[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The remarks in your
issue of January 18th seem hardly in accordance with your usual wisdom. You say that the decision of the House of Lords was obvious and inevitable. Surely not, when two out of the five judges who gave that decision were against it. Again, you say that the landlords disregarded the wording of the Act. Is not the case rather that they understood the disputed clause in the same manner as the two judges in the House of Lords ? After all, everybody agrees that the giving of notice to quit when arranging with a tenant that he should stay on is ridiculous and idiotic, and landlords may well be excused for believing that it was not the intention of the Government that they should behave like lunatics—and tyrants. It is recognized and admitted— Dr. Addison himself, who was responsible for the Act, does so—that it was never intended that a notice to quit should be given ; so why should landlords be penalized when they carried out the Act in accordance with the intention of its framers and suffer on account of a badly-worded clause which has been twisted by legal ingenuity to mean what it was never intended to say ? To nullify the action of this perversely-worded clause is not retrospective legislation but plain justice and a clamant duty.
Even, however, if it were retrospective legislation there is a precedent in connexion with the Rent Restriction Act itself, as in 1917 an Act was passed authorizing tenants to recover from landlords rent previously paid in excess. If, therefore, retrospective legislation has already been passed in favour of the tenants, why not now in favour of the landlords ? If the country really wishes more houses, how can it ever expect to get them built if landlords are even further to be abused and ill-treated by a legislative and legal blunder ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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