Legislative Action 141 



the small farmers, who are naturally interested in every attack upon 

 the right of the owner to do what he will with his own land. They 

 recognise that as tenants they are in a worse position relatively to 

 the landlord than are the large farmers. Large farmers, at the 

 present day, are comparatively few and are therefore sought after. 

 When they come to take a farm, they are often met by no 

 competitors. They can therefore dictate their terms in a way im- 

 possible to the small farmer, faced as he is in many cases by twenty 

 or more rival bidders. Fair Rent and Fixity of Tenure are under 

 such conditions much better assured to the large farmer than they are 

 to the small man, and the former is therefore less interested than the 

 latter in the possibility of State intervention. 



The Act of 1907, as has already been shown, provides for a Fair 

 Rent, so far as newly-created holdings are concerned. The land- 

 owner is obliged to let to the local authority, and to take a rent 

 estimated by a "fair" valuation, not unduly driven up by the presence 

 of a crowd of small agriculturists outbidding each other, but based in 

 the first place upon the amount hitherto received for the area. He 

 cannot demand an increased rent at pleasure when the first lease has 

 run out, and so exploit the increased profit which the tenant has 

 perhaps just begun to draw. For the Council is at liberty to conclude 

 a new lease and again to fix the rent according to the same "fair" 

 considerations as before. 



Fixity of Tenure is also guaranteed by the Act to some extent, 

 since the Council, acting as landlord, may only give notice to quit to 

 any tenant on grounds defined in the Acts of 1892 and 1907, or 

 because he does not fulfil his obligations. The occupier can no longer 

 be turned out of his holding, at least within the duration of the 

 Council's lease, for such reasons as the improvement of the shooting 

 or hunting of the estate, or some personal antipathy towards him on 

 the part of the landlord ; on the ground of his political opinions, or of 

 his system of cultivation ; or simply from the landlord's sudden desire 

 to add the acres in question to his home farm. Even if conditions 

 arise which allow the landowner to reclaim his land, the tenant has a 

 right to compensation (see Schedule I, Pt II (5)). 



As regards Free Sale, it has been pointed out above that the 

 small holder's claim to compensation can be much more easily and 

 effectively made when the local authority intervenes between him 

 and the landlord ; and this is considerable progress in the direction 

 indicated by that phrase. 



Every landlord, however, is perpetually faced, under this Act, 



