252 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



landlords and tenants like myself and my tenant 

 would make use of them in the future with very 

 great advantage." 

 " I think they would employ these arbitrators when- 

 ever there was a difficulty, and you would have 

 practically no litigation" 

 In any matter arising out of the Agricultural Holdings 

 Act, " when it comes to litigation, these arbitrators 

 and these alone must be employed."^ 

 When so simple and rational an expedient for attain- 

 ing, and from time to time amicably readjusting on 

 equitable lines, the rights and claims of the two parties 

 to an agricultural tenancy is contrasted with the in- 

 justice — none the less bad because it is generally 

 unconscious — which in so many cases has been shown, 

 in our evidence, to impose on tenants the heaviest share 

 of economic loss, and to transfer, by a process none the 

 less iniquitous because it is strictly legal, the invest- 

 ments of the tenant to the pockets of the landlord, I 

 venture to think that most impartial men would, on 

 full consideration, heartily welcome machinery which 

 would put friendly and effective arbitration, such as Mr 

 Pennant suggests, within the reach of all. 



Under present conditions, when estates are re-valued, 

 there is a general practice of calling in expert aid 

 from without. Sometimes, as on the Haddo estate, 

 the re-valuation is actually carried out by valuers on 

 either side, with an oversman, exactly like a reference 

 under the Act. 



In other cases men of wide agricultural experience 

 and recognised impartiality, like Mr Rowlandson, are 

 employed — probably with the satisfaction and confi- 

 dence of both sides — to re- value estates. 



Mr Rowlandson, asked whether tenants in his district 

 have been able to get a reduction where it is fair and 

 right to have it, replies : " It has been very often left to 

 valuation, and I have valued thousands and thousands 

 of acres for reductions of rent. Sometimes I have acted 

 for both ; sometimes for the tenant and sometimes for 

 the landlord." 



' Pennant, Vol. IV,, 57,421-57,476. 



