purchaser would be conducted. If the agreement be for a lease instead of for an absolute purchase, it will be carried out in the same way as any ordinary agreement for a lease between a lessor and lessee; but if the lessor should happen not to be an absolute owner, but only a tenant for life, it will be well to get the lease confirmed by the Land Commission (1885, s. 3).

The procedure to obtain such confirmation is described at page 29 post.

As regards (b), viz., where it is proposed to take lands compulsorily as an absolute purchase, the following is the course of procedure:

In the first place the board of guardians must prepare maps or plans on a scale of not less than 200 feet to an inch, and also compensation schedules of the lands proposed to be compulsorily purchased, and then deposit the originals (after they have been signed by the architect and the Clerk of the Union) in the office of the Board of Works, Dublin, and deposit copies thereof in the offices of the Clerk of the Peace of the county, and of the Clerk of the Poor Law Union in which the lands are situate.

These maps or plans and compensation schedules should be prepared in strict compliance with the requirements of the Lands Clauses Acts.

The Board of Works, on receipt of an application from the board of guardians, will appoint an Arbitrator,

whose duty it will be to determine the amount of compensation which the guardians are to pay to the several persons who shall have an interest in the lands proposed to be purchased.

The Arbitrator will hold a preliminary public inquiry, of which due notice must be given by advertisement, and having heard the evidence adduced on such inquiry he will frame his draft award.

Notice of the making of the draft award must then be published once in the Dublin Gazette, and once in each of three successive weeks in some newspaper circulating in the district in which the lands proposed to be taken are situate. A notice must also be served on all owners, lessees, and occupiers, stating the sums awarded to them by the draft award. Within a period not less than fourteen days from the date of the last publication of the above-mentioned notice the Arbitrator will hold a second public inquiry, at which he will hear objections to the draft award, and having considered such objections, if any be offered, he will make up his final award under his hand and seal, and will lodge copies of such award in the Offices of the Clerk of the Peace of the county, and of the Clerk of the Union in which the lands are situate.

When the final award has been sealed, the solicitor for the board of guardians must publish notices requiring the claimants to deliver particulars of their claim, together

with a short abstract of their title. It will be the duty of the board's solicitor to examine and report on the titles of the various claimants, and according as the titles are proved to be satisfactory or the verse, the compensation monies will be paid over to the parties entitled on proper conveyances being executed by them, or the money will be lodged in the Bank of Ireland under the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts.

The final award may be traversed by the board of guardians or by a claimant. The traverse will be heard before a judge and jury at the Assizes, and the verdict of the jury is conclusive.

As regards (c), viz., when it is proposed to take lands compulsorily by lease for a term of years, the course to be pursued will be found fully detailed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

Procedure in cases where it is proposed to take lands by lease, either by agreement or compulsorily.

If the land proposed to be taken be the absolute property of the owner, no difficulty can arise in his executing to the board of guardians any lease which he may agree to give, and which the board may agree to take; but, in the majority of cases, it will be found that the land proposed to be taken is not vested in an absolute owner. The owner's interest in the land will, in most instances, either be affected by settlements, charged with incumbrances, or subject to tenancies, and where the owner's title is affected by any such limitations, recourse must be had to the provisions of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1885, in order to enable the board of guardians to obtain a valid lease of the plot which it is proposed to take as a site for a labourer's cottage.

An owner, whose estate is affected by settlements, is styled "a limited owner," an expression which, by the 23rd section of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1885, is defined to mean:

(1.) Any person entitled under any existing or future settle

ment at law or in equity for his own benefit and for the term

of his own life to the possession or receipt of the rents and profits of land whether subject or not to incumbrances in which the estate for the time being is an estate for lives or years renewable for ever, or is an estate renewable for a term of not less than ninety-nine years, or is an estate for a term of years, of which not less than ninety-nine is unexpired, or is a fee-farm grant, or is a greater estate than any of the foregoing estates;

(2.) Any body corporate, any corporation, sole, ecclesiastical,

or lay, any trustees in receipt of rents and profits, guardians of infants, committees of lunatics or idiots, and any commissioners or trustees for ecclesiastical, collegiate, or other public purposes entitled at law or in equity to the receipt of the rents and profits of any land in which the estate, for the time being, is such an estate as aforesaid.

A limited owner can, for the purposes of the Labourers Acts, grant leases of plots to the board of guardians for a term not exceeding 99 years, to take effect in possession, or within one year after the execution of the leases. The rent reserved on such leases must be the best rent which can reasonably be obtained for the land, no fine can be taken; the lease must not include any mansion house, home farm, or demesne land, and a counterpart of the lease must be executed by the board (1885, s. 2).

The lease must, however, not only be executed by the limited owner, but it should, moreover, be confirmed by the Land Commission. Whether such confirmation is absolutely essential for the security of the board may