42 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



going tenant, the State should be empowered, under proper conditions, to 

 lend the money to the landowners for the purpose of providing the 

 necessary cash. We also thought, looking to the interests of the tenant, 

 that the Compensation Act should be made retrospective in its operation. 

 It appears to me that there is no doubt whatever that when Parliament 

 passed the Market Gardeners' Compensation Act it was the intention of the 

 Legislature that it should be retrospective, and that it should apply to all 

 market gardens which existed before the Act passed and to all improve- 

 ments which had been made in those gardens before the passing of the 

 Act, and as a matter of fact it was so understood and for a time compen- 

 sation was actually paid on that basis. But in a certain case which was 

 taken to the House of Lords it was decided that though the Act was 

 retrospective in the sense that it would apply to market gardens existing 

 before the Act passed, it was only to apply to the case of improvements 

 since the Act passed, and the result is that you have a real grievance. 

 The man who made improvements just before the passing of the Act does 

 not get any compensation, whereas the man living next door, who made 

 his improvements immediately after the passing of the Act, gets full com- 

 pensation. Under the Evesham system the valuation as between land- 

 lord and tenant is practically avoided altogether, the incoming tenant 

 paying the outgoing tenant. That might be a solution of the difficulty. 

 I do not know how far these suggestions meet the views of the meeting, but 

 I think we shall learn a great deal from the discussion which is going to 

 take place this afternoon, and I hope the suggestions we made and the 

 recommendations we put forward will be adequately discussed, and that 

 we shall have the opinions of practical men brought to bear on the 

 discussion. 



Turning to the question of Rating and Taxation — because I think 

 in calling the subject for this afternoon Rating difficulties we are rather 

 limiting it — there are difficulties in connection with Imperial taxation 

 as much as there are in connection with Local Rating. We find that 

 at the present time fruit plantations are not fairly treated. In the first 

 place, for the purpose of income tax, an ordinary farm pays on one-third 

 of the annual rent ; that is not the case with a fruit plantation, because in 

 the latter income tax is paid, not upon one-third of the rent, but upon 

 the whole gross profits. We think this unfair. It used to be the case 

 with hop gardens, but it was in that case abolished, and we think it ought 

 to be abolished in the case of market garcTens. There is no doubt, then, 

 that directly fruit-growers plant fruit trees the local authorities are 

 in the habit of increasing their assessments. We think that is a great 

 grievance, because when the fruit trees are first planted, so far from the 

 value of the land being increased, for the first few years there is not an 

 increase in the value, and thus the industry is handicapped, and people 

 are deterred from going into it. The Government Committee there- 

 fore suggested that in assessing fruit plantations the assessment 

 should not be raised immediately, but that in the case of small fruit, 

 which comes into bearing more quickly, a period of five years should 

 elapse, in the case of mixed plantations seven years, and in the case of 

 orchards twelve years. We thought this would meet the grievance very 

 fairly. 



