RETROSPECTIVE COMPENSATION 205 



was suitable, he should allow compensation for it retro- 

 spectively, according to the precedent of the Market 

 Gardeners' Compensation Act. .■'.'.. ^li^ 



And, in the event of such an amendment of the 

 Agricultural; Holdings Act being sanctioned, it should 

 be provided that necessary and essential changes in 

 the cultivation of the farm, like the laying down of 

 permanent pasture, or the erection of suitable buildings 

 and appliances for dairy work, where likely to succeed, 

 should be declared, in such an amending Bill, to be 

 suitable and proper improvements which should receive 

 compensation, and that compensation should be awarded 

 for them, unless it is proved that the landlord had 

 dissented in writing from any such improvement. 



Clause 3 of the Agricultural Holdings Bill, 1897, gives 

 effect to this recommendation. 



Compensation for the Sitting Tenant. 



Assent has already been given to the view of 

 Sir James Caird, that the most serious defect of the 

 Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, was that it restricted 

 compensation to the tenant who was leaving his holding, 

 and gave no direct protection to the property rights in 

 his own improvements of the tenant who was remaining 

 in his holding, and entering on a new contract of 

 tenancy.^ 



In the analysis of the relation of rents to agricultural 

 depression, it has already been pointed out that the force of 

 competition, increasingly directed towards farms in high 

 condition, operates to prevent the improving farmer 

 from obtaining such a reduction of rent as will leave the 

 niateriaL return from his outlay in his own pocket, and 

 that the more continuously and effectively a tenant has 

 maintained and improved the condition of his farm, the 

 more certainly is the whole value of his improvements 

 transferred to his landlord by rack renting.^ 



I now proceed to consider suggestions for the pre- 



iPage 157. 2 Page 107, 



