Sir John Power prophesied gloomily,. believing that the large administrative
charges which would fall on the landlords would inevitably cause rents to rise. The :strongest Speech- against the Bill, however, was made by Mr. Rye, who declared that it was quite impossible to define " goodwill." No legal expert had ever been able to say what it was, yet a lay tribunal .was to fix the .compensation. The Bill was far more unfair than the Irish Town Tenants Act which Lord Balfour in 1906 had described as " highway robbery." (We believe that the Irish Bill has worked quite well.) The Solicitor- General thought that the Bill would sweeten the relations of landlord and tenant. .The tenants had undoubted grievances, and the landlords who knew that legislation was inevitable _would probably be glad to have ,uncer- tainty replaced by certainty, - * #'.*.*
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