13 JANUARY 1923, Page 2

A nice problem, and a very important one, too, has

been raised by the spread of the so-called Rent Strike from the Clyde, where it began, to many other parts of the country. When the landlords received legal permis- sion to raise rents up to 40 per cent. they were required under the Act to give simultaneously with the notice of the rise a notice to quit. The notice to quit was, of course, a mere form showing that the old terms of tenancy were ended ; a tenant was not turned out if he was willing to pay the increased rent. A great many landlords, how ever, forbore to give the notice to quit out of consideration for men who were still at the Front. The purely technical nature of thenotice had already been widely misunderstood. Notice to quit was regarded as a gross brutality. Some not too scrupulous Labour extremists in Glasgow, having marked the technical omission on the part of the landlords, advocated that advantage should be taken of it. Hence the Rent Strike.