The Agricultural Holdings [England) Act, 1883. 
31 
The parties may not be able to concur in the appointment of 
a single referee. Each of them is then to appoint a referee, 
giving notice of such appointment to the other, with a like 
power to that just noticed, of replacing a referee in the event of 
his death, incapacity, or failure to act. One of the parties 
cannot stop the proceedings by failure to appoint, for on such 
failure, for fourteen days after notice, the County Court is 
required to act for him by appointing "a competent and im- 
partial person to be a referee." This appointment will be made 
upon the application of the party who has already appointed his 
own referee, and upon proper proof of such failure by the other 
side as is contemplated by the Act. Thus, we find adequate 
security against a deaJ-lock as regards the referees (§ 9, sub- 
sections 3, 4, 5, and 6). 
The result of delivering to a referee the letter authorizing him 
to act is deemed to be a submission to a reference by the party 
making the appointment, and neither party has the power to 
revoke a submission or appointment without the consent of the 
other (§ 12). 
As the two referees may, and probably will, disagree, they are 
to appoint an umpire before they enter on the reference ; and in 
case of his death or incapacity, they must appoint another. In 
the improbable event of failure by the referees to appoint an 
umpire, seven days after request, the County Court may again 
be called upon by either party to " appoint a competent and 
impartial person to be the umpire," and must make such ap- 
pointment within fourteen days (§ 9, sub-sections 7, 8, and 9). 
As County Court Judges had the same powers under the Act 
of 1875, they may by this time have lists of competent and im- 
partial valuers to be employed in these cases ; and there will 
now be more employment for them, as landlords and tenants 
cannot contract themselves out of the Act, and agreements sub- 
stituted for the Act must be regulated by the standard of compen- 
sation set up by it. Sub-section 9 is an exact reproduction of § 22 
in the parent Act, and ends with the same requirement, namely, 
" that every appointment, notice, and request, under the section, 
shall be in writing." This requirement is necessary with a view 
to the order and regularity of proceedings, for an informal 
appointment may vitiate an award, and with it any charge upon 
the holding based upon the award. But, whereas the Act of 
1875 made it quite clear that this business might be done by an 
authorized agent, the presumption here is that the landlord must 
sign all these documents and receive all the notices. If, there- 
fore, he has a large estate, he will be kept busier than probably 
he has ever been before, and indirectly the Act will be a check 
upon absentee proprietors. 
