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162
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland
[DECEMBER, 1910
depreciated Stock is the only solution of the
difficulty which the Treasury can find.
It appears from an answer given in the
House last April that out of the thousands of
direct pending sales 707 vendors had agreed to
accept payment partly in cash and partly in
2f per cent. Stock, amounting to in or about
7|- millions, and that 255 vendors were
accepting payment wholly in Stock repre
senting about 2 millions. But what are these
figures as compared with the whole ?
The question now arises : what is best to be
done by us in such a difficult situation ? What
can we as a profession advise our clients who
have already sold ?
What can we as a
meeting say to the public as to the solution
of this trouble ?
I have not referred to the hardships which
are entailed on land agents and on Solici
tors by reason of
the delay.
Is it not
hard on us professional men that year
after year should roll by before we get a
penny remuneration for all our trouble and
outlays ?
We, as a body, are guilty of no
delay whatsoever in connection with the
proceeding ; we have loyally endeavoured to
facilitate sales, and yet we are absolutely
impotent and helpless
in
the matter of
affecting expedition in the realisation of the
purchase money of an estate sold.
Can it be a matter of wonder if already
discontent at the present situation is being
expressed ?
Now to formulate an answer to
the points suggested is not an easy matter, but
for whatever they may be worth I venture
to express my personal views.
I know I am
speaking in the presence of men of large
experience in connection with the negotia
tions for the disposal of estates and the
carrying through of sales in the Land Com
mission, and
in all humility I give my
personal opinions.
My experience has been that amendments
of Land Acts which have involved drains on
the British Treasury have not been as
favourable to vendors and purchasers as
the original design of
the parent Act,
and,
therefore, profiting by that experi
ence,
it
seems
to me
desirable before
matters become worse, as possibly they may,
that advantage should, as far as possible, be
taken of the 1909 Act on the part of vendors
who have already disposed of their estates
under the Wyndham Act, but who now see
no immediate prospect of payment for the
estates thus sold.
I venture to suggest that vendors whose
circumstances
are
such
that
they
can
fairly
afford
to
hold Land Stock per
manently, had better take it. Thus they
would be practically investing their purchase
money in a 3 per cent, security, which, you
know, is equivalent to that of Consols.
If
in the future Land Stock recovers from its
present much depreciated price to the figure,
say, of 92, then it is evident sales could be
effected without loss, and if by any chance
Land Stock went over 92, vendors would
make a profit.
Now as regards vendors whose estates
were lodged in the Land Commission late
in the year 1908,
they seem
to me to
be
in
that position
that
they cannot
reasonably hope, as things are at present,
to be reached for payment for very many
years to come. Their cases are so far down
on the general list that the prospects are not
at all encouraging. Would it not be better
for them at once to apply for half Stock and
half cash or whole Stock ?
If they did so, in
all probability they would expedite their
sales by possibly two or three years, and if
they found that their expectation of a realisa
tion within a reasonable period was not likely
to be accomplished, why then they might
apply to replace their cases on the " All
Cash Register."
I know that such a re
placement on
the
" All Cash Register"
might involve their estates being placed at
the bottom of the list as it then may stand,
but would they be worse off than they are
to-day ?
Uncertainty looms large, as I have already
pointed out ;
political complications may
further
depreciate
the value
of
Land
Stock ;
future legislation may not be even
as beneficial to vendors and tenant purchasers
as the Act of 1909, although, as I have shown,
that Act has little to boast of, and the result
of the best deliberation that I personally
have been able to give to the subject is that,
having regard to all the circumstances and
the position of affairs generally in Ireland, it
would be well for vendors to reconsider the
situation and see whether they cannot accept
Stock under the 1909 Act, and so bring into