The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-05 00:00:00

fimrtt Wtaton

SUN OFFICE, Seven o' Clock.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

(THIS DAY.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The SPEAKER took the Chair at Twelve o'clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
The following Bills were read a third time, and
passed:—
Ipswich Dock.
London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway.
The following Bills, as amended, were considered, and
agreed to:—
Aberdeen Boys' and Girls' Hospital.
Dumfries and Maxwelltown Waterworks.
Haw Bridge and Roads.
London Gas Light Company (Amendment of Act, &c.)
Portrush Harbour.
St. Helen's Gis.
Ulverston Waterworks.
Yeovil and Itchester Turnpike Trusts.
ATTENDANCE OF MEMBERS ON PRIVATE
COMMITTEES.

Mr. WILSON PATTEN moved, that the Committee
on the Group FF of Private Bills be revived, and do
consist of the four Members who have signed the requi-
site declaration, together with such Members as shall
have been appointed by the Committee of Selection,
under Standing Order No. 86; and that the Committee
have leave to sit and proceed on Thursday next,
at twelve o'clock. The motion, the Honour-
able Gentleman said, was rendered necessary
by the neglect of Members named to serve on Com-
mittees on private Bills to inform the Committee of Se-
lection in good time when it happened that they were
disqualified from serving on such Committees. Owing
to this neglect, parties had been put to great expense,
amounting in some instance to 2001.
PETITIONS.
A number of petitions were presented in favour of
the Tenant-right Bill from various parts of Ireland, by
Mr. O'Flaherty, Mr. V. Scully, Mr. Monsen, Mr.
0. Higgins, Mr. Moore (4), and Mr. S. Crawford (12 ).
Lord BROOKE presented a petition from a place in
Ireland against the Charitable Trusts Bill.
Mr. MOORE also presented a petition from a place in
Yorkshire to the same effect.
Mr. v, SMITH presented a petition from Dumferm-
line against the Militia Bill.
Lord D. STUART presented a similar petition from
a society in Figeware-road.
Mr. MOORE
.presented a petition from a place in
Ireland against the Ecclesiastical Titles Act.
TENANT RIGHT (IRELAND) BILL.—AD-
JOURNED DEBATE.
On the reading of the order of the day for the resump-
tion of this debate,
Mr. CONOLLY said that he felt that he was justified
in taking the course which he had pursued on a former
occasion, as in his opinion the House was then
about to divide on this Bill on a false issue.
The Bill in his opinion was nothing more than
a system of compulsory value tion, without giving
the landlord any security for his rights.
Certainly the word compensation was used very fre-
quently in the Bill, but the apiece of arbitration, by
which a fair compensation was to be arrived at, was
imperfect and never could be worked satisfactorily. He
could scarcely honey s that Hon. Gentlemen opposite
wished to carry this Bill, for he could not insult their
common sense so fir as to suppose that they would have
introduced such a Bill hal trey wished to have it car-
ried. It embodied a principle which was opposed to the
practise of Eagland, and he thought of Ireland too. He
had not only been an advocate of compensation for im-
provement, but he had acted upon it, and he thought he
had some right to speak on the subject.—(Hear.) This
Bill was introduced to keep up the cry in Ireland, not
to settle the question between landlord and tenant, but
to unsettle it. This was a course which was not honest
by those who advocated tenant right, not honest by
this House, and not even by the supporters of this Bill.
He would go on now to point out what tenant-right
really was. The tenant had a perfect right to sell his
improvements to any one %bora the landlord might ap-
point. Tenant .right did cot depend upon tenure at all,
for the tenant at will had just as rainy rights as the
tenant at lease; and he was at perfect liberty, if
he so thought fit, to sell his improvements
to the icoom:ng tenant. Tenant right, how-
ever, differed under d.ff rent circumstances; for
instance, ter.sut right on one estate might extend to
twenty years' purchase, while in the adjoining estate it
might rot reach to nooee:than two years' purchase. It de-
pended upon the feeliegs and eituation of the landlord
whether tenant right was high or low. Tenant right
was nothing less than the good will of the tenant, and
when the tenant had the confidence of his landlord it
ranged very high, as indeed was the case in the north
of Ireland. And yet the supporters of this Bill came
forward to abase the landlords of Ulster.—(Hear, hear.)
Tenant right was nothing less than one of mutual confi-
deuce between the landlord tied tenant, and it was im-
possible to deal with it by legislative enactments. On
the contrary, a system of legislation proposed by the
Bill would undermine such confidence, and he appealed
to Irish Members, as th,,ie ecustryman, to pause before
they adored this Bill. Ic not doing so they would not only
be acting injudiciously, but inflicting a great injustice
upon the landed interest of Ireland, and he hoped the
House would not consent to iuterfere with the system of
tenant right that at present prevailed in Ireland, which
he was happy to say was the result of a long continu-
ance of peace. This Bill, in feet, would increase the
civil and religious disctrd which reigned in the north
of Ireland, for the Bike of promoting some paltry elec-
tioneering scheme or other. The material interest and
the prosperity of Ireland rs (paired that this Bill should
be thrown out, and he should give it his most deter-
mined oppositioe.--(Hear.)
Mr. MONSELL was not disposed to underrate the
importance of the question, and he for one did not
regret that the debate had been adjourned. The tenant
right which the last speaker had referred to prevailed
in Ulster, and there get at prosperity existed, but the
same confidence or prosperity was not to be found else-
where, and hence arose the necessity for a Bill of this
nature.—(Hear, hear.) He was by no means anxious
to see a system of compulsory compensation established,
but no such system was involved in this Bill; and he
was, therefore, at a loss to understand why it should
be opposed on that ground.—(Hear, hear.) He would,
if the House would permit him, call attention to
the urgency of this case. The existing law relating
to land in Ireland had worked badly in all times
and under all circumstances. as would be found by a re-
ference to the writings of Dean Swift, Arthur Young,
Lord Clare, and other writers, who had commented upon
the social condition of the tenant-farmers of Ireland.
(Hean hear.) Most of the crimes and evils
which Ireland bad suffered ft orn might be traced to
some dispute about the occupation or letting of land, and
therefore the inference appeared to him to be obvious
that the system ought to be altered, unless the House
thought it was the disposition of the people, and not the
hip cuce state of the law, that was the cause of
. their miseries.—([li=ar, ht ar, ) HP, howeve7,
o'.lld tee nothirg in the Fish character to induce the
former belief, for directly the Irishmen got out of his
own country he becameindustrioue an enterprising man, and emi-
nently
aed
in contented.—(Hear, bear.) All
authornies concurred
consulted he hid
mnoakdeoub! chin opinion, and if they could be
that they would agree with
him that to
the Irishman as estimable
in his own country, teevmust
confer upon him the ad-
vantages of the principle
hear.) In theory the containedexisting ill
this
Bill.—(Hear,
Irish
system was the same
as that which prevailed in ke.glatel, but the misfortune
was, that in Ireland it was not h past h
he wanted was thatthe lito practice,
and allsameea p I
privileges should be conceded to the Irish-rtaecntaint-
farmer that were enjoyed by the English tenant-farmer.
__(gear, hear.) In England and in France no landlord
could eject any tenant without cereperisating him for the
improvements; and the same syste, prevailed
in
Den-
mark, Massachusetts, a new country, and several
European States, 3961 bet wl!lsnoatt bats loss to understand
-why the same princlpietcou( _ enforced for Ireland
Hear, hear.)
observe-
by legislative enactment.—(Hear,
before
House the
Lord NA AS was
importantto(o offer :rug et,ir,cynee
lions upon this very.
of •
House came to a decroon.-:
ofHear, hear.")
principle compensation he admitted that the Ft. . was,
found in this Bill, b
to some extent, to be certain but it
was introduced as a peg to berg upon other
Principles of an exceedingly dangerous character.—
(Hear, hear.) The principal feature of this Bill was not
compensation but it was that part of it which would
i
hereafter, if e was cerriedrforce the landlord to submit
his rents to the arbitration of a body of tenants.—(Hear.)
Now, he for one, never could coneent to any such prin-
ciple of law; it existed in no country on the face of the
globe that be was acquainted with; and as it was totally
at variance with the rights of propert:Yl u© must call
upon the House to reject the Bill.—(Hear, hear.)
Compensation, he repeated, was not, in fact,
the leading principle of this Bill.--(leart hear.)
The Bill introduced by the Hon. Member Eon2o years
ago was only part of the present Bill. The present
Bill was adapted to embody the tenant league in Ire-
land, whose principles the
Noble Lord considered
to be as dangerous ea the wildest ones
advanced during the storms of the French
revolution. Ia the year 1851 a speech was made by a
reverend gentleman in Ireland, in which an opinion was
advanced that when a landlord failed to perform
his duty he ought to be removed. Another
reverend gentleman had stated that landlords
were only tolerated for the benefit of the
people, and when they were found not to be beneficial
they should be removed. The Noble Lord had many
other proofs that the principle of this Bill was to deprive
the landlord of all power.—(n Ne," from the Opposition.)
. It was recited that a tenant should not be evicted unless
he received compensation or was allowed to sell hie in-
terest to a solvent tenant; but that was the custom of the
-country now, and the Bill proposed to make that compul-
sory which hitherto rss wail° nal on the part of the lend-
lord. The first and
bodi second clauses were nothing more than
an em meat of the favourite dogmas of the tenant
league, and of the theory of Mr. Rutherford, that the
property of the landlord was the mere land in ins
barren state, sad that tie tena ,
nt s property con-
sisted of all the additional
value which had been
given to it by cultivation, Btc. Theprinciple of
the Bill was cempulsory value&of P • h
rent which was
novel in legislation, and he did not think princip • l a eso
• t would evebeeined by
unjust the House.—(Hear,
rillt
hear.)rei ....x* would be to prevent land-
lords taking aul nt„ifiOsinekvreat -in their
taae,en, property, and
to conical thear-laa chargers. Whatever
:rationt4. enehretaenistreer the landlord nor his
Cree'would 4eriya, icy fit from them; therefore
the I3ill woUliatut ditt it "at source of hope for im-
ne

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