The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-13 00:00:00

THE IRISH LAND BILL.

The House went into committee on the Irish Land
Bill, The committee proceeded to consider the 17th
clause, which provides that the tenant should not be
compelled to quit his holding until the sum awarded by
the Court for Compensation had been paid. The tenant
might set it off against arrears of rent.
Dr. BALL moved an amendment, which was not op-
posed by the Government, inasmuch as it did not alter
the policy of the bill. Several of the Irish members
opposed the amendment, and complained that Dr. Ball
had not given notice of his proposition, which was to the
.effect that a tenant should not be compelled by
process of law to quit his holding until the
amount of compensation had been paid or satisfied
unless the judge or chairman before whom the case is tried
shall otherwise direct.
The amendment was ultimately agreed to.

The clause, after being further amended, was agreed to.
Clause 18 provides that the court, for the purposes of
this part of the Act, should be the Civil Bill Court of the
county where the matter arose, or the Court of Arbitra-
tion therein constituted.

Mr. W. SHAW moved an amendment on this clause to
make the applications to a judge of the Landed Estates
Courts under questions that might arise under the pre-
sent bill instead of the Civil Bill Court as set out in
the act.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for IRELAND opposed the
amendment as quite unnecessary, and the more so be-
cause the judges of the Landed Estates Court had quite
sufficient to do in Dublin without goi2g circuit under
this bill.

Dr. BREWER moved a very lengthy amendment, the
object of which was to prevent a very complicated code of
judicature and protracted litigation.
After some discussion, the amendment was with-
drawn. _ _

A discussion followed, in which Mr. Corrance doubted
whether they would get one judge capable of disposing of
all the questions that would arise under the bill. Mr. C.
Fortescue said the judges would only have to decide
questions of fact on the evidence brought before them.
Mr. B. Osborne said it was desirable that a great deal of
cheap law should not be made under the Act, because his
experience of cheap law in Ireland was that it was most
nasty and most expensive. If they could only keep the
attorneys quiet in Ireland, he felt certain the present
measure would prove to be one of the best ever passed for
that country.
The amendment was ultimately negatived without a
division, and clause 18 as amended was then agreed to and
ordered to stand part of the bill.
On clause 19 being proposed,

Dr. BALL proposed an amendment to provide that the
judge of the Civil Bill Court should himself, without a
jury, decide any question of fact arising before him.

The amendment was withar awn.

The Committee was occupied until twelve o'clock, when
progress was reported, in considering other amendments.
No' substantial alteration was made in the bill, and the
progress made formed an agreeable contrast to the tardy
proceedings in connection with the first three clauses of
the bill. There was an evident disposition on both sides
of the House to dispose of the clauses with as much
rapidity as possible, and before eleven o'clock the 27
clauses which form the first part-of the bill, relating to
compensation to tenants, were agreed to. The committee
then proceeded to consider the second part of the measure,
which relates to the sale of land to tenants, and many of
the clauses were summarily disposed of. At the time pro-
gress was reported all the clauses which constitute the
second part of the measure were agreed to save clause 31,
which was omitted, inasmuch as clause 34, which practi-
cally deals with the distribution of the purchase-money to
which the omitted clause had reference.