SELF-HELP NOT PROTECTION 217 



second ; the real difficulty begins with the third. If 

 tenants, by skill and liberality, have increased the letting 

 or marketable value of land, they are entitled to compensa- 

 tion for whatever increase remains when landlords seek to 

 change the conditions of a tenancy. Thus, even on the third 

 head, difficulty only arises when, at the expiration of a lease, 

 a notice to quit is given, or the rent is raised. In order to 

 ascertain the value of the tenant's improvements, two plans 

 are proposed — open sale in the market, and valuation with 

 arbitration. The first is the free sale of tenant-right ; the 

 second is the principle adopted in the Agricultural Hold- 

 ings Acts of 1875 and 1883. One fatal objection may be 

 urged against the first plan. The incoming tenant buys 

 the improvements ; in other words, he enters upon the 

 farm with his capital reduced, if not exhausted. Farmers, 

 in fact, cut a stick for their own backs. On other grounds 

 the three F's, with the attendant tutelage of a land court, 

 are not only historically indefensible, but unnecessary and 

 unfair to English landlords. 



To quitting tenants, the principle of reference and arbi- 

 tration, adopted in the Agricultural Holdings Acts of 1875 

 and 1883, affords adequate security. The latter Act is 

 compulsory, and therefore escapes the danger which made 

 the first inoperative. But its provisions are cumbersome, 

 and its schedules of improvement minute but inadequate. 

 It gives no security to sitting tenants against a rise of 

 rent based upon their improvements. If tiiey refuse the 

 rise, their alternative is to quit. The choice is unfair ; the 

 losses on a sale preparatory to quitting a farm often 

 amount to ruin ; countless considerations besides those of 

 business induce tenants to consent to a rise which they 

 cannot afford. The advantage taken of this dilemma 

 negatived the intended results of the Irish Land Act of 



