English Land Law. 
365 = 59 
proceedings can be brought until this condition has been com- 
plied with. On the other hand, a bare agreement to refer does 
not take away the common law right of either party to appeal 
to the ordinary tribunals of the country ; though an action will 
lie against one who adopts this course instead of submitting to 
arbitration, for breach of his agreement. 
These remedies are sufficient to meet the ordinary and legiti- Forfeiture, 
mate differences which occur between landlord and tenant, but 
,cases will occasionally arise where the landlord's ground of com- 
plaint demands a more summary removal. The penalty of 
forfeiture, which confers upon the landowner the right of re- 
entry in specified cases, may be attached to any of the usual 
covenants ; and the common form of proviso generally employed 
has in fact this extensive operation. Essential as this provision 
is for the security of the landlord against an insolvent or incom- 
petent tenant, it is obvious that its strict enforcement would in 
many cases result in extreme hardship to the occupier who had 
inadvertently or carelessly incurred so grave a penalty ; and the 
rules of equity, now adopted by the common law, have always 
construed such a condition in a lease or agreement of tenancy 
in a liberal spirit. If the breach of covenant alleged by the 
lessor is not wilful or really detrimental to the property, and if 
the damage occasioned by it is capable of fair assessment and 
pecuniary compensation, the English courts will in general relieve 
ithe occupier against the forfeiture he has incurred, 'taking care 
;hat the landlord is not a pecuniary sufferer by his misdoing. 
Even with this modification, the proviso for re-entry in case of 
orfeiture is a serious weapon in the hands of the landlord ; and 
t may be added, that the ordinary right of the outgoing tenant 
0 emblements or growing crops is forfeited with the rest of his 
state. The discussion of the cases in which the landlord's right 
)f re-entry is absolute, as indeed of the other remedies by which 
he stipulations contained in a lease may be enforced, would 
ilone be sufficient to occupy a treatise of no inconsiderable 
xtent. 
CHAPTEE V. 
The Agricultural Holdings Act.* 
The year 1875 marks a new point of departure in English 
griculture. We have seen that by far the greater part of the 
* The review of this Act is founded mainly upon a Paper by Frederick Cliflford, 
f the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law, published in ' The Journal of the Eoyal 
^Ticultuial Society' for March, 1876, and since reprinted (London: Clowes and 
113, Charing Cross). 
1 
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