The Rent Restrictions Bill was amended in Committee of the
House of Commons on Tuesday so as to apply to houses rented up to £70 in London and up to £52 in the country. The period during which the Bill will operate was extended to Lady Day, 1921. The clause permitting a landlord to increase the rent of a house by ten per cent. was amended by the insertion of a proviso that the house must be kept in a reasonable state of repair. It may be foreseen that this clause will lead to a general increase of rents, even for houses to which the Bill does not apply. The discussion on the limit of rental value within which the Bill would operate naturally illustrated the absurdity of fixing any limit whatever. When Parliament begins to dis- criminate against the holders of a particular form of property, in this case the house.ownere, it cannot assign valid reasons for stopping short at the house rented at £70. It was doubtless necessary, in the interests of the community, to prevent rapacious landlords from taking undue advantage of a temporary scarcity of houses, due in part to the war and in part also to Mr. Lloyd George's Budget of 1909. But undue restrictions on house- owners must tend to deter private persona from building houses.
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