Lord Derby on Land, Labour, and Game 



405 



will, and to my mind they always should, be 

 matters of arrangement between him and the 

 landlord. It is not the landowner's interest 

 to have his farm run out during the last 

 four years of the lease, and it is not 

 the tenant's interest to run it out, if 

 he can either secure the value of what he has 

 put in or a renewal of his tenancy. They 

 are both gainers by coming to an agreement, 

 and I do not see that either fresh legislation 

 or the intervention of any third party is 

 necessary. In the case of a yearly tenant, 

 the claim is certainly stronger, and if in cases 

 of that kind grievances arise, as I have read 

 in the newspapers, I think the question of 

 legal protection is a very fair one to raise. 

 But I speak with no great confidence, for in 

 my experience no dispute has ever arisen on 

 these points. In Ireland it used to be pleaded 

 with truth that the tenant did most of the 

 work of permanent improvement on the 

 estate, buildings included — and that, there- 

 fore, he had a right to the value of them on 

 leaving. But in this country, at least in Lan- 

 cashire, all works of that kind are landlords' 

 works, and the Irish claim does not arise. 

 The obvious remedy for grievances or mis- 

 understandings on this question of improve- 

 ments is, that before they are undertaken by 

 the tenant in each instance, there should be 

 a definite agreement whether they are to be 

 paid for or not, and how their value is to be 

 estimated. Speaking as a landowner, I am 

 not in the least afraid of bona fide claims on 

 the ground of improvement ; but I suspect 

 that some at least of those who put them for- 

 ward have got in their minds a very different 

 kind of claim from the Irish demands for com- 



pensation, as it is called, for "disturbance — in 

 other words, the infliction of a fine on the 

 landlord for putting a bad tenant out and a 

 better one in. That demand never seemed 

 to me reasonable, even in Irish legislation, 

 and in England it would be equally without 

 precedent and without justification. And 

 that brings me back to what I said at first — 

 the importance of a clear definition of mutual 

 rights. All that miserable Irish trouble about 

 tenant-right, of which we have probably not 

 seen the end yet, arose in the first instance 

 from the muddle-headed way in which both 

 parties went on, laying down no fixed rule, 

 acting on no definite principle, but settling 

 each case as it arose, or leaving it unsettled, 

 until the confusion had become inextricable, 

 and popular violence had practically super- 

 seded law. We shall not fall into that mis- 

 take, but it is one great use of such discus- 

 sions as ours ought to be, that vague and un- 

 sound notions get swept away, and that we 

 come to see clearly what others have a right 

 to expect from us, and what we are entitled 

 to claim in return. It rests with you whether 

 this society is going to be of real use or not. 

 You have an immense range of subjects to 

 deal with — try to deal with them briefly, 

 practically, thoughtfully. With our system of 

 newspapers the most obscure person who is 

 master of his subject may start an idea 

 that will spread through the whole country ; 

 and if for every grain of truth we should 

 happen to produce a good deal of chaff, why 

 the chaff blows away in the fresh air of 

 controversy, the grain, be it much or- little, 

 remains behind. 



