AMENDMENT OF SECTION SIX l8l 



I therefore recommend in any legislation amending 

 the Act that a clause should be introduced on the lines 

 of that first brought before the House of Commons in 

 1887 by myself in a Bill to amend the Agricultural 

 Holdings Act, and since then annually in Bills. The 

 clause, which is clause 53 in the Agricultural 

 Holdings Bill, 1897,^ provides that no penalty or 

 damages shall be enforceable, and the tenant shall not 

 be turned out for change of cultivation or sale of produce, 

 if an adequate return of manure is made, or security 

 given that it will be made at the proper season. 



If these recommendations are adopted, and coupled 

 with the recommendation of the Central Chamber of 

 Agriculture that the four-year limit to claims for waste 

 by the landlord shall be reduced to two years from the 

 determination of the tenancy, the operation of section 6 

 of the Agricultural Holdings Act will be materially 

 restricted. 



It apparently escaped the observation of the framers 

 of that Act that the effect of subsection {b) of section 6 is 

 to read every tenancy agreement as if the tenant had 

 agreed not to sell hay, straw, roots, etc., for, whether the 

 tenant has so agreed or not, the landlord can claim to 

 reduce the tenant's compensation on this ground. The 

 section in fact extends the power of the landlord beyond 

 the cases where the tenant has agreed not to sell off, to 

 cases where the tenant has not so agreed, or even where 

 he has by custom or agreement the right — sometimes 

 not very clearly defined — to sell off. 



This oversight has really given the landlord more 

 than he asked for, and has caused some injustice in 

 practice, Mr C. S. Read having been a notable sufferer 

 from this unintentional extension of landlord's powers. 

 It is necessary, therefore, to introduce into the section 

 the words " contrary to the written terms of the tenancy," 

 an amendment also suggested in the Bills referred to. 



There is a further extension of landlord's powers under 

 this section, which, in my opinion, should be more strictly 

 defined. Outside the Act, a landlord has power at common 



'See Appendix II to this Report, 



