SUBSTITUTED COMPENSATION I 59 



nor tenant can foresee improvements that could be made 

 in the course of nineteen years, and the result of agree- 

 ments would be to limit the improvements ; the tenant 

 would not put his money into improvements that he was 

 not to be compensated for." 



Mr Lander's objection is rather that a time scale 

 should be put in express terms into the Act, on the same 

 method as in the Act of 1875, instead of leaving the 

 scale to be settled under pressure of private bargaining. 

 Mr Kay takes the same view, but it is not generally held. 



Other witnesses strongly approve of the principle of 

 arranging compensation beforehand by agreement, on 

 the ground that they thus avoid the uncertainties of 

 arbitration under the Act. 



In any case, it would seem expedient to remove the 

 uncertainty that exists as to the provisions of Clause 5, 

 and to state definitely, in any amended Act, that the 

 question of whether compensation under an agreement 

 is " fair and reasonable " shall be determined in the same 

 way as any other differences between landlord and 

 tenant under the Act, and that an agreement fixing a 

 time scale of exhaustion of specified improvements shall 

 not bar general compensation for the high condition 

 resulting from long continued good farming. 



In its direct application, the evidence shows that in 

 many, if not in most districts, the Act is practically in- 

 operative. 



"In Norfolk, not one per cent, of the tenancies chang- 

 ing hands come under the operation of the Act." This 

 is the more remarkable as there is no local custom as 

 regards tenant-right, " that is the reason why we want it 

 most, and we get it least." ^ " In Lincolnshire, there are 

 very few estates under the Act. The custom of the 

 countryis considered quite as good as the Act." 2 



In Suffolk "we treat the Act with contempt, none of 

 us ever once think about it. The custom of the country 

 gives us all we could get from the Act without the 

 bother." 



The Lincolnshire custom is preferred from the ease 



' C. S. Read, 16,142. ^ Lincoln, p. 25. 



