Mr. Lawson on Wednesday moved the second reading of the
Leaseholds Enfranchisement Bill. Under this Bill, any leaseholder of any building may demand to become freeholder, and if there is a dispute as to the price, the County-Court will arbitrate. The price once settled, it may be changed into an annual rent-charge. Mr. Lawson ifisisted that leasehold tenure greatly tended to produce bad building, and attributed to it much of the insanitary condition of London slums. Mr. T. Ellis also produced some striking facts from Wales, where quarrymen build houses for themselves on lease, and landlords constantly refuse to renew leases for chapels. It was, how- ever, shown from official reports that some of the slums in London were freeholds; that Liverpool, which is freehold, is full of slums ; and that the body of the people do not take long leases, the artisans preferring weekly tenancies, and those just above them yearly holdings or leases for three years, the latter a new but growing practice. Lord Lymington, who moved an amendment that the time was not opportune, as the Committee on the Housing of the Poor had not reported, also pointed out that the Bill would disorganise the building trade—not necessarily a misfortune—and that it involved rank injustice, the landlord being deprived of his reversion without evidence of resulting good to the com- munity. The division was a close one, Lord Lymington's amendment being only carried by 186 to 157; and both Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain voted against it. We see no case for the Bill, but have elsewhere mentioned some strong reasons why landlords should accept a compromise.
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