Page:The Irish land acts; a short sketch of their history and development.djvu/22

14 Facilities given for evicting Yearly Tenants.

The Irish Ejectment Code applied only to tenants holding under leases or written contracts. As the country advanced, landlords gradually ceased to give leases, and the great majority of small tenants held from year to year. To meet this state of things the Civil Bill Court Act of 1851 extended the ejectment for non-payment of rent to tenancies from year to year. Under the English statutes no similar power was given, and the English landlord was obliged, in the case of non-payment of rent, first to serve the tenant with a Notice to Quit, and then to proceed to evict him by the slow and costly process of an action in the Superior Courts.  

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