66 PROPOSED TENANCY REFORMS 



the tenant the two questions which bulk largest are the 

 amount of rent he has to pay and the question of security. 

 Every man likes to make a good bargain and profit by it. 

 The lucky prospector who can take out a mining license of 

 valuable property at a ridiculously low figure may by a few 

 mouths 1 work make himself passing rich for the rest 

 of his life. We are all out for these bargains ; and so is 

 the tenant. If he can obtain occupancy rights he feel* 

 secure in the enjoyment of profits sufficient to maintain 

 his family, and probably without the necessity of such 

 continual hard work as might be necessary if he should have 

 to pay from time to time an enhanced rental. Whilst, as I 

 say, every tenant likes to make a good bargain, I think the 

 average tenant is not averse from paying what may be con 

 sidered a fair rental ; in other words, if he is a yearly tenant, 

 he will not feel that he is being dealt with unjustly if his 

 rent is enhanced to a reasonable extent at a time when the 

 profits of cultivation have increased or when he has received 

 any benefit from the landlord. If the enhancement of rent 

 ot ;i yearly tenant is such as not greatly to exceed the average 

 then payable, which will be the case if all landlords follow 

 the same practice and make general enhancements or reduc- 

 tion of rent at approximately the same time, the tenant will 

 have little real cause for complaint. The trouble is that 

 landlords at present act without agreement and even without 

 consultation, so that there are marked differences between 

 the enhancements made on neighboring estates, producing 

 a sense of injustice in those tenants who have suffered from 

 considerable enhancement whilst seeing their neighbors get 

 off much more lightly. 



Suggestions for Immediate Changes in Anra Province 

 I am of opinion that, if we had a body of enlightened 

 landlords devoting themselves to the development of agri- 

 culture on their estates, the system of yearly tenancies with 

 the various kinds of compensation above described could be 

 introduced with a view to replacing gradually all other forms 



