GREAT Jill IT A IX A XI) IIIKLAXR 



333 



truck hill, the laborers bill for Ireland, and tin- 

 locomotives on highways bill, all of which became 

 law, together with the companies bill, the London 

 University bill, the Irish education bill, the reserve 



- bill, the military works bill, the military lands 

 bill, and the military mameuvres bill, which failed 

 of enactment. The introduction of complicated 

 and contentious bills that provoked angry contro- 

 versies, and the careless and ea-y management of 

 Arthur.!. Balfour as leader of the House, resulted 

 in the failure of the Government, in spite of its 

 enormous majority, to bring about results that re- 

 sembled in any degree the programme. The lamen- 

 table fiasco of the chief Government measure, the 

 education bill, was a victory that the weak and 

 divided Opposition hardly dreamed of attaining. 

 Mr. Balfour was able, however, to carry an impor- 

 tant new rule of procedure that insures an allot- 

 ment of time for the consideration of supply by 

 which the more important classes of estimates can 

 be adequately discussed. In the discussion in March 

 of the resolution of Herbert \Vhiteley that the 



rnment should do everything in it's power to 

 secure by international agreement a stable mone- 

 tary par between gold and silver. Sir Michael Ilicks- 

 Beach declared that, while the Government was 

 willing to make an effort in the direction of an in- 

 ternational agreement, through a conference or 

 through negotiations with other powers, with the 

 object of establishing a stable monetary par of ex- 

 change between gold and silver, it would do so only 

 on the distinct understanding that it was nr>t pre- 

 pared to abandon the gold standard in the United 

 Kingdom. He said that in this determination all 

 the members of the Cabinet were united, including 

 those who were confirmed and pronounced bimetal- 

 lists, and Mr. Balfour followed with an argument 

 for bimetallism that he concluded with an admis- 

 sion that it was absolutely impossible to force upon 

 the commercial community a currency which it mis- 

 trusted and was not willing to accept. The prin- 

 cipal Government measures were brought in with 

 promising and timely readiness. The Lord Chan- 

 cellor's law of evidence bill. Lord James's water bill, 

 the reserve forces bill, the Scotch public health bill, 

 and the companies bill were initiated in the upper 

 house. The Irish education bill, which was not 

 brought in till May ">. was withdrawn because the 

 Roman Catholics declined to accept the boon of Ws. 

 for each pupil in denominational schools without 

 the conscience clause, when the offer was accom- 

 panied with the condition that such schools would 

 have to submit to inspection. The London Uni- 

 versity bill was introduced in the House of Lords 

 on July 6 and the Irish light railways bill in the 

 House of Commons on July 9. The Scotch and 

 Irish rating bills had to wait till the fate of the 

 English measure was decided. In redemption of 

 the Conservative promise to relieve local taxation 

 for the benefit of agricultural property, the Govern- 

 ment carried, against the strenuous opposition of 

 the Liberals, this agricultural land rating bill, 

 granting for five years a subvention from the im- 

 perial treasury to the local authorities, estimated 

 at from 1.500.000 to 2.000.000 a year, equal to 

 half the rates on agricultural land, the relief 

 amounting to about Is. an acre on the average. 

 Houst-s and buildings continue to pay in full and 

 are separately assessed. To facilitate the pa- 

 of the bill, which was assailed by urban Conserva- 

 tives a- well as the Radicals, the Government agreed 

 to limit its operation to five years, and promised an 

 inquiry into the reform of the whole system of 

 local taxation. This measure affords only a tem- 

 porary relief to the tenant farmers, for after a few 

 years their rents will be raised in proportion. A 

 Scotch rating bill was passed giving an equivalent 



grant to Scotch farmers, and the Irish equivalent 

 grant was dealt with by temporary legislation. A 

 cattle importation act makes permanent and strict- 

 ly binding the existing enforcement of the compul- 

 sory slaughter of cattle and sheep at the port of 

 landing. which has been discretionary with the Min- 

 ister of Agriculture. This measure, which practi- 

 cally protects the breeders of Great Britain against 

 American and Canadian competition, provoked ;i 

 great deal of criticism, and resistance was oflVred 

 in behalf of the breeders of Forfarshire and Aber- 

 deenshire, who fatten store cattle from Canada. The 

 plea of Mr. Long that producers ought to be pro- 

 tected from foreign disease when they took so much 

 trouble to stamp out disease at home was so effect- 

 ive that the bill was passed on June 22 bv a vote of 

 232 to 75. 



The Irish land bill was finally passed by the 

 House of Commons on July 29, though it was con- 

 demned by Mr. Healy as inadequate and denounced 

 as a fraud by Mr. Dillon and was opposed to the 

 last by the Irish landlords, who saw in it the confis- 

 cation of the remnant of their property left by pre- 

 vious legislation. When the bill reached the House 

 of Lords the Government, deserted by Irish land- 

 lords and their English sympathizers, was defeated 

 repeatedly, though Radical peers came to its sup- 

 port, and the bill was so transformed and amended 

 as to be unrecognizable. The Commons reinstated 

 the provision bringing pastoral holdings of between 

 ton and 100 ratable value within the operation 

 of the land laws, accepted in another form Lord 

 Inchiquin's amendment declaring that mere occu- 

 pation did not entitle a tenant to a deduction from 

 the fair rent, and compromised on other points. 

 The chief value of the bill in the view of its authors 

 was that it will help to extinguish, by the develop- 

 ment of a system of purchase, the dual ownership 

 arising out of Mr. Gladstone's land bill of 1881 and 

 promote the more rapid and effective working of 

 the land purchase acts passed by the Unionist Gov- 

 ernment in 1885 and 1891. It provided for the sale 

 to the tenants of the estates administered by the 

 Landed Estates Court, but it was feared that the 

 price would have to be fixed so low as not only to 

 wipe out the interest of the encumbered owners, but 

 a part of the property of a great majority of the 

 mortgagees. Mr. Morley and the Irish members 

 condemned the bill for not going far enough to 

 meet the demands of tenants for further reductions 

 of rent, and they asked that the period of judicial 

 settlement should be reduced from fifteen to ten 

 years. The champions of property rights denounced 

 as the thin end of the wedge a clause providing 

 that where three fourths of the tenants on an estate 

 desire to purchase, the other fourth shall be com- 

 pelled to join them. While not reducing agricul- 

 tural rents to the prairie value desired by Parnell, 

 which he said Mr. Morley's bill of 1895 would have 

 done. Gerald Balfour so framed his own bill as to 

 empower the court, after allowing for the value of 

 the tenant's improvements, to allot to him also a 

 share of the value elicited by them from the inher- 

 ent qualities of the soil. The bill also recognized 

 turbary as a tenant's right. It states that a tenant 

 shall not be held to be compensated for improve- 

 ments by anything save money or money's worth. 

 Xo improvements antedating 1850 can be reclaimed. 

 Gerald Balfour proposes to increase the statutory 

 term of fixed rents to thirty years, subject to a re- 

 vision every five years automatically determined by 

 the rise and fall" of prices. The act abolished the 

 jurisdiction of county courts in land cases and 

 - to reduce the enormous cost of procedure. 

 To render purchase under the act of 1891 more at- 

 tractive the guarantee fund and the insurance de- 

 posit are abolished, and the period given to pur- 



