8 The Agricultural Holdings (^England) Act, 1883. 
though a tenancy may have determined, the relationship of 
" landlord " and " tenant " will continue to exist, and the names 
respectively will apply, for technical purposes of all claims 
made or proceedings taken to obtain compensation under the 
Act (§ 61). 
General Right of Tenant to Compensation (§ 1). — Having 
thus to some extent cleared the ground, we can now go back to 
Section 1 of the new Act with better chances of understanding 
it. Interpretation clauses used to come early in an Act as 
guides to the meaning of the terms used in it. Modern drafts- 
men often place these among the concluding sections, for in 
passing the Bill it is necessary to postpone them until the main 
provisions have been settled. 
A tenant, then, who has made on his holding any one or 
more of the foregoing twenty-three improvements, became 
entitled, on and after January 1, 1884, " on quitting his holding 
at the determination of a tenancy," to " obtain from the land- 
lord as compensation such sum as fairly represents the value of 
the improvements to an incoming tenant;" provided that, in 
estimating the value of any such improvement, " there shall 
not be taken into account as part of the improvement made 
by the tenant what is justly due to the inherent capabilities of 
the soil." 
It will be seen that, contrary to the corresponding provision 
of 1875, compensation cannot be claimed by the sitting tenant 
upon a determination of the tenancy ; he can only claim if he 
quits his holding. This point was much discussed when the 
Bill was pending in Parliament, and the discussion has con- 
tinued since the Bill became law. One class of critics contend 
that, on the determination of a tenancy, the sitting tenant 
ought to have been protected against a rise of rent, justified 
perhaps only by his own improvements. On the other hand, 
it is contended that no such safeguard could really have been 
afforded except by a system of judicial rents, as in Ireland. 
A continuing tenant, on the renewal of his lease, takes out of 
the soil the value of his own improvements, or otherwise enjoys 
the advantage of them. If he is also compensated by his land- 
lord, he is paid twice over, in money and in kind, for the same 
thing. In self-protection, landlords would certainly recoup them- 
selves for having to pay such compensation by a corresponding 
increase of rent ; in fact, the property in the improvements 
would pass to the landlord, and he would thereupon be fairly 
entitled to charge it on the rent. A man cannot in reason 
expect to play at the same time two parts, that of the tenant 
who goes, and is then properly paid for what he leaves behind ; 
and that of the tenant who stays, and who then gets back his own 
