214 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



We want to be able to deal with our landlords on equal 

 terms, and not for them to be able to say, 'sign that 

 agreement or quit your farm.' We are tired of that sort 

 of thing in Northumberland, and not going to tolerate it 

 any longer." Where a man is refused a reasonable 

 reduction of rent, and forced to quit his farm, "he is 

 entitled to fair compensation if he has to put his stock 

 on the market in bad times." 



Mr Olver says " it is considerable cost for a tenant to 

 move from one farm to another. Suppose a man may 

 be on a farm for many years ; he lays out his money 

 and improves it, something turns up between him and 

 his landlord, and he is turned out, and there are no 

 means of getting back his capital again, I think he ought 

 to be paid under those circumstances." 



Mr Reynolds, answering the objection that com- 

 pensation for disturbance is one-sided, and that you 

 cannot compel the tenant to stop at a rent fixed by a 

 court or arbitrator, says " the landlord would have 

 nothing to complain of, because the farm would let 

 directly, assuming that, if we have a court to fix a fair 

 rent, it will fix a fair rent." 



Mr Lander thinks it indispensable to the security of 

 the tenant to provide compensation for disturbance. 

 To effect this reform, together with compensation to the 

 sitting tenant at the determination of a tenancy, and 

 limitation of penal rents to damage proved, are, in 

 Mr Lander's opinion, remedies in substitution for a Land 

 Court, which will place the tenant on a more inde- 

 pendent and equal footing for the adjusting of rent and 

 other matters. 



Mr Pringle, in his report on the South Midlands, 

 refers very strongly to the general sense of insecurity of 

 tenure, there being large numbers of cases in which the 

 old tenants had been forced out of their holdings by the 

 refusal of sufficient reductions of rent. " Compensation 

 for improvements can never be regarded as equivalent 

 to peaceful continuance and enjoyment on fair and 

 reasonable terms." 



In view of the frequent recurrence during the evidence 



