52 The Agricultural Holdings {England) Act, 1883. 
finding security ; bills of sale ; stringent power" of immediate 
re-entry. 
2. That it is a cheap and easy remedy-, rarelv enforced by 
landlords, but one properly belonging to them, as the credit they 
give to a tenant cannot be stopped at pleasure, and their claims 
are thus of necessity' always accruing. Moreover, in case of a 
tenant's insolvency, landlords would, without a preferential right 
over any other creditor, be in a worse position than any other 
creditor, since they might not only lose their rent, but be com- 
pelled to resume possession of their land seriously depreciated 
in letting value by bad cultivation. 
3. That the operation of a law of distress is favourable to 
small tenants, who may thereby obtain credit from their land- 
lords, equivalent to a considerable advance of money without 
interest. Thus an opening is given to rising men of skill 
and industry, but of small capital ; such men on the poorer kinds 
of soil often proving the best cultivators. 
On the other hand, the arguments urged against the law were — 
1. That its existence " leads to undue competition for farms, 
and induces owners (especially needy ones) to accept as eligible 
tenants persons with insufficient means, one effect being to 
raise the rent to solvent men ; and that the repeal of the law 
would prove an additional incentive to landowners to secure 
first-class tenants." 
2. That it " impairs the general credit of tenant-farmers " by 
giving the landlord " an unfair preference over other creditors," 
whereas " there is no difference in the commercial position of 
the landlord who supplies the land and the man who supplies 
any other commodity." 
3. " That it encourages bad farming, and leads to diminished 
production." * 
The recommendations of the Committee, made in July, 1882, 
have been closely followed in the Act now under consideration, 
and no better testimony could be borne to the value of their 
inquiry and the precision with which they set forth the neces- 
sary changes in the law. Their first suggestion was that the 
law of distress should be modified, not abolished, and that the 
right of distraint should be restricted to one year's rent, this right 
only to be exercised within six months after the year's rent had 
become due. 
* Report of Select Committee on tlie Lnw of Distress, 1882, pp. 4, 5. It ia 
right to mention that the report was drafted by Mr. Salt. The other members 
of the Committee were Mr. Goschon, Jlr. Heneage, Sir Massey Lopes, Mr. Cropper, 
Sir William Hart Dyke, Mr. Blenncrhnssett, Colonel Brise, Jlr. Duckliam, 
Mr. Biddell, Sir Joseph Pease, Mr. Fellows, Mr. James Howard, Mr. Akera- 
Douglas, Dr. Commius, Sir Gabriel Goldncy, Mr, Rcndcl. 
