Il6 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND - MISCEI^LANEOUS 



§ 3. The MEANING OF " FAIR RENT ": ITS RELATION TO PRICES. 



In the first place the term " fair rent " has never been satisfactorily 

 defined. Up to the passing of the Act of 1881 there were practically three 

 rents in Ireland: (i) the competition rent which the land would fetch in the 

 open market, which, owing to the land hunger in Ireland, was generally 

 an impossible rent for the tenant to pay ; {2) the rent which the land could 

 pay if the tenant possessed both capital and a high degree of agricultural 

 skill so as to work the land to the best advantage ; and (3) the rent which 

 the average tenant was really able to pay. Competition rent is out of the 

 question. To adopt (2) as the standard of fair rent seems at first sight 

 equitable, but, having regard to the fact that all the improvements on the 

 land were the work of the tenants, and also to the backward state of agricul- 

 ture in many parts of Ireland, and the want of capital and facilities for trans- 

 port, its adoption would have pressed upon the tenants with undue severity. 



Some of the witnesses before the Devon Commission suggested that 

 rents should fluctuate with the price of corn or be periodically revised ac- 

 cording to the changes in the price of produce, an idea which appears to 

 have been taken from the Scotch system of corn rents. From the evidence 

 of Mr. Pierce Mahony and Mr. Robertson it would appear that in many cases 

 in Scotland the tenant was botmd to pay as rent the money value of a spe- 

 cified number of bolls or quarters of corn, the rate at which the com 

 was to be converted into money being in some cases fixed by lease. In 

 other cases the rate of conversion was fixed by what were called the fiars 

 prices of the coimty. These were really the average prices at which corn 

 was sold in the district, and were ascertained yearly by certain compet- 

 ent persons chosen by the Sheriff of the county. This system may have 

 worked in Scotland, where there has been a high standard of agriculture for 

 a considerable time, where the improvements on the land belong to the land- 

 lord, and where the amount which any farm would produce on the average 

 could be fairly well calculated, but the difficulties of applying it to Ireland 

 would be very great. Moreover, although prices, now that statistics on 

 the subject are regularly collected and published by a Government Depart- 

 ment, are a most important factor in the valuation of land, any scheme of 

 making rent fluctuate automatically with prices neglects two important 

 factors in the question. In the first place a rise in prices may be the result 

 of a bad harvest and may not mean any increased gain to the farmer, and 

 secondly a rise in the cost of labour may sweep away all the advantage of 

 a rise in prices. 



One attempt was made before the Act oi 1881 to fix the value of land 

 according to the price of agricultural produce. The Valuation Acts contain- 

 ed scales of prices which were to serve as a basis for valuation. Very full 

 and detailed instructions were issued to the valuers by Sir R. Griffiths, 

 who carried out the valuation of Ireland, and he directed them to " value 

 the land on a liberal scale, that is to say, in the same manner as if employed 



