said: It generally happens that laws which are permitted to exist unchallenged in easy and prosperous times, when adverse seasons come have to submit to careful examination, and are called upon to justify their existence at the bar of public opinion. It is, unfortunately, too MR. ASSHETON CROSS: That sub-true that this is a time when the condiject is not in my Department, Sir.

this country must necessarily be sub- those primitive institutions which are jected to scrutiny. I do not wish to take found in various systems of ancient law. a gloomy or exaggerated view of agri- In a primitive society, where the help of cultural prospects; but signs are visible a Court of Justice was not to be obtained, on every side that we are passing taking goods by distress was the simplest through a period of trial and difficulty and most effectual means of compelling of the most serious nature. Hundreds the person against whom it was employed of farms lying untenanted; farmers to make the satisfaction required of who continue in occupation keeping him. Sir Henry Maine points out their heads above water with the great-thatest effort, a necessity widely recognized for a return of a considerable percentage of rent; the competition of foreign producers great and ever increasing, the cereal and animal food imported costing considerably over £100,000,000, and forming nearly a third of all the agricultural produce consumed in this Kingdom;

"All forms of distress, the seizure of wife, child, or cattle, even when wholly unregulated by law, were improvements on older custom. The primitive proceeding was unattack of the tribe or the man stung by injury doubtedly the unceremonious, unannounced on the tribe or the man who had inflicted it. Any expedient by which sudden plunder or slaughter was adjourned or prevented was an wide-advantage even to barbarous society. Thus, it was a gain to mankind as a whole, when its priests and leaders began to encourage the seizure of property or family, not for the purpose of permanent appropriation, but with a view to what we should not now hesitate to call extortion." In England, distress is a remedy so ancient that it is probably coeval with the Common Law itself, or, rather, it may be considered one of those principles which collectively constitute that system which we denominate the Common Law. The earliest mention of it is in an enactment of Canute, when we find it already established in an advanced state of maturity. The successive stages by which this ancient right of personal redress became converted into a remedy for the exclusive benefit of a single class of creditors-namely, the owners of land, may be traced in a great number of Statutes from the time of William the Conqueror and the Great Charter to the present reign. The first adoption of distress, as a means of recovering rent and enforcing the discharge of the other feudal liabilities, was a mitigation of the ancient rigour. For a long time, under the feudal system, the slightest failure on the part of the tenant was punished by an absolute forfeiture of the feud. At a later period, on each default on the part of the tenant, instead of forfeiture, the lord entered upon the feud and held possession till such time only as he had obtained satisfaction for his damages. This method, however, was found on trial to be scarcely less oppressive than the previous one, for it generally deprived the tenant of his only means of supplying the default, and thus amounted, in effect, to the very punish

spread anxiety amongst every class connected with the land. Surely these are indications which should lead us, in common prudence, to review carefully any portion of our legal system which there is reason to suspect may discourage the development, or hamper the growth, of that agricultural industry on which the national welfare so largely depends. A state of the law which in quiet old-world times, or in the full flush of the unexampled prosperity of recent years was not severely felt, may become a great and intolerable evil when we need the full and free control of all our energies to strive with less favourable circumstances. It is, therefore, I venture to think, not inopportune at the present time to ask the House to consider the expediency of dealing with a law intimately affecting the state of agriculture-a law which is peculiar, and exceptional in character, and, as I think I shall be able to show, unjust and mischievous in its operation. In proposing the abolition of distraint for rent of agricultural holdings in England and Ireland, I am encouraged by the fact that this House has lately affirmed, as regards another portion of the United Kingdom, the principle for which I contend. The effect of my Motion would substantially be to assimilate the law in the various portions of the United Kingdom. I have no intention of asking the House to listen to any minute account of the various theories which have been held as to the origin of the Law of Distress, or to any detailed narration of the stages by which it has arrived at its present state. Distress is one of

ment it was intended to extenuate. In process of time a still more gentle remedy was introduced by substituting the seizure of the cattle and other movables found on the land, the lord being entitled to impound and detain the things taken as pledges to compel the performance of the pledges required by the feudal contract. A distress in its ancient form may, therefore, be defined

as

has not unfairly been described as "an almost unique specimen of one-sided legislation.' I shall not attempt to go through those Statutes with any minuteness. The most important of them was that passed in the reign of William and Mary, which completely altered, in favour of the landlord, the ancient character of the remedy. This was, in the words of Lord Chief Baron Gilbert

"To empower the lord by seizing the chattels "The taking without legal process of a per- to oblige the tenant to perform the feudal sersonal chattel from the possession of the wrong-vices, the chattels remaining in the lord's hands doer or defaulter into the hands of the party as pledges to compel the performance, and the grieved, to be held as a pledge for the redress, detention being no longer lawful than while the performance, or satisfaction required." tenant refused to do the services which were reThe modern relation of landlord and served by the feudal contract." tenant gradually came into existence. The Statute of William and Mary gave, As Blackstone describes itfor the first time, the distrainer power to sell the distress for satisfaction of the rent and charges. Among other rules of the Common Law relative to the subjects of a distress, one was that things belonging to the freehold were not distrainable; and another, that nothing should be distrained which could not be restored in as good condition as that in which it was when it was taken. By the former of these rules, landlords were prevented from distraining growing crops on the tenant's lands, and by the latter from taking corn, even after it had been cut. A subsequent section of the same Statute of William and Mary enabled the landlord to distrain corn in sheaves, or cocks, or loose, or in the straw, or hay in barns, ricks, or other

"The feudatories being under frequent incapacities of cultivating and manuring their own lands, soon found it necessary to commit part of them to inferior tenants, obliging them to such returns in service, corn, cattle, or money as might enable the chief feudatories to attend their military duties without distraction -which returns were the original of rent." Various provisions were adopted as a remedy against unjust and excessive distresses. Yet a learned writer describes the effect of the system in these wordsNotwithstanding these provisions, the unbridled independence and tyranny of the barons during the civil wars which endangered the

throne of the immediate successors of the Con

queror turned distress into an engine of
private revenge and public violence. Unjust
pretences of distress were falsely alleged,
tenants and strangers alike outraged, suit and
service wrongfully compelled, exorbitant reliefs
demanded, illegal fines extorted, excessive dis-wise, as well as other
tresses made, the regulations of replevin disre-
garded; in fine, every wrong practised for the
oppression of the weak and the aggrandizement
of the powerful."

Legislation was for a long time directed
towards protecting the tenant from the
oppression of the lord; and by a long
series of Statutes, and Magna Charta
itself, it was sought to soften the severity
of the remedy. The last of these miti-
gating Statutes was passed in the reign
of Philip and Mary, enacting that a dis-
tress should not be impounded in several
places so as to compel the party to sue
several replevins. From the reign of
Henry VIII. down to the present time,
there has been a complete change in the
spirit of legislation. We find a long
series of Statutes, nearly every one of
which has been passed with the object
of improving the remedy in the hands
of the landowner, the result being what

Mr. Blennerhassett

chattels. A

Statute of George II. further em-
powered him to distrain growing corn,
grass, hops, fruits, roots, pulse, or other
product of the land, and to cut and
gather them when ripe to be disposed of
in satisfaction of the rent. A Statute of
Anne gave the power of distress to per-
sons entitled to rent in arrear upon lease
six months after the determination of
the term, and the same Statute gave the
right to follow and distrain goods clan-
destinely or fraudulently removed-a
power which was subsequently enlarged
by an Act of George II.
In the reign

of George II. the ancient rule of the
Common Law, which caused the remedy
to be attended with considerable risk,
that if the party distraining were guilty
of any irregularity in making or conduct-
ing the distress he thereby became a
trespasser ab initio, was set aside, and it
was provided-

"That, for any irregularity committed in making or conducting a distress for rent, the party guilty of it shall not be deemed a trespasser ab initio, but that damages shall be recovered by the person aggrieved by such act, in proportion to the injury sustained.”

only for one year's rent accrued due prior to the date of the order of adjudication; but the landlord or other person to whom the rent may be due from the bankrupt may prove, under the bankruptcy, for the overplus due for which the distress may not have been available." Two years later, another great innova- It might be supposed from this that in tion took place by an Act of the same case of insolvency the landlord's priority Sovereign, extending the existing provi- is limited to one year's rent. Practisions for the recovery of rent by distress cally, this is not the case. If the distress in cases of rent reserved upon lease to is put in at any time before the debtor, all cases of rent seck, rents of assize, though long insolvent, has actually been and chief rents. The Statute of Limita- declared bankrupt, it will be in the power tions as to real property enacts that no of the landlord, who has stood by and person shall distrain for rent but within allowed arrears to accumulate, to sweep 20 years next after the time when the off everything to the full amount of six right to distrain first accrued, and pro- years' rent, even though nothing be left vides that no arrears of rent shall be for the other creditors. There are two recovered by distress but within six Acts of the present reign which it is years next after the same shall have hardly necessary to mention--namely, become due, or next after an acknow- those which have been passed for the ledgment of the same in writing. By protection of the goods of lodgers and an Act passed in the present reign, a of railway rolling stock from distress. tenant's growing crops, taken in execu- The simplest form of distress, and that tion and sold, and remaining on the pre- which bears the most evident traces of mises for the purpose of being reaped, the primitive institution, is the impoundare distrainable by the landlord for renting of stray cattle. This kind of distress become due after the taking into execution. Woodfall, in his Text-Book on the Law of Landlord and Tenants, points out that, in consequence of this enactment, which was hastily passed for the benefit of landlords immediately after a decision to the contrary, the tenant's crops can only be sold under an execution for their value, less the rent to which they may become liable, and the costs of a distress; but the landlord may afterwards abstain from distraining, and so in effect benefit the purchaser pro tanto at the tenant's expense, after which he may sue the tenant for such rent, or distrain upon his other goods for the amount. A Statute of Anne provides that no goods shall be removed by the Sheriff under an execution from the demised premises, until one year's rent, if so much be due, is first paid to the landlord, otherwise the Sheriff will be personally liable in an action founded on the Statute. The law, in cases of bankruptcy and liquidation, is thus laid down in the Bankruptcy Act, 1869—

"The landlord, or other person to whom any rent is due from the bankrupt, may, at any time either before or after the commencement of the bankruptcy, distrain upon the goods or effects of the bankrupt for the rent due to him from the bankrupt, with this limitation, that if such distress or rent be levied after the commence

ment of the bankruptcy, it shall be available

has been little affected by legislation, and still remains very much as it was at Common Law. There is no power of sale. It does not arise out of the relation of landlord and tenant, and is founded on the principle of recompenso which justifies a person in retaining that which occasions injury to his property till amends be made by the owner. With this ancient remedy, however, we had nothing to do. We may likewise dismiss from consideration the various statutory executions distresses for poor's rates, distresses under the authority of Inclosure and other Acts, distresses to recover duties or debts due to the Crown. As a learned writer observes, although such proceedings are in the old books constantly termed distresses, they are, in fact, executions, prerogative executions, by seizure and sale. My Motion is confined to the power enjoyed by the landlord to distrain for non-payment of rent, and here it applies only to one class of tenancy— namely, agricultural holdings. Various considerations have led me not to propose to deal with the power of distress for the rent of houses in towns. It is quite true that, to some extent, the same principles apply to urban and rural tenancies; but, in the practical aspect of the question, there is a great difference.