ENGLISH TENANT-RIGHT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In the Spectator of August 26th, Mr. F. A. Channing, M.P., writes :—" By ' tenant-right,' I mean the right of a tenant to the value of the improvements made by himself." For what it is worth, I submit my individual experience on this head, during twenty years of landownership in a dozen parishes in Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxford- shire. It is unfortunately the case that tenants' improve- ments are practically unknown on my estates, with the exception of a limited extent of drainage, where the tenant pays the labour, the landlord providing the pipes. I can only recall the case of a single improvement of any other kind carried out by a tenant, which consisted of an out- lying cattle-shed. For this I fully compensated him at the
expiration of his lease, although the tenant in question remains in occupation of his holding. I have, as landlord, laid out at least £30,000 in agricultural improvements.
I agree with you that the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, would sufficiently protect tbe careful tenant from the confisca- tion of any improvement he might make. By careful, I mean the tenant who would take the trouble to comply with the terms of the Act by giving the requisite notices and obtaining his landlord's consent—a consent very unlikely to be withheld in these ruinous times, unless the improvement were fanciful. —I am, Sir, &c.,
Sir Mile Bottom, C ambs, August 30th. W. H. HALL.
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