IRISH JUDICIAL RENTS.
THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.".1
Slit,—I have just read your article on "Irish Judicial Rents." I recognise fully your desire now, as always, to be impartial, but I also see signs of the extraordinary difficulty many able Englishmen have in believing that in Ireland two and two make four. The judicial rents were settled by impartial Judges, tarrying out the executory clauses of an Act of Parliament, and consequently form part of the Act itself. How, then, can Par- liament reduce them without compensation ? This has never been refused to any person who has been deprived of his pro- perty by legislation.
I admit, of course, that there has been no Parliamentary guarantee of payment of rent; but there certainly has been a guarantee that the tenant's property in his holding, the existence of which was fully and even generously recognised by the Land Act of 1881, should form a security for the payment of rent judicially fixed.
No one recognised this more fully than Mr. Gladstone, who, when advocating the Land Bill in the House of Commons, took credit to himself for having considered the landlords' interest, inasmuch as the fixed rents would be, in the nature of ground- rents, secured upon the tenants' property.
Under these circumstances, I maintain that it is rank injustice to prevent the landlords from enforcing their security by sale of the tenants' interest, unless compensation be given to them. If Parliament has erred, or desires to be generous, let Parliament pay.
I would ask the Spectator if it would have advocated the reopening of the fixed judicial rents in the landlords' interests, if daring the last four years agrienitaral profits had greatly increased instead of having diminished.—I am, Sir, &c., [Does Mr. Dobbs object to Bankruptcy Acts, or does he usually, when his debtors fail, ask the Court of Bankruptcy for compensation Our sole ground for reopening the Land Ques- tion is that, owing to a change of circumstances; tenants cannot pay.—En. Spectator.]
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