122 GREAT BKITAIN AND IRELAND - MISCEIvLANEOUS 



section ; and that the fair rent of the holding should be ascertained having 

 regard to such particulars, which are essential ingredients in and the basis 

 of the ascertainment of the fair rent." 



There are several ways in which the absence of any general principles 

 of valuation has had far-reaching results in Ireland. In the first place the 

 Fair Rent Acts only apply to agricultural holdings. But there are a great 

 number of miserably small holdings, particularly in the West of Ireland, which 

 are not agricultural holdings in the true sense at all. The tenants of these 

 holdings do not depend upon them solely for their means of support, but 

 earn a large part of their livelihood by pursuits other than agriculture. 

 Some are migratory labourers, others are fishermen, and their small hold- 

 ings are really only sites for dwellings. Yet these patches of wretched 

 land are valued for fair rents as if they formed part of an economic holding, 

 and when Commissioner Bailey was asked whether this system of valuation 

 was prescribed by a rule of the lyand Commission, he explained that there 

 were no rules for the guidance of valuers, but that this system was a com- 

 mon practice amongst all valuers. Whether it would have been wise to 

 interpret the Fair Rent Acts strictly, and to have excluded these miserable 

 holdings from the benefits of the Acts, is a point which need not be discussed 

 here, but a question of such vital importance as this is not one to be left to 

 the unaided discretion of valuers. 



Again the percentage on the cost of improvements to be allowed to 

 either landlord or tenant is not fixed, but varies with the idiosyncracies 

 of the valuers, so that there is no imiformity in dealing with one of the most 

 difficult points in the whole process of fixing fair rents in Ireland. 



On the general question of the principle of valuation under the L^and 

 Commission one cannot do better than quote Commissioner Bailey's sum- 

 mary of the matter in a Memorandmn handed in by him to the Royal Com- 

 mission on Congestion. 



" The Land Commission, which was established in 1881, has never laid 

 down any principles of valuation. It is probably the most important or- 

 ganisation for land valuation in existence, and yet it has added little to the 

 knowledge of the principles of valuation by the judgment of its members, 

 by its rules, or its instructions. This is mainly due to the fact that the lyand 

 Commissioners have never regarded themselves as bound to consider valua- 

 tion as a science. They have always looked on their functions as those of 

 judges, whose duties it is to decide cases on the evidence of outside valuers 

 and the reports of their own inspectors. But they give no guidance as to 

 the principles on which these valuations should be made, and the result 

 is that each valuer and inspector is left to develop his own principles. For 

 example, one valuer will allow the maker of improvements five per cent, 

 on the estimated cost of the improvements all round, while another will al- 

 low five per cent, on one class of improvements and three per cent, on others 

 according to their estimated durability. Another, again, will allow four per 

 cent on the cost of houses, while his neighbouring colleague will give only 

 2 14 P^r cent., and so on. All these and similar matters should, in my 

 opinion, have been carefully considered by the Commissioners and princi- 



