TENANT-EIGHT. 
391 
wanted ; but the lease was not sufficient, and the recognition of 
tenant-right was quite as necessary with a lease as without one. 
He argued that the landlord would not be injured by tenant-right, 
or his property or privileges interfered with ; for unless a tenant 
had improved his estate he was not entitled to receive compensation 
for unexhausted improvements. The rents would not be lessened, 
as under the present system the tenant left the land as low, poor, 
and exhausted as he possibly could ; whereas, if he had the protec- 
tion of legislation, it would be his interest to farm well up to the 
last day of his tenancy ; and rents would be obtained accordingly. 
Keep up the cultivation and the rents would be kept up ; lower 
the one and they would lower the other. At present the landlord 
had every protection lawfully allowed him, but the tenant had 
none. In Lincolnshire there was a liberal tenant-right, and the 
high position of agriculture in that county he believed was mainly 
due to the justice, moderation, and liberality of the landowners. 
The answer to those who said that legislation was not wanted was, 
that the law was not asked to compel good landlords — and there 
were very many of these — but to restrain the bad ones. All that 
was wanted was to make a legal recognition of tenant-right, and 
the law could tiot be made in terms too general. Let it be admitted 
that the law should embrace every part of the country; let the 
Act be as simple and short as possible, and contain a definition of 
the principle of right to claim compensation for unexhausted im- 
provements. He objected to the consent of the landlord being 
always asked for in the case of permanent improvements before 
the tenant could make them. If that was passed, where there 
was an incompetent landlord, tenants would be no better off than 
they were now. In answer to the cry about a man having a 
right to do what he liked with his own, he urged that this right 
should be limited by considerations for public convenience. He 
denied that there was now any freedom of contract between land- 
lord and tenant. It was for improvements made, not capital 
expended, that compensation was asked for. The Bill which Mr. 
Howard, M.P., was going to bring before Parliament embodied 
pretty much the views he held upon the matter. The great curse 
of the country were the laws which at present existed preventing 
a landowner from doing what he would with his property to carry 
out improvements upon it. 
