246 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



present problems seem to be of a more restricted 

 character, and the proposals of Mr Smith and others do 

 not command general assent. 



In reviewing the evidence given before the Commis- 

 sion and collected by the Assistant Commissioners, it 

 is obvious that the preponderance of opinion expressed 

 is against the proposal of a land court, so called. 



Mr Middleton says: — "The feeling against any 

 tribunal for fixing rents has been most emphatic. I am 

 opposed to any outsider fixing the prices of any 

 article." 



Mr James Stratton and Mr Johnson (Ixworth) take 

 much the same view. 



Mr Kay thinks it unfair to compel a landlord to take 

 a certain rent, when he himself can go to market and 

 take the market price, or keep his cows. " The landlord 

 ought to be able to do the same with his land. I fail to 

 see that I ought to deprive the landlord of the liberty 

 which I, as a tenant farmer, demand for myself" 



The true method, in his opinion, is to make the land- 

 lord pay fully for any misuse of his freedom which 

 injures others. 



Mr Rowlandson, Mr C. S. Read, Mr Dewar, Mr Bell, 

 Mr Edwards, Mr Parton, and others all prefer that 

 bargains should be made between the parties, without 

 any interference by an outside authority to settle the 

 terms. 



Mr Scott explained that in his scheme for official 

 arbitrators, " their powers were not to extend in any way 

 or form to the question of the regulation of rent be- 

 tween owner and occupier." 



" That," he says, " is the general opinion of intelligent 

 farmers all over the country." 



A number of the English witnesses are opposed to 

 the fixing of rents by judicial authority, including 

 several who advocate very advanced proposals regarding 

 compensation and security of tenure. Most of these 

 witnesses express their objections in the form of dissent 

 from the idea of a legal tribunal, before whom the rela- 

 tions of landlord and tenant are supposed to come in the 



I 



