Il8 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND - MISCELLANEOUS 



j&cially taken and preserved is a matter to be rgretted " but apparently, the 

 prices must vary greatly in the different districts as the Return ordered by 

 the House of I^ords in 1901 (194 of 1901) shows that the reductions in 1887 

 on rents fixed in 1881 varied from 8 ^4 % in Roscrea and Parsonstown 

 Unions to 22 % in Chfden and Westport Unions, If such variations as this 

 can take place in different distiicts it will be seen how impossible it would 

 be to devise any scheme of fixing fair rents generally in Ireland in accordance 

 with the average prices obtaining over the whole country, even if there were 

 no other objections to this method of fixing rents. 



§ 4. Other factors which help to determine fair rent, 



Ifwe abandon any scheme for fixing fair rents automatically by prices 

 alone, we must endeavour to ascertain what are the factors which de- 

 termine the rent payable out of any given lands. The Bessborough Com- 

 mission tried to lay down certain principles on the subject. They state 

 " the computation (of fair rent) should in general start with an estimate 

 first of the gross annual produce, and secondly of the full commercial rent 

 according to the rules observed by the best professional valuators," and then 

 a reduction should be made for the tenant's improvements. This does not 

 get us much further, but the Commissioners made two suggestions of consid- 

 erable practical value : first that the presumption that the improvements 

 were made by the tenants should not extend to improvements more than 

 35 years old. Section 4 of the Act of 1870 limited the tenants's right to 

 compensation for improvements to those made within the 20 years preced- 

 ing the claim for compensation (except as regards permanent buildings 

 and reclamation of waste-land) and as the tenant's right under the Act of 

 1881 to be exempted from rent in respect of improvements was held to be 

 correlative to his right to compensation under the Act of 1870, we may say 

 that the Act of 1881 to some extent carried out this suggestion of the Bess- 

 borough Commissi( n. The second suggestion was that a rent paid at any time 

 within the pre^aous 20 years, and which continued for not less than 10 years 

 to be regularly paid, should be taken as a starting point when the rent was 

 in the opinion of both parties considered fair . This suggestion does not api:)ear 

 to have ever been explicitly adopted, although the fact that a rent has 

 been regularly paid for a number of years must carry considerable weight 

 with the valuer. 



If we turn to the Act of 1881 itself to see what it lays down on the subject 

 of fixing fair rents we find it gets over the difficulty by ignoring it. Section 

 8 (i) is as follows :- "The tenant of any present tenancy to which this Act 

 applies... may... apply to the Court to fix the fair rent... and thereupon the 

 Court, after hearing the parties, and having regard to the interests of the 

 landlord and tenant respectively, and considering all the circumstances of 

 the case, holding, and district, may determine what is such fair rent. " 

 There is nothing here to help the valuer, and neither in this nor in any other 



