The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
History
The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government
Side by side with the legal recognition of dual ownership in Ireland there
proceeded a system for the creation of a peasant proprietary by the aid of
State loans, when both parties were agreed. The principal Acts under which
advances of public money to enable tenants to become proprietors of their
holdings were made are:
The Irish Church Act, 1869.
The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.
The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.
The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1885.
The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891 and 1896.
The Irish Land Act, 1903 and 1907.
The Evicted Tenant Act, 1907.
The Irish Land Act, 1909.
Irish Church Act, 1869.
Under this Act the Church Temporalities Commissioners were empowered to
sell to tenants of Church Lands their holdings at prices to be fixed by
the Commissioners themselves. If the tenants refused to buy on the terms
offered to them, the Commissioners could sell to the public. The Church
Temporalities Commissioners were empowered, if they thought well, to take
payment, as to one-fourth only, in cash and to leave the other
three-fourths outstanding as a legal charge on the holding, to be paid off
in thirty-two years by sixty-four half-yearly instalments.
The Commissioners sold in all to 6,057 tenants at an average price of
twenty-two and two-thirds years’ purchase of the rents, and the total
amount of the money advanced on loan was £1,674,841, which was issued by
the Commissioners of Public Works.
The terms of repayment and the rate of interest charged on loans were
afterwards altered and reduced under the Purchase of Land Act of 1885,
Section 23.
Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.
Under what are known as the “Bright Clauses” of this Act, the landlords
and tenants of agricultural or pastoral holdings could arrange for a sale
of their holdings with State aid to be carried out in the Landed Estates
Court. Upwards of two-thirds of the price agreed upon could be advanced by
the Board of Works, to be repaid in thirty-five years by an annuity, at
the rate of five per cent. on the loan. Under this Act 877 tenants
purchased their holdings, and the amount of loans issued was £514,536. The
total purchase money paid by the tenant purchasers for their holdings was
£859,000, being at the rate of twenty-three and one-third years’ purchase
of the rents.
The Act of 1881 (the “Gladstone Act”).
Under this Act the Land Commission thereby established was empowered to
make advances to tenants for the purchase of their holdings, and was
enabled to purchase estates for re-sale to the tenants. The limit of
advance was extended from two-thirds of the purchase-money (as in the Act
of 1870) to three-quarters. The terms of repayment were the same—an
annuity of five per cent. for thirty-five years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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