28 AUGUST 1909, Page 3

Illuminating comments on Mr. Lloyd George's Limehouse speech continue to

be made publics from the experience of those who are tenants of the State and those who are tenants of Dukes. Last week Mr. Le Gros in a letter to the Times described with what severity the State had pressed its rights against him, so that he was forced to abandon his hotel where for yeare he had been building up a business. A very different story is told in a letter in the Times of Tuesday from one of the Duke of Westminster's tenants. The writergAhat when he took certain premises about 1870, he fowl Pie rent 2350 a year. The lease expired in 1881, and a renewal was granted up to 1897 at a rent of £170 a year, with a fine of f:".:00. In 18C7 it became necessary to rebuild. A site was granted on an adjoining plot of ground, and a lease was granted for ninety years "at a fair ground-rent." Although it was perfectly well known that the writer's business was in a special way attached to the site; no attempt was made to place an exorbitant value upon it. "So much," says the writer, "for the conduct of this 'blackmailing' office in 1881 and in 1897!"