NOTE ON THE LAND ACT IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 10, 26 June 1885, Page 23

NOTE ON THE LAND ACT IN IRELAND.

(From the Norwich (Bng.) Daily Prets.)

The total amount of rent reducti >ns made by the Irish Land Courts up to June 30, 1884 (including agreements made out of court between landlord and tenant, and confirmed in court), is £440,000, or or about 26 per cent, of the total rental of Ireland, which is estimated at £17,000,000. Up to December 31, 1884, the reduction may probably amount to half a million sterling or less than 3 per cent, (say one-thir.y-fi fth pare, or 7 'd in the £) of the total rental of Ireland. It is pretty evident that a rent abatement of 7d. in the £, which is very much lees than the fall in value of agricultural produce during the past few years, is not likely to be accepted by Irish farmers as anything approaching to a final settlement of the land question. Nevertheless, tn. individual cases of extreme hardship, the .band Court reductions have, no doubt, caused considerable relief to tenants, and so lessened tbe incitements to commit agrarian outrages. By the famous " Healy " Clause of the Land Acfc, it is declared that no tenant is to be charged rent on improvements, which term includes dwelling and out-houses, made by himself or his predecessors. But the Land Courts (chiefly composed, as before stated, of men of the landlord and land-agent class) have ingeniously made tbis clause of little effect, by declaring that enjoyment of his improvements for a number of yeais partly compensates a tenant for the cost of making them. There is no authority in the Land /ct for this rendering of the Clause, which, rendering has, nevertheless caused heavy loss to tenants, and is partly the reason why in the case of rents adjudi-cated on up to the 30ch of June, 1884, the net reductions amount to leas than 19 per cent. An extreme case, but by no means a solitary one, illustrating the way in which the Land Act frequently fails to do justice, is that of a poor widow living near Kilkee on the west coast of County Clare, the particulars of which are as follows :—: — This woman, and her husband before her, had for 30 years paid a rent of about £11 for 11 acres of very poor land. She took her case into the Land Court and the rent was reduced to £5. Yet the landlord in vengeance evicted her for £19 arrears of the old rack rent, leaving her at once both homeless and penniless. So that taking the judicial rent of £5 as a sample or basis of fair rent, the landlord had taken in 30 years, 30 times £6, or say £180 (less £19 arrears due) over and above what the Court declared to be a just rent ; in other words, the fee simple had been paid for by the tenant more than l£ times (£l6O is over l£ time? 20 years' purchase of £5), and yet the landlord evicted the tenant without any compensation, thus legally robbing her, under the Land Act, of £160 ; oorr r counting interest, of more than £200.