TENANT-RIGHT AND THE THREE F'S. 197 



On one of the lands I bought, a tenant, having 

 another large farm adjoining, has a thirty-one years' 

 lease of 124 acres of splendid land, at a low rent. The 

 farm, when let to him, had been in the occupation of 

 tlie owner, and there was a clause that by paying at 

 any time £100 (probably a fine the tenant had given) 

 possession might be resumed. They bound me not to 

 take advantage of this clause. The lease will be out 

 five years hence. I can easily make five times the 

 rent out of this farm. I have elsewhere 150 acres, 

 let for 5s. 9d. per acre, on thirty -one -year leases, 

 worth three times the rent, or 15s. per acre. This, 

 too, was bought with the leases running and the 

 value taken into account in the purchase-money. 



It will probably be answered at once. Definite 

 contracts cannot be touched. Even the Land Act 

 excepted leases from most of its provisions — from 

 all important ones, and made future leases for thirty- 

 one years the alternative for such provisions. Ac- 

 cordingly since the Land Act great numbers of leases 

 have been given. Three-fifths of my estate is let on 

 lease. 



Since the establishment of the Landed Estates 

 (Jourt, it has sold all the land that has passed through 

 it, with most careful statements in a schedule to each 

 conveyance of the precise rights of every tenant by 

 lease or otherwise. This schedule is absolutely 

 binding between landlord and tenant as if a con- 

 tract. How can Parliament vary it, except by con- 



