On Tuesday, Lord Edmond Fitzmauriee moved an amend- ment intended
to limit the operation of the seventh clause of the Bill,—the one relating to judicial rents,—to holdings under the amount of £100 a year, on which a sharp debate took place, the Whigs and Tories affirming that the Irish farmers above that rental, who would not number over 12,000 or 13,000 out of 600,000, were quite able to look after themselves ; and Mr. Gladstone urging, on the contrary, that nothing could be more short-sighted than so to limit the Bill as to create a discon- tented class of a singularly influential character, to start a new agitation after the Bill was passed. He showed that the Act of 1870, though it did not apply to large farmers the same scale of compensation for disturbance applicable to small holdings, fully admitted the principle of compensating them for dis- turbance, and he treated the clause as opposed to the very principle of the Bill. The clause was defeated by a smaller majority than any except Mr. Heneage's (exempting estates managed on the English principle from the operation of the Bill), namely, 36,-241 voting against the amendment, and 205 for it.
