FREE SALE — FIXITY OF TENURE 245 



As to fixity of tenure, much evidence was given that 

 farmers generally have too Httle confidence to care to be 

 tied down, for even as short a period as five years, to pay 

 a stipulated rent without power of escape. It will have 

 been noted that the supporters of Mr Smith's Bill and 

 similar proposals are anxious to reserve to the tenant the 

 right of withdrawal, while binding the landlord. And 

 the general indisposition to take leases has been 

 marked all over the country. Even on the generously 

 managed estates of the Duke of Richmond, with all the 

 advantages of practical freedom of cultivation, and the 

 division of the rates, leases are declined and yearly ten- 

 ancies asked for. Leases have been abandoned on the 

 Holkham and other estates. And after producing ad- 

 mirable results in high continuous farming in Northum- 

 berland, they are lapsing now. 



In Scotland, the same tendency has been shown in 

 the demand for five-year breaks at option of tenant in 

 the nineteen years' leases. Though there has been 

 some reaction in some counties in favour of the longer 

 unbroken tenancy, Mr Speir himself would "prefer to 

 be clear of a lease altogether, and to have full com- 

 pensation for any added value," and other witnesses are 

 of the same opinion. 



While noting these difficulties in the working, and as 

 to the acceptability to farmers of proposals to introduce 

 the "three F's," it must be admitted that these diffi- 

 culties may reasonably be viewed as partial, and in 

 some sense temporary. The evidence as to agricul- 

 turists who put large amounts of money into agriculture, 

 like the fruit-growers in Worcestershire and elsewhere, 

 and the hop-growers in Kent, establishes incontestably 

 the fact that the more money is thus put in, the less 

 possible it is to contest the fairness of the demand of 

 men, who -have so much invested, to the right to some 

 mode of free sale, and of fixity of tenure, and to some 

 machinery for preventing the frustration of their de- 

 mand by unfairly enhanced rents. These are plain 

 undeniable economic facts, which will, in my opinion, 

 have to be dealt with ultimately, even though our 



