The Farmers' Alliance, at its annual meeting on Tuesday, resolved
unanimously to press on Parliament two demands,— compensation to tenants for unexhausted improvements, and the prohibition of any increase of rent, based on the value which tenants' improvements have given to a farm. In both instances, landlords are to be forbidden to contract themselves out of the law. As immediate legislation is at hand, we have discussed these proposals elsewhere, and may add here that the farmers also ask for the abolition of the law of distress, and for a law compelling railways to carry farm produce and manures more cheaply, for the abolition of extraordinary tithes, and for the divi- sion of rates between the landlord and the occupier. The last, though very dear to the farmers, is a cry for the moon. Rates must ultimately reduce rentals, whatever laws the Legislature may pass, just as certainly as water must flow down-hill. If the- landlord pays rates, he will ask more rent ; and if the tenant does not pay them, he can afford more rent. The farmers' pro- posal is to adjust a tax, say, on salt, which shall not fall on the buyer. When that is found, we may find a tax which shall not fall on anybody.
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