those conclusions rested on a very slender basis. It had been assumed, in the course of the debate, that the inquiry of the House of Lords into the operation of the Land Act was to be treated in the same category with decisions of the Courts in Ireland; whereas there was the greatest difference between the course pursued by the Government and what he must call the "fishing" inquiry proposed and carried in their Lordships' House, for the purpose of finding out whether there were any defects in the Land Act which required legislation; but he did not think it was possible for the Government to adopt a more prudent attitude than that of watching the decisions of the Courts of the Land Act. He was sorry to find that his noble Friend behind him (Earl Fortescue) had changed his mind. When his noble Friend told the House of the dangerous hopes which might be excited by any statements which might lead people to suppose that it was intended to change the Act of 1881, did he not see that that might be turned round and put another way; and what would he say to the fears which an inquiry might excite in the minds of those who took a different view, and who thought, perchance, alterations might be made, as the result of that inquiry, adverse to the interests of the tenants? It constantly happened that Courts of Law gave decisions on the meaning of Acts which were not in accordance with the intentions of the framers of those Acts, and opinions were freely expressed on such decisions by many persons, and even by Members of the Government. The Government were watching the decisions of the Irish Land Courts. That was their method of inquiry. Precisely what the Government had said ought to be done was now being done. The Act of 1881 was left to operate; and the Courts in Ireland, not an inquiry by the House of Lords, were interpreting and applying the provisions of that measure. The Government were anxious, before any conclusions were come to as to amendments of the Act, to see what was the effect of the Act, both in its practical working and its legal interpretation by the Courts. He deprecated the importation into the discussion by the noble and learned Earl opposite (Earl Cairns) of the question of leases, and thought that with regard to the question of compensation for improvements, where it was, no doubt, difficult to arrive at the precise understanding of the elaborate judgments delivered by the Court, exaggeration had been indulged in. No one deprecated more than he did continually meddling with this important law. The Government would adhere to the main principles of the Act; but it might, of course, hereafter be found necessary that in some details, in which the Act might be found by experience not to work well, there should be amendments. It had been said that the opinion expressed by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) with respect to the case of" Adams v. Dunseath was meant to influence the Sub-Commissioners. But if everything said by a Member of the Government upon the subject of the Act was to operate upon the minds of the Sub - Commissioners charged with its administration, and to induce them to disregard their plain duty, then all he (the Earl of Kimberley) could say was, that they would be utterly unfit to perform the functions committed to them. He did not understand that his right hon. Friend desired for a moment to influence the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners. Was it not constantly the case that Judges placed an interpretation_upon Statutes not contemplated by the Legislature, and that similar expressions of opinion were the result? As regarded the matter, he, for one, had considerable difficulty in arriving at the precise principles which governed it. The question seemed to be whether the intention of the Legislature was that, with regard to improvements, the Act of 1870 should be imported into the Act of 1881. It appeared to him that if the decisions of the Court were such as not to be in accordance with the intentions of the framers of the Act, then it was the obvious duty of the Government, at the proper time and season, to consider whether it was not part of their duty to propose the amending of the Act. It was not possible to suppose that this Act, in the sense that it would require no amendment in details, could be final; and what he apprehended was meant, when it was said they should not be continually making new laws in Ireland, was that the general principle of the Act should remain fixed, and that they should not be constantly altering their general policy; but as to the details, it was absolutely certain that questions would arise, sooner or later, upon which they might have to make some alteration in the law, large or small. It in no way followed that the time had arrived for a complete inquiry into the Act, because there was something in the working of the Act which should be remedied. THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not think my noble Friend who has just sat down (the Earl of Kimberley) has given an accurate impression to the House of the purport of this debate, or of the objects which those who introduced the discussion had in view. He has represented the debate as if it were a mere re-discussion of the question whether or not a Committee of Inquiry into the working of the Land Act was desirable. That is a matter of some importance; and I think it is very clear, from subsequent events, that the House on both sides is very much of the opinion of the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) that there was sufficient matter for inquiry. But the particular object which I understood the noble Earl on Cross Benches (the Earl of Dunraven) had in view was to impress upon the Government a matter which the noble Earl (the Earl of Kimberley) has passed over lightly-namely, the effect upon public opinion in Ireland upon the permanent pacification of the country, of the hints, and of more than hints, dropped by the Prime Minister, that he is prepared to re-open the question of land legislation for Ireland. A great re-distribution of property has taken place; that which belonged to the landlord has been re-distributed by being taken from him and given to the tenant. After that has been done, whatever the opinions of the Government with respect to it may be, the one thing you desire is that men on both sides-landlords as well as tenants-should settle down to their new relations, and should make the best of the situation as they find it; that they should settle, by mutual agreement, such differences as exist between them; and that, as far as the conditions of the Act will allow, they should go on with the most vital industry of Ireland as if nothing of importance had occurred, and no further legislation were contemplated. But the Prime Minister has produced exactly the opposite result by the declaration he has made, and he has opened up a boundless field for doubt. No landlord will like to make any permanent arrangements; he will not dare to risk any further his private property, already so grievously compromised, when there is an almost unlimited possibility, to be inferred from the obscure hints of the Prime Minister, of a new attack on his rights, and of a new re-distribution of his property. On the other hand, the tenant will not wish to bind himself by any agreement, or prematurely to challenge the decision of the Court which may be held finally against him, when there is unlimited hope in the results of further agitation, when the words of the Prime Minister betray how sensitive the Government is to the action of agitators, and how ready they are to abandon and tear up that finality which they promised, and to enter upon a new course of land legislation at the bidding of the agitators in Ireland. I do not care, with reference to this matter, what is the opinion of the Government. What I say is that they are bound either to abstain from ambiguous forecasts of their intention altogether, or to make a clean breast of it, and tell us what they do intend. It is unpardonable for the Government to keep these two important classes in Ireland any longer in a state of painful doubt. The Government are only intensifying antagonism, which is too bitter already; they are only exciting hopes and fears which have already been too fatal to the peace and prosperity of Ireland. THE LORD CHANCELLOR said, he greatly doubted whether the course taken that evening was not an unwise one. When Questions were put in either House of Parliament, it was generally agreed that some answer was needed; and when answers to Questions were represented, as they had been that evening, in the case of statements made by his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, as meaning something which did not appear, at all events, to persons whose minds were constituted in the ordinary manner, it was to be regretted; for consequences might follow from the present discussion, and from their being so represented, which it was not intended should take place. The people of Ireland might think that they had, in fact, some rights which were not yet conceded to them, and thus their minds might become unsettled; and the result would be that much more harm would be done by dis more likely to have been caused by the premature appointment of the Committee to inquire into the operation of the Land Act than by anything which had been said by any of Her Majesty's Ministers. cussing these statements than by leaving | Again, the Prime Minister did not hold them as they were-simply as answers out any expectation that further power to Questions put in one of the Houses of of breaking leases would be granted. Parliament. He did not understand Was any good to be done in Ireland by that any statement made by the Prime throwing doubt upon every statement of Minister was intended at all to intimate the Prime Minister, and by making every that the Government were going to re- word of his a subject of debate? He open the question of tenure under the did not think that any such uneasiness Irish Land Act. The statement appeared, had been created by the statements of as far as he could judge, to have refer- the Prime Minister as had been sugence only to the Question put, and to gested, nor had they interfered with have been carefully made so as to avoid arrangements being made by landlords any such construction. One thing, at and tenants out of Court. If there had all events, he should have thought per- been any unsettling of men's minds, or fectly clear, and that was that the Prime any obstruction of settlements in that Minister, whether he rightly interpreted country between landlord and tenant or not the decision of the Court of Ap-out of Court, he thought that was much peal, did not for a moment seek to cast a slur on the correctness of that Court; and he should not, until that evening, have thought it possible that anyone could hold the Prime Minister's meaning to be that the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners were not to act upon the decision of the Court of Appeal, or that the action of the Government was to depend upon the question whether the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners took their own course, regardless of that decision, or whether they followed that decision. The noble Earl raised a question which really depended upon the construction to be put upon the decision of the Judges; but, if he (the Lord Chancellor) were called upon to discuss that decision, he should reply that he was not in a position to do so, as the opinions delivered by the several Judges, in the case of " Adams v Dunseath," had not been laid before the House, and he did not know that they had been laid before the House of Commons. He must say that until he came down to the House upon that occasion, the notion that any human being would put such an interpretation on the Prime Minister's words as had been put, or would suppose such a conclusion to be deducible from them, never would have occurred to him, and he was perfectly certain it never could have occurred to the Prime Minister himself. Then, did the Prime Minister hold out any expectation that the Go-pectations, their claims for a revision of vernment would re-open the question of the Land Act and introduce some new Bill to overrule the decision of the Court of Appeal? Quite the reverse. He said that there had not been time to ascertain the practical effect of that decision, and that its effect would have to be watched. THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE said, the noble and learned Lord (the Lord Chancellor) had stated that it would be very unwise to pay attention to so small a matter as this, and that it would be better to let these disagreeable questions rest. That was not the light in which he (the Marquess of Lansdowne) looked at this question. He thought his noble Friend (the Earl of Dunraven) had done good service in bringing it forward that eveningfirst, by enabling the Colleagues of the Prime Minister in that House to show that their minds were not so open to conviction as his; and, secondly, by giving the House an opportunity of protesting against the way in which these great questions of principle had been left in suspense by the statements which had been adverted to. Speaking as one who had some knowledge of Ireland and the Irish people, he must join with the noble Earl who had brought forward the subject in the expression of his conviction that nothing would more retard a settlement of that country than the creation of an impression that whenever the people found that legislation had not in all respects fulfilled their ex what had been done were to be admitted. The great fault, both of the Land Act of last year and of the Land Act of 1870, had always seemed to him to be their extreme intricacy. And not only was it necessary for the illiterate peasants whose interests were at stake to make themselves masters of two of the most | summed in regard to tenants' improve was complicated Acts of Parliament ever in- ments. Both were intelligible, but they troduced into the Statute Book, but in were irreconcilable; and it seemed to addition to this they were obliged, be- him that throughout all these discusfore they could know how they really sions they had never had any clear stood, to study the three elaborate judg- statement from the Government as to ments of the Land Commissioners sitting which of the two they took up. He as an Appeal Court in Dublin, and the (the Marquess of Lansdowne) had himseven still more elaborate judgments of self pointed out that the second of the High Court of Appeal to which the two views was the one which had these matters had, in the last instance, always hitherto regulated the agriculbeen referred. Most people had hoped tural economy of the United Kingdom. that the question having been thus dealt It was the principle of the Land Act of with was at last finally disposed of, and 1870. It was the principle of the Agrithat the parties would be satisfied with cultural Holdings Act of 1875. It was the settlement of a case by the High the principle favoured by that unquesCourt of Appeal; but now it appeared tionable patriot, the late Mr. Isaac that that was not so, for no sooner was Butt. It was the principle in all the a decision come to than it was called in most liberally drawn Scotch leases; question by the Prime Minister him- and, finally, it was the principle which self, and a most unfortunate state of the Irish tenants themselves invariably things was the result. The fact was acted upon in their dealings with their that this perplexity had arisen from fellow-tenants. That principle Ministers not being able to make up never repudiated till last year. It was their minds as to which of two alterna- first called in question by the Besstive positions they would adopt on the borough Commission, and ultimately subject of tenants' improvements. One by the Prime Minister. He (the Marposition was that improvements once quess of Lansdowne) said ultimately, executed by a tenant or his predecessors because what was known as Healy's in title-which had been interpreted Clause formed no part of the original to include predecessors in occupancy-proposals of the Government-it was, could never be exhausted by enjoy- indeed, no part of Mr. Healy's original ment, no matter how long or how pro- proposal-and was only accepted at a fitable. That was one view. The other late stage of the Bill, with the addition position was that the land was the of qualifying words which it was imposproperty of the owner of it-that its sible to doubt, were accepted by both capability of improvement, with all its Houses of Parliament with the idea that resources, latent and apparent, belonged they had effectually protected the landto him, and that he was to be at liberty lord against tenants' claims on account of to lend the use of that land to another these remote improvements. It was imperson upon condition that the person possible not to see that that was the cultivating it should develop those re- basis on which the Healy Amendment sources, and, having done so, should be was accepted. The whole question had allowed to recoup himself for the expen- now been re-opened by the recent statediture of his capital, skill, and labour; ments of the Prime Minister. They but that, after he had been so recouped, were now in this difficulty. then the landlord's reversionary interest 16 sets of Sub-Commissioners regulating in those improvements should be recog- these matters, and deciding innumerable nized. According to the former view cases, into every one of which this questhe improvement resulted solely from the tion entered, without any principles tenant's efforts, and, therefore, belonged being laid down as to the manner in exclusively to him; according to the which they were to be decided. He did latter it resulted from the co-operation hope that, as they were told some stateof the tenant's skill, labour, and capital ment was to be made by the Prime Miwith the capital which the landlord or his nister, there would be, once and for all, predecessors had invested in the acquisi a clear and definite settlement of the tion of the soil and its capabilities, and, question. In the meanwhile, the old therefore, belonged partly to the one party principle had been demolished, and no and partly to the other. Those were the new one had been established in its only two positions which could be as-place-or one so vague that no two per There were sons understood it in the same sense. | there was a willingness on both sides to In whatever sense it might be finally accept the decision of gentlemen in whom decided by the Government, they should they had confidence; but those gentlerecollect that if it were enacted that men, though enjoying the confidence of tenants' improvements were not to be both parties, declined to act, because of exhausted by time, and, further, that the uncertainty as to the principles upon succession in occupancy was to be the which they were to adjudicate upon the same thing as succession in title, question of fair rent. He asked whether the Government would be driven by any man could counsel an extra-judicial inexorable logic into the adoption of settlement when the decisions were so Mr. Parnell's theory that the "prairie entirely different from one another? value" of the land was the fair measure Take another instance. A Sub-Commisof the rent which a tenant ought to pay sioner was appealed to to say upon what for it a theory for advocating which Mr. principle he made his valuation. He Parnell had been thrown into prison. replied that he valued, in the first inThat seemed to him to be the real diffi- stance, the tenant's interest at the full culty. He did hope that if the Govern- disturbance allowance, and then took ment were going to address themselves the full capitalized value of the tenant's to the question, and to legislate upon it, improvements-in other words, he gave they would deal with it in a manner in- the tenant compensation for disturbance capable of being misunderstood. when he had not been disturbed. He LORD INCHIQUIN said, the discus- believed that there was not a single sion which had taken place impressed landowner in Ireland who was not earhim with the wisdom of the course that nestly desirous of settling all differences had been adopted in instituting an in-between them and their tenants; but quiry into the working of the Land Act. What he wished to find out was, how were the landlords of Ireland to ascertain whether the Sub-Commissioners, in giving their decisions, had acted upon the decision of the Courts of Appeal, or whether they had acted upon the hints which had been thrown out by the Prime Minister? Unless the landlords knew the grounds of the decisions, it was almost impossible that many cases should be settled out of Court by agreement between landlord and tenant. There was no security, as things were, that the tenant would not get paid twice over for his improvements-once when the fair rent was fixed, and then at the end of the statutory term. If their Lordships' Committee ascertained that fact, it would have done good service. VISCOUNT MIDLETON said, that he quite agreed with the noble Lord who had just sat down (Lord Inchiquin). If the Sub-Commissioners' decisions, when reversed by the Court of Appeal, were to be said not to express the intentions of Her Majesty's Government, what hope was there of any final settlement in Ireland? He had spoken with more than one agent, who had expressed the opinion that while the question which their Lordships had been discussing was unsettled, there was little hope of amicable arrangements between tenants and landlords. He knew of cases where their difficulty was in dealing with an Act which had no definite interpretation, and with respect to which the Government refused any indication of the lines on which it was to be interpreted. He hoped for an assurance that the insecurity which landlords felt in dealing with their property might at an early date be put an end to by some definite assurance from the Government. ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.—(No. 65.) (The Earl of Morley.) SECOND READING. Order of the Day for the Second Reading read. Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a." (The Earl of Morley.) THE EARL OF LONGFORD said, that with regard to the manner in which this Bill had passed through the other House, he had to complain that many of the most important national Bills were either put aside or dealt with in a hole-and-corner fashion. He had endeavoured to learn something with respect to the efficiency of the Army; but he found upon inquiry that it was in a state of transition. In October last the Secretary of State for War made a public announcement of the satisfactory condition of the Army. He (the Earl of Longford) had thereupon written to him, asking him to name one single |