LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS 257 



Mr J. W. Barclay, late Member for Forfarshire, and 

 Dr Robert Farquharson, M.P. for West Aberdeenshire, 

 introduced for Scotland, for several successive years, a 

 more carefully considered Bill, applying the principle 

 of the " three F's " to Scotland. 



The same proposals have been, with modifications, 

 brought forward in the Bills successively introduced for 

 Wales by Mr J. Bryn Roberts, M.P., Mr T. E. Ellis, 

 M.P., and Mr Vaughan Davies, M.P. 



The Bill on these lines, introduced by Mr William 

 Smith, then M.P. for North Lonsdale, has already been 

 fully discussed, and is printed in Appendix A, xxvi, 

 vol. I. of the Minutes of the Commission. 



Bills to amend the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, 

 have been introduced by myself and other members 

 annually, from 1887 onwards. 



The first of these Bills had for its main object to 

 enact the proposal of Sir James Caird to protect the 

 interests of the sitting tenant, the proposal of the 

 Scottish Chamber of Agriculture to put all first-class 

 improvements on the footing of drainage, and enable 

 tenants to obtain, or make them, on giving notice, freedom 

 of cultivation and sale of produce, and, among other 

 minor proposals, gave a right to revision of rents where 

 prices had fallen since the contract was entered into. 



In subsequent Bills, proposals were added to protect 

 the rights of tenants of mortgaged holdings (a proposal 

 afterwards enacted in the Tenants' Compensation Act, 

 1890), to give compensation for continuous good farming, 

 and to substitute a system of officially appointed valuers 

 or arbitrators for the present valuers, and to have cases 

 of agricultural compensation settled by a single 

 arbitrator. 



In the Bill of 189 1 an attempt was first made to consoli- 

 date the \vhole of the existing Acts relating to agricultural 

 holdings, 'and in the Bills of 1892, 1893, and 1894 this 

 process was further carried out, with numerous minor 

 changes, suggested partly by resolutions passed by the 

 Chambers of Agriculture and other agricultural 

 organisations, partly as the result of the inquiry 



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