CHAPTER XII. 



Arbitration as to Rent. 



In the preceding chapter we have considered how far 

 under the existing law, the interests and the freedom of 

 the working agriculturist are protected, and the necessity 

 for further protection in order to secure fair play for 

 agricultural effort. It is obvious, on full consideration of 

 the evidence as to insecurity, and of the various sugges- 

 tions for strengthening the law, that the really essential 

 difficulty, which all these suggestions are meant directly 

 or indirectly to overcome, is the weak position of the 

 tenant in bargaining as to future rent. 



The theory of the promoters of the Act of 1883 was 

 that " in any negotiations between a landlord and an 

 existing tenant for the renewal of a tenancy, in any claim 

 which the tenant makes in times of depression and low 

 prices for a reduction of rent, or whenever in better times 

 the landlord demands a rise in rent," the position of the 

 tenant in bargaining will be strengthened by his statutory 

 right to recover from the landlord, on quitting his hold- 

 ing, the full remaining value of his improvements. 



The evidence taken before this Commission shows 

 conclusively that this theory has not been confirmed by 

 experience, and that, so far from being stronger in 

 bargaining, the improving tenant who has a large amount 

 of capital invested in his holding is powerless to obtain 

 fair conditions, and that his position is the more hopeless 

 just in proportion to the interests he has at stake. It 

 has been found that, at any given moment in a period of 

 low prices and general depression, a tenant farmer of this 

 class is bound to estimate that his immediate loss in 

 quitting his farm, selling off stock, and in removing to 



