A POLICY OF COERCION 1 67 



Lincolnshire Chamber of Agriculture stated that " after 

 a receipt for rent, there should be no further claim." 

 But this was contested by leading land agents. 



At Devizes, Mr Spencer found opinion was that 

 restrictive clauses were generally inoperative till a 

 tenancy was being determined, when they were put in 

 force. 



A Kentish hop grower, quoted by Dr F'ream, says 

 of these restrictive and penalising agreements, " the 

 tenant signs the agreement and trusts to Providence the 

 landlord will not enforce it." 



"Many of the farmers whom I visited," says Mr Pringle, 

 " were absolutely ignorant of the conditions of the 

 agreement which they had signed on entry. More than 

 one had not gone the length of reading the document." 



The evidence is uniform that, in practice, the full 

 amount of penal rents for breach of covenant cannot be 

 recovered, but are almost invariably cut down to the 

 amount of actual damage proved. 



The use of the power to apportion costs adversely to 

 the party whose claims are least reasonable probably has 

 had some effect in lessening the evil of excessive counter- 

 claims. 



Further, it has been decided in the case of Holmes 

 and Formby, that the claim of the landlord under the 

 Act can only be taken into account by way of reduction 

 of the claim of the tenant, and even if, as in that case, 

 the sum awarded to the landlord under the reference 

 exceeded the sum awarded to the tenant, the umpire has 

 no power to award this overplus to the landlord, and the 

 county court has no power to enforce such an award.^ 



While these considerations operate to restrict the 

 resulting mischief to some extent, it is plain that 

 there is a far too widespread survival of covenants, in 

 leases and agreements, which are wholly inconsistent 

 with modern requirements and with modern law. This 

 survival is, to a large extent, obviously part of a policy 

 of retaining a maximum of power over tenants, so that 

 if any dispute arises the dread of the results of a breach 



' Wilson Fox, Lincoln, p. 27. *Kew, Norfolk, p. 51. 



