I08 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



had to leave that farm. They wanted me to pay on my 

 own improvements. They would not bring the rent 

 down to the rent it would have been if I had not had 

 the farm in that high state." 



Mr Nunneley points out that where tenants' improve- 

 ments prevent rent falling — " say a farm is let at £i 

 an acre, which otherwise would come down to los but 

 for the tenant's improvements " — he is entitled to have 

 their value considered in fixing a new rent on renewal 

 of a tenancy. 



Mr Black holds that " much of the injustice that tenants 

 have suffered has been by putting a rent upon the tenant 

 at the renewal of a lease, based upon improvements 

 carried out with his own labour and his own money." . . . 

 " The rent should be fixed not upon the farm as it is 

 improved by the tenant's labour and outlay, but upon 

 the farm as it would have been without these improve- 

 ments." This is justice, but " the practice has been, as a 

 rule, that the proprietor, either through his factor, or 

 through a professional valuator, has put a rent upon his 

 farm, and the sitting tenant has just the option of taking 

 it at that rent or leaving." 



Mr Wilkinson puts the case of tenant farmers very 

 clearly. While he repudiates the landlord's claim to 

 sell the use of his land to the tenant for the best price 

 he can get, the market price, he equally repudiates the 

 Irish notion of joint ownership ; "but," he adds, " I hold 

 that the landlord should not have my improvements or 

 live on my capital any longer. . . I want to have our 

 landlords deal more fairly with sitting tenants, and 

 sitting tenants should not pay rental upon what they 

 have done upon their farms." " What belongs to the 

 landlord let him sell at the best price, but he has no 

 right to sell what belongs to the tenant." 



Mr Scott : " Men do not farm as high as they would 

 if they had more security. At present their everlasting 

 fear is that the landlords will reap the benefit of their 

 expenditure. What we want to do is to prevent men 

 feeling that others may reap what they sow." 



Many other illustrations are to be found in the 



