BRITISH POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 29 August 1907, Page 3

BRITISH POLITICS.

EVICTED TENANTS' BILL. GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS LORDS' AMENDMENT. BILL DEPRIVED OK ITS GREATEST VALUE.

London, August 27. In the House of Commons Mr A. Birrell, Secretary for Ireland, strongly deprecated the Lords' amendment in tlie Irish Evicted Tenants' Bill. lie said there was no intention that any new tenant or planter who was a bona fide cultivator should be compulsory ousted from his land. The amendment of the Lords on this subject meant a triumph for I/>rd Clanricarde and would deprive the. Bill of its greatest value, namely, its pacificatory message to Ireland. However. yielding to superior force and with a view to saving the Bill, he asked the House to assent to the amendment. He would also accept the amendment limiting the number of tenants to lie reinstaled to 2000, but lie would resist the Lords' proposal to substitute the word ••coinpen-aUon" for the expression "fair market value."

Mr John Redmond (Nationalist) declared that the representatives of the landlords in both [louses had deliberately wrecked Ireland's hopes of a settlement. . They desired to cause turmoil in Ireland in the winter. He added that so long as the planters on Lord Clanriearde's estate or elsewhere were left in possesion there could 8c no end to the land war. When Ireland was tranquil the Unionists were aiways obdurate. The moral was that if the'lrish desired a settlement of their troubles in 1!)U8 they must close their ranks and engage in a movement sufficiently strong aud menacing to overcome the landlords' opposition. He admitted that the Bill was not worthless inasmuch as it contained the principle of compulsory acquisitiou of untenanted land; but, he said, it would fail to settle the evicted tenants question.

Mr Balfour protested against Mr Redmond's direct incitement to disorder and his aspersions on landlords. The House endorsed llr Birrell's recommendations. The Nationalists at the outset of the divisions quilted the House.

Received 29th, 12.50 a.m. London, August 28. The differences between the Lords and the Commons over the Evicted Tenants' Bill were adjusted on* the basis cabled yesterday.

The English Small Holdings Bill emerged substantially in the form the Government desired. SCOTTISH LAND VALUES BILL.

London, August 27. The House of Lords rejected the Scot-

tish and Values Bill because there was no time to consider it. The prorogation takes place to-morrow. Lord Robertson objected to land valuers being made into a "sandwich for Henry George." Lord Tweedmouth replied that the Bill simply aimed at obtaining a fair valuation of land.