The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-08 00:00:00

sure in noticing those of the ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
If, indeed, it must strike every one, that Mr.
NAPIER'S measures will not so fully realise their
object as those of Mr. WHITESIDE, yet we are all
aware, on the other hand, of the different fields in
which they labour. One has only to do with a
body of intelligent men, and with modes and forms
of procedure,—the other has to do with the illite-
rate, the wayward, and the prejudiced, and with
the reality of property. Both find the soil they
would reclaim full of weeds and brushwood ; but
one, after applying the fire and the hoe, finds a
clear surface,—the other has, after this first pro-
cess, to accommodate his movements to the posi-
tion of immoveable rocks, and unmanageable bogs.
Mr. NAPIER, in truth, has addressed himself to the
lessening of Ireland's greatest difficulty, the miti-
gation of her greatest evil,—the state of landlord
and tenant relations ; and proposes to repeal alto-
gether some 200 or 300 statutes, which have cost
the ablest Irish lawyers years to condense into an
intelligible form, and Mr. NAPIER months to re-
consider, to abolish or retain, and finally to codify.
A glance at his speech will suffice to give any one
an idea of the forest into which Mr. NAPIER will
introduce the daylight of equity and common
sense. He has neglected no source of informa-
tion, whether Government Commissions, Quaker
Reports, laborious investigations of his legal
brethren, or the abortive attempts at legislation by
his predecessors. Nothing struck us with more
pleasure in his speech, than the thoroughly candid
manner in which he appreciated and used the
labours of all who have gone before him, without
respect to political party or religious creed.
His Bills he classes under four heads : the
first, designed to facilitate obtaining loans by
owners for making improvements ; the second, to
facilitate the granting of beneficial leases ; the
third, to enable both landlords and tenants to
enforce the performance of their respective con-
tracts ; the fourth, to provide, as far as possible,
retrospectively, compensation for improvements
made by the tenant. Mr. NAPIER assumes that,
although legislation cannot make good landlords or
tenants, it ought to remove every legal impedi-
ment to the most efficient cultivation of the land,
and to watch especially over the interests of the
improving occupier. "All his sympathies were
with the industrious tenant, and not with the im-
provident landlord." Hence, having shown the
successful operation of public loans for the im-
provement of land, his first Bill provides (what
strikes us as) a very hopeful scheme for facilitating
the obtaining of private loans. No one will
doubt the great undesirableness, if it can be
avoided, of Government undertaking the part of
the private banker and money lender. The diffi-
culty hitherto has been, encumbered as so many
Irish estates are, to obtain the adequate security.
Mr. NAPIER proposes to make the loan a first
charge on the land. The reality of the improve-
ment is to be ascertained, on a memorial from the
borrower, by the officers of the Board of Works,
and the improvement is to be registered through
the Ordnance Survey. He secures the interests
of life tenants by making " sums borrowed under
the Bill payable by twenty-two yearly instal-
ments." Hence, as the payment would be of the
nature of a rent-charge, every owner would pay
in proportion to what he enjoyed. The provi-
sions of this Bill are intended to afford the owners
of land every facility to improve the cultivation
of the land. His next provides for doing it
through the tenant. Adopting the suggestion of
the Report of the Society of Friends, which he
highly commends, " that two things are es-
sential to the wellbeing of Ireland— first,
that there should be freedom in making contracts;
secondly, that there should be facilities for en-
forcing those contracts :" his second Bill puts to
rout some sixty scattered statutes, and reduces all
leasing powers to one uniform principle ; it pro-
vides the means for persons having only life, or
otherwise specially limited, interests granting be-
neficial leases ; a clause, open to discussion he
admits, but of which he is himself strongly in
favour, provides for agricultural rents under such
leases being fixed by a valuation from the average
prices of corn for the preceding four years ; a
plan which he supports by cogent illustrations
from facts. The great object being the improve-
ment of cultivation with all its direct and indirect
advantages, provision is made for compensation
for lasting improvements, while every inducement
is furnished towards accomplishing this by spon-
taneous agreement between landlord and tenant.
He fixes a maximum period of ten years as that
in which a tenant would compensate himself for
his improvements, subject to special agreements
for a shorter term ; and if the tenant, while pay-
ing his rent, was turned out by the landlord, he
is to receive compensation from the landlord pro-
portioned to the number of years which he loses.
All is based, however, upon reducing a lease to a
simple contract between landlord and tenan

Hence the third Bill provides, as suggested by the
Friends' Report, for the easy enforcing of the
contract. Accordingly he proposes to codify all
the laws regarding the relations of landlords and

tenants, by which he sweeps away, not
sixty merely, but two hundred statutes !
_ _ _

all of which, to make the law so far indisputable,
would be enumerated in a schedule attached to the
Bill. The power of distress is retained, but
limited from six years' rent to one and a half—
the tenant having the right to appear first before
the Sheriff, whose decision is to be final as to
whether the rent claimed be really due. His
fourth Bill provides for the cases of tenants who
have actually made improvements—in fact, for
the transition state to the complete operation of
the other Bills. As the Land Improvements Act
has recognised the public benefit of agricultural

improvements, he deems it only just that tenants
who have made such improvements should be

secured from loss. As to the Ulster tenant right,
he denies, as we do, the possibility of its being
made the subject of legislation. The sooner that
right is simplified to a matter of simple contract
the better. Indeed, but for the exceptional state
of Ireland, we should prefer to have no compensa-
tion for improvements whatever, except under the
conditions of a simple contract between the land-
lord and the tenant. We are happy to add that
the propositions were well received by the House,
and, for Ireland's sake, we trust that nothing will
prevent them, after a careful discussion of details,
from becoming the law of the land. The Encum-
bered Estates Commission is working great good,
in simplifying titles and improving the proprietary
of the land. Mr. NAPIER'S Bills, of whose excel-
lent provisions we could notice- but the principal,
will, we trust, be the commencement of a better

state of things between landlord and tenant. If
Serjeant Sim had not all he wished, even he
could not deny the excellence of the first three
Bills ; and the whole Irish brigade plainly per-
ceive that the Ministerial policy towards Ireland is
that of redress of grievances and conciliation.

Wo would invite the public attention to the
Report of the important meeting of the South
Australian Copper Mining Company, which will
be found in another part of this day's impression.
It will be seen that an efficient Committee of
Management has been elected to co-operate with
Mr. ARMITAGE, who has so long and so efficiently
devoted his entire energies to the management
and advancement of the undertaking. They have
been carefully chosen by the Committee of Inspection,
and we have no doubt that they will efficiently dis-
charge the duties which they have undertaken. We
have always felt, that the attractions of the most

precious metal—even of gold itself—should not
withdraw attention from the legitimate and, per-
haps, not less remunerative claims of "Copper."
The Burra-Burra Mine, and others that have
been opened in Australia, clearly show the
extraordinary and almost miraculous returns
that may be obtained from a well-devised
and judicious system of Copper Mining—and,
without venturing to assert that the mine
belonging to the South Australian Company is at
all equal in mineral wealth to the district above
referred to, we can fully, believe the assertion of
the Chairman, " that under a judicious sys-
tem of management, a dividend will speedily
be declared that will surprise and astonish
the most sanguine among the shareholders."
The Company, indeed, possesses all the elements
of success. It possesses property in a district