SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL thought the proposal would cause great complication in many cases, and he hoped it would not be pressed upon the Committee, but that the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) would be satisfied with the general approval which had been expressed by the Government. Member for Meath is for both parties, | embody it as a permissive lease in the and it would be dangerous to start it as Bill. a provision which might be adopted on the application of one party only. Under the judicial lease it will be the duty of the Court to see if the rent is a fair rent; and therefore, if the parties agree, it is clearly within the power of the Court to give a judicial lease with the Longfield Lease, subject to a statutory term of 15 years. But if it is to be adopted on the application of one of the parties only, I confess I think that is rather a peculiar plan, and one which it would be unsafe to start. of the Longfield Lease required some alteration. It was sound in its general principles, but in some parts it was defective. Some landlords had altered it, and had then found it work well. He hoped the Government would adopt the proposal. CAPTAIN AYLMER said, it was not often that he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Meath; but in this case he did agree with him, and his MR. GRAY observed, that the Long- view was not a thing of the moment, field Lease was theoretically perfect; but because, last year, when the Compensait appeared to him to be utterly inap- tion for Disturbance Bill was under conplicable to small tenancies. It would sideration, he spoke to the right hon. only be applicable to large tenancies, Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Irewhere the tenants were able to deal at land about the advantages of the Longarms-length with their landlords. It field Lease. At the same time, while he gave power to the landlord at any time would support the Amendment he would to propose an increased rent, and the not exactly follow the Schedule which only remedy the tenant had was to the hon. and learned Member proposed to demand a decrease. In the case of ten-attach, because he thought the Schedule ants holding large interests, this was a substantial check on the landlords; but in the case of small tenancies it was no check whatever, because the extra power which the tenant gained would be no compensation for his increased rent, and he would agree to an excessive rent rather than risk being paid off. He thought MR. A. M. SULLIVAN said, he was it was tolerably evident that the Long- exceedingly rejoiced to hear from the field Lease must be one of the many Government that this was a lease which forms of judicial lease sanctioned by the it might be quite within the power of Court; but it was a different thing to the Court, under Clause 9, to award. introduce it by a Schedule; and although His own conception of the lease was he would object to any power imposing that it must necessarily be a matter of the Longfield Lease on the tenant, it agreement between the parties. The obwould be desirable in cases where hard-ject of the Longfield Lease was to avoid ship existed to encourage the adoption of that lease. When the Longfield Lease was first brought before the public in 1870, there was a marvellous consensus of opinion in its favour in IrelandConservatives and Liberals and all classes united in pressing on the Government the desirability of adopting that lease as a permissive lease under the Act. But, at that time, the Prime Minister held different views from his present views, and he was so opposed to it that the proposal had to be pressed to a division. If there was no substantial objection to the Longfield Lease itself-and he had not heard of any objection-it might be well worth the consideration of the Government whether they would Mr. Gladstone friction, and he thought the virtue of the plan would be destroyed if it were to be imposed on the parties. He should ask permission to withdraw the Amendment, with a view to consider whether, at a later stage of the Bill, he could introduce something which might give expression to as much of the agreement of opinion as he had collected from the speeches of hon. Members. MR. BRODRICK thought it would be well if, before the Amendment was finally withdrawn, the Committee should be aware of the previous views of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) on this subject, and of the change that had taken place in those views. The hon. and learned THE CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Gentleman is going beyond the Amend ment. MR. BRODRICK said, he was merely going to point out that there had been a great deal done since that time; and that the principle which the hon. and learned Member now wished to withdraw and re-introduce in a fresh form as an alternative, was one which the hon. and learned Member, representing, no doubt, a large section of the Irish people, previously held up necessarily as sufficient to meet the case at issue. He thought it was not legitimately brought forward as an alternative. If the lease proposed was held sufficient nine months ago to preclude the necessity of any revision of rents, it was equally so now; and if the hon. and learned Member brought it forward, he ought to be prepared to vote against any interference with the provisions in Member wrote a letter to The Freeman's | termination of the period, the landlord Journal on October 5, 1880, in which he was again to find himself face to face said the idea of a reduction of rents over with what was called a future tenant? all Ireland would be entirely repug- The present clause applied not only to nant to the principles of commercial the landlord and tenant of any ordinary freedom of the English people. tenancy, but also to the landlord and tenant of a proposed holding to which the Act applied, which was not subject to the conditions of an existing tenancy; and in that case, though the lease offered by the landlord and accepted by the tenant was entirely fair, and the lease would be submitted to the Court and sanctioned by the Court, still when the lease expired the landlord would find that the tenant stood in the position of a future tenant. The clause, at all events, so far as concerned the cases to which he had referred, was of a very extraordidary character, and the Committee would perceive that although the number of years mentioned was 31, there might be a 60 or 100 years' lease; and, no matter how long it lasted, at the end the tenant would be in the position of a future tenant. What the Amendment suggested was that at the expiration of the judicial lease the landlord should be entitled to resume possession. That seemed to him to be a fair and natural conclusion to a tenancy which was strictly guarded against all those infirmities which were supposed by some to attach to contracts of tenancy made in Ireland, because this lease, voluntarily entered into between landlord and tenant, was supposed to have already obtained the sanction of the Court. Therefore, with great confidence, he submitted that the Amendment would make the state of affairs more logical, and was more in consonance with the idea of freedom of contract than the proposal of the Government, that in all cases where a judicial lease was granted, whether in the case of an ordinary ten the 7th clause. MR. BIGGAR thought it was rather hard on the Irish Members, that each of them should be held responsible for what his Colleagues might have said 10 years ago. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. wards find himself face to face with a future tenant. He moved the Amendment accordingly. MR. PLUNKET (for Mr. GIBSON) moved, as an Amendment, in page 9, line 21, to leave out after " "" 'lease to the end of line 24, and insert the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession of the holding." This, of course, was a serious and important proposal; but he hoped to be able to show that it was a fair proposal and well worthy of consideration. Supposing that the pro-ancy or not, the landlord should afterposal of the Government were adopted, and that after the expiration of the judicial lease, the lessee should be deemed to be the tenant of a future ordinary tenancy from year to year at the rent and subject to the conditions of the lease, so far as such conditions were applicable to such tenancy, that amounted, practically, to perpetuity of tenure. What was the good of contracting this judicial lease, and having all the conditions of the tenancy laid down by the Court for a certain period, if, after the Amendment proposed, In page 9, line 21, after "lease," leave out to the end of line 24, and insert "the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession of the holding."-(Mr. Plunket.) Question proposed, "That the words the lessee, &c.,' stand part of the Clause." MR. CHARLES RUSSELL said, he did not understand the difficulty felt in this matter. Where was the hardship of the landlord's position, if, at the end of the lease, he could exercise the landlord's ordinary power of control by raising the rent, and could compel the tenant to go or pay an increased rent? [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL No.] He said "Yes," certainly; and his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) was, he submitted, quite wrong upon the point. Applying this to the case of a future tenant, he could not go to the Court for a judicial rent. He failed to see the object of the proposed Amendment, or, rather, what was the hardship it proposed to remedy. LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL said, at the end of a lease a tenant became a future tenant, so that if the landlord demanded an increased rent, and the tenant did not pay it, he could take him into the Court. That was what, in plain English, seemed to him to be the position of the matter; and if the point required any further explanation, perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland would get up and give them the necessary information. To his mind, there could be no doubt at all about it. The tenant, by the words of the Bill, became a future tenant at the expiration of the judicial lease. He thought the words of the Bill were very much better than those of the Amendment, because he was clear upon this point, that the landlord, upon the termination of a judicial lease, could evict the tenant if he liked, just as a landlord could evict the tenant of any holding where the lease had expired. The tenant became an ordinary yearly tenant, and was no longer protected by the Bill, and the landlord could go and evict him. What did the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) propose? He said that the landlord should resume possession of the holding, and that was an artificial expression which they had had some conversation about before. The resumption meant the question of very full compensation. SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL really thought that the words proposed to be omitted could not, and ought not, to stop as they were. It might be desirable to leave to the parties freedom of contract as to new tenants coming in; but this section would apply to an existing tenant, and especially to a present tenant. ["No!"] Well, if it did not apply to a present tenant, he had nothing more to Mr. Charles Russell say. He had read the clause, and it appeared to him to be the fact that any present tenant who accepted a lease under this provision would sacrifice his tenant right. He thought they should encourage the landlords to grant long terms and keep themselves out of the Court. MR. GREGORY thought it would be desirable that they should have some explanation from Her Majesty's Government as to what would be the practical operation of this provision, because he confessed for himself, it might be from ignorance, that he felt considerable difficulty about the matter. If it was a matter of English law he should not feel that difficulty, because there the principle was clear that a tenant, after the expiration of a lease or agreement held under the terms of such lease or agreement, and subject to all the conditions of a yearly tenancy as regarded notice to quit. But now the tenant was turned into what was called a future tenant; and what a future tenant in the Bill really meant he was at a loss to know, and it was upon this point that he thought the Committee were entitled to some information. If the position of a tenant, after the expiration of a judicial lease, was to be the position an English tenant would occupy under similar circumstances, there would be an end of the matter. Не would merely hold at the will of the landlord; but if there was anything beyond, any inchoate right to the continuance of the tenancy, he thought the Committee ought to know it. MR. LITTON said, that if the proposal of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) were agreed to, the clause would read thus landlord shall be entitled to resume possession "At the expiration of the judicial lease the of the holding." Now, he would ask what was the object of putting in this Amendment? Because this was the state of things that would follow in the absence of any words of the kind. The Amendment ought, therefore, to have been to strike out the clause, because precisely that result would follow if the clause were not there. There was no distinction whatever between the law of England and the law of Ireland as regarded an over-holding tenant. An over-holding tenant might be evicted at the expiration of a lease. With regard to the question what should take place on the termination of a judicial lease, that divided itself into two branches. There might be a judicial lease in the case of a present and of a future tenant. The question might arise, what should be the position of a judicial lessee on the termination of his lease?first, where he happened to be a present tenant; and, secondly, where he was a future tenant. It was manifest that the position of the two ought to be different; and it was quite clear that the man who was a present tenant, and came and took from his landlord a judicial lease, should, on the expiration of that lease, be in the position of a present tenant and not a future tenant. They that fixed tenancies, to which two clauses of this remarkable Bill were devoted, would not be called in question 10 times during the next 100 years. As, however, the clause was there they should try and give it something like an intelligible construction, and try to arrive at something like a reasonable conclusion upon it. The reason that he had put down on the Paper the Amendment which had been moved by his right hon. and learned Colleague (Mr. Plunket) was that he wished to arrive at a clear and definite idea-if Her Majesty's Government had one-as to what would be the position of a tenant of a judicial lease at the termination of it. appeared to intend, by adding this second paragraph to Clause 9, to give a construction to the position of a lessee on the termination of his lease entirely at variance with the construction that would be put upon his position on the termination of an ordinary lease. It was intended, by adding the second paragraph at the end of Clause 9, practically to give real perpetuity of tenure in that case as in all others-real, but not avowed. Now, what was the position of the tenant of an ordinary lease, leaving the word "judicial" out of the case altogether? If the tenant of an ordinary lease was permitted by his landlord to continue in occupation on the termination of his lease, and if the landlord elected to accept from that tenant payment of rent, that tenant became a tenant from year to year upon the terms and conditions of his lease which had just expired. There could be no question about that; but the Government did not leave the tenant overholding on the expiration of his judicial lease to the legal implication which every lawyer understood. They stepped in and said that at the very moment the judicial lease terminated the tenant be MR. GLADSTONE: Her Majesty's Government do not propose to accept this Amendment. I am not quite certain-indeed, it would be presumption in me to say what would be its legal effect-but I take it, as expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman who moved it (Mr. Plunket), to be a notice to the tenant who accepted the judicial lease, and at the end of all the relations between him and the landlord, that all the tenant's interest should terminate. That is exactly the thing to which the Government cannot agree, and if we did agree to it the clause would be rendered absolutely a dead letter. No tenant in Ireland would accept a lease on conditions that at the end of that lease his whole interest should expire. I will quote a very ancient anecdote upon this point, but is also a very short one. It is one which the late Lord Devon, who was at the head of the Commission of 1843, told me. He said that when inquiries were going forward in Ireland it was found to be usual for a man who held a lease for life to bequeath it on his death-bed to somebody else. That was the expression of a deeply-engrained idea, and the Government are not pre-came clothed with all the powers and pared to come into conflict with that idea. I do not say anything about the other Amendments that may be moved, but I must object to this one. MR. GIBSON said, that, speaking with great frankness, his opinion as to the judicial lease and the subsequent proposal as to fixed tenancies was that they partook very much of the nature of padding. He did not attach very much importance to all this elaborate phraseology about judicial leases, and he thought authorities of a future tenant; and it was there that he thought it right to step in and present to the Committee nakedly and clearly what it was that they were asked to decide in this clause. What was the meaning of saying that the lessee would be deemed to be the tenant of a future ordinary tenancy? Did the Government mean to suggest that that was exactly the same position as if the landlord of an ordinary lease, on its expiration, had permitted the tenant to con tinue in occupation, had accepted rent from him, and had so accepted him as a tenant from year to year? If they did mean that, why did not the Government put it in the clause? As a matter of fact, they must mean something more, because they had, in the preceding part of their Bill, given to future tenants certain rights entirely independent of a tenant holding on at the expiration of a lease. For instance, under sub-section 2 of Clause 3, the tenant of a future lease, if asked by his landlord to pay an increased rent, had a right to sell his tenancy, and to compel the landlord then to pay the amount of difference that the Court would hold was lost in the purchase money by the fact of a rise of rent being asked in excess of what the Court would hold was a fair rent. The tenant would have the right of free sale, and it might be that they would compel the landlord by these words, instead of having an absolute right to resume possession on the termination of a lease, to admit that the very day the lease terminated a future tenancy was created. They would compel the landlord, if he wanted to get possession, to serve a notice to quit. They would, therefore, compel the landlord, by the words which the Government now said meant nothing-[Mr. GLADSTONE: I never said so]-it had been suggested by silences and by gestures, which were sometimes liable to be misinterpreted; but, no doubt, he had made a mistake, as his statement had not been accepted. But, at any rate, as he had understood it, it was suggested by several speakers that these words in the second paragraph of the 9th section really said, in reference to a lessee on the termination of a judicial lease, that he was to be in exactly the same position as a lessee on the termination of an ordinary lease. He (Mr. Gibson) ventured to say that that was not a fair way in which to treat the landlord. The Prime Minister said that nothing could be more absurd than to say that this Bill contained anything in the nature of perpetuity of tenure; and, unless he was very much mistaken, the right hon. Gentleman had said that it was an abuse of language to use any such phrase in connection with the Bill. Well, he (Mr. Gibson) spoke with entire sincerity, and with great respect for the opinion of the Prime Minister on a question of this Mr. Gibson kind; but, really, with some misgiving, he must venture to say that, although he might lay himself open to the same charge from the Prime Minister of being absurd, he had arrived at the conclusion that, though not avowed and put in terms, there was actual, real, and substantial perpetuity of tenure in this Bill. He was not going into any other clause of the Bill except for the purpose of illustration; but if a tenant from year to year expanded to a statutory 15 years' tenancy, and then at the end of 15 years he could expand that tenancy into another 15 years, he called that, if not perpetuity of tenure, at any rate, the best imitation of perpetuity of tenure that he had ever heard of. The Court could, with the sanction of the parties, give a judicial tenancy for 31 years as a minimum, and might go up to 500 years, or even 1,000 years. Few of them would really speculate as to how long the world was likely to last; but if a lease was granted for 300 or 400 years, or for 1,000 years, it was a tolerably substantial instalment towards perpetuity. But take it that it stopped short of that, the tenant could have the holding for 31 years, and that was the minimum. He asked in what time on the expiration of a lease had a landlord the shadow of a ghost of a chance of resuming possession? He could not do it, because they did not give him the power. They said a tenant at the end of the lease was a future tenant, and they clothed the tenant with the character and fixed conditions under which the landlord could not resume possession. ["No, no!"] Yes, that was the case. The landlord could not get back possession, except under conditions where he would have to buy over again the fee-simple of the tenancy. Was that giving the landlord any power whatever of resuming possession? To deny that the Bill gave perpetuity of tenure was the merest play upon words. He called it perpetuity from the landlord's point of view. No matter how the tenancy might change, or what machinery might be contained in the Bill with regard to change or sale, there could be no doubt that the proposal of the Government involved perpetuity of tenure as against the landlord, who could not, under any circumstances, resume possession of the holdings. proposal contained in the clause cer The |