A CASE FOR NOTICE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 14, 25 July 1884, Page 22

A CASE FOR NOTICE.

(Dublin Freeman, May 31.) The Freeman published a letter on Monday from Mr. S. J. Hurley, of Killaloe, stating a case which contains the story of many of the tenants of Ireland. A tenant in the County Clare took, a quarter of a century ago, a couple of small farms from a wealthy English landlord holding property in that county. The rent at which the tenant took the land was high, and for .the first five years of bis tenancy he moreover expended about £300 on improvements, which he had no sooner made than the landlord raised his already high rent 25 per cent. This he endeavoured to pay, though, of course, smarting under the consciousness that he was actually charged on the expenditure of his own labour and money. There was no chance of redress under the old system. In fact, we suppose the man might reckon himself fortunate that his money was not altogether confiscated and himself turned out under the old landlord-made system. Time rolled by, and to-day the Land Act of 1881 finds the grandson of the old landlord in possession of the property, and, indeed, we believe, an occasional resident upon it. The tenant feeling, we presume, that he had already paid more for the holding than the fee-simple of it is worth, and unwilling to continue any longer paying a landlord rent on improvements which he, the tenant, had himself made, thought he saw his opportunity to shake off a yoke which really meant paying another man for the Tight to live at all, and went into the Land Court to h&ve a judicial fair rent fixed. Imagine his astonishment and consternation when the Sub-Commissioner. Mr. Reeves, before whom the case came, adjudged that, because the improvements were made twenty years before the date of the originating notice, he was bound, in accordance with rulings made by the Court of Appeal, to exclude the outlay of the tenant from all consideration in fixing a fair rent. We care not what the rulings of the Court of Appeal may be, such a decision is on the face of it cruelly nonsensical in theory and practice. For what does it mean ? It means that the longer and the more a man is paying for his own improvements, the less right and bope be can have of ever being ' relieved from the rent or tax on his enterprise and industry. If the tenant had made the improvements five years ago, he would not be charged rent on them by the Land Court, but because he has been paying for his own improvements twenty years he must go on, forsooth, paying for them for ever. Was there ever ajmore absurd outcome ? We ask, with the writer of the letter to-day, how many millions worth of the property of the occupiers of the land of Ireland have been thus handed over to the landlords by the Land Commissioners ? It is all humbug to talk of the difficulty of proving improvements made longer than 20 years ago. Why should the presumption be in favour of the laadlord when everybody knows the practice in this country was that the landlords made no improvements ? Why should not the presumption be in favour of the tenant when everybody as well knows that the custom was for the tenant to make all the improvements ? Surely the Land Act requires amendmeat in this respect if the Courtslof Appeal be right. Certainly there can be no advance made towards the establishment of a peasant proprietary if the price to be given to the landlords be estimated on judicial rents in which the tenant is saddled with rent on his own improvements, which he has not only paid for himself, but for the privilege of improving by which another man's property he has paid over and over again, and under the present law, it would seem, must go on paying for ever.