The Irish Land Acts/Deasy's Act (1860) and its Effects

by William Frederick Bailey

SECTION VI.

The Land Act of 1860 (Deasy's Act).

From this sketch it will be seen that the law governing the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland became more and more favourable to the owner. This tendency culminated in 1860, when, by "Deasy's Act" (23 & 24 Vic, c. 154)— which was passed through Parliament without amendment— it was proposed that "The relation of landlord and tenant shall be deemed to be founded on the express or implied contract of the parties, and not upon tenure or service."

This statute marks a turning point in the history of Irish Land Legislation. In the middle of the last century economic and legal tendencies in England set strongly in the direction of definiteness. The scientific split was abroad, and the desire of reformers was to bring all social phenomena under a rule of law. In England the method and system of the occupation of land easily lent themselves to a contractual relation, and it was considered that the same system should be applied to Ireland notwithstanding that the conditions there were quite different.

"Instead of adopting law to custom, habit practice and equity," says Lord Morley ("Life of Gladstone," vol II p. 286), "Parliament proceeded to break all this down. With well-meaning, but blind violence, it imported into Ireland after the Famine the English idea of landed gentry and contract, or, rather, it imported these ideas into Ireland with a definiteness and formality that would have been impracticably even in England."

The Land Act of 1860 proceeded on the assumption that the land is the exclusive property of the landlord, and that the tenant's interest is nothing more than that of a person who has agreed to pay a certain remuneration for the use of the soil for a limited period. It simplified and increased the remedies of the landlord for recovering possession of the land, and rendered efficient the law of ejectment for non-payment of rent and on notice to quit. Thus a default in payment of one year's rent entitled a landlord to evict the tenant and get possession of the land, with all the tenant's improvements on it, even where such improvements many times exceeded in value the amount due. So also, by serving a notice to quit, the landlord could get rid of the tenant without cause, and take possession of the holding and all the tenant's improvements, no matter how valuable these might be, without having to pay any compensation for them. The governing principle of the Act was that whatever attached to the freehold became part of the freehold. "The object and the intended effect of this Act," says Mr. Finlason ("Land Tenure"), "was to substitute, in the relation of landlord and tenant, for the just and equitable principles of common law or custom the hard commercial principle of contract, and to render any right of the tenant, either as to duration of tenancy or compensation, dependent on express or implied contract."

The Land Act of 1881 is naturally regarded in Ireland as the sheet-anchor of the peasant—as the Magna Charta of his rights. On the other hand, it has been looked on by many landowners as an unjustifiable invasion of their rights, and it has often been blamed for results which it recorded rather than caused. To justify that Act we must understand the preceding conditions that governed the tenure of land in Ireland.

During the ten years after the passing of "Deasy's Act" the position of the Irish tenant reached its nadir. He had no right of any kind, except such as were given him by the contract under which he held. All the improvements which rendered the land capable of being worked were made by him. He had built the houses, erected the fences, made the roads, drained and manured the land, reclaimed it from bog or mountain—generally at a cost out of all proportion to the return—and yet, as we have seen, he could be turned out, without compensation, at the will of the owner, either by the service of a notice to quit or by ejectment for non-payment of one year's rent. That the tenants of Ireland made the improvements was universally admitted. The Devon Commission (presided over by a leading Irish landlord), in the year 1844, reported:—"It is well-known that in England and Scotland before a landlord offers a farm for letting, he finds it necessary to provide a suitable farm-house, with necessary farm buildings for the proper management of the farm. He puts the gates and fences in good order, and he also takes upon himself a great part of the burden of keeping the buildings in repair during the term; and the rent is fixed with reference to this state of things. In Ireland the case is wholly different. It is admitted on all hands that, according to the general practice in Ireland, the landlord builds neither dwelling-house nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., into good order, before he lets his land to the tenant. The cases in which the landlord does any of these things are the exception. In most cases, whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant, and in the ordinary language of the country—dwelling-houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the general word improvements, which is thus employed to denote the general adjuncts to a farm, without which, in England or Scotland, no tenant would be found to rent it."

Effects of Political and Economic Changes on the Relations between Landlord and Tenant during the 19th century.

In the early part of the last century the landlords, for political as well as commercial reasons, encouraged the sub-division of farms, and a consequent increase in the number of the tenantry. The political system that prevailed gave considerable power to the landlord who had a large number of tenants. The economic conditions of the time made small tillage farming productive, and the demand caused by an over-growing agricultural population increased the competition for land, created a "land hunger," and enabled the rents to be raised. About the middle of the century all these conditions altered. The combined influence of the Famine and the introduction of Free Trade made it the interest of most owners of good land to get rid of their small tenants as expeditiously and completely as possible. Now came the era of pasture and larger farms. Although the population rapidly decreased, the consolidation of farms kept up the competition for land, and rents rose rapidly. The "clearances" so common from the Famine in 1870 were made in many cases quite irrespective of the non-payment of rent, and were greatly facilitated by the provisions of the Act of 1860. Emigration was the only resource for the dispossessed tenants, and the result was outrage and constant agrarian disturbance. Various suggestions for a reform of the Land Laws were made, but such proposals were usually denounced as confiscatory. Mr. Butt's proposal, in 1866, that 63 years' leases, with power to the landlord of varying the rent, when any accidental circumstances increased the value of the land, should be given by every landlord to his tenants, was described by Lord Dufferin as "communistic" and " as subversive of the rights of property." Mr. John Stuart Mill, speaking on a Land Bill introduced by Mr. Chichester Fortescue (May 17th, 1865), denounced the policy of clearing away the small tenants to make room for capitalist farmers. "You cannot," he said, "evict a whole nation." Various attempts to alter the law were defeated, until at length, in 1870, Mr. Gladstone introduced and passed his Landlord and Tenant Act—the beginning of a new Land Code.

Houses erected by the Estates Commissioners on new holdings created by them on
untenanted land acquired on the Pollock Estate at Glinsk, County Galway.