180 LAND TENURE 



improvements a bona fide compensation should be secured to 

 the tenant may be practically attained." 



During this debate Mr. Fawcett referred to Mr. Clare Sewell 

 Read as " the most advanced and earnest reformer on the 

 subject, and one in whom the Prime Minister has expressed 

 great confidence." The Council during this year devoted 

 two meetings to considering the essential provisions of a 

 satisfactory measure. The second report of their own Com- 

 mittee, dated 3rd March, 1874, was discussed and adopted 

 in March, and in June the Council authorised this Committee 

 to draft a Bill embodying the principles of the resolutions 

 passed by the Council. 



1875. 



At the February and March meetings the Council dealt 

 clause by clause with the draft Bill, called the Agricultural 

 Tenancies Bill, which their Committee had prepared, and 

 after very long debates certain alterations were agreed to, 

 and the Bill was sent to the Prime Minister and the Lord 

 President of the Council. 



At the opening of Parliament the Queen's Speech men- 

 tioned that a Bill for improving the law as to agricultural 

 tenancies would be forthcoming, and in moving the Address 

 Mr. E. Stanhope (member for Mid-Lincolnshire) laid special 

 stress upon this paragraph. The Government introduced 

 their Agricultural Holdings Bill in the House of Lords, and it 

 was found to be based to a large degree on the Bill drafted 

 by the Chamber. In May the Council cordially concurred 

 in the main principle of this Bill, but regarded with grave 

 doubt the principle of mainly testing the amount of com- 

 pensation by increase or diminution of letting value of the 

 holding. The Council also disapproved of Clause 37 unless 

 the following words were added : " Provided that in every 

 agreement there shall be expressed some bona fide consideration 

 for the improvements specified in the second and third classes 

 of the Act." 



An amendment to this effect was moved in the House of 

 Commons by Mr. W. W. B. Beach (Vice-Chairman of the 



