During the ten years after the passing of “Deasy's Act” the position of the Irish tenant reached its nadir. He had no right of any kind, except such as the contract under which he held gave him. Almost all the improvements which rendered the land capable of being worked were made by him. He had built the houses, erected the fences, made the roads, drained and manured the [pg 178] land, reclaimed it from bog or mountain—generally at a cost out of all proportion to the return—and yet he could be turned out without compensation at the will of the owner, either by the service of a Notice to Quit or by ejectment for non-payment of one year's rent. That the tenants in Ireland made the improvements was universally admitted. The Devon Commission (presided over by a leading Irish landlord) in the year 1844, reported:
“It is well known that in England and Scotland before a landlord offers a farm for letting, he finds it necessary to provide a suitable farm-house, with necessary farm buildings for the proper management of the farm. He puts the gates and fences in good order, and he also takes upon himself a great part of the burden of keeping the buildings in repair during the term; and the rent is fixed with reference to this state of things. In Ireland the case is wholly different. It is admitted on all hands, that according to the general practice in Ireland, the landlord builds neither dwelling house nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, &c., into good order, before he lets his land to the tenant. The cases in which the landlord does any of these things are the exception. In most cases whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant, and in the ordinary language of the country—dwelling houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the general word improvements, which is thus employed to denote the general adjuncts to a farm, without which, in England or Scotland, no tenant would be found to rent it.”
Effects of Political and Economic Changes on the Relations between Landlord and Tenant during the Nineteenth Century.
In the early part of the last century the landlords, for political as well as commercial reasons, encouraged the increase of the tenantry. The political system that prevailed gave the landlord who had a large number of tenants considerable power. The economic conditions of the time made small tillage farming productive, and the demand caused by an ever-growing [pg 179] agricultural population increased the competition for land, and enabled the rents to be raised. About the middle of the century all these conditions altered. The combined influence of the Famine and of the introduction of Free Trade made it the interest of most landlords to get rid of their small tenants as expeditiously and as completely as possible. Now came the era of pasture and larger farms. Although the population rapidly decreased, the consolidation of farms kept up the competition for land, and rents rose rapidly. The clearances so common from the Famine to 1870 were made in many cases quite irrespective of the non-payment of rent.
Attempts at Reform.—Land Act of 1870.
This state of things led to outrage and constant agrarian disturbance. Various suggestions for reform of the Land Laws were made, but such proposals were usually denounced as confiscatory. Mr. Butt's proposal in 1866 that sixty-three years' leases, with power to the landlord of varying the rent, when any accidental circumstances increased the value of the land, should be given by every landlord to his tenants, was described by Lord Dufferin as “communistic” and “as subversive of the rights of property.” Mr. John Stuart Mill, speaking on a Land Bill introduced by Mr. Chichester Fortescue (May 17th, 1865), denounced the policy of clearing away the small tenants to make room for capitalist farmers. “You cannot,” he said, “evict a whole nation.” Various attempts to alter the law were defeated, until at length, in 1870, Mr. Gladstone took the matter in hand, and passed his Landlord and Tenant Act—the beginning of a new Land Code.
The justification for the Act of 1870 was the same [pg 180] as for the Act of 1881, which followed it. The tenant had made all the improvements on the land, and yet had no legal property in them. He was liable to capricious eviction from a holding, the value of which was often mainly due to his labour, and he was subject to arbitrary increases of rent.
The Act of 1870 did three things: (1) It gave compensation for disturbance; (2) it gave compensation for improvements; and (3) it legalised the Ulster Tenant Right Custom.
Compensation for Disturbance.
I.—Compensation for disturbance was strictly limited to such loss as “the Court shall find” to have been sustained by the tenant. The loss was often held to be the less the higher the rent. The amount of compensation could in no case exceed £250, and was limited to tenancies created after the passing of the Act. No compensation was to be given to tenants who had sublet or subdivided their holdings without the consent in writing of the landlord, or to any tenant under a lease for thirty-one years or upwards, and the landlord had a right of deduction from the amount awarded, for deterioration, &c.