The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-21 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDOZI BRIDGE.

TIM DAY —►toning. 311. 44m Afternoon, 01. 3ao.
To-Mozzow—Mornlng, fit Atterooon, 40. 41..

LONDON, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21.

by Mr. (YBEI RN E. 011 a particular esl

in the County Down, the tenants, by building
houses, making roads, fences, and drains, and by
other improvements, increased the renting value of
the land from 31s. 6d. an Irish acre to 575. lid.
The landlord has taken advantage of their ex-
penditure of industry and capital to raise their rent
from the lower to the higher sum ; and in the
event of their not acceding to his terms they will
be expelksl, without compensation.
That this state of things needs remedial legisla-
tion cannot be denied. Lord NAAS proposes to
grapple with it by extending to tenants, even
tenants at will, the borrowing, powers which the
Land Improvement Act confers upon owners,
and by making the loans which they may con-
tract a charge upon the land, that is to say,
upon the occupiers of it for the time being.
The improvements for which money may be
borrowed are divided into six classes . Main
and thorough drainage. 2. The reclamation of
waste lands. 3. The clearing of the soil from
rocks and stones, and the removal of old and use-
less fences. 4. The erection of faun
dwellings and buildings. 5. The making

of fences. 6. The construction of roads. A
tenant who desires to effect any of these improve-
ments must make application, in the terms of a
printed form, to the Board of Works. The
Commissioners, through one of their number
specially appointed to carry out the proposed Act,
will notify the application to the landlord, and
will then investigate the propriety and advantage
of the suggested improvement. If their opinion
is favourable they will grant the tenant a certifi-
cate authorizing him to begin the necessary works,
and advance the money for the purpose, which
must be repaid in thirty-five years by half-yearly
instalments. The sanction of the landlord is not
to be necessary for the execution of improve-
ments of the first three classes ; but his dissent
is to be conclusive against the remainder—
the erection of buildings, the making of
fences, and the construction of roads, which a
consolidation or redistribution of holdings, or the
conversion of the land from tillage to pasture,
might deprive of their value. If the tenant,
instead of borrowing from the Government,
chooses to invest his own money or labour
in the soil, he may, by availing himself of certain
forms, make this expenditure a charge on the
land ; and on giving up the farm, or on being
evicted from it, he will receive in a lump sum the
value of his investments, minus the instalments
he would have paid if he had borrowed the money
in the ordinary way.
This scheme does not, we confess, appear to us
a promising one. Before any tenant makes a
drain, or clears a field of stones, he will be
obliged to serve a notice up. ,n the Board
of Works of his intention to do so, and
to obtain the approval of the Commissioners.
Lord.NAAS makes light of the difficulties which
an illiterate man may experience in drawing up
the necessary specifications, inasmuch as in every
district there will be a Surveyor of the Board of
Works, whose duty it will be to give the tenant
all requisite help, and who will have an interest in
persuading him to make applications for advances,
inasmuch as he will be paid according to the
work which he may induce the farmers to under-
take. In other words, official busybodies are
to be placed inevery district, empowered to meddle
with the affairs of other people, and having a direct
interest in such intormeddling. The feeling of the
landlords towards these persons may be anticipated ;
and the tenant at will who inclines to their persua-
sions will often, we fear, find his notice of an
improvement answered by a notice of ejectment,
and see himself improved out of his holding.
Then, again, where is the agricultural infallibility
to be found whichisindispensableinthe new Conunis-
sioner of Works to whom the working of the pro-
posed Act is to be entrusted ? He is to decide
upon the expediency and probable cost, and to lay
down specific directions for the execution of any
improvement which may be proposed on any farm
in Ireland ; his veto is to be absolute against
the tenant's proposals, and in certain cases
his sanction of them is to be valid in spite of
the landlord's disapproval. Lord Ness's Bill pro-
ceeds on the assumption that Government officials
can manage other people's business for them
better than they can manage it for themselves.
It is based on the principle of foreign interven-
tion, or, as Lord DERBY calls it, of
" meddle and muddle." As Mr. BLAKE re-
marked, no provision is made in it fur the
moat frequent case of all, that of the tenant
who, little by little, and without any
settled intention of doing so at the out-
set, succeeds by long years of labour in reclaim-
ing the bog or clearing the mountain aide of stones.
Anything like experiment or tentative processes of
improvement are discouraged. The tenants of
Ireland do not need loans or guidance from the
Government ; they require such security for the
investment of their own capital and labour as will
afford them, on quitting their tenure, compensa-
tion for the unexliausted value of their ins-
provementa. They ought not to be put in
the leading-strings of the Board of Works, or
prevented from acting on their own judg-
ment of what is best. If their invest-
ments are imprudent, let them pay the penalty
of their imprudence ; if sagacious, they should
reap the full benefit of them. We fear that Lord
Nass's Bill, if it became law, would either be
inoperative or would tend to strengthen the
tendency, already too prevalent among the Irish,
to rely upon external aid and counsel instead of on
themselves. The teaching of experience and the
costs of failure will be more efficient than that
of Commissioners of Works and District Sur-
veyors.

LORD NAAS does not offer the Bill which he
explained to the House of Commons on Monday
evening as a final settlement of the Irish land
question ; but it is certainly a step towards
that satisfactory conclusion. It marks the abandon-
ment by the Tory party of a principle which has
hitherto stood in the way of beneficial legislation,
and which was affirmed last year by Lord Naas
himself in the most emphatic terms. The amend-
ment which he then proposed to the second reading
of Mr. CHICHESTER FORTE.SCUE'S Bill declared
that " compensation to tenants should be secured
"in respect of those improvements only which
" are made with tho consent of the landlord."
He denounced the measure of the late Govern-
ment which set aside this principle as " entirely
" repugnant to all principles of British law," and
" fatal to the rights of property ;" and he re-
marked upon " the singular coincidence that these
" changes were promised at the moment when the
" exigencies of party were peculiarly severe, and
" when equal divisions were expected." A year
has not passed since Lord Naas thus expressed
himself ; and now he introduces a Bill embodying
the very principle which he condemned in his
amendment and which he denounced inhis speech,
and he does so • amid circumstances of suspicion
identical with those on which he based his
innuendoes against the late Government. Quoin
tenure is nosmet tertrra vuuimvr iniquant. Lord
NAAS'S conversion to doctrines which last session he
reprehended as savouring of communism is not
influenced, we are ready to believe, by the dis-
creditable motives which he imputed to his anta-
gonists. Longer consideration, and the practical
responsibilities of office, have brought him to a
wiser mind ; and ho has a perfect right to con-
sole himself with the reflection that he is
not alone inconsistent. Mr. CARDWELL, in 1865,
was an assenting party to a resolution identical
with Lord NAAS'S amendment ; and in 1866 he
was a member of a Government which intro-
duced a Bill directly contravening that resolution.
All that can be said is, that he is a year in ad-
vance of Lord NAAS ; and this is generally the
extent of the difference between an official Whig
and an official Tory.

The difference between the measures of the late
and of the present Government is not one of prin-
ciple, but of detail and machinery. In many
respects Lord NAAS'S! Bill is an improvement
upon the law as it stands ; but there is
some reason to fear lest the apparatus
which it provides should be too complicated to be
worked. Mr. Foareseue's Bill simply teLognised
the fact that in Ireland permanent improvements
are usually the work of the tenant, and not of the
landlord ; and provided that in the case of the dis-
possession of the occupier he should have a right
to compensation in a lump sum equivalent to the
increased letting value which his labour and capital
might have given to the land. This is the rule of
England, within the more limited range to which
usage confines the tenant's improvements here.
Mr. Fortresere's Bill shared the fate of the
Ministry. The necessity of provisions such as it con-
tained is illustrated by a case cited on Monday night

Mr. Holland will ask the First Lord of the
Admiralty to-morrow whether the attention of the govern-
ment has been called to the existing "Steering and
Sailing Rules ;" and whether it is intended to cause any
inquiry to be made as to their efficiency, with a view to
prevent disasters arising from collisions at see.
To-morrow Mr. Rearden will ask the Chief
Secretary for Ireland whether it is the intention of her
Majesty's government to introduce a Reform Bill for
Ireland this session ; and, if so, whether it will include an
important increase in the number of members and voters
at elections to be taken by ballot.
Mr. Baxter intends to-morrow to ask the Secre-
tary to the Treasury if he will lay before the house the
recent correspondence between the Postmasters-General
of Great Britain and the United States with reference to
the postal service between the two countries; and whether,
in making the new arrangements consequent on the ter-
mination of the Cunard contract, care will be taken to
give the public the benefit of the great competition now
existing between the various steamship companies having
vessels on the North Atlantic. '

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

ACCIDENT TO THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE
BOARD o► TRADE—We regret to state that Mr. Cave,
Vice-President of the Board of Trade, met with an acci-
dent yesterday. While riding in St. James's-park, to-
wards the Horse Guards, his horse, • young and spirited
one, reared and fell back upon him. In rising it struck
the right honourable gentleman twice, cutting his hat
through, and braising his face. Fortunately, although
considerably shaken, Mr. Cave escaped serious injury, and
will probably be able to resume his duties after a short
confinement.

~_
~~ ~ ,

THE EXPRESS, T.HURSDAY EVENTING, FEBRUARX 21, 1867.

KTARY DIVISION.:

LATEST

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-FEB. 20.

ANNUITY TAX AEOLITION (EDINBi'IiGS, PARISH
OF ('ANONGATE) BILL
Order for second reading read ; motion made and question
proposed, "That the bill be now read a second time."
Amendment proposed, to leave out the word " now,"
and at the end of the question to add the words " upon
this day six inonths"—iSir James Ferguson). Question
, put, " That the word now' stand part of the ques-
tion." The house divided—Ayes, 74 ; noes, 107.

. . . .
AYES.
Allen, W. S. Forster, W. E. Monk, I. J.
Amberley, Visit. Forteseue. D. E. Morris, W.
Ayrton, A. S. Gavin, Major Murphy, N. D.
Barnes, I'. Gilpin, C. O'Beirne, J. 1..
Baxter, W. E. Gosehen, G. J. O'Brien, Sir P.
Bailey, T. Gridley, Capt. Oliphant, L.
Beaumont, W. It. Hadfield, 0. Pease, J. W.
Bowyer, Sir G. Harris, J. D Potter, F..
Brady, Dr. Ilnuley, Lord. Potter, T. B.
Bright, J. Hibbert, J. T.
Browne, Lord J. Hurst, R. H.
Candlish, J. Ingham, IL ti
Chambers, T, King, P.. 1. Simeon.SS'e hen
it f
hin C
'O, E. 1). : ASir., U.
J.
Clay, J. Kinnaird, A. F. Smith, J. B.
0111111, J. Laing, S. Stansfeld, J.
Dalglinh, R. Lawrence, W. Stuart. Col.
Davey, R. Lentliam, W. H. Sykes, Col.
Denman, O. Liienian, G. Taylor, P. A.
Mike, sir W. Lefevre, G. J. Trevelyan, li. 0.
Dillwyn, I. L. Lennox. Lord G. White. J.
Edwards, C. Lewis, H. Willialll6oll, Sir H.
Erskine, Viee.Ad. Locke, J. Young, R.
Ewart, W. Lusk, A.
Ewing, H. E. lien/. J. TELLERS.
Eykyn, R. Mill, J. S. M'lAren, D.
Fawcett, H. Mills, J. R. Haines, E.

NOES.
Adam, W. P. Fei'den, J. Northcote. Sir S. H.
Agnew, sir A. Forde, Cal. Parker, Major
Bane, W. Forester, tics. Patten, Col.
Himmel, C. Goddard, A. L. Peel, Gen.
Bailie, H. J. Goldney, G. Powell, F. S.
Barclay, A. C. Iloodeon, J. Read, C. S.
Barrow, W. H. Gore. J. R. Ridley, Sir M.
Bateau, Sir T. Gov't, J. E. Robertson, P. F.
Beach, Sir M. Graves, S. R. Roll, Mr J.
Bentinck, G. C. Gramma, G. Russell, A.
Illunnerliassett,SDß Grey, T. tie Schreiber, C.
Bonham-Carter, J. °Minh, C. I). Scott, Sir W.
Bridges, Sir B. Gurney, R. licouriteld, J. H.
Bruce, Lord C. Gwyn, H. Selwyn, C. J.
Bruce, Major Hamilton, Lord C. Seymour, G. H.
Burrell, Sir P. Hardy, G. Simonds, W. B.
Carnegie. C. Hartopp, E. B. Smollett, P. B.
Cecil, Lord E. May, Mr J. C. speirs, A. A.
Chatterton, H. H. Holland, F. Stanhope, J. B.
Clive. Capt. Mullion, Lint Stirling-Maxwell, Sir
Cole, H. Howes, E. W.
Cole, J. L. Huddlregon, J. W. Stuart, Lt.-CoL
Colehrooke, Sir T. Hunt, G. W. Suttees, H. E.
Colthurst. Sir G. Karsiake, Sir J. B. Taylor, Col.
Coolly, T. Kekevrich, 8. T. Tottenham, 12.-Col.
Corry. 11. L Lanyon, C. Tracy, C. R.
Cooper, E. H. Lennox, Lord H. Wakiegrave-Leslie,
Craufurd, K H. Lindsay, I,'ol. G.
Cabin, G. Lowther, J. Walker, Major
Dickson, Major NPLagan, P. Walpole, S. If.
Dimsdale, R. Malcolm, J. W. Whitmore, H.
Du Cane, C. Manners, Lord J. Wise. H. C.
Donne, Gen. Miller, W. Yorke, J. H.
Earle, R. A. lionerelff, J.
Egerton, A. F. Muwbray, J. R. TELLIRI
Egerton, E. C. Naas, Lord Fergnsenn, Sir J.
Brans, T. W. Neste, C. Montgomery, Sir G.
Pane, Col. Noel, G. J.