land Purchase Acts, the particulars to be transmitted to the registering authority pursuant to section thirty-two of the Act of 1896 shall include particulars of the original holding from which the charges, liabilities, or equities have been transferred, and where the registering authority in any such case dispenses with the ascertainment of burdens, the note which he is required to make under sub-section three of section twenty-nine of the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, 1891, 54 and 55 Vict, c. 66, shall contain such modifications or additions as may be necessary for the purpose of protecting any transferred charges, liabilities, or equities. CLAUSE 25. Under section 35 of the Act of 1896 in the case of a sale to a tenant, all previous liabilities of the tenant to the vendor in respect of the holding were wiped out and made irrecoverable. This provision is proposed to be relaxed where the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board are vendors, so far as is necessary to preserve the right to recover moneys previously advanced for erecting or improving buildings. * 62 IRISH LAND BILL. the Act of 1896 be discharged from liability in respect of that charge. 26. The jurisdiction, powers and duties of the Land Commission under the foregoing provision of this Part of this Act shall be exercised and performed exclusively by the Estates Commissioners. 27. The Estates Commissioners may, by order, delegate all or any of their powers to any one or two of their number, and anything done by any one or two of the Estates Commissioners in pursuance of any such delegation shall be as valid and effectual as if it were done by all the Estates Commissioners. 28. Where an estate is vested in the Land Commission by a vesting order made by them, the purchase-money may be paid into the Bank of Ireland and invested in like manner as if the estate had been sold to persons other than the Land Commission, and the provisions of subsection three of section twenty- four of the Act of 1903 shall apply in the case of every sale to the Land Commission where the purchase money has been invested under this section. NOTES ON CLAUSES 26, 27 AND 28. 63 CLAUSES 26 AND 27. The effect of these clauses is that in respect of the most important functions of the Land Commission, viz., those relating to the carrying out of sales to tenants and the advance of money therefor, the term “Land Commission * used in the Act is an entire misnomer. “Land Commission ” means “Estates Commissioners,” and “Estates Commissioners” will in practice be one Estates Commissioner; and without appeal except on a question of law. CLAUSE 28. Under section 24 (2) of the Act of 1903 a vendor of an estate was entitled, pending distribution of the purchase money, to receive three and a half per cent. interest. Where the estate was sold to the Land Commission this rate of interest was payable without any power of deducting from the corpus of the purchase money, any deficiency arising from the dividends received on the purchase money pending distribution being less than three and a half per cent. It was, it is to be supposed, presumed that where the Land Com- mission purchased they had full opportunity of investi- gating the title of the vendor previous to completion, which in cases of direct sales from landlords to tenants could not be done. The present clause puts the Land Commission, when purchasers, on the same basis as if the estate was sold direct to the tenants, and brings 64 IRISH LAND BILL. 29. Without prejudice to any restriction under subsection (2) of section nine of the Act of 1903, the Land Commission shall not in any one year enter into agreements for the purchase of congested estates which will involve, according to their estimates, a total loss on the re-sale of the estates of a greater sum than that which may be fixed by the Treasury for that year. 30.-(1) When the reserve fund established under paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section five of the Act of 1891 is eahausted, any money required by the Land Commission for the eaercise of their powers under sub- section (1) of section twelve of the Act of 1903 shall, wp to an amount approved by the Treasury in each year, be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament. (2) The said reserve fund shall, when it is exhausted, cease to exist as a separate fund, and any sums which under any Act or otherwise are to be paid into that reserve fund, shall be paid into the Exchequer. NOTES ON CLAUSES 28, 29 AND 30. 65 into operation subsection (3) of the Act of 1903, which makes any deficiency of dividends to meet the three and a half per cent. interest deductible from the corpus of the purchase money. The clause is, of course, adverse to vendors, and requires to be noted in relation to the provisions for compulsory purchase to which the provisions of clause 28 would apply, as well as to voluntary sales. CLAUSE 29. The limit of loss which under the Act of 1903 the Land Commission could incur in reference to the purchase and resale of “congested estates’’ was ten per cent. The Treasury under clause 29 would have power to fix the amount, but still subject to the ten per cent. limit provided by section 9 of the Act of 1903. CLAUSE 30. The reserve fund referred to is a sum of £200,000 provided by a contribution of £40,000 per annum till that sum was reached. It formed portion of the Guarantee Fund, which was to be applied in making good any deficiencies in the Land Purchase account. F 66 IRISH LAND BILL. 31–(1) Regulations made by the Treasury may provide that where the Land Commission have evpended money on the improvement of an estate purchased by them, and on the re-sale of the estate the sums realised by them eaceed the sum originally advanced from the Irish Land Purchase Fund for the purchase of the estate, the National Debt Commissioners may advance to the Land Commission a sum equal to the excess, or if that sum eaceeds the amount eapended by the Land Commission on the improvements, a sum equal to the amount So eapended, for repayment to the reserve fund if that fund has not been eahausted, and if that fund has been eahausted, for repayment to the Eachequer. (2) Where the amount realised by the Land Commission on the re-sale of a congested estate, or of an estate not being a congested estate on the improvement of which the Land Commission have expended money, is less than the sum originally advanced from the Irish Land Purchase Fund for the purchase of the estate, the deficiency in the case of a congested estate, and in the case of an estate not being a congested estate, so much of the deficiency as does not exceed the amount so expended on improvements, shall be charged upon the reserve fund, if that fund has not been exhausted, and if that fund has been evhausted, or so far as that fund is not sufficient for the purpose, Shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament, and credited in manner directed by the Treasury to the Irish Land Purchase Fund. NOTES ON CLAUSE 31. 67 CLAUSE 31. Clause 31 (I) takes the place of subsection (3) of section 43 of the Act of 1903, which subsection is by subsection 3 of clause 31 proposed to be repealed. The effect of clause 31 (1) is to provide that where the Land Commission make a profit on a re-sale they are to get credit for such profit against any sum which they may have expended in making improvements on the holding. Clause 31 (2) deals with cases where the Land Commission re-sell at a loss in the case of “congested estates,” or lose money over improvements in the case of other estates. In these cases the deficiency is to be charged on the reserve fund, and if that is exhausted is to be provided for by Parliament. 68 IRISH LAND BILL. (3) Subsection (3) of section forty-three of the Act of 1903 shall cease to have effect. 32–(1) Where the Land Commission deem it expedient to expend any money on the improvement of a holding sold or agreed to be sold by a landlord to a tenant, they may, in accordance with regulations to be made by the Treasury, enter into an agreement with the tenant for the repayment of the money so expended in the same manner as if such money was advanced under the Land Purchase Acts for the purchase of the holding and the said money shall be repaid by an additional annuity accordingly. (2) So far as circumstances admit the additional annuity shall in accordance with regulations to be made by the Treasury be consolidated and made payable with the purchase annuity. (3) Regulations made by the Treasury may provide that where the repayment of any money eaſpended by the Land Commission is secured by an additional annuity wnder this section, the National Debt Commissioners may advance to the Land Commission the said money for repayment to the reserve fund if that fund has not been exhausted, and if that fund has been eachausted, for repayment to the Erchequer. 33. For the purposes of subsection (4) of section forty-eight of the Act of 1903, an estate shall be deemed to be so circumstanced that it would, inde- pendently of the Act of 1896, be sold without the NOTES ON CLAUSES 32 AND 33. 69 CLAUSE 32. Clause 32 enables the Land Commission to execute improvements on a holding sold or agreed to be sold by a landlord to a tenant, and to agree with the tenant for repayment of the amount in the same way as the tenants purchase annuity. It is a question whether this power will conduce to the willingness of the Land Commission to advance the agreed upon purchase money of the holding, as the lower the purchase money the greater will be the security for their own advance for improvements. CLAUSE 33. Section 48 of the Act of 1903 is the section dealing with the “bonus.” Under it (subsection (4)) no bonus was to be payable in the case of any sale by the Land Judge where the estate was so circumstanced that the 70 IRISH LAND BILL. consent of the owner as to price if the consent of the person who is owner would not be required in his capacity as owner, notwithstanding that his consent might be required in the capacity of incumbrancer or some other capacity. 34.—(1) As between the Land Commission and the proprietor for the time being of any holding for the purchase of which the Land Commission have, after the passing of this Act, made any advance under the Land Purchase Acts, the following conditions shall be imposed in addition to the conditions mentioned in section fifty-four of the Act of 1903, namely:- (a) The proprietor shall not without the consent of the Land Commission acquire by purchase any other holding for the purchase of which an advance has been made under the Land Purchase Acts if the amount of that advance, when added to the amount of the advance or advances made in respect of the holding or holdings then held by the proprietor, NOTES ON CLAUSES 33 AND 34. 71 owner would under the practice in the Land Judge's Court have no voice in the question as to whether the price was sufficient, in other words no bonus was to be payable in the case of sales by the Land Judge where the estate was hopelessly insolvent. The Courts held however that where an owner had also a charge upon the land, which charge would probably be reached, it could not be said that he had not a voice in the question of price, although his real interest was as mortgagee and not as owner. Clause 33 proposes to prevent the bonus being payable where the real interest of the owner is as an incumbrancer and he has no interest as owner in the ordinary sense of the term. CLAUSE 34. This clause has two objects (a) to prevent a tenant who has bought a holding or holdings, and obtained an advance of £3,000 or upwards for that purpose, buying the holding of any other tenant proprietor, the idea being to prevent the accumulation of land in the hands of the larger proprietor ; (b) to prevent the wholesale destruction of timber which too frequently has taken place as soon as the tenants have become proprietors. There is also a provision putting a tenant who has agreed to purchase under the same restrictions as to tree-cutting as if he had actually purchased. As to 34 (1) (a) the attempted restriction in buying land, the endeavour to prevent the industrious tenant purchaser, who succeeds in Saving money, from buying other holdings will be futile; the restriction can be easily 72 IRISH LAND BILL. would exceed the sum of three thousand pounds, and if any proprietor acquires any holding in violation of this condition the Land Commission may cause that holding to be sold. (b) The proprietor shall not, without the consent of the Land Commission, cut down or remove, or permit to be cut down or removed, any tree upon the holding which is in the opinion of the Land Commission necessary for the ornament or shelter of the holding or for the security of the advance, and if any such tree is cut down or removed in violation of this condition, the proprietor shall be guilty of an offence under this Act, and shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a penalty not exceeding five pounds for each tree so cut down or removed. (2) Where, after the passing of this Act, a tenant enters into an agreement for the purchase of his holding under the said Acts, the foregoing condition with respect to the cutting and removal of trees shall, as from the date of the agreement, apply to the holding in like manner as if the advance had been made unless and until the application for an advance is refused or withdrawn. A (3) Subsection (2) and subsection (3) of section thirty of the Act of 1881, as amended by any enact- ment, shall apply to any sale by the Land Commission under this section. NOTES ON CLAUSE 34. 73 evaded by buying in the name of a member of the family, and no legislation will prevent the Irish tenant farmer acquiring more land than his original holding if he has money to do so. As to 34 (1)(b) the preservation of timber, unless it is made the duty of somebody to inspect the tenant proprietor's holding from time to time and put the subsection in force, it will not effect the desired object of preventing the country being stripped of such timber as still exists. Clause 34 (2). This would be a useful enactment, because until the sale is carried out the landlord has an interest in preventing the trees being removed from the holding, and at present he has to resort to the cumbrous and expensive method of applying to the Court of Chancery. Clause 34 (3). The enactments referred to are those enabling the Land Commission to compel a sale of the holdings of tenant purchasers who have subdivided, but the Land Commission at present have quite enough to do without troubling about these matters so long as the purchase annuity payable out of the holding is duly discharged. Page 72, line 1, Clause 34 (1) (a), Clause 84 as it originally stood prohibited *. proprietor from purchasing other holdings to an extent which woul ICl 8, i the total State advances upon the holdings held or acquired by him excee the sum of £3,000. This limit of £3,000 was increased in the Commons to 45,000, the words £5,000 being substituted for £3,000 in Clause 34 (1) (8). 74 IRISH LAND BILL. 35. The Land Commission, where interest on the purchase-money of any holding is payable to them, shall have for the recovery of such interest the same remedies as they have for the recovery of unpaid instalments of a purchase annuity, and in addition and without prejudice to those remedies, may, if they think fit, exclude from the estate any holding in respect of the purchase-money of which one year's interest is in arrear. 36. The provisions of subsection (2) of section sixty-nine of the Act of 1903 (relative to the appoint- ment by the Land Commission of an administrator of a deceased applicant for an advance) shall apply in any case where the applicant dies before the advance is made. 37. Where interest on the purchase money of any land agreed to be sold under the Land Purchase Acts is payable— (a) to the Land Commission under section thirty- five of the Act of 1896 ; or (b) by the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board under section eighteen of the Act of 1903 as extended by this Act, the owner of any superior or intervening interest or any incumbrancer may at any time before the land NOTES ON CLAUSES 35, 36 AND 37 75 CLAUSE 35. The Land Commission can recover arrears of the purchase annuity by sale, civil bill, action in the High Court, or distress. Clause 35 is rendered necessary by the long interval which at present exists between the agreement for sale and the completion of the purchase, during which interval the Land Commission collects from the tenant interest on the purchase money in lieu of rent. CLAUSE 36. This clause seems to be intended to enable the Land Commission to appoint a limited administrator even where there is already a legal personal representa- tive of the tenant. It is doubtful whether the terms of the clause really extend to such a case, but if the legal personal representative was not available the power might be useful. CLAUSE 37. The object of this clause is to enable the head land- lords or incumbrancers to apply to the Land Commission for payment of their demands pending sale. At present they have to institute proceedings in other courts as if no agreements for sale to the tenants had been made. Like many other provisions of the Bill, the necessity for it arises from the great delay between the contract for sale and the completion and payment of the purchase money. 76 IRISH LAND BILL. is vested in the purchaser or purchasers apply to the Land Commission for an order that payment in respect of the annual income of his claim be made to him out of the interest on the purchase money, and in such case the Commission, if they are satisfied that the justice of the case so requires, may make the order accordingly. 38—(1) The powers conferred on the Land Com- mission by section one of the Irish Land Act, 1907, for the purpose of the disposal of the mining rights mentioned in that section shall include a power to demise such rights to any person by way of take note or prospecting lease for any term not exceeding two years, at such rent and upon such conditions as the Land Commission think proper, with an option to the lessee to take a reversionary lease upon the like or such other terms as may be agreed on. (2) On any demise under the said Act of 1907 as amended by this section a royalty rent variable according to the price or value of the minerals gotten, or a fixed rent or both may be reserved to the Land Commission. (3) It shall not be obligatory upon the Land Commission to publish the advertisement mentioned in subsection (5) of section one of the said Act on granting any such reversionary lease if an advertise- ment has been published pursuant to that subsection before the execution of the take note or prospecting lease. NOTES ON CLAUSE 38. 77 CLAUSE 38. Under section 13 (3) of the Act of 1903, in the case of land sold under the Purchase Acts, the exclusive right of mining and taking minerals is reserved to the Land Commission. By section 1 of the Irish Land Act, 1907, the Land Commission are empowered to sell or let such rights in such manner as they think proper and at the best rent obtainable, first publishing a notice of their intention to do so and inviting offers. No provision was made as to the power to give a prospecting lease with an option to the lessee to take a reversionary lease, Clause 38 is intended to supply this omission, 78 IRISH LAND BILL, 39.—(1) Where negotiations have been entered into or proposals have been made for the purchase under the Land Purchase Acts of any estate or untenanted land not situated in a congested districts county and the parties have failed to come to an agreement, the Estates Commissioners may, if they think fit, send to the person who appears to them to be the owner a final offer in writing for the purchase of the estate or untenanted land. (2) The final offer shall contain the following particulars : (a) A description of the estate or untenanted land to which the offer relates : (b) The amount of the price which the Estates Commissioners are willing to give for the estate or untenanted land, subject— (i) to any public rights affecting the estate or untenanted land ; (ii) to any maintenance charges under the Public Works Acts; and (in the case of an estate); (iii) to any interests of the tenants or of persons having any claims upon those interests, and to any easements, rights, and appurtenances mentioned in section thirty-four of the Act of 1896; but Save as aforesaid, and subject to the provisions of the Act of 1903 with respect to minerals discharged from the claims Page 78. After clause 38 of the original Bill, four new clauses were added in the Commons, which now appear in the Bill as Clauses 39, 40, 41 and 42. The new clauses are as follows:– 39.-(1) Where any land purchased by means of an advance under the Land Purchase Acts is settled land within the meaning of the Settled Land Acts, 1882 to 1890, the trustees of the settlement may, on the request of the tenant for life, notwithstanding anything in the settlement to the contrary, invest the purchase money, or any part thereof, in the following manner (that is to say):— (a) With the sanction of the Public Trustee— (i) in any of the public stocks or funds or Government securities of any foreign government or skate, or (ii) in the mortgages, bonds, debentures, or debenture stock of any railway in the United States of America, Mexico, the Argentine Republic, or Canada, which has, during each of the five years last past before the date of investment, paid a dividend on its preference stock (if any) or its ordinary stock; (b) and without such sanction— (i) in the mortgages, bonds, debentures, or debenture stock of amy railway company in the United Kingdom incorporated by special Act of Parliament which has, during each of the five years last past before the date of investment, paid a dividend on its preference stock (if any) or its ordinary stock, or in the preference stock of any such railway company which has, during a like period, paid a dividend on its ordinary stock; (ii) in the stocks or shares of any tramway or light railway, dividends upon which are guaranteed under the Tramways (Ireland) Acts, 1860 to 1900; or (iii) in the stock, mortgages, bonds, debentures, or debenture stock issued or to be issued by the council of any county or urban district in the United Kingdom under the authority of any Act or Provisional Order; and may from time to time, subject to the like conditions, vary any such investment. (2) The Public Trustee, in any case in which his sanction is required for an investment under this section, shall, before Sanctioning the investment, satisfy himself that there is a reasonable probability that the investment will, if realised on the death of the tenant for life, or the termination of the trust, produce an amount not less than the sum invested; and the Public Trustee shall not incur any liability on account of any Samotion given or withheld by him in good faith. (3) The powers of investment conferred upon trustees by this section shall be in addition to any powers of investment conferred on trustees by the terms of the settlement or by Act of Parliament, and such last-mentioned Page 78. powers may be exercised notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the settlement. (4) A trustee shall not incur any liability by reason of any investment made by him in exercise of the powers conferred by this section. (5) Sub-sections (1), (2), and (3) of section fifty-one of the Act of 1903 shall cease to have effect. 40. A barrister-at-law or solicitor shall not be deemed to have retired from practice by reason of his having been temporarily appointed and having acted as an examiner of the Land Commission under the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts. 41.--(1) The Estates Commissioners may make proposals and enter into negotiations— (a) for the purchase, under section six of the Act of 1908, of any estate not situated in a congested districts county, notwithstanding that an application has not been made to them by the owner under that section ; (b) for the purchase, under section eight of the Act of 1903, of any untenanted land not situated in a congested districts county, whether required for the purposes mentioned in that section or for the purpose of re-sale to any persons to whom parcels of land may be sold under this Act. (2) For the purpose of enabling the Estates Commissioners to ascertain the boundaries, extent, and character of any estate or untenanted land which they propose to purchase and to estimate the price to be offered for the same, any inspectors or other persons appointed by the Commissioners may, after notice sent by post to the person who appears to the Commissioners to be the owner thereof, enter upon the estate or untenanted land and make all such inquiries and do all such things as may be necessary for the purpose aforesaid. 42.—(1) Where the Estates Commissioners have made a proposal for the purchase of an estate or untenanted land, and the owner objects to the proposal on the ground that adjoining lands belonging to him have not been ncluded in the proposal, if the Estates Commissioners refuse to withdraw the proposal or to amend the same by including therein such adjoining lands the owner may, within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, apply to the Judicial Commissioner for an order that no further proceedings be taken upon the proposal. (2) Upon any such application the Judicial Commissioner may, if he is satisfied that the said adjoining lands would be substantially depreciated in value by the purchase of the estate or untenanted land as proposed, order that no further proceedings be taken for the purchase of the estate or Page 78. untenanted land upon the proposal unless within a time to be named in the Order the Estates Commissioners amend the proposal so as to include the said adjoining lands or such portion or portions thereof as, in the opinion of the Judicial Commissioner, ought properly to be included. The four new clauses do not need any extended remarks upon them. Clause 39 deals with the investment of trust funds and gives powers for that purpose which go very largely beyond those now possessed by trustees, introducing many securities which cannot be considered as very safe, but the remainderman is protected or supposed to be protected in some cases by the necessity for the approval of the investment by the Public Trustee. Clause 40 is of importance only to those professional gentlemen who have accepted the office of temporary Examiner of Titles in the Land Commission. Clause 41 is of some importance taken in conjunction with the compul- sory powers proposed to be given by the Bill, as it extends the powers of the Estates Commissioners in respect of initiating negotiations for purchase, which may ultimately result in the application of compulsion. Under section 6 of the Act of 1903 the Commissioners could only act upon the application of the owner, and under section 8 of the same Act their powers in respect of the acquisition of untenanted land were restricted. Clause 42 is apparently designed to meet the glaring injustice which would result from the Estates Commissioners taking compulsorily a portion of the land in the occupation of the owner, the deprivation of which might most materially reduce the value of the portion left. There is no provision in the Bill enabling the owner to get what are called consequential damages resulting from the taking away from him the land compulsorily acquired. Why this is so, it is not easy to understand. Under the Lands Clauses Act, an owner can obtain compensation for the injury done to him by the taking of the land, quite apart from the actual value of the plot of land taken, con- sidered by itself, such as damages for severance. Under the Bill the onus is placed upon the owner of applying to the Judicial Commissioner, and the only remedy he can get is an order preventing the Estates Commissioners pro- ceeding with the purchase unless they include the adjoining lands of the owner, who is thus given a sort of choice of evils, viz., either having part of his land taken without any compensation for the damage done to the rest, or at the option of the Estates Commissioners having the entire taken, even though it may be his residence or sole means of livelihood. Clause 43 is clause 39 in the original Bill, with a verbal alteration in the fourth line substituting the words “and no agreement has been arrived at ” for the words “and the parties have failed to come to an agreement.” Sub-clause 2 of clause 41, as the Bill originally stood, came in as sub- clause 6 in section 39, but has been transferred to the end of the new clause 41. NOTES ON CLAUSE 39. 79 CLAUSE 39. This clause introduces the principle of compulsory purchase. It is outside the scope of these observations to enter into a discussion as to the necessity or other- wise of such a radical change in the law, except so far as to point out that there are at present voluntary sales to the extent of about fifty-six million waiting to be completed, and that in all probability this cannot be done for many years. It would be a very great hard- ship upon the landlords and tenants who have voluntarily agreed and are at present suffering great pecuniary loss by reason of the block in the Land Commission, if their cases were to be postponed by reason of purchases made by the Land Commission under the powers now proposed to be introduced. It is to be assumed (though this does not appear to be clear under the Bill) that if property is taken compulsorily the purchase money must be provided at once, and therefore any operation under this clause would necessarily displace some pending purchase agreements. On the other hand if it is not intended by the clause to enable the Land Commission to interpolate and give a preference to estates compulsorily purchased there seems to be no immediate necessity for present legislation on the subject as it will be years before the voluntary agree- ments are cleared off. Clause 39 itself is in the widest terms possible. It is assumed that the phrase, “Where negotiations have 23 been entered into " includes cases where the tenants wish to buy and the owner refuses, and vice versä, even 80 IRISH LAND BILL, of all persons who are interested in the estate or untenanted land, whether in respect of superior or intervening interests or incumbrances or otherwise ; and (e) The time within which the offer may be accepted. (3) If within the time specified in that behalf in the final offer, the offer is accepted in writing by any person who within the prescribed period satisfies the Estates Commissioners that he may be dealt with as the owner of the estate or untenanted land under section seventeen of the Act of 1903, the offer and acceptance shall as from the date upon which the Estates Commissioners certify that they are so satisfied, have the same effect as an agreement for the purchase of the estate or untenanted land under the said Act as amended by this Act, and the like consequences shall ensue and the like proceedings shall be carried on as in the case of such an agreement save that the advance for the purpose of the purchase shall, notwith- standing anything to the contrary in this Act, be made by means of money and not by means of stock, except in cases where the vendor agrees to accept in lieu of cash an amount of guaranteed three per cent. Stock equal in nominal amount to the sum to be advanced, and carrying dividends as from the date of the advance, and the Estates Commissioners agree that the advance shall be made in that manner. (4) If the said offer is not accepted as aforesaid the Estates Commissioners may, if they think fit, proceed NOTES ON CLAUSE 39. 8]. though one party has refused from the start and there are no “negotiations "in the proper sense of the word. At any rate, either party could make a “proposal” to the other which would bring the case within the clause even if the other party did not reply to such proposal. As under the Bill the Land Commission are to have power to sell land, not merely to tenants but to any persons whomsoever (clause 17) it would appear to be sufficient to ground jurisdiction under clause 39 for any person whether tenant or otherwise who desires to obtain a portion of another person's land to make a proposal to such person that the Land Commission should purchase it for the purpose of resale to the applicant, and the Land Commission could, if they thought fit, act accordingly. There are many cases in which compulsory sale, apart from general considerations as to its advisability, would work great injustice. It by no means follows that the person who is in receipt of the rents is in a position to make legal title to the estate. Even under the voluntary principle it has frequently occurred that the person who has purported to sell believing himself to be the real owner has discovered when his title to the purchase money was investigated that the lands really in law belonged to somebody else, though if he had not sold he would never have been disturbed. When the sale is voluntary the vendor has, of course, nobody to thank but himself, as he should have known his own title, but if com- pulsory he would be deprived of both property and purchase money by the Act of the Land Commission G 82 IRISH LAND BILL. to acquire the estate or untenanted land compulsorily in manner provided by Part IV. of this Act. (5) In estimating the price to be named in the final offer the Estates Commissioners shall have regard to the provisions of the Act of 1903, as amended by this Act, in respect of advances and to the prices which the tenants and other persons are willing to give for the holdings (if any) and parcels of land comprised in the estate or untenanted land. (6) For the purpose of enabling the Estates Com- missioners to ascertain the extent and character of the estate or untenanted land, and to estimate the price to be named in the final offer, any inspectors and other persons appointed by the Estates Commissioners may, after notice sent to the person who appears to them to be the owner thereof, enter upon the estate or untenanted land and do all such things as may be necessary for the purpose aforesaid. NOTES ON CLAUSE 39. 83 presumably done for the benefit of the public. Cases which will undoubtedly occur are those where owners under a doubtful title have been in possession for several years and at the expiration of a few more years would have an indefeasible title under the Statute of Limitations. If the land of persons in such a position is to be taken compulsorily the result would be that they would get nothing at all. Justice requires that the title of every owner whom it is proposed compulsorily to expropriate should previously be investigated to such an extent as may be necessary to demonstrate that he has such a title as would enable him to receive the purchase money without reasonable fear of adverse claimants. The danger referred to is not an imaginary one ; several actual instances could be given, if required, of estates where if they were now compulsorily purchased and the money distributed under the Acts, the owners who are now practically safe would be deprived of their property. It may be said that the same thing might happen in respect to land taken under the Lands Clauses Acts, but this is not so. Plots taken for railways and so forth are generally only a small portion of an estate, and the owner, if his title is dubious, allows the purchase money to be paid into Court, and is entitled to be paid the dividends for an indefinite time without making out any other title than the fact that he has been in receipt of the rents. He waits a few years until his title is made good by the Statute of Limitations, and then applies for and gets paid the capital. Under the Land Purchase Acts the G 2 84 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 39. 85 dealing is with entire estates and, what is just as important, the purchase money has under the Act to be distributed at once. The title goes before the Examiner of Titles without delay, and notices are served upon every one who appears to be even possibly interested in the purchase money, thus bringing up at Once all possible claimants, and in the case of a bad title the result is ruin. 39 (2) (b) It is to be observed that the price to be offered is not what one would have expected it to be—the value of the property to be purchased—but the sum which the Estates Commissioners are willing to give; the mean- ing of this phrase is explained by 39 (5). It is to be the amount which tenants and other persons may be willing to buy their holdings and other parcels of land for. The price which the owner will get is not regulated by the value of what he is selling, but is cut down in two ways. First, the Estates Commissioners must see that the land is security for the sum they offer, and “security" is something different and necessarily less than fair price; and secondly, the sum to be offered to be regulated by what the tenants are willing to pay, and this may be less even than what the Estates Commissioners may think would be adequately “secured.” It would appear to be only the barest justice that on any com- pulsory sale the owner should be offered the full value of the estate and not a price regulated by question of “security " and what the tenant may deem fit to give. Unless this is completely provided for, the offer men- tioned in clause 39 may as well be left out altogether 86 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 39. 87 and the price left in the first instance to be decided in accordance with Part IV. There is no provision in clause 39 (2) enabling (as was done in the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907) a vendor, if he thinks fit to reserve sporting rights, and as sect. 99 of the Act of 1903 is expressly confined to transactions under that Act, it is apprehended that under clause 39 the exception of certain sporting, mineral, and water rights provided for by sect. 99 may not extend to compulsory sales under clause 39. 39 (3) As this clause provides that the acceptance of an offer is to have the same effect as an agreement for purchase, the result would appear to be that the compulsory sale would differ from all other compulsory taking of land in the important matter that the owner would have to bear the costs of making title out of his own purchase money, instead of such costs being paid by the body purchasing, as in every other enactment, enabling land to be taken compulsorily. 39 (4) There appears to be no reason why the manner of compulsory purchase should not be dealt with by this part of the Bill. Most important steps in the process of acquisition are dealt with by clause 39. 39(5) Reference has previously been made to this sub- clause. It is obvious that if the Estates Commissioners are before purchasing an estate to have to conduct long negotiations with tenants and other persons as to what prices the Estates Commissioners will sell the land at, after they have taken it compulsorily, the manage- ment of the estate will be materially interfered with, 88 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 39. 89 and collection of any rent will become very difficult, especially if (as contemplated by the Bill) the owner is to be deprived of recovering any arrears of rent due at the date of sale, as this is a direct inducement to the tenants to avoid payment of rent to the owner iſ possible. An extraordinary feature of the procedure instituted by the clause is that the owner of the land is on compulsory purchase to be deprived of all arrears of rent due to him and of all remedy for recovery of any sums due to him by the tenants in respect of the holding in any way. The way that this curious result is arrived at is, that under Part IV. of the Bill (clause 58 (6)) upon a compulsory purchase all the like consequences are to accrue as if the estate had been sold voluntarily, in which case, under section 35 of the Act of 1896, the vendor is precluded from recovering arrears of rent. In the case of voluntary sales the question of arrears is a matter of arrangement between the landlord and tenant; prior to the conclusion of the agreement for purchase, the land- lord can take steps to recover the arrears before he commences negotiations, or the arrears can to some extent be taken into consideration when the price is being arrived at. In cases of compulsory purchase under the Bill the landlord would lose the arrears, and they certainly would not and could not be taken into consideration by the Court in arriving at the price to be paid for the land. It is obvious that the owner should be paid the fair value of his estate and be allowed to get his arrears of rent, but under the clause the latter item is entirely swept away. 90 IRISH LAND BILL, PART III. CONGESTED DISTRICTs. 40–(1) From and after the appointed day the Congested Districts Board for Ireland shall be a body corporate bearing the name of the “Congested Districts Board for Ireland * with a capacity to acquire and hold land, and to sue and be sued by its corporate name. (2) The Board shall have an official seal, which shall be officially and judicially noticed, and such seal shall be authenticated by the signature of a permanent member of the Board, or of the secretary. (3) In the execution or performance of any power or duty conferred upon or transferred to the Board by or in pursuance of any enactment, the Board shall adopt and use the style and seal of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland. (4) The powers and duties of the trustees of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland under any enact- ment shall, on the appointed day, be transferred to the Board. (5) Subsection (3) of section thirty-four of the Act of 1891 and subsections (2) and (3) of section two of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1893, shall cease to have effect as from the appointed day. Page 90. Clause 44 is clause 40 of the original Bill, NOTES ON CLAUSE 40. 9I PART III. CONGESTED DISTRICTs. CLAUSE 40. The Congested Districts Board was constituted by section 34 of the Land Purchase Act of 1891 and consists of two ex officio members, viz., the Chief Secretary and one member of the Irish Land Commission, five ordinary members appointed by the Crown, and temporary members not exceeding three, also appointed by the Crown, making altogether a Board not exceeding ten in number. By section 35 of the same Act interest on a sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds out of the Irish Church Temporalities Fund was placed at the disposal of the Board together with certain other moneys and grants. By section 36 of the Act of 1891 a congested districts county was defined as a county where more than 20 per cent. of the population lived in electoral divisions of which the rateable value when divided by the number of the population gave a sum less than £1 10s. for each individual. Under sections 37 and 39 of the same Act the duties of the Board were to take steps in reference to the amalgamation of small holdings, migration from one holding to another, providing seed potatoes and seed oats for sale, and aiding and developing agriculture, forestry, the breeding of live stock and poultry, weaving, spinning, fishing 92 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 40. 93 and other suitable industries. Any land required for the purposes of the Board was purchased by and in the name of the Land Commission. By the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act 1893, the Board were given the power of acquiring land directly, such land being vested in Trustees for the Board, and the Land Commission advancing the necessary money to tenants to enable them to repurchase from the Board. By the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1894, the Board were empowered to give a guarantee to the Land Commission against loss by default of tenant purchasers to such an extent as the Treasury might allow, and the Board were given the powers of the Lands Clauses Acts (other than the compulsory powers) as if they were promoters of an undertaking. The powers of the Board were largely extended by the Act of 1903. Under section 38 of that Act the Board obtained a grant of £20,000 a year out of the Irish Development Grant, and by Part II. of the same Act (sections 72 to 85 inclusive) the Board obtained with respect to lands to be dealt with by them many of the most important powers given to the Irish Land Commission, amongst which may be mentioned powers of reselling parcels of land to tenants in the neighbour- hood or sons of tenants and of purchasing estates the subject of proceedings in the Court of the Land Judge. Speaking generally, the Board have the fullest power of purchasing lands for all purposes necessary to carry out the objects aimed at, and of dealing with such lands, but were not to have in hand at any one time 94 IRISH LAND BILL. Page 94. Clause 45 is clause 41 of the original Bill, with a proviso added at the end of sub-clause 3 preventing a permanent member of the new Congested Districts Board being removed from office except by an Order in Council. 41.--(1) From and after the appointed day, the Con- gested Districts Board shall consist of the following members:— (a) The Chief Secretary, the Under-Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, and the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture and Tech- nical Instruction for Ireland, who shall be ex-officio members: (b) Five members appointed by His Majesty (in this Act referred to as appointed members): (c) Nine members representing the congested districts counties, of whom one shall be elected by the local authority of each con- NOTES ON CLAUSES 40 AND 41. 95 untenanted lands exceeding in value thirty times the interest in a fund called the Church Surplus Grant, and all lands were vested in trustees for the Board. Clause 40 of the Bill proposes to make the Board a Corporate Body capable of acquiring and holding land in its corporate capacity, and the necessity for trustees is done away with. Clause 40 (5) subsection (3) of section 34 of the Act of 1891 was a provision by which certain arrears of purchase annuities were paid to the guarantee fund, and subsections (2) and (3) of section 2 of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1893, dealt with the conveyance to and holding of land by trustees for the Board, which clause 40 would render unnecessary. CLAUSE 41. By this clause it is proposed to make a radical change in the Board, which is to have exclusive jurisdiction (clauses 44 and 56) as to the purchase of land in eight counties and a large part of a ninth. The present constitution of it has already been stated (see notes on clause 40). It is now proposed to introduce nine elected members, the electoral body in each case except that of Cork being the County Council, and in the case of Cork, inasmuch as a congested districts county is formed by putting together four rural districts in the West Riding of that county council, a special electoral body is formed consisting of persons chosen by the four rural district councils as a joint committee, see clause 44. 96 IRISH LAND BILL, gested districts county (in this Act referred to as representative members): (d) Two paid members appointed by His Majesty (in this Act referred to as permanent members). (2) An appointed member shall hold office for four years and shall be eligible for re-appointment. (3) Each of the permanent members shall hold office during pleasure, and shall be paid by the Board out of the funds at their disposal an annual salary of two thousand pounds. (4) His Majesty may fill any casual vacancy in the office of appointed or permanent member by appointing a member in the place of the member whose office is Vacant. (5) Every existing member of the Congested Dis- tricts Board who is not an ex-officio member, or is not appointed or elected under or in pursuance of this section, shall cease to hold office on the appointed day. 42—(1) The representative members shall hold office for terms of six years (the first whereof shall date from the appointed day) and shall be eligible for re-election. (2) A representative member may resign office by giving notice to the secretary. (3) A casual vacancy occurring through death, resignation or otherwise, in the office of representative member shall be filled by the election of a person by the local authority by whom the person whose office is vacant was elected. Page 96. Clause 45 is elause 42 of the O£iginal Bill, NOTES ON CLAUSE 4I. 97 Two paid members, with a salary of £2,000 each, are also added to the Board. The composition of and administration by the Board under the present Bill differs from that proposed by the Bill of last year. An additional permanent member is added to the Board in the present Bill, thus giving a majority of one to what may be called the official members, assuming that all the ea-officio members attended, and the powers given to the Administrative Committee, constituted by clause 43, are greatly extended, with a view presumably to keeping as much as possible out of the control of the elected members. When we consider the compulsory powers proposed (clause 57) to be conferred on the Board, and the fact that the electoral bodies are themselves elected almost entirely by tenant farmers or proprietors, it will be seen that the introduction of the elective element may be fraught with grave consequences to classes of the community who are without representation on the Board. The reader is referred to the introduction to this part of the Bill, ante, p. xx, for information as to the working of the Board as at present constituted, and as to the great services rendered by the present and past members. The new constitution proposed by the Bill would, beyond all question, introduce opportunities for bringing to bear political and party influence upon the policy of the Board. \\ 98 IRISH LAND BILL. (4) A person elected to fill a casual vacancy shall retire from office at the same time as the person whose office is vacant would have retired. 43.−(1) There shall be an Administrative Committee of the Congested Districts Board consisting of the Chief Secretary, the Under-Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, the permanent members and two other members of the Board not being ex officio members, to be chosen by the appointed and the representative members. (2) The Administrative Committee shall control the finance of the Board. (3) Subject to such control, the Board shall have power to determine all matters arising in relation to the purchase or re-sale of land or the aiding and developing of agriculture, industries or fishing under the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts as amended by this Act. (4) The powers and duties of the Board shall, sub- ject to the foregoing provisions of this section, be exercised and performed by and through the Admini- strative Committee. §’age 98. Clause 47 is clause 43 of the original Bill. Clause 48 is clause 44 of the Original Bill. 44.—(1) For the purposes of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts, as amended by this Act, each of NOTES ON CLAUSES 43 AND 44. 99 CLAUSE 43. The Administrative Committee is to control finance, and will have upon it a majority of ex officio and official members ; there cannot be more than two elected members upon it. The powers of the Committee with respect to finance could, of course, be used to prevent injustice being done with respect to other matters, but if this is the object or one of the objects of the clause, it could only be attained by applying financial objections in cases where the objection may not really be one of finance but of a different character. Clause 43 (3) and (4). Subsections (3) and (4) are peculiar because while purporting to give to the Board generally the determination of all matters relating to the important duties of the Board, it is provided that subject to this the powers and duties of the Board are to be performed by the Administrative Committee. Possibly the idea is that the full Board should have meetings of a more or less ornamental character two or three times a year, and should really not be allowed to do anything of consequence, and that the real work of the Board should be carried on by the Committee as a practically independent body. CLAUSE 44. The important consequences of placing such a large portion of Ireland under what may be called the H 2 100 IRISH LAND BILL. the following administrative counties, that is to say, the counties of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Kerry, shall be a congested districts county, and the four rural districts of Bantry, Castle- town, Schull, and Skibbereen, in the county of Cork, shall together form one congested districts county. (2) The council of the administrative county shall be the local authority of the congested districts county, except in the case of the congested districts county in the county of Cork. (3) For the purposes of this Part of this Act there shall be a joint committee of the councils of the rural districts of Bantry, Castletown, Schull, and Skibbereen, consisting of two persons chosen out of their body by each of the said councils, and that committee shall be the local authority of the congested districts county in the county of Cork. (4) No electoral division shall, after the passing of this Act, be or form part of a congested districts county, unless it is included in a congested districts county constituted under this section. (5) The Local Government Board for Ireland may make rules regulating the election, meetings, and procedure of the said joint committee. 45—The powers and duties of the Congested Districts Board under any enactment, so far as they relate to any of the following matters; namely:- NOTES ON CLAUSES 44 AND 45. 101 exclusive jurisdiction of the Board may be gathered from a reference to clauses 56 and 57, which prevent the application of the Purchase Acts except through the medium of the Board, and thus make vital changes in the position of landowners throughout this great portion of the country, and practically abolish the present land purchase system in eight counties and portion of a ninth. Page 100. Clause 49 is clause 45 of the original Biº- CLAUSE 45. The Agricultural Department have done much good work in Ireland, and the standard of agriculture has distinctly improved in many districts owing to the I O2 IRISH LAND BILL. (a) The provision of seed potatoes or seed oats ; (b) Agricultural instruction or practical husbandry : OI’ (c) The aiding and developing of forestry or the breeding of live stock or poultry; shall on the appointed day be transferred to the Depart- ment of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland (in this Part of this Act referred to as the Department), and shall from that day cease to be exercised or performed by the Board. 46–For the purpose of advising the Department and the Congested Districts Board with a view to the co-ordination of the administration of the business of the Department and the Board respectively in relation to the aiding and developing of sea fisheries in areas in which they have concurrent powers or duties, there shall be a consultative committee consisting of six members, of whom three shall be nominated by the Department, and three shall be nominated by the Board. 47–As from the appointed day an annual sum of one hundred and sirty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament, as follows:— Page 10%. Clause 56 is clause 46 of the Griginal Bill. Clause 5} is clause 47 of the original Bill. NOTES ON CLAUSES 45, 46 AND 47. 103 assistance and instruction afforded by that Department. The Department are to get £19,000 a year for the purpose of fulfilling the duties transferred to them. Whether the proposed change would have the effect of throwing upon the Department a financial burden which the provisions of clause 47 would not adequately meet is a question about which there must be some doubt. CLAUSE 46. This clause deals only with sea fisheries, and leaves out what might be made a source of the greatest profit and benefit in many of the congested districts counties, namely, the tidal and inland salmon and trout fisheries. By a slight effort at combination between the tenant purchasers holding lands abutting on rivers and lakes, and with some assistance from the Department and Board the inland fisheries could be developed to an extent hardly dreamt of, large amounts of money could be brought into the country and much employment given. To neglect this source of wealth would be a most short-sighted policy. CLAUSE 47. The division of the annual sum of £163,000 between the Congested Districts Board and the Agricultural Department is sure to be a fruitful subject of dispute in the future. I04 IRISH LAND BILL. Out of that sum an annual sum of nineteen thousand pounds shall be paid to the Department for the purpose of the eatercise of the powers and the per- formance of the duties transferred to the Department wnder this Act, and the residue shall be paid to the Congested Districts Board: Provided that at any time after the expira- tion of five years from the appointed day the Lord- Lieutenant may, on the application of the Department or the Board, from time to time direct that the amount payable to the Department for the purpose aforesaid shall be increased or reduced, and the increased or reduced amount shall as from the date fixed by the Lord-Lieutenant be the amount payable to the Depart- ment under this section. 48––(1) Where any powers and duties are trans- ferred by this Part of this Act from one authority to another authority : (i) all property, whether real or personal (including easements and rights and things in action) held by or in trust for or vested in the first authority for the purpose or by virtue of those powers and duties, shall without any conveyance or assurance pass to and vest in the other authority subject to all debts and liabilities affecting the same ; and (ii) the latter authority shall hold the property for the estate interest and purposes and subject to the covenants, conditions, and restrictions NOTES ON CLAUSES 47 AND 48. I 05 YPage 104. Clause 52 is elause 48 of the original Hill. CLAUSE 48. As the duties mentioned in clause 45 are trans- ferred from the Congested Districts Board to the Department of Agriculture, it is necessary to provide for the transfer of the property held by the Board in connection with such duties and to arrange with respect to the carrying on of pending proceedings. This is done by clause 48. IO6 IRISH LAND BILL. for and subject to which the property would have been held if this Act had not passed so far as the same are not modified by or in pursuance of this Act; and (iii) all debts and liabilities of the first authority incurred by virtue of those powers and duties shall become debts and liabilities of the latter authority; and (iv) in any proceedings relating to those powers and duties and pending at the time of the transfer to which the first authority is a party, the latter authority shall be substituted for the first authority and the proceedings shall not abate by reason of the substitution ; and (v) any reference to the first authority in any enactment, Order, instrument, contract, or other document in relation to those powers or duties shall, so far as is necessary for the exercise of those powers or the discharge of those duties, be construed as a reference to the latter authority. (2) The expression “authority" in this section means the Congested Districts Board, the Department and the trustees of the Congested Districts Board. 49.--(1) The Lord-Lieutenant, by Order in Council, may do all or any of the following things (that is to say):— (i) Regulate the proceedings and meetings (including quorum) of the Congested Districts Board and of the Administrative Committee; NOTES ON CLAUSES 48 AND 49. 107 Page 106. Clause 58 is clause 49 of the original Bill. Clause .54 answers to clause 50 in the original Bill, but has been amended ºby the insertion of a new sub-clause (1), and now reads as follows:– 54.—(1) It shall be lawful for the Congested Districts Board, with the approval of the Treasury, to grant to any permanent member of the Board on retirement such superazanuation or other allowance (if any) as he would have been qualified for, under the provisions of the Superannuation Acts 1834 to 1892, or any Acts amending the same, if he were retiring from the permanent Civil Service of the State. Any such allowance shadi be payable out of the funds at the disposal Gf the Board. Provided that where a permanent member was at the time of his appointment a permanent Civil Servant of the State such portion of the allowance,as the Treasury determine to be properly payable in respect of his previous service in that capacity shall be payable in the same manner as a superannuation or other allowance under those Acts. (2) The Congested Districts Board may, with the approval of the Treasury, make a scheme providing for the grant of pensions or gratuities, according to the scale and subject to the Gonditions (so far as applicable) prescribed by the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1892, or any Acts amending the same, to such officers or persons employed by them, not being otherwise pensionable, as may be from time to time approved by the Treasury; and the Board may pay to any such officers or persons Out of the funds at their disposal such pensions or gratuities under the scheme as the Treasury may sanction in each case. CLAUSE 49. The Lord-Lieutenant is to make Orders in Council, which cannot fail to be of more importance in reference to the working of the Board than might appear at first sight. The powers of the elected members of the Board Will depend largely upon the frequency of the meetings I08 IRISH LAND BILL, (ii) Regulate and define the powers and duties of the permanent members; (iii) Make such regulations as appear to him necessary or expedient for carrying into effect this Part of this Act. (2) An Order of the Lord-Lieutenant in Council under this section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after it is made, and if within the next subsequent forty days on which either House has sat that House presents an address to His Majesty praying that any such Order may either in whole or in part be annulled, His Majesty in Council may annul the same either in whole or in part as the case may require, and the Order or part so annulled shall thenceforth become void without prejudice to the validity of any proceedings taken under the same in the meantime : Provided that where any Order or any part thereof is so annulled, the Lord-Lieutenant in Council may within six months thereof make another Order in place of the Order or part so annulled, subject never- theless to be laid before Parliament, and to be annulled by His Majesty in Council in manner above mentioned, and so on as often as the case requires. 50. The Congested Districts Board may, with the approval of the Treasury, make a scheme providing for the grant of pensions or gratuities, according to the scale and subject to the conditions (so far as applicable) prescribed by the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1892, NOTES ON CLAUSES 49 AND 50. IO9 of the Board as a whole in contradistinction to the meetings of the Administrative Committee. The power to “regulate and define the powers and duties of the permanent members” leaves it open to the Lord-Lieutenant directly or indirectly to give to such permanent members powers which the other members will not have. CLAUSE 50. The Congested Districts Board have already a con- siderable staff, and if the Bill passes the staff would no doubt have to be largely increased. II 0 IRISH LAND BILL or any Acts amending the same, to such officers or persons employed by them under subsection (3) of section three of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1894, as may be from time to time approved by the Treasury; and the Board may pay to any such officers or persons out of the funds at their disposal such pensions or gratuities under the scheme as the Treasury may sanction in each case. 51–(1) The Board may sell any parcels of any land purchased by them whether before or after the passing of this Act or purchased on their requisition under this Act to any tenants or proprietors of holdings in a congested districts county. (2) If any parcels of such land are not required for, or having regard to the circumstances of the estate, land, or district cannot advantageously be sold to, such tenants or proprietors, the Board may sell those parcels to any sons of tenants or proprietors of holdings situated in a congested districts county and not exceeding ten pounds in rateable value. (3) Where the Congested Districts Board sell any parcel of land to the son of any tenant or proprietor under this section, they shall insert in their annual report to the Lord-Lieutenant full particulars of the sale and the circumstances in which the same was made. (4) The provisions of this Act with respect to the application of the Land Purchase Acts to parcels of land shall apply in the case of the Sale of any parcel of land under this section. NOTES ON CLAUSE 51. 1 II *age 113. Clause 55 js clause 51 of the original B11}. CLAUSE 51. This clause replaces section 75 of the Act of 1903, which provided for sale by the Board of parcels of land to tenants or proprietors of holdings not exceeding five pounds in rateable value or to sons of such tenants. Under clause 51 all limits of valuation are removed as to sales to tenants or proprietors; and sales can be made to Sons of tenants occupying holdings not exceed- ing £10 annual value. Section 75 of the Act of 1903 is specifically repealed by sub-clause (5) of clause 51. Clause 51 (4). See clause 17 and notes thereon. It is presumed that 51 (4) does not intend to extend the class of persons to whom the Congested Districts Board can sell, to all the classes of persons mentioned in clause 17, but only to apply the provisions of sub- clause (3) of clause 17 to the sales made under clause 51. Under clause 17 the Land Commission can sell under the Purchase Acts to tenants, sons of tenants, evicted tenants or, indeed, to anyone they think fit. II 2 IRISH LAND BILL. (5) Section seventy-five of the Act of 1903 shall cease to have effect. 52. Where an estate is purchased by the Congested Districts Board, and tenants on the estate to the extent of three-fourths in number and rateable value have agreed to purchase their holdings, the Board may order that the remaining tenants or any of them shall be deemed to have accepted the offers made to them by the Board in any case where, under section eighty of the Act of 1903, the tenant could have obtained an advance of the entire purchase money. Page 112- Clause 56 is clause 52 of the original Bill. Clause 57 is clause 53 of the original Bill. 53. The powers conferred on the Land Judge by subsection (6) of section fifteen of the Act of 1903 (which relates to sub-tenancies and sub-divided holdings) for the purposes of the sale of an estate by the Land Judge to the Land Commission may be exercised by the Land Judge for the purposes of the sale of an estate by him to the Congested Districts Board. NOTES ON CLAUSES 52 AND 53. II 3 CLAUSE 52. This clause extends to the Congested Districts Board a power given to the Land Commission by section 19 of the Act of 1903, which section enabled the Land Commission, in the case of estates purchased by them and where tenants to the extent of three- fourths in number and rateable value have agreed to purchase, to compel the residue of the tenants to purchase at the prices at which the Land Commission has offered to sell, and which they think may properly be advanced on the security of the holdings. Section 80 of the Act of 1903 referred to in clause 52 provided that where the Congested Districts Board, in the case of tenants purchasing from them, certified that the land was sufficient security the Land Commission should sanction the required advance. CLAUSE 53. Section 15 of the Act of 1903 enabled the Land Judge in the cases of estates sold by him to the Land Commission to declare any parcel of land in the occupation of a sub-tenant to be a holding for the purposes of the sale of it to the sub-tenant under the Purchase Acts, the value of the interest of the middle- man in such land being ascertained by the Judge and paid for out of the purchase money, and the section also provided for making separate holdings where one I II.4. IRISH LAND BILL. Page 114. Clause 58 is clause 54 of the original Bill. 54. Where, after the passing of this Act, the Con- gested Districts Board enter into an agreement under section seventy-nine of the Act of 1903, for the purchase of an estate or untenanted land, the provisions of section eighteen of that Act (which relates to rents and profits recoverable by the Land Commission) shall apply in like manner as they apply in the case of land agreed to be purchased by the Land Commission, subject to the following modifications (that is to say):- (a) The Congested Districts Board shall be sub- stituted for the Land Commission ; (b) All rents and profits and arrears of rent payable to the Board shall be recoverable by the Board in like manner as if the Board were the owner of the estate or untenanted land. 55. The Congested Districts Board shall not, after the passing of this Act, enter into an agreement for the purchase of any land which is not situated in a congested districts county. NOTES ON CLAUSES 53, 54 AND 55. II.5 holding was held jointly or in common by several persons, and such persons were in exclusive occupation of separate portions but no legal division into separate holdings had been made. Clause 53 extends these powers to estates sold by the Land Judge to the Congested Districts Board. CLAUSE 54. Section 79 of the Act of 1903 is the section which enabled the Congested Districts Board to agree to purchase an estate from any person who was certified by the Land Commission to be a person who might be dealt with as owner, that is any person who gave prima facie evidence of ownership, and had been six years in receipt of the rent of the estate (section 17 of Act of 1903). Section 18 of the Act of 1903 empowered the Land Commission to recover from the tenants arrears of rent due at the date of the purchase of an estate by the Land Commission. Clause 54 extends the same powers to the Congested Districts Board in the case of estates purchased by them. CLAUSE 55. This clause confines the operation of the Congested Districts Board as regards the purchase of estates to the eight counties and portion of a ninth which are made congested districts counties by clause 44. I 2 II 6 IRISH LAND BILL, 56.--(1) The Land Commission shall not, after the passing of this Act, enter into an agreement for the purchase of any land situated in a congested districts county, save with the consent of the Congested Districts Board: Provided that this subsection shall not apply in the case of any land required for the purposes of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907. (2) No congested estate situated in a congested districts county shall, after the passing of this Act, be sold under the Land Purchase Acts, to persons other than the Congested Districts Board without the consent of that Board, which consent shall not be withheld unless the Board undertake to purchase the estate within a reasonable time: Provided that this subsection shall not apply in the case of any sale of a congested estate in pursuance of an originating application or request lodged before the passing of this Act. Page 116. Clause 60 is elause 56 of the original Bill. Clauses 61 and 62 are new clauses added in the Commons. Clause 61 is, With a few verbal alterations, the same as sub-clause (3) of clause 57 in the original Bill, which sub-clause has been made a separate clause, and clause 62 merely applies to the Congested Districts Board the provisions proposed by the new clause 42 in the case of proposed purchases by the Estates £ommissioners. NOTES ON CLAUSE 56. 117 CLAUSE 56. Subclause (1) of this clause prohibits the Land Commission (except with the consent of the Congested Districts Board) from purchasing estates in the counties mentioned in clause 44, except for the purposes of providing land for evicted tenants, just as clause 55 prevents the Congested Districts Board from buying land elsewhere than in such counties. Subclause (2) contains provisions of great import- ance. The effect of it is that in a large portion of Ireland the owners of estates are prohibited from availing themselves of the provisions of the Purchase Acts unless the consent of the Congested Districts Board is obtained. The expression “congested estate ’’ means an estate not less than half the area of which consists of holdings not exceeding ten pounds in rate- able value or of mountain or bog land, or not less than a quarter of the area of which is held in rundale or intermined plots (clause 21 of the Bill and section 6 (5) of the Act of 1903). The majority of estates situate in the counties mentioned in clause 44 as congested districts counties come under this definition, for although an estate may largely consist of substantial holdings of more than ten pounds rateable valuation, the area of mountain and bog may easily exceed the area of the profitable land. The owners of such estates are by clause 56 put in this unpleasant position—they cannot sell to their tenants under the Purchase Acts with- out the consent of the Congested Districts Board, and there can be no market otherwise, owing to the powers II. 8 IRISH LAND BILL. Page 118. Clause 63 is clause 57 in the original Bill, with sub-clause (3) left out, this sub-clause appearing as a new clause No. 61. 57–(1) Where negotiations have been entered into or proposals have been made for the purchase under the Land Purchase Acts of any estate or untenanted land NOTES ON CLAUSES 56 AND 57. 119 of compulsory purchase which may at any time be exercised by the Congested Districts Board (clause 57). It is true that the Congested Districts Board are not to refuse consent unless they undertake to purchase within a reasonable time, but this purchase is to be at the price offered by the Board themselves with an appeal to the Judicial Commissioner, and the provisions of the clause appear to be illusory because no owner could enter into negotiations with his tenants when uncertain whether he would be allowed to carry out this sale or not, and there is nothing in the clause to enable an owner, before negotiating with his tenants about sale, to call upon the Board either to consent or to undertake to purchase, and if this new disability is to be placed upon the Owners of land in nine counties of Ireland, there should certainly be some provision allowing an owner to give notice to the Board that he intended to sell, and that he required the Board to either consent or undertake to purchase. Furthermore the term “reasonable time ’’ should be defined. So far as appears by the clause all the Board have to do is to undertake to purchase within a reasonable time, and no indication is given as to what the Board may construe this to mean or what remedy the owner is to have if owing to financial reasons or otherwise the Board choose to postpone the purchase indefinitely. CLAUSE 57. This clause gives to the Congested Districts Board in the counties under their jurisdiction (see clause 44) the same right to institute proceedings for compulsory 120 IRISH LAND BILL. situated in a congested districts county, and the parties have failed to come to an agreement, the Congested Districts Board may, if they think fit, send to the person who appears to them to be the owner a final offer in writing for the purchase of the estate or untenanted land. (2) The provisions of Part II. of this Act with respect to the particulars to be inserted in a final offer sent by the Estates Commissioners shall apply in the case of a final offer sent by the Congested Districts Board under this section, with the substitution of the Congested Districts Board for the Estates Commis- sioners, and the provisions of Part II. of this Act with respect to the acceptance of a final offer sent by the Estates Commissioners, shall apply in the case of the acceptance of a final offer sent by the Congested Districts Board, with the substitution of section seventy- nine of the Act of 1903 for section seventeen of that Act. (3) For the purpose of enabling the Congested Dis- tricts Board to ascertain the extent and character of the estate or untenanted land, and to estimate the price to be named in the final offer, any inspectors and other persons appointed by the Board may, after notice sent to the person who appears to the Board to be the owner thereof, enter upon the estate or untenanted land and do all such things as may be necessary for the purpose aforesaid. (4) If the final offer is not accepted in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this section, the Congested Districts Board may, if they think fit, send NOTES ON CLAUSE 57. 121 purchase as is given to the Land Commission with respect to the rest of Ireland by clause 39, which see. In considering the question as to the principle under- lying these clauses 39 and 57 it has to be remembered that in neither case is there any reciprocity, an owner of land cannot in any way compel the State to purchase his land, while on the other hand he has always hanging over his head the possibility of this being done. This works against the owner in a way not obvious unless it is clearly understood what the particular class of persons really affected is. The Purchase Acts only apply to cases where the owners have certain specified descriptions of interest in the lands, viz., either in fee simple or fee farm or for a lease for a term of which not less than 60 years are unexpired, and the meaning of untenanted land as used in the Purchase Acts is land in the possession of such an owner, and the compulsory purchase provisions of the Bill put him in the position of lying under a disability affecting no other class of the community. It is not easy to under- stand why a man farming his own land and who has not borrowed money from the State to purchase it, but has paid for it himself, should be liable at any time to have it taken away from him and distributed amongst strangers, while the man who has purchased by means of the bounty of the State is to be exempt. An owner in occupation would never feel safe in improving his land or settling down to any industry or occupation in the country, if at any time the Congested Districts Board have power to step in and take away his 122 IRISH LAND BILL, to the Estates Commissioners a requisition calling upon the Estates Commissioners to take steps to acquire the estate or untenanted land compulsorily in manner provided by Part IV. of this Act. NOTES ON CLAUSE 57. 123 property compulsorily. Even if the provisions of the Bill gave power to the Board to take land in the occu- pation of persons who have purchased under the Acts and are paying an annuity to the State, it is obvious, having regard to the constitution of the Board, that this would never be done, as the nine elected members of the Board would largely represent tenant purchasers, and owners properly so called would not be represented on the Board at all. There is another reason why both the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board when looking out for land to acquire always choose what they call untenanted land, and that reason is a financial one and is this. It is found by experience that if land is in the hands of a tenant purchaser or a tenant, the cost of acquiring the interest of the tenant purchaser or tenant is very large. The occupation interest of the tenant sells in the market for a very large sum, and if tenanted land were to be taken and anything like the market price paid for it, the price would run to a very high figure. It seems an absurdity to say that a parcel of land is of less value when owned entirely by one person and in the occupation of that person than it is when owned by one person but in the tenancy of another, the actual thing got by the purchaser, viz., the land itself, being the same in both cases, but it is clear from the evidence given before the Dudley Commission that in the view of the Estates Commissioners, or some of them, an owner having the land in his own hands and untenanted ought to get little or nothing for occupation interest, and ought only to be paid a certain 124 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 57. 125 number of years' purchase upon what the Estates Commissioners might consider to be the fair rent of the parcel of land if let to a tenant. Indeed the Land Commission and Congested Districts Board would be in a serious difficulty if they acquiesced in any other view, because if they have to pay the full competition value for untenanted land when buying it, they must lose substantially when selling it under the Purchase Acts, as they are supposed to see that the public money advanced to the man they put in occupation is adequately secured, and the full competition value would not be adequately Secured. You cannot, in fact, lend the full value of land upon a mortgage of it and have that full value adequately secured, and therefore in every case where untenanted land is taken extraordinary efforts are made to cut down the price, because when resold to an occupier placed upon it he can only be called upon to pay an annuity calculated upon a sum adequately secured, which annuity is nothing like the full annual value of the land. In fact in every case where the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board sell land acquired by them to a new occupier, they really make a present to that occupier of a very valuable interest which he could sell the next day for a large sum of money. The value of this present they do not wish to pay the owner of the land from whom they bought, as it would be a clear loss to them. Experience of the methods of official valuation obtained through the working of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, has demonstrated this to be the case. I26 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 57. I27 57. (1) The negotiations may be negotiations entered into with the owner either by tenants or the Congested Districts Board, or probably by persons who have no land but wish to get some. In the case of untenanted land what probably would occur would be, that the persons wanting it would, if qualified to become pur- chasers under clause 51, go to the Board and ask the Board to negotiate, or, of course, the Board of its own initiative might desire to acquire land for its migration Schemes. 57. (2) All particulars as to the “offer " will be found at clause 39 (2) and (3). It does not appear that the Congested Districts Board are specifically bound by the provisions of clause 39 (5), which practi- cally limits the amount of an offer by the Land Commission to the amount at which they have ascer- tained they can resell to occupiers, which amount, as it must in the opinion of the Land Commission be adequately secured as distinguished from being a fair price, will always be less than the fair price of the land. It is apprehended, however, that as under section 80 of the Act of 1903, the Congested Districts Board certify to the Land Commission that the advances to the purchasers are adequately secured, the same principle will apply to purchases by the Board as are laid down in clause 39 (5) with respect to purchases by the Land Commission. One matter which ought to be made perfectly clear is the question whether the bonus is payable to the owner on sales to the Congested Districts Board, 128 IRISH LAND BILL, Page 128. Clause 64 is clause 58 of the original Bill, with an additional sub-clause at end, which is as follows:– (8) In fixing the price to be paid for an estate or untenanted land under this section, no additional allowance shall be made on account of the purchase being compulsory, PART IV. COMPULSORY PURCHASE. 58.--(1) The Estates Commissioners in any case where they propose to acquire compulsorily an estate or untenated land—- (a) in respect of which a final offer has been sent by them and has not been accepted in manner provided by this Act; or (b) in respect of which they have received a requisition under this Act from the Con- gested Districts Board shall publish in the Dublin Gazette a notice containing NOTES ON CLAUSES 57 AND 58. I 29 whether such sales are voluntary or compulsory. Up to the present time purchases by the Congested Districts Board have been made under the Acts and parts of Acts relating specially to the Board and its powers, and not under the Land Purchase Acts, and this appears to be still intended, because under clause 63, Part III. of the Bill dealing with purchases by the Board is not to be read with the Land Purchase Acts, but is put into a different category, and probably on a compulsory purchase by the Board no bonus would be payable unless special provision is made with respect to it. PART IV. COMPULSORY PURCHASE. CLAUSE 58. Part IV. of the Bill commencing with clause 58 is the part of the Bill headed Compulsory Purchase, but as we have seen the principle of compulsory purchase is introduced in clauses 39 and 57, and Part IV. only deals with the machinery of such purchase and the tribunal to assess value in case of an appeal to the Judicial Commissioner. The application to the Judicial Commissioner is not called an appeal in the Bill, and rightly so, as in practice the offer of the Land Commission having regard to their principles K I 30 IRISH LAND BILL. particulars of the final offer of the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board as the case may be and stating that the Estates Commissioners intend to purchase the estate or untenanted land described in the final offer at the price named in such offer, unless within the prescribed time an application is made under this Part of this Act to the Judicial Commissioner by any person interested in the estate or untenanted land. (2) A copy of the final offer and of the aforesaid notice shall as soon as possible be served in the prescribed manner by the Estates Commissioners upon all persons known or believed by them to be interested in the estate or untenanted land. (3) Any person interested in the estate or untenanted land who is dissatisfied with the price named in the final offer may within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner apply by way of objection to the Judicial Commissioner to fix the price to be paid for the estate or untenanted land. (4) The Judicial Commissioner shall, with the assistance of two specially qualified lay assessors, hear in the prescribed manner and determine all applications coming before him under this Part of this Act, and for that purpose shall have and may exercise the powers conferred on the Land Commission by subsection (1) and subsection (3) of section forty-eight of the Act of 1881, and his decision on any question other than one of law shall be final. (5) An appeal shall lie to the Court of Appeal NOTES ON CLAUSE 58. I3] as regards the valuation of untenanted land and the restrictions imposed by 39 (5) and the enactments requiring them to see that the advance is adequately secured, would never be accepted, and the application to the Judicial Commissioner would be a matter of COUII’S62. (1) As nobody except possibly some of the officials reads the Dublin Gazette, the publication of a notice therein is mere waste of money, so far as it is intended to give actual notice to anyone interested. (2) No means are provided by which the Estates Commissioners are to ascertain who is interested in the lands. As the clause stands the only person whom the Estates Commissioners will have any reason to believe is interested is the person whom they choose to believe is owner who may not have any real interest. The owners of superior interests, head rents, and the mortgagees will receive no notice unless some means are provided by which some investigation into the matter can be made. (4) Nothing could be more difficult than to establish a satisfactory tribunal for the ascertainment of the price. Nobody could doubt the impartiality and ability of the eminent judge who at present occupies the post of Judicial Commissioner, but as he, like his predecessor, may be advanced to other judicial office the tribunal should be determined from considerations other than personal ones. In principle there are grave objections to any member of the Land Commission, or to any judge other than one completely removed - K 2 I 32 IRISH LAND BILL. from any decision of the Judicial Commissioner under this Part of this Act on any question of law, and the decision of the Court of Appeal on such question shall be final. (6) Subject to any application to the Judicial Commissioner under this Part of this Act and the final determination of all questions arising thereon, the price named in the final offer or fixed under this Part of this Act as the case may be shall be deemed to be the purchase money of the estate or untenanted land, and shall within the prescribed time be paid into the Bank of Ireland, and the purchase shall be completed and the purchase money distributed in like manner and all the like consequences shall ensue as if the estate or untenanted land had been purchased by the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board, as the case may be, by agreement entered into under the Act of 1903 as amended by this Act upon the date of the payment of the purchase-money into the Bank. (7) The costs and expenses of and incidental to any application to the Judicial Commissioner under this section shall be at the discretion of that Com- missioner, who may if he thinks fit order the same to be paid by the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board. NOTES ON CLAUSE 58. I 33 from the atmosphere and influence of the Land Commission, assessing the price of land which is being compulsorily acquired by the Land Commission itself. In any case the price should be determined solely upon evidence given in open Court, and reports or Statements of the Estates Commissioners or valuations previously made by their officials should not be permitted either to be used or inspected by the Judicial Commissioner, or if they are, all such documents should be previously furnished to the owner and such officials should be produced for cross-examination. Nothing is more objectionable than the Court, before whom a litigant is brought, having access to communi- cations and et parte documents, the truth of which cannot be tested by cross-examination. This point is even of more importance with reference to the proposed assessors. It is obvious that the judge must necessarily be guided as to value by the opinion of the assessors who are supposed to be specially qualified, and it is essential that the assessors should be absolutely independent of the Land Commission, and that their appointment should be so far permanent as to render them independent of the fear of unemployment which operates on the minds of land commission inspectors and subcommissioners appointed temporarily as the majority are. An Inspector of the Land Commission cannot be expected to be unaware of the views of the body which employs him, and he would be more than human if he did not pay some regard to these views. Under clause 60 it would appear to be I34 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 58. 135 competent for the Lord-Lieutenant when framing lists of assessors to compose such lists wholly or mainly from the officials and inspectors of the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board. Section 48 (1) of the Act of 1881, referred to in 58 (4), gives the Land Commission full jurisdiction to determine all questions of law or fact and prevents them from being restrained by any court or their proceedings brought up by certiorari, and section 48 (3) of the Act of 1881 gives the Land Commission the jurisdic- tion of the Chancery Division with reference to making orders for carrying the Act into effect, enforcing the attendance of witnesses, punishing for contempt and so forth. (5) The power of appeal on questions of law appears to be somewhat illusory, as great care seems to have been taken to make the only questions which can come before the Judicial Commissioners questions of fact. The question of price is obviously one of fact, and in clause 59, dealing with excluded land, the Bill is careful to make the only real questions for decision matters in the discretion of the Judicial Commissioner, see 59 (3) and 59 (4). With respect to questions of law, if there be any such question left open under Part IV., there should, in the case of questions arising, as they do, between great public departments and persons whose property is being taken against their will, be an appeal to the highest tribunal in the land. If an appeal to the House of Lords had been allowed in important cases under the Act of 1881, questions which have occupied $ I 36 IRISH LAND BILL. NOTES ON CLAUSE 58. 137 the time of the Court of Appeal over and over again would have been definitely settled at an early date. Under the Act of 1881 an appeal to the House of Lords was prohibited under the idea that it would be unfair to impose on tenants the possibility of a large expense, but no such reason can be urged in reference to great public departments. (6) The effect of this subclause would be to deprive the owner of all arrears of rent due to him up to the date of sale and to leave him to establish his title to the money at his own expense. Although the purchase money would be paid into the bank, and the owner would be only receiving a small rate of interest, head rents, jointure, interest upon mortgages, etc., would continue to run on at the old rate until the owner whose title might be complicated or even altogether defective could satisfy the Land Commission examiner of titles that he had an absolutely good title to the money. It has never before, it is believed, been even suggested that in the case of compulsory purchase the owner should pay the costs of making out title for the purpose of the body who puts compulsion in force, and in the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, the operation and provisions of which, so far as acquiring land is concerned, would be abrogated altogether if the Bill passed, the costs of the owner of the land both as to proceedings under the Act and making title to the purchase money are specially provided for (section 5 (3)). 58 (7) The hearing before the Judicial Commissioner I 38 IRISH LAND BILL. £age 138. Çlause 65 is clause 59 of the original Bill. 59.--(1) If any person interested in the estate or untenanted land objects to the acquisition of the same under this Part of this Act on the ground that the estate or untenanted land consists entirely or mainly of land to which this section applies, he may within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner apply to the Judicial Commissioner for an order that no further proceedings be taken for the acquisition of the estate or untenanted land under this Part of this Act. (2) If any person interested in the estate or untenanted land objects to the acquisition of the same under this Part of this Act on the ground that the estate or untenanted land includes land to which this section applies, he may, within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, apply to the Judicial Commissioner for an order excluding such land from the purchase. (3) Upon any application under this section the Judicial Commissioner may, if he is satisfied that the estate or untenanted land consists entirely or mainly of land to which this section applies, by order direct that no further proceedings be taken for the NOTES ON CLAUSES 58 AND 59. | 39 would be the only hearing at which the owner could in any way be represented. Under the Lands Clauses Acts, as applied to Ireland, the owner is entitled to the costs of the hearing before the arbitrator who fixes the price, and a like rule should apply to proceedings under Part IV. CLAUSE 59. The mode of procedure introduced by this clause is an entire reversal of the mode of legislation which has existed up to the present with regard to premises excluded from the operation of the Acts. Under all former legislation, the various descriptions of premises, not the subject of the Act, were specifically excluded. It was not left to the owner to make any special application with respect to them, or left to the dis- cretion of the Judicial Commissioner to say whether the particular land should or should not be excluded. Clause 59 completely alters this ; under it a special application for exclusion has to be made, and the ques- tion is left wholly to the Judicial Commissioner, and although it may be entirely or mainly one of law, if it is in his discretion, there could be no appeal. 59 (5). The classes of land excluded by subclause 59 (5) are extraordinarily limited. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent the Land Commission or Congested Districts Board taking compulsorily the owner's actual residence, if it does not happen to be situate in a legal demesne, nothing to prevent his woods or plantations being acquired, nor any provision such as is found in the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907, (section 7) prohibiting 140 IRISH LAND BILL. acquisition of the estate or untenanted land under this Part of this Act. (4) If upon any such application the Judicial Commissioner is satisfied that the estate or untenanted land includes land to which this section applies, and that such land is not the main portion of the estate or untenanted land, he may exclude such land from the purchase and may fix the price to be paid for the remainder of the estate or untenanted land, and the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act relating to the payment and distribution of the purchase-money and the completion of the purchase shall apply accordingly in the case of the remainder of the estate or untenanted land. (5) This section applies to any land in the occu- pation of the owner which is or forms part of a demesne, garden, pleasure ground, or home farm. (6) In this section the expression “owner’ means any person having power under the Land Purchase Acts to sell the estate or untenanted land. 60–General orders may be made by the Lord- Lieutenant, with the approval of the Treasury, for the framing of lists of persons of skill and experience in the valuation of land to act as assessors under this Part of this Act and for the ascertainment of their functions and remunerations, and every person for the time being named in such list shall give his attendance according to general orders. Page 140. Clause 66 is clause 60 of the original Hill. NOTES ON CLAUSE 59. I4] interference with the demesne or amenity of residence or the land adjoining and customarily occupied with the owner's residence, and providing that the land shall be selected with a due regard to the general situation and convenience of other property of the owner and so as not to diminish its value, nor is there, as is also in the Evicted Tenants Act (section 9) any provision as to sporting rights. 59 (6) Under the Land Purchase Acts an “owner * may also be a tenant if he holds himself at a rent, even though he holds in fee farm or for a long lease (Purchase Act, 1885, section 26). Subclause 6 should therefore be amended by excepting from the term “owner’ any tenant in occupation within the meaning of the Land Purchase Acts, though his interest might be such as would enable him to sell to subtenants if he had any. 142 IRISH LAND BILL. { PART V. LAND LAW. 61.-(1) Where a present tenancy was determined at any time before the passing of this Act, the Land Commission may, subject to the provisions of the Land Law Acts, on the application in the prescribed manner of any tenant in occupation of the lands comprised in the said present tenancy or of any portion of those lands, being either— (a) the person who was the tenant of the original holding at the time when the present tenancy was determined (if such person is dead) (b) a person who would have been entitled, whether under the will or as one of the next-of-kin or issue of the said tenant, to the said holding or any distributive share therein had the present tenancy therein not been determined : fix the fair rent in respect of the said lands or portion in like manner as if the applicant was a present tenant of the same. (2) Any provision in any contract of tenancy or other instrument in any way prohibiting, restraining, or tending to prevent the fixing of a fair rent in respect of any holding to which this section applies, shall be void. (3) In this section the expression “prescribed ” Page 142. Clause 67 answers to clause 61 of the original Bill, but was amended in the interest of the tenants in two respects. Firstly, by introducing words at the end of sub-clause (1) preventing a future tenancy to which the clause applies coming to an end at the expiration of the term for which it was granted, and thus making a further exception in favour of the description of tenants mentioned in sub-clause (1) (a) and (b) and, secondly, by introducing a new sub-clause (3) under which a tenancy is to be deemed to have determined if it was purchased by the landlord at an execution sale, even though the landlord had the tenants’ interest assigned to a trustee, for the express purpose of keeping it alive and distinct from the fee simple of the land. This latter provision is unjust to limited owners who have purchased the tenants’ interest with their own money, and are entitled to keep Same alive as against the remainderman. The clause as now altered is as follows:— 67.—(1) Where a present tenancy was determined at any time before the passing of this Act, the Land Commission may, Subject to the pro- visions of the Land Law Acts, on the application in the prescribed manner of any tenant in occupation of the lands comprised in the said present tenancy or of any portion of those lands, being either— (a) the person who was the tenant of the original holding at the time when the present tenancy was determined, or (if such person is dead) (b) a person who would have been entitled, whether under the will or as one of the next-of-kin or issue of the said tenant, to the said holding or any distributive share therein had the present tenancy therein not been determined : fix the fair rent in respect of the said lands or portion in like manner as if the applicant was a present tenant of the same, and the statutory term resulting from the fixing of such fair rent shall not nor shall the tenancy be determined by the expiration of any lease or tenancy existing at the date of such application but shall continue in like manner as if such lease or tenancy were an existing lease within the meaning of the Act of 1881. (2) Any provision in any contract of tenancy or other instrument in any way prohibiting, restraining, or tending to prevent the fixing of a fair rent in respect of any holding to which this section applies, shall be void. (3) Where a present tenancy has been sold under a writ of execution and assigned by the sheriff to the landlord, or a trustee for the landlord, the tenancy shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to have been determined. (4) In this section the expression “prescribed ” means prescribed by rules made by the Land Commission under section fifty of the Act of 1881 as amended by any subsequent enactment, and the expression “present tenancy '' includes any existing lease within the meaning of the Act of 1881, and any tenancy which was determined at any time between the first day of January eighteen hundred and seventy-nine and the passing of the Act of 1881. NOTES ON CLAUSE 61. I43 PART V. LAND LAW. CLAUSE 61. This clause is not the same as Clause 45 of the Bill of 1908. In that Bill the clause applied only to holdings the tenancies in which were determined after the Act of 1887, the ground for the introduction of the clause being rested by Mr. Birrell upon the fact that after the Act of 1887 an actual eviction was not necessary to determine a tenancy, it being sufficient, after the decree in Court had been obtained, to serve a notice called a caretaker's notice under which, if the rent mentioned in the decree was not paid within six months, the tenancy was determined. It does not appear why the present clause 61 brings in tenancies determined at any time after January Ist, 1879. Future lettings were expressly excepted from the operation of the Act of 1881 and were made on the basis that they could not be disturbed, and no ground for doing so has ever been shown to exist, except that the future tenants, by which is meant tenants who entered after 1881, would naturally wish to have their rents reduced if possible. It would seem to require strong evidence of public necessity to justify a deliberate confiscation of the landlord’s interest under a contract made in accordance with, and in reliance upon, the provisions of the Land 144 IRISH LAND BILL. means prescribed by rules made by the Land Com- mission under section fifty of the Act of 1881 as amended by any subsequent enactment, and the expression “present tenancy" includes a tenancy which was determined at any time between the first day of January eighteen hundred and seventy-nine and the passing of the Act of 1881. Page 144. Clause 68 is clause 62 of the original Bill. PART VI. SUPPLEMENTAL. 62–In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,- The expression “prescribed,” in any case not otherwise provided for, means prescribed by rules made by the Judicial Commissioner and the Estates Commissioners in the manner directed by subsection (13) of section twenty-three of the Act of 1903 ; The expression “the Land Purchase Acts” includes the Land Purchase Acts as defined NOTES ON CLAUSES 61, 62, 63 AND 64. 145 Act of 1881. The change made by the Act of 1887 as to the manner of executing a decree of ejectment was most favourable to the tenant. Under the old law after the decree was made he was actually and physically put out of the holding and had to live wherever he could during the six months allowed him for redemp- tion. Under the Act of 1887 it is not necessary in the first instance to get the sheriff to take possession, the tenant gets a full notice stating the amount of rent for which judgment has been obtained and giving him six months for payment, and it is only if he fails to pay that the tenancy is determined. PART VI. SUPPLEMENTAL. CLAUSES 62, 63 AND 64. It will be seen that there are really three different sets or codes. (1) Acts and parts of Acts dealing with Land Purchase proper, i.e., the transfer of land from landlord to tenant. (2) Acts and parts of Acts dealing with the Con- gested Districts Board. (3) Acts and parts of Acts dealing with the fixing of fair rents under the Land Act of 1881 and amending Acts. I 46 IRISH LAND BILL. by the Act of 1903, the Irish Land, Act, 1907, and Parts I., II., and IV. of this Act ; The expression “the Land Law Acts” means the Land Law Acts as defined by the Act of 1903 and Part V. of this Act ; The expression “the Act of 1881 ° means the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881 ; The expression “the Act of 1887 ° means the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887; The expression “the Act of 1891 ° means the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891 ; The expression “the Act of 1896 ° means the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896; The expression “the Act of 1903 * means the Irish Land Act, 1903 ; The expression “the Judicial Commissioner” means the Judicial Commissioner appointed under the Act of 1881 ; and The expression “appointed day " means such day as the Lord-Lieutenant may appoint. 63–Parts I., II., and IV. of this Act shall be construed as one with the Land Purchase Acts, and may be cited with those Acts. Part III. of this Act shall be construed as one with the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts, and may be cited with those Acts. Part V. of this Act shall be construed as one with the Land Law Acts, and may be cited with those Acts. * Page 146. Clause 69 is a new clause of considerable importance. It is as follows:– “69. Land in the occupation of a person holding under a fee farm grant, or a lease for lives renewable for ever, or a lease for a term of years of which not less than sixty are expired, shall, for the purposes of the Act of 1903, the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act 1907, and this Act be deemed to be untenanted land.” The object of this clause is to enable the Estates Commissioners to buy compulsorily under the Evicted Tenants Act at present in force, and under the compulsory powers proposed in the present Bill, land in the Occupation of tenants, if such tenants have a renewable lease on a term of not less than sixty years, even although such tenants may be using and farming their land in the ordinary way and as their sole means of livelihood. As the law at present stands the Estates Commissioners cannot take compulsorily the land of such tenants for the purposes of the Evicted Tenants Act. It is difficult to understand why a tenant who has not sought to avail himself at the credit of the State for the purposes of purchase should be put under a special dis- ability as against one who has bought his holding with the money of the State. There is no provision in the Bill enabling any compensation to be given to the tenant for his goodwill or loss of profits or means of livelihood. It is true that under the Land Purchase Acts a tenant having such an interest as is mentioned in clause 69 could, if he had sublet the lands, sell the same to his sub-tenants, but this does not appear to be any reason why, if he has not sublet them and is farming them himself, he should be put under a special disability. Page 146. Clause 70 is clause 63 of the original Bill. ) NOTES ON CLAUSES 62, 63, AND 64. 147 Instead of these codes being kept distinct and dealt with by separate Acts, they are all mixed up together. Nearly every Act contains provisions dealing with all or more than one of these codes. The result is enormous complexity and confusion which is well instanced by the present Bill. If it becomes law Parts I., II. and IV. are to be part of the Land Purchase code, Part III. is to be read with the Congested Districts Board code and Part V. with the Land Law code, although purchases under Part III. are to be carried out under Part IV. and nobody could discover the powers of the Congested Districts Board without having recourse to Parts I. and II. I 48 IRISH LAND BILL. 64. This Act may be cited as the Irish Land Act, 1909. 65. The Acts specified in the Second Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent mentioned in the third column of that schedule. Page 148. Clauses 71 and 72 are clauses 64 and 65 of the original Bill. The only difference between the enactments proposed to be repealed in the original Bill and the repeals as they now stand is the addition to the 2nd Schedule of certain sub-sections of section 51 of the Act of 1903 which deal with investment powers and are replaced by the provision of clause 39 of the Bill. NOTES ON CLAUSE 65, I 49 CLAUSE 65. The repeals made by the Second Schedule appear to be only such as are consequential on the provisions in the body of the Bill. The words in italics, printed in the third column of the Second Schedule, are not in the Bill, they indicate the clauses of the Bill dealing with the portions of enactments repealed. SCHEDULES. I50 IRISH LAND BILL. S C H E I) U L E S. FIRST SCHEDULE. (1) The percentage shall be a percentage on the amount advanced in respect of each holding and parcel of land comprised in the estate, and shall be calculated according to the number of years' purchase represented by the advance upon the following scale:— Number of years' purchase represented by the Advance. (1) (2) Rate of Where the Rent is a Judicial Where the Rent is a Judicial Percentage. Rent fixed or agreed to since Rent fixed or agreed to before the passing of the Act of 1896, the passing of the Act of 1896, or the Land is untenanted. or a Non-Judicial Rent. 26 and upwards . . . . . 24 and upwards . . . . Nil. 25 and under 26 . . . . . 23 and under 24 . . . . 3 24 } } 25 . . . . . 22 3 3 23 . . . . 4 23 3 3 24 . . . . . 21 2 3 22 . . . . 6 22 } } 23 . . . . . 20 2 3 21 . . . . 8 21 5 5 22 . . . . . 19 2 3 20 . . . . 10 20 5 3 21 . . . . 18 5 3 19 . . . . 12 19 3 5 20 . . . . 17 2 3 18 . . . . 14 18 2 3 19 . . . . 16 33 17 . . . . 16 Under 18 . . . . . . . Under 16 . . . . . . 18 (2) In cases where an estate is purchased by the Estates Commissioners or the Congested Districts Board, and the advance is made in respect of the estate as a yhole, the advance shall, for the purpose of the application of the scale, be apportioned between the holdings and parcels of land comprised in the estate in such manner as the Estates Commissioners or the Congested Districts lyoard, as the case may be, direct. (3) In the case of the purchase of a parcel of untenanted land, the Inumber of years' purchase represented by the advance shall be calculated in manner prescribed by the Treasury. SCHEDULES. 151 SECOND SCHEDULE. ACTS REPEALED. Session and Chapter. 51 & 52 Vict. c. 49. 54 & 55 Vict. c. 48. 56 & 57 Vict. c. 35. 3 Edw.7, c. 37. Short Title. Extent of Repeal. The Purchase of Land (Ireland) A men d ment Act, 1888. The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891. The Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Act, 1893. The Irish Land Act, 1903. Section two, save as regards ad- vances in pursuance of parchase agreements entered into before the passing of this Act. (See clause 15 (3).) Section thirty-four, from “con- sisting” to the end of the section, as from the appointed day. (Constitution of C.D.B., clause 4.1.) Subsections (2) and (3) of section two. (C.D.B. Power to hold land and trustee provisions.) In section one, subsection (4), save as regards advances in pur- suance of purchase agreements entered into before the passing of this Act. (See clause 15 (3).) Section two, save as regards sales of parcels of land in respect of which purchase agreements have been entered into before the passing of this Act. (Clause 17 1). º * (4) of section six, the words “with the consent of the owner.” (Clause 21 (1).) Subsection (3) of section forty- three. (Reserve fund. Clause 31 (3).) Section forty-four. (Resale of congested estates. Clause 31 (2).) In subsection (1) of section forty- seven from “provided” to end of subsection. 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