Royal Commission on Agriculture. 
519 
to two years, and to exempt hired machinery and agisted^cattle 
from the operation of the law, a change which has been urged 
by many witnesses. 
We consider that the Act passed in 1880, entitled 'An Act 
to abolish the Landlords' Right of Hypothec for Rent in 
Scotland,' requires some amendment. 
Tithe Rentchakge. 
It will have been seen from a preceding part of this Report 
that complaints have been very generally made of the mode in 
which the tithe averages are taken. 
To meet these complaints we recommend that the rentcharge 
should be a fixed sum, that it should be paid by the landlord, 
and that every facility should be given for its redemption. 
Objections have been raised against extraordinary tithes, but 
they appear to rest, not on principle, but on the peculiar mode 
of the collection of such tithes. The principle of all tithes, 
both of ordinary and of extraordinary alike, is that a certain 
portion of the produce of the land belongs of right to a special 
owner. But extraordinary tithes have a peculiarity of their 
own. The crops on which they are collected are not grown 
continuously ; they may cease for a while, and then be culti- 
vated again. Payment of the extraordinary tithe naturally 
follows the same process ; it is paid when the hops are grown ; 
it is not demanded when their growth is suspended. There 
is nothing in this fact which specially attacks the right to 
extraordinary tithe. That right remains identical with that to 
ordinary tithe. 
Railway Rates. 
In a preceding part of this Report we have directed attention 
to the complaints of producers, not only of the inequality of 
railway rates as affecting home producers, but of the still more 
serious disadvantage arising from preferential rates for foreign 
commodities. 
The present law clearly contemplates that similar treatment 
should be accorded to similar goods carried under similar con- 
ditions, but the evidence before us shows that in many cases 
such equality does not exist ; and we would recommend that 
the law should be so amended as to provide a cheap and speedy 
means of securing the equality contemplated by law. 
We are not, however, prepared to recommend that railway 
companies should be debarred by legislative enactment from 
offering special terms for through traffic from abroad. 
