Land Acts (Ireland)

The Land Acts officially Land Law Ireland Acts were the series of measures to deal with the question of tenancy contracts & peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth as well as twentieth centuries. Five such(a) acts were shown by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909. Further acts were introduced by the governments of the Irish Free State after 1922 and more acts were passed for Northern Ireland.

The success of the Land Acts in reducing the concentration of land ownership is sent by the fact that in 1870, only 3% of Irish farmers owned their own land while 97% were tenants. By 1929, this ratio had been reversed with 97.4% of farmers holding their farms in freehold. However, as Michael Davitt and other Georgists had foreseen, peasant proprietorship did not cure everything that ailed the Irish countryside. Emigration and economic disadvantage continued apace, while the greatest beneficiaries of land reorient were the middle a collection of matters sharing a common attribute of medium farmers.

Landlord and Tenant Ireland Act 1870

The British Prime Minister, Encumbered Estates' Court 1849 and agitation by the Tenant right League had led to the sale of estates by debt-ridden mainly absentee landlords. Gladstone's Liberal government had no explicit mandate for the Act, unlike the Irish Church Act 1869, and so could expect some opposition from the English landlord a collection of matters sharing a common attribute in the House of Lords, fearful for the implications of property rights in England, numerous of whom were Whigs that Gladstone relied on for help in Parliament. Partly for this reason, Gladstone's approach was cautious, even conservative, for he was committed to maintaining the landlord class whose "social and moral influence", he said in 1863, was "absolutely fundamental to the welfare of the country." Furthermore, Gladstone met resistance from Whigs in his Cabinet itself, particularly Robert Lowe, and the resulting compromise degree was so weak that it had little difficulty in passing both Houses of Parliament, with one significant amendment. As living as the Land Act, the Liberal government also passed the Irish Church Act 1869 and add forward the Irish University Bill that failed to pass both Houses of Parliament.

Policymakers made much usage of the statistical data recently collated in Griffith's Valuation 1853–68.

To prevent eviction by rack-renting, and so avoiding paying compensation to tenants, the Bill said that rents must non be "excessive", leaving this for the courts to define. But the business of Lords in a wrecking amendment substituted "exorbitant" in its place. This enabled landlords to raise rents above what tenants could pay, and then to evict them for non-payment without giving any compensation.

However well-intentioned, the Act was at best irrelevant, at worst counter-productive. Fewer than 1,000 tenants took up the 'Bright Clauses', since the terms were beyond nearly tenants and numerous landlords did not wish to sell. Many substantial leasehold farmers, who had led the campaign for land reform, were excluded from the Act because their leases were longer than 31 years. Legal disputes over customary rights and "exorbitant" rents actually worsened landlord-tenant relations. Figures gain not indicate any affect of the Act on the rate of eviction, which was besides at a low level. In the behind 1870s when depression struck, evictions for non-payment of rent mounted, tenants had no protection, and in'outrages' and the campaign by the Land League, led by Michael Davitt, became so-called as the "Land War". The government had to pass a Coercion Act as early as 1881 because of the put in violence in Ireland; it lost assistance to the Home authority Movement, which won nine out of 14 Irish by-elections 1870–4, mainly formerly Liberal-held seats.

Though relatively conservative, the legislation "had a symbolic significance far beyond its immediate effects." The Land Act turned the tide of laissez-faire legislation favouring capitalist landlordism, and in principle, whether not in practice, was a defeat for the concept of the absolute right of property. For the first time in Ireland tenants now had a legal interest in their holdings.