EXCLUSION OF SITTING TENANTS 1 57 



owners, who promptly repudiated the debts which 

 should have been paid by the old owners,^ 



On the other hand, if the new rent represents the full 

 market value of the farm, and thus includes the remain- 

 ing value of the improvements, as is probable, it is clear 

 that the incoming tenant is paying twice over for the 

 improvements. Such a diminution of his capital must be 

 prejudicial to agriculture, as well as inherently unjust. 



Thus the intention of the Act to secure to the tenant 

 a full property in the value of his improvements has 

 been defeated, both for outgoing and incoming tenants, 

 by the blunder of leaving an important reform in the 

 hands of valuers of the old type, who were habituated 

 to the working of the old system which the Act was 

 meant to supersede. The proper course would obvi- 

 ously have been to create a new machinery adapted to 

 carry out, instead of leaving the new principle to be 

 perverted and evaded. 



The much more serious defect of the Act of 1883 

 was that it limited the principle of property in improve- 

 ments to tenants who were quitting their holdings, and 

 made no provision for giving a similar security to 

 tenants remaining in their holdings. 



Sir James Caird protested in 1883, when the Bill was 

 brought out, against this limitation, the effect of which 

 was that Parliament was legislating not for the best but 

 for the less deserving tenants.- The evidence brought 

 before us certainly shows that the forecast of Sir James 

 Caird, of the results of excluding the cases that ought to 

 have been provided for, has been verified. 



Sir James Caird urged against the Bill of 1883 that it 

 did not protect just the men you really want to protect, 

 and did not do what it was intended to do, and con- 

 tinued f " unless the interests of the sitting tenants, who 

 are the real backbone of British agriculture, are equally 

 recognised and dealt with, the Bill will fail to give that 

 security which would promote good farming and justify 

 legislative interference with contracts." 



'fa' 



' Rew, Salisbury Plain, pp. 21, 22. 



2 Letter to the " Times," April 4, 1883. 



